When retiring Kingfisher Chamber of Commerce manager Judy Whipple first started working as a part-time receptionist at the chamber office in 2000, she didn’t think any job in her diverse employment history necessarily qualified her to work in economic development.

But reflecting back over the 19 years she’s spent in the office, most of them in the top job as chamber manager, she realizes that the long stints she spent in a medical office, in insurance, in retail and other areas actually combined to give her the knowledge and skills she needed to promote Kingfisher and support its many business entities.

“After I had the job for awhile, it all came together,” she said. “Knowing a little bit about a whole lot of different things really served me well because every day is a different day in the chamber office.”

A Kingfisher native, Whipple moved with her family after the first grade to El Reno, where she graduated from high school.

But with plenty of extended family left in Kingfisher, she remained a part of this community throughout her growing up years, she said.

She and her late husband Junior Whipple lived in Yukon in their early married years, where Junior trained race horses for Dale Robertson, star of the “Wells Fargo” TV show.

Then they moved their young family to Los Angeles, where Junior managed a furniture store for family members.

Although Whipple said she loved the West Coast, when forced busing of students during the early days of integration led to race riots and caused concern for their young daughters’ safety, the Whipples moved to Kingfisher in 1973.

When she was asked to work part-time at the chamber, Whipple had just finished a stint managing Carol’s Carpet & Decor, a downtown store that closed in December 1999, and was then working for John Gooden painting award plaques in his Kingfisher studio.

“Angela Riddle (then chamber manager) came down and asked me if I would come answer the phones and open the mail at the chamber office three or four mornings a week,” she said.

That part-time job soon morphed into all day as an assistant to Riddle and then her successor Risa Kelsey.

When family obligations took Kelsey away from the job in 2002, a local person suggested Whipple ought to apply for the top job.

“I just kind of fell into it,” she said. “It helped that I was born here and already knew all the families and all the names.”

Although she learned the ins and outs of the position mostly through on-the-job training and “just figuring things out,” Whipple also attended seminars across the state to learn the developing trends in economic development.

“When I first started, the focus of all the seminars was revitalizing your downtown because when you lost your downtown, you lost your city’s identity,” she said.

“That was when the chamber and the city was focused on our downtown beautification projects.”

Gradually, the focus shifted to maintaining a well-trained workforce to attract business and industry, which included an emphasis on technology centers, she said.

“Now, the focus seems to be on enhancing quality of life, because industries scouting for new locations are concerned about attracting and keeping workers,” she said.

Whipple added that Kingfisher and the chamber have worked together over the years to stay on top of each of those developing trends and Kingfisher is a better city because of it.

Economic development and event planning – organizing and hosting annual Christmas parades, Fourth of July celebrations, Easter Egg hunts and more – are predictable aspects of any chamber job that Whipple always enjoyed.

But it was the less expected responsibilities that she truly loved.

“When the state film commission calls for help finding a location to film a movie, that’s really fun,” she said. “We’ve actually had several movies filmed here.”

With the help of her late husband, Whipple said she would scout locations that met the very specific requests of the filmmakers and then aided negotiations with landowners for use of the property, rounded up local extras when needed and hosted cast members and crews during the filming process.

“A lot of chambers didn’t want to mess with any of that, but I really enjoyed it,” she said.

For a commercial filmed by the Oklahoma Energy Resources Board at Homier Field, Whipple rounded up a diverse group of boys to dress in baseball uniforms and even found a dog to dress in a red bandanna at the producer’s request.

“It couldn’t be just any dog, it had to be a cow dog,” she said.

But if there’s one overarching theme of what Whipple loved most about the job, it’s the people she’s been able to help with tasks large and small.

“I’m just a people person and nothing makes me happier than being able to solve someone’s problem,” she said. “And you never knew what those problems might be. I think we’re the people everyone calls when they don’t know who else to call.”

She and retired secretary Janet Clark, both of whom were feted Thursday at a party hosted by chamber board members, prided themselves at treating everyone who crossed their paths with the same respect and hospitality.

“We did everything from going to the cemetery to locate graves for out-of-town family members to finding answers about mineral rights,” she said. “From day to day, you never knew what to expect, and that’s what made it fun.”