The Most Important Office

Plus, TinyLetter, a newsletter update, and little Oklahoma history.

Photo by MChe Lee on Unsplash

The Oklahoma State Elections Board is taking candidate applications for the most important office you can run for: a seat on your local school board. Candidate filing at your local county elections board is from Monday, December 4, 2023, to Wednesday, December 6, 2023. They’re also taking applications for U.S. President at the Oklahoma State Capitol, but that’s much less important. All politics is local. If you want to improve the educational prospects of the children in your community, put a stop to political extremism, and actually make a difference, run for school board.

Unfortunately, many of you won’t read this newsletter until after Wednesday. So, trying to convince you to run for school board now is probably not ideal. I apologize for the timing of this. Still, I thought it was important enough to mention it. The next opportunity for you to file for federal, state, or county office is April 3-5, 2024.

If you’re interested or know of someone who might be interested in running for office, please visit the Oklahoma State Elections Board for all the details.

As a small reminder, I regularly share Oklahoma election deadlines on Blog Oklahoma’s Mastodon, Threads, and in our Calendar, all of which you are very welcome to follow.

TinyLetter

Intuit has announced they are shutting down TinyLetter on February 29, 2024. It’s always a shame to hear that a good service is being closed. I originally started this newsletter on TinyLetter back in 2021. It was a good and simple to use newsletter service. My only issue with it was it wasn’t very feature rich. So, I moved the newsletter over to Revue in 2022. Little did I know a few months later some rich ketamine addict would purchase Revue’s parent company and kill the service. So now the newsletter is on Substack. I’m happy at Substack, so no complaints. (I still miss Revue’s editors, though). To all the staff at TinyLetter, thank you for all the great work you did. I wish you well in your future endeavors.

Newsletter Update

Just to be ahead of things for once. Ha! There will be another two-week newsletter break coming up at the end of this month for Christmas and New Year’s Day. Hopefully, my timing on topics will be better this time. Sorry about that again.

In The News

A look at some of the latest headlines from around Oklahoma and beyond.

• Candidate Filing Begins Monday (Dec. 4) for Presidential Preferential Primary | Oklahoma State Elections Board

• Oklahoma fundraising campaign hopes to wipe out over $76,000 in school lunch debt | Oklahoma Voice

• Unpaid tolls prevent thousands of Oklahomans from renewing vehicle registrations | Public Radio Tulsa

• Enid recall election gains enough signatures to proceed | KFOR

• Group calls for Ryan Walters to resign over Oklahoma school prayer dispute | The Oklahoman

• Great Plains weather experts want to talk about climate change, but they face pushback and threats | KOSU

• Some Californians leaving for Texas could be replaced by Texans leaving for California  | The Hill

• New VNN program to train underserved community members in citizen journalism | Verified News Network

• An important update about the future of TinyLetter | Mailchimp

In Oklahoma History

The Daily Oklahoman, staff photo taken 2/9/1938

Oil was discovered in Oklahoma City on December 4, 1928. The discovery led to the emergence of oil wells throughout the city, including on the south lawn of the capitol building. Oklahoma City experienced rapid growth due to the sudden influx of oil money.

More:

• Oklahoma City Discovery Well | Wikipedia

• History of Oklahoma City | Wikipedia

• Oklahoma City | The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture

• Oklahoma City Field | The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture

• Indian Territory Illuminating Oil Company | The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture

About Oklahoma: Cherokee County

Cherokee County, Oklahoma

Welcome to Cherokee County.

Cherokee County is in the lower northeastern part of the state and was formed at statehood from the Tahlequah District of the Cherokee Nation. The county was named after the Cherokee Nation.

Tahlequah, Oklahoma, in the center of the county at the intersection of U.S. Highway 62, State Highway 51, and State Highway 82, is the county seat, the county’s largest city, home to Northeastern State University, and the capital of the Cherokee Nation.

Other notable communities include Hulbert and parts of Fort Gibson in the western, Grandview, Peggs, and parts of Oaks in the northern, and Park Hill and Cookson in the southern parts of the county.

Cherokee County lies in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains and is home to Sequoyah State Park, Fort Gibson Lake, Cherokee Landing State Park, Tenkiller Lake, and the Cherokee National History Museum.

• Established: 1907

• County Seat: Tahlequah, Oklahoma 74464

• Nation: Cherokee

• Map: Google Maps

• Area: 776 mi² (2,010 km²)

• Population: 47,078 (2020 Census)

• Time Zone: UTC−6 (Central), DST observed

• Area Code: 918

• Congressional District: 2

• State House District: 4, 14, 86

• State Senate District: 3, 4, 9

• Weather: NWS Tulsa

• Tourism Region: Green Country

• History: Oklahoma Historical Society

• Historic Places: Exploring Oklahoma History

• More Information: Wikipedia

Extras

Here are some more things I hope you'll find interesting.

Why use many streetlights when one will do? | Tom Scott

The Weird History of Giving Gifts at Your 1700s Funeral | Abby Cox

Henry Ford vs Karl Marx. Epic Rap Battles Of History | ERB

Plagiarism and You(Tube) | hbomberguy

I Fact-Checked The Worst Video Essayist On YouTube | Todd in the Shadows

Blog Oklahoma Bonus Playlist on Spotify

Feedback Welcome

If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to leave a comment on Substrack, email me at blogoklahoma@blogoklahoma.net, or connect with me at Mastodon at @blogoklahoma@social.tulsa.ok.us or Threads at @blogoklahoma@threads.net.

Have a great week.

– K.