Oldfield's legacy lives on for scholarship recipients
By Adam Trout
J Alumni News staff
Col. Barney Oldfield's life story read like the screenplay for a classic success story.
The Nebraska philanthropist died April 26, 2003, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles from cirrhosis of the liver brought on by diabetes after a long career in public relations.
Arthur Barney Oldfield was born in Tecumseh on Dec. 18, 1909. He was known by his middle name, the nickname of a famous racecar driver. Bern Eli Oldfield, who went by Barney, was the first man to drive a mile in under a minute. Arthur Barney Oldfield's father thought his son might make good use of the name.
Growing up in Johnson County, Oldfield attended small country schools and was a high school letterman. Oldfield and Earl Tucker were the graduating class of Elk Creek High School in 1928.
That same year Oldfield's family moved to Lincoln where he worked until he could afford to attend classes at the University of Nebraska. Among the jobs he used to put himself through school were ushering at local theaters and reporting for the Lincoln Star and later the Lincoln Journal.
He received a commission from the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps in 1932 and a bachelor's degree in journalism in 1933.
While at the university, Oldfield met Vada Margaret Kinman, also a university student. They were married May 6, 1935, between Oldfield's reporting assignments at the Lincoln Journal. Kinman Oldfield later joined the military to be closer to her husband who, she complained, spent more time with his typewriter than with her.
Oldfield wrote movie reviews for the Journal while he was in Lincoln where competing theaters gave him the opportunity to review a tremendous number of movies. In 1938 Oldfield was the subject of a Robert Ripley "Believe it or Not" cartoon. The cartoon claimed Oldfield had seen every movie released in 1936 and 1937.
The attention generated by the comic led to Oldfield's getting his own radio show, "Hollywood Highlights," which ran for 889 nights, every night except Sundays. The show gave listeners insight into Hollywood stars' lives. Kinman Oldfield hosted 80 of the shows under the moniker "Barney Oldfield's Stand-In" after Oldfield was called into service by the Army in 1940.
Oldfield finished his required one-year commitment with the Army on Nov. 25, 1941, and was placed on inactive status. Less than two weeks later America was thrust into World War II with the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Oldfield returned to active duty in February 1942.
He was the first public relations officer to become a paratrooper. One of Oldfield's duties was to train war correspondents so they could go into hostile territory with the airborne units.
Oldfield also parachuted a typewriter from an airplane before the attack on Normandy to see if the equipment war correspondents were carrying could stand the stress of parachuting. The typewriter he used was his own. It survived, and he carried that typewriter for 24 years.
In 1947 the Army Air Corps became the Air Force. Oldfield moved to the newly formed military branch in 1949.
"People always asked me why I wanted to jump out of planes," Oldfield said. "I was so damn dumb, I didn't know you could land an airplane until I joined the Air Force."
Oldfield served in Korea until 1950 when he became the chief of information to Lt. Gen. Lauris Norstad. Norstad sent Oldfield with General Eisenhower on Eisenhower's pre-command inspection of the 12 original North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries.
After returning from Europe in 1953, Oldfield became the command information officer for North American Air Defense Command, a title he held until his retirement in 1962. He served his country for 30 years, 3 months and 28 days, the longest of any public relations officer to date.
After retiring from the military, Oldfield became corporate director of special missions for Litton Industries. He accompanied Charles B. "Tex" Thorton, owner of Litton, on a rare trip to the Soviet Union in 1969.
In 1971 The Nebraska Cornhuskers were the number one football team in the land. Harry Simon, of Ben Simon's clothing stores in Lincoln, one of the many places Oldfield worked in college, gave Oldfield a red hat to commemorate the event. Oldfield wore the hat on visits to 69 nations. In 1983, Oldfield retired the hat to the Nebraska State Historical Society.
The Oldfields were active in community philanthropy. They established their first scholarship, the Kinman-Oldfield scholarship, to honor their two families. The scholarship fund today is an umbrella that funds 30 scholarships at the University of Nebraska.
In addition, he gave a scholarship every year to a student at UNL who designed his Christmas card, according to Stacy James, a member of the advertising faculty who coordinated the projects for Oldfield. He also gave a scholarship to Mitch Baugh a journalism student who designed the cover for Oldfield's last book, A Boy From Tecumseh.
Years ago, Oldfield donated $500,000 to be invested for the Nebraska Dollars for Scholars program, a locally based scholarship program. The donation is expected to provide $5 million in scholarships over the next decade.
In addition to the $500,000 initial donation, Oldfield announced on Sept. 25, 2001, in response to the terrorist attacks, that he would match the Dollars for Scholars funds of any community that raises $2,000 for scholarships.
"The resolve of this country remains strong, and my commitment to students seeking financial help also remains strong. The attack on America only heightens our recognition of the importance of an educated citizenry," Oldfield said in a statement to the Nebraska Dollars for Scholars.
After his wife's death from Alzheimer's disease in 1999, Oldfield established the Vada Kinman Oldfield Alzheimer's Research Fund at the University of Nebraska Foundation. The fund was designed to give $20,000 every Christmas to the search for a cure for Alzheimer's. The money is divided evenly between a researcher who is doing promising work and the NU Medical Center. When a cure or treatment is found, the fund would continue to provide money for other age-related diseases.
Oldfield and his wife had no children but their legacy lives on in the numerous scholarships they established and the hundreds of students who benefited from them.
