Singer Patti Page was born Clara Ann Fowler on November 8, 1927, in Claremore, Oklahoma, the daughter of a railroad worker father and cotton picker mother. She later lived in Foraker, Hardy, Muskogee and Avant, Oklahoma, before arriving in Tulsa during her high school years. She graduated from Daniel Webster High School in 1945. She began her career as a singer with Al Clauser and his Oklahoma Outlaws at local radio station KTUL. Then became the featured singer on the 15 minute radio program sponsored by the Page Milk Company, at which time she adopted her stage name, Patti Page. Jack Rael, the band manager for the Jimmy Joy Band, heard her over the air during a performance in 1946 and invited her to join the group. She toured throughout the country over the next year, eventually landing a contract with Mercury Records in 1947.