Catching up: House 71, House 74 special runoff today

Commemorations of Lexington & Concord, OKC; smartphone zombification

Family events, including a joyous college graduation, have kept me away from the laptop for much of the last month.

Today Republican runoff elections are being held for the vacancies in House District 71 in midtown Tulsa and House District 74 in north Tulsa and western Rogers Counties, around Owasso. I’ve got a brief post about it here, but more commentary on the candidates in my pre-primary post from April and my post from the filing period in January. I’m recommending attorney Beverly Atteberry in House 71 and Kevin Norwood, pastoral coach and motivational speaker, in House 74. Senate District 8 has a general election; conservative Bryan Logan defeated a better-funded candidate for the GOP nomination and faces a Democrat and an Independent.

Back in April, I published tributes on the 250th anniversary of the first battle of the American War for Independence and the 30th anniversary of the Murrah Building bombing in Oklahoma City. I also wrote about the legacy of Oklahoma City police officer Terrence Yeakey, one of the first responders, rescuing people from the Murrah Building moments after the explosion, and about his murder in 1996, shortly before he was to be honored for his heroism.

There’s also a rambling piece about a search through Tulsa newspaper archives, which resulted in an update to my 2005 article about Bates Elementary School at 4821 S. 72nd East Ave., which served as a church, a private school, and a charter school and is now home to Life Senior Services.

The recently announced departure of the Benedictine Sisters from the Monte Cassino school campus was a launch pad for a short history of the Benedictines’ Tulsa presence, including Benedictine College and the old Parriott mansion at 31st and Lewis.

I’ve collected links and quotes about the damage smartphones have done to the attention span and mental health of the current generation of young people. Sadly, there’s an increasing amount of material on this topic, and I expect to be adding to this collection over time.

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