On April 9, 2026, the Oklahoma Funeral Board met at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Oklahoma City. The agenda included routine business. License renewals. Apprenticeship approvals. A list of establishments requesting closures and new licenses.
Brent Matherly, the board's president, made a motion to approve a batch of establishment changes. John Davenport seconded it. The motion passed unanimously.
Among the approvals: Palmer Marler Funeral Home in Cushing, Oklahoma, would close. A new establishment called PLC-OK Assets, LLC would take its place. The entity was organized in Delaware. The new funeral director in charge was Dustin Nugent. The same transfer happened for Palmer Marler's locations in Oilton and Perkins.
Palmer Marler was one of the properties Davenport had sold to Park Lawn Corporation four months earlier.
The minutes show no recusal. They show no disclosure. They show Davenport voting - as he had on every other item that day - to transfer the licenses of funeral homes he had owned and sold to a Canadian publicly traded company.
Who votes on Oklahoma funeral homes
The Oklahoma Funeral Board regulates every funeral establishment, crematory, and funeral director in the state. It approves licenses. It investigates complaints. It disciplines licensees. It can fine, suspend, or revoke the right to operate.
The board has seven members, all appointed by the governor. Oklahoma statute requires that members be nominated from a list provided by the Oklahoma Funeral Directors Association, a private trade group. The result is a board composed entirely of funeral industry insiders.
Governor Kevin Stitt appointed John Davenport to the board in 2023. His term expires July 1, 2027.
Davenport's LinkedIn profile describes him as "Owner/Partner/Vice President of Sales" at Service Group of Oklahoma. The Tribute Memorial Care website, one of SGOK's brands, still lists him as "Partner | Memorial Care Specialist | Licensed Funeral Director."
In December 2025, Park Lawn Corporation announced it had acquired Service Group of Oklahoma. The press release named Davenport and his partner Chad Vice personally. Park Lawn CEO Andrew Clark said: "We are pleased to welcome Chad Vice, John Davenport and the entire SGOK team to Park Lawn."
Davenport sold his businesses to a Toronto Stock Exchange company. He remained on the board that regulates those businesses.
The recusal pattern
The board's own records show it knew about Davenport's conflicts. The meeting minutes document a pattern of recusals stretching back years.
In October 2023, the board packet noted that "Member Davenport needs to be recused" from Complaint 23-70, involving Turner Funeral Home in Geary.
In March 2025, the packet required Davenport's recusal from five separate complaints - 24-46, 24-49, 25-10, 25-15, and 25-19 - all involving Hopkins Funeral Service LLC and Hopkins-Reynolds in Collinsville.
The June 2026 packet shows the same pattern continuing. Complaint 25-13 and Complaint 25-42, both involving Pollard Funeral Home in Oklahoma City, required "Member Davenport needs to be recused."
The board documented these conflicts. The recusals appear in the minutes. Davenport left the room when those cases came up.
But when the license transfers for his own former properties came before the board, the minutes show no recusal. They show him seconding the motion.
The April 9 vote
The establishment changes Davenport voted to approve on April 9 included a batch of closures and new licenses. Most were routine. Palmer-Marler's three locations were interspersed among them.
The motion covered:
- Palmer Marler Funeral Home, Cushing - close establishment
- Palmer Marler Funeral Home, Cushing - new establishment, PLC-OK Assets, LLC, Delaware, owner Dustin Nugent
- Palmer Marler Funeral Home, Oilton - close establishment
- Palmer Marler Funeral Home, Oilton - new establishment, PLC-OK Assets, LLC, Delaware, owner Dustin Nugent
- Palmer Marler Funeral Home, Perkins - close establishment
- Palmer Marler Funeral Home, Perkins - new establishment, PLC-OK Assets, LLC, Delaware, owner Dustin Nugent
It also included:
- Chace Family Crematory, Stillwater - close crematory (associated with Strode Funeral Home, another Park Lawn acquisition)
The same motion approved apprenticeship applications at several other establishments. The board handled disciplinary complaints from other cases. Business proceeded normally.
Davenport voted on all of it.
Park Lawn used a Delaware limited liability company to hold the Oklahoma funeral home licenses. PLC-OK Assets, LLC is registered in Delaware, a state that does not require disclosure of LLC ownership. The entity name matches Park Lawn's Toronto Stock Exchange ticker: PLC.
What else was happening while the board voted
The April 2026 meeting took place against a backdrop of legal and political turmoil surrounding the Oklahoma Funeral Board.
On February 4, 2026, the Institute for Justice filed a lawsuit in Oklahoma state court against the board and all its members, including Davenport. The case, Caskets of Honor, LLC v. Oklahoma Funeral Board, challenges Oklahoma's law requiring anyone who sells caskets to hold a funeral director's license.
The plaintiffs are Candice Mentink and Todd Collard, who run Caskets of Honor from Calvin, Oklahoma. They sell affordable, custom-wrapped caskets. They displayed their products at the Oklahoma State Fair. The funeral board fined them $4,000 and conducted a sting operation against them.
The Institute for Justice's petition describes the board as "composed primarily of licensed members of the regulated industry" and calls the licensure requirements "a cartel for the sale of caskets within Oklahoma."
This is the second time the Institute for Justice has sued the Oklahoma Funeral Board over the same issue. In 2002, they filed Powers v. Harris, challenging the casket-selling restrictions under the U.S. Constitution. The Tenth Circuit ruled against them in 2004, holding that economic protectionism qualifies as a "legitimate government purpose." The Supreme Court declined to hear the case.
IJ is back, this time under the Oklahoma Constitution.
The board itself nearly ceased to exist. In May 2025, Governor Stitt vetoed House Bill 1029, the bill that would have renewed the board's authority to operate. The Oklahoma legislature overrode his veto on May 27, 2025, keeping the board alive for another four years.
The governor who appointed Davenport wanted to dissolve the board Davenport sits on. The legislature overrode the veto. Five months later, Davenport sold his businesses to a Canadian corporation. Four months after that, he voted on the license transfers.
The regulatory structure
Oklahoma's Funeral Services Licensing Act gives the board broad authority over who may operate a funeral home in the state. The governor appoints board members from a list supplied by the Oklahoma Funeral Directors Association. Oklahoma statute section 396.3 specifies that the board must include licensed funeral directors and embalmers.
The board disciplines its own industry. It sets licensing requirements. It enforces the rule that only licensed funeral directors may sell caskets - the rule at the center of the Institute for Justice lawsuit.
In practical terms, Davenport occupied a position where he regulated his competitors and voted on the transfer of his own properties. The recusal record suggests the board recognized conflicts in disciplinary cases. The same record shows no recognition of conflict when the vote involved properties the board member had just sold.
What the records show and what they do not
The Oklahoma Funeral Board makes its meeting packets available as public PDFs on oklahoma.gov. The packets include agendas, minutes from prior meetings, complaint dockets, and disciplinary actions.
What the packets show:
- Davenport's appointment in 2023
- His recusals from complaints involving connected properties (2023 through 2026)
- His vote on April 9, 2026, to approve license transfers for Palmer Marler Funeral Home locations to PLC-OK Assets, LLC
- His continued service on the board through at least June 2026
What the packets do not show:
- Any disclosure by Davenport of the Park Lawn acquisition
- Any recusal from matters involving Park Lawn properties after the December 2025 sale
- Any board discussion of the conflict presented by a member voting on properties he recently sold
The board's next meeting was scheduled for a date after this reporting. The June 2026 packet, the most recent available, shows Davenport present and voting.
Who owns the homes now
The 13 Oklahoma funeral homes Park Lawn acquired between December 2025 and June 2026 now operate under local names. Strode Funeral Home still says Strode. Palmer Marler still says Palmer Marler. Vondel Smith still says Vondel Smith. The Tribute Memorial Care locations still say Tribute Memorial Care.
The licenses belong to PLC-OK Assets, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company. The public cannot determine who owns that entity by searching Oklahoma records, because it is registered in Delaware.
Park Lawn Corporation trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker PLC. Its investor relations page states: "Although PLC is a progressive story of growth, we do not consider ourselves to be a consolidator but, rather, an operating company whose culture resembles strong, independent, family-run businesses."
The Oklahoma Funeral Board member who voted to approve the license transfers is listed as a "Partner" at one of those businesses. His term on the board expires in 2027.
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