April Vaughn
BROKER SPOTLIGHT
STORY BY LALEY FREEMAN | PHOTOS BY GREEN COUNTRY REAL ESTATE PHOTOGRAPHY
A COUNTRY GIRL AT HEART
While she is a fierce and highly successful businesswoman, April Vaughn is a country girl at heart. It was in the small town of Westville, OK, that she was able to nurture her natural curiosity about entrepreneurialism. Whether she was selling candy on the bus with her best friend, Amber, or she was running her very own lawn care business, she was always headed straight toward self-employment.
Today, as managing broker of CENTURY 21® First Choice Realty’s Tulsa Branch Office, she feels very humbled to be where she is, both in her career and in her life. “I’ve worked hard to get to where I am today, and I will continue to do so for the next 30-plus years, Lord willing,” she told us.
A YEAR OF CELEBRATIONS
April had an established career in association management and a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Northeastern State University when she began working as a REALTOR® at the CENTURY 21® First Choice Realty Coweta Branch Office in 2013. After receiving encouragement from a family friend, Steve Clinkenbeard, April felt empowered to see what this opportunity could hold.
As is the case for many, April began her career in real estate as a part-time REALTOR®. Although it was initially a way to make supplemental income, it was apparent very early on that there was stopping her new career path. She quickly became a top producing agent at CENTURY 21®, a title she continues to claim year after year. “Becoming a REALTOR® has been the best professional decision of my life! My career has soared to heights I didn’t anticipate, and I'm so grateful and thankful to each and every client along the way who has placed their trust in me.” April reflected.
After joining the CENTURY 21® team, she knew she had found her ‘home’ in real estate and had dreams of, one day, opening her very own CENTURY 21® branch in Tulsa. “The brand used to have a huge presence in Tulsa years ago but hasn’t had an office in operation here since 2009,” she told us.
In June 2020, April officially opened the CENTURY 21® Tulsa Branch Office at a temporary location on 71st and Yale while construction on their new office building was being completed. While COVID-19 delayed the project slightly, she was excited to open the doors of the permanent branch office in August 2021. “Our grand opening celebration and ribbon cutting took place on November 18, 2021. It couldn’t have come at a better time,” she said, “because 2021 marks the 50th anniversary for CENTURY 21® corporate! It has been a year of celebrations all around!”
EXPONENTIAL GROWTH
While in their temporary location, the Tulsa office grew exponentially. “Within one year of our open date, we had organically onboarded 18 agents,” April told us. She is now actively recruiting agents to the team at the permanent office.
CENTURY 21®’s mission is to ‘defy mediocrity and deliver extraordinary experiences,’ which influences April’s goal to adopt the brand’s culture of collaboration. “I want our approach to be completely different. I want to shift away from transactional and, instead, become experiential and transform each client’s real estate journey into an experience that they’ll remember for years to come,” she said.
A PHILANTHROPIC SPIRIT
Whether it is in real estate or in her personal life, it is important to April to always find a way to help. She served on the board of directors for the Coweta Chamber of Commerce for many years in an effort to help the community in which she and her family are residents. Additionally, she is now a member of the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce and looks forward to future involvement.
Supporting children’s fundraisers is another way that April enjoys giving back to her community. “I’m a sucker for kids selling things: cookie dough for band, cookies for Girl Scouts, raffle tickets for soccer club. If a kiddo comes to my door and gives me a sales pitch, I’ll buy every single time,” she said.
WELCOMING HARLAN
Becoming a top producing agent and a managing broker has not come without a significant amount of hard work, so it comes as no surprise that balancing work and life has proven to be a struggle at times.
“During my first few years in real estate, my philosophy was to take advantage of the business now because you never knew what the next year would hold. I had fire behind me and always had goals to achieve. Each year as my business develops and grows, that fire still remains but my goals have changed and expanded more than I could have imagined.”
In October 2020, April and her husband, Cheston, welcomed their son, Harlan, which has added a level of sweetness to life that they have never experienced before. “Our hearts have grown, and it’s been the most colorful and joyful year! They say having children changes you, and we can personally attest to that! My son has brought balance to my world that I desperately needed … but never realized I needed,” she said.
While real estate can be difficult due to the many evenings and weekends that are spent with clients rather than family and friends, April is thankful for the flexibility that this career has allowed her to have.
“My new philosophy is to make an active effort to be fully present in each moment I’m in, to schedule more personal time into my calendar, and to form working relationships with others who are like-minded. At the end of the day, we are all just people. We all have families and obligations. Having a mentality of collaboration and teamwork seems to help me keep everything in balance, and adding in a healthy dose of empathy doesn’t hurt either.”
APRIL VAUGHN
April gives an enormous amount of credit to the influential people in her life for the woman she is today. “I’ve had very strong female role models in my life; my mom, my grandmothers, my best girlfriends, my previous bosses … and, of course, Reba and Dolly!” Her husband, her father, and her biggest mentor, Steve Clinkenbeard, are also among the list of those who have impacted her life tremendously.
April and Cheston have enjoyed life together for the past 12 years, officially getting married in 2016 and welcoming their son, Harlan Hank, in 2020. Together, they love spending time on the lake, traveling, and relaxing at home with their son and their red heeler, Ginger. The Vaughn’s own five acres in Coweta where April is able to escape the city and embrace her country girl heart.
