Funeral mass for Audrey Dolar Tejada, 57, Lawton, will be 11:00 a.m. Wednesday, April 22, 2015, in the Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church with Father Joseph R. Ross, pastor officiating. Mrs. Tejada died Saturday, April 18, 2015 in Oklahoma City. The family will greet friends from 5-7 pm Tuesday at the funeral home with a Rosary to follow. Audrey Dolar Tejada was born on December 29, 1957, in Manapla, Negros Occidental, Philippines, and raised in southwest Oklahoma. She graduated from Lawton High School. She received her B.A. from Cornell University, where she majored in Literature and studied with the poet and essayist Kenneth McClane. In her senior year she was selected as one of Cosmopolitan's Top Ten Women on Campus. She received her graduate degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University where her advisor was William Lord, a former executive at ABC News who produced World News Tonight with Peter Jennings and Nightline with Ted Koppel. She trained and worked at ABC News world headquarters in New York City, at CNN International in Atlanta, and as a Hearst-Argyle Fellow in Television News at WCVB in Boston. She transitioned into academia at Harvard University, where she worked with the esteemed Harvard Law Professor and Vice Dean Charles Ogletree, mentor and advisor to President Barack Obama. Upon winning a Harvard Administrative Fellowship, she worked closely with Professor Louis Gates, Jr. to bring noted intellectuals and authors, Nobel laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners, and MacArthur Fellows on campus to read and to discuss their work. Audrey's writings have appeared in print, online and on broadcasts, as have her photography, film, and news media. She was an elected Cornell University Student Trustee, and was inducted into Cornell's Quill and Dagger Society. For several years she was the chairman for this region of the Cornell Alumni Admissions Ambassador Network (CAAAN), which boasts membership of more than 7,000 alumni volunteers. As a writer, artist, and community organizer, Audrey found inspiration from the mundane to the grandiose. She set goals as a young child and determinedly followed through with them. She met numerous people who became friends while on independent travels through 5 continents, 35 countries, and 48 states. Intellect tempered with compassion, she would organize fundraisers for those affected by misfortune, such as Typhoon Haiyan, receiving accolades from the American Red Cross. Her creative projects include Strange Tango, literary fiction; Millennium Muse, narrative nonfiction, essays, and observations; and Strange Tango: Life as Art, a personal website, blog and start-up that showcased her writing, photography, passions and inspirations. She lived life on her terms, with strength and grace and elegance, yet at a whirlwind pace. She met her husband Joseph Yu during their freshman year at Cornell. Soulmates, they were married for 29 years. She is further survived by her 93-year-old mother, Mary, and sister Glynis, of Lawton; sister Piere and brother-in-law COL (ret) Rodrigo Mariano, M.D., niece Ciara, and nephew Rohan, of Lawton; Aunties Irmi Alfar and Elma Campos, of Lawton; cousins Mary Ann and Chris Korte, of Mesa, AZ; niece Ileanna, of Portland, OR; nephew Byron, of Hong Kong; cousins Dolorita and Lito Tubola, and their children Byron and Karen Dahl, of the Philippines; Jehan, of Los Angeles, CA; and Dave, of Phoenix, AZ.