All posts by Rob

Rob McClendon is Host and Executive Producer of the nationally televised Oklahoma HORIZON television show. McClendon and his staff cover stories across Oklahoma, the nation, and internationally showcasing people and businesses that contributes to the state’s economic success. “Each week we strive to give our viewers context to the changes in our world. We go behind the headlines and try to offer intimate stories on people and places who illustrate the bigger picture.”
Oklahoma Horizon TV

On The Horizon: Sweet Melody

On the Horizon: Sweet Melody
I have always been a music enthusiast. Whether I was participating in band or a musical, melodies and harmonies have always been a part of my life. I think the main reason why is because music has the power to impact someone’s life. And in the case of a musician in Enid, Okla., the power of music helped shape his life.

In today’s video blog we take a look at a fully educated musician who realized that music would not make him a living. However with the help of CareerTech training and a full time job, he’s still living his musical dreams.
Andy Barth

& nbsp;

Oklahoma Horizon TV

On the Horizon: High Tech High School

I remember high school to be all about chalk boards, books, paper, and pencils…number 2 to be exact. But nowadays, high schools are looking a little bit different. Now when you walk in you might see monitors on the walls advertising for the upcoming pep rally before the Friday night game or what’s new in the cafeteria. Or walk into the library and its more computer lab than books. Changes that have all been made thanks, in great part, to modern technology.

With the invention of smart phones (which are just miniature computers), finding information is quick and easy. Teachers are beginning to value the technology students bring to school with them every day. Instead of getting out the big, heavy reference books, the teachers will just say, “take out your smart phone and look up ???” And the students love it.

In this week’s vlog, we step into Durant High School and see how technology is taking over as a valuable resource.
Alisa Hines

Oklahoma Horizon TV

On the Horizon: Shipping Out

Whether it is in a barge floating the Mississippi to the Gulf, or on a railcar tracking its way across the lower 48, the United States sends goods nationwide. But what happens to those goods once they hit our borders?

The United States has a solid reputation for producing high quality products. While our nation utilizes many of the things produced here, the vast majority of what we manufacture and grow is utilized by millions around the globe.

Oklahoma may have been one of the last territories to become a state, but it ranks high on the list of export markets. In today’s video blog, we take a look at the diverse export market that keeps Oklahoma ahead of the curve and in high demand worldwide.
Andy Barth

Oklahoma Horizon TV

On the Horizon: Homeschoolers Furthering Their Education

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I’ve heard it said that some don’t believe home schooled children are very outgoing or very smart. But what I’ve learned is just the opposite is true. I met a couple of students who are being home schooled but are quite bright and very motivated.

One plans on double majoring in aerospace and mechanical engineering. Way over my head. The other choose to go into medicine even though she could have easily gone into engineering. Two very intelligent and also outgoing students who are going places.

In this week’s video blog, see how they are taking advantage of an opportunity to further their education through a local career and technology center.
Alisa Hines

Oklahoma Horizon TV

On the Horizon: Home Learnin’

I grew up as the oldest child, the oldest grandchild, and the oldest great grandchild. Needless to say, for the first three years of my life, I was surrounded by a lot of adults and grew up very quickly. I learned to speak especially early and was always a social butterfly. As I grew older, my surroundings may have changed with the additions of more little ones running around but we all were expected to be social with each other, those older than us and have manners while interacting.
When the time came for school we all went in different directions. Some went to public school, others went to private, while a few were homeschooled. As the years went on, each family changed their minds about where their children should be learning but all three sectors of education were still employed, just by different people.

In my experience, I’ve learned that it’s not where you go to school. It’s who you surround yourself with and how you choose to live your life. While I was a homeschool student, I wasn’t “in class” everyday. Sometimes I would be working with my grandfather in his auction company and taking my “business class.” Other times I would go to work with my dad in his weed control business and learn about natural resources. Each morning and evening I would spend time with my livestock project. That would entail exercising, feeding, vaccinating and managing books. While doing that I was taking, P.E., nutrition, health, and accounting. Every day was a new day for learning and while I still learned the basics that the state required me to, I was gaining valuable knowledge that I use every day.

In today’s video blog, we take a look at homeschool students from around the nation who are getting the most out of their education and their lives.
Andy Barth

Oklahoma Horizon TV, Uncategorized

On the Horizon: Bully Pulpit Part 2

Over my career I have interviewed presidents, celebrities, and some of our world’s greatest thinkers. But I can tell you, none of those interviews were any more powerful than the one I had this week with Kirk Smalley.

Mr. Smalley is the father of Ty Smalley, the 11-year-old Perkins, Oklahoma boy who committed suicide in response to repeated bullyings at school. One can only imagine how devastating such a tragedy could be, but rather than retreat into the pain and remorse of his son’s death Kirk Smalley started an anti-bullying effort that is growing worldwide.

I can’t imagine a more effective spokesperson on bullying…because he is what he is… a good ole’ country boy from rural Oklahoma, who had his life turned upside down. Part 2 of his story is a tough one to watch, but one I believe every child, parent, grandparent, and teacher should.
Rob McClendon

Oklahoma Horizon TV

On the Horizon: Bully pulpit

Over my career I have interviewed presidents, celebrities, and some of our world’s greatest thinkers. But I can tell you, none of those interviews were any more powerful than the one I had this week with Kirk Smalley.

Mr. Smalley is the father of Ty Smalley, the 11-year-old Perkins, Oklahoma boy who committed suicide in response to repeated bullyings at school. One can only imagine how devastating such a tragedy could be, but rather than retreat into the pain and remorse of his son’s death Kirk Smalley started an anti-bullying effort that is growing worldwide.
I can’t imagine a more effective spokesperson on bullying…because he is what he is… a good ole’ country boy from rural Oklahoma, who had his life turned upside down. His story is a tough one to watch, but one I believe every child, parent, grandparent, and teacher should.
Rob McClendon

Oklahoma Horizon TV

On the Horizon: One Victim Too Many

Childhood is supposed to be a fun and innocent time in our lives. While danger and fear is an unfortunate part of life, it should not permeate our youth. The schoolyard is meant for playtime and the classroom is a place for the mind to grow and prosper. As we go through the school system, be it private or public school, clicks and groups begin to separate. Kids begin to view others as not being good enough and others see their vulnerability as an excuse to lash out at other students. By the time students enter middle school, a definite pecking order is established and if you are at the wrong end you may find yourself shoved in a locker or falling victim to the all-too-famous “swirly.”

Today’s bullies are not only beating kids up on the playground, that will get them caught too easily, they are resorting to cyberbullying and emotional terror. Today’s victims are not just swallowing it and hoping it goes away either. They are taking matters into their own hands and either harming their attacker or themselves.

In today’s video blog, we take a look at how bullying affects students and what they are doing to stop it. While the footage they shot is fictional, the issue they go up against is all too real. These students are talented at what they do. They tell a gripping story and will inspire you to stand up and start a movement.
Andy Barth

Oklahoma Horizon TV

On the Horizon: World Food Paradox

Millions of people die every year for a ridiculous reason… they are just too poor to stay alive. Estimates are as many as seventeen thousand children die each and every day from hunger and malnutrition related illness.

It has been called the world food paradox. In the developed world we have so much food our life expectancies are actually falling because we eat too much and are dangerously obese. Meanwhile in the developing world millions starve or crippled by the lack of good nutrition.

For decades the Western world has tried to solve the issue with food aid. Well intentioned but too often detrimental to a poor country’s own agricultural structure. Today in our video blog, we are going to look at the issue of food insecurity in the developing world through the eyes of a group of Oklahomans who, thanks to a state department grant, have been working in Uganda, Africa.
Rob McClendon

Oklahoma Horizon TV

On the Horizon: Healthcare Reform – Affordable Care Act

I have heard people discussing the hot topic of healthcare for the last few years but honestly never did my homework until recently. As most everyone is aware, when President Obama was elected into office, he put the topic of Health Care to the top of his agenda and in 2010 the Affordable Care Act was signed and put into place.

This year there was discussion as to whether this new law was constitutional and with much debate the Supreme Court ruled it so. With some of the new laws taking place immediately, other steps will happen gradually throughout the next few years.

Healthcare is an important topic that affects most everyone so it is necessary for everyone to become informed. For more information check out this video blog discussing the changes that are taking place to our current healthcare system.
Kela Kelln

Oklahoma Horizon TV

On the Horizon: A Gun Owner’s Dilemma

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I like guns, sort of like I liked fireworks as a boy. I could care less about hunting, but I love to shoot. So every time a mass murder occurs around the country, I get a knot in my stomach because I have begun to wonder if I am part of the problem.

No matter what you think of gun control, facts are facts. Dramatically more people die in the U.S. from gun violence per capita than anywhere else. When you look at the statistics our gun related homicide rate is closer to that of Somalia’s than that of the developed world. While the overall violent crime rate in the U.S. has dropped in the last decade, gun related homicides have risen by 20%.

I know all the arguments for our 2nd amendment rights, and that guns don’t kill, people do. Yet, I believe our forefathers never imagined a crazed madman mowing down innocents in a movie theater with a weapon that fires just as fast as he can pull the trigger. Early in my career, I was able to interview survivors of a mass shooting in Texas and what one of them said to me still haunts me. As the gunman was making his way through the restaurant, the survivor said he just wished he’d had the pistol that was under his car seat out in the parking lot… he knew he could take out the shooter. In my opinion, good arguments for concealed carry laws that have passed since.

The problem though is this: In Aurora the shooter was in full body armor shrouded by a smoke bomb. Even the best shot would have had a tough time dropping him.

I had a friend once ask me when he saw my gun collection if I was preparing for the “zombie apocalypse”, and yes I like my odds if an intruder ever tries to break in my house. But I truly would not mind registering every one of those guns, or even going through a psychological test much like you do when you apply for a concealed carry permit.

In this week’s On the Horizon blog, I want to share with you an opinion piece straight from the editors of my local paper. It is thoughtful, and I believe for all of us shooters… dead center.
Rob McClendon

From Stillwater NewsPress:
Gabrielle Giffords.
Columbine.
Virginia Tech.
Fort Hood.
We recognize the horrific shootings in our country by one or two words now.
Aurora.
The words seem so benign to represent such madness. Such destruction of human life.
When terrorism strikes, the magnitude of the ordeal has a way of bringing us together.
Murrah bombing.
Sept. 11.
But random shootings, at least in recent years, have done more to polarize our country.
If guns were outlawed, they wouldn’t have had guns to fire into crowds of innocent people.
If guns were in all hands, the innocent people could have fired back – or first.
Which is the answer? Consider it neither.

As determined as many people are to own and carry weapons legally, many are equally determined to not have any part of them. The argument that Americans should be able to carry guns to protect themselves does not hold more water than the argument that they should not have to.

Meanwhile, a student in Colorado concocts and carries out an elaborate plan that ends the lives of a dozen people and brings hell into the lives of dozens more. And the rhetoric loops again.

There has to be a solution. And America has to find it – an answer that protects the 2nd amendment right of its people to bear arms and yet preserves the right of us all to have the expectation of going to school, to the shopping center, to a political event, to the movies without the threat of being mowed down in our tracks by a sick mind with an assault rifle.

The answer is not at one end of the spectrum or the other. Our country will find it in the middle, but only when minds open to the idea of middle ground.

Did America’s founding fathers envision shooting rampages at shopping malls when they amended the Constitution to include bearing arms?

It’s a different America centuries later. It’s a different America from the country we knew even a decade ago.

The world we live in is not always a safe place. That is not to say we cannot take steps to make it safe again. It is not fair that the masses compromise in reaction to the acts of a few. But compromise we do. And fairness takes a back seat to precaution.

In many public schools across our country, children pass through metal detectors on their way to class. Let’s just say that again – out loud. Children pass through metal detectors to go to school so that maybe a gun can be pulled from a backpack by police or school officials instead of by a kid in third-hour algebra.

But folks can buy assault rifles and body armor down the street or on the Internet…with home delivery.
America doesn’t have to take away Americans’ guns to bring back a more comfortable degree of safety. But it’s not treason to advocate making them more difficult to obtain – through checks and waiting periods – and taking away ready access to the guns and ammunition that serve no other purpose than to rip through the body of another human being.

It’s a different world out there. And the solution will be different behavior.

Only a minuscule percent of people in our part of the world are terrorists. Yet we all take off our shoes at the airport. Only a handful of people have opened fire in a public place. But we all could stand to wait a little longer, be scrutinized a bit more, fill out a few more sheets of paper, pick an alternative over an assault rifle – if the process means that on a summer night in a quiet suburb one person’s elaborate scheme to massacre crowds of strangers will go unrealized.

Oklahoma Horizon TV

On the Horizon: The Wheels on the Bus Go Round

Growing up in agriculture I, like many others, tend to become tunnel focused in the agricultural area I worked in. As I grew older I quickly realized that there were other facets of the industry and how important it is to know about them.

I’ve always been impressed with how Oklahoma promotes and educates the public about agriculture. Everywhere I go I always see new ways the public is learning about how agriculture works and why it is vital for survival.

In this week’s video blog, we hop on a bus and take a look at Oklahoma’s Agritourism. From peaches to vineyards, the agriculture industry in Oklahoma is more diverse than one would think.
Andy Barth

Oklahoma Horizon TV

On the Horizon: Oklahoma Forestry

One of the many unique things about this great state is that as you travel across Oklahoma the scenery changes. The first thought that generally comes to people’s minds is the waving wheat and the rolling plains. Western Oklahoma is farmland as far as the eye can see with trees often few and far between but as you move east the landscape begins to change and what people don’t realize is that Oklahoma actually has a productive forestry industry.

I was able to travel down to the southeastern part of the state to Broken Bow where I quickly began to think that I was in a whole new world. Forestry is surprisingly a huge industry in Oklahoma with almost 10 million acres of forest land and an industry that contributes more than $2 billion to our state’s annual economy. In this week’s video blog, we travel into Beaver’s Bend State Park where we learn firsthand about the forestry industry.
Kela Kelln

Oklahoma Horizon TV

On the Horizon: It IS Rocket Science

Oklahoma is known for big moments in flight. Will Rogers and Wylie Post were both Okies who made considerable contributions to the aerospace industry. Oklahoma has also produced more astronauts than any other state, including Major General Thomas P. Stafford and John Herrington who was the first Native American in space.

Major aerospace company, ASCO recognizes the possibilities Oklahoma offers and is opening a new plant in Stillwater. In today’s video blog, we take a look at the jobs opening up because of the new plant and how many people will benefit from it.

Andy Barth

Oklahoma Horizon TV

On the Horizon: Looking Up to the Future

When I was a kid, I remember going to the movies to see Tom Hanks star in Apollo 13. I loved the rumble of the rocket as it took off into space and how everything floated around after the astronauts left the point of gravity. It all seemed fun and exciting, but I never really understood what all it took to get those three men to the moon, or at least around the moon, and back.

In Stillwater, Oklahoma, most people come for the school and Cowboy football. But most do not even know about the aerospace success that happens just off Highway 51. In today’s video blog, we take a look at how Frontier Electronics helps astronauts and pilots get the equipment they need in the skies and beyond.
Andy Barth

Oklahoma Horizon TV

On the Horizon: Coon Skin Cowboy

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Growing up in a Southern Baptist church I hated children’s choir. Nothing against singing or even hymns, but choir practice was my least favorite time of the week. That’s because it was at 6pm Sunday night at the exact same time the Wonderful World of Disney came on TV, and it was there I could see old reruns of Davey Crockett, and Daniel Boone.

Both shows were my favorites as a boy. I missed the coon skin cap craze that swept the nation in the 1950s but I still spent many an afternoon exploring the nearby woods fighting imaginary foes with my trusty musket in hand. ( It even had a place where you could put a little cap of gun powder in the flintlock, but of course did not fire so all the neighborhood songbirds were safe)

This year the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum honored the star of those shows, Fess Parker, with their annual Western Heritage Award. It was a real treat for me, and one I think his family certainly enjoyed. In this week’s On the Horizon video blog we look back at America’s favorite Coon Skin Cowboy.

~ Rob McClendon
 

Oklahoma Horizon TV

On the Horizon: Circle the Wagons

It has been said that food cooked over an open fire is the best tasting. Growing up with a grandfather who loved camping for weeks at a time, I can say that the saying is true. I do not know why but there is something about camp-cooked potatoes and fire-grilled steak that makes my mouth water. So when found out I was headed to a Dutch oven cookout I couldn’t have been more excited.

In this week’s video blog, we take a look at cooking in olden days. From large vats of Mexican stew to small Dutch ovens of cinnamon rolls, this cookout has all sorts of good recipes and cowboy heritage.

~ Andy Barth
 

Oklahoma Horizon TV

On the Horizon: Okemah’s Favorite Son

Music is a big deal in Oklahoma and what better way to celebrate it than by honoring the life of Woody Guthrie. With the folk music festival of a century, the Woody Guthrie Centennial Celebration has a long list of folk musicians ready to entertain.

In this week’s video blog we take a look at life of Okemah’s favorite son – Woody Guthrie.

~ Andy Barth
 

Oklahoma Horizon TV

On the Horizon: Oklahoma – a Blue State?

Oklahoma republicans proudly proclaim the state as the reddest in the nation. In fact, during the last presidential election, not a single county voted democratic and republicans made a clean sweep of statewide offices. So it may come as a bit of a surprise, that Oklahoma has been a hot bed of socialism.

In this week’s video blog we take a look at a long time Oklahoma Company whose origins go back to its socialists beginnings.
Rob McClendon
 

On the Horizon: Oklahoma — A Blue State? from Alisa Hines on Vimeo.

Oklahoma Horizon TV

On The Horizon: Flying Back in Time

Ever since I was little I always remember looking high in the sky in search of airplanes. They fascinated me. They are so big, yet seem light as a feather. When I got the opportunity to get on an airplane for the first time as a 6 year-old, I was ecstatic. I have flown on countless planes since then and still marvel at their abilities in the air.

As we continue to advance in today’s world it is important to look back and recognize how we got where we are today. In this week’s video blog, we travel to Oolagah, OK, where TV sensation and All-American hero, Will Rogers, was born. We take a look at the 76th Annual Will Rogers Fly-in, an event held in honor of Rogers and Wiley Post – two men responsible for so much in the aviation industry.
Andy Barth