Lest We Forget

Enoch Kelly Haney was born on November 12, 1940 in Seminole, Oklahoma to William Woodrow Haney and Hattie Louise Haney. His father was a flute maker and craftsman and his paternal grandfather, Willie Haney, contributed to the Smithsonian Institution's oral history project and served as Chief of the Seminole Tribe in the 1940s. Haney graduated from Prairie Valley High School in Earlsboro, Oklahoma in 1959, then went on to earn an Associate of Arts degree from Bacone College in Muskogee, Oklahoma, a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Oklahoma City University. He attended the University of Arizona on a Rockefeller Foundation Scholarship. He also served in the Oklahoma National Guard. In 1972, he was named as one of the Outstanding Young Men of American.

Haney is an internationally recognized Native American artist, specializing in paintings and sculpture. He paints in oil, acrylic, and watercolor and draws with pastels, as well as sculpting with bronze. Haney was shown throughout the United States, as well as Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, and Switzerland. The Five Civilized Tribes Museum declared him a Master Artist in 1976. Most notably, he created "The Guardian," a 22-foot bronze sculpture which adorns the Oklahoma State Capitol dome. Modeled after Haney's own relatives, "The Guardian" took 10 months to complete, weighs 4,000 pounds, and was erected on June 7, 2002.