Tickets on Sale Aug. 2 for Hall of Fame Banquet; Bender First Inductee

The Po-Hi Hall of Fame banquet will be held Thursday, Sept. 30 in the lower level of City Central. The event will begin at 7 p.m.

Tickets are $50 per person or $500 for a table of eight. Tickets are available beginning Aug. 2 and can be purchased at the Administration Building, 613 East Grand Avenue.

The first honoree being inducted this year into the Hall of Fame is Carole Suggs Bender. Carole was born in Stillwater on Jan. 27, 1952, to James and Norma Suggs. Soon after her birth, the family moved to Ponca City, where Carole attended Washington Elementary and East Junior High and graduated from Ponca City High School in 1970. Carole graduated from Oklahoma State University in 1974 with majors in humanities and art.

Carole has lived in the Tulsa area since 1978, raising a son, Christopher Darmus Humphrey, and daughter, Milana Zettel. Christopher was a photographer and photo retoucher for Macy’s. He had been working in New York City for 16 years when he died suddenly in 2015 at the age of 37. Milana is a photographer and food stylist. She lives in Seattle with her husband, Kerry.

Following a career in graphic design and freelance calligraphy and art, Carole was hired by Jack Bender to do the lettering on the Alley Oop comic strip at the end of 1991; soon after he was hired as the artist of the strip. She and Jack soon formed a partnership in working on all art aspects of Alley Oop and married in 1995.

The 2001, the Benders were formally hired as a team by United Media to write the strip with Carole serving as the designated writer. They were one of the few, if not only, husband and wife teams producing a major internationally syndicated comic strip. The Benders retired in 2018 after producing the strip for 28 years.

Carole is always proud to say that she grew up reading Alley Oop in The Ponca City News, which carried the strip almost from its creation until after the Benders retired.

Carole wrote the book “Bob Gibson: I Come for to Sing.” It was the biography of Bob Gibson, a folk music star in the early years of folk revival. The book was published in Kingston Korner in Naperville, Ill. in 1999, with a second edition published by Pelican in 2002.

Carole is a member of the NCS, National Cartoonists Society and is included in “Who’s Who in America.”