Hosey H. Hearn

Hosey was born March 20, 1931, in Shawnee, Oklahoma. His father Hosea Prentice Hearn and mother Elizabeth Hearn lived in the Halliburton oil field camp in Earlsboro. Moving about because of his father’s job, Hosey attended twelve different schools before he graduated from high school in Denver, Colorado in 1948. Hosey earned his BA from William and Mary in 1954, his Masters of City Planning at OU in 1960, and his Doctorate in Environmental Design from Texas A&M University in 1977. He served two years in the army in Germany after graduation from college in 1954, and earned the rank of Captain in the army reserves.

After finishing his masters, he became a city planner in Enid, then Oklahoma City, and later became County Planning Director of Charleston County in Charleston, South Carolina. After doing his course work for his Doctorate, he taught at the University of Mississippi in Oxford and, after receiving his final degree, at University of Memphis (then Memphis State). While at William and Mary, he was captain of the tennis team, and, as a professor at Memphis State, he won the distinguished SPUR award for his field research in eastern Tennessee. When he retired, he moved back to Norman where his widowed mother Elizabeth Hearn and aunt Juanita Nelson lived.

He married the love of his life, Wanda Lee Adams, in 1960, and they had two children, Hugh Michael in 1963 and Heather Lizabeth in 1964. They were a close and loving family, who were members of the United Methodist Church. Hosey was preceded in death by his father, mother, daughter, wife, and son. He is survived by his only sister, Melissa Hearn of Norman, and two first cousins in Texas. Other cousins include Jill Baldwin (deceased), Doug, Mary, and Bennet Wight, and their children and grandchildren and the children and grandchildren of Henry Black (deceased) and Daryl Gene, Kathleen, and Brian Hearn of Houston.

A memorial service will be held August 24, 1:00pm, at the Westwind Unitarian Universalist Congregation, 1309 West Boyd, Norman, Oklahoma. A short graveside prayer service will be held at the I00F Cemetery on North Porter at 3:00pm.

In lieu of flowers the family requests donations to Food and Shelter; they are building a village of homes to rid Norman of homelessness.