Louisa McCune-Elmore

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Louisa McCune-Elmore joined the Kirkpatrick Foundation as executive director in April 2011. Previous to her new post, she served as editor in chief of Oklahoma Today magazine for thirteen years. Before returning to Oklahoma, she was a contributing editor for the American Benefactor and also worked at Worth, George, Harper’s Magazine, Mirabella, and New York.

In 1996, she was assistant director on Fools for Scandal (Franklin Square Press, 1996) by Gene Lyons. A former contributing editor to Green: The Magazine for Personal Finance, her articles have appeared in National Geographic Traveler, Budget Travel, Reader’s Digest, Worth, and World Literature Today. She is a former columnist for the Journal Record.

McCune-Elmore is a past member of the American Society of Magazine Editors and currently serves on the board of directors for the Oklahoma Center for Poets and Writers. As a past board member for City Arts Center, the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame, and Wilson Arts, Inc., she is a committee member for Creativity in Motion and the Thatcher Hoffman Smith prize.

Under her guidance, Oklahoma Today won more than 250 national and state awards, including the 2010, 2008, and 2006 SPJ Best Magazine award and the 2010 and 2005 Magazine of the Year award from the International Regional Magazine Association. In November 2003, McCune-Elmore received the Bill Thurman Memorial Media in the Arts Award at the Governor’s Arts Awards. In September of 1999, she was named one of the “Thirty Under 30” by the Magazine Publishers of America and Folio; in September 2002, one of “Forty Under 40” Oklahoma City leaders by OKC Business; and in May 2007, an Achiever under 40 by the Journal Record.

A judge for national editorial and design competitions, including the National Magazine Awards and the New York Women’s Front Page Awards, she is also a frequent guest lecturer and keynote speaker.

A native of Enid, Oklahoma, McCune-Elmore graduated with a bachelor’s degree from San Francisco State University in 1992. From 1992 to 1993, she worked for Evergreen Helicopters in West Africa on a project to eradicate river blindness; from 1994 to 1995, she worked at the Enid News & Eagle as a general assignment reporter.

A Renaissance Weekend and Oklahoma Symposium participant, she has appeared on CNNfn, Writing Out Loud, Flashpoint, KOSU Radio, and many other programs and newscasts. In April 2005, McCune-Elmore founded the Sallie McFarland Rucks Reader Series at Wilson Elementary in Oklahoma City for the school’s second-grade classes. In 1993, she received her pilot’s license.

Louisa and Chad Elmore have three sons, McCune, Rucks, and Edward. They live near downtown Oklahoma City.