Memorial service for Judi Lamb Boland will be 2:00 p.m. Tuesday, July 12, 2016 in the Becker-Rabon Funeral Home Chapel with Rev. Terry Marsh officiating.

Judi Lamb Boland, who for six years wrote about the people and events of Southwest Oklahoma for The Lawton Constitution, died Thursday, July 7, 2016 in Lawton.  Judi was born March 10, 1948 in Hutchinson, Kansas to Robert and Jean (Hall) Lamb.  Although she hailed from Kansas, she became an Oklahoman by training and occupation. She graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a degree in journalism and worked for newspapers in Georgia and Colorado and two sessions as a media liaison in the Oklahoma House of Representatives before joining The Associated Press bureau in Oklahoma City, where she was an editorial assistant for 9 years. It was at the AP that some Constitution staffers first became acquainted with her as a disembodied voice, "Judi from the AP," on the other end of the phone line.

Thus by the time she joined The Constitution  on April 1, 2010, a date she wryly reveled in, she'd had good training to be an area reporter covering large, small and tiny towns. She'd covered sports, taken photos, covered government agencies and county fairs, all the things an area reporter is called upon to do, sometimes all in the course of one day.

She quickly made Southwest Oklahoma her home. Her assignment was to cover the eastern portion of The Constitution's circulation area, from Rush Springs to Big Pasture, from U.S. 81 to Interstate 44. She became acquainted with folks from Marlow, Duncan, Elgin and Walters and many other places, some of which aren't on the map.

She was equally at home at a stock show as a courtroom, a street festival as a city council meeting. She learned the people to call on her beat, and they called her back. Poor health sometimes curtailed her travels, but she would be on the phone to see what happened, and more often than not people took her calls or called her back. If she was at all able, she preferred to be at work talking on the phone or in person to Southwest Oklahomans about what was happening where they were.

Her sly wit, boisterous laughter and unreserved love for newspapering enlivened the newsroom. She was a mentor to some, a friend to others; and for some she was just family.

She is survived by her three children, Tracy Boland, Greece, New York, Stephannie Boland-Anderson and husband Dan and Jon Boland, all of Denver, Colorado; five grandchildren, Hannah, Zach and Sam Hughes and Violet and Bridger Boland; her mother, Jean Lamb; a sister and brother-in-law, Lea and Darrell Westervelt; her brother and sister-in-law, Brent and Stacey Lamb.

Her father preceded her in death.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Newspapers in Education program at the Lawton Constitution, 102 SW 3rd Street, Lawton, Oklahoma 73501.