With better than a quarter century of my life spent in advocacy, including 12 years as a state Representative, I’ve seen many good and more than several “less desirable” ideas work their way through t...

If getting changed to be like Jesus requires me to first have it all together, I (like pretty much every other human alive) am simply defeated before taking a first step. Images of a homeless boy batt...

What is it that makes for a happy Christian? What is it that makes one Christian full of joy, excited to greet the new day, expectant in meeting the people they will encounter that day, and ready to d...

Friday October 14th is National Dessert Day! So look, if any of you have any doubts that October is my month, let me tell you what days I celebrate this month. Oct 1 is National Cookie Day, Oct 4 is N...

There’s no doubt about it! My, what a joy and thrill it is to realize that the God of the heavens and earth knows me! It is a truth beyond human comprehension. He knows the color of my eyes, He has co...

DEAR ABBY: My wife and I have been together for 26 years. I’m old school -- no Facebook or social media, although I do follow sports on Twitter. My wife, however, is all into it. My issue is, she thin...

As fall weather consumes the air, we begin to break out our warmer clothing. [Isn’t it marvelous?] Let’s be sure to keep warmer ‘clothing’ in mind for our horses, too, especially those who may be cons...

Growing up where I did - in the Zinn household, that is - there was very little pouting going on. A warning that my five brothers and I often heard was, “Straighten up that face right now, boy!” If on...

I recently had the opportunity to sit down to lunch with some of my cousins. This time, it was just one family - one boy and two girls. We are all retirement age now, but in our remembering together w...

DEAR ABBY: My niece, “Amanda,” is 19 and fairly close with my daughter “Hayley,” who is 18. Since graduating from high school and through her first year away at college, Amanda has been going out of t...

It’s a great time of the year for reflecting. Beautiful sunsets, cooler weather, sweaters, shopping for said sweaters you know fall is an entire vibe right? Well to help with that, the Okmulgee County...

So last week, I had a friend ask if I knew anyone who would take some rabbit. Someone had given it to her and she had no one to cook it for her. Not going to lie, at first, I thought of my nephew and ...

I really don’t know how many times I’ve been asked: Besides mowing my lawn and picking up litter around my neighborhood, what else can I do to help our economic development effort? I now have a really...

DEAR ABBY: My husband’s parents treat our two daughters very differently. My oldest is bright and talkative, and she’s treated with love and kindness from both of them. They bring her gifts for holida...

My Africa-born friend Andre is a skilled welder. Because of this, Andre knows plenty about the subject. He can speak knowledgably about things like angles and arcs and tempered steel. He can walk you ...

Ramen noodles. Kids everywhere love them like they are something special, my younger self included. College kids everywhere eat them on the regular because they are cheap and easy to fix in a microwav...

Recently while on vacation, I caught myself whistling a tune as I walked along the street. I was in a musical country, Ireland, and had probably been nudged along into song by the entertainments we ha...

Fall Forum, the annual policy conference for the Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy (OICA), will be celebrating its 22nd year of bringing together advocacy organizations for children from across Ok...

DEAR ABBY: My wife has been away for a while caring for her ill parents. Because I was alone, I decided to experiment with wearing women’s clothes and found that I really enjoyed wearing leggings. The...

Every life lost to suicide is one too many, and the prevalence among our nation’s veterans is alarming. In fact, military suicide rates are four times higher than deaths that occurred during military ...