Hall of Fame Member Biographies

Mell Achilles Nash

Mell Achilles Nash was the first and only Oklahoman to serve as superintendent of public instruction, as president of a state college, and as chancellor of the state higher education system. He was state superintendent from 1923 to 1927, president of the Oklahoma College for Women from 1927 to 1943, and chancellor of the Oklahoma State System of Higher Education from 1943 to 1961. Legend has it that Mell Nash, Henry Bennett, and A. L. Crable founded the Ancient and Beneficent Order of the Red, Red, Rose, an educational fraternity. Dr. Nash died in Edmond at ninety years of age in May of 1981. He entered the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 1935, and was inducted into the Oklahoma Higher Education Hall of Fame in 1996.