08/17/2022

District V Chairman

John David Griffin

John David Griffin began his career in 1982 when he went to work for Stout Funeral Homes in Wewoka, OK with his stepdad Jim Fleming. In 1985 he moved to Tulsa, OK and went to work for Ninde Funeral Directors and attended Tulsa Junior College. In the fall of 1987, he began attending Dallas Institute of Funeral Service and graduated in 1988. He was the recipient of the J. Paul Norwood Scholarship from OFDA.  

After becoming licensed John worked for several family-owned firms in Northeast Oklahoma until they were acquired by corporations. That’s when he began is whirlwind career in the corporate world of funeral service.  After 10 years working for corporate firms all over Texas, he found his way back to North Texas and began working for a family-owned funeral home, Jeter and Son Funeral Home. Although it was fast-paced, it still had family-owned service which gave John the ability to reignite his passion for serving families.

After running into a longtime friend, she convinced him to move back to Oklahoma. After returning home he and his future wife purchased the former Spivey-Reser Funeral Home in Healdton, OK. During the extensive remolding and updating John and Laura Black married on December 31, 2017. They opened and began serving families in the Healdton area with their newly remolded funeral home: Laurel Funeral Home.

John says “marrying Laura was absolutely the best thing to ever happen to me in my life!”. He goes on to say “nothing compares to being able to work with someone who shares the same idea of taking care of families”.

John considers these three men to be his mentors: Jim Fleming, John Kennedy, and Dennis Jeter. Each of them taught him different things and each of them had a hand in molding him into the funeral director he is today. He will be forever grateful to them for their tutelage and guidance as they mentored him both personally and professionally.