Merger with W. O. Ligon & Company;

              We take pleasure in announcing the
merger with Haskins & Sells, effective
January 8, of the prominent Southwest
firm of W. O. Ligon & Company of
Tulsa and Fort Worth.
William O. Ligon, Jr. founded the
firm in Tulsa in 1917. A member of the
first Oklahoma State Board of Account­ancy,
he was one of the early leaders
of the profession in the Southwest until
his death in 1928. His three surviving
partners, the last of whom died in 1948,
carried on the practice, which in those
days numbered well-known oil and gas
companies among its clientele.
Of its present five partners, only
Virgil S. Tilly, who came with the firm
in 1926, knew the founder. By 1936,
when Mr. Tilly was invited to the
partnership, the country was in the
depths of the Depression, and he re­calls
that "our business was almost at a
standstill." Since World War II the
practice has expanded at a most satis­factory
rate, due largely to the efforts
of the present organization.
The partners are all active in pro­fessional
and civic affairs. E. C. Leon­ard,
who became a general partner in
1949, is a vice president of the Ameri­can
Institute of CPAs, as Virgil Tilly
was before him. Both have been con­cerned
with the development of
accounting principles, Mr. Tilly as a
member of the former Committee on
Accounting Procedure and Mr. Leon­ard
as chairman of a subcommittee of
the Executive Committee to screen
nominees for the Accounting Principles
Board. Mr. Tilly served twenty years
ago as president of the Oklahoma So­ciety
of CPAs, and Mr. Leonard is now
the president-elect. Mr. Tilly has also
been president of the Tulsa Community
Chest and other welfare agencies, the
Tulsa Club, and was appointed by the
Governor of Oklahoma as State Chair­man
for the Committee for the United
Nations.
The three younger partners, Ralph
D. Bowen, Claude T. Scott, who is in
charge of the Fort Worth Office, and
Virgil S. Tilly, Jr., were all admitted to
general partnership in January 1963.
They are also active in professional and
community affairs. Virgil Tilly, Jr., for
example, is General Campaign Chair­man
of the Tulsa Community Chest and
vice president of both the Tulsa CPA
chapter and the Chamber of Com­merce.
Ralph Bowen was a 27-year-old
lieutenant colonel when World War II
ended.
Mr. Tilly writes that from the begin­ning
in 1917, the partners and staff of
W. O. Ligon & Company have believed
that "the practice of public accountancy
fills a great need, one without which
our economy could not have grown and
reached its great size, and its practi­tioners
must be of the highest type in
integrity, training, capabilities, attitude
and professional independence."
To the partners and staff of a firm
with goals and outlook so compatible
with our own, we extend a cordial wel­come
to Haskins & Sells.
Commemorating the merger of their
practices, partners dine together in
Tulsa: (from left) Presley S. Ford, Jr.,
partner-in-charge of H&S Tulsa, with
Messrs. Leonard, Queenan, Scott,
Bowen, and Tilly, Jr. Virgil S. Tilly, Sr.
was unable to attend.
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