thought this was an interesting article... about life in Oklahoma that we know nothing about...

Panhandle County Combats Shortfalls, State's Neglect
By Paul Monies, The Daily Oklahoman

Jan. 29--BOISE CITY -- The semi-trucks roll through here at all times of the day and night, taking cargo back and forth from the Texas border to Denver and beyond. Most don't stop, but those that do frequent the Love's or Shell truck stops to refuel. During the day, they check in at the scales -- if they're open. At night, drivers take a respite at the Longhorn or Townsman motels. This Panhandle town of almost 1,500 people sits at the intersection of five highways. The busiest is U.S. Highway 287, part of the 1,400-mile Ports-to-Plains trade corridor that stretches from the border town of Laredo, Texas, to Denver. More than 2,400 vehicles pass through Boise City each day, with almost two-thirds of them 18-wheelers, according to government estimates. As international trade increases, planners expect that daily total to rise to 4,200 by 2025. "It's not a problem now, but if you double the traffic going through town, it will be a problem," City Manager Rod Avery said. That's because the trucks go right through the center of town, stopping at the traffic "circle" -- on the town square -- that surrounds the Cimarron County Courthouse. Officials fear it's only a matter of time before a truck carrying hazardous or oversized cargo spills its load and puts local lives in danger. If they're headed north to Denver, truckers prefer to use U.S. 287 because it has fewer bridges and isn't as steep as connecting to the more westerly Interstate 25 that runs through Raton, N.M. In both the summer and winter, tourists heading to vacation hotspots in Colorado add to the traffic as they travel through Boise City. While most folks in Boise City describe themselves as proud Okies, they often feel ignored and isolated from the rest of the state. Some jokingly refer to the secessionist movement that flares up every 10 to 15 years, where disaffected residents of western Kansas and the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles talk about forming their own state. If you're an Okie stranger to the three-county "No Man's Land" of the Oklahoma Panhandle, you're liable to get called a "downstater." It's not always a charitable term. After all, the distance from Boise City to Denver is 288 miles. The state Capitol in Oklahoma City is 330 miles away, at least a five-hour drive. "People think Oklahoma ends at Woodward," said Britt Smith, who owns No Man's Land Beef Jerky in Boise City along with his sister, Belinda Gardner. "People don't have a clue we are out here." In recent editorials, C.F. David, editor of the Boise City News, poked fun at state leaders for their lack of attention to the Panhandle. The paper offered a $50 "bounty" for proof that either House Speaker Todd Hiett, R-Kellyville, or Democratic Gov. Brad Henry had visited Cimarron County recently to promote economic development. "Hiett, like other politicos from Oklahoma City and Tulsa, have no real clue that Oklahoma even has a Panhandle or that we contribute anything to the state beyond tax dollars," David wrote. That frustration can be traced in part to the amount of land in Cimarron County held by the state's School Land Trust -- more than 274,000 acres, or 25 percent of the state's total school lands. Commercial, agricultural and mineral leases on school land allow the trust to distribute about $60 million a year to the state's colleges and schools. But that's land that can't be taxed for local schools, hospitals or fire districts. Clifton Scott, secretary of the land office, said governmental units are supposed to get reimbursed for the missing property tax revenues. Competing interests in the Legislature mean the reimbursement fund provides just pennies on the dollar.

As Cimarron County Commissioner John Howard Freeman quipped: "We get 9 cents an acre. That might have been good about 50 years ago." Scott, who sat on the land office's board for 20 years as state auditor, said he's tried for years to get legislators to fully reimburse counties and schools that lose out because of their concentration of school lands. "What really kills them is that they're so far out there, people have a tendency to forget," Scott said of Cimarron County. "Whether they want to believe it or not, with the way politics works, the whole county has less than 3,500 votes in it." Hospital's importance In September, county voters approved a 5 percent hotel/motel tax to pay for operations and improvements at the Cimarron County Courthouse. But school-land related tax shortfalls show up most acutely in the county's largest health care facility, Cimarron Memorial Hospital. The hospital is Boise City's largest employer, with 105 workers. The health care sector in Cimarron County employs about 230 people, with a payroll of $4.1 million. In all, the sector has an annual economic impact of $5.8 million, according to a 2004 report by Oklahoma State University's Cooperative Extension Service. After a succession of voter-approved sales tax hikes, Cimarron Memorial Hospital is taxed to the hilt. Most of its funds come from Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements, and the county's 2 percent sales tax goes entirely to the hospital. Along with city and state sales taxes, shoppers in Boise City pay a combined 9.5 percent in sales taxes -- one of the state's highest rates. Cimarron County ranks 50th out of 77 Oklahoma counties in per-capita income.

In the past three years, the hospital has had eight chief executive officers. Billing problems have been rife, and management companies hired to turn things around have failed. One even tried to shut down the hospital. Amid financial difficulties, overworked employees were at least a paycheck behind for most of 2005. It wasn't until the end of the year that the hospital was able to catch up on its payroll. Meanwhile, competition from health care facilities in nearby Elkhart, Kan., Clayton, N.M., and Guymon adds to the pressure to recruit surgeons and nurses. Patsy Shields, a medical services consultant from Colorado, became the hospital's latest chief executive officer in August. "We have made progress," Shields said recently. "A lot of the issues we've had as far as billing have been straightened out with extra training and better equipment. But the employees absolutely need some stability; they've had way too many administrators." Shields said funding continues to be the hospital's biggest challenge. Officials are talking to a Clayton, N.M., bank to restructure the terms of a $300,000 loan from 2004. A new nurse practitioner should join the hospital soon, and Shields hopes to have another family practitioner by summer. "In six months, we anticipate being able to focus on generating new revenues and finish fine-tuning the internal procedures," Shields said. Frank Lynch, the hospital board president, said he's hopeful about the future. He didn't feel that way in early 2004, when he first came to the board. There were a lot of sleepless nights, Lynch said, with confusion over which creditors to pay first. That subsided as the two chief executives before Shields began to make changes. "There's been a lot of changes in attitudes," Lynch said. "I'm starting to hear good things from the citizens."

"We had one guy here who said, 'I wouldn't go to that hospital if I was on my death bed.' Well, he got on his death bed and the hospital saved his life twice. He wrote a beautiful letter of commendation to the hospital, and he's one of our best fans." Cimarron County residents have rallied around the hospital, recognizing its dual importance as an economic lifeline and in providing care for an aging, rural population. Economic development experts say it's hard to attract new jobs or retirees if health care resources are scarce. "I'm afraid if we lose our hospital, we'll lose 200 kids out of our school system and that'll be the beginning of the end," said Freeman, the county commissioner for District 2. "It's hard to get the county to tax itself, but people have shelled out money year after year to help the hospital and schools. People always come through and pull together." Economic connections Boise City Mayor Craig Sanders said everything is connected economically. The farms depend on the weather, the tax base depends on good farming, and so on. Farmers faced drought conditions in four of the past five years. "If we can raise the crops, we'd be close to surviving," said Sanders, who also owns farm-supply store Sanders Town & Country. "But with the low prices and drought together, it makes me question the survival of farming." Plumber Delane Schwindt, owner of Ferguson Plumbing, also wonders how the area will fare. As the only licensed plumber in a 65-mile radius, he's noticed there's just not as much money flowing around the community. Although it pains him, he's had to stop extending credit to customers and go to cash-only payments for plumbing jobs. "The ranchers with cow-calf operations have cut down on their herds, so they can't take advantage of the good cattle market," Schwindt said. "There's just not as much money around. The banks have cut down on their credit and loans." Down the street on the courthouse square, Audie Cochran sees it, too. She and her sister, Lane Reynolds, own the Style Shoppe, a clothing store. "We just try to keep the doors open and wait 'til better times to help the town keep going, but I don't know how long we can do it," said Cochran, who's been in business seven years. "We're surviving, just hanging on." Cochran said part of the reason she's managed to hang on is because she stocks the essentials. For most other things -- and despite recent high gasoline prices -- residents make the 60-mile drive to Guymon or head further afield to Amarillo, Texas, 120 miles away. "You don't realize how you miss the little things until you can't drive downtown anymore to get what you want," said Mike Munsch, manager of Bartlett & Co.'s grain elevator in Boise City. "I don't think there's anything here that's on rock-solid footing. Everything's struggling. "I'm amazed farmers are hanging on like they are because the farms are getting bigger and there's less people farming," Munsch said. Highway help The community received some good news last summer, when the federal government approved the first batch of money -- $36 million -- to acquire rights-of-way for a U.S. 287 bypass around Boise City. The bypass is part of the $2.9 billion Ports-to-Plains project slated for completion by 2030. The $55.9 million needed for the Oklahoma portion also would widen the 40-mile stretch of the highway that passes through the Panhandle. While the bypass would ease concerns about accidents involving 18-wheelers driving through Boise City, some are worried about losing sales tax revenue. More than likely, the 24-hour truck stops in town, and possibly the two motels, would move out to the bypass, a route just outside the city limits. Avery, the city manager, said it's still to early to say what might happen. Regardless, the bypass should help to improve the local economy, officials said. "That could have a real positive effect on the economy, even though Oklahoma is just a little chunk of it," Sanders said. In the meantime, the area needs to attract new jobs in order to grow, although some have doubts about attracting the kind of large-scale industry at Seaboard Farms Inc., 60 miles to the east in Guymon. Guymon's sales tax revenues and property values swelled as the population jumped by 34 percent in the years after Seaboard opened its hog operation in 1996, but many think Guymon wasn't prepared to deal with that kind of rapid growth. Schools, police and housing all have been stretched to the limit. "A lot of people think they sold their soul for industry," said Munsch, the elevator manager. Out toward the western edge of Cimarron County near Black Mesa State Park, tourism offers the best hope for growth. A couple of bed-and-breakfast establishments have popped up around the desolate -- yet beautiful -- mesa area near Kenton. Locals say an Arizona businessman, James Parker, plans to build a motel, steakhouse and convenience store as part of a development called Cimarron River Ranch. Parker couldn't be reached for comment. His outsider status has raised eyebrows in tight-knit Cimarron County, where generations of ranchers have leased the same tracts of school land. In a heated October school-land lease auction, representatives of Parker's son, Samuel, leased 23,141 acres of land through Cimarron River Ranch LLC. At the end of the auction, state troopers escorted Parker and his representatives to the door. "It caused some friction," said David, the newspaper editor. "It's a double-edged sword. The ranchers out west have been leasing the land for generations and it's untaxable. Some farmers and business owners out east don't like that setup, but it's an auction and it's the fair way to do it."

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Daily Oklahoman

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

wow, food for thought.... got this in an email today... from my friend Jay Red Eagle...

"Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children." - Chief Seattle

Cute... Makes you wonder, haha.. thanks Heather

I was out walking with my 4 year old daughter.
She picked up something off the ground and
started to put it in her mouth. I took the item
away from her and I asked her not to do that.
"Why?" my daughter asked.
"Because it's been laying outside, you don't
know where it's been, it's dirty and probably
has germs" I replied. At this point, my
daughter looked at me with total admiration
and asked,
"Wow! How do you know all this stuff?"
"Uh," ....I was thinking quickly, "All moms know
this stuff. It's on the Mommy Test. You have to
know it, or they don't let you be a Mommy." We
walked along in silence for 2 or 3 minutes, but
she was evidently pondering this new
information.
"OH...I get it!" she beamed, "So if you don't pass
the test you have to be the daddy."
"Exactly" I replied back with a big smile on my
face and joy in my heart.