John Leslie Arrington Jr. ’53

John was born Oct. 15, 1931, in Pawhuska, Okla., and died May 15, 2019, in Tulsa, Okla.

John prepared for Princeton at the Lawrenceville School. He was a member of Terrace Club, majored in the German section of the modern language department, and wrote his thesis on the “Emergence of Collective Spirit in Early German Romanticism.” He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in his junior year and graduated summa cum laude. He went on to Harvard Law School, where he graduated magna cum laude and earned an LL.M. after an additional year of study.

Returning to Oklahoma, John settled in Tulsa, joined the law firm that eventually became Arrington Kihle Gabarino and Dunn, and spent the major part of his time representing ONEOK (formerly Oklahoma Natural Gas Co.) in connection with state and federal regulatory matters, merger-and-acquisition activities, corporate government, finance, and major litigation.

John was a member of the American Bar Association and the Tulsa County Bar Association, chaired the legal ethics committee of the Oklahoma Bar Association, and worked hard to obtain federal funding to expand the office of the Tulsa Legal Aid Society so that it was able to provide meaningful services to the poor. He was active in the Republican Party and served as a vestryman at St. John’s Episcopal Church.

John is survived by his wife, Linda, his four children, her four children, and many grandchildren.