In Brief

Rattler foundnear Okarche

WARNING: Ratt le -snakes are moving east-ward.

Charlie Will iamson, Okarche cattleman, found a prairie rattler about two feet long lying along a county road some three miles south of Okarche and about 100 yards west of U.S. 81 Tues-day afternoon.

Williamson was en route to feed some cattle when he passed the snake. He drove past it at first but the shape of the snake’s head caused him to back up to look again.

Closer examination re-vealed the snake was a rattlesnake.

Williamson chopped off the snake’s head.

“I was shocked,” Wil-liamson said. “You find these snakes farther west in the state.”

People need to be aware that these snakes are around, especially if they are walk-ing around in the country-side, he commented.

Rattlers are a venomous snake and anyone who gets bitten needs to get to a doctor quickly, Williamson advised.

Although the snake Wil-liamson found was in Ca-nadian County it was on a north-side line that would intersect the municipalities of Okarche, Dover, Hen-nessey and Kingfisher

16 Pages

WednesdayMay 4, 2016

No. 5 of the 128th Year

Fifty Cents Kingfisher, Kingfisher County, Oklahoma USPS No. 295-420

Dr. Barry Whitworth, Oklahoma State Universi-ty Extension veterinarian, explained the new federal Food and Drug Adminis-tration Vet Feed Directive (VFDS) to county stockmen recently.

A VFD is a written state-ment issued by a licensed veterinarian that authorizes the use of a VFD drug in or on animal feed.

The regulation goes into effect Jan. 1, 2017, and applies to all livestock pro-ducers that use any feed that has one or more of the drugs listed by the FDA as needing a VFD.

Examples listed include Chlortretracycline, Tylan, Aureomycin, Terramycin, Tylosin, V-Max, Lincomax, Rofenaid and Hygromix.

The VFD is authorized under the Animal Drug Availability Act (AADA) of 1996.

Prior to this rule all drugs for animals were classified by the FDA as over-the-counter or prescription drugs.

VFD are not prescription drugs and not governed by state pharmacy laws, unlike prescription drugs.

Until now, only a select few drugs have been desig-nated VFD drugs. On June 3, 2015, the FDA released a final version of the animal drug regulation for the VFD drugs.

The revised rule will change all OTC feed grade antimicrobials that are im-

Vet directiveexplained

[See Building Page 9]

BUILDING TOUR – Head football coach Jeff Myers led a tour of the new multipurpose building Monday night following the school board meeting. Above, the group checks out the weight room, from left, Mike Copeland, David Diesselhorst, Mark Squires, Dana Golbek, Times and Free Press editor Christine Reid, Supt. Jason Sternberger, Carly Franks and My-ers. At left is the equipment room, which features an industri-al washer and dryers. [Photos Courtesy A.J. Johnson/KHS Photography]

Board tours new multipurpose buildingJune stillexpectedopening

Kingfisher High School’s head football coach Jeff Myers told school board members Monday night that he is determined that the new nearly 20,000 square foot multipurpose ath-letic facility will be ready for occupa-tion when this year’s Summer Pride training program begins in June.

He led school board members on a tour of the facility, made possible largely through private donations, after the conclusion of Monday night’s board meeting.

“It may look like there’s a lot left to do, but mostly we’re looking at little things that will go quickly,” Myers said.

The layout and amenities of the facility were designed after Myers and other school officials visited some of the state’s top high school field-houses.

“We not only took the best of what they had but also found out the things they wished they had done differently and incorporated all of that into our building,” he said. “We’ve had people from col-leges come look at this and tell us this is what you’d only see on the east side of the state at a Jenks or a Tulsa Union, not what you’d expect in Kingfisher.”

The buildings’ rooms include: • A giant weight room of more

than 3,600 square feet with cush-

ioned flooring that incorprorates a yellowjacket motif in the tiles and which will feature mirrored walls and TV monitors in all four corners that will allow coaches to display the day’s training regimen, game and practice schedules or other in-formation.

•A practice gym which actually will be a standard sized basketball gym with a floor even larger than the All Purpose Building. The floor will sport an artificial surface with the appearance of real wood but is more user friendly.

The gym is heated but not cooled,

but features high windows that can be opened at both ends to provide cross ventilation, Myers said.

The availability of a second full-sized gym will mean high school teams will no longer have to train at the Heritage gym, freeing up that

Kingfisher FFA collected its 15th consecutive multi-teacher chapter sweepstakes award at the state con-vention last week, under the direc-tion of advisers Ryan and Lori Burns.

Kingfisher ’s state champion teams who will represent Oklaho-ma at the national convention next fall include – Micah Mueggenborg, Brayden Foley, Brooke Cameron and Kaci Pennington.

Agricultural issues forum – Bree Taylor, Harrison Themer, Kaylee Karcher, Elizabeth Perdue, Emily Garrett and Max Hartman.

Meats evaluation – Grady and Grant Eaton, Sydnee Gerken and Colton Smith.

Additionally, Brock Boeckman earned FFA’s highest honor, the State Farmer Award, based on his supervised agricultural experience

in managing three enterprises – a wheat operation, cow-calf operation-and stocker steer operation.

Jaryn Frey earned the state cham-pion Beef Production Entrepreneur-ship Proficiency Award. She runs about 30 head of Angus.

Brooke Cameron and Anna Cross-white competed against four other state champion speakers in the State Speakoff to see who would compete at the 2016 national convention.

Anna Crosswhite was named the winner and will be representing the Oklahoma FFA at nationals in the fall.

Emily Murray and Grant Eaton were selected as 2016 Washington Leadership Conference scholarship recipients and also recognized at state convention.

Jentry Squires and Bree Taylor placed first in agriscience-plant sci-

ence division.For 13 seniors this was their last

convention wearing their blue and gold jackets, and 12 received the highest honor the Oklahoma FFA can bestow, the State FFA degrees, and six also received academic excellence awards (designated by “AE”).

Recipients are: Holly Barrow, Brock Boeckman, Brooke Cameron (AE), Brayden Foley (AE), Jaryn Frey (AE), Sydnee Gerken, Sarah Gruntmier (AE), Lane Holt (AE), Jace Karns, Keelyn Lukasek, Micah Mueggenborg and Colton Smith (AE).

Other area FFA members who received the State FFA Degree in-cluded:

Dover – Nicholas Scheaffer.Hennessey – Jhett Broomfield,

Elizabeth Haymaker (AE), Jill

Mencke (AE) and Cheyenne Moore.Lomega – Kylie Biggs (AE),

Hannah Meier, Broke Scheer, Alex Schweitzer and Summer Yost.

Okarche – Erin Alig, Skylar D. Spomer and Kody Willcutt.

Crescent – Tee Barnes, Alison Hope Cue and Riley Wallace.

Other area proficiency award winners at state convention, accord-ing to the state convention website, include:

Dover – Hunter Moeller, second in agricultural education; Dalton Mo-eller, third in agricultural processing.

Hennessey – Jhett Broomfield, second in agricultural sales entre-preneurship; Coleby Haymaker, third in diversified crop production entrepreneurship, and Tyrnie Talley, third in dairy production entrepre-neurship.

Jacket FFA nabs 15th state sweepstakes27 county FFA’ers earn State Farmer degrees

Mary Bonilla

Bonillafiles forclerk post

[Ed. note: Mary Bonilla has au-thorized the Times and Free Press to publish her announcement for candidacy to the office of Kingfisher County Clerk, subject to the June Democrat primary.]

Mary Bonilla of Kingfisher, a dep-uty in the Kingfisher County Clerk’s office for seven years, announces her candidacy for the office of county clerk.

A Democrat, she is subject to the November general election.

“I understand the duties of the office and I am eager to serve all residents of Kingfisher County, re-sponsibly and fairly,” Bonilla said.

A resident of Kingfisher County since 1991, moving here from Cali-fornia, she lived at Altona from 1991 to 1994 and at Loyal from 1994 to 2001 before moving to Kingfisher.

She is the mother of six children, three boys and three girls, and the grandmother of 10 with an 11th on the way.

Five of her children have served in branches of U.S. military services.

Her children are:Israel Robles, who lives at El Reno

with his wife, Kashandra and three children. Israel served in the Army

National Guard.Frank Robles who lives at El Reno

is unmarried. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps.

Daniel Robles who lives in El Reno with his wife Nargiza and two children. Daniel served two tours of duty in Afghanistan.

Francine Warren is married to Justin and also lives in El Reno. Justin works at the federal reformatory in El Reno. They have two children

Kristal Pritchett is married to Jo-seph and lives at Rosenburg, Texas. Joseph is employed by the Houston,

[See Bonilla Page 9]

Confirming Supt. Jason Stern-berger’s prognosis last month that any staff reduction due to state budget cuts would occur through attrition and not layoffs, Kingfisher School Board voted Monday night to rehire all current faculty and staff members.

The board accepted resignations from the following: Tom Arrington, high school history teacher, assis-tant football and boys track coach; Tresha Arrington, middle school special education; LaNita Hobza, family and consumer science; Bec-ca Hughes, high school secretary; Samantha Payne, library assistant; Jamie Scammahorn, Pathways coun-selor, and Tricia Mitchell, technology education.

Sternberger asked principals Keith Campbell at the middle school and Todd Overstreet at the high school to explain their strategies for absorbing staff positions lost through attrition.

Campbell said the middle school will be combining the currently separate reading and English classes into a single language arts class for all grades, reducing the day from seven periods to six longer periods and beginning each day with a 20 minute homeroom/advisory peri-od, which can be spent on character

development and other programs.Overstreet said arrangements

already have been made to absorb coach Arrington’s resignation by having Dr. A.J. Johnson and Chris Combs pick up his American history class, while athletic director Craig Patterson also will return to the class-room for one hour each day.

Overstreet said the big schedul-ing change at the high school will be to move to a single athletic period seventh hour for all grade levels.

“With the availability of the extra gym (in the new multipurpose build-ing, see related story), we should be able to make it work,” he said. “We have plenty of coaches to make it work. They’ll have to plan for it but they can make it happen.”

Overstreet also plans a lunch hour just for seniors, with seniors having open campus privileges every day, to help staff members keep better track of what students are leaving campus and when.

Overstreet also is talking to high school counselor Paula Leffingwell about planning a college readi-ness-career exploration class just for seniors.

After a 30-minute executive session, the board voted to employ Shawn Meek as a middle school his-

School board rehires faculty, support staff

[See Staff Page 9]

RATTLER FOUND south of Okarche by rancher Charlie Williamson.

[See Vet Page 15]

2 Wednesday, May 4, 2016 Kingfisher (Okla.) Times & Free Press

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OHCE WEEK – Representatives of Oklahoma Home and Community Education groups from around Kingfisher County gathered at the Kingfisher County Commis-sioners’ office Monday when commissioners signed a proclamation designating this week, May 2-6, OHCE Week in the county. On hand for the proclamation signing were OHCE members from left, row one: Irene George, Marie McDonald, Katie Al-tizer, Jaime Rother, Doris Brehm and Extension Educator Brandi Krittenbrink; row two: Juanita Krittenbrink, Peg Kunneman, Robin Rother, Christi Hufnagel, County Commissioner District 1 Keith Schroder and Mary Jo Bullis. Standing in back are District 2 County Commissioner Ray Shimanek and District 1 County Commission-er and Commission Chairman Jeff Moss. (TIMES-FREE PRESS Staff Photo)

Kingfisher Country Commissioners Monday proclaimed this week, May 2-6, Oklahoma Home and Community Education (OHCE) Week in Kingfish-er County.

Representatives of sever-al OHCE chapters (former-ly Home Demonstration

Clubs) attended the signing of the proclamation at the county commission’s week-ly meeting.

The proclamation called attention to OHCE’s em-phasis on the importance of the family in society and the organization’ emphasis on creating strong family life

in communities here and throughout the state.

All three county commis-sioners – Jeff Moss, District 1; Ray Shimanek, District 2, and Keith Schroder, District 3, signed the document.

OHCE members present included: Irene George of

County marks OHCE Week

[See OHCE Page 3]

Kingfisher (Okla.) Times & Free Press Wednesday, May 4, 2016 3

FESTIVAL - 10am - 2pmLots of Fun For The Entire Family!

• 3 Bouncy Houses • Duck Pond • Plinko • Cupcake Walk • Bingo• Crazy Hair Booth • Face Painting • Softball Toss • Snow Cones • Cotton Candy

TICKETS:$1 each (or)

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Bracelets(1-3 Tickets

per activity orconcession)

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To Kick Off The Festivities,

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65th Annual National Day of Prayer

MARK YOUR CALENDARS FOR THEKingfisher Community Wide Celebration

Youth Rally - 6:30pm Wed., May 4thLed by Jeremy Rowan, youth pastor of FBC

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Men’s Breakfast - 6:45am Thur., May 5thAT THE GATHERING FBC

Women’s Luncheon - 11:45am Thur., May 5thAT THE GATHERING FBC

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Surprise (Dover and Hen-nessey), Marie McDonald of Plainview (Kingfisher), Katie Altizer of Friends of the Heart (Okarche), Jaime Rother of Friends of the Heart, Doris Brehm of Loy-al Neighbors (Loyal and Hitchcock), Juanita Krit-tenbrink of Apron Annies (Okarche), Peg Kunneman of Plainview, Robin Rother of Apron Annies, Christi Hufnagel of Apron An-nies and Mary Jo Bullis of Omega.

Commissioners disal-lowed a bid on a one-ton truck for the Big 4 Fire Department because it did not contain an affidavit of non-collusion as required by state law.

Commissioners said they would re-bid the truck at a later date.

Commissioners also ap-proved a request from the Kingfisher Memorial Li-brary to transfer $10,000 in sales tax revenue from the maintenance and operation to the capital outlay account and 11 permits for pipelines to cross under or along county roads.

The pipeline permits were approved for the fol-lowing:

• Mac Oil and Gas – two 12-inch water lines begin-ning one and two miles south of Loyal, District 3.

• Brickman Fast Line – temporary water line begin-ning 11 miles east and two miles south of Kingfisher, District 1.

• McDonald Land Ser-vice – water line nine miles east and two miles south of Kingfisher, District 1.

• Tetra Technologies – four 12-inch water lines starting 12 miles west of Kingfisher extending north and then east, District 3.

• Markwest Energy – four lines in District 3 (two four-inch gas lines and two four-inch oil lines) starting 10 miles west of Okarche and extending north.

OHCE[Continued From Page 2]

Stacia (States) Hux-man and Nick Huxman of Hooker announce the birth of their daughter, Claire Ava Huxman, at 10:44 a.m. on Tuesday, March 29, 2016, in Liberal, Kan.

She weighed six pounds, 2 ounces and measured 18 ¾ inches long.

Maternal grandparents are Jay and Susan States of Hennessey. Maternal great-grandparents are Juanita Campbell of Enid and the late Richard Camp-bell and Dene and Wanda States of Hennessey.

Paternal grandparents are Todd and Karla Hux-man and great-grandpar-

Claire Ava Huxmanents are Kenny and Loretta Hoobler, all of Hooker.

New Arrival

Jill Mencke Jaryn Frey

Jaryn Frey of Kingfisher and Jill Mencke of Hen-nessey were among 30 win-ners of the Tulsa State Fair Ringmasters Award, se-lected from 147 applicants statewide.

Frey, the daughter of Mike and Jamae Frey and Mencke, the daughter of Jeff and Diane Mencke of Ames, were recognized at the State FFA Convention as $1,500 scholarship recip-ients, based on their partici-pation in the Tulsa State Fair Junior Livestock Shows, extracurricular activities,

community involvement and a short essay outlining their educational goals.

Both Frey and Mencke are prospective honor grad-uates of their respective high schools.

The Tulsa State Fair Ring-masters is a volunteer group from the Tulsa and sur-rounding areas who raise funds to support Oklaho-ma’s 4-H and FFA members through the Tulsa State Fair Junior Livestock Auc-tion and for the continued growth of the scholarship fund.

Frey, Mencke awardedRingmaster scholarships

Luke Jenkins Kaci Pennington

Kaci Pennington of King-fisher and Luke Jenkins of Cashion are among 15 high school seniors selected to the President’s Leadership Class for 2016-17 at South-western Oklahoma State University.

Each of the class mem-bers receive a $1,000 schol-arship, room scholarship and enrollment in a lead-ership class that is offered exclusively to PLC students.

During the second year, students receive a $1,000 scholarship, a sponsored trip to Washington, D.C., and enrollment in the PLC class.

During the third and fourth years of the program, students serve as mentors for the first and second year PLC members and serve in campus leadership roles, university activities and internships.

Students may be eligible for continuing scholarships.

SWOSU President Ran-dy Beutler said the PLC is a four-year program offered by the university to recog-nize outstanding leadership qualities and to encourage students in their partici-pation as SWOSU campus leaders and future leaders in Oklahoma.

The program is designed to assist in promoting and developing effective ac-ademic, social and lead-ership skills, which is ac-complished through direct participation in campus activities, seminars, guest speakers, recruitment and alumni efforts.

Pennington, Jenkins arenamed to SWOSU PLC

Due to incomplete in-formation provided to the Times and Free Press, Erin Alig of Okarche FFA was inadvertently omitted from an article listing county par-ticipants in the Oklahoma Youth Expo who donated their livestock to the Okla-homa Regional Food Bank.

Erin donated two pigs to the Pork for Packs program, which processes donated pork into meat sticks to be included in food backpacks sent home each weekend with school children who otherwise might not have access to sufficient food when school is not inses-sion.

FFA members who do-nated animals to the food-bank program were rec-ognized at the state FFA convention last week.

Correction

The Plainview HCE held its monthly meeting Mon-day, April 11, at 1:30 pm at the home of Peg Kunneman.

The meeting was brought to order by Peg Kunneman, vice president, followed by flag salutes for the U.S. and the state of Oklahoma. Devotion Luke chapter 12 verse 22.

March minutes were read and approved Terri Peck gave the treasurer report.

New business Beth Ev-ans, Diane Musick and Paula Post updated club on the Kingfisher High school scholarship for the year of 2017. Books were turned in for the Kingfisher County Fair, to be handed out to boys and girls to promote reading.

Dana Golbek joined the club, with 12 active mem-bers present.

Peg Kunneman pre-sented lessons “A Healthy Home.” The meeting ad-journed at 3:30 p.m.

The next meeting will be

Plainview HCE meetsMonday, May 9, 1:30 p.m. with Judy Hobza, hostess.

The lesson will be living with right stuff (improve health, welfare, and safety at homes.”)

By Sean HubbardBirthday, wedding and

graduation celebrations of-ten include releasing helium balloons. What a sight to see as the balloons are released to gently float away.

However, that is about where this fairytale ends. The balloons actually do not just float away never to be seen again.

“I don’t think people realize the balloons don’t just keep going up forever. They come back down, often in important areas for wildlife and in the ocean,” said Dwayne Elmore, Okla-homa State University Co-operative Extension wildlife specialist.

Released helium balloons and wind-blown plastic gro-cery sacks can be ingested by animals or cause them to become entangled. While wildlife fatalities are hard to quantify, the impact on livestock is quite evident for farmers and ranchers.

“Younger, growing cattle in particular may be curious and chew on them leading to an occasional ingestion of at least part of a bag,” said Dave Lalman, OSU Cooperative Extension beef specialist. The plastic could block the intestine over time, causing discomfort, pain and even-tual rupture of the digestive tract leading to death.

Litter hardon cattle

218 N. MainKingfisher375-4257

BALLOONS

Fresh CutFlowers

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available at...

Sunday, May 8th is

COME TO DESIGNS BY DENNIS FOR THESE GREAT GIFT IDEAS...

Lotions

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Thank You ~I want to thank everyone

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while I was in the three week

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in Oklahoma City.

~ STanleY kadavY

4 Wednesday, May 4, 2016 Kingfisher (Okla.) Times & Free Press

VIEW

(A column of opinion by Gary Reid, Publisher Emeritus)

from behind the plow

The Kingfisher Times & Free Press(USPS No. 295-420)

Published Every Sunday and Wednes-day by Kingfisher Newspapers, Inc. at

323 N. Main, Kingfisher, OK 73750Periodicals Postage Paid at Kingfisher,

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Member

Gary Reid, Publisher Emeritus

John Boehner’s feelings must be hurt.But don’t cry for him. He is undoubtedly drawing a fat

government retirement check...on your nickel.The recently dumped U.S. House speaker (for good

reason) said in an address to Stanford University students last week that Sen. Ted Cruz, who is challenging Boeh-ner’s texting and golfing buddy, Donald Trump, for the Republican presidential nomination that Cruz is “Lucifer in the flesh.”

Could the fact that Boehner was ousted by the same type voters who put Cruz in the Senate from Texas – those sick of business as usual by the Washington establishment – have colored Boehner’s image of Cruz, who he likely doesn’t even know.

It should be remembered that Boehner is the guy who caved in to President Obama’s demand for higher deficits.

Cruz went to the Senate bucking the establishment, which he was sent there to do.

Boehner had become a confirmed member of the Wash-ington establishment. He had drunk the establishment Kool-aid so long he thought it was the best drink around.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), normally a peaceful soul, let Boehner have it with both barrels for his unnecessary and stupid remark in an interview with talk show host Mark Levin.

If you didn’t catch what Lee said, we are repeating his response to Boehner’s remarks here:

“I am appalled that John Boehner would do this…I held my tongue for years on John Boehner, even when I disagreed with him. Because I respected him as a person, and I respected his office enough to not call him out on this personally. I expressed disagreement with his policy, but I never ridiculed him personally. The fact that he has done this is appalling, and he should be ashamed of himself, and I demand that he apologize. “I have never ever seen Ted Cruz do anything other than what he said he was going to do. I have never seen Ted Cruz raise his voice in anger against a colleague. I have never seen Ted Cruz engage in any of the despicable acts that I’ve seen him be the recipient of in recent weeks and recent months, and I’ve had it. I have absolutely had it. It is time for us to expose people like John Boehner who are saying horrible things about him. Or the fact that they are there, they are angry at him, they hate him because he’s railing against the establishment of which they are a part.

“In a sense, Mark, I am grateful to Boehner because Boehner has exposed the truth here in a way that is far clearer; he’s done this far better than I ever could – he’s done that by saying ‘yeah yeah Donald Trump, he’s great I text with him, I golf with him.’ Yeah Sierra Club; Hillary Clinton, she’s great. Bernie Sanders, he’s great. But Ted Cruz, he’s the devil. Why? Why Mark? The ‘why’ is ex-actly what we need to focus on. The ‘why’ here shows us why we have to elect Ted Cruz as our next president. The ‘why’ is because Ted Cruz believes in the Constitution, they don’t wanna be stuck with that because that makes it harder for them to do what they wanna do, which is to build and concentrate more power in Washington D.C. at the expense of everyone else.”It’s so transparent, all these people who don’t even know Ted Cruz pretending other-wise and rallying against him in favor of Donald Trump. It seems they aren’t even trying to hide their true motives any more: to save the Washington establishment, whatever the cost. Cruz is right. What Boehner and the others are really doing is expressing their hostility and hatred toward the voters Ted Cruz represents. And for what reason? There’s only one logical conclusion to draw here. They would do anything to not disrupt the Washington machine.

(End of Lee’s ciomments)Boehner needed to go. Now he needs to learn to keep

his mouth shut; stupid falls out when he opens it.

War on coal continuesThe Sierra Club, the so-called environmental organi-

zation that affixes practically every left-wing initiative, is now claiming victory in its war on coal. (And all this time President Obama featured himself as the coal war champion.)

Both will likely be quiet as a mouse when the lights go out.

The organization now plans to turn its attention to gasoline.

It apparently won’t be happy until everyone is walking or riding around in pedal cars. The ecofascist club is now involved in a disinformation campaign against hydraulic fracturing of shale oil formations.

Lena Moffitt, the director of Sierra Club’s Beyond Dirty Fuels Campaign, told S&P Global Market Intelligence, “We have moved to a very clear and firm and vehement position of opposing gas. Our board recently passed a policy that we oppose any new gas-fired power plants. We also have a policy opposing fracking on our books.” She added, “We are doing everything we can to bring the same expertise that we brought to taking down the coal industry and coal-fired power in this country to taking on gas in the same way.”

“That’s an amazing admission,” says Investor’s Busi-ness Daily, “given that natural gas is a clean-burning fuel that is reducing greenhouse gas emissions and real pollut-ants, too. There have been no reported cases of water con-tamination from fracking technology, as even the Obama

Another Boehner mistake

(See View, Page 5)

By Walter E. Williams

Republican presidential aspirant John Kasich stirred up angry words from wom-en’s organizations and the Democratic Party by his response to a question from a female college student at a town hall meeting in Water-town, New York, regarding sexual assault. Kasich said all the right things about prosecuting offenders, but what got the Ohio governor in trouble with leftists was the end of his response: “I’d also give you one bit of advice: Don’t go to parties where there’s a lot of alco-hol, OK? Don’t do that.”

Let’s examine that ad-vice. To do so, let’s ask some general questions about common sense.

Does one have a right to put his wallet on the hood of his car, attend a movie show, return and find his wallet and its contents undis-turbed? You say, “Williams, you’ve lost it! Why would one do such a crazy thing?” If that’s your response, you miss the point made by Kasich’s critics. People are duty-bound to respect pri-vate property rights. So why shouldn’t one feel at ease leaving his wallet on the hood of his car and expect it to be there when he returns?

If the person’s wallet were stolen, what would you advise? Would it be to counsel people to respect private property rights? Put into the context of fem-inists’ responses to Kasich’s suggestion, you might ar-gue that it’s outrageous to suggest that people “restrict their behavior.”

Plain, ordinary common sense would say yes, a person has the right to lay his wallet on the hood of his car and expect it to be there when he returns. But

we don’t live in a world full of angels; therefore, the best bet is for one to keep his wallet in his pocket.

Here’s a does-the-same-principle-apply question. Does a voluptuous, scantily

clad young woman have a right to attend a rowdy fra-ternity party, dance sugges-tively, get drunk and face no unwelcome sexual advanc-es? My answer is yes. Her body is her private property, and she has every right to expect that her inebriated state not be exploited. Sup-pose you were the young woman’s father. Would you advise the following? “Go ahead and wear scanty at-tire, dance suggestively and get drunk. If a guy makes unwelcome advances, we’ll catch him and bring rape charges.” I’m betting that most fathers’ advice would be the opposite, namely: “Dress and behave like a respectable lady, and don’t attend drunken parties and get drunk.” It’s similar to the advice about leaving a wallet on the hood of a car. People are not angels, and one’s conduct ought to take that into consideration.

Suppose you have a well-behaved, law-abiding

son whose friends are not so well-behaved and law-abid-ing. They do drugs, shoplift and play hooky. Your son does none of those things. As a responsible parent, your advice to your son would be that it is better to be alone than in the wrong company and that people judge you based upon the people with whom you associate. Your son might respond by saying, “I have rights. If I’m not doing some-thing wrong, I shouldn’t be judged based on what my friends do!” Your response should be, “You’re right, but unfortunately, the world doesn’t work that way.”

Here’s another com-mon-sense issue particu-larly relevant to today’s po-lice/citizen relations. Sup-pose it’s the middle of the night and a police officer is suspicious of a young male driver. The officer uses the excuse that the young man made an illegal lane change to pull him over. If the driver were your son, what would you advise him to do, exercise his free speech rights to berate the officer for making a stop on such a flimsy basis? Or would you advise him to quietly give the officer his license and registration and answer the officer’s questions, which probably would allow him to drive away without a citation at all?

To teach young people, particularly young men, Benjamin Franklin’s ad-monition that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” is a challenging task. But it is the job of adults to get such common-sense messages across, even at the cost of leftist condemnation.

Walter E. Williams is a pro-fessor of economics at George Mason University.

COPYRIGHT 2016 CREATORS.COM

Common sense

By Andrew C. Spiropoulos

Conservatives are re-peatedly told by business lobbyists that they should support a policy because it is pro-business.

These people don’t seem to understand that prin-cipled conservatives are neither pro-business nor anti-labor. (Both Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp were the presidents of their labor union.) Conservatives are for freedom, for virtue, and for policies that will enable all working families to prosper.

What the lobbyists usual-ly mean by pro-business is that the policy will benefit a particular business. But sound conservatives op-pose policies that will boost the profits of specific indus-tries at the expense of the good of the larger society.

That’s exactly what will happen if our Legislature enacts the cleverly termed Medicaid Rebalancing Act – in truth it is the Disguised Medicaid Expansion Act. Business lobbyists are sure-ly right that the act will be good for our state’s hos-pitals. After all, if you tell thousands of people that the government will pay for their health care services, as we see with the unsustain-able federal health care ex-changes, they will use a lot more of them. More money for us, think the providers, and that’s the truth.

But here’s what’s not the truth. It’s not true that putting thousands of people on welfare to open a spigot of federal money that will pour into the coffers of

hospital corporations will save our rural hospitals. The hospital lobby has been using this line for over a

decade, and we continue to fall for it. Repeatedly, the state Legislature has raised taxes to bring in millions of federal dollars, but the rural hospitals continue to close.

And, once again, the companies will pocket the cash, wait a while, and then shutter the next hospital on this list. Why? Because no corporation is going to keep open a hospital where there aren’t enough people to support it. But, in the meantime, if we’re willing to fall for the same line, can you blame them for taking advantage of our credulity? They aren’t the problem – we are.

We’re also to blame, if we can’t see why expanding Medicaid – which is what is going on here – is bad for our state and our people. It’s not that this expansion, fueled by unrealistic federal promises and fictional cost estimates, will end up, in time, costing the state mil-lions – although that’s true.

What this debate is about is whether we want to be

like Arkansas, where over a quarter of the people (sev-enth highest in the nation) are on Medicaid. Medicaid, no matter how you dress it up with token premiums or co-payments, is welfare.

What’s wrong with put-ting more people on wel-fare? As Franklin D. Roos-evelt warned, the problem is that welfare destroys self-respect, which leads to a long chain of other social problems, including drug use, the abandonment of children, and domestic abuse. The federal govern-ment recently reported that our national suicide rate, from 1999 to 2014, rose 24 percent. The rate for mid-dle-age (45 to 64) men rose 43 percent, as the Great Re-cession took their jobs and their pride.

We all agree we should help poor working Oklaho-mans obtain cost-effective health insurance. The Insure Oklahoma program works and should be expanded – this act destroys it. Let’s also appropriate enough state money so we don’t have to significantly cut Medicaid provider rates. But this Medicaid expansion is not a helping hand – it’s a slap to the face.

Andrew Spiropoulos is the Robert S. Kerr, Sr. Professor of Constitutional Law at Okla-homa City University and the Milton Friedman Distin-guished Fellow at the Oklaho-ma Council of Public Affairs. The views expressed in this column are those of the author and should not be attributed to either institution.

The disguised Medicaid expansion act

One size doesn’t fit all

By Jonathan Small There are a number of

good reasons to support creation of an Education Savings Account program that provides Oklahoma parents a portion of their child’s per-pupil allocation for education to use for public or private school tuition and other services. But one of the best reasons is that no one school can meet the needs of all chil-dren who live in the local area, regardless of the best efforts of those who work in that school.

There are countless situ-ations where a child would be better served in another setting. A child with spe-cial needs might require a school tailored for similar students, not one designed for the general population. A gifted and talented stu-dent might be bored in a traditional setting but excel in a rigorous college-pre-paratory school. The long-term success of low-income students currently trapped in schools where gang activity is rampant necessi-

tates that they escape that climate. Some situations are almost unfathomable, such as when students are relent-lessly bullied or abused at their assigned school. More options must be available for the vulnerable.

Every student has a dif-ferent story and different needs, and there are count-less situations where a child could benefit from the abil-ity to obtain an education in a setting other than a geographically assigned school. Ironically, informa-tion put out by opponents of ESAs highlights this fact.

One such group, the Oklahoma Education Co-alition, predicts roughly $40 million will go to ESAs in the first year of the pro-gram. Given that the aver-age amount per ESA card is expected to be around $4,000 apiece, that comes out to 10,000 students. The OEC predicts that number will increase over time.

Yet that first-year figure represents only around 1.4 percent of Oklahoma’s current student population. That suggests, as ESA sup-porters have argued, that ESAs will be used primarily by those with the greatest need.

With ESAs, there is no diversion of funds from education. Every dollar designated for education still pays for education. But ESAs increase the chance those expenditures have meaningful, positive im-pact on student learning.

OEC’s figures demon-strate that even ESA oppo-nents realize thousands of students across Oklahoma face situations where their families need and prefer an alternative to geograph-ically assigned schools. Few things better high-light the pressing need for ESA-driven school choice.

Caring about the vulner-able requires abandoning adherence to the failed status quo.

Jonathan Small serves as

president of the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs (www.ocpathink.org).

Andrew Spiropoulos

Jonathan Small