Between May 5 and May 7, students in 4-H and FFA programs from across the country came to El Reno for the National Land and Range Judging Contest. Competitors evaluate plots of land for conservation, homebuilding and more.
Read the full article: https://www.kosu.org/2026-05-18/soil-land-judging-competition-teens-oklahoma
Sen. Carri Hicks, D-OKC, authored the bill, in response to the case of two sisters Cheryl Genzer and Lisa Pennington, who disappeared from an Oklahoma State Fair in 1987. The sisters, 25 and 17 at the time, were found in a shallow grave in Oklahoma City.
Their cases, along with more than 1,000 others, have never been solved, according to Hicks and the non-profit Oklahoma Cold Cases.
“People deserve answers, and so this will create a pathway for them to be able to seek those answers from law enforcement in Oklahoma and hopefully lead to closing these decades-long investigations,” Hicks said in a statement.
The new law takes effect Nov. 1 and gives relatives a formal way to request a review of their missing loved ones’ cases, sets accountability timelines for the review and mandates that law enforcement give relatives updates explaining the investigation’s findings. It also requires investigators who were not part of the original case to review it using modern tools.
If law enforcement decides no further investigation is needed, according to Hicks, the case will not be revisited for at least five years.
The passing of SB1636 has been applauded by activists in the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples Crisis and was a topic brought up during MMIP Awareness Day at the Oklahoma State Capitol on May 5.
Natural organic reduction involves putting a body in a container with materials like wood chips or straw and allowing microbes to break it down.
House Bill 3660 would make Oklahoma the 15th state to legalize the process, according to the National Funeral Directors Association.
Opponents say human composting is an affront to human dignity. Proponents, like bill author Eddy Dempsey, R-Valliant, say it’s a personal choice for both individuals and funeral homes.
“This is just another option for us, for our families, if you want it,” Dempsey said during debate on the House floor on May 6. “Nobody is forcing you to do this. I've heard about, ‘Funeral homes don't want to buy the equipment.’ Nobody's forcing the funeral homes to buy the equipment.”
Rep. Jim Shaw, R-Chandler, has vehemently opposed the measure throughout the legislative session, saying it is an affront to his beliefs about human dignity.
“We need to be concerned about the direction we're heading as a society,” he said during House debate. “Turning people into byproducts. The way we treat our dead says a lot about what we believe as a society.”
Shaw characterized human composting as “coming from a progressive leftist worldview,” saying all 14 states in which the process is legal “were Joe Biden states in 2024.”
No states voted for Biden in the 2024 presidential general election, as he was not a candidate. Ten of the states with legal human composting did vote for Democrat Kamala Harris in that election. But it’s also legal in Georgia, Arizona and Nevada, which voted for President Donald Trump, and Maine, which split its electoral votes 3:1 between Harris and Trump.
Rep. Jonathan Wilk, R-Goldsby, argued in favor of the bill. He said many of the arguments against it were based on lies.
“Lies that it had to do with humanure.[...] Lies that it had to do with using human remains as fertilizer,” Wilk said. “Nothing in this bill prevents the dirt from this process from being buried in a cemetery, just the same as nothing in this bill prevents it from being shipped to Mars. To say it's going to be spread for commercial fertilizer is a lie.”
Rep. Scott Fetgatter, R-Okmulgee, voted against the measure in March because of what he characterized as a lack of understanding of the process. But by the time it came back from the Senate with amendments, he had changed his mind.
“I have personally embalmed bodies, and I'm going to tell you right now, there is nothing more brutal to watch or participate in than the embalming process of a human body,” Fetgatter said. “We drain all the blood out, and then we fill them with chemicals.”
House Bill 3660 passed both chambers with about 60% of the vote. The final version would also make it a felony to sell organically reduced human remains or use them to grow food for people or livestock.
Despite those provisions, Stitt vetoed the bill Tuesday, saying it “moves too far toward treating the human body as a material to be repurposed, rather than remains to be reverently laid to rest.”
Shaw hailed the veto as “a grassroots victory” on Facebook.
Those appeals included motions to postpone the nation’s May 30 special election, hold Principal Chief David Hill in contempt of court and issue the appellants citizenship cards “immediately.”
They were filed by Rhonda Grayson and Jeffrey Kennedy, two individuals behind the Muscogee Freedmen case decided last July. That was when the tribal court ruled Freedmen were entitled to citizenship, citing an 1866 treaty with the federal government. In the process, the justices rejected language from the 1979 constitution limiting citizenship “by blood.”
In August, Hill signed an executive order pausing the issuance of citizenship cards to Freedmen descendants, stating the court overstepped its authority and that the tribe must first update its laws in accordance with the ruling.
But the tribe’s Supreme Court wrote Tuesday that the executive branch is working toward citizenship, and that it doesn’t have the authority to resolve Grayson and Kennedy’s appeal.
“The evidence produced to the Court in response to these orders for status reports has shown conclusively that the Appellant and the Executive Branch have taken steps to comply with this Court's Order and Opinion (though, perhaps not in the manner or at the speed desired by the Respondents, and, to be frank, not at the speed this Court would prefer),” the order states. “However, the Court finds that the Respondents' pending Motions should be denied.”
It argues the matter is non-justiciable, meaning it can’t be resolved in the same way because it’s a matter of enforcement, not interpretation.
“Judgments concerning necessary legislation to implement the Court's decision, commissions that may be necessary to prepare for expected changes resulting from the sudden influx of new citizens, and how much time is necessary to responsibly implement these changes are political questions that must be left to the branches of government assigned those tasks under the Nation's Constitution,” the court wrote.
Within the order, the court included a message directed at the political branches of its government and its citizenry.
The court wrote the Muscogee Nation is a sovereign nation due to the actions of its ancestors, including the signing of the Treaty of 1866. It argued ignoring certain aspects of the treaty poses a “danger” to sovereignty.
Last month, the Muscogee National Council issued an overwhelming vote of no confidence against five of its Supreme Court justices, arguing the judicial branch’s Freedmen decision violated the 1979 constitution. Only one member opposed the measure.
“It is clear to this Court that, like our ancestors, many among our citizens today are also dismayed at the prospect of this Court's Order and Opinion, and would have preferred that the Court had ruled differently,” the order reads. “Also like our ancestors, this Court's fervent hope in this case, and in every case that finds its way to our docket, is that our decision will secure a better future for our Nation, and make clear to all that the Judicial Branch of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation produces just results to all parties, honoring both our tradition and our legal precedent, even if some results may be hard.”
A spokesperson for the Muscogee Nation said the tribe would not comment on the court’s decision. Representatives for Grayson, Kennedy and the Muscogee Creek Indian Freedmen Band did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Four legislative state questions have already been sent to the Oklahoma Secretary of State’s office for final review of the language voters will see on the ballot.
Scheduled for the August 25 primary runoff are State Questions 844 and 846, which relate to local government reimbursements for lost ad valorem revenues caused by corporate tax incentives, and requiring voter ID at the ballot, respectively.
In November, voters will see State Questions 845, dealing with judicial selection reform, and 847, aimed at limiting property valuation increases to slow the steady rise in the cost of homeowners’ insurance.
Secretary of State records show that upon reviewing the ballot titles for each of the proposed questions, State Attorney General Gentner Drummond determined none of the four were sufficiently clear in explaining their impact to Oklahomans, as written by the legislature.
That means Drummond gets to rewrite the ballot titles within 10-15 days of his notification that they are insufficient. Rewritten ballot titles are share with legislative leaders in both the House and the Senate upon Drummond filing them.
One more possible state question still floating around in the legislature is Senate Joint Resolution 50, which, if approved and sent to the secretary of state this week, would let voters decide, in part, whether to pluck Medicaid expansion language from the state Constitution and insert it into statute if the federal government’s match for the program falls below 90%.
SJR 50 is the combination of two bills proposed by the House, each aiming to reduce Medicaid costs for Oklahoma and allow law makers to alter Medicaid expansion eligibility language. After the Senate adjourned until further notice last week, the only way to force them to consider the measures was to gut one of their bills and replace it with House language.
But the measure is still held up, along with several other House bills and proposed veto overrides, as lawmakers in the Senate haven’t shown up to work since adjourning last week. Still, both chambers have agreed to formally end the 2026 session by this Thursday, May 14. But with work still left to do, it’s unclear whether that date will hold.
There is also State Question 832, a citizen-led ballot initiative to raise the state minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2029, which will hit the ballot during the June 16 primary election. That state question came about from an initiative petition.
Oklahoma has been locked in a court battle with a handful of large poultry companies for more than two decades. But for the first few months of this year, it seemed like the lawsuit might be coming to a close.
In early March, dozens of people filed into Judge Gregory K. Frizzell’s Tulsa courtroom to hear him weigh proposals to resolve the case and end most of the appeals.
Poultry professionals packed the benches hip-to-hip behind lawyers representing Tyson Foods, Cargill and Peterson Farms Inc. Across the gallery, the rest of the audience had a little more room to spread out behind the attorneys representing the state.
Despite the clear divide, people on both sides of the courtroom are eager for the case to conclude.
In fact, for the first time, the state and the poultry companies were asking the judge for the same thing. They wanted Frizzell to approve consent judgments — legally binding compromises — on how to clean up existing damage in the watershed and how to deal with poultry litter moving forward.
“The attorney general is not standing here in front of the court today telling the court that he got everything that he wanted in this settlement,” said Garry Gaskins with the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office. “This is an agreement that the attorney general believes is in the best interest of the state and he got the best terms that he believed he could get in this case.”
Steve Butler was one of the poultry growers in the audience. He said the terms of the settlements weren’t ideal for the poultry companies either.
“I couldn't believe they gave in that much,” Butler said in an interview the week after the hearing. “But these agreements were made. And they presented to him [Frizzell]. And then they play white noise. And then he gets up and says, ‘Adjourned.’ You don't know if he's going to wait 13 years to rule on that.”
Frizzell did not — he nixed the settlements about a month later.
Now, Oklahoma poultry growers and environmental advocates alike are wondering when they’ll be able to move past this, while the judge works to turn the uncertainty of the past two decades into a meaningful legal outcome.
Butler loves being a poultry grower.
“It's been good to us as far as a way of living, being able to work with your family,” he said in an interview on March 18. “But, you know, obviously we like to make money. So it's the best way to make a good living in eastern Oklahoma on a farm.”
Butler’s operation, Green Country Farms, is based in Watts, Oklahoma. As a third-generation poultry producer, he has been in the watershed since before the lawsuit was filed.
The defendants in the lawsuit are poultry integrators — the large companies that own the birds and coordinate their lives, deaths, processing and distribution. The largest still operating in the Illinois River Watershed are Tyson Foods, Simmons Foods and Cobb-Vantress Inc., which is owned by Tyson.
But the people who actually deal with the chickens are poultry growers, like Butler.
A grower’s business is to care for the birds, feed them and deal with their waste. The growers are not technically involved in the lawsuit.
“We never sued farmers,” said Drew Edmondson in an interview on March 31. “The poultry companies tried to bring farmers in as third-party defendants. And we opposed it. And the judge denied it.”
But Butler said growers have never been insulated from the lawsuit. He said in the mid-2000s, helicopters flew over poultry operations to take photos, and unmarked police cars were often in the area.
“The folks around here got pretty mad,” he said. “They don't like being spied on. But then it became a real nuisance when we'd have to do depositions…. I had to spend the entire hours that they were allowed in depositions. We had to have lawyers representing us when we weren't a party to the suit.”
Now, the effects on growers are more about economic uncertainty.
Butler said it’s particularly difficult because his company exports all its litter out of the Illinois River Watershed. He’s spent decades building a customer base of farmers, many in Kansas, who will buy his litter to use on their land.
He’s also been part of the non-profit Illinois River Watershed Partnership.
“We all got along and worked together to try to improve the Illinois River,“ Butler said. “But then in the meantime, I'm sitting here wondering if I will get to stay in business, and so it's frustrating that way.”
Tyson in particular has been clear about its intention to stop contracting growers in the Illinois River Watershed. Before Frizzell rejected the settlement agreements, Tyson announced that it would not renew contracts with growers in the watershed unless and until the settlement went through.
In documents obtained by KOSU, the company sent letters to at least two Northwest Arkansas growers, saying it would not renew their contracts unless the settlement was approved.
With contracts for nearly 7 million birds in the four counties containing the Illinois River Watershed, Tyson is the second largest integrator there. The largest is Simmons, which did not put forward a settlement agreement with the state.
Both companies have been contracting fewer birds in the IRW since Frizzell released his ruling in 2023 than they were before, according to data from the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry.
Butler said he’s grateful to Tyson for staying in the watershed at all.
“Much like other companies have done, they could have just left, said, ‘We're done,’” Butler said. “But they've stayed here and tried to do business. I respect that. Are they a big mean company? Yeah. But the bottom line is: They are trying to do business right here.”
But as business goes on, the watershed and the people who love it are also stuck in limbo.
“We have lost 20 years of being able to remediate the damage caused by 60 years of land application of chicken litter throughout the watershed,” said retired attorney Gerald Hilsher.
Hilsher served on Gov. Frank Keating’s Animal Waste and Water Quality Protection task force starting in 1997 and on Oklahoma’s Scenic River Commission after that.
But his love for the Illinois River and Lake Tenkiller started long before, when he was a student at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah.
“Back in 1974 to ‘76, when I was a student there, Lake Tenkiller was a strikingly clear lake,” he said. “It was a place where scuba divers loved to go because they could see 15, 20, 30 feet underwater and because the lake was so clear. When I returned to Oklahoma after law school in 1979, you could already see the effects of phosphorus pollution on Lake Tenkiller.”
Hilsher said phosphorus pollution and the resulting algae growth left 60-80% of the lake without oxygen, “basically dead.”
Scuba divers still go to Lake Tenkiller, and hundreds of thousands of people still float the Illinois River each year. He said the people living on top of the watershed are feeling the impact of pollution.
“The businesses like your canoe operator, the recreational and touristry business, and also your municipal or county wide water treatment plants that have to deal with the expanding load of water treatment to supply potable water to their communities,”Hilsher said.
Statewide, tourism generates about twice as much economic activity as the poultry industry. Both industries are particularly concentrated in the Illinois River Watershed.
Alongside the concern that the poultry industry could move out of the watershed, there’s worry that tourism isn’t what it could be, and that it will decline if river conditions don’t improve.
Time has not stood still in the watershed. Conservation efforts across state lines, including trucking litter out of the watershed and soil sampling, have softened the poultry industry’s impact on the area. But Hilsher said the watershed still needs work.
“It is true that a lot has been done,” Hilsher said. “But the fact remains that we have destroyed Lake Tenkiller. We had degraded the Illinois River and Barren Creek and down in Lake Wister.”.
But he said he understands why Frizzell took his time on a ruling, and why he didn’t approve settlement agreements more lenient than his final order.
“Part of me says, ‘Gee whiz, it's been way too long,’” Hilsher said. “And on the other hand, I say, ‘Well, this has taken a lot of time and effort and I've just got to trust Judge Frizzell that he has moved it along as quickly as he could.’”
In his rejection of the settlements, Frizzell wrote the integrators rolled the dice rather than settling earlier, in hopes they’d receive favorable judgment. Hilsher said the “dice rolling” isn’t an approach he’s seen in his 45 years as an appellate lawyer.
“This is a very curious lawsuit. It doesn't look like anything I've ever been a part of or experienced,” Hilsher said.
Edmondson brought the state’s lawsuit against the poultry integrators when he was Oklahoma Attorney General.
Since his term ended in 2011, the lawsuit has been in the hands of six different acting attorneys general, although none of them have had much to do on it until current Attorney General Gentner Drummond.
Butler has his suspicions about the 13-year pause between the courtroom arguments and Frizzell’s ruling.
“We always wondered why nothing happened,” he said. “But then 13 years later, three days after the attorney general [Drummond] takes office, the judge rules.”
Edmondson also thinks the timing may have been calculated.
“Several of those predecessors especially — and I will mention Scott Pruitt — if the judge had ruled during his term, I don't think it would have been pursued,” Edmondson said. “I think they would have reached a sweetheart deal and deep-sixed it. That's what I believe.”
Drummond's term as attorney ends next year and while working on the case, he is running for governor.
In a hearing on February 27 to discuss the proposed settlement with George’s, Inc, Frizzell asked Drummond if political pressure was influencing his handling of the case. Earlier, the case cost Drummond an endorsement from the Oklahoma Cattlemen’s Association.
“I do respond to political reality,” Drummond said “I have 10 months left in my tenure and no guarantee to be governor. And when my tenure is up, and if I’m not governor, then you can anticipate this case is dismissed. And there is no remedy to the State of Oklahoma.”
Although there are other settled cases concerning excess phosphorus and water, Edmondson said State of Oklahoma v. Tyson Foods sets a precedent, providing other states a template of what is achievable.
Throughout the consideration of the consent judgments, Frizzell’s final order from December has remained in place. The poultry companies will continue to appeal his order and his denial of the settlements. The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver could consider the case.
Edmondson said, though, it’s unlikely an attorney general could dismiss the case now that Frizzell has issued a ruling.
“We don't know what's going to happen once he [Drummond] leaves the office,” Edmondson said. “But we're in better shape on that than we were before the judge ruled, I think almost certainly.”
Butler said his ideal scenario would have been for Frizzell to approve the settlements — Tyson’s requirement for renewing grower contracts in the watershed.
“I don't see a positive outcome other than him approving that,” Butler said. “So we don't have a real good outlook right now.”
Hilsher also sees a long road ahead.
“I wish I could be more optimistic than I am,” Hilsher said. “I'm concerned that we're going to spend another three to five years waiting for a final decision from the Court of Appeals, which may then either go to the Supreme Court and have more delay.”
The Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge in southwest Oklahoma will celebrate its 125th anniversary on June 2 with 100-year-old time capsule projects. Those hoping to have their messages sealed in the new time capsule have until May 20 to deliver them to refuge staff.
President William McKinley established the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge as a forest reserve in 1901. Since then, the refuge has helped preserve wildlife such as bison, longhorn, elk and about 60,000 acres of mixed-grass prairie.
To celebrate its past, a 100-year-old time capsule, buried in 1926 at Lost Lake Dam, will be unveiled, along with a screening of a new film about the refuge.
However, the event isn’t just a reflection of its history; it also looks forward.
The new headquarters building in the refuge will have its grand opening, and a new time capsule will be sealed.
Currently, there is an open call for letters that the general public can submit to be entered into the capsule. The deadline is May 20.
Suggested prompts include what visitors 100 years from now can learn from current visitors, what their hopes are for the refuge and why the Wichita Mountains matter.
Letters can be submitted in person at the visitor’s center in Cache. They can also be mailed to the refuge at 21088 State Hwy 115 or emailed to wmr_visitorservices@fws.gov, using the subject line “Time Capsule Project.”
The 125th anniversary event is scheduled to take place from 1:30 p.m to 4:30 p.m at the headquarters building, east of the visitor’s center on June 2.
More information can be found at the refuge’s website.
The measure is a request bill from the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry.
Every three years, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration reviews the department’s food safety division. For the past two regular reviews, Scott Yates, director of food safety at the department, said the federal agency recommended Oklahoma align with federal rules regulating milk from all hoofed animals.
“So if this language isn't changed, FDA would have the authority, and to be honest I don't know what the timeline would be, but they would have the authority to take away the state's Grade A status,” Yates said.
This means no milk or milk products could leave the state, affecting dairies, dairy processors or farms in out-of-state co-ops. There were 298 dairies in Oklahoma in 2022, according to the latest data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Census of Agriculture.
The state legislators are hoping to wrap up the session soon, but the bill must clear its final chamber before reaching the governor’s desk. It passed the House of Representatives in a 58-31 vote and the Senate in a 25-20 vote.
Although it has already cleared both legislative bodies once, senators have to approve it again because language was changed. Originally, SB2071 included a fee increase from 1 cent to 2 cents per hundred gallons of milk to allow the food safety program to pay for itself.
Yearly total expenses, including milk sampling, salaries to pay employees and travel is $400,000, Yates said. But with the current 1-cent fee, revenue is about $250,000.
Because more money is spent than is brought in, he said the department is subsidizing the program with other ODAFF funds. Without the fee increase, that will continue.
While the fee increase is no longer in the bill, it was unpopular with some lawmakers. One of the bill’s authors, Sen. Casey Murdock, R-Felt, said in a February committee meeting that the fee’s update is about food safety, would still keep Oklahoma’s cost lower than other states, including Kansas and Texas and allow the program to carry its own weight.
The measure’s other author, Rep. Carl Newton, R-Cherokee, said in an April committee meeting that this bill would mainly impact large dairies like Braum’s and Hiland Dairy. He said right now, the fee for a 50,000-pound milk tanker is about $5, and with the fee increase, it would be about $10.
Fridays at Mizel Jewish Community Day School in Tulsa are full of singing, food and community. Students make challah bread to celebrate Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest.
While instructing students to twist the dough, teacher Shira Sacks leads young students in singing "Hayom Yom Shishi," or "Today is Friday."
Sacks said the students experience Jewish traditions through hands-on activities and stories.
"We just celebrated Passover, so we had a lot of Passover songs. And they got really into it, and they keep asking me, 'Can we sing about Passover?' And I said, 'But Passover is over.'" Sacks said. "So they go, 'Okay, what's the next holiday?' They're excited. They want to do more. They want to learn more."
Mizel is a private school that provides students in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade of all faiths with an education grounded in Jewish values. It is the only Jewish day school in Oklahoma, located within the Jewish Federation of Tulsa's campus.
The school is a faith-based option for Oklahoma's Jewish population, estimated to be under 9,000 people or around 0.2% of the state.
But a push to expand Oklahoma's Jewish education options has drawn criticism from members of the same community it intends to serve.
That push comes from the proposed Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School, a would-be virtual school serving K-12 students that is seeking establishment in Oklahoma.
In 2023, the then-Statewide Virtual Charter School Board — which later became the Statewide Charter School Board — was considering an application from the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School. St. Isidore would have been the nation's first publicly funded religious school.
The Statewide Charter School Board later approved St. Isidore's application, setting the stage for a legal battle that culminated in the case reaching the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court landed on a split 4-4 ruling, which let the Oklahoma Supreme Court's decision siding against St. Isidore stand.
At issue in the St. Isidore case is a section of the Oklahoma Constitution that specifies public schools shall be "free from sectarian control," and that no public money shall ever be used, directly or indirectly, to support any "sect, church, denomination, or system of religion, or sectarian institution." In Oklahoma, charter schools are public schools.
Additionally, Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond cited the Oklahoma Charter Schools Act, which prescribes that charter schools "shall be nonsectarian in its programs, admission policies, employment practices, and all other operations." It also says a charter school sponsor may not authorize a charter school affiliated with a nonpublic sectarian school or religious institution.
Drummond also argued the board violated the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution and that Oklahoma could lose its ability to receive federal education dollars. To receive federal funds, states submit a plan saying they will comply with all applicable laws and regulations. One of those laws, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, states a charter school must be nonsectarian.
Lawyers representing St. Isidore argued the school's creation was lawful through the Constitution's Free Exercise Clause. The Oklahoma Supreme Court disagreed.
"What St. Isidore requests from this Court is beyond the fair treatment of a private religious institution in receiving a generally available benefit, implicating the Free Exercise Clause," the court wrote in its majority opinion. "It is about the State's creation and funding of the new religious institution violating the Establishment Clause. Even if St. Isidore could assert Free Exercise rights, those rights would not override the legal prohibition under the Establishment Clause."
In January, former U.S. Rep. Peter Deutsch, D-Fla, defended a proposal to the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board for a Jewish charter school, saying there were "very few opportunities for Jewish education in the state."
Deutsch is the spearhead of Ben Gamla, the proposed virtual charter school the board rejected in February and again in March. If approved, it would be the nation's first publicly funded religious school.
While they are separate entities, Deutsch founded the Ben Gamla Charter School in Florida in 2007. It is a multi-campus English-Hebrew charter school located in South Florida.
The school's namesake, Joshua ben Gamla, was a high priest who oversaw Jewish education for young children in Jerusalem in the mid-first century.
The Florida school teaches Hebrew, but it is a secular school. In Oklahoma, Ben Gamla would provide students with online "Jewish religious learning" that is "deeply rooted in Jewish knowledge, values and lived tradition," according to its application.
Deutsch has been interested in establishing a Jewish charter school in Oklahoma since at least January 2023, when he reportedly visited the state to meet with Jewish leaders. He told the board in March he had spoken with about 10 Jewish parents before filing the application in Oklahoma.
In February, the board rejected an application from Ben Gamla, with members lamenting that its hands were tied by the Supreme Court decision.
At the time, there were other concerns about the school's application, despite the denial's focus being placed on the court's decision. This included non-compliance with the Oklahoma Open Meeting Act and some of Ben Gamla's board members living out of state, despite Oklahoma law mandating otherwise.
The board pursued private legal representation through the conservative Christian First Liberty Institute, rather than using the board's counsel, Thomas Schneider, from the attorney general's office. The board was at odds with Attorney General Gentner Drummond when he brought suit against it for its decision to approve St. Isidore's application.
"I think there are political issues at work here," Board chair Brian Shellem said at the Feb. 9 meeting. "Our current attorney general is running for governor, and Mr. Schneider works for our attorney general. And we know that this board was in conflict with our attorney general before. Any attorney that would represent this board would have to defend our decision."
The office of the attorney general declined an interview for this story.
The board found itself again at odds with the attorney general when it voted in March to reject Ben Gamla's amended application. At the meeting, the board's rejection was narrowed to only the issue of Ben Gamla's religious instruction violating the Supreme Court ruling.
Ferrate said there was a "meaningfully large" number of board members who did not want to vote against the school, but did so to stay in line with the St. Isidore decision.
"We have been told by the Oklahoma Supreme Court that we cannot approve this application for a religious charter school," Ferrate said. "We are being told to discriminate by the Oklahoma Supreme Court."
Drummond asked an Oklahoma County district judge to order the board to provide a new rejection letter that covers more than just the school's religious nature, alleging the board had engineered its rejection to benefit the school's court case.
Drummond argues Deutsch originally gave a 40-student estimate for its projected enrollment, serving high school students only. But the formal application estimates 400 K-12 students.
AJ Ferrate, an attorney representing the board, said the shift in attendance numbers is an issue "commonly dealt with in the contracting phase." StateImpact and Public Radio Tulsa were referred to Ferrate after requesting interviews with board members.
The attorney general also points to the inclusion of Brett Farley, executive director of the Catholic Conference of Oklahoma, as one of the board members. State law requires one of the charter school board members to be a parent of a student.
According to reporting from Oklahoma Voice, Farley said he "would definitely" consider enrolling his daughter at the school.
Eric Baxter, an attorney from the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty representing Peter Deutsch and Ben Gamla's board, said any suspicion about Farley's involvement as a parent being disingenuous "reflects people's unawareness of people's interest in these types of schools."
StateImpact and Public Radio Tulsa were referred to Baxter after requesting an interview with Farley.
"A lot of Christians also have an affinity for the Jewish faith, and an understanding of their traditions," Baxter said. "And so, it's not at all inconsistent that a Catholic or a Christian of another stripe would be interested in a school like this."
The National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation, which is the nonprofit that filed the school's application, and Peter Deutsch filed a federal lawsuit in March against Drummond and the board for the rejection.
The lawsuit argues that under the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause, governments are not allowed to "discriminate against religious institutions in the provision of public benefits." The Oklahoma Charter Schools Act, it said, is therefore discriminatory in nature. In doing so, the suit argues, the Act also violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
"This is therefore a simple case — can Oklahoma arbitrarily exclude religious people from a charter school program?" The lawsuit asks. "The constitution says no."
The federal case continues to work its way through the court. A hearing has not yet been set.
Members of the Jewish community say Deutsch did not consult with enough of the community to understand its needs.
Joe Roberts is the executive director of the Jewish Federation of Tulsa. He said Jewish students have extracurricular options in addition to private school, such as programs at synagogues and communal organizations.
"That is not to say that there's not more growth to be had or more options for Jewish education," Roberts said. "We would welcome that, but doing it in consultation with the community is really important so we can actually fill the needs that the community has."
Roberts and four other Jewish leaders issued a statement in January, saying they were "deeply concerned" about the lack of involvement with Oklahoma Jews.
"We live, work, raise our families, and build our Jewish lives in Oklahoma," the statement said. "To bypass community consultation in favor of an externally driven initiative is a serious error."
Roberts said in conversations with Jewish leadership, there was a "lot of concern" expressed about what the Ben Gamla school could mean for the separation of church and state.
"One of our core mandate items in our advocacy work is religious freedom," Roberts said. "So there's a lot of questions about how this plays into that. And a lot of questions about how that would impact our community, should this pass."
Rachel Johnson, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Oklahoma City, said conversations about more Jewish education options in Oklahoma City would be welcome if they were about private schools.
"Everybody I've heard from so far does not want public funding for any religious school, be it Jewish, Catholic, Muslim, any of the religions," Johnson said. "That protects our religious freedom."
"Because that's not a place for government."
In April, a group of Oklahoma families, teachers and clergy filed a motion to intervene in Ben Gamla's lawsuit against the board. Of the seven proposed intervenors, one is a rabbi and four more are Jewish. They argue that a ruling in favor of the charter school could divert limited funds from secular schools to a religious school with discriminatory practices.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the ACLU, Oklahoma Appleseed, the Education Law Center and the Freedom From Religion Foundation represent the intervenors.
"Our clients are seeking to vindicate the age-old, basic constitutional principle that religious schools can't be public schools, and public schools can't be religious," said Daniel Mach, director of the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief, in a news release. "That vital protection, guaranteed by both Oklahoma and federal law, helps ensure that public education remains available to all students, free from religious pressure or discrimination."
Charter school advocates are also sounding alarms over Ben Gamla. The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools issued an April 20 statement, saying if the school is eventually approved, it would jeopardize state and federal funding by redefining public schools.
"Charter schools are public schools. They are open to all students, funded by public dollars and required to be nonsectarian," the statement reads. "Supporting this application would destabilize the very foundations charter schools have relied on for decades."
The NACPS opposed St. Isidore for similar reasons.
Baxter said Florida's Ben Gamla school received similar resistance, but its performance speaks for itself.
"A lot of people in the Jewish community said they didn't want these schools," Baxter said. "A lot of people didn't want them. They thought they wouldn't succeed. These are now very highly ranked charter schools in Florida."
At Mizel Jewish Community Day School, executive director Amanda Anderson said she chafes at the insinuation that Oklahoma's Jewish education is lacking.
"We do have a strong Jewish day school. We do educate our kids," Anderson said. "And so being able to hear that that's not happening in Oklahoma — here we are."
Whether students are learning to speak Hebrew, making challah, learning traditional songs or other Jewish values, Anderson is proud of the education Mizel provides.
"We might be a small community," Anderson said. "But we're definitely mighty."
A recent InvestorsObserver study says an average family of four is spending nearly $741 more per year on the exact same groceries than they did six years ago. A box of Frosted Flakes is 51% more expensive now per serving than it was in 2020 with fewer servings inside, according to the study. When prices increase but the product itself is smaller, that’s known as shrinkflation.
The Flyer investigated shrinkflation here in Tulsa. With help from Tulsa Documenters, we compared prices of 20 popular brand and store name items at six different grocery stores around the city. Here are our findings and how they match up against the national study.
This special project was made possible with help from Tulsa Documenters. This program trains and pays Tulsa residents to document local government meetings. For more information about Tulsa Documenters and how to join, visit the Tulsa Flyer website here.
3116 S. Garnett Road
Faith Harl says it’s hard to believe a family size bag of Peanut M&Ms costs almost $10 now. Compared to the other stores Tulsa Documenters shopped at, her findings were usually on the cheaper end.
A Ben & Jerry’s pint costs $4.87, which is slightly cheaper than 14 ounces of Häagen-Dazs Vanilla Bean in cents per ounce (30.4 vs. 31.1 cents per ounce); you do get less ice cream, though. Still, the store brand version is the cheapest at $1.87 or only 11.7 cents per ounce.
“I also noticed what types of products were available at this store versus the midtown Reasor’s where I typically grocery shop,” Harl said. “There was barely any fresh produce at the Walmart on Garnett, and the majority of the products were highly processed foods from large food corps.”
207 S. Memorial Drive
If you’ve ever wondered whether the Walmart Supercenter has different prices than Walmart Neighborhood Markets, most brand name items we found appeared to be the same. Susan Hartman reports a can of Campbell’s Condensed Chicken Noodle is $1.24, the same as Harl saw.
Hartman grew up in Arkansas, which is home to Walmart’s headquarters, and she was surprised the Great Value brand was a much cheaper option. As a kid, her mom cooked meals from scratch using her food stamps. Since then, Hartman tries to buy less processed foods.
“Today I shop by ingredients rather than price,” Hartman said. “Cost is a factor, but I will just not buy a product, chips for example, if the better quality item is too expensive.”
3915 S. Peoria Ave.
Leslie Cardiel typically shops at her local Walmart, and she feels like the Reasor’s prices were high. A 13-ounce bag of Lay’s Classic Potato Chips costs $5.99, which is $1 more than most of the other stores Tulsa Documenters went to.
The Reasor’s store brand chip alternative also had the highest cents per ounce compared to others, despite being cheaper than the brand name option.
“I thought the difference between the store brand chips and the brand chips was absolutely ridiculous,” Cardiel said. “It made me realize how much I must be spending just for my favorite bag of chips.”
7130 S. Memorial Drive
In this economy, every dollar counts, says Alexa Cappotelli.
She has an economics background and thinks most people don’t have the time or resources to find the best deals across different stores — let alone shop at four or five places each time they buy groceries.
“We often hear about the benefits of our economic system, capitalism, but when those benefits aren’t tangible for most people, I think that creates a pretty significant contradiction,” Cappotelli said.
She’d never been to discount supermarket chain WinCo but noticed snack food and ice cream were cheaper in comparison to Reasor’s. (Party Size Doritos Nacho Cheese was $5.48 compared to $7.29; Häagen-Dazs Vanilla Bean was $4.48 vs. $5.99).
So, maybe WinCo is the place to go if you’re having a big party, Cappotelli said.
10019 S. Memorial Drive
Matt Rudy thinks people should price shop with store apps. Using the Target app, he was able to find cheaper prices online than when he was searching at the store.
“They should probably use an application that does price shopping, if they have the time to scan barcodes,” Rudy said.
Compared to the other stores, Target’s prices were more middle of the road. A 2-liter bottle of Pepsi was $2.99, a dollar more than the cheapest (WinCo) and a dollar less than the most expensive (Oasis Fresh Market). For a family size pack of Skittles, it costs $7.99, nearly three dollars more than the cheapest (WinCo) and one dollar less than the most expensive Reasor’s.
1725 N. Peoria Ave.
After noticing all the cost differences, Kia Parchment says this project has convinced her to shop store brands for a while to compare the cost savings. Oasis Fresh Market is a local store, so it didn’t always have “store brand” options.
“Growing up, store brands were looked down upon in my household, but these big corporations are not showing any real difference nor specialty behind their brands,” Parchment said.
A 2-liter bottle of Coke costs $3.99, compared to $1.19 for the store brand version of the same size. Across the board, Oasis Fresh Market had some of the most expensive brand name options. A family size box of Honey Nut Cheerios were $7.59, which was $3 more than the cheapest option at Walmart Neighborhood Market.
On a typical Tuesday afternoon at the Dick Conner Correctional Center, Joshua Codynah works with metals at a factory on site. The Hominy facility is part of the Oklahoma Correctional Industries’ program, where incarcerated people manufacture goods like license plates and furniture.
But last week, Codynah instead had his hands in the dirt, helping plant dozens of native seedlings in a small grassy plot near the cafeteria.
The garden will be one of four at prisons across Oklahoma, where unused land is being converted into pollinator habitats. Members of the Oklahoma Monarch Society partnered with the Department of Corrections to expand their conservation efforts and help struggling species in a new way.
For Codynah, the program is a chance to continue learning. That’s a goal he set for himself to achieve during the remainder of his life sentence.
“When you're locked up in a cell, most of the time of the day, getting to touch a piece of dirt is a piece of freedom,” he said.
Codynah was born in Carnegie and is a citizen of the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma. He didn’t grow up gardening, but he misses spending time outdoors and observing plants and insects.
“You kind of miss the little things,” Codynah said. “I'm just glad I could be a part of something that big of a magnitude and something bigger than myself.”
Pollinating animals — from birds to butterflies — are experiencing population declines because of habitat loss, pesticide use and climate change. As roadways or manicured lawns replace native vegetation, pollinators lose the food and nesting sites necessary for survival. Remaining patches of undeveloped land are more spread out, making it difficult for pollinators to find a spot to refuel while they migrate.
Jamie Mansell, who volunteers with the Oklahoma Monarch Society, said the nonprofit wants to help re-carve a path for the pollinators, so they can be around for generations to come.
“Migrating species were used to having a corridor that they could travel through,” she said. “We can kind of piecemeal that corridor back together by having these smaller, little efforts along the way.”
The program was created about 10 years ago and receives funding from grants and the sale of Oklahoma monarch license plates, which are manufactured at the Dick Conner facility.
Volunteers carted in seedlings, nutrient-packed soil and books. A piece of graph paper helped them chart where to put native species like milkweed, asters, black-eyed susans and blue mist flowers. Oklahoma is a critical stopover for pollinators like monarch butterflies, which are currently being considered for protections under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.
Reports say their numbers are slowly rising, partly due to conservation efforts like habitat restoration.
During the gardening day, Codynah was one of the first people to join in. By the afternoon, at least a dozen men were lending a hand in the budding garden. Others still gathered near the edges of the fence to watch or leaf through some of the native plant books.
Walt Scott, known as the head gardener around the facility, had already been planting flowers for about seven years. He didn’t need to use one of the shovels brought out to till the earth. Instead, he used his preferred tool made from a PVC pipe, which he had carefully rounded into a smooth digging tool.
“I can get the same thing done with this,” Scott said.
That way, he doesn’t have to wait for a prison official to fetch supplies when he wants to tend to the plants. During his time at Dick Conner, Scott has solidified his role in the yard, with his work presented in the flowers already lining the facility’s perimeter.
“I just like them,” Scott said of the flowers. “We like to watch the hummingbirds and the butterflies come in.”
Scott said he saw a couple of black-and-white-striped monarch caterpillars earlier this year, but he hopes the new garden will bring in more.
Larissa Balzer is the president of the Monarch Society’s board of directors. She says planting at the Dick Conner facility is especially meaningful because it's where the organization’s monarch license plates are manufactured. The group gets $20 from each plate purchased and renewal fees every year thereafter.
“Because of their labor, our organization can exist,” Balzar said. “We need to bring that right all the way back around so they get to experience the beauty of the plants and the native habitat, and to see the butterflies and let the magic of transformation and change and resilience just be a part of their time here.”
The license plate generates approximately $20,000 per month, according to the Monarch Society, which it uses to support pollinator habitat and outreach efforts statewide.
The nonprofit is also arranging for participating facilities in Stringtown, Hinton and Taft to get monarch murals. Rick Sinnett, the same local artist who designed the monarch license plate, designed the paintings.
For many of the men, planting gives them a chance to slow down and think more clearly. David Aradoz said the opportunity to work outdoors provides solace away from the noise indoors.
“This place is a mess here, you got people in here from ‘A to Z,’” Aradoz said. “Who knows what they did, but who cares? As long as they're being productive, you know? That's what it is.”
“I've seen people turn their whole life around just from that little garden we got in there.”
Aradoz said he’s set to be released in a few months and has plans to continue gardening on the other side of the gates. Pollinating species like the monarch need help to survive, he said.
“It is just a pretty butterfly that needs a chance,” Aradoz said. “We get second chances. Why can't they?”
Article link: https://www.kosu.org/oklahoma-prisons-pollinator-hubs
A $2,000 teacher salary increase advancing through the Legislature has raised concerns among school district leaders of whether state funding will support its total cost.
The Oklahoma House approved the teacher pay raise, outlined in Senate Bill 201, by a vote of 92-1 on Tuesday, more than a month after receiving the bill from the Senate. The legislation, which returns to the Senate for final review, would add $2,000 to the state-mandated minimum salaries for Oklahoma teachers and certified school employees.
Although lawmakers budgeted $100 million for the pay raise, some district leaders said their schools likely will have to pay out of pocket to cover the full expense, especially if they already pay above the minimum salary schedule for teachers.
The $100 million allocation is part of a $232 million package of added funding budgeted for public education.
House Speaker Kyle Hilbert, R-Bristow, said the extra money should be sufficient for districts to raise their teachers’ salaries, regardless of whether they pay at or above state minimums.
“If districts are on the formula and pay above the minimum now with existing funding, they can pay them $2,000 more with nearly a quarter billion in new public education funding, $100 million of which is specifically dedicated for teacher pay,” Hilbert said in a statement.
Districts already paying above the state minimum wouldn’t be legally obligated to provide a full $2,000 increase. But, teachers in those districts still should push for a $2,000 raise, Hilbert and other legislative leaders have said.
The extra state funding coming to Midwest City-Del City Public Schools would cover just under 80%, or $232,000 short, of the cost to increase the district’s teacher salaries by $2,000, Superintendent Rick Cobb said.
Raising a teacher’s salary by $2,000 comes at a true cost of $2,500 when factoring in added teacher retirement expenses and higher payroll taxes, he said.
Although the district already pays well above the state minimum, Cobb said “I don’t think our teachers are going to accept us not giving them a $2,000 raise when we go into negotiations.”
“I know one of your questions is going to be about whether (lawmakers are) fully funding the raise, and in our case, they’re not,” he said. “So, I think that needs to be part of the conversation, too, is that our teachers are going to expect a $2,000 raise. Our teachers are making less than the cost of living increase that inflation is bringing into their lives. So, without an infusion into the salary schedule, their buying power is less and less every year.”
As district leaders put together a budget for the next fiscal year, Cobb said Mid-Del schools still are going to try to make a $2,000 raise work.
“I’m not sure exactly how right now, but we’re going to try,” he said.
The small northeastern Oklahoma district of Peggs pays at the state minimum but completely covers teachers’ retirement contributions, saving each educator $3,000 to $4,000, Superintendent John Cox said. Teachers in the rural district also “wear many hats” and are compensated for fulfilling multiple roles.
Cox, also a Republican candidate running for state superintendent, said he expects Peggs would have to pay a small amount out of pocket to cover the total cost of the $2,000 raise when considering retirement and fringe benefits.
The bigger challenge, he said, is affording the rising payroll while operational expenses, like bus diesel and maintenance, also increase year over year.
The state budget doesn’t raise funding for schools’ operational costs, even though lawmakers are considering lengthening the minimum school year in 2027-28.
“There’s a definite balancing act,” Cox said. “We’re required to pay the teacher pay raise. Then what do you do with operational costs and what do you forgo to be able to pay those teacher pay raises? What in the maintenance area and in the operational costs do you cut to be able to make those pay raises?”
State lawmakers touted the pay increase as the latest of multiple steps in improving Oklahoma teacher salary levels. The Legislature last approved teacher raises in 2018, 2019 and 2023.
Oklahoma’s current average teacher salary is fourth among all bordering states and second in the region when factoring in cost of living, according to state Department of Education data. The average starting salary for teachers in the state is still ranked toward the bottom of the region, even when considering cost of living, the agency reported.
The state’s largest teacher union, the Oklahoma Education Association, said it is “grateful to lawmakers for making another investment into competitive teacher pay.”
“Even if districts already pay above the minimum, we hope that they will use the funding that will be provided by the state to give all teachers the full $2,000 raise,” the organization said in a statement Wednesday. “They deserve it.”
Oklahoma Voice is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oklahoma Voice maintains editorial independence.
A grand jury indicted the defendants last week on 67 counts, including maintaining a drug-involved premises, possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, distribution of marijuana and unlawful use of a communication facility.
“This case underscores the threat posed by nationwide criminal organizations that exploit Oklahoma’s marijuana laws to produce and distribute large quantities of black-market marijuana across the country,” U.S. Attorney Robert J. Troester said in a statement.
According to the indictment, the trafficking operation began in March 2025. Ten licensed growers produced illegal cannabis in “massive quantities” at multiple farms spanning the state, including facilities in Stillwater, Hennessey and Paden.
At least one of the grows had been shut down before, after state investigators found “vacuum bags of untraceable marijuana” in 2023.
Although cannabis may be grown legally in Oklahoma with a license, state law prohibits it from being transported across state lines or sold outside of licensed dispensaries. And growers must adhere to tagging and tracking rules for each of their plants.
Four people are accused of transporting the weed in question to two “stash houses” in Edmond, just north of Quail Springs Mall, where it was picked up in bulk by at least two dozen illegal distributors. Some was sold in Oklahoma; some made its way to customers in Texas, Mississippi, Kansas and North Carolina.
Thirteen more people face charges for brokering the transactions and laundering the profits.
About half of the accused people had been arrested by Monday morning, and the rest are still at large. Twenty-seven of the defendants live in Oklahoma. Twenty-nine are Chinese citizens, although eleven have permanent legal resident status in the United States.
A press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Western District of Oklahoma identifies Li Shun Chen and Ying Wang as two of the lead conspirators. Both are Oklahoma City residents and U.S. citizens, and both have been arrested.
In searches executed alongside the arrests, law enforcement seized more than 61,000 cannabis plants and more than half a ton of processed weed, according to the press release.
These arrest and search warrants came from a federal Homeland Security task force, which involved federal, state and local law enforcement agencies.
The Muscogee National Council issued a vote of no confidence against five of the tribe’s supreme court justices on Sunday.
The council argues the members violated their oaths of office when removing the tribe’s “by blood” citizenship requirement.
At the western edge of the panhandle, Black Mesa is Oklahoma’s highest point — and one of its darkest. Late last year, the state park here became the state’s first certified International Dark Sky Place. KOSU took a trip up there to experience the celebrations recognizing this designation. You can read the full story here.
We also learned a lot about how to take pictures of the night sky using your smartphone! We put some tips together here.
Let us know if you have any panhandle questions!