Jack Powell was a great-great grandson of Charles Journeycake, Chief of Delaware Indians. His rough-and-tumble youth and young adulthood were filled with rodeos, and living fast and hard. He served his country in WWII from July, 1, 1942 to December 30, 1945, in Australia, New Guinea, the Philippines, and Korea as a Tech Sergeant in the 15th Army Air Corps. He loved Australia where he won the 1944 Championship bull riding event during the war. On February 22, 1947 he married the love of his life, Lula Rose (Posey) Frieden. Jack studied engineering at Oklahoma A&M in Stillwater and retired from Phillips Petroleum.