Nancy Gay Arnold

Nancy Gay Arnold passed away August 11, 2025. Forever young, Nancy, a woman of faith, left this life after 95 years of fun and adventure to enter into heaven, where her departed family and friends will surely be thrilled to see her again.

Nancy was born in Oklahoma City on May 7, 1930, to Clyde and B. Gaylord Noftsger. She attended Grover Cleveland Elementary and Taft Junior High School. A naturally beautiful woman (she would appear not once, but twice, in Life Magazine), Nancy was the 1948 Orbit homecoming queen at Classen High School, from which she graduated that same year. Her father, an acclaimed Oklahoma City pioneer architect, wanted his daughter to spread her wings and see the world, so Nancy headed west to attend college at Mills College in Oakland, California. She returned in the fall of 1950 to continue her education at the University of Oklahoma, where she became a proud member of the Pi Beta Phi Sorority. However, fate intervened and her college career was interrupted when, the week of the OU/Texas football game, she was introduced to the Sooners’ star quarterback, Claude Arnold. Upon laying eyes on Nancy, Claude knew he had met the woman he wanted to be his wife, and the two were married in March, 1951, starting their whirlwind lives together.

In 1952, Nancy and Claude moved to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, where Claude was the quarterback of the Canadian Football League’s Edmonton Eskimos. It was there that Nancy had her two sons, Cody and Blake.

Following Claude’s football career in Canada, Nancy and Claude returned to Oklahoma City to raise their sons. A striking couple, they led a fun-filled life and were willing to try things that most people only dream of. In 1961, Nancy was a contestant on national TV in Hugh Downs’s show “Concentration.” For three winters in a row, Nancy and Claude took their sons out of school and embarked on months-long winter “vacations” in the Bahamas, Honolulu, and Acapulco. Through it all, Nancy was able to focus on what mattered most to her, and in her very humble manner was able to keep her boys grounded and focused on the normal things in life, the most important being her family. Nancy spent every holiday of any kind with her family, including her cherished parents, her sister Ann Flesher and her family, and her sons and their children.

In 1970, Nancy and Claude divorced. To say that Nancy stepped up as a mother during this time would be an understatement. Months after their divorce, she announced that she and her boys would be taking a ski trip to Colorado, the first of numerous annual ski trips where she would drive through raging snow storms to introduce her teenage sons to skiing in the Colorado Rockies. In the summer of 1971, Nancy then announced they would all be going to Lake Tahoe, where she and her sons would look for summer jobs. Nancy worked in the pro-shop at a tennis club. (Nancy was an outstanding athlete in her own right. Despite not playing until adulthood, she won a state open singles tennis tournament and the 5000 meter run in her age group at the 1980 89’er Run in Guthrie.)

In 1975, with the money she saved from selling real estate, Nancy moved to Cuernavaca, Mexico, where she lived for two years, immersing herself in the culture and learning to speak Spanish. Then, defying the odds, Nancy and Claude re-married in 1978, giving their sons the rare privilege of seeing their parents marry one another. In the end, this is what Nancy most wanted: a happy home. She was a wonderful mother and grandmother (she insisted her grandchildren and great-grandchildren simply call her ‘Nancy’), and a dutiful wife who lovingly cared for Claude the rest of his life, most especially and admirably in his final years when he suffered from dementia. Through it all, she was the most popular, sociable, and well liked woman imaginable, throwing one party after another for her friends, including events for her Bosom Buddies (Nancy was also a breast cancer survivor), Kentucky Derby parties, and—the last of which she hosted only one month ago— 4th of July celebrations. She was clearly the ‘hostest with the mostest,’ and had a sparkle in her eye like no other.

Nancy was predeceased by her beloved parents, her sister Ann Flesher and brother-in-law, Thomas H. Flesher II, and her loving husband Claude. She is survived by her son, Cody, and his wife, Mary, her son Blake, and his wife, Cindy, her niece, Nancy Flesher, and nephew, Dr. Thomas H. Flesher III, four grandchildren (Eric Arnold, Adrienne Arnold, Reed Arnold, and Rebecca Smaby), two step-grandchildren (Buck Cody and Rachel Vannatta), and eleven great grandchildren (Caveh, Nousha, Stella, Ruby, Georgia, Riley, Walker, Starling, Elowyn, Calvin, and Graham). She led a life well lived, and will be sorely missed.

A visitation will be held on Thursday, August 14, 2025 from 1:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. at Hahn-Cook/Street & Draper Funeral Directors, 6600 Broadway Ext. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73116.

Funeral services for Nancy will be at 11:00 a.m., Friday, August 15, 2025 in the Chapel at All Souls' Episcopal Church, 6400 N. Pennsylvania Ave, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73116. Interment services will immediately follow at Rose Hill Burial Park, 6001 N.W. Grand Blvd. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73118.