LANGSTON, Okla. (AP) — City officials in Langston say noted historian and Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board member Currie Ballard has died.
Langston Mayor Alicia Sumlin said the 56-year-old Ballard died Friday, but did not have any other details.
Ballard was a native of Los Angeles who received a bachelor's degree from Langston University and served as the school's historian-in-residence from 1993 to 2006.
He was appointed in 2002 by President George W. Bush to a presidential commission to build an African-American museum in Washington, D.C., and later to a federal task force to study the contributions of slave laborers in the construction of the U.S. Capitol.
A member of the Oklahoma Historians Hall of Fame, Ballard was appointed by Gov. Mary Fallin to the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board in 2011.