Gareld Glen Higgins passed from this life Tuesday, June 10, 2025. He was 85. A visitation with family greeting friends will be 4-6:00 p.m. Sunday, June 15, 2025 at Strode Funeral Home. Funeral services will begin at 10:00 a.m. Monday, June 16, 2025 at Lost Creek United Methodist Church with Reverend Michael Carpenter and sons-in-law Aaron Box and Andrew Homburg officiating. Interment will follow in Paradise Cemetery. Strode Funeral Home and Cremation is in charge of the arrangements.

A come-and-go celebration of life will be 3-7:00 p.m. Tuesday, June 17, 2025 at Shortcakes Diner, 219 N Main, Stillwater.

Glen lived a full life that began January 29, 1940 as one of nine children on a rural farm. Glen's parents were Floyd Jasper and Eva Viola Majors Higgins. Glen graduated from Coyle High School and was a star basketball player. He carried his basketball passion with him throughout his life and could be found in gyms literally across the country as he watched his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren play and rooted on the Cowboys and Thunder.

Glen married a high school sweetheart, Sharon Kaye Nivens on September 2, 1960 at Coyle Methodist Church. To this union, three children were born: Scott, Todd and Tara. As cultural norms of success go, all three are wildly successful. Scott is a proud veteran of the US Army and father of three. Todd is a retired attorney who was a fantastic basketball player in his day. And Tara, a collegiate athlete, has gone on to have three children while competing in bodybuilding competitions, marathons and ultra-marathons.

Glen earned a degree from Oklahoma State University and moved to Lawton to work for Public Service Company Oklahoma. Later, he moved to North Carolina and worked in sales and eventually, he made his way back to Payne County. While he never strayed far from his agriculture roots, Glen found his calling serving others when, while a customer at Shortcakes Diner, he found the owner passed out from exhaustion at a table and began filling coffee cups while she rested. A schoolteacher once told Glen he'd never make it past washing dishes and may have been right. Glen, along with his wife Gayla, owned and operated Shortcakes Diner for over forty years and Glen washed more than his share of dishes along the way.

After finding Gayla exhausted in the diner, Glen and Gayla Birmingham married on September 13, 1988. Gayla brought three children of her own to the marriage, Jeff, Kristina and Charley. Glen stepped into the role of stepfather and adopted Charley as his own. The pair began operating Shortcakes together and did so through Glen's passing. Glen supported the successes of Jeff, a local small business owner and Charles Machine Works employee. Kristina has been a long-time face of the family business. And Charley is following in the family footsteps by operating The AC Cafe and other small businesses.

Glen has made many, many lifelong friends at Shortcakes and has been a friend and more for employees, regulars, college students and anyone and everyone who walked through his doors. While we almost always talk about working successes, Glen's biggest successes came through the relationships he formed in his life. He was truly a character and never missed an opportunity to make a joke or tell a story. In recent years he could be found sitting at his regular chair at the counter swapping yarns with regulars. He might be found sitting in the chair inside the family event center kitchen reading a Louis L'amour novel while waiting to wash dishes and mop the floor following an event. Sometimes, he did get away and spend time with God alone in his pickup while watching his cows, or while watching his Red Dog bite a limb while driving and get sucked out the window.

Glen found humor in many everyday experiences and continually banked up stories to retell. Perhaps his most endearing attribute however was his penchant for giving second chances. No matter if it was an orphaned calf or family of possums, a puppy no one else wanted, a baby coyote or deer, a baby skunk he found in the barn, a bird with a broken wing, an overly anxious pig in the show barn, a child who'd wandered away from home and found the highway, a girl whose dad failed to show up on her birthday, a drunk college kid or a recovering addict, Glen could not help but offer himself to them. He never gave up on those that needed his help, and he created that enduring culture for his family.

Glen is survived by his wife Gayla; sons Scott and wife Tonya Higgins of Cement; Todd and wife Stacy Higgins of Stillwater; Jeff and wife Deana Atwood of Stillwater; daughters Tara (Andrew) of Rogersville, Missouri; Kristina Patterson of Stillwater; Charley and husband Aaron Box of Perkins. He is also survived by his brother Kenneth Higgins of Guthrie; eighteen grandchildren, nine great-grandchildren and a host of his children's, grandchildren and great-grand-children's adopted family members.

In lieu of customary remembrances, memorial contributions can be made in Glen's name to the Coyle School Foundation LLC, PO Box 122, Coyle, OK, 73027 or the local charity of your choice.