Rural Fire departments are such an important part of our communities. Not only do our firefighters play such an important role in keeping residents safe, the proximity of local fire departments and me...

Self-awareness: some people have it and some do not.   Many people deal with the social image of how others see them or what others think about them. Often people compare you to others. They only see ...

Acknowledgment The family of Mr. Elmer D. Cunningham would like to thank everyone for their kind expressions. Your phone calls, visits, flowers, thoughts and prayers have all helped greatly during our...

The Boston Globe released Senator Elizabeth Warren’s DNA test results. The analysis, done by a Stanford University professor, showed that Warren has somewhere between 1/64th and 1/1,024th Native Ameri...

I may have been born in Oklahoma City and spent my first four years being raised in the city limits of Yukon but once my family moved to the Pierce area ( just outside of Checotah) I would be ruined f...

Thank you, I wish to express my sincere thanks to everyone connected to the Checotah community for your special recognition and kind gestures after the announcement of my induction in the Oklahoma Afr...

FOR THE CHILDREN: It is around this time of year that I get excited for new opportunities. We are less than a month away from the General Election in Oklahoma (the deadline to register, or change your...

In this week’s Mullin It Over, I’d like to take the time to answer a few of the questions that I’ve heard from my constituents recently about Social Security solvency. Protecting Social Security is a ...

Domestic abuse is a hard subject to talk about for most individuals. It is especially hard to talk about when it hits home. This is why I think it’s extremely important for victims to have a voice and...

FOR THE CHILDREN: Birthdays are sometimes odd. When you are younger, you look forward to each of them as a step closer to the freedoms that come with adulthood. Later on, they can become a less appeal...

This past week, a constituent reached out to me and spoke out against some troubling behavior at Jess Dunn Correctional Center. After evaluating the constituents allegations regarding a staff member a...

Your values are important to you – and so are your investments. But you don’t have to keep these two parts of your life separate if you pursue sustainable investing. If you haven’t heard of this term,...

Marks of punctuation play a very important role in giving the intended meaning to our words and our lives. Using the wrong mark of punctuation can totally change the meaning of a sentence completely. ...

We’re officially in autumn – the season when we bring in what we planted in the spring. But the concept of planting and gathering isn’t confined to agriculture. In fact, it can be used in many walks o...

Checotah Mayor Daniel Tarkington was recognized recently as the Mayor of the Year for communities with a population under 5,000 by the Oklahoma Municipal League. Each year during the league’s annual c...

When President Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act into law last December, good things started happening. New IRS withholding tables went into place. Businesses saw opportunities to invest in their...

To succeed as an investor, you might think you need to know about the economy, interest rates and the fundamentals of companies in which you’d like to invest. And all these things are indeed important...

American Business Women’s Day is celebrated on Sept. 22. And there is indeed cause for celebration, because, in recent decades, the number of women business owners has risen sharply, to the point wher...

Last week as we remembered the unthinkable attacks of terrorism 17 years ago, national security is on all of our minds. Often, national security is thought of as the need to protect Americans from evi...

I enjoy every season -spring with its budding beauty, summer with its sunny activities, fall with its changing foliage, and winter with its sparkling snow. Hands down though, fall is definitely my fav...