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October 28, 2009

E.Z. Million dies at 68

Longtime Norman political activist championed many causes

Transcript Staff

Longtime Oklahoma conservative political activist and perennial candidate E.Z. Million died Saturday at his Norman home.

Million, 68, ran for various state offices as well as mayor of Norman, during his more than 50 years living here. Family members are planning a memorial service at a later date.

He earned bachelor's and masters degrees in engineering and worked as a computer consultant. Million was a student in one of OU's first computer courses.

He was in the OU band and was active in Republican politics for many years before running as an independent in the lieutenant governor's race in 2006.

Interviewed at the time, he said his priority was moving the OU-Texas game from Dallas to Norman. A son, Scott Million, said his father wanted to boost the state's economy and stop sending millions of dollars to Texas hotels, restaurants and retail stores.

"My No. 1 priority is to make sure that the OU-Texas football game is played here in Norman on Oct. 7, 2006," Million said in a 2006 Transcript interview. He later appeared before the OU Board of Regents to make his case.

A graduate of Weatherford High School, Million came to OU in 1957 on a Vocational Rehabilitation Scholarship. He had been totally paralyzed by polio at age 4 in 1945 and had made a miraculous recovery to enable him to march in the OU Band while playing a baritone horn, he said at the time.

Million received his B.S. in mathematics in 1961 and a master of engineering in 1964.

He was the Republican nominee for State House 44 in 1968 and for State Senate District 16 in 1973. During 1970-1972, Million served as a Presidential Exchange Executive assigned to Headquarters Air Force, the Pentagon.

He was back in D.C. in 1974 for an assignment at the Federal Communications Commission and in 1975 at the Justice Department in New York on the U.S. v IBM antitrust trial.

Million formed the Sooner Chamber of Commerce in 1993 to promote tourism in general and lure the OU-Texas game out of Dallas, in particular.

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