Retiring District Attorney Mike Fields was honored at two receptions last Friday in Enid and El Reno, the same week that Gov. Kevin Stitt announced the appointment of his successor.

Tommy Humphries of Piedmont, Fields’ first assistant since 2021, will step up to the top job in District 4 beginning Jan. 2, serving until the next election in November 2026.

“Tommy is an excellent prosecutor and administrator,” Fields said Friday. “I know that I’m leaving the district in good hands and the transition to his leadership will be seamless.”

Humphries will serve as one of 27 district attorneys in the state, presiding over a prosecutorial district that includes Garfield, Kingfisher, Canadian, Blaine and Grant counties, an area of about 4,800 square miles and a population of close to 260,000. He’ll lead a staff of about 50 employees working among the five separate county offices “I have been blessed to work for Mike Fields. His 27 years as a prosecutor and district attorney exemplify what public service should look like,” Humphries said. “I am honored that Governor Stitt and Mike have the confidence I can continue the great work District 4 does every day.”

Fields, 51, has served as top prosecutor in the district since he was appointed in 2011 by Gov. Brad Henry to succeed Cathy Stocker.

He’s been elected and then re-elected to four successive terms since then, without ever drawing an opponent.

But his career path was actually set a decade earlier, when Stocker offered him a summer job as a file clerk at the Garfield County District Attorney’s Office after he graduated Enid High School in 1990.

During law school, he returned to Enid each summer to work for Stocker as a legal intern, honing skills that eventually led to a full-time job as an assistant district attorney after his graduation in 1996.

Over the next 13 years, Fields gained experience prosecuting nearly every type of crime and also took on other administrative and leadership functions as he rose through the ranks to become Stocker’s first assistant DA.

When the longtime prosecutor announced her retirement from the post, Fields was tabbed as her successor, beginning what he describes as “an extraordinary journey, with so many opportunities to impact the lives of so many.”

Among the highlights of his time in office, Fields notes the district’s track record of successfully prosecuting serious and violent crimes, the pioneering role in the development of diversionary courts – including the nation’s first juvenile drug court – and a focus on domestic violence prosecution and protecting vulnerable children from abuse and neglect.

Outside the courtroom, Fields also has worked to provide essential services to crime victims, including establishing Cardinal Point in Canadian County, Oklahoma’s first family justice center. The center houses a variety of services for domestic violence and sexual assault victims under one roof, including counseling, law enforcement, childcare and housing assistance, victim advocacy, pastoral care and more.

Fields said he plans to remain in the Enid community, where his wife Jennifer works for Enid Public Schools as a liaison to the Micronesian and Marshallese communities and their daughter Ryan is a junior at Chisholm High School. Their son Hudson is a senior at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.

Meanwhile, Fields’ successor is a native of Yukon but has ties throughout the district. The son of Carl and Sheryl Humphries, who at one time owned an oilfield services business at Hennessey, Humphries graduated from Enid High School.

“I feel like Highway 81 is where I grew up,” he said, referring to the state highway that connects four of the five counties in District 4.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology at the University of Central Oklahoma, and then pursued a master’s degree in the same field at the University of Oklahoma, before starting law school at the University of Tulsa.

After earning his juris doctor in 2001, Humphries served as an assistant district attorney at Osage County and later worked in private practice before serving successive stints at the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office and the general counsel’s office at the Oklahoma Bar Association.

He went to work in Fields’ Canadian County office in 2017 and became his first assistant four years later.

He and his wife Summer, assistant to the superintendent at Canadian Valley Technology Center, have five children: Lily, 20; Ava, 19; Eden, 16; Conner, 13, and Madden, 12.

Humphries said he anticipates work in District 4 to continue “business-as-usual” after the change in leadership next month.

“We will continue to hold offenders accountable, support crime victims and strive to keep our communities safe,” he said.