April through June 2008 Stories

When nearly 10 inches of rain fell in the Tulsa area April 7-10, rushing floodwaters damaged the only access road bridge to the Bixby Ranch Estates subdivision in the city of Bixby, 20 miles southeast of Tulsa. Damage to the bridge was so severe the Bixby city officials temporarily suspended access to the subdivision by emergency vehicles and school buses.

Spring Fever has been in full swing in classrooms across Oklahoma. The nice days have both teachers and students begging to be outside instead of stuck inside working on lessons from their school books.

Despite adequate rains in most of Oklahoma, the far western Panhandle of the state is experiencing severe drought conditions, particularly in Cimarron and Texas Counties.

In Cimarron County, few dryland wheat acres will be harvested this year. By mesonet data, wheat acres in Cimarron Co. have received .81 inches of rainfall since October 2007.  

The Second Annual Eastern Oklahoma Ag Trade Show was held at the LeFlore County Fairgrounds just south of Poteau, Oklahoma on Wednesday, April 30, 2008. Approximately 600 people attended the event, according to Kenneth Risenhoover, Natural Resources Conservation Service, District Conservationist in Poteau.

Stephens County NRCS Field Office staff organized an Outdoor Classroom in Marlow, Oklahoma for 4th graders to help celebrate Earth Day, this past Tuesday, April 22. Dana Davis, NRCS district conservationist in Duncan, Oklahoma, the Stephens County Conservation District, and NRCS offices worked to provide students with 11 presenters during the event, including Oklahoma Farm Bureau, Oklahoma Conservation Commission and others. ABC News affiliate KSWO in Lawton, Oklahoma attended the event and featured a 3 minute video segment in their news program on Tuesday evening. The story below is taken from that news segment, with a link to the video on the KSWO website.

Oklahoma schools are receiving over 600 “new” computer systems thanks to donations from the U.S. Department of Agriculture offices in Oklahoma and Arkansas. USDA offices recently received new equipment to update their computer systems. This replacement process made 603 older computer systems available for donation to educational institutions in Oklahoma, through Executive Order 1299.

In February 2008, Jim Green, NRCS District Conservationist in Idabel, Oklahoma, went to Afghanistan on a 13-month detail as part of the USDA’s commitment to help rebuild agriculture and food security in Afghanistan. Part of Green’s mission is to help provide technical assistance for the reconstruction of Afghanistan’s agricultural sector. Read a letter Green sent home to his NRCS family.

The ASCOG RC&D Council has worked cooperatively with the Cross Timbers and High Plains RC&D Councils to conduct six two-day Grant Writing Workshops across the State of Oklahoma during the past eleven months. These workshops have provided Level I and Level II grant writing training to a total of 80 participants, representing 23 different communities and 27 different organizations across the state.

The Great Plains RC&D is named the Outstanding RC&D Council in the six-state region of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana. The award was presented during the Southwest States RC&D Association annual meeting and banquet March 4th, in St. Louis, Missouri. The Council was recognized for their balanced approach to projects with social, economic, and environmental purposes in response to local priority concerns by building local working relationships for conserving and developing natural resources that enhance the quality of life in the RC&D area communities.

The Muskogee County Conservation District (MCCD) will soon be opening “The Bonnie & Richard Geer Nature Sanctuary” thanks to a generous donation. On March 14, Bonnie Geer, of Tulsa, donated 152 acres of land to the MCCD to be used as a nature, wildlife and bird sanctuary.

If you live in Oklahoma, you are involved in agriculture – either directly or indirectly. Every Oklahoman depends on agriculture for food and fiber as a necessary part of their every day life. Oklahoma’s economy depends on agriculture too: Oklahoma's single largest industry is beef cattle. That makes up nearly two billion dollars of the state's six billion dollar ag industry every year.

McClain County Conservation District and four NRCS offices partner to hold a locally-led meeting on the NRCS Emergency Watershed Protection (EWP) Program and local resource concerns.