Weatherford Economic Director Yolanda Creswell recently was invited to speak at the Weatherford Kiwanis Club.
Typically, Creswell would take the time to update everyone on the various projects happening around town. However, this time she took the opportunity to get personal and share a bit about herself.
While Creswell’s parents originally are from Beaver, she grew up Texas. Her parents were both educators and her dad coached wrestling. She lived in Groom, Rockdale, Dumas and Perryton, Texas, where she graduated high school.
Creswell was an active member of FFA. She said after attending a livestock show in seventh grade and helping other students prepare their animals for show, she came home and announced she wanted to raise pigs.
Despite being shy throughout high school, she found confidence showing animals and even won several belt buckles for showmanship. She said her FFA pushed her to come out of her shell.
Because her dad was a busy coach and teacher, she said family time often came in the form of trips to shows and jackpots. Creswell said her parents taught her values she still lives by today: loving God, working hard and appreciating agriculture and animals.
After graduating from Perryton, she attended West Texas A&M University in Canyon, Texas, which she said was similar environment to SWOSU and Weatherford. While attending university, Creswell married her best friend, and the couple welcomed son Tatum in 2004.
While Tatum was born a healthy happy baby, he caught meningitis at 6-months-old and was flown to OU Children’s. Creswell said they stayed at the hospital for a month while Tatum recovered from the infection.
“Being his mother, it was the scariest time, but it was the most amazing thing to ever happen to me,” she said.
While he did recover, Creswell said the doctors predicted Tatum would never function like a normal child growing up and would not live to see his teen years. However, Tatum now is a healthy 17-year-old at Thomas-Fay-Custer High School.
“He is a normal kid and is involved with many things,” Creswell said. “He does have some struggles, but to me he does not have as many struggles as the doctor predicted.”
However, Tatum does not talk. So Creswell said she taught herself sign language and even took an interpreter class.
Like his mother, Tatum is involved in FFA at TFC.
“My son would give his right arm to play football. He loves sports, and he still begs to play football every year,” Creswell said. “It’s hard to tell him he can’t.”
To get him more involved at schools, Creswell encouraged Tatum to join FFA and show pigs, which they raise at her parents’ farm in Beaver. This year, he showed several of his own pigs and won many awards, including Breeder’s Choice at the Custer County Junior Livestock Show.
Before coming to Weatherford, Creswell worked in several business and economic development rolls.
She worked at the business development center on the Northwestern Oklahoma State University campus in Alva for 4 years, where she worked on an industrial park project.
She later took a job in grant management for TSET in Major, Woods and Alfalfa counties. Through this job, she helped get new playground equipment in Cleo Springs, introduce a walking trail in Fairview and assist Alva schools in developing better nutrition and cooking methods.
Creswell said she made the move to Custer County after realizing her son needed some extra support and schools. Tatum’s father, with whom Creswell had separated, lived in Thomas at the time, so they spoke with TFC and believed it would be a better fit for Tatum.
Creswell took a job with the Oklahoma Office of Workforce Development as a one stop operator, and went from managing three counties to 25.
Creswell said it was a great job where she met many people and couldn’t see herself leaving. However, when an opening came up at Oklahoma Southwest Alliance, she took it.
Through this position, she met Mayor Mike Brown, which led to her taking the job as the Weatherford economic director. She has been in this position for 2 years.