During the 30th anniversary observances of the Murrah Building bombing, Richard Booth, curator of the Libertarian Institute's library of material on the Oklahoma City bombing, described and linked to an interview from 1998 with Tonia Yeakey, the widow of Oklahoma City Police Officer Terry Yeakey. Yeakey rescued several people from the ruins of the Murrah Building. Mrs. Yeakey was interviewed by Tulsa radio talk show host Ken Rank, then at KAKC 1300, along with Col. Craig Roberts, a Marine and retired Tulsa Police officer who had been assigned to assist the FBI with the Murrah Building investigation. A key point in Booth's summary:

The clip here is Tonia Yeakey explaining how on the day of the OKC bombing, April 19th, 1995, she knew Terry worked downtown OKC in the morning and she had not heard from him by the afternoon so she was worried--his police car radio and computer weren't transmitting and nobody seemed to know where he was.

Then she finally got a call--Terry was at Presbyterian hospital--he had taken a fall and hurt himself--nothing broken, nothing major, so Tonia went on down to the hospital to get him. According to Tonia, Terry was adamant to her--as if to say "get me out of this hospital." She said she thought he had been threatened while he was there.

As he got into the car to leave the hospital, Terry told her "Tonia, it's not what they're saying it is. They're not telling the truth, they're lying about whats going on down there."

Officer Yeakey, one of the first officers in the Murrah Building on April 19, 1995, just minutes after the explosion, was murdered in 1996, just days before he was to be honored for his heroism in the rescue effort. His murder has never been solved. The clip also mentions Yeakey's 9-page report written shortly after the bombing and that his boss insisted on him writing a 1-page report to replace it. The 9-page version went missing. Yeakey had his wife accompany him back to the ruins of the Murrah Building some time before it was demolished, but law enforcement on the scene turned them away.

At this year's commemorations, Gov. Kevin Stitt honored Terrance Yeakey by name, apparently the first time this has ever happened at an official commemoration. Tonia Yeakey says that she wrote the governor after an article about her husband appeared on CNN.com, but she had not expected this.

Richard Booth's X account @okc_facts and his OKCfacts Substack are worth following. In an entry from last December, he provides a collection of links to articles about the OKC bombing by reporters J. D. Cash and Roger Charles, published in Soldier of Fortune and the McCurtain Daily Gazette.

Yesterday was also the 30th anniversary of the destruction of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, the result of a terrorist attack that mimicked the 1993 World Trade Center bombing by using a panel rental truck as the container for an Ammonium Nitrate Fuel Oil (ANFO) bomb which took out the front wall of the building and over a third of each floor. 168 people were killed in the blast. Here is an update of my blog entry from 2015, which itself was an update from a 2005 article, shortly after my wife and I had visited the memorial, when we were in town for the Oklahoma Republican Convention. I don't think I can improve upon what was written by those who were there. I've updated links where I could. I've left live links in place but have added archive links for safekeeping.

Much has been written by those who were in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. Rather than try to improve on their work, or even try to meaningfully excerpt it, I'll send you their way. They are all must-reads.

Jan, the Happy Homemaker was picked up by a friend and they went to volunteer at University Hospital. She ended up carrying equipment to the triage site and was overwhelmed by what she saw there. (Archive link.)

Don Danz felt the explosion four blocks away, then went with a coworker to look for her dad, who worked in the Murrah Building. Don has a map showing damaged buildings as distant as a mile away.

Mike LaPrarie at Mike's Noise has a series of posts: His memories of the day of the bombing, a gallery of links, photos he took in the days and weeks following the bombing, profiles of the perpetrators, and unanswered questions -- what about John Doe No. 2, stories of multiple bombs and multiple explosions, and rumors of advance warning of an attack. (Archive links: Series intro, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5.)

The late great Charles G. Hill linked to his reaction to media coverage on the first anniversary of the bombing (his very first weekly web column, Vent #1), and on the 10th anniversary his thoughts on what the perps intended to teach us, and what Oklahoma Citians learned instead about themselves.

In a separate entry, Charles links to several other first-person accounts:

Chase McInerney, who was on the scene as a working journalist. (Archive link.): "In many respects, the bombing was the defining moment in my life. For more than three years, it consumed me professionally, to the point of obsession, really. It impacted relationships, leading to friendships and the dissolution of others. It connected me to my native state in a way I wouldn't have thought possible. It drew me into situations and brought me to people who continue to haunt me. And there are moments from that day and the weeks and months that followed I will never forget."

See-Dubya, guest-posting at Patterico's Pontifications: "Oklahoma is a close-knit state; everyone knows someone who knows everyone else. I was incredibly lucky that I didn't lose any friends or family that day. A friend, a great philanthropist who worked tirelessly to improve the state's schools, was talking on the phone in the old Journal-Record building across the street. She was facing her plate glass window when the shock wave hit and the flying glass slashed her throat. She was bleeding to death, but her secretary found her and carried her down to the ambulances just in time. The last time I saw her she still spoke in a whisper, but she still spoke. The daughter of an old deer hunting buddy of mine was going down a staircase inside the Murrah building when the blast threw her down the stairs. According to the second-hand account I heard, she woke up, and walked out of the wreckage. Her officemates never did."

Robyn at Shutterblog: "For the first time, Todd and I visited the Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial with his family over the weekend. We had both purposely put off seeing it for this long. We just hadn't been ready 'til now. I spent most of my time walking through the pathways quietly, letting my camera lens absorb the images in front of me. I think somehow deep-down, I needed that buffer zone. Seeing the tiny chairs of the littlest victims was almost more than my heart could bear." (Archive link.)

Frederick Ochsenhirt, A Bluegrass Blog: "I didn't have kids then, as our first was still four years away, but even then I understood that Oklahoma City was nightmare-inducing for those who did. The day care center was supposed to be a safe haven, a place of comfort during the time the kids had to be separated from the parents. Then on an April morning, it became a place of pain and suffering and death. Four and a half years later, when it was time for our little one to go to a day care center of his own, half a continent away in a place that seemed more secure, I still thought about Oklahoma City, but took comfort that I was in a different place, in a different time. Terrorists could never attack Washington, DC, right?"

Downtown Guy was there, too:

I was there on April 19th. No, thank God, I wasn't a victim, and I wasn't in the buildings when the blast went off. But I was out there soon after. Without risking letting out who I am, let's just say I was out there serving the public. I saw horrible things I never thought I'd see. I saw a person die. And with all the hype out there right now, the image is haunting me again.

I didn't know how much the bombing effected me until the second anniversary. A procession of victims marched through downtown. I watched. I started sweating. My head felt like it was about to explode. I rushed to an alley next to the old library. I threw up in the weeds.

I remember the initial reports, speculating about a natural gas main explosion, then the suggestion that this might be linked to foreign terrorism (remember, it was just two years since the first attack on the World Trade Center), rumors that some Middle Eastern man had been apprehended at the Oklahoma City airport. They found a part of the bomb truck, tracked the VIN back to a rental outlet in Junction City, Kansas, and before long we had sketches of two John Does. It wasn't much longer with John Doe No. 1 was apprehended near Perry, driving a car without a license plate.

I visited the site three weeks later, just after my second nephew was born a few miles away at Baptist Hospital. The building still stood there, agape, awaiting demolition. Teddy bears, flowers, photos, and other tokens of remembrance lined the chain link fence.

My wife and I visited the memorial in April 2005. I am not fond of the memorial. I don't think we know how to build memorials any more, and I wrote in 2005 that I didn't have high hopes for what would be built at Ground Zero in New York. It's too big, too grand, too sleek, too clean. But there were a few things about it, mainly small, simple, untidy things, that touch the heart:

• Among the Field of Chairs, 19 chairs aren't as big as the others.
• The Survivor Tree -- an elm that once stood in the middle of an asphalt parking lot across the street from the blast is now the focal point and the symbol of the memorial. It's the one spot of shade and shelter at the memorial.
• The graffito, spraypainted on the Journal Record building by a rescue worker: "Team 5 / 4-19-95 / We search for the truth. We seek Justice. The Courts Require it. The Victims Cry for it. And GOD Demands it"
• The fence -- in 2005 it was still there, still hung with memories of lives cut short, beautiful young women, bright-eyed kids, moms and dads. It must have driven the memorial's designer nuts to know that this garden-variety chain link fence and its jumble of sentimental trinkets would continue to stand next to the sleek and stark gates.

(The fence south of the gate and NW 5th Street was taken down between August 2017 and May 2018, according to Google Street View images. The fence north of the gate was still there as of June 2024.)

Two neighboring churches have built their own small memorials across the street. St. Joseph's Old Cathedral has a statue of Jesus, weeping, facing away from the building and toward a wall with 168 niches. A message from the Roman Catholic Bishop of Oklahoma, Eusebius Beltran, explaining the significance of the statue and the design of the memorial, is posted nearby. First Methodist Church built a small open-air chapel shortly after the bombing as a place for prayer and worship for those visiting the site. These two simple shrines far better capture the Spirit that drew rescue workers and volunteers from across the state and the nation to comfort the dying, tend the wounded, search for the lost, clear away the debris, and begin to put a city back together again.

MORE from the 20th anniversary:

Here is Charles G. Hill's reflection on the 20th anniversary of the bombing, in which he outlined the career of Alfred P. Murrah, the Federal Appeals Court judge for whom the building was named, recounted hearing the explosion from his office miles away, and mentioned that the GM of the Oklahoma City Thunder, Sam Presti, would send new team members to visit the memorial. Charles noted that in April 19, 1995, Presti was living in his hometown of Concord, Mass., where one of the first battles of the American Revolution had occurred 220 years earlier.

Carla Hinton, religion reporter for the Oklahoman, profiled Frank and Donna Sisson, caretakers for almost 20 years of the open-air Heartland Chapel at First Methodist.

Reporter Jayna Davis has written and updated a book on her investigation of the identity of "John Doe No. 2" and the possible connection to hostile regimes and factions in the Middle East: The Third Terrorist: The Middle East Connection to the Oklahoma City Bombing. Here is a 2011 article by Davis about the declassified 2005 FBI interrogation of convicted bomber Terry Nichols:

During the interview, the convicted bomber unleashed a startling admission: John Doe 2 exists. The FBI report states, "Nichols advised that John Doe 2's name had not been mentioned during the (FBI) investigation, and therefore, he feared for his life and his family's well-being should it become public."

The late McCurtain County Gazette journalist J. D. Cash pursued the bombers' connections to the white-supremacist movement. Cash and his work were profiled by Darcy O'Brien in The New Yorker in 1997. On Cash's death in 2007, Mike McCarville wrote:

His writings about the Oklahoma City bombing first gained attention because they included interviews with an undercover IRS operative who maintained that she had warned the government of the plans of right-wing extremists to attack federal buildings in 1995. Cash went on to delve deeper and deeper into Tim McVeigh and others who had lived or visited Elohim City, the religious compound in eastern Oklahoma. Using the Freedom of Information Act, he was able to make a case that the FBI had McVeigh and other members of a gang of Midwest Bank robbers under investigation prior to the 1995 bombing of the Murrah building.

O'Brien's New Yorker story about Cash's investigation and a Kansas City Star story, both from March 1997, are here. (Archive link here.) Here is the Gazette's list of archived stories about the bombing, covering 2002-2006. Emporia State University journalism professor Max McCoy paid tribute to Cash after learning of his death.

Cash did not have a journalistic background. He came to reporting for one story, and one story only: the Oklahoma City bombing. He did it better than anybody else, he did it for a newspaper with a circulation so small that most journalists cited it with a chuckle, and he came closer to the truth than anybody else. Damn.

MORE:

Young man, what we meant in going for those red-coats was this: we always had governed ourselves, and we always meant to. They didn't mean we should.

-- Captain Levi Preston, veteran of the Battle of Lexington and Concord, 1842

A quarter of a millennium ago today, April 19, 1775, the first military conflict of the American Revolution began at the town green in Lexington, Massachusetts, leading to a confrontation at the Old North Bridge in Concord, where the first Redcoats fell, and a long pursuit as King George's troops retreated from Concord to Charlestown.

Last night there was a re-enactment of Paul Revere's ride, beginning at the Old North Church in Boston, and early this morning, there was a battle re-enactment, followed by a 5K run, parades, and other festivities in Lexington and Concord through the day. Over 200,000 people were expected to attend. On Monday, Patriot's Day holiday in Massachusetts, the annual running of the Boston Marathon will take place, recreating another long journey connected with a long-ago battle.

This weekend is the opening salvo of 15 months of celebrations leading up to the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 2026.

Historian Tara Ross has published two of her "This Day in History" articles to mark the occasion, with links to other resources. From her account of Paul Revere's ride:

Revere arrived in Lexington in time to warn Hancock and Adams. Then he and [William] Dawes set off for Concord to help secure the weapons and supplies there. They were soon joined by another rider, Dr. Samuel Prescott. Unfortunately, the trio was stopped by British officers. Prescott and Dawes escaped, but Revere did not. One of the British officers, Revere later wrote, "Clapped his pistol to my head, called me by name, & told me he was going to ask me some questions, & if I did not give him true answers, he would blow my brains out."

In her article on the Battle of Lexington and Concord, Ross points out that there had been previous acts of violence by the colonials against the British, but this was different:

Some argue that Concord was the site of the "shot heard 'round the world," not Lexington. The logic is that the first serious British casualties that day were at Concord: That part of the day felt more like American patriots seriously taking on the British. A counterargument: Americans had gone after British soldiers and officials before, drawing blood as they had during the Gaspee Affair (1772) and the Battle of Golden Hill (1770). Moreover, they'd taken other defiant actions, such as destroying Massachusetts Lt. Governor Thomas Hutchinson's home (1765). Concord was not the first instance of American patriots taking on the British in a serious way. Lexington's claim to "shot heard 'round the world" is because those were the shots from which we could not turn back. Every other preceding event had been resolved in some way that did not bring about full-blown war. But there would be no coming back from the shots taken on Lexington Green in April 1775.

Eyewitness accounts of the events of April 18 and 19, 1775, were gathered within the week by members of the Massachusetts legislature and were forwarded to the newly assembled Second Continental Congress the following month, included in the Journal of the Second Continental Congress beginning on page 29 of the linked version.

On April 22d. the Massachusetts Congress appointed a committee to collect testimony on the conduct of the British troops in their route to Concord, to be sent to England by the first ship from Salem. Mr. Gerry, Colonel Cushing, Colonel Barrett, Captain Stone, Dr. Taylor, Messrs. Sullivan, Freeman and Watson, and Esquire Jonas Dix constituted this committee; and on the 23d, Gerry and Cushing were joined with Dr. Church to draw up an account of the "massacre" of the 19th. The report and narrative were submitted on the 26th, and a number of scribes named to make duplicate copies. One set was entrusted to Captain Richard Derby, who was to hasten to London and deliver them to Franklin. On May 2d, Gerry, Warren, Dexter, Col. Warren and Gerrish were ordered to send a second set to the Southern colonies, to be transmitted to London, and a third set to the Continental Congress. The copies sent to the Congress are in Papers of the Continental Congress, No. 65, vol. I, folios 11-51.

This testimony was published as a pamphlet: NARRATIVE, OF THE EXCURSION and RAVAGES OF THE KING'S TROOPS Under the Command of General GAGE, On the nineteenth of APRIL, 1775. TOGETHER WITH THE DEPOSITIONS Taken by ORDER of CONGRESS, To support the Truth of it.

Here is the preface to the depositions, summarizing the events:

ON the nineteenth day of April one thousand, seven hundred and seventy five, a day to be remembered by all Americans of the present generation, and which ought and doubtless will be handed down to ages yet unborn, in which the troops of Britain, unprovoked, shed the blood of sundry of the loyal American subjects of the British King in the field of Lexington. Early in the morning of said day, a detachment of the forces under the command of General Gage, stationed at Boston, attacked a small party of the inhabitants of Lexington and some other towns adjacent, the detachment consisting of about nine hundred men commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Smith.

The inhabitants of Lexington and the other towns were about one hundred, some with and some without fire arms, who had collected upon information, that the detachment had secretly marched from Boston the preceeding night, and landed on Phip's Farm in Cambridge, and were proceding on their way with brisk pace towards Concord (as the inhabitants supposed) to take or destroy a quantity of stores deposited there for the use of the colony; sundry peaceable inhabitants having the same night been taken, held by force, and otherwise abused on the road, by some officers of General Gage's army, which caused a just alarm to the people, and a suspicion that some fatal design was immediately to be put in execution against them.

This small party of the inhabitants so far from being disposed to commit hostilities against the troops of their sovereign, that unless attacked were determined to be peaceable spectators of this extraordinary movement; immediately on the approach of Colonel Smith with the detachment under his command they dispersed; but the detachment, seeming to thirst for BLOOD, wantonly rushed on, and first began the hostile scene by firing on this small party, in which they killed eight men on the spot and wounded several others before any guns were fired upon the troops by our men. Not contented with this effusion of blood, as if malice had occupied their whole soul, they continued the fire, until all this small party who escaped the dismal carnage, were out of the reach of their fire.

Colonel Smith with the detachment then proceeded to Concord, where a part of this detachment again made the first fire upon some of the inhabitants of Concord and the adjacent towns, who were collected at a bridge upon this just alarm, and killed two of them and wounded several others, before any of the Provincials there had done one hostile act.

Then the Provincials (roused with zeal for the liberties of their country, finding life and every thing dear and valuable at stake) assumed their native valour and returned the fire, and the engagement on both sides began.

Soon after which the British troops retreated towards Charlestown (having first committed violence and waste on public and private property) and on their retreat were joined by another detachment of General Gage's troops, consisting of about a thousand men, under the command of Earl Percy, who continued the retreat, the engagement lasted through the day, many were killed and wounded on each side, though the loss on the part of the British troops far exceeded that of the provincials: the devastation committed by the British troops on their retreat, the whole of the way from Concord to Charlestown, is almost beyond description, such as plundering and burning of dwelling houses and other buildings, driving into the street women in child-bed, killing old men in their houses unarmed.

Such scenes of desolation would be a reproach to the perpetrators, even if committed by the most barbarous nations, how much more when done by Britons famed for humanity and tenderness.

And all this because these colonies will not submit to the iron yoke of arbitrary power.

At the top of this article, I have a quote from Levi Preston, a veteran of the battle, explaining why he joined the fight. In 1894, historian Mellen Chamberlain addressed the Sons of the American Revolution at their commemoration of the 119th anniversary of the battle, meeting at the church in Concord. Chamberlain's remarks are preserved in his book John Adams, the Statesman of the American Revolution. In his speech, Chamberlain recounted his 1842 interview with Captain Levi Preston, then 91 years old:

Some time in the last couple of years, Newspapers.com, which provides paid access to scanned images of newspapers, added access to the Tulsa World throughout its run and the Tulsa Tribune through 1964. (I'm hopeful that the Tribune scanning will continue until its entire run is available.)

You've seen some of the fruits of that development here at BatesLine, as these archives allow pinpointing of dates and details that previously relied on personal memories. The subscription is not cheap, and the Tulsa and Oklahoma City papers are only available with the premium subscription, but your contributions to this site allow me to keep subscribing.

I also use that subscription to enrich older BatesLine entries. Recently someone posted a screenshot of my 2005 entry about Bates Elementary School to a Facebook group. That led me to change some dead links to point to the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine and then to pursue some unanswered questions about the building, which served a number of purposes after it closed as a Tulsa Public School site in 1983, just 10 years after it opened. Bates was one of three new schools to open in 1973 (along with Mayo and Thoreau), as Tulsa Public Schools enrollment had already declined from a peak of over 80,000 in 1968 to about 67,000 just five years later. I found out the origin of the school's name, in memory of the 8-year-old son of the head of Reading & Bates drilling company, who died in 1960 when his bike slid under a moving car. The school was one of several given names in 1970, including several sites in east Tulsa that were never built because the anticipated development never came. (You'll find all the links at that 2005 article; I won't duplicate them here.)

While looking up an eastside school that was built, Sandburg Elementary, I found a page with several interesting articles on different topics. It was the front page of Section B of the July 2, 1972, World.

• Tulsa Public Schools New Design curriculum at Sandburg Elementary School -- open classrooms, self-paced curriculum, individual attention
• Progress on Tulsa expressways; IDL SE interchange blocked by Riverside Expressway lawsuit: The I-244 Arkansas River bridges, completed in 1969, would finally be connected to the Red Fork Expressway and Okmulgee Bee Line; I-244 Crosstown Expressway had opened in May to the 7th/8th Street exit on the east leg of the Inner Dispersal Loop; the Cherokee Expressway was complete to 56th Street North; the Southeast IDL interchange was being held up by a federal lawsuit over environmental and other issues
• Tulsa County officials want a bigger share of the 10-mill local support property tax levy, asking for a hike from 8.1 mills to 9.5 mills as cities hike sales taxes
• County Assessor Wilson Glass has microfilmed historical assessor records and destroyed the originals, plans automated retrieval system. I'd love to know if those microfilms survive, and if so, where.

That's four articles on a single page, all of which any of which could be the start of a deeper dive and an extensive article about how Tulsa got to be what it is today. And that happens to me all the time: I find one article on a page from a search, but find other articles on the same page that fill in details on something I vaguely remember from my childhood, reveal the roots of a later important development in Tulsa history, or otherwise pique my curiosity.

Here, in the August 11, 1972, paper, is a concept drawing of Bates Elementary School explaining how much it cost, who designed it, and who is building it, and just to the right is an item about a proposal from City Finance Commissioner William Morris, Jr., to elect six city commissioners by district, and the mayor would assign each commissioners specific areas of city government to direct and oversee.

A March 1988 map showing the 43 Tulsa Public Schools sites that had closed since 1922 was accompanied by articles about 11 more elementary schools that would close at the end of the year and three junior highs that would be converted to elementaries and about the fates and ongoing maintenance needs of other closed buildings. That could be a jumping-off point for a plethora of stories about the history of each individual school and why it was closed, and about the long-term decline of Tulsa Public Schools. This page mentions that parents were reluctant to have their children moved to Sandburg because of the very same open plan that was touted in the July 1972 article linked above.

So much to write about, and so much more I find with each search through the archives.

The Benedictine Sisters of Saint Joseph Monastery, who founded and operate Monte Cassino Catholic School in Tulsa, are handing the school to a board of trustees and also leaving 21st and Lewis to continue their monastic life at another location.

Tulsa, OK -- April 2, 2025 -- -- After more than a century of unwavering dedication and leadership, the Benedictine Sisters of Saint Joseph Monastery are embarking on an exciting new chapter. The Sisters have announced that they will be transitioning the governance of Monte Cassino Catholic School to its Board of Directors--a decision made after thoughtful prayer, discernment, and consultation with the Monastic Council, Bishop David Konderla, and Monte Cassino leadership.

Founded with a deep commitment to faith, education, and service, Monte Cassino Catholic School has flourished under the Benedictine Sisters' stewardship, instilling values of prayer, work, and hospitality in generations of students. With the school thriving and well-positioned for the future, the Sisters are confident that the time is right to entrust its continued success to the Board of Directors.

"Our calling has always been to nurture Monte Cassino, ensuring that Benedictine values are woven into the fabric of every student's experience," said Sister Marie Therese, Prioress of Saint Joseph Monastery. "We believe that mission has been fulfilled, and now, with great confidence, we pass the torch to the school's leadership, allowing us to focus more fully on our core monastic mission--prayer, work, and hospitality."

Monte Cassino will remain an independent Catholic institution firmly rooted in its Benedictine foundation. School administrators and the Sisters are working in close collaboration to ensure a smooth and seamless transition.

"The Benedictine Sisters have provided strong, faithful leadership that has positioned Monte Cassino for another century of excellence," said Chris Burke, Head of School for Monte Cassino. "We are honored by the trust they have placed in us to carry their legacy forward. Our commitment remains steadfast--to uphold the traditions, values, and academic excellence that define a Benedictine Catholic education. Future generations of Saints will continue to benefit from this rich heritage."

Echoing this sentiment, Larry Rooney, chairman of the Monte Cassino Board of Directors, emphasized the school's bright future. "The Benedictine legacy will endure, and we are deeply grateful for the Sisters' lasting impact on our school and the broader community. Their influence will forever be at the heart of Monte Cassino."

In addition to this transition, the Benedictine Sisters will be relocating from their current monastery to a new site in the Tulsa area. While the exact location is still being finalized, the move will enable the Sisters to continue their monastic way of life in an environment that supports their mission of prayer and service. Updates on the relocation will be shared as plans progress.

Reflecting on the broader significance of this transition, Bishop David Konderla of the Diocese of Tulsa expressed his appreciation for the Sisters' enduring contributions. "St. Benedict is often called the Father of Western Monasticism, and the movement he inspired has profoundly shaped our culture, faith, and learning. The Catholic and Benedictine heritage is deeply embedded in Monte Cassino and will continue to bear fruit for generations to come. I am proud of all the Sisters have accomplished, both at the school and within our diocese, and I look forward to supporting them as they embark on this new chapter."

As Monte Cassino Catholic School moves forward, it does so with a strong foundation, a dedicated leadership team, and a vibrant community of students, families, and alumni. The Benedictine Sisters extend their heartfelt gratitude for the continued support and prayers of all those who have been part of this remarkable journey.

Monte Cassino is a Roman Catholic K-8 school founded in 1926 by the Benedictine Sisters of St. Joseph's College in Guthrie. It also housed a girls' high school until 1986, when neighboring Cascia Hall became co-educational. Monte Cassino had a girls' junior college from 1931 until 1947. The Benedictine Sisters had previously operated Sacred Heart Academy on the NE corner of 16th and Rockford, beginning in 1921. That same year the sisters purchased 60 acres on the NW corner of 51st and Yale (roughly 46th St to 51st Street, Richmond to Yale) for a future seminary, which was never built as far as I am able to tell. That property was sold on in 1948. The location at 21st and Lewis was purchased in 1925 from Herbert Woodward.

Benedictine Heights College, a four-year college founded as the Catholic College of Oklahoma for Women in 1916 and renamed and made co-ed in 1949, moved from Guthrie to the Monte Cassino campus in Tulsa in 1955, along with the sisters, who moved into the Parriott Mansion on the NW corner of 31st and Lewis.

The college closed in 1961. Monte Cassino High School moved into the college's building. Land owned by the sisters on the SE corner of 21st and Lewis was used for dormitory space, but was rezoned for commercial use that year. The sisters moved back to 21st and Lewis, taking over space that had been used for boarding Monte Cassino students. The college continued to offer limited courses for the sisters only through 1966, when it was shuttered completely.

Some reactions on social media worried that the nuns were being eliminated from the governance of the school in order to turn Monte Cassino into a charter school or to become eligible for the Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit. In fact, Monte Cassino is already eligible for the OPCTC, one of 200 schools statewide which accept students receiving the tax credit. A school does not have to be secular or to submit to accreditation by the State Department of Education in order to be eligible. Any school that is accredited by one of the 14 accrediting associations registered with the Oklahoma Private School Accreditation Commission. These associations cover a wide range of educational philosophies and religious affiliations. Monte Cassino is accredited by Cognia, successor to the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools.

MORE:

Freese Architecture has photos of their renovation of the Saint Joseph Monastery.

Postcard of Benedictine Heights College administration and classroom building, circa 1955

Here is a disturbing essay on today's college students by a tenured professor at a regional public university that caters to very typical, very average American college students.

The gist:

Most of our students are functionally illiterate.... Students are not absolutely illiterate in the sense of being unable to sound out any words whatsoever. Reading bores them, though. They are impatient to get through whatever burden of reading they have to, and move their eyes over the words just to get it done. They're like me clicking through a mandatory online HR training. Students get exam questions wrong simply because they didn't even take the time to read the question properly. Reading anything more than a menu is a chore and to be avoided.

They also lie about it. I wrote the textbook for a course I regularly teach. It's a fairly popular textbook, so I'm assuming it is not terribly written. I did everything I could to make the writing lively and packed with my most engaging examples. The majority of students don't read it. Oh, they will come to my office hours (occasionally) because they are bombing the course, and tell me that they have been doing the reading, but it's obvious they are lying. The most charitable interpretation is that they looked at some of the words, didn't understand anything, pretended that counted as reading, and returned to looking at TikTok.

The author says that students don't bother reading even for electives. He can't assign papers because students will just turn in ChatGPT-generated content. Colleagues who teach math report a similar lack of capability and willingness to try. And although college has been a transactional process for most students throughout his career, there is no longer the willingness to even try to learn. Students treat class as optional, don't bother communicating with the professor about absences or make-up work, disappear entirely without formally dropping the class. This paragraph was just stunning:

They can't sit in a seat for 50 minutes. Students routinely get up during a 50 minute class, sometimes just 15 minutes in, and leave the classroom. I'm supposed to believe that they suddenly, urgently need the toilet, but the reality is that they are going to look at their phones. They know I'll call them out on it in class, so instead they walk out. I've even told them to plan ahead and pee before class, like you tell a small child before a road trip, but it has no effect. They can't make it an hour without getting their phone fix.

They don't want to take notes in class or take responsibility to get notes from a fellow student if they miss class. Or they might pretend to take notes on their laptops, but really they're using it to watch videos or scroll through social media. So why not ban laptops in class?

I hate laptops in class, but if I try to ban them the students will just run to Accommodative Services and get them to tell me that the student must use a laptop or they will explode into tiny pieces. But I know for a fact that note-taking is at best a small part of what they are doing.

They are indifferent to their missed work and can't be bothered to talk to the professor about making it up. (This professor does not delve into the immense problem that Gen Z has with actually talking to adults, making phone calls if necessary, to face up to a problem of their own making.)

This seems to be at the heart of the problem:

It's the phones, stupid. They are absolutely addicted to their phones. When I go work out at the Campus Rec Center, easily half of the students there are just sitting on the machines scrolling on their phones. I was talking with a retired faculty member at the Rec this morning who works out all the time. He said he has done six sets waiting for a student to put down their phone and get off the machine he wanted. The students can't get off their phones for an hour to do a voluntary activity they chose for fun. Sometimes I'm amazed they ever leave their goon caves at all.

The prof says it isn't the fault of the K-12 schools, and it's not a matter of raising standards -- there are just too many students who don't care.

This is a matter of the future of civilization. This is a matter of national security and economic capacity. Phones are making people stupider.

Forget about DEI and air traffic control. Do you want the people keeping planes from crashing into each other to be incapable of watching the radar for more than 30 seconds without looking away to their phones?

Professor Bookbinder links to Ted Gioia writing about zombie students, starting with a TikTok video from a worried school teacher:

First of all the kids have no ability to be bored whatsoever. They live on their phones. And they're just fed a constant stream of dopamine from the minute their eyes wake up in the morning until they go to sleep at night.

Because they are in a constant state of dopamine withdrawal at school, they behave like addicts. They're super emotional. The smallest things set them off.

And when you are standing in front of them trying to teach, they're vacant. They have no ability to tune in if your communication isn't packaged in short little clips or if it doesn't have, like, bright flashing lights.

It's actually the way harder part for me than just the outright behaviors, is just being up at the front, talking to a group of kids who have their eyes open, they're looking at me, but they're not there. They're not there.

And they have a level of apathy that I've never seen before in my whole career. Punishments don't work because they don't care about them. They don't care about grades. They don't care about college.

It's like you are interacting with them briefly between hits of internet, which is their real life.

Gioia comments:

They just care about the next fix--because that's how addicts operate. They have no long term plan, just short term needs.

They can't get back to their phones fast enough.

Even when they know that their phones, YouTube, and social media are getting in the way of accomplishing their goals, these students resist and work frantically to bypass any obstacle keeping them from their dopamine hit. It's terrifying.

Gioia points to research, some of it sponsored by the tech companies themselves, showing that they know, just like the tobacco companies knew, how addictive their products are.

He says that the reaction to zombie culture is happening away from the centers of power, and tech companies may feel they can continue to purchase politicians who will look the other way. Gioia calls on parents and other concerned citizens who work for the tech behemoths to speak up and push for reform and responsibility in their own companies.

On X, Jonathan Haidt, author of The Anxious Generation linked to a couple of recent articles showing, "Brain rot is real, hitting adults, too."

Jon Burn-Murdoch writes in the Financial Times about research showing that "across a range of tests, the average person's ability to reason and solve novel problems appears to have peaked in the early 2010s and has been declining ever since." Results for PISA, the international benchmark test for 15-year-olds in reading, mathematics, and science, fell further between 2012 and 2018 than during the COVID years. (Emphasis added below.)

So we appear to be looking less at the decline of reading per se, and more at a broader erosion in human capacity for mental focus and application.

Most discussion about the societal impacts of digital media focuses on the rise of smartphones and social media. But the change in human capacity for focused thought coincides with something more fundamental: a shift in our relationship with information.

We have moved from finite web pages to infinite, constantly refreshed feeds and a constant barrage of notifications. We no longer spend as much time actively browsing the web and interacting with people we know but instead are presented with a torrent of content. This represents a move from self-directed behaviour to passive consumption and constant context-switching.

Research finds that active, intentional use of digital technologies is often benign or even beneficial. Whereas the behaviours that have taken off in recent years have been shown to affect everything from our ability to process verbal information, to attention, working memory and self-regulation.

A study published in the February 2025 issue of PNAS Nexus, the journal of the National Academy of Sciences, shows "Blocking mobile internet on smartphones improves sustained attention, mental health, and subjective well-being."

Recent experiments provide preliminary evidence in support of these hypotheses. Lab experiments focused on cognitive functioning have shown that hearing smartphone notifications impairs performance on attention-demanding tasks and that simply having one's smartphone present and visible can impair working memory and sustained attention. Although these mere presence effects do not always replicate, meta-analyses conclude that they are small but significant.

Beyond the lab, field experiments suggest that reducing smartphone notifications and receiving smartphone notifications in batches, rather than continuously throughout the day, can improve self-reported attentional functioning. And in a field experiment focused on mental health, participants who were asked to limit their smartphone use for 1 week reported decreased symptoms of anxiety and depression. These and other studies have explored both the acute effects of smartphone-related distraction and short-term effects of modifying smartphone use on mental health. What is missing from the empirical record is a longer-term experiment that changes the nature of the smartphone itself and objectively measures participant compliance and cognitive performance.

This particular study had 467 participants install an app called Freedom "that blocked all mobile internet access (including Wi-Fi and mobile data) from their phones for 2 weeks." They were able to measure compliance objectively, evaluated subjects using standard psychological diagnostic tools for mental health conditions (e.g. depression and anxiety), asked for assessments of subjective well-being, and looked at both self-reported and objective measurements of attentional awareness.

But most of the participants were too phone-zombified to comply with the experiment they had volunteered for:

Complying with the intervention was evidently difficult for participants: of the 467 who committed to blocking mobile internet for 2 weeks, 266 set up the app required to do so and 119 (25.5% of those who committed) met our preregistered definition of "compliant" (having the block active for at least 10 of the 14 intervention days, as recorded by the Freedom app).

The researchers found "significant improvements for [subjective well being], mental health, and the objectively measured ability to sustain attention. Even those who did not fully comply with the intervention experienced significant, though more modest, improvements. These findings suggest that constant connection to the online world comes at a cost, since psychological functioning improves when this connection is reduced."

These improvements were found to correlate with four specific mechanisms: Time usage (more time in the offline world, less time consuming media), social connectedness, feelings of self-control, and sleep. People who suffer FOMO (fear of missing out) anxiety benefited the most by missing out on knowing about the things they were missing out on.

Many legislatures, including Oklahoma's, are considering phone-free school laws, partly in response to the zombie-student phenomenon. Some of my libertarian and conservative friends object strenuously to this. Some see phones as a kind of cop body-cam, allowing evidence collection when school violence breaks out or when the blue-haired, gauge-gouged math teacher decided to discuss gender instead of geometry. Then there's the worry about an inability to communicate in the event of an emergency. And some object to any one-size-fits-all rule with uniform compliance, on the grounds that the parent ought to be able to decide whether her child can have a phone for class.

But I don't see how we can address this problem of phone zombification without a societal response, which would include real, unhackable parental controls on phones and tablets, max screen time limits, notifications off as the default, and lengthy, enforced pauses that interrupts doomscrolling through an infinite social media feed. At some point, we need to reach the End of the Internet and get back to real life.

Thanks to our friend Sue Stenberg, bookseller and proprietor of BiblioMania Homeschooling Materials (now in its new location at 9113 E 11th St. in Tulsa, just east of Eastwood Baptist Church), for calling Hilarius Bookbinder's essay to our attention.

MORE: From the Chronicle of Higher Education, April 5, 2022:

In 20 years of teaching at Doane University, Kate Marley has never seen anything like it. Twenty to 30 percent of her students do not show up for class or complete any of the assignments. The moment she begins to speak, she says, their brains seem to shut off. If she asks questions on what she's been talking about, they don't have any idea. On tests they struggle to recall basic information.

"Stunning" is the word she uses to describe the level of disengagement she and her colleagues have witnessed across the Nebraska campus. "I don't seem to be capable of motivating them to read textbooks or complete assignments," she says of that portion of her students. "They are kind kids. They are really nice to know and talk with. I enjoy them as people." But, she says, "I can't figure out how to help them learn."...

Posted on March 27, 2025 and postdated to remain at the top of the blog through election day.

Tuesday, April 1, 2025, is the annual school general election for Oklahoma school districts and technology center districts, plus city elections in statutory charter cities, and a number of special county, municipal, and school elections. Polls will be open on election day from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Visit okvoterportal.okelections.gov to find your polling place and view your sample ballot.

Tulsa County has two State House special primaries to fill vacancies in House District 71 (midtown Tulsa) and House District 74 (Owasso area). I wrote about the very different political leanings of Districts 71 and 74 during the filing period. Democrats and Republicans both have primaries in District 71. In District 74, the Republican primary winner will face the sole Democrat candidate.

South of Tulsa there's a Republican runoff in Senate District 8, which covers Okmulgee, Okfuskee, and McIntosh Counties and parts of Creek and Muskogee Counties. Winner will face a Democrat and an Independent in a general election next month.

There is a runoff for Tulsa Public Schools Office No. 3, the seat being vacated by Dr. Jennettie Marshall. In District 2, Calvin Moniz, who won a special election last year to fill an unexpired term, had a challenger for re-election but won a full four-year term when his opponent withdrew last month. Tulsa Technology Center Office 2 pits an incumbent vs. a challenger. None of the other Tulsa County school district seats drew any opposition.

There are City Council elections in Glenpool, Jenks, and Skiatook (two seats).

• Senate 8 Republican runoff: Bryan Logan (R). Logan is a pastor, rancher, and owns a small construction and carpentry business. He is the grassroots favorite in this race.
• House 71 Republican primary: Heidemarie Fuentes (R). More on this race below. This is a change in recommendation.
• House 74 Republican primary: Maggie Stearman (R). Stearman is a wife and mother of two small children. She has served as a teacher at Owasso Preparatory Academy and as a field organizer for the Republican Party of Pennsylvania during the 2022 election cycle. Stearman has pledged not to take money from lobbyists. One of the other candidates in the race is the wife of the representative who resigned shortly after his re-election.
• Tulsa Public Schools Office 3: Dorie Simmons (D). Simmons is a real estate agent and a mom of TPS students. The other candidate, Kyra Carby, was a TPS teacher and a community engagement manager for the Gathering Place and Guthrie Green and is now "Community Genealogy Grant Coordinator for the City of Tulsa." According to departing incumbent Dr. Jennettie Marshall, both candidates in this runoff were recommended by rubber-stamp members of the school board: Simmons by John Croisant, Carby by Stacy Woolley. Carby's connection to the Kaiser System, along with her driving record, tips the balance in Simmons's favor. Carby is currently seeking expungement of a 2017 DUI, 2011 driving under suspension, obstructing an officer, and speeding, and 2008 driving under suspension and speeding.
• Tulsa Technology Center Office 2: Todd Blackburn (R). Blackburn is CEO of Techsico and serves on the TTC Foundation. His opponent is a 14-year incumbent and retired school superintendent.
• Glenpool City Council, Ward 2: Kim Hanson-Mercier (R)
• Jenks City Council, Ward 6: Catherine Lenhart (R): Lenhart seems very informed about city government and is rightly concerned about preserving Jenks's character as it grows wisely.
• Skiatook City Council, Ward 1: Matthew Bragg (R)
• Skiatook City Council, Ward 2: Patrick Young (R)

More on House 71 Republican primary:

I had initially recommended Beverly Atteberry (R), an attorney who currently handles wills and probate and was previously a public defender. She has run twice before for this seat and, unlike her opponents, has deep roots in Tulsa and Oklahoma. I endorsed her in the 2020 primary, when she had an AQ rating from NRA-PVF, best possible for a candidate. Atteberry, however, has not raised or spent enough funds to have to file ethics reports, which is not the sign of a serious campaign this time around.

Heidemarie Fuentes has only lived in Oklahoma for three years, moving here from California, but she has been endorsed by Oklahomans for Health & Parental Rights, and she was the only candidate in the race to return a survey to OK2A and to sign the US Term Limits pledge. She quickly got involved in conservative political circles in Oklahoma. Fuentes's website and social media feed are very vocally conservative. Her driving theme is wanting to ensure that Oklahoma does not follow in California's disastrous footsteps, but she sees worrying indications that they could be happening. While she was progressive as a young woman in the late 1970s, before motherhood, Fuentes headed up a pro-abortion group in southern Arizona, she describes herself as pro-life. She writes "I know what a woman is and don't want biological men in any women's spaces. There are only two sexes, and I don't support gender-affirming care." She opposes DEI, ESG, geoengineering, illegal immigration, and wasting tax dollars on Green New Deal efforts.

The third candidate, Tania Garza, changed registration from Democrat to Republican in August 2021, works for the George Kaiser Family Foundation's Tulsa Remote program. Her campaign reached out to me for a phone interview; I found her to be very vague about her political philosophy and policy preferences, and she refused to answer a simple question about her family situation -- whether or not she was married or had children.

Historical results in recent election cycles and an informal survey of yard signs suggest this is likely to be a Democrat win no matter which Republican wins the primary. There will likely be a runoff for both parties. As I noted during the filing period, Democrats finished first in House 71 in every race in 2022, and Kamala Harris won 56% of the election-day vote in the district in 2024.

RESULTS: In Senate 8, grassroots candidate Bryan Logan won the Republican runoff with 55.56%. He will face a Democrat and an Independent in May. Amanda Clinton won the four-way House 71 Democrat primary without a runoff. Beverly Atteberry will face Maria Garza in a runoff; she came within 7 votes of an outright primary win, but only 451 votes were cast. Shiela VanCuren (the incumbent's wife) and Kevin Wayne Norwood made the House 74 Republican runoff in a very crowded five-way primary where the percentage ranged from 15.66% to 28.27%. Incumbents won in Glenpool and Jenks, but in Skiatook, Patrick Young defeated the pro-mask incumbent and is joined by Matthew Bragg on the council. Kyra Carby won the Tulsa school board seat with 2/3rds of the vote, and incumbent Rick Kibbe won another 7-year term on the Tulsa Tech board.

The lowest turnout in the state was for a seat on the Justice Public School board in Seminole County: Darius L. James 3, Curtis Lee Douglas 1. As of February there were 167 voters in the school district.

After years of dogged pursuit on the part of parents, three school board members, and other activists, the audit of Tulsa Public Schools was released on February 27, 2025, by State Auditor Cindy Byrd.

Here is the full audit report of Tulsa Public Schools. Here are State Auditor Cindy Byrd's presentation slides on the TPS audit. She first presented these slides to Tulsa 912 Project the night the audit was released and has since made this presentation in a number of other contexts, including the Statewide Charter School Board conference a week later, where I heard her presentation. It served as a stark warning to all of the charter school board members and administrators present.

Here are a few of my tweets from a first look through the audit report:

From @SAICindyByrd @TulsaSchools audit: "Sixteen of the 40 bonus payments, totaling $221,000, were issued to Broad Center - Yale School of Management fellows. Only one of the 16 Broad alumni remains with the District." Kudos to @OklahomaDOGE (aka Tulsa Parents Voice)

TPS audit p. 25: "TPS hosted events... where Broad Cohorts from across the nation attended meetings in Tulsa.... Broad Cohorts participated in multiple sessions and programing which included a Child Equity Index Exercise, and an event titled 'DEI at Night.'"

TPS audit p.26: "During the two years the program was in existence prior to its approval through official legislation, the Teacher Corps participants did not meet statutory requirements for teaching in the classroom...."

TPS audit p.26: "There was evidence that the participants did not have written contracts, were yet to be properly certified, and not all of the participants had obtained the required OSBI background check, all requirements of law."

TPS audit p.26: "From the program's inception, TPS administrators took extraordinary measures to avoid directly hiring and paying trainees... bypassing board-approved contracts & using vendors, such as TNTP & Snickelbox, to pay trainees, keeping them off the District's payroll."

TPS audit p.27: "The District should not have used their vendor relationships to circumvent law or policy for the payment of stipends. This behavior further contributed to the mismanagement, waste, and eventually the misappropriation of funds."

@SAICindyByrd @TulsaSchools TPS audit p.27: "Between SY2015 and SY2023... More than $37 million was expended [by TPS & Foundation] through various non-profit vendors including Growing Together, Teach for America, Educare, Reading Partners, City Year Tulsa, and Community in Schools Mid-America (CIS)."

@SAICindyByrd @TulsaSchools TPS audit p.27: "Growing Together invoices [$1.2million] lacked the detail required to verify that services billed and paid for by TPS occurred.... None of the 12 invoices were itemized and there was no supporting documentation attached to determine if deliverables were met."

@SAICindyByrd @TulsaSchools TPS audit p.27: "The District frequently divided consultant contract costs into equal monthly payments. This method eliminated transparency over how the contract payments were utilized thereby increasing the risk for misappropriation and/or improper/inflated billing."

@SAICindyByrd @TulsaSchools TPS audit pp.29-30: "Between SY2020 and SY2023 TPS paid [Tulsa Community Foundation] a total of $6,157,346 for Opportunity Project services.... administrative overhead costs were significant, accounting for more than 30% of total costs...."

@SAICindyByrd @TulsaSchools TPS audit p.30: "The Opportunity Project overbilled TPS a total of $96,401 for services during SY2022.... TPS paid The Opportunity Project's invoices without determining if the billing was correct."

@SAICindyByrd @TulsaSchools TPS audit p.30: "There was no evidence TPS reviewed the program costs or verified that the Opportunity Project billed them the correct amount."

@SAICindyByrd @TulsaSchools TPS audit p.30: "The Opportunity Project [TCF] overbilled the District a total of $96,401 for provider costs that were never incurred during SY2022. TPS submitted these invoices to SDE for reimbursement through the federal ESSER program."

@SAICindyByrd @TulsaSchools TPS audit p.31: "Jill Hendricks communicated to management of the Opportunity Project that TPS doesn't 'require that all the backup documentation is supplied along with the invoice...' but asked them to maintain it on site in the event SDE asked any questions."

@SAICindyByrd @TulsaSchools TPS audit p.31: "In the close-out of SY2022 invoicing, email communication between Hendricks and staff indicated that the Opportunity Project invoices for March, April, and May 2022 had been paid in early June
but were never properly approved." Image

@SAICindyByrd @TulsaSchools TPS audit p.32: "TPS submitted ESSER claim reimbursements using invoices that provided little to no information about the services provided resulting in federal funds being used to reimburse questioned costs totaling $4.9 million."

@SAICindyByrd @TulsaSchools TPS audit p33: "TPS submitted unallowable Opportunity Project expenditures totaling $110,801 to SDE obtaining improper ESSER fund reimbursements."

TPS audit p34: "TPS purchased & paid Trafera $1.347 million, full price, for 3,000 computers then agreed to allow Traferra to file for and receive the $1.2 million reimbursement from the program. This allowed the vendor to receive both full price payment & the reimbursement."

In 2016, recently elected school board member Dr. Jennettie Marshall called for an investigative audit of Tulsa Public Schools. In 2020, Tryg Jorgenson, director of Indian Education, requested that the State Auditor conduct an audit. A group of parents at Tulsa Parents Voice (now renamed Oklahoma D.O.G.E) took up the cause as part of a larger accountability effort. In July 2022, the same month that TPS Chief Learning Officer Devin Fletcher resigned, Governor Kevin Stitt formally requested the State Auditor to conduct the audit to investigate irregularities tied to vendor contracts and potential mishandling of public funds, misuse of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds, and violations of HB 1775 and related administrative rules.

This public Facebook post comment from E'Lena Ashley, posting on May 17, 2021, a year before she ran for school board reflects what the public was observing as they attended TPS board meetings.

Is the TPS board Corrupt?

After tonight's meeting I have suspicions. With fraudulent payments to non existent organizations, to no transparency of how vendors are chosen. Unethical practices and misuse of 2015 Bond money! Designating funds to schools and then closing the schools ????.

I VOTE

'NO' more money forTPS!!!

#TPSfailedourchildren

The Sunday after the audit release, March 2, 2025, board members Jennettie Marshall and E'Lena Ashley held a press conference. This link leads to the full 90 minute video from Sunday's press conference. Dr. Marshall is the longest-serving member of the board, but she is not running for re-election. Ashley stated that Marshall had been fighting this fight for 8 years. She cited Jerry Griffin's resignation from the Finance Committee in 2022 as a significant milestone, exposing that board members were denied the information they needed to monitor the district's spending.

Marshall introduced a detailed discussion of the report:

It is incumbent upon us, now that the truth is out, that we help you understand how we got to this point....

What has happened, and it has been consistent in the eight years that I've been on the board, is that we had a culture of doing what we want to do regardless of what the law states or our own policy insists that we do and that was echoed in the report of our state auditor.

Some would ask, "Well, how did you know" -- and I've heard that question - "how did you know things weren't right?" From day one, when a school district declares that it's having to do a reorganization, which means means that many people lost their jobs behind the financial improprieties and the mismanagement of the district, and the criminal malfeasance of the board, who refuse to do their job.

Most of you have heard me say: "Friendships and kinships sink ships," meaning when we make our decisions based on our friendships and those that we're related to those that we play golf with, those that we sat down and have a Jack Daniels and Coke with those are bad decisions, because they are not informed decisions and the board has been guilty of making those decisions, even in the midst of being called out.

As Dr. Marshall went through and commented on the report, she said:

We like to use that word, "governance." The board's job is to govern. We're governance. Well, why is it that we go through the fact that we hire people, we do things, and to govern, you have to know and have information. To govern without information, being informed, what that is, is a rubber stamp and that is the problem that has existed over and over over again with the district.

Dr. Marshall indicated to her sorrow that despite new leadership, TPS administration is still not providing board members with the information they need to exercise financial oversight:

For those of you who have followed board meetings, how many times have you heard me ask, "What does this mean? What does this mean? And what has happened is, I've been shut down. And when we say, well, we have new leadership, and our new leadership says we're doing things a new way, let me take you back to February 10th of this year.

For the amended budget, in the amended budget, it said for 2022 2023, the budget was about $500 million, 23-24 it was $522 million, 2024-25, it was almost $800 million. When I was asking why, what I was told, "Dr Marshall, you have to look at the full report. you can't look at the bottom figures." I said, let's look at the figures under salaries in the report. It had salaries for certified staff, non-certified, and over $10 million set aside for "other." Who are the other? I went through that night that whole report. Well, who are the others? "We will have to get that information for you, we don't have it."

I went down in the report, and it said, for it had objects, other objects, and under that it had a section that stated judgments and indebtedness, and you go over to the 24-25 year, it had $174 million that they were requesting to be spent or projecting that was going to be spent in that area, and they wanted approval. The question again: What is judgments? What is indebtedness? Where are you getting these figures from? How did this come about? "Well, well, Dr. Marshall, we'll have to get back with you on it." Well, getting back to your board is not what you should do, because if you're coming to the fiduciary agents of your district, you need to come, as they say, locked and loaded with all the information. I shouldn't have to ask you ahead of time, you're asking me to administrate over the district's money with not enough information. But we're hearing we're doing things a new way.

RELATED: Stacey Woolley withdraws name from City of Tulsa Ethics Commission

Ineligible because she holds public office. She'd be perfect for the City of Tulsa Ethics Commission, because knowing when to look the other way is the most desirable quality in a Tulsa ethics commissioner.

Dr. Jerry Griffin, who unsuccessfully attempted to exercise financial oversight during his term on the board, spoke to KTUL when the audit was released.

"I still haven't seen anybody step forward and say we messed up," said former TPS board member Dr. Jerry Griffin. He was the first to call for an audit and that was roughly five years ago.

"And I was made fun of for it. I was humiliated, called names," he said.

Five years later he won't say, 'I told you so,' but he will tell you that part of what motivated him was a lack of information.

"I was on the finance committee. The finance committee was a sham. Nice PowerPoints, nice data, no real data," he said.

Did you ever get any of the information you requested? "Never. Never ever, ever, ever.," he said.

Any how can that be, I mean you were a board member? "When I would talk to our state senators and representatives they would say that, 'How could that be?'" he said.

As for who's to blame for the what the audit uncovered, Griffin puts that squarely on the board as a whole.

"I've not heard anybody from the board say we're responsible. The board is responsible. Period," he said.

"Did Dr. Gist mess up? No. It was the board that messed up because the board allowed her to do whatever she wanted to do," he said.

Three years ago when we asked Dr. Gist about the audit that was about to get under way she said, "I have been very clear that I welcome any review of our practices and processes."

Last week the current superintendent made an effort to emphasize that practices and processes have changed.

"Much more information about exactly what we're purchasing, what is going to be the return on investment, exactly what will the dollars actually pay for. So our team has shored up those practices," said Dr. Ebony Johnson.

"I know Dr. Johnson can do it but she's got to step out from the pack, she's got to denounce the past in no uncertain terms," said Griffin.

As for accountability, Griffin says he wouldn't be surprised if a lawsuit was on the horizon.

KOTV spoke before the audit release to former State Auditor Gary Jones:

"It's not just for the AG'S office or others; it's for the public as well," Jones said. "You want to see that their tax dollars are spent wisely."

However, some TPS board members have criticized the current auditor, saying the TPS audit was politically motivated. Jones disagrees.

If you've been driving on the Broken Arrow or Mingo Valley Expressways lately, you've seen some of the fruit of the US Supreme Court's McGirt ruling on law enforcement. It used to be if some idiot was tailgating you when you were already 10 MPH already over the speed limit, changing lane to lane and zipping through tiny gaps like a Grand Prix driver, the idiot was likely to be driving a BMW. A couple of years ago, it began to seem equally likely that the idiot's vehicle would have tribal tags, indicating the car was owned by someone with tribal citizenship.

This phenomenon seemed to emerge with the legal argument that city governments had no authority over tribal citizens to issue traffic citations. (E.g., Hooper v. Tulsa.) Nowadays there's no pattern to the reckless driving on Tulsa's expressways, perhaps because the jurisdictional question has created a sense of lawlessness, perhaps because the jurisdictional question has had a cooling effect on Tulsa Police, which used to have squads of motorcycles set up to nab reckless and unwary speeders. When I saw the gravel semi trailer on its side on eastbound 51 under southbound 169 last week, I surmised that the semi driver had had to make a split-second swerve to avoid a collision with a speeding, lane-switching car, lost balance, and tumped over.

Last November Tulsans foolishly elected a mayor who made tribal co-governance a centerpiece of his campaign. Monroe Nichols declared that he would no longer have the city contest any challenge by the tribes over the city's jurisdiction.

A NonDoc story last month reveals that the problem is worse than that: Nichols has ordered TPD to stop making criminal referrals to the Tulsa County District Attorney's Office if the suspect is a citizen of some tribe or another. On December 5, 2024, just before Nichols took office, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals ruled in O'Brien v. City of Tulsa that the City of Tulsa has concurrent jurisdiction to prosecute crimes committed by citizens of other tribes on a particular tribe's reservation.

The case involved an MMA fighter named Nick O'Brien, who looks like a white guy, but he happens to have Osage citizenship, so there's a special ancestor somewhere up his family tree. He was arrested on August 30, 2021, for DUI, open container, driving with an expired tag, driving left of center, and improper use of left lane, in a part of Tulsa that falls within the Creek Nation's historical boundaries. Municipal judge Marshall McCune denied dismissal of the charges based on McGirt but then later granted dismissal of the charges based on Hooper. City of Tulsa prosecutors, not yet under the authority of Nichols, appealed the dismissal.

District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler -- you know, the man that the voters, regardless of tribal status, elected to prosecute crimes in Tulsa County on our behalf -- says that he will use Open Records requests if necessary to get City of Tulsa arrest reports to ensure that criminals are prosecuted. Kunzweiler told NonDoc, "I have my belief that very few of these crimes are being actually fully prosecuted. I have enough information to suggest to me that we have people who are committing repeated DUIs and are still out on our streets. I'm not going to stand for that." Mayor Nichols replied that the City is "sitting on 400 cases and working with tribes to make sure those are also prosecuted." Earlier in the story, it's indicated that the city has not referred these cases for prosecution anywhere but will once some kind of agreement between the city and the tribes is negotiated and ratified.

Nichols denies Kunzweiler's voter-ratified authority over prosecuting crimes in Tulsa County. Instead, Nichols wants our DA to be content as a mere stakeholder among other stakeholders, with a seat at the table but not the authority he was elected to exercise. "I think Mr. Kunzweiler is going to have to understand that being the DA does not make you the king of everything. Being the DA makes you one of the stakeholders -- like being mayor or being a police chief (or) like being the leader of a tribal nation -- it makes you a stakeholder in making sure this is the safest city in the country."

This idea of "stakeholders" exposes the anti-democracy heart of tribal co-governance. Prosecution won't be the sole responsibility of an official who was elected by the voters and can be denied re-election by the voters; it will be controlled by a group of stakeholders which is not accountable to the voters as a group and which includes stakeholders elected by a tiny minority of a tiny minority of voters, unaccountable to the vast majority.

NonDoc's story also discusses lawsuits filed by the lame-duck Biden Justice Department against two other DAs, Matt Ballard (Rogers, Craig, Mayes) and Carol Iski (Okmulgee, McIntosh), with parallel suits by the Muscogee (Creek) Nation against Ballard and Iski. The Creek Nation has also now filed suit against Kunzweiler and Tulsa County Sheriff Vince Regalado. Gov. Stitt has asked the federal court to allow him to intervene on behalf of the State of Oklahoma in the MCN case against the City of Tulsa; Mayor Nichols is committed to capitulating to the tribes, but Stitt sees the dangerous implications for law enforcement for the State and the counties and municipalities in the eastern half of the state. All of these lawsuits are about one thing: Stopping the State of Oklahoma, its DAs, its county sheriffs, and its local police departments from prosecuting any Indian from anywhere who breaks the law in "Indian country."

Kunzweiler rightly points out, as we have pointed out here, that in 1907 no one -- not the federal government, not the state government, and not the tribal governments -- believed that there were still Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole reservations on which the tribal governments (which were being wound down as unnecessary) held criminal jurisdiction.

In its amicus brief in one of the Creek lawsuits, the Cherokee Nation says that it spent $74 million to beef up its criminal justice system to handle cases that were previously prosecuted by DAs. Think about that. What exactly has the tribal maneuvering post-McGirt done to benefit their citizens? $74 million that might have gone to benefit tribal citizens directly is instead being used to create a duplicative system of courts and allowing child molesters like Jimcy McGirt to go free.

Good-hearted but poorly informed people who are casually following this legal struggle may think of this as yet another attempt by evil Caucasians to oppress the long-suffering and noble Indigenous Americans. I haven't been able to find any statistics yet on the distribution of Degree of Indian Blood among tribal citizens, but the math involved in membership growth through generations of intermarriage suggests that most of the beneficiaries of this jurisdictional confusion will be mostly-white criminals with one Indian ancestor 10 generations back and no cultural connection to the tribe of which he is a citizen.

Voters in the City of Bethany have banned city subsidies to private businesses and have enabled the recall of elected officials. The propositions were on the February 11, 2025, municipal ballot, along with elections for city council and mayor.

State Rep. Tom Gann (R-Inola), a vocal critic of taxpayer subsidies to attract businesses, posted the following post-election press release from Bethany City Councilor Chris Powell, who is also the State Chairman of the Libertarian Party of Oklahoma:

Press Release Bethany voters pass subsidy prohibition, recall procedure

BETHANY - Voters in Bethany passed two propositions placed on the ballot by initiative petition, one creating a procedure by which a city elected official could be recalled and another that prohibits the city from subsidizing private businesses. The subsidy prohibition [Propositon 4] received 57% support while the recall procedure [Proposition 3] earned 64% of the vote. Two other propositions put forward by a charter review committee, removing an obsolete personnel board and allowing the city to trade surplus materials, also passed by large margins.

The subsidy prohibition and recall procedure questions qualified for the ballot by initiative petitions carried out by Councilman Chris Powell who gathered signatures of over 400 voters for each. Several members of the council, including incumbents Steve Palmer and Marilyn McPhail as well Jeff Knapp who recently resigned his council seat to run for Mayor, publicly took positions against the prohibition of subsidies. The council passed a resolution in December opposing the proposition, with Powell being the lone vote against the resolution. Palmer and McPhail lost their re-election bids and Knapp was defeated for Mayor by Amanda Sandoval.

Powell was motivated to carry out the initiatives after a charter review committee proposal for a recall procedure was blocked from the ballot by council. After deciding to petition for recall, Powell chose to petition at the same time for the proposal to prevent the city from subsidizing private businesses. Powell said, "We have had a number of these subsidy deals that in my view were unnecessary to support a business that would have been successful regardless or worse, supported a business venture that failed and left us with empty storefronts. I don't believe these tax rebates and TIF subsidies are proper, the track record in Bethany shows they haven't worked out or weren't needed, and on Tuesday the voters showed that they agree with that viewpoint."

Recent criticism of subsidy programs such as the state funds going to electronic vehicle manufacturer Canoo, which filed for bankruptcy last month, as well as concerns about Tax Increment Finance (TIFs) may have played a part in voter's support for the subsidy ban proposition. Norman's Arena TIF has faced a referendum petition that gathered far more signatures than necessary but is now tied up in court by TIF proponents with legal challenges over technicalities, and Rep. Tom Gann (R-Inola) has introduced HB1069 which would require proposed TIFs to undergo greater scrutiny and go to a vote of the people before being enacted. "People are starting to become more aware of the subsidy programs and don't like what they see," Powell said, "we're likely to see more rejection of these handouts to businesses and developers whenever they can be forced to put them before the voters."

Contact

Chris Powell
405-408-4898
okcspowell@gmail.com

Gann comments:

A local official in Bethany, OK saw through all the hype about subsidies and Tax Increment Financing Districts. He took action and informed the people. The people responded and stood up for their community and rejected the concept of subsidies and incentives, will others follow?

HB1069 which would have required TIF districts to be voted on by the people failed in the General Government Committee on the same day this email was written. HB1069 received 2 YES votes and 5 NO votes.

State Reps. Derrick Hildebrant (R-Catoosa) and Gabe Woolley (R-Broken Arrow) voted in favor of HB1069; Stacy Jo Adams (R-Duncan), Cyndi Munson (D-OKC), Ellen Pogemiller (D-OKC), Eric Roberts (R-OKC), Judd Strom (R-Copan) voted against.

The Bethany City Council approved the following resolution opposing the ban on subsidies at its December 17, 2024, meeting (page 64 of the PDF). According to the minutes, Mayor Nikki Lloyd, Councilors Ken Smart, Marilyn McPhail, Peter Plank, and Kathy Larsen voted yes; Chris Powell voted no. McPhail lost her re-election bid; the other councilors voting yes won't face re-election until 2027. Mayor Lloyd did not run for re-election.

RESOLUTION NO. 1710

A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF BETHANY, OKLAHOMA OPPOSING PASSAGE OF THE FEBRUARY BALLOT ITEM CONCERNING SUBSIDIES TO BUSINESSES AND CORPORATIONS, A CHARTER AMENDMENT.

WHEREAS, an initiative petition ballot measure proposing an amendment to the Charter of the City of Bethany to prohibit the subsidy of businesses and corporations with public funds controlled by the City of Bethany, as set forth in Resolution No. 1706 and published in accordance with the laws of the State of Oklahoma has been placed on the February election calendar; and

WHEREAS, the measure if passed would prohibit Tax Increment Financing as authorized by the Oklahoma Constitution at Article 10 Section 6C; and

WHEREAS, the measure if passed would prohibit the use of tax rebates to induce businesses to come to the City of Bethany; and

WHEREAS, the measure if passed prevents would prevent subsidies to any businesses or corporations to include non-profit corporations and municipal corporations; and

WHEREAS, the measure if passed may have unintended consequences that could impact, impede, or prevent agreements with public interest programs in which corporations participate are benefit from to include the Bethany Economic Development Authority's Bethan Improvement Grant; and.

WHEREAS, the measure if passed would reduce the City of Bethany's bargaining power to enter into agreements with businesses and corporations to promulgate economic and tax base growth in the public interest, and to compete with Oklahoma City in attracting businesses to our community.

NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED by the City Council of the City of Bethany, Oklahoma opposes the passage of the subsidy ballot item.