Are you ready to vote in 14 days?
6 governors taking questions from 2 journalists in Tulsa on Tuesday night: Republican gubernatorial candidates Gentner Drummond, Leisa Mitchell Haynes, Chip Keating, Charles A. McCall and Jake Merrick, and Democrat Cyndi Munson will face questions from Oklahoma Watch’s Paul Monies and the Tulsa World’s Randy Krehbiel in a forum sponsored by the Tulsa Press Club, The University of Tulsa’s Office of Civic Engagement and Oklahoma Watch.
On Thursday in another forum, Republican superintendent candidates Robert Franklin and Adam Pugh will answer questions from Oklahoma Watch’s Andrea Eger and the Tulsa Flyer’s Ginnie Graham. Learn more.
Catch up or watch last week’s NonDoc debate
NonDoc’s Tristan Loveless with this report from a debate in Lawton with four of the GOP candidates.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Mike Mazzei’s campaign paid $75,000 to companies owned by close associates of President Donald Trump in the months leading to Trump’s endorsement of Mazzei last week, state Ethics Commission records show in this story by the Tulsa World’s Randy Krehbiel.
Here are links to all the election guides from local news sources in one place to get ready for the June 16 primary election:
Oklahoma Voice: The staff offers two guides, one that is office specific and the other with story coverage.
KOSU: All of their coverage in one place.
The Oklahoman: Links to coverage and answers to FAQs.
Tulsa World: Reporters Randy Krehbiel, Lenzy Krehbiel-Burton and Steve Metzer offer insights on each candidate.
Tulsa Flyer: Coverage from multiple sources plus the form to get an absentee ballot.
NonDoc: The most in-depth of any news source so far with stories.
Notable numbers
1,443
The number of homeless individuals in Tulsa County, according to the annual Point in Time count. It’s the first time in a decade the area’s homeless count has held steady year over year, according to a story by the Tulsa World’s Kevin Canfield and Esther Hodson.
814
The number of gun deaths reported in Oklahoma in 2023, the latest year available. It’s a 27% increase from 2014. Most of those were self-inflicted.
40%
The drop in reading for pleasure from 2003 to 2023, according to a study in iScience, a research journal. A National Assessment of Educational Progress report says 13-year-olds reading for fun almost every day is down to the lowest level since tracking began in 1984.
Quotable quotes
“I applaud Mayor Monroe Nichols, who inherited the crime scene that was the site of the most emergency 911 calls in the entire city (1400 emergency 911 calls over 3 years).”
– Downtown Tulsa business owner Stuart Price about the plan to possibly sell the current site and relocate Tulsa’s downtown bus station. Tulsa World reporter Kevin Canfield and photographer Esther Hobson with the story, which also mentions the infamous boulders on the sidewalk are also being removed.
“I rationalized placing those bets as a way to feel more connected to the team, to root for my friends, and to feel like I had a real ‘stake’ in the games that I otherwise was not involved in.”
– Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby in the affidavit connected to his case against the NCAA to be reinstated after he said he bet on Indiana, a team he was on at the time.
“We can pass laws, mandate screeners, and retain students, but if teachers are not deeply trained in how reading develops, how to teach phonological awareness, how to diagnose reading difficulties, and how to intervene effectively, the legislation will not produce the results people are hoping for.”
– Mandy Shimp, the Title I reading specialist for third and fourth grade at Jenks East Elementary School, in an Oklahoma Watch story by Andrea Eger about the efforts to make a dramatic turnaround in student literacy rates to rival the so-called Mississippi Miracle.
“TPS should pursue school closures or consolidations as part of its budget solution.”
– An internal central office staffing report written by Baker Tilly, the third-party firm Tulsa Public Schools hired in July for a staffing analysis. The Tulsa Flyer obtained the document through a records request. Anna Colletto has the story.
“I know the tallest woman and the shortest man. I know the fingernail people, so nothing is strange to me.”
– Michael Empric, one of 69 Guinness Book of World Records adjudicators worldwide, to the Tulsa Flyer’s Ginnie Graham. He awarded Tulsa the world record for longest classic car parade during the Route 66 Capital Cruise in Tulsa.
“ … Happiness isn’t about getting rid of your negative emotions. That’s toxic positivity. Happiness, according to social scientists, has a second component, which is this idea of being happy with your life. You have a sense of meaning. You have a sense of purpose. It feels good to be you because of how you think it’s going. This is the cognitive part of happiness.”
– Laurie Santos, a cognitive scientist and professor whose class on happiness is the most popular in Yale’s history.
“We have our coaches eat with different members of our roster twice a week. That way, our defensive line coaches are sitting down with running backs, and our offensive line coaches eat with the defensive backs. People who really aren’t spending a lot of time together have breakfast together.”
– Oklahoma State University new football coach Eric Morris on his “The Breakfast Club,” which he started this offseason to help a roster of mostly strangers get to know each other, in a story in State Magazine.
Why I curate small delights by Dee Harris
Welcome to my office. I work remotely and on virtual calls, people sometimes mention the books in my background. Fiction. Children’s literature. Vintage. Current curiosities. They don’t usually ask about what’s tucked between the books, on full display, or quietly living in the corners. They don’t know I call these my small delights. I invite you to look closer.
A stuffed Corgi in a unicorn costume, a real Corgi, or both? A top hat perched at the top of a wooden bookcase waiting for the right meeting, or the right magician? A Jiminy Cricket figure, or the small persistent voice that says you can become more than what others see? One piece of tile from a Portugal mosaic. A small piece of the full picture.
My mother’s bugle lives here too. My father bought it so she could call her children home from wherever we’d wandered. For me, it was summer evenings from the edges of the neighborhood creek. She would play Reveille and I’d come running. She’s almost 99 now and still plays it from time to time. Pure joy.
And then there is Snoopy. On shelves. On my desk. In LIFE magazine. Here is a beagle who lives in his own imagination and never apologizes for it. Who notices the changing seasons, a friend’s sadness, the first snow. Who finds joy in ordinary things and never stops playing, even when the world gets serious. Especially when the world gets serious. And my latest addition? The Banksy-style painting dear colleagues gave me when I shifted into the next chapter of work. Bold white strokes, outside the lines. An artist playing.
From this office, I’m grateful my work takes me into rooms I could only have imagined a few years ago. Think tanks. Global spaces. International coalitions advocating that human creativity and knowledge remain accessible and that the people who make it have a say in how it is shared and reused.
But I also carry quieter work here. The kind that isn’t about what I do, but who I am. What allows a person to remain the author of their own creative life inside systems that quietly eliminate the conditions where curiosity and creativity grow? Creative sovereignty. It is harder to protect than it sounds not because the threat is dramatic, but because it arrives gradually, disguised as convenience. And I ask this question because I sometimes feel the slow drift in myself. Away from imagination. From wonder. From creative confidence.
My small delights call me back. They are my Reveille when the path gets foggy and I need to remember that imagination is not naive. That wonder is not weakness. That a Corgi carries fairies. That a beagle can be a World War I flying ace. This is why I curate small delights.
Tulsan Dee Harris is the director of open culture storytelling at Creative Commons, an international nonprofit organization dedicated to helping build and sustain a thriving commons of shared knowledge and culture.
If you want to give me the why behind something you do, email me at jc@jasoncollington.com.
Thank you for continuing to forward the email newsletter and sharing these stories in this movement toward truth and understanding in Tulsa, Oklahoma. There is no cavalry. It’s up to us.
All together now. jc
Collington Index 