Oklahoma Highlights and Stories

For the second year in a row, the American Indian Alaska Native Employees Association (AIANEA) and the Asian Pacific Islander Organization (APIO) held a joint employee training conference. This year’s conference took place in Spokane, Washington, August 11-15, 2008.

P.J. Martin grew up in the western Oklahoma community of Clinton. While he lived in town, he spent his spare time working on his great uncle’s farm, where he helped with wheat farming, stocker and feeder cattle and a cow calf operation.

“Expanding Partnerships for a Thriving Oklahoma” was the theme for the Oklahoma Association of Resource Conservation and Development Council’s (OARCDC) annual state summit. Over 110 partners and council members from across the state attended the event August 10-12 at the Clarion Conference Center in Oklahoma City. 

“You just never know what is going to happen in life, so be prepared.” These were the words of advice Reonna Slagell-Gossen’s parents told her often as she was growing up on their farm north of Weatherford, Oklahoma. They also told her she needed to learn as much as she could, about as many things as she could, so she would be ready for anything.

The Choctaw Nation Event Center was the site for the “Xtreme Ability is Power” Youth Summit 2008. This event, sponsored by the Choctaw Nation, Big Five Community Services, Southern Workforce Board, KEDDO, Southeastern Workforce Board, Chickasaw Nation, Muscogee (Creek) Nation, Citizen Pottawatomi Nation, OK Department of Career Tech, Kiamichi Technology Center, Governor’s State Youth Council, Department of Rehabilitation Services and the OK Department of Commerce, is continuing to grow as youth and young adults from all over the state of Oklahoma flock to this annual event that began in 2007.

The LeFlore and Haskell County Conservation Districts hosted an outreach meeting for Asian and Beginning Poultry Producers on July 15th at the Choctaw Community Center near Spiro. Fifty-two (52) participants attended the meeting. Pooh Vongkhamdy, Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), was moderator and interpreter for the meeting. The topics were designed to cover the basics for a poultry operation to be in compliance with Oklahoma Department of Agriculture regulations and use environmentally sound best management practices, according to Kenneth Risenhoover, NRCS, District Conservationist.

Oil and water do mix. In fact, they are just two of the valuable by-products that can be harvested when Eastern Redcedar trees are removed from rangeland.

Marketing products from cedar trees and the benefits of reclaiming grassland invaded by cedar were among the many topics discussed at the 2-day conference “Eastern Redcedars: From Peril to Profit” held July 8 and 9 in Oklahoma City.

It is officially the “worst of times” in the Oklahoma Panhandle. On June 19, the US Drought Monitor upgraded the situation to its most severe drought rating: “D4 – Exceptional” for Cimarron and Texas Counties.

Despite conditions that are even dryer than the historic Dust Bowl of the 1930s, another catastrophic dust bowl is being averted thanks to conservation practices that have been put in place for the last 70 years.