Langley inducted into Hall of Fame

At a ceremony earlier this month at the Oklahoma History Center in Oklahoma City, retired Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation Director A. DeWade Langley, a 1968 graduate of Clinton High School, was inducted into the Oklahoma Law Enforcement Hall of Fame in recognition of his accomplishments while serving. 
Langley served longer than any other director in the agency’s history, from 1995 until 2010. During his tenure, OSBI implemented many revolutionary crime-fighting programs such as the Statewide Intelligence Network and a crime scene agent program. 
He also oversaw the development of a modern computer crimes unit, an Internet Crimes Against Children unit, and computerized databases were developed to track DNA, firearms and toolmarks, and digital imaging. 
Under Langley’s leadership OSBI also became accredited by the American Society of Crime Lab Directors and became the first state-level law enforcement agency in Oklahoma accredited through the national Commission on Accreditation of Law Enforcement Agencies. 
After his graduation from CHS, Langley said he had no thought of entering the field of law enforcement and was guided to it almost by accident. 
“I had a friend in the Clinton Police Department, and in December of 1971, about this time of year, he called me up one night to see if I wanted to go on a ride-along with him. 
“I didn’t even know what a ride-along was, but I said, ‘Sure, I’ll go.’ Well, I guess you could say I got in that car and I just never got out. It wasn’t long after that I went to work at the Sheriff’s Office as an office deputy.”
When he started at the Custer County Sheriff’s Department, the sheriff at that time was Calvin Klein. Langley includes Klein as one of many people during his life that had a hand in shaping his future. 
“The Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation called Sheriff Klein and asked him to pick two people to work in an undercover narcotics unit. That was something new at the time. And because it was part of a tri-agency unit, it was a task force before they even had a name for task forces.”
Klein was also instrumental in giving Langley the opportunity to begin attending college under a federal law enforcement tuition assistance program. 
Langley was officially hired by OSBI in 1977 as a Special Agent, and he quickly climbed the ranks. In 1980 he was promoted to Deputy Inspector in the Woodward region, and in 1985 became Inspector in the same region. 
By 1990 he’d been appointed OSBI Deputy Director, before becoming Director in 1995. 
Langley said he decided to retire in 2010, while he was still at the top of his game. Immediately after his retirement from OSBI he accepted a position as the chair and director of the School of Criminal Justice at University of Central Oklahoma. 
He and his wife, Kathy (Dickey) Langley, still own property in Custer County and visit their “farm” regularly. It’s not a working farm, he says, but he calls it a great place to relax, do some hunting, and take his grandchildren. 
Langley quickly shrugs off any notion that he’s so done well with his life because he’s “special” in some way. He will immediately begin citing a long list of people that helped get where he is, including CHS football coach **JIM FRASIER.** 
“Here’s the thing. Any success you have is because of great people that helped you. You can lose yourself along the way, but we become a mosaic of all the people who helped us.
“So many people touch your life, they change you and they change your view. Eventually you become a composite of all the positive people who have helped you along the way.”
Langley still has close friends in Clinton, ones he says continue to have a strong influence on his life. 
“Some people you’re friends with, some people are close friends, and then some people are really close friends.”
One of those he considers a really close friend, Dan Day, thinks just as highly of Langley. 
“He’s one of the good ones,” said Day. “He really is.”