When Toby Keith was inducted with the Oklahoma Hall of Fame’s 2007 class, he didn’t pick a fellow musician, another celebrity or even one of his co-writers to introduce him.
Instead, Keith chose retired Gen. James Jones, ex-commandant of the Marine Corps and NATO’s former Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, to bestow on him one of the highest honors he could receive from his home state.
“That’s who he was. … He loved the OK Kids Korral, but he also loved first responders and everybody in the military. He was committed to those guys, and he saw the importance of recognizing them, especially the people in the military who were putting their lives out there for us to fight for our freedom,” said Armando Rosell, a member of the executive advisory council for the Oklahoma City-based Toby Keith Foundation.
“He was a great business mind … but he was more about helping people and helping the community out than anything else. That was Toby.”
A larger-than-life country music icon, Keith died Feb. 5 after a multiyear battle with cancer. He was 62.