Good morning, good morning, good morning. Welcome, welcome, welcome.
It's time now for part two of our community connection. Here on K one,
the one you drush. We have Julie Quinn in which is today,
and I understand that we're running. We're running, We're running to do something.
Somebody might be running, somebody might be run running. All right,
good running to win? I like that. Here we go, tell us
more about it. Well, this coming Monday, we have our next ROCWC
meeting. That is our Association Republican and Other Conservatives of Washington County, and
so our run to win is we are bringing a group of elected officials together,
school board, city council, county officials, state officials. They're ten
of them over eighty years of experience serving in their respective areas, and they're
going to illuminate us about what are they really like? Word of qualifications?
Where does the criteria? Before you even think about running? What should be
thinking about what it's like on the other side of winning? And did you
know all that kind of stuff. I think a lot of people get the
idea that once you're in, you're in, and once you win, it's
you know, you see them in the prey they're cutting ribbon here and there,
and I guess some folks don't realize there's a lot of work. There's
a lot of work, and a lot of them are volunteer positions and some
of them are paid, you know, at the city level, at the
county level, and even if someone doesn't want to run for an elected position,
there's plenty of opportunity to serve on committees within our city. Governor Stitt
has a lot of committees at the state level, and so do some of
the other elected officials. And so if that's something you're interested in, we
might even talk about that as well. How do you apply for that?
Because if you have a thought maybe I would like to be involved in,
you know, the political arena, well, do you really know what you're
prepared for? And then do you know where to go and seek those opportunities
out? And so we're going to cover all of that on Monday night.
This is really good for folks who really want to be a change, an
agent of change for the good. Yes, and because most of these positions
are nonpartisan, we're taking a non partisan approach for our panel discussion or presentation
and just hear those different perspectives and again a lot of people don't really know
what happens once you say yes, or what campaigning is like, or what
it might cost, the time commitments, the scrutiny that you're under, as
we put here, like, do people know that the Open Meeting Act is
well, it might be good to know something about that. I get something
about that. Yeah, And the scrutiny, you know, that's a big
time. And so when you're a public officially, you can be asked all
sorts of questions and be held accountable for those things. And so we'll talk
about accountability and then the positions that they hold, how they're responsible to we
the people. This is going to be an eye opener, not only for
those who wish to run, just those who are just curious as to how
this all operates. You listen to it on the radio, you hear about
it on the TV, you read about it on the online, and you
kind of wonder, well, what's the nuts and bolts of all of this
and what really goes on? That's right, And so for those of us
who are, you know, sitting in our regular job during the week and
still interested, it's important that we understand their perspective and what they do for
us, because really they're they're there to serve us and be our voice,
and so how can we interact. We shouldn't look at one of our senators,
our representatives, or even our county officials and go, oh my gosh,
I can't even approach them. You can build that relationship by understanding where
they came from, how they got there, and then you know, work
on the relationship to drive change and that makes change even better. Now,
Quinnway, I like what you said about having you know, that that great
institutional knowledge it's going to be there and all that experience to speak to these
questions. Yeah, we're not disclosing who all is going to be on the
panel, who's moderating, but I can assure you it's going to be informative.
Huh, it's going to be entertaining, and I'm going to draw a
lot of people. We only have about forty five to fifty minutes for the
actual presentation. We have, you know, elections coming up, and a
lot of people don't even understand something like you have to file. What is
that process like? So for example, for the school board, filing is
the first week of December. I don't know the exact date, but there
are three seats that could potentially rotate in the school board this next year,
so people realize they need to file before they can do anything else. And
then there's ethics and reporting and all kinds of stuff that goes along with that
whole process that some people just think I can run for the school board,
but you have to back it up a little bit. And while we're so
focused on the November fifth, twenty twenty four presidential election, we've got the
presidential preferential election in March. There's the primaries in June, the runoffs in
August. There's school board election, special election, county county commissionery elections.
There are a lot of different elections, it's not just the November fifth one,
and a lot of opportunities for people to be informed to think about surfing.
Now. I lived in Illinois and people voted a lot there, but
not legally. But we have a lot more elections and opportunities to vote legally
sanctioned here in Oklahoma, and I don't think a lot of people really realize
that we do. That. We are going to have a handout on Monday
to show exactly when those dates are good because that's important and so that's that's
going to be available and we want to get that in the hands of everybody
so they know when to show up legally and how to vote. And it
will always have voter registrations at our meetings because we that's one of our core
kind of opportunities and actions that we take to get people registered to vote.
Now, where are we going to do this again? This is going to
be a crossing second in the garage, the back room in the cross the
second downtown and we meet every third Monday at six point thirty. It'd be
six thirty aven Now, having said that, we're not going to meet in
December, but we already have a lineup for our programs in the new year,
tom because we're being very strategic about the information, the opportunities, the
education, because our vision really is to develop, elect and support conservative political
leaders for our community and our state and everywhere in between. And if it's
not a topic that gets us to that, then we're probably you know,
going to wait till after twenty twenty four to bring those those speakers and those
opportunities in because we want to be very purposeful. And the education and the
opportunities that are that are facing us in twenty twenty four. Now, recently
you had our Lieutenant governor Yes in town and that was standing roomotely and you
know, people didn't know really what to expect, but what they got out
of it was a little bit of an education and it didn't take long.
And by golly, there was a lot of levity to kind of break up
the serious and I anticipate we're probably going to use a similar formula this time.
Yeah, I think we have again. We have some really great lineup
in the new year. And when we're talking about the election, we have
the election Board is going to be doing a presentation. I spent a couple
of hours with Yvonne House and I had no idea what goes on behind the
scenes. Idea, Now, she won't be talking for two hours, but
there's a lot of that goes She could, but there's a lot of things
that go on there that people want to can be made aware of. I
want to plan on something that Julie said, often we think these elected officials
are unapproachable. We're in a smaller community and a lot of these people are
in our community. We see him at Walmart, We see him at the
street. You can attend these meetings, their public meetings, and they're all
very approachable, So I encourage people, You'll get to know the people,
get to know the positions they have, and if you're seeking election for a
certain position, and get to know the people who've been part of that,
and they'll have an opportunity to interact with at least ten of them. And
we always have other present or former elected officials at our meetings that people can
visit with. People will be surprised to know that your elected officials have homes,
families, and they drive many of the same streets you do, and
they have a lot more in common with you than you would think. Absolutely,
and they're more than willing to listen and you know, collaborate and work
with others. I mean, they don't want to be disrespected or you know,
anything like that. We definitely wouldn't do that. But if you build
that relationship, then you can drive some change and sometimes they'll call you.
If you know, if you're in banking or real estate or agriculture, they're
going to reach out to you to get your perspective on those things. And
so having that relationship is important as they're representing our voice very good. So
this is really going to be a very friendly, a very open, a
very I guess learning experience that we're going to have here. This is really
going to be great. I'm looking forward to that. Yes, we're getting
the word out. We've invited Leadership Bartlesville classes young professionals. You can find
information on our Facebook page. We're getting the word out because again it's something
for the community to benefit from. That will I think contribute to the present
future story of leadership in our community, Absolutely absolutely, and we want those
future leaders Leadership Bartlesville has been great and we want to pull them in as
well as our young professionals. So you know, they might be working a
job downtown or you know, somewhere south of here, and we want them
to be thinking about could this possibly be part of my future? Because usually
you have that kind of interest or inkling or what if or could I?
Or should I? Or you know, do I even want to? And
those are the questions that we'll approach and we'll have fun at the same time
and we'll do a lot of education and who knows, you know, maybe
one of them ten years from now, fifteen years from now, although our
Lieutenant governor was very young, he's still very young. You know, it
might be their time. And if it's their time, we want to get
them educated and we want to get them involved and make sure that they're ready
to step into a role like that. You mentioned a Facebook page. Where
do we find you on Facebook? Yes, it's Republican and other Conservatives of
Washington County. Spell it all out. That's our Facebook page. You can
also contact us at info at ROCWC dot com. Our data base, our
mailing list is growing, people are showing interest, and we're just very excited
about hosting this on Monday. Well, very good. Thank you for being
with us today and thanks for sharing