OKLAHOMA CITY - Bill P. "Beep" Jennings, the former chairman of Penn Square Bank before its collapse in the early 1980s, died Thursday at his home at the age of 79 after a brief illness.
Mr. Jennings, a fixture of the Oklahoma City business community, was perhaps best known for his role as the chairman of Penn Square, which regulators shut down in 1982 because of bad loans to the oil and gas industry. The failure heralded the end of the oil boom in the region.
Last summer Mr. Jennings told an Oklahoma newspaper that the day the bank closed was "the worst" day of his life but that he had learned to move on.
"Life is good," he said in June, according to a recount of the interview on NewsOK.com, the Internet news site managed by The Oklahoman and the television station KWTV.
