Tag Archives: Rob McClendon

Oklahoma Horizon TV

On the Horizon: Pathways to Prosperity

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A college education has long been the entry way into the American dream. Yet unemployment of recent college graduates is in the double digits.

In today video blog, we ask the question, are America’s youth getting the education they need, or just what they want. Few would argue that the U.S. will remain a world leader only if we are the best educated nation, with the most productive workforce in the world.

Yet in less than ten years the U.S. has fallen from first to twelfth among nations in the percentage of college age students completing degrees. This has happened at a time when states across the nation have cut education funding, making a public college education less affordable.

As Harvard professor Bill Symonds points out, that is why he believes students need to be more work ready, essentially getting a bigger bang for their educational buck. But I have to believe this is certainly not an either or proposition. While our country certainly should focus more on occupational certifications, I hope they are not at the expense of courses like history and civics, which give us a commonality and a shared story which speaks to the very heart of what it means to be an American.
Rob McClendon

Oklahoma Horizon TV

On the Horizon: Ag is Everywhere, Just Ask a Teacher

One hundred years ago nearly every man, woman and child had to be involved in growing the food and fiber he or she needed simply to survive. Today only about two percent of the American population grows all we need, leaving the rest of us to grow in other areas: in medical advancement, communication and information technology, space exploration, the arts and much more.

Most of us are three or four generations removed from the farm, but all of us depend on agriculture. Tomorrow’s leaders must be agriculturally-literate to protect and preserve the advantages we gain from a strong agriculture. Building that essential literacy is the purpose of Oklahoma Ag in the Classroom.

The Oklahoma Ag in the Classroom curriculum features lessons for grades pre-K-8. The lessons use agricultural topics and ag-related activities to reinforce core skills in Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, Visual Arts and Music. Most of the lessons are interdisciplinary and teach many of the Oklahoma State Department of Education’s Priority Academic Student Skills (P.A.S.S). On top of that, they’re really fun lessons. In some ways, I wish I would have had Ag in the Classroom when I was going to school. It might have made learning more enjoyable.

Now there are even programs designed for teachers so they can learn how to better teach using the curriculum and also demonstrate agricultural practices to their students. Each teacher has her/his own approach to teaching but some are more creative than others and are able to make learning about agriculture fun and exciting every day for their students.

In this week’s video blog, meet Shirley Lettkeman, this year’s “Ag in the Classroom” Teacher of the Year who you can tell is very dedicated about letting her students know where their food comes from.
~ Alisa Hines

Oklahoma Horizon TV

On the Horizon: Greatest Generation

I was born late in life to my parents, so many of the stories I heard growing up where the same depression era stories my friends grandparents told. Even as a child I was fascinated by the toughness of parents generation; first they struggled through the dustbowl of the 30’s, only to fight a world war in the 40’s. So when I had the chance to sit down with 89 year old Jack Givens I jumped at the chance to talk about his life.

Born outside of Mangum, Givens remembers the black blizzards of the dustbowl that blotted out the sun. His college days at Oklahoma A&M where interrupted by Pearl Harbor. In ROTC, given was off to officer candidate school, only to find himself on the beaches of Normandy in June of 1944. Givens likes to say he walked and crawled across Europe dodging bullets. What he is reluctant to tell you in doing so he earned 3 purple hearts and a bronze star.

After the war Givens found his way back home to run a family farm. His operations grew and so did his success. So much he was inducted into Oklahoma’s Ag Hall of Fame by Governor Fallin.

At 89 his mind is sharp and health remarkable. While we were shooting our story with him, I had to ask to ask him to slow down when we were doing our “walking” shots because he kept speeding out of frame.
In this week’s video blog I want to give you just a glimpse into a life I believe is well lived.
Rob McClendon

Oklahoma Horizon TV

On the Horizon: You Gotta Believe

I am reminded of the story of Peter Pan when I write this week’s post. In the tale, the only children that could fly were those that truly believed they could. There is an interesting debate going on at the state capitol over cutting the state income tax that some believe will help our economy soar, while others predict it will spiral us downward into a third rate economically uncompetitive state.

I wish the debate was just a political one but I fear the outcome could affect Oklahoma’s economic success for generations. At stake is not just how we pay for state services like schools and roads, but whether we as taxpayers want to pay for them at all. Oklahoma is essentially run on our income tax, where other states like Texas fund their state government with a taxing formula more heavily dependent on property taxes.

You can’t throw a rock down a hallway on North Lincoln without hitting a politician that made campaign promises to lower taxes. It is a common refrain while running for office, but a difficult policy to carry out because of all those taxes fund services that many people enjoy. So those in favor of cutting taxes are fond of saying that, in fact, we will not have to cut services at all because of the increased economic activity which lower taxes will promote. The problem is, every economist I have talked to says there is no historical proof this works. In fact, it first grew in popularity in the Reagan years when supply side economics was the fad, and our national debt bloomed into the billions.

But with the hopes that I can have my ice cream and eat it too, I visited with economic development specialists and business leaders, to see if lower taxes are the driving force behind economic growth. In this week’s video segment, I talk to the experts to see what they think. I am curious to hear your opinion too and remember…all you need is trust and a little bit of pixie dust!
Rob McClendon

Oklahoma Horizon TV

On the Horizon: Thinking Green

There is so much new technology out there when it comes to building your house. A lot of it has to do with keeping the environment green. If I was going to build a house nowadays, I think I would seriously look at these new technologies and see how much of a savings I could get by building green. I know what my energy bill is now and I definitely wish I had green technology in my current house to bring that bill way down.

In this week’s video blog, we tell you why one man decided to build green even though it was a little more expensive to do so.