If you follow local news, you’ve probably heard that Ryan Kiesel passed away on Friday at the way-too-young age of 45.
As recent media tributes have noted, Ryan was an accomplished figure in Oklahoma’s political scene. A graduate of OU Law, he served in the State House of Representatives from 2004 to 2010, led the Oklahoma ACLU from 2011 to 2020, and after that, fought to bring Oklahoma’s marijuana laws into the 21st century through lobbying and legal work.
A quick-witted orator and master debater, Ryan also served as a local political pundit. He co-hosted KOSU’s This Week in Oklahoma Politics and was a go-to source for many in the local media when they needed sharp legal analysis or a good quote. He would also appear on just about any fledgling podcast that would have him—including The Lost Ogle Show, where he was a guest not once or twice, but three freaking times.
Ryan was a man of many things in his professional life, but I’ll remember him as something far more than that—a loving husband and father, a generous supporter of independent music, art, and media, and—at least for me—a damn good friend.
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I first got to know Ryan back in 2012.
I had written an article about Mary Fallin refusing to honor open records requests filed by local media. At the end of the piece, I included a tongue-in-cheek call to action:
I think later today I'm going to research how to file one of these open records things and see what info I can get. Remember, we're not real journalists here, so we have no clue how this stuff works. When our request is denied, maybe we can file a lawsuit. Do any attorneys know how that works? We've been sued before, but have never actually filed one. Also, can some rich Democrat with a vendetta finance it? That person would be an instant finalist for the 2012 Ogle Mole of the Year award. Just sayin’.
Always down to hold politicians accountable—and maybe win an award—a few days later, I got a call from some guy named Ryan Kiesel with the ACLU. He told me he’d read my article and wanted to talk.
The following week, I met with Ryan and the ACLU’s legal director, Brady Henderson, at their Paseo offices. They were interested in taking Mary Fallin to court to get the records—or, at the very least, get judicial clarification on Oklahoma’s open records laws—but they needed a media plaintiff both dumb and fearless enough to do it. Apparently, I was that guy.
A couple of weeks later, the ACLU issued this press release:
Local news, entertainment, and satire website TheLostOgle.com is the latest media organization to request that Governor Mary Fallin comply with Oklahoma’s Open Records Act. The request seeks the release of emails and reports surrounding the Governor’s decisions rejecting Medicaid funding that would have provided health care to nearly 200,000 Oklahomans and refusing to set up a state health care exchange. With the ACLU of Oklahoma serving as legal counsel, the publisher of TheLostOgle.com filed an open records request with the office of Governor Fallin, as well as Secretary of State Glenn Coffee and other agents of state government…
“Transparency and liberty go hand in hand,” said Ryan Kiesel, Executive Director of the ACLU of Oklahoma. “The ACLU of Oklahoma is committed to ensuring that government officials abide by the letter and spirit of the Open Records Act.”
As the case—one we’d infamously lose in a precedent-setting decision—meandered its way through the Oklahoma legal system, Ryan and I developed what I’d call a professional-level friendship.
You know, the kind where you genuinely enjoy someone’s company, but most of your conversations revolve around work—or, in this case, judges deciding that executive privilege exists in the Oklahoma Constitution, even though the Oklahoma Constitution doesn’t actually say that.
Still, during that time, we’d have broader discussions about indie music we heard on The Spy, Josh Heupel ruining OU football, or the best sandwich at The Mule. You know, typical 30-something hipster-adjacent guy conversations.
For the next couple of years, that’s how our friendship remained—cordial, but mostly centered around our careers, like two co-workers from different departments who’d have good talks in the break room or forward each other funny chain emails before a staff meeting about the new Concur software.
Then I ran into him at the airport...
As my fourth article on this website shows, I am—or at least was—a super fan of Arcade Fire.
I got to see them open for The Unicorns at The Conservatory way back in their pre-Funeral days, which gives me legit “I liked them before they were cool” hipster music snob street cred. I’d consider their first four albums to be some of the best music produced this century, and Funeral to be one of the greatest albums ever made.
So, when Arcade Fire went on tour in 2014 to promote Reflektor, I had to go. Naturally, their tour skipped Oklahoma, so I did the next best thing—headed to Denver, Colorado, the Mile High City and home of the nation’s first recreational marijuana laws—for a weekend of good music and pot tourism.
As my girlfriend and I walked toward an open Southwest DIY kiosk at Will Rogers, I spotted a couple standing at the ticket terminal to our immediate right. It was Ryan and his wife, Allison.
After a quick introduction of our significant others, the conversation went something like this:
“So, where are you going?” I asked.
“We’re going to Denver for the Arcade Fire show.”
“Hey! So are we! I guess we’re on the same flight.”
“It looks like it! By the way, did you all happen to rent a car?”
At the airport, I learned that Ryan—just like me at the time—was a fan of marijuana and was really looking forward to hitting up a dispensary and smoking legally purchased weed. I was kind of surprised. Maybe it was because he was a former lawmaker or a fancy lawyer, but I had assumed he was pretty straight-laced. Naive of me, huh?
Anyway, we figured that once our late evening flight landed in Denver, we’d all jump in my rental car and head to the closest dispensary that was open.
After landing, picking up our luggage, and grabbing my fancy white Malibu, we learned that dispensaries closed at 8:00 p.m. But one in town still had the green lights on. Ironically enough, it was called Okie Budz. Apparently, it wasn’t a traditional dispensary but a grandfathered-in marijuana co-op. They could grow their own stuff and sell a limited amount recreationally.
We called to verify they were open, and they told us to “come on by.” So, we punched the address into Google Maps and made our way there—only to discover it was a freaking house in the middle of a typical 1970s suburban neighborhood.
We knocked on the door and were greeted by some very stoned guys who let us in. Right in the middle of the living room was a big glass display shelf with about three jars of marijuana.
After chatting with them, we learned they were all military veterans from southeastern Oklahoma who had moved to Colorado years ago to get high all the time—for stress relief, back pain, and whatever else the government had failed to treat after their service.
After about five minutes, we left and headed back to Ryan’s downtown Airbnb to smoke our first-ever round of legally purchased marijuana.
Even after all the weed we smoked that night, it’s a memory I’ll never forget.
From that point on, Ryan and I became fast friends.
Every couple of weeks or so, I’d swing by his house after he and his wife put his son, Oliver, to bed. We’d smoke a bowl, listen to good music, and shoot the shit. I jokingly called him my long-lost best friend because we had so many mutual interests but had only recently met. Hell, we even discovered that I had gone on a date or two with one of his ex-girlfriends from Seminole. Lucky girl, huh?
For the next four years or so, that’s how our friendship worked—hanging out, sharing new strains, hitting the occasional happy hour, and meeting up at concerts.
Then, after a breakup, I met someone new. We started dating seriously, and… well… I learned I was going to be a dad.
When I first got the news, I was terrified. The pregnancy was unplanned, and if there’s one thing that has always scared me, it’s the trifecta of hard work, love, and commitment. And as most parents know, there’s no harder job that demands more of all three than being a parent.
I remember the day I told Ryan the news and admitted how terrified I was. He kind of looked at me and laughed.
“Man, you’re going to love it. Being a dad is awesome.”
I vividly remember feeling relieved by his words. If my kindred spirit thought I’d love being a dad, then maybe he was right.
And you know what? He was.
After my daughter was born, hangouts with Ryan became less frequent. I was adjusting to a new parental life, he had added a second kid, and we were both knee-deep in work and responsibilities. We still stayed in touch via text, though, and he even appeared as a guest on one of the early episodes of The Lost Ogle Show.
Not too long after that, a global pandemic happened, and the world shut down. My dates could be wrong, but I think it was around that time when Ryan revealed he had cancer.
He told me he had ended up in the ER with severe stomach pain. After some scans, doctors found a large malignant tumor growing in his stomach, blocking his bowel. He said the doctors told him it was actually good that it had developed where it did because it allowed them to catch the cancer relatively early. He had surgery, went through all the treatments, and his long-term prognosis was good.
And for a while, it sure seemed that way.
As the world slowly reopened a few months later, we met up a couple of times to enjoy life again. We hit up a Smashing Pumpkins concert at Zoo Amp, and on the way home, got tailed by a cop after his Tesla's auto-pilot made a lane change in an intersection.
Another time, we met up at The Power House in the Farmers Market. I was dealing with my own nowhere-near-as-serious health issues (i.e., diverticulitis) and—for a brief time—had stopped drinking.
As I downed a Yerba Mate and he sipped a beer, we caught up on work, life, and our kids. He was his usual upbeat self, enjoying life as an attorney at large and looking forward to helping lead the campaign to legalize recreational marijuana.
Which he did.
Unfortunately, Oklahoma’s political power players went out of their way to make sure that didn’t happen. After Ryan and his team gathered enough signatures to get SQ 820 on the ballot, Stitt and Co. pushed it onto a weird March election date, and the measure failed by a 60–40 margin.
I arrived late to the Vote Yes watch party at Tower Theatre that dark, hazy night, and like most election-night gatherings that end in defeat, it felt like a funeral. Organizers were crying, hugging, and completely distraught.
Except for Ryan.
When I saw him, he was his typical upbeat self. I think he even joked, "I haven’t gotten my ass kicked like this since our Open Records lawsuit." Classic Ryan—serious about the cause but never taking himself too seriously.
A few months after that watch party, I hit Ryan up to see if he wanted to go to the Weezer show at Zoo Amp. That’s when he texted me the news no one ever wants to hear from a friend who had cancer.
It had returned, but he assured, it was treatable.
Later that summer, we met up for drinks at Flycatcher. He looked good. A few months after that, he came by my house to watch an OU game with me and small group of friends. And, well, he didn't look so good. He was super skinny and appeared frail. They had amped up his chemo treatments, but he said his tests were looking good and everything was heading in the right direction.
The game ended, OU won, and he said he had to head home.
I walked him to the door and gave him a man-hug goodbye.
It was the last time I’d see him.
For the next 18 months, I’d periodically check in to see how Ryan was doing and try to make plans to meet up, but it never materialized. I was busy with work and parenting, and he was busy with work, parenting, and trying to stay alive.
Most of the time when I reached out, he’d be in Houston undergoing a new chemo treatment or stuck at home with a weakened immune system. Instead of talking about new music, our texts became health updates, jokes about changing hair colors, and other reflections on the things in life that truly mattered.
Through all pokes, ports, and prodding, Ryan was always upbeat and optimistic. He had to know the end was near, but wouldn't reveal it. His last text to me illustrates that...
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I’ve never lost a close friend before. I’m struggling through this one.
A week or so ago, a mutual friend told me Ryan wasn’t doing well and didn’t have much time left. I didn’t know if I should reach out or leave him alone. Each day, I thought to myself, “Should I reach out and say something? Maybe text him about something else and see if he brings it up?”
But for whatever reason, I stalled.
I don’t know if it was the sad and uncomfortable nature of the situation—how it made me question my own fears and mortality—or just plain cowardice, but I couldn't do it. I’d type something out on my phone, then delete it and try to find a distraction.
“I’ll do it tomorrow,” I’d tell myself, naively forgetting that tomorrow may never come.
I’ll admit, the guilt from that weighs on me now, but I know Ryan wouldn’t want me to beat myself up over it. He’d just brush it off or make a self-deprecating wisecrack, telling me to go write a nice obituary remembering his life, one where I could remind him—for one final time – that I got to see Arcade Fire play in OKC before they were big, and he – Mr. Live Music Man – didn’t.
As I mentioned earlier, Ryan loved his family more than anything. You could hear the joy in his voice whenever he talked about his kids, Oliver and Claire.
My heart goes out to them, his wife, Allison, and all of his family and close friends. I hope they find comfort in knowing how many lives he touched, how many people respected and admired him, and how deeply he’ll be missed.
RIP, friend. I’ll see you on the flip side, and when I do, you better have a good bowl waiting.
