
He also loved ice cream and he believed in serving it, often.
Glimpses of Glenn’s early life are a foreshadowing of the kind of person he would become. As a barefoot, overall-clad boy in Northeastern Oklahoma, he delighted in flying down steep hills on his bicycle. In his teens he joined the United States Navy and learned to fly in airplanes, but again at low altitude, carrying out low-level photographic reconnaissance missions of the Russian coast during the early days of the Cold War. He served as a pilot in the Navy for four years and was in the Naval Reserve for 23 more years.
Two incidents from his early teenage years foretold the development of character traits that served him well during his career as a businessperson. A farmer neighbor had a tractor that wouldn’t run and he told Glenn if he could make it run, he could have it. Glenn analyzed the problem, determined how to fix it and made it run. When a barn on the family farm had to be demolished, Glenn calculated the amount of lumber that could be salvaged, the size of a replacement barn that could be built from it and the new barn rose, exactly as planned.
His children, who later worked with him on construction projects at their property on the Illinois River, can attest to the fact that Glenn’s approach to problem-solving was exacting, meticulous and meant to be followed precisely.
As an accountant with Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co., Vice President and board member of the Oklahoma Publishing Company and Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer and Vice President of Gaylord Entertainment Company, Glenn’s problem-solving skills and can-do attitude enabled him to make significant contributions to the companies’ success. He was extremely intelligent but modest about his abilities.
During his tenure with Gaylord Entertainment Company, Glenn handled negotiations that significantly increased the company’s holdings, including the acquisition of the Opryland Resort and Convention Center in Nashville, Tennessee, the Broadmoor Resort and Hotels;and part ownership in the Texas Rangers baseball team.
Glenn’s personal ethical beliefs guided his business activities and gained him the respect of his associates. He felt that a good business deal was one that both sides walked away from satisfied. Fairness to both sides was his goal, not getting the better of someone. Those he did business with respected his intelligence, forthrightness and honesty.
He retired in 1996 after 38 years at the Oklahoma Publishing Company, but remained active as an investor, advisor and board member of various companies.
Education was the foundation Glenn built on to succeed in business and, in typical fashion, he came by it in his own unique way. As a senior in high school he traveled to his future alma mater, Oklahoma A&M College (now Oklahoma State University, OSU) for a 4-H cattle judging competition. While there the team was told by the college president, Henry G. Bennett, to come see him when they started college and he would show them around. One of Glenn’s outstanding traits was his belief in the basic goodness of people and he took the college president at his word. At age 17, unannounced and unenrolled, he showed up for the beginning of the school year at the president’s office, as he’d been instructed to do.
He walked out as an enrolled student with a place to stay and a job starting the next day.
That meeting led to the attainment of a Bachelor’s Degree in management and a Master’s Degree in accounting. President Bennett’s honoring of his promise also led to Glenn make donations to the school that helped fund Stinchcomb Hall, one of the campus residence halls, dedicated in 2005. Two of Glenn’s children and four grandchildren also attended OSU.
While attending college Glenn was a member of the Beta Alpha Psi honors business fraternity for accounting, finance and information systems students.
In 1988 he was presented with the OSU Alumni Association Distinguished Alumni Award and a year later he was inducted into the Spears School of Business Hall of Fame. He was later recognized in the “Spears School Tributes: 100 For 100”.
Education was Glenn’s foundation for success in business, but family was his foundation for success in life. Speaking of the Spears School Tribute, he said, “I can’t just give myself credit for this recognition. I think my parents get credit for raising me and teaching me to do the right things,” he said. “My father and my mother taught us that you were always to do the right things. We grew up under their guidance, understanding that we were expected to do the best we could in everything we did.”
Implicit in those words is personal responsibility for one’s actions. Glenn passed on that philosophy to his four children, Zoe Ann, Robert, Paul and Sam. The children were given responsibility for planning each year’s camping trip during summer vacation, and somehow the family -- Glenn, wife Ruby and four children -- all survived weeks in a crowded car towing a pop-up camper trailer.
Glenn was one of seven children, and he maintained close ties to his extended family throughout his life. He and his brother Ray cooperated in the purchase of a cabin on the banks of the Illinois River northeast of Tahlequah, Oklahoma, where all the siblings and their children and grandchildren still gather around the Fourth of July for picnicking, tubing, fireworks shooting and ice-cream eating. Attending the gathering and passing “the cabin test” is a rite of passage for potential marriage partners.
Glenn was preceded in death by wife Ruby, parents Ruth and Osie Stinchcomb, brother Ray, sisters Joyce and Zona, brother-in-law Jack McCoy and stepdaughter Cassie Jackowski.
He is survived by wife Hilda, brothers Bob (Joan) and Bud (Linda), sister Mary Ruth McCoy, sister-in-law Ulele, sons Robert (Vickie), Paul (Christi), Sam (Doris), daughter Zoe Ann (Larry Hodge), stepdaughter Susie Bailey, stepson Jim Jackowski, grandchildren Kalmia Strong, Zoe Stinchcomb Kersey (Jason), Mitchell, Cole, Garrett (Jessica), Trent (Natalie), William (Abby), Allie Stinchcomb Quintana (Scott), Vincent Jackowski and great-grandson Lucas Jackowski.
Glenn will be missed by all of us at Talbot Library and Museum. We are grateful for all Glenn has done for our library/museum and the preserving of history.