Kevin Kerr
DUNCAN — Clyde Shaw is no stranger to the City of Duncan. He was born and raised here as a child and graduated a Demon from Duncan High School before moving to Weatherford to pursue a degree in accounting.
Shaw said that his father had worked for the electric department and he made a vow that he would never work in a city position.
“I was never going to get involved with city politics,” Shaw said.
After receiving his degree, Shaw ended up moving to Ardmore where he worked as an accountant for the City of Ardmore for several years, then as an accountant for Joe Brown Company. Ironically, when he took the job with Joe Brown, he found that he missed his job with the city.
“It was the same receipts every day,” Shaw said. “I was used to seeing something different every day with the City of Ardmore, and now I just saw the same old delivery receipts every day.”
Shaw received a call from then Duncan City Manager Doug Johnson, who offered him the Financial Director position for the City of Duncan, which he gladly took.
He spent 25 years in that position before moving up to City Manager six years ago. He has spent more than 30 years working in a city office and has devoted a majority of his life to the City of Duncan. Now, quickly coming up on his retirement, Shaw would like to give back to the community he has been a part of for so long by entering his name into the Ward 3 candidacy race for City Council.
Shaw said in his years as a City official, he has learned one valuable lesson that he intends to keep upholding should he make the city council.
“You have to treat everybody fairly,” Shaw said. “I’ve run across very few people who expect you to treat them differently than anyone else.”
The race for the City Wards are different in Duncan than they are in Lawton or in Oklahoma City to a degree. In Duncan, a person has to live in the ward they are elected to, but the general public gets to elect who they want for that Ward. In Lawton and other larger cities, just the specific ward votes for the representative. Shaw said in this case, he won’t be focusing specifically on the ward he represents, but on the entire community of Duncan.
If elected, Shaw said he would like to see Duncan continue with some type of street improvement program. He said that four years ago, the city had a list of over $100 million in street repairs that needed to be done, but the public wouldn’t vote on them.
He also said he would like to see a continued effort with the Economic Development Foundation to bring in new businesses and companies to Duncan.
“It’s very hard,” Shaw said. “Duncan is known for their oil and gas companies... and there’s a great amount of technical expertise in Duncan.
“While Halliburton is transferring those 150 jobs, if another job for those employees was here, I’d be interested to see whether they moved to Houston with the company, or if they would take those other jobs and stay.”
Shaw and his wife Janie will both be retiring this year, and he said he hopes even in retirement, he can continue to contribute to Duncan by joining the city council.
“I would like to stay involved in the community (after retiring),” Shaw said. “I want to offer something back to the community.”
— Kevin Kerr is a reporter for The Duncan Banner. He can be reached at 580-255-5354 Ext. 147 or by e-mail at kevin.kerr@duncanbanner.com.
