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Bluffton - Paul H. Durham, lawyer, professor and world traveler, passed away peacefully February 28, 2022 in his adopted home town of Bluffton, SC.
He was born on July 1, 1926 in Climax, KS to Harold Durham and Nina (Flaize) Durham. He graduated from Chanute High School in 1950 and, in 1956, graduated from Pittsburgh State University in Pittsburgh, KS with a degree in Accounting. But in the middle of his "carefree" college years he was drafted in the Army and was stationed at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs, CO. He underwent training for the US Army Ski Troop but fortunately was not deployed to the Korean conflict and instead finished his military duties as a Corporal, handling personnel discharges. This is where he first developed a life-long love for the law.
Upon graduation from college he enrolled at Tulsa University Law School, graduating in 1960, which turned out to be a banner year. He also got married on August 5th to Virginia (Willard) Durham, his boss in the accounting department at Sunray DX Oil Company and who would be his wife for 62 years, and finally, landed the job that would span nearly his entire career at Phillips Petroleum Company in Bartlesville, OK.
At Phillips, he started as Assistant Tax Counsel and was promoted to Tax Counsel in 1972. They were exciting times in the oil industry in the 1970s as an OPEC oil embargo led to an energy crisis and encouraged major US oil companies to go on a global hunt for reserves. He served as tax counsel on a team of Phillips executives who traveled the globe negotiating with foreign governments. He developed a passion for travel during this time that eventually took him to more than 100 countries.
After retiring from Phillips in 1987, he started a private practice in downtown Bartlesville specializing in tax and estate planning that he ran until finally retiring in 2013. During this time he also served as an adjunct professor of international law at Tulsa University and also taught tax law at Bartlesville Wesleyan College. He and Virginia worked closely together over the years serving a large number of tax clients, both corporate and individual.
After living for a while in semi-retirement on Grand Lake in Oklahoma, he finally retired for good and moved to the South Carolina Lowcountry, a home away from home where he had taken his family to vacation for many years.
While he clearly found his life's calling in tax law, an even bigger passion was University of Oklahoma football. His mood often rode on the fortunes of his beloved Sooners, and they didn't often disappoint. Neither did the New York Yankees, his other favorite sports team. He enjoyed golf for most of his life and was quite good at it in his youth but, as it usually is, was a reliable source of disappointment in his later years.
Paul was most known among family and friends for his humor, kindness, cheerfulness and personable nature. Left to cherish his memory are his wife, Virginia, twin sister Pauline Simone, brothers Carl and Leon Durham, daughter Denise Bode, sons Brad Durham and Charles Johnson, granddaughters Amy Johnson, Nicola and Camilla Durham, grandsons Sean Bode and Patrick and Ryan Johnson, as well as several nieces and nephews and eight great grandchildren.
Visitation will be held for family and friends at Sauls Funeral Home in Bluffton on March 14 at 10:00 a.m., followed by a celebration of life at 11:00 a.m. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the American Red Cross or in memory of Paul Durham to the University of Oklahoma Foundation.
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