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Summary

Andrea Holman has dedicated over 50 years to her community. Raised in Park Estates North – Cashions Wildewood, she overcame racial barriers in education and built a diverse career in journalism, fashion, and advocacy. As a single mother, she fiercely advocated for her daughter with Down Syndrome. Now, as neighborhood association president, Andrea fights to preserve her community's culture and history, fostering local engagement. Her unwavering commitment to her neighborhood makes her a true pillar of the community.

A generational Oklahoman, Andrea Holman has deep roots in the Northeast Oklahoma City community and the Park Estates North –Cashions Wildewood Neighborhood. Holman was born in Guthrie, where her family still has a farm. She spent a brief stint in DC as a child for her father’s Army career. Despite this she found her way to Northeast OKC, a pattern that would continue throughout her life. She told us of her early life. 

“I was raised in the Northeast Side, in the same house, for over 50 years … I went to Millwood from Kindergarten to 12^th grade and graduated from Millwood High School in 1985. I played basketball, softball, ran track, you name it I did it… I was class president of my high school from 6^th grade to 12^th grade. So that helps a lot, that’s where a lot of my training came from… that’s where it really started, they let us lead.”  

After high school, Holman went to Langston University, where she earned a Broadcast Journalism degree. She worked in journalism for a couple years before perusing her Masters in International Relations at a private university in the metro. But the road to higher education was not easy for a Black woman in the 1980s. Andrea and her classmates faced clear discrimination that made finishing their degrees difficult.  

“It was pretty horrific,” Holman told us, “A couple of students and I were there working on our International Relations Masters… However, we came up against a couple of challenges, dealing with racism… I was telling this to someone else and they were like ‘Oh my God,’ and she happened to be a registrar that was there, and she said, ‘Oh no, this is not the first case.’ A young lady and I, we were talking, and we had study session together, and I was like ‘No, there is racism here’ and she was like ‘Oh no! Okay we’re gonna prove it, we’re gonna just prove it outright!’ And so, she wrote her paper, and we copied it, and I wrote my paper and we copied. What happened was she received an A, and I received an F, and this just kept going on the whole year. By that time, I just said ‘You know what? I’ve had enough.’ I’ll work on my master’s somewhere else.”  

Wherever life took her, Holman was dedicated to creating a more equitable world for her and others. Before returning for her masters, Andrea found herself working for the State Regents for Higher Education at the Oklahoma Minority Teachers Recruitment Center. Holman worked directly with state legislation advocating for equity in education. 

Her professional career was spent learning new skills and working for many different organizations. For 7 years, she lived in Dallas, where she was a fashion coordinator at Ralph Lauren, styling the likes of Steve Harvey and other celebrities. Before returning to OKC she even worked for the Dallas Mavericks. Andrea has a veracious drive to tackle the next big problem, a quality that led to her being recruited to new positions often.  

“I’ve worked a lot of places, I have. But it’s not because ‘Oh you got fired,’ or ‘Oh you did this.’ I want to learn, I’m a learner. I want to learn, learn, learn. Tell me what’s going on… If I see the need I will go out and do something to try and enhance myself so I can be educated and knowledgeable about a situation. I’m not just going to be like ‘Oh I think’…” 

Holman has two children, one son and one daughter, on top of a successful career. Much of her recent work in the community has been to support and advocate for them. Her daughter was born in 2006 with Down Syndrome and required intense medical care. 

“That led me into a whole ‘nother plight… So here I am a single mother raising my two kids. It was very challenging but rewarding. My mother and father are a very close-knit family. My dad was like ‘you better move your hips back into here, because we want our granddaughter to be in this house when she has the surgery’, the open-heart surgery. So, I moved back home, and I started my business… My daughter started going to Special Care after that. Pam Newby is an awesome woman, and I give her props any and everywhere I go. She is the first woman that I learned to advocate for my baby from… So, both of my kids were in [school district] at this time. [The district] didn’t want to allow my daughter to come to the school there, because they said they did not have the proper facilities… After all of that, they started treating my daughter differently, and lost my daughter a couple of times at the school. So that’s when I learned how to advocate for my child. I did end up taking [the district] to court. I did it per-se. I got stumped and the rights law was coming into Oklahoma City at UCO. So, I went there, and I was writing all these letters, writing the petition, everything I need to get my voice heard. Because, again they were doing cover ups about losing my child a couple times. But the thing of it is, here we got to the close knit family and friends, I went to a seminar, and I spoke to Sharon House. She asked me ‘Who wrote this?’ and I said ‘Me.’ She said ‘Hey do you want a job?’ right there, right on sight… I had just gotten done with my Masters in Entrepreneural Studies from Langston. So, I said ‘Yes I do, I need one.’ Next day I was working. I worked as a coordinator for her. I was in the process of suing [the district], because again, at the time I didn’t like the IEP they were writing, and they weren’t following it. But we chose to mediate out.” 

Andrea has consistently used her experiences facing discrimination to help others. After working so hard to advocate for her daughter, she worked at The Oklahoma Parents Center as an advocate and parent teacher coordinator, where Sharon House serves as Executive Director, 

“I learned how to advocate for my child,” Holman told us. “And I love that work.”  

At heart Andrea is an advocate for her community. She currently serves as the president for the Park Estates North – Cashions Wildewood Neighborhood. There, Holman lives in the same house she grew up in as she cares for her ill mother. She told us of how her mother got her active in the neighborhood. 

“I came in 2008 to the Neighborhood Alliance with my mom. My mother was very active in the community, and she still is. I learned about Neighborhood Alliance in 2008. I was always going to the Neighborhood Association and was doing their newsletter.”  

Though Andrea has lived in many places, she has always identified Park Estates North- Cashions Wildewood as home. 

“My parents always said ‘My home is open, come home’ so that’s what I did.” 

Not only did Holman come home, but she became a pillar of the neighborhood. When asked why she got active in the community? 

“When all the bonds started coming and hitting our parents like crazy. Before, I was sitting back in the seats and not engaging that much. But, like I told them, when you come into somebodies’ house, you need to introduce yourself… Well, they didn’t do that.” 

Andrea expressed how many people in her community feel about local government; They don’t feel their voices are being heard. But Andrea won’t go down without a fight and speaks her mind loud and clear. Just a few hours after Holman met with us, she was scheduled to speak before the Board of Adjustment regarding short term rentals in her neighborhood.  

“Our neighborhood is totally against Airbnbs. We invest in our people, and we are investing in our neighborhood… Our community is one with children and one with the elderly and they have built our community. Thats the way we want to keep it. They keep our community safe,” Andrea told the Board of Adjustment. “Our homes are not investment properties; they are not commercialized. We are residents… We want to keep the culture. We want to keep the history. And we want to keep living in our Neighborhood.” 

But it’s not just herself she speaks for. She has a strong community of elders behind her that she affectionately calls the “Silver Foxes”.  

“That’s what brought me back and I said ‘Hey, this is enough of this.’ And I sat back and watched us just do Neighbors Night Out and the Big Event. That’s all we were doing in the community. Well, I know our community used to do so much more… And I’m enjoying every minute of it. I love what I do. I get out, I engage with the community. Just like I said with the AirBnB, whether we get it or don’t get it. Our neighborhood is a fighting neighborhood. So, if they think we are gonna lay down on this, we are not going to lay down. I’ll fight with tooth and nails. That’s one of the things that they community has taught me: Fight for what you believe in.” 

Andrea is looking to the future of her neighborhood now. She is determined to involve more people in the association and build a strong foundation for years to come. As she says, Park Estates North- Cashions Wildewood is her home. 

  “I’ve been here. I always come back home to do what I need to do for the community.”