Don Nickles

Nickles was born and raised in Ponca City, Oklahoma, the son of Coeweene (Bryan) and Robert C. Nickles. He attended Ponca City public schools graduating from Ponca City High School in 1967. To help pay for their education at Oklahoma State University, he and his wife, the former Linda Lou Morrison, operated Don Nickles Professional Cleaning Service in Stillwater. He was a member of Beta Theta Pi fraternity at Oklahoma State University, and earned a Bachelor of Arts in business administration in 1971.

After college, he went to work for Nickles Machine Corporation in Ponca City, a business started in 1918 by his grandfather, Clair Nickles. He became the company's vice president and general manager. He also served in the Kansas Army National Guard and the Oklahoma Army National Guard from 1970 until 1976. A formative experience was the distress his family suffered following the death of his father, Robert, in 1961, when Nickles was twelve years old. The family had to sell off part of the family business to raise cash to pay the required estate tax.

In 1978, aged 29, his election to the Oklahoma Senate was the beginning of his career in public office. Two years later, at the age of 31, he became and remains the youngest Republican ever elected to the U.S. Senate.

On October 7, 2003, he announced that he would not run in the 2004 election. Republican Tom Coburn was elected to succeed Nickles.

Nickles went on to found the Nickles Group, a government consulting group in Washington, D.C. He also serves on the boards of directors of a number of public companies, such as Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake Energy.

Nickles was one of the politicians featured in the film Traffic, giving his opinion on the war on drugs.

Nickles and his wife, Linda, have four children.