Clyde Muchmore

Clyde Alfred Muchmore, 83, of Oklahoma City, peacefully passed away on November 12, 2025, in Seattle, Washington. Clyde was with loved ones and, fittingly, left us to the bittersweet lament of The Rolling Stones’ "Wild Horses.” Because of course he did.

Clyde was born in Los Angeles on January 4, 1942. His parents Allan and Lyntha Muchmore raised him in Ponca City, Oklahoma, with his brothers John and Tom. Clyde spent his professional and adult life in Oklahoma City.

Ever a scholar, Clyde graduated magna cum laude from Rice University where he was invited to join Phi Beta Kappa. In 1967, Clyde graduated from law school at the University of Oklahoma, where he served as the Note Editor for the Oklahoma Law Review, was a National Moot Court finalist, and was awarded the Nathan Scarritt Prize for maintaining the highest grades in his law school class.

In 1967 Clyde began his legal career at Crowe & Dunlevy where he remained for an astonishing 58 years. By any measure, Clyde had a remarkable career, replete with honors, accomplishments, and hard-fought victories for scores of high-profile clients. In addition to being an inspiration to and leader of the Oklahoma Bar, Clyde was co-lead counsel before the United States Supreme Court in the landmark case NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma, which forever changed college sports broadcasting and antitrust law. Clyde also co-authored with Harvey Ellis a pair of seminal works for Oklahoma legal practitioners that adorn the desks of attorneys appearing in Oklahoma state and federal courts. Even more, Clyde was bona fide legal intellect, perennially available to clients, colleagues, and family to discuss and evaluate matters of all shapes and sizes. So outsized was his passion and influence, that it is little surprise all three of his sons earned law degrees.

Like many of his heroes, Clyde was a genuine polymath — a music lover, a bridge and blackjack strategist, an immaculate wordsmith, a curious gourmand and coffee enthusiast, a tentative fashionista; a wry humorist, a family man and, perhaps paradoxically, a lover of the glamour and, in his own words, the “garishness" of Las Vegas. He was also a sports enthusiast whose lifetime devotion to the St. Louis Cardinals saw them through 10 World Series appearances. Clyde beamed with immense pride in his children and grandchildren and always had time to guide and mentor upcoming generations both professionally and personally.

Clyde’s long and prosperous life bridged many worlds. He was an infant during WWII, where his father served in the Navy; he witnessed the birth of rock and roll, by tuning in to staticky late night AM transmissions dispatched from impossibly exotic urban centers; he participated in the preternatural (his favorite word) rise of technology and personal computing, both of which he championed for their democratizing potentials; he even lived through the evolution of his beloved Las Vegas from furtive sinners' din to the family-friendly megalopolis it became. And, for over six decades, an empty 24 oz. Schlitz “tall boy” adorned his shelf, memorializing his vaulted status as a beer chugger for Rice’s notorious Beer Bike relay race. And, through it all, he was largely able to deftly side-step the cynicism toward change that too often burdens those with the privilege of witnessing such broad swaths of history. In the words of a beloved pop hit, Clyde always believed that “The Kids are Alright.”

They just don’t make ‘em like Clyde anymore.

Clyde is survived by his brothers, his three sons, Allan, Joel and Jeff, and his daughters-in-law Maribeth Muchmore and Debbie Glass. Clyde is also survived by Joan Muchmore, his former wife and the mother of his three sons, his four grandchildren, Duncan, Owen, Anna and Beckett Muchmore, and Cathy Johnson, his long-time companion and Crowe & Dunlevy mainstay.