By Ruth Ann Replogle
CHEROKEE — At 79, Marthesia “Marty” Myers spends more of her time at the computer than sitting in the rocking chair.
“If I just sit here, I don’t think I’d be in as good of health as I am,” she said. “I really like to work on the computer. The more I learn about them, the more I like them.”
The former library director was introduced to computers in the 1990s. One of her sons had a computer and used it for research, whetting her interest.
“Before I had the computer, it was type, type, type (on a typewriter),” Myers said. Her son gave her a computer in 1992 and she has never looked back.
“It’s made my life much easier,” she said.
These days she uses the computer for genealogy and historical records. She volunteers at Alfalfa County Museum and has served as a local historian, researching and collecting information about communities and families in Alfalfa County for Alfalfa County Historical Society publications. She is currently proofreading a volume of country history that has 550 stories and photos; she has been working on this project with four other people since 2004.
“That’s what’s taking my time,” Myers said. She said she hopes the volume will be released mid-summer.
She previously compiled a book on Cherokee’s early years and evolution from 1901 to 1910. It took two years of research plus typing and proofreading and was published in 2001.
“I’ll just be so happy when it’s (the new history volume) sitting on everybody’s coffee table,” Myers said. “The history of Oklahoma interests me. The history of the county interests me.”
The businesswoman and civic leader was born in Woods County, but has lived in Alfalfa County since 1957. Myers and her husband, Bethel, bought a home appliance store in Cherokee in 1963.
“I went to work as bookkeeper and sales,” she said. They bought a Laundromat in the 1970s and opened another one across the street from the home appliance store. Then in 1980 they opened a dry cleaner business next door to the home appliance store.
“Bethel and I had three businesses, but we couldn’t do it by ourselves anymore,” Myers said. “I was running out the back door of one to go to the other.”
They sold the dry cleaner business and home appliance store and shut down one of the Laundromats in the early 1980s. The couple continued to own and operate the sole Laundromat until they sold it in 2003.
Myers isn’t retired though. She has a part-time (she emphasizes “part”) job in the assessor’s office at Alfalfa County Court House along with all her volunteering for Wheatheart Nutrition Project, Friends of the Library and Cherokee Chamber of Commerce.
“She’s a quiet activist,” said Steve Booher, publisher for Cherokee Publishing Company. Cherokee Publishing Company published Myers’ book about Cherokee and has supported other projects she spearheaded.
“She’s the conscience for the senior citizens of Cherokee. She puts into action what they want,” Booher said. “She does what it takes to get things done.”
Myers received the Lifetime Achievement Award from Cherokee Chamber of Commerce in 1999 and was one of four in the state to be given Oklahoma Heritage Distinguished Service Award in 2004. She recently received Cherokee Chamber of Commerce Citizen of the Year.
“I was shocked. I felt like there were other people who deserved the award better than I did. I couldn’t do it without Bethel’s help and his patience. I’m always gone someplace or another,” Myers said.
