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Reporters are wondering why the Oklahoma State Department of Education is keeping a recent exodus of senior employees so close to the vest.

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And a think tank says native communities across the country could lose nearly twenty-five billion dollars because of President Trump's proposed mass grant freeze, and that could hit Oklahoma really hard.

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And Oklahoma Memo is halfway to one. That's right. Happy half birthday to us. This is Oklahoma Memo.

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[upbeat music] And welcome back to Oklahoma Memo. Happy Monday to you, if there can be such a thing.

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My name is Ryan Welton, and I'm the founder and curator of Oklahoma Memo, which turns six months old today. It's kind of a birthday in, uh, baby years, if you will. Six months old.

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So what prompted me to start Oklahoma Memo in the first place? I had left Griffin Media to go into business for myself.

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I had been in local TV for the past twenty years, most of it with a little stint in corporate communications. And for the most part, I just had the entrepreneurial itch.

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I had recently gotten a master's in digital audience strategy from Arizona State University. Go Sun Devils. And, um, I decided I was going to use that to spread my wings.

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Given that I'm in my early to mid-fifties, even though I have a much more youthful soul, it was quite the chance.

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But I didn't want to leave journalism completely, and I wanted to use what digital skills I have to support newsrooms that frankly need the attention.

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We live in the attention economy, and so I decided to start Oklahoma Memo with the mission of connecting Oklahomans to the best journalism across the state.

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And so far, it has proven to be wildly popular amongst the people who consume it every day. And if on podcast, that is you, I appreciate you listening.

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Thank you so much for spending a little bit of time with me today on this Monday. So, uh, because of this birthday, you're-- You know, when you're a, a baby, you grow. When you're a toddler, you grow.

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Child, teenager, we're always growing. We're always learning.

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Well, on Saturday, I saw the headline that former Oklahoma Teacher of the Year and candidate for state superintendent, one-time candidate for state superintendent, Jenna Nelson, was going to seek the Democratic nomination for District Five.

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Uh, she hopes to go against Stephanie Bice come November twenty-sixth. And Jenna made that announcement at Millwood High School in northeast Oklahoma City on Saturday. And I thought, "Why not post a story about it?"

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Oklahoma Memo as a news site really has just been a collection of these daily roundups.

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But because of the functionality in the platform that I use, Beehiiv, there was some updates and I thought, "Now I will be able to turn this into a, a real news site.

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I'll be able to post stories, uh, like we used to do in the TV newsroom, and this could become a full-fledged thing. But what am I gonna post?"

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And I thought, "Well, I wanna post content that is useful or super timely or thought-provoking or entertaining." I'm not gonna send a whole bunch more emails. There are no push alerts.

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You can come look at it at your leisure.

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So I'm going to try to create things that are a little bit more evergreen and again, really focused on useful, super timely, or thought-provoking, all with the mission of connecting you to the newsrooms who are doing the best work.

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So if there happens to be content that falls under that useful category that would make your universe a little smoother, I'd love to know about it. You can message me anytime at news@oklahomamemo.com.

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[upbeat music] And now for our top story. This one comes from Nuriya Martinez-Keel of Oklahoma Voice. The headline, "After string of staff departures, Oklahoma Education Department keeps resignation records secret."

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The lead, "Following an exodus of several senior employees from State Superintendent Ryan Walters' administration, the Oklahoma State Department of Education is now refusing to release records explaining those departures."

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So let me pull back the curtain just a little bit.

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Typically, reporters seek out this type of information not because they're nosy, but because they want to make sure there wasn't anything of public interest mentioned in the resignation letter.

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Why did Dan Iset decide to leave the State Department of Education? Was he asked by Ryan Walters? What was the situation? Is he a-accused of some sort of impropriety?

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Did he have a grievance against the office that might come up in the resignation letter? All sorts of ways to keep an eye on government through this sort of communication.

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It's important to know why senior employees depart key government offices. This stuff should not be secret.

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However, according to the Oklahoma Voice report, the Education Department's response was that the employee's resignation letter would violate an employee's privacy and only satisfy the requester's curiosity as opposed to serving the public interest.

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And this is where the great divide is right now between government or people in authority and the Fourth Estate. The bar should be much, much lower in terms of what serves the public interest.

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Folks, the remedy here when it comes to government is always sunshine, not darkness, and those of us in the Fourth Estate are here to expose it, fully backed by the United States Constitution.

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You can read Nuriya's story in the Oklahoma Memo newsletter, where we've linked it up, or just go straight to oklahomavoice.com, and while you're there, make sure and support them.

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Donate button is at the top of the site.All right, our second big story. This one comes from Thomas Pablo from KOSU. I believe he is interning with them this summer. I hope I got that right.

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His headline, Brookings: Native communities in Oklahoma stand to lose three billion dollars from proposed funding freeze. This one stems from President Trump's proposed mass grant freeze.

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So I looked up Brookings Institution. I thought it was one of those right-wing think tanks, and it turns out that they're classified as a centrist to center-left think tank.

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And they say that Oklahoma's native communities could be down three billion dollars should federal grants not be unfrozen. Quick break. Look, your business needs a podcast.

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Not for downloads or for vanity metrics, not even for subscribers who theoretically could turn into customers. No, podcasts in twenty twenty-five are all about a broader digital marketing strategy.

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They're all about audio and video. Did you know that podcasts are video also? Video clips for YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, Snap, whatever comes next.

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Blog posts written straight from your own conversations. That's right. Those podcasts can turn into articles that go on your site that could turn into earned media.

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Those articles could also pop up in those AI summaries and Google snippets. That's what the next generation is using to search to find you. But hey, who's got time to build all of that, right?

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Well, I do, your venerable host. My name is Ryan, the host of Oklahoma Memo, and I'm also the founder of Doable Digital Media.

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Send me your CEO speaking at a conference, leading a panel discussion, or even a sharp internal training, and I'll turn it into a full podcast with music, cover art, hosting clips, the works, all included, five hundred dollars an episode.

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It is a bargain. Message me at ryan@doabledigitalmedia.com or news@oklahomamemo.com. Let's make this happen.

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And now it's time for the Oklahoma Rundown, our trip across the state from Hooker to Hugo, Lawton to Jay, where I visit every news website in the state, and I pick out twenty-five or thirty links for you each and every day, but I'm not gonna go over all twenty-five or thirty right here.

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That would take forever. So here are today's top five. From KOSU, hundreds of dogs pulled from central Oklahoma breeding facility, owner arrested.

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From The Oklahoman, and I was glad to see this because we don't, we don't talk about this enough. The fight against human and sex trafficking now extends to lawsuits against Oklahoma City hotels.

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And if you're in Oklahoma City, you know exactly which hotel we're talking about, right? So now the fight is being taken to them because they're-- this is the-- they're the places where this is happening.

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From Griffin Media and Scott Mitchell, you can find this on News nine and newsonsix.com.

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Uh, my buddy Scott talks to Williams' new CEO, Alan Armstrong, about several things, about natural gas, infrastructure, and how and why Oklahoma can lead the US energy future. From KXII, kind of a cool story here.

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Blake Shelton holds a surprise show in Tishomingo with his stepson, Zuma Rossdale. So my question to you, have you been to Old Red's there in Tishomingo? I have not.

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But my wife and I have been to Reba's place in Atoka, and I kid you not, and this was actually not my experience, but

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it was the best chicken-fried steak I think I've ever had, or at least it's at the very top of the list of the most surprisingly good chicken-fried steak.

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This chicken-fried steak was actually written about in The New York Times, and that immediately made me think that it probably wasn't going to be as good as what I thought because I thought, "You know what?

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New Yorkers don't really know anything about our culinary delight, the chicken-fried steak." But the fact is, and I, I kid you not, I'm a gravy guy. I love gravy. I didn't put any gravy on this.

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I didn't need to even use a knife. It was completely tender, completely tasty without anything on it, and I remember telling my wife, I said, "That New York Times article nailed it." It was fantastic.

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So anyway, Old Red's is on there at the top of the list. I wanna go there also, but Reba's, don't sleep on that.

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That's fantastic if you haven't been to Atoka, uh, and I sure would've been-- liked to have been there for Blake's show this weekend.

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Okay, finally from the Tulsa World, that two billion dollar Veneta theme park remains in limbo two years after the announcement. You remember when the big announcement was made?

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There have been several big announcements, uh, about businesses supposedly coming to Oklahoma.

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Let me tell you folks, if you don't get your education in order in terms of the educational system, there won't be anybody coming to the state. That's, that's just, them's facts right there.

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All right, a quick sports story that caught my attention, this one from The Oklahoman. Why OU football GM Jim Nagy says Sooners have NFL player at every position. Well, that's certainly optimistic.

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The Sooners, however, were picked to finish last week. They were picked to finish tenth in the SEC. And if that comes true, you can bet on it.

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I am confident in my prediction that Oklahoma will be looking for a new coach next season. It is seven and five or better or bust, and, and probably eight or-- eight and four or better.

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So I think they're going to be much better. I am optimistic. I also could be Pollyanna because I am every year at this time. And that is all for another edition of Oklahoma Memo, the podcast.

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Be sure you visit oklahomamemo.com and sign up for that daily newsletter. It is free. And consider supporting the newsroom of your choosing with your readership, your viewership, your subscription, or donation.

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It costs money to hold power to account, and your support is needed more than ever before. For Oklahoma Memo, I'm Ryan Welton. Now play us out.

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