MEET LORI
Bold Leadership Delivering Results for Tulsa
Councilor Lori Decter Wright is a dedicated, creative and results-oriented leader possessing an entrepreneurial spirit and twenty-five years of experience as a small-business owner and nonprofit executive. She has a gift for building consensus, achieving strategic goals, and collaborating to accomplish successful outcomes. She has a proven track record of being innovative and pragmatic when recognizing opportunities and resolving challenges. She brings her fresh perspective and energetic enthusiasm to Tulsa City Hall as your City Councilor in District 7.
Councilor Decter Wright was elected to her first two-year term on November 6, 2018 and re-elected to a second term on November 10, 2020. Councilor Decter Wright has established herself as a leader who actively listens, creates coalitions, and takes action. She was named Chair of the City Council for 2022 by unanimous vote of her Council colleagues. Councilor Decter Wright also currently chairs the Tulsa City Council's Budget and Special Projects Meetings and serves on the Council's Tribal Relations Committee, the Mayor's Small Budget Working Group, Mayor's Federal Infrastructure Task Force, and the Residential Habitability Working Group. She also represents the City of Tulsa on the Tulsa Performing Arts Center Trust and the Vision Arts Grant Review Committee. She holds regular town hall and constituent meetings in District 7, attends neighborhood meetings, visits regularly with community stakeholders, and represents District 7 and the City of Tulsa at various events across the city, county, state and nation.
In addition to her work as a Tulsa City Councilor, Lori also serves as the Executive Director of Kendall Whittier Incorporated (KWI), a community-based nonprofit organization founded in 1968 that is focused on food insecurity in Tulsa's Kendall Whittier, The Pearl, and Crutchfield neighborhoods. KWI operates the only emergency food pantry in the area that delivers groceries to doors five days a week, 52 weeks a year. KWI also sponsors three organic community gardens. Through her work, Lori has built solid relationships with charitable foundations, corporate sponsors, and individual donors across the city and state. She collaborates with staff and hundreds of volunteers to ensure that thousands of Tulsans in need are fed and nourished. She has an excellent reputation for getting things done and for connecting folks to each other so that they can cooperatively work toward achieving positive outcomes for the people of Tulsa.
Prior to joining Kendall Whittier Incorporated, Lori served as Director of Education and Membership for Sweet Adelines International, a nonprofit association for women founded in Tulsa in 1948 and headquartered in South Tulsa. During her seven years as a member of the Executive Management Team, Lori helped lead the multi-million dollar organization to innovate new methods for delivering education, programming, and member benefits to its 23,000 members world-wide. She also strengthened its youth outreach programs and assisted communities across the globe with empowering young women through music education.
Lori lives in District 7 with her husband, Joseph, and their two children, Libby and Theo in Shadow Ridge Neighborhood where she actively works to improve the quality of life for her neighbors. Lori has organized community and charitable giving events such as pantry food donations, winter coat drives, and collecting furniture to help families in need. Lori also serves on the Board of Directors for Tulsa Opera and is a mentor local youth as they prepare for college as well as for young professionals considering future candidacy for public service.
A Tulsan by choice, Lori has lived here for 14 years, including 11 in District 7. Prior to choosing Tulsa as the place to settle down and raise a family, Lori and her husband were professional opera singers based in the Silicon Valley. Lori is an award winning singer, performing with world-class opera companies and symphonies across the United States and overseas. Tulsa's own excellent cultural offerings were a major factor in the Wrights choosing to build their lives here rather than other cities in the region. In recent years, she has returned to the stage as a hobby, directing local musical theatre productions, performing around town, and singing the National Anthem for local events. Joseph now works as an Oncology Nurse at St. Francis Hospital. The Wrights are members of College Hill Presbyterian Church and Lori regularly shares her musical gifts with the congregation as well as will other local churches and community performance groups.


