Oklahoma News Report

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plkT2wxk52k

A controversy is brewing in Tulsa over whether the City of Tulsa should accept federal stimulus money to hire more police officers.
More than $5 million federal dollars has been granted to be used by police departments in Oklahoma City, Broken Bow, the Choctaw Nation and Tulsa.
But some Tulsa City Councilors may have to say “no thanks” to the money.

You can check out the story in the link above.

By now, many of us realize that the Oklahoma Legislature and Governor Henry had to make tough decisions when it comes to crafting this fiscal year’s budget. How those cuts affect agencies is starting to surface.

The state allocation for the Oklahoma Historical Society was reduced by seven percent. That translates roughly to a $700,000 cut. With costs increasing for the Historical Society, the agency had to find savings of $1.1 million. It now means the Oklahoma History Center in Oklahoma City will have reduced hours and will be closed on Sundays.

Those cuts also will be felt at historical sites and museums around the state. This story led me to Watonga and the T. B. Ferguson Home. It’s facing cuts in the money it gets from the Historical Society.

T.B. Ferguson was Oklahoma’s longest serving territorial governor, appointed to the position by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1901. He and his wife moved to Watonga in 1892. Ferguson noticed that many of the western Oklahoma towns had Democrat leaning newspapers, so he started the Watonga Republican. It’s still in operation today. Ferguson originally lived in a home in downtown Watonga. He had a home built and moved into it in 1901. The Fergusons inspired the novel by Edna Ferber called “Cimarron.”

The home stayed in the family until Mrs. Ferguson died in 1947. The new owner used it as a rental home, increasing the wear and tear on the house. During the 1970s, the Ferguson home was restored and in 1972 opened as the T.B. Ferguson Home Museum. Admission is free of charge to the public, but the museum takes donations to help pay for operations.

Thousands of Oklahomans stood in line Monday at DHS offices to sign up for help paying their air conditioning bills.

More than $12 million federal dollars are allocated to this year’s summer cooling assistance program. That’s more than double than that of last year.
And as OETA’s Angela Rosecrans reports, DHS officials are predicting they may need to spend even more than planned.

The Titanic Mobile Museum is in Tulsa for one weekend only. It’s a facinating collection of artifacts belonging to passengers and items that once made up the ship touted as unsinkable, until she hit and iceberg and sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean on her maiden voyage.

Tonight see those artifacts for yourself at 6:30 on the Oklahoma News Report. Or, go to the museum this weekend. It’s located in the parking lot of Tulsa’s Woodland Hills Mall. It’s free to the public. The museum’s trip to Tulsa is being sponsored by COUNTRY Financial Serices.