Gail Highfield

Sandra Gail Highfield — Gail to everyone who knew her — died peacefully at home on June 3, 2026, at the age of 88, having packed a great deal of living into those years.

Born April 11, 1938, in Stillwater, Oklahoma, to William Sterling Whitenton and Faye Irene Whitenton, Gail grew up mostly in Claremore. Hers was a Depression-era childhood, and it left her with a thriftiness she never lost. She went on to study English at Oklahoma State University and took a job at Amoco. In those young years she loved music and live shows, seeing the likes of Elvis and Chubby Checker, and she treated herself to a baby blue 1964 Ford Mustang.

It was her sister who introduced her to Aldin Rex “Rex” Highfield, and the two married in 1965 and settled in Tulsa, where they would spend the rest of their lives. Rex held a pilot’s license, and in the early days the two of them would take to the skies together. After welcoming their first child, Brenda, Gail set aside her career to raise her family full-time, and she did it the way she did everything — completely. She was a fixture at PTA meetings and Scout activities, and she held firm to one rule: the family ate dinner together every single night. She and Rex built a cabin on Grand Lake that became the setting for countless happy weekends, and it was Gail who began the family’s annual trip to the beach, a tradition that would run for more than thirty years.

In the years that followed, Gail doted on her two granddaughters, helping look after them as they grew, and she hosted Sunday dinners that kept the whole family in one another’s orbit. She had a fondness for video poker at the casino and never missed the newspaper’s cryptoquote and crossword each morning.

Gail was reserved, never one to make a show of her emotions — yet no one who knew her ever doubted how deeply she loved them. She carried other people’s burdens in silence, never for thanks, simply because that was who she was.

Gail was preceded in death by her husband, Rex, and her parents, William Sterling and Faye Irene Whitenton. She is survived by her four children, Brenda Kay Highfield, Carol Ann Moshiri and her husband Mehrdad Matthew Moshiri, Thomas Alan Highfield, and Brian Edward Highfield; her two granddaughters, Abigail Faye Moshiri and Emily Francis Moshiri; and her two sisters, Nancy Irene Rumbaugh and Patricia Louise Cobb.

A private graveside service has been held, and Gail rests beside Rex at Memorial Park Cemetery. Friends, family and all those who knew Gail are invited to a celebration of her life at Gail’s home of 53 years on July 18, at 1:00 PM.