After graduating from Enid High School, "H" attended Oklahoma State University but a trip to Houston to work on an oil rig in 1959 resulted in a chance meeting with an instructor at the Texas Academy of Art, from which H graduated with an art degree in 1962. He then began his art career in the commercial art field, working in Wichita, Kansas and in Houston, Texas, where he eventually took the position of art director at Horseman Magazine. While working during the day for other folks, "H" began his fine art career at night, painting and sculpting his first love, the West. He was completely self-taught as a sculptor.

“H” had an interest in horses his entire life. He and his cousin Jeff Holden spent several years raising and running quarter horses both in Oklahoma and other states. He continued to have ranch horses for both pleasure and for team roping throughout his life.

After a tour of duty with the Navy during Vietnam aboard the U. S. S. Rainier, "H" ventured out on his own in 1973, to try and make it as a professional fine artist. Commissions from the National Cattlemen’s Association from 1982-1986 helped and collectors began taking notice of his work.

He was known for his attention to detail, and particularly his sculptures of horses. Believing that an artist should know his subject matter, he spent much of his leisure time team roping and staying close to the cowboy way of life.

In 1987 “H” was chosen to sculpt a series of commemorative bronzes to depict the 165-year history of the Cherokee Strip in Oklahoma and Kansas. That same year he completed his first of 25 monuments, “Boomer” for the City of Enid, Oklahoma. The image of Boomer went on to be used on a U. S. Postage Stamp and the symbol of the Cherokee Strip in both Kansas and Oklahoma. Since that first monument 36 years ago H completed 24 additional monuments for placement in Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas and Arkansas, among them, “Oklahoma’s Native Son” at Will Rogers World Airport, “We Will Remember” at Oklahoma State University, “Headin’ to Market” at the OKC Stockyards, which H dedicated to his first grandson Patrick Martin Meyer who died at the age of 4 ½ days, “World Champion” at the OKC Fairgrounds, “Monarch at Rest” at the Oklahoma History Center and “Cherokee Kid” at Rogers State University. He also completed several monuments for universities to assist in their Endowments through the sale of maquettes including the Northwestern Oklahoma State University “Ranger” in Enid and Alva,  the “Broncho” at the University of Central Oklahoma, “Crossing the Red” for the Altus Public School Foundation and “Vision Seeker” for the Altus and Enid Public School Foundations, along with the “Bison Spirit” for Oklahoma Baptist University.  His “U. S. Deputy Marshal Bass Reeves” monument in Ft. Smith was the first equestrian sculpture to be dedicated in Arkansas and his larger-than-life monument of “E. K. Gaylord” stands in the hall of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in OKC. 

In 2007 “H” was diagnosed with a fatal lung disease “Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis” for which there is no known cause or cure. After suffering failing health, in 2009, he closed his studio and got his affairs in order. Wade Burleson, his minister and his church family at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Enid continued to pray for H’s healing and those prayers were answered when in July 2010 he received a lifesaving single lung transplant at the Nazih Zuhdi Transplant Center at Integris Medical Center in Oklahoma City. At that time H was the oldest recipient of a lung transplant at the facility. In gratitude for his second chance at life, a casting of his six-foot monument “Thank You Lord,” graces the garden at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Enid and a second casting stands outside the Emergency Room of the Nazih Zuhdi Transplant Center in Oklahoma City. At the time of his death on December 6, 2023, H was working on a larger-than-life sculpture of a childhood hero, Frank “Pistol Pete” Eaton for the campus of OSU. That piece was completed by his friends and fellow sculptors John Rule and Paul Moore and was dedicated on September 6, 2024, on the campus at Oklahoma State University at the corner of Duck and McElroy.

Other accolades are as follows:

• Received the Lifetime Achievement award from the Oklahoma Sculpture Society in 2000 

• Inducted into the Mountain Oyster Club as a lifetime member in 2000.

• Awarded the Governor’s Art Award from Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating in 2001

• Elected to Professional Membership in the National Sculpture Society in 2004 

• Honored with a Distinguished Alumni Award from Oklahoma State University in 2005

• Invited into membership in the prestigious Cowboy Artists of America organization in 2013, now Emeritus. 

• Won the James Earle Fraser sculpture award at the 2020 Prix de West art show at the National Cowboy Museum for excellence in sculpture.

• Inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame, in 2014, the highest honor the state can bestow on one of its citizens. 

• The first Oklahoma artist to be inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners at the National Cowboy Museum in Oklahoma City, in recognition of his lifelong pursuit of capturing the West through his art in 2017. He received the Wrangler Award, which is a bronze he sculpted.

• Received the Ray Swanson Memorial Award at the 2019 Cowboy Artists of America show in Ft. Worth Texas

• Inducted into the Oklahoma State University Hall of Fame on February 2, 2024 

2023 was a big year with H celebrating his 83rd year of life, his 13th year with a new lung and 50 years as a Professional Fine Artist. He completed a life and one-half size figure of major donor “T. Boone Pickens” for Oklahoma State University in Stillwater OK and a life and one-half size sculpture of “Barry Sanders,” also for Oklahoma State University as well as a three-quarter size Buffalo called “Buffalo Run” for the Town of Waukomis. H created twenty-five different monuments throughout his fifty plus year career.

H and his wife Edna Mae, who is a fourth generation Oklahoman, were married for nearly 35 years. Edna Mae still lives in their home near Kremlin, Oklahoma with a few horses, a longhorn and some rowdy dogs.