http://www.newsok.com/students-ask-former-oklahoma-gov.-frank-keating-the-w
rite-questions/article/3322446

Students ask former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating the write questions

BY MICHAEL MCNUTT
Published: November 16, 2008

Frank Keating looked his inquisitors in the eye — and laughed.

Nearly 60 Oklahoma City second-graders were grilling the former governor
about his age, his kids, his hobbies, where he grew up and whether he liked
being governor.

Keating was happy to oblige, for occasionally someone asked him about the
latest children’s book he wrote and had just read to them.

"The Trial of Standing Bear” is Keating’s third book for children. The
chief of the Ponca Tribe went to court in 1879 against the federal
government and won recognition of Indians as individuals.

Keating, 64, was invited to read the book, which was released earlier this
month, to three second-grade classes gathered last week in the library at
Wilson Elementary School.

Because "Standing Bear” is more complex than his earlier books, Keating
went through the book and told the story of how the Poncas were ordered in
1877 to move from Nebraska to Indian Territory in an area near Ponca City.
Many got sick and died, including Standing Bear’s 12-year-old son. When he
and 29 others returned a year later to bury the boy, they were arrested and
Standing Bear became part of a legal case claiming his constitutional
rights were violated.

Keating, who earlier has written about Will Rogers and President Theodore
Roosevelt, writes next about former Presidents George Washington, Thomas
Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln.

He said he likes the challenge of writing in a simple, concise way that
children can comprehend.

Keating, governor from 1995 to 2003, said the idea of writing came to him
when Mike Wimmer, an artist who created Christmas cards for him, told him
he was looking for an author for a book on Will Rogers that he was
illustrating. Keating suggested himself as the writer.

Wimmer also illustrated the Roosevelt and Standing Bear books and will
illustrate Keating’s other books. Keating said he is donating a copy of his
Standing Bear book to every elementary school library in Oklahoma.

He said that will add up to 978 books.