The challenger Even clad in a suit and tie sans cowboy boots and speaking in a Belgian accent, Charles de Coune still oozes Oklahoma. The European-born lending manager for Oklahoma Water Resources Board moved to the Sooner State 24 years ago after spending his childhood in Belgium and four years in Kansas as a high […]
Government
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Pleading the 5th
The challenger If Democrats across the nation were searching for candidates who could make a big splash in their blue wave, they got what they were looking for in Kendra Horn, the Democratic candidate for Oklahoma’s 5th congressional district. A fifth-generation Oklahoman and an Oklahoma City-based attorney, Horn decided to run for Congress after serving […]
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Top job
The veteran Drew Edmondson is a happy man. He has the kind of genuine happiness, it seems, that comes from being comfortable in one’s own skin and basking in the blissful state where age meets peace of mind. His years of making thought-out and difficult but morally sound decisions have resulted in what appears to […]
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Victims unite
When 45-year-old Oklahoma City mortgage loan officer Lauren Layman finally laid eyes on the man who raped and murdered her great-grandmother 35 years ago, she felt a little sorry for him. Lester Blackbear was 27 years old when he allegedly broke into 77-year-old Ola Kirk’s apartment one summer night in 1983. He was accused of […]
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OK law
The incumbent Mike Hunter is a serious man. That’s a description that can be expected from someone whose job tasks include handling criminal and civil prosecutions, enforcing the laws of the state, overseeing a $38.4 million budget, managing over 100 employees and proposing legislation that would protect citizens. Hunter will be the first to admit […]
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Long runner
Open Conversations with Chase Cook 7-9 p.m. Friday Gaylord College of Journalism University of Oklahoma 395 W. Lindsey St., Norman foioklahoma.org 405-361-2027 $35-$50 Oklahoma City manager Jim Couch announced his retirement on Sept. 17 and said he’s hoping to go out like Oklahoma State University/Detroit Lions running back Barry Sanders. “I’d like to think I’m […]
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Long-serving city manager for OKC to announce retirement
OKCTalk has learned that James D. Couch, city manager for Oklahoma City, plans to issue a press release later today announcing his retirement. Couch was appointed November 9, 2000, making him the longest-serving OKC city manager by a wide margin. Of the previous 35 predecessors, the average tenure is 2.5 years and the longest had […]
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Runoff victories
Governor Tulsa businessman Kevin Stitt won the runoff election against fellow Republican gubernatorial candidate and former Oklahoma City mayor Mick Cornett by almost 10 percent last Tuesday. Stitt received 54.6 percent of the vote while Cornett received 45.4 percent, according to the Oklahoma State Election Board. “As your next governor, my promise to you is […]
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Operation politician
This past spring, applied linguistic scientist Daniela Busciglio was offered a tenured teaching position at University of Rhode Island in Kingston, Rhode Island. She was a non-tenured linguistics professor at University of Oklahoma at the time. A true academic who had spent the past decade immersed in the trenches of research while earning her master’s […]
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Runoff is on
With Election Day just around the corner, candidates have amped up their campaigning efforts while politics buffs add their predictions to the fray. Below is a breakdown of the candidates for seven critical runoff races that will appear on ballots statewide Aug. 28. Bill Shapard, a nonpartisan polling expert and founder of the state’s only […]