David Lyle Boren (February 21, 1941–February 20, 2025) was an American politician and academic from Oklahoma. Born in Washington, D.C., to former U.S. Representative Lyle Hagler Boren and Christine McKown Boren, he was a member of the prominent Boren political family and first cousin of singer-songwriter Hoyt Axton. He attended public schools in Seminole, Oklahoma, and Bethesda, Maryland. Boren earned a BA in American history from Yale University in 1963 (top 1% of class, Phi Beta Kappa, president of Yale Political Union, Skull and Bones), an MPhil in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from Balliol College, Oxford in 1965 as a Rhodes Scholar, and a JD from the University of Oklahoma College of Law in 1968. He served in the U.S. Army Oklahoma National Guard from 1963 to 1974, attaining the rank of Captain and commanding the 2120th Supply & Service Company in Wewoka, Oklahoma. Politically, Boren served four terms in the Oklahoma House of Representatives (1967–1974) and was elected the youngest Oklahoma governor at age 33 (1975–1979), where he implemented reforms including agency eliminations, tax reductions, prison improvements, and advocacy for natural gas deregulation. He then served as a Democratic U.S. Senator from Oklahoma (1979–1994), known as a conservative Democrat; he was the longest-serving chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (1987–1993), sponsored the National Security Education Act (1991), voted for Robert Bork's Supreme Court nomination (one of two Democrats), opposed the Persian Gulf War and windfall profits tax, and co-sponsored the JFK Records Act. Later, he co-chaired the President's Intelligence Advisory Board (2009–2013) under President Obama. In academia, Boren served as president of the University of Oklahoma (1994–2018), the second-longest tenure in that role, where he also taught political science (2017 salary: $383,852); he chaired the Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence (founded 1982) and served on the boards of Texas Instruments and AMR Corporation (parent of American Airlines). Boren faced controversies, including a 1978 Senate campaign accusation of homosexuality by opponent Anthony Points, which he denied under oath on a family Bible; in 2015, as OU president, he expelled students and closed the Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter over a racist chant; and in 2019, he was accused of sexual misconduct (inappropriate touching and kissing) by former OU student Jess Eddy during 2010 fundraising events—a Jones Day investigation found the allegations 'generally credible,' though an OSBI probe (2019–2020) resulted in no charges, Boren denied the claims via his attorney, and the matter related to his successor Jim Gallogly's resignation. He died at age 83 from diabetes complications at his home near Newcastle, Oklahoma, and was buried in Seminole.