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Good morning, good morning, good
morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome.

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Any's time now for our community connection
right here on K one go one

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you trust, and it's brought to
you in part by Arnold Moore and Knee

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Camp Uneral Home, Tall Grass Botors, Got Real Ministries, and Wesley and

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Kitty College. And with us here
we have Michael Kohlaw, friend of the

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station. You've been around here for
a variety of different causes and everything else,

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but right now you've got a different
kind of causes, more like a

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calling. You're running now for Washington
County Commissioner District too. First of all,

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good morning, good morning. Now
for the hard questions. Sure,

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what made you decide to get up
and run? Well, I'll tell you

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what. I was raised in a
family where service was important. Born and

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raised in Enid, moved to Bartlesville
thirty four years ago. While it's not

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home like a hometown, I grew
up in it's home and I fell in

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love with the community and state here. I saw my dad serve two different

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times on the school board and Enid
and then my grandfather, my uncles,

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my aunts here in Bartlesville, Washington
County have served on boards and committees for

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fifty plus years. And I remember
the first board I served on was Youth

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and Family Services back in nineteen ninety
four, and just fell in love with

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the idea of giving back to the
community and serving and have had the privilege

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to do that for the last thirty
years. Wow, that's great. So

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you have a servant's heart and that's
kind of your call here to run.

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Now, you were telling me that
it was about a year and a half

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ago you'd been muddling this over,
yes, and what was your thought process?

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Well, at that point in time, I had been working at Phillips

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sixty six and you know they have
gone through multiple layoffs over the last several

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years and I was a part of
that, and so I began thinking,

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Okay, what's next? What could
I do next? And this was something

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that a friend of mine said,
have you considered Washington County commissioner in your

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district? And at that point in
time, did not know what current Commissioner

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Bouvier was going to do, and
so I molled that over, had a

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conversation with some of the other commissioners
and actually had a conversation with Commissioner Bavia

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found out he was not going to
run, and so I said, you

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know what, let's take that that
level of service and raise it up a

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little bit further, go outside of
Bartlesvillo the greater Washington County community and serve

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in the capacity that I haven't done
yet. Michael Cola as our guest,

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and he is running for Washington County
Commissioner in District two. Mike Bouvier is

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not running. And this is this
is this is a big darn deal.

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It is a big deal. You
know, it's a little bit more than

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pixing a pothole or something like that. This is this is a lot.

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I mean, every district has so
many moving parts, and until just a

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few months ago, I didn't realize
how intricate those districts are and how much

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really a commissioner has in playing a
part and getting things done in each district.

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Yeah, there's quite a bit.
You know. The commissioners in Oklahoma

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are generally the administrator's business managers of
the county. Every county in Oklahoma has

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three, no matter the size,
no matter the population, they have three

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county commissioners, and they're all entrusted
with their district, with their area.

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I think most people do think roads
and bridges, and yes, that is

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a significant part of it. But
there's more, No, there's more.

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You know where one of the counties
that has a budget board. A lot

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of counties the commissioners they control the
county budget, but Washing county as a

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budget board, and so that money
goes to rural fire departments, that money

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goes to schools, that money goes
to the roads, the bridges to you

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know, you'll get phone calls from
the conversations I've had. You know,

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our ditch is a mess, it
needs mode. We need something done out

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here, or I know book Commissioner
Bouvier has prided himself on the work he's

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done with the cemeteries. Oh my
goodness. Yeah, and that's been a

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huge staple of his time as the
county commissioner. So it's vast. I

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don't even pretend that I know all
of what they do. I'm excited to

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jump in and work and find out
how I can serve. It's a two

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way street. I want to help
the community as much as I can be

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available, listen and get to work
helping this area. That's not gonna be

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a problem listening because in other ways, did which you've served that's been the

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same two way stream capacities. So
that's not gonna be just gonna be a

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little bit bigger scale, a little
bit, a little bit, quite a

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bit bigger scale. Yeah, but
this is a great Now do you are

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you looking for volunteers to help you
out in your campaign? Absolutely? I

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will take all the help I could
get. You could find me. I

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have a campaign Facebook page now and
it's a co Law for County Commissioner and

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you can just search that on Facebook. You could like that page, follow

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that page. You could direct message
me on that page. That page also

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has an email address that you could
email me at. That email is it's

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hard to get a short email,
but co Law County commission two four at

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gmail dot com. So anyone who's
interested in helping, anyone who asks questions,

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feel free to reach out to me. I want to be available,

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and again, I would take all
the help I can get because there's a

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lot to do between now. In
June eighteen, we talked about being brought

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up to serve in the other ways
in which you have served our community for

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about thirty years or so. But
what do you think you could bring to

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the table that might be just a
little bit more than kind of what's there?

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Sure, you know, I think
my experience that I have uniquely positions

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me to do this job. Well, seventeen years in pastoral ministry, and

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you work with a lot of different
people in pastoral ministry. You see the

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good, the bad, the ugly, the happy, the sad, you

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see all of it. So seventeen
years there and then thirteen years oil and

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gas and banking uniquely positions me to
see a financial side, a personal side,

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the people side, and just I
think that skill set has been developed

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during that time, which I'm proud
of and I'm excited about. Now,

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when it stows, I'm just gonna
give you a little little heads up if

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you get the gig when it snows, one of the people you're gonna hear

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from me because we always call our
commissioners. I just want to give you

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the heads up there. That's fine, I know what you're gonna say.

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Yeah, we got the standard going. You know. I had someone mentioned

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to me early on when I had
a conversation about doing this. They said,

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well, you know, when it
snows, you're not going to sit

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at home, You're going to be
out checking out the roads and that type

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of Oh yeah, I said,
well that's why my truck's four wheel drive.

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I'll be glad to get out there
and check things out and do what

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I can to help get that stuff
done. Now, you you do have

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relationships with other commissioners and other county
office holders, Greg, Yes, other

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current commissioners I have. Well,
we have a commissioner who just resigned over

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in Osah County and I used to
work at oklamal Wesson University, so Everett

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Piper was a commissioner there, so
I do know him. I have taken

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the time to get to know a
couple of the commissioners in Tulsa County when

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I was down there for an event, introduced myself to them and said,

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hey, I'm going to be running
and they said, we're excited. Let

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us know how we can help you. So some of the surrounding counties,

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yes, I have do know some
of them. And you're not walking into

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this blindly, no, sir,
I'm not trying to cover as many bases

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as I can. How many pairs
of shoes have you worn out knocking on

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doors? You know what? We
have not yet started the door knocking process.

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I'll get ready, just got the
yeah, I just pulled the data

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from the Voter Registry warehouse the data
and then have created multiple spreadsheets to go

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all right, here are the doors
I need to go and knock. And

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we're ordering the print material and we're
going to start knocking doors probably in the

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next week, so you might see
me if I'm in your area. I'd

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love to talk to you, and
I would love the support and get to

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know what I could do to help. Okay, right now, you do

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have the Facebook page and people can
can reach you there. Can they ask

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questions of you there? Absolutely?
All right. I would gladly entertain any

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questions. And of course the volunteer
information is there as well. Yes,

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and that is again your Facebook page. Co Law for County Commissioner. Can

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just search that on Facebook and like, follow and message me away, Message

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you away, I'll get you.
I imagine you're gonna get a few.

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I love it already. Well,
Michael, thank you very much for being

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here with us. Michael cole Law. He is a candidate for Washington County

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Commissioner District too. I have to
ask one thing, is there anything that

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you'd like to put out there that
we haven't reached today? Boy, you

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know I will be up and do
you this Saturday. Okay, there's Dewey's

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doing an event called Second Saturday.
This is the first one they're doing,

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which they always have fun with this. They've been planning this for a long

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time, they sure have. And
I'll be playing some music outside of the

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Vault, which is right there on
Don Tyler. Yeah, and if you

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want to come up and be a
part of the Second Saturday, I will

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be available. I will not be
playing the entire time I'm there. I'll

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be playing music and then being around
to talk to anyone who'd like to talk.

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So if you want to come up
to do you this Saturday, it's

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going to be a little wendy,
but should be good weather anyway. Oh,

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there's always fun to be had in
Dewey. Always if it's not right

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there in front of you, folks
have a tendency to make it fun.

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Yeah that's true. Hey, thank
you for being with it. Thank you

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all right, folks, you've been
watching and listening to our community connection right

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here on K one