Lasallian Founder's Alumni Award: Distinguished Alumni, Tenille Standaert Brown

November 9, 2023

From the Bishop Kelley Class of 1995.

With a brother who was four years older than her, Tenille Standaert Brown walked into Bishop Kelley’s doors as her brother Jimmy Standaert was graduating from this school. Tenille and Jimmy were raised by their parents in Coweta, having both attended Coweta public schools through the 8th grade. So when Tenille entered Bishop Kelley as a freshman in August of 1991, she literally knew no one except a few of her brother’s teachers. She is grateful that her parents gave her the gift of a Catholic education at Bishop Kelley.


Although she wasn’t from Tulsa, Tenille didn’t let that stop her from becoming a part of the Bishop Kelley community. She tried out for the basketball team and made it. Being on the team helped her to make friends and build her own community.  She fondly remembers home basketball games, road trips on BK buses, and even team practices.  She had never taken a foreign language until she came here and took Latin.


She recalls theology classes and Mass with then Father Dan Mueggenborg who is now Bishop Mueggenborg. While she has been Catholic her entire life, she had never had classroom teaching of the Sacraments and the philosophy of our faith until her time at Bishop Kelley. Tenille recalls her Christian Living class where students had to take a programmed baby for 72 hours. You probably recall those mechanical babies which were programmed to randomly start crying and students had a key on their wrist that they’d used to get the baby to stop crying. If only it were that simple in real life!


She recalls being in the middle of Brother Chris’ class when she learned of the Oklahoma City bombing and the entire class instantly started praying. One of her favorite memories of Bishop Kelley took place the night before she graduated in 1995 as Tenille recalls the beautiful baccalaureate Mass for her senior class.


Tenille was chosen as Bishop Kelley’s distinguished alumni for the 2023-24 school year. She serves as the US General Manager for the Bama Companies. Bama is a privately owned, food manufacturing company based in Tulsa and it produces pies, biscuits, pancakes and pizza dough for the largest restaurant chains in the world. Bama has 900 team members in Tulsa across three manufacturing facilities and one frozen storage facility. 


As General Manager, Tenille’s responsibilities include aligning Bama’s strategic direction with the Operations, People Systems, Business Development, Research and Development, Quality Systems and Food Safety, Supply Chain, and Engineering departments. She works on system view approaches for the long-term success of the company and its members. 


Tenille spent many years leading Bama’s customer group, where her team was responsible for innovation, commercialization, sourcing and pricing, marketing insight, promotional management, and customer service. Her favorite pie is the chocolate cherry cheesecake developed in Bama, Poland and sold throughout Europe. 


After Bishop Kelley, Tenille earned her BBA from the University of Oklahoma and her MBA from the University of Tulsa. Tenille is the proud wife of Jeff Brown and the couple has two sons. Grant is 14 and is a freshman here at Bishop Kelley and Will is 12 and a 7th grader at All Saints Catholic School.


Please welcome Bishop Kelley’s Distinguished Alumni, Tenille Brown.


Lasallian Founder’s Alumni Award

Recognizing the accomplishments of Outstanding Bishop Kelley Alumni who exemplify the five core principles of the Lasallian Mission; Faith in the Presence of God, Quality Education, Concern for the Poor & Social Justice, Respect for All Persons & Inclusive Community.


If you know a deserving BK Alumni, please nominate them here:

https://www.bishopkelley.org/alumni#LasallianFoundersAlumniAwardsNominationForm


August 25, 2025
With over 350 in attendance on April 26, 2025 at Jarboe Hall, the BK community raised just over $312,500 (net) towards purchasing school bus transportation.
July 24, 2025
Outstanding Young Alumni: Sam Littlefield ’10 Sam Littlefield attended Marquette from 1996 - 2006 before attending Bishop Kelley in the fall of 2006. At Bishop Kelley, Sam was President of Student Council his senior year, was also named Mr. Kelley, and was honored with the Bishop’s Medal upon his graduation in 2010. Sam set sail west and attended the University of San Diego from 2010 - 2014. While there, Sam served as President of his fraternity during his junior and senior years. He graduated with a BA in English in 2014. During his senior year, Sam applied to Gallo Winery’s esteemed sales rep academy and out of 5,000 applicants, was one of the 14 selected for this role out of college. He received world class sales training for a year before an opportunity presented itself for Sam to work as an Account Manager at a global digital marketing agency in downtown San Diego. In 2016, Sam moved back home to Tulsa eager to take on a role at Littlefield Agency, which his father, David, started in 1980. Sam has been at Littlefield for almost 9 years—becoming President in 2020 during the pandemic! Sam bought the agency in 2021. His role now is leading the charge on all new business and fostering key client relationships for ongoing accounts while running agency operations day-to-day. Sam has a staff of 24 all-stars…all here in Tulsa. This year, AD AGE, which is a global media industry magazine, named Littlefield as a Best Place to Work—one of the highest national marketing awards you can receive as an agency. Sam was recently elected as the youngest Chairman in MAGNET, which is an international group of over 30 independently owned marketing agencies made up of successful CEOs and Principals throughout the world. Sam met his wife Tara in December of 2016 and they were married in December of 2018 at Christ The King in Tulsa. Tara is a Doctor of Medical Dentistry and she owns and operates Littlefield Dentistry. They have two beautiful children: four-year-old Matthew and two-year-old Veronica.