The weather is a deciding factor in determining whether a farming operation will have success or failure. Failed crops not only affect the farmer, but also the person in agricultural business, such as a grain company owner, and ultimately every individual who shops at the grocery store.
VIDEO: Delanie Howell, runs 4:44 min.

In a Battle Against the Weather, Agriculture Rarely Wins
By: Delanie Howell

Have you ever stopped to think about the role that agriculture plays in your life? Unless you’re directly involved with a farming operation or know someone who is, the answer is likely no. The truth is, in recent years and this year especially, farming has become more of a stressor than ever before for those involved. The reason is the unpredictability of the weather and the huge effects it can have on farmers and their families.

According to Michael Cassidy, owner of Cassidy Grain Company in Frederick, Oklahoma, this year’s drought was tragic for farms and businesses that operate within the agriculture industry like his grain elevator. “Right here in this area was probably the epicenter of the drought and the extreme heat. It’s, I believe, the worst in recorded history and we were in exceptional, the highest rating of drought conditions.”

Exceptional refers to the highest of the five levels of intensity used by the U.S. Drought Monitor in describing drought conditions. Those levels range from D0 up to D4. Currently, Tillman County remains in a level D3 drought, which is the fourth highest rating, meaning extreme drought conditions, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor South climate map.

When weather like this sticks around for an extended period of time, the results can be disastrous. James Heap, a farmer in Tillman County, explained, “We went approximately a full year with only three inches of rain… The last rain we received was when we were sowing wheat for the 2011 crop. That crop, zero acres harvested. I also grow hay products, alfalfa, millet, Sudan hays, harvested zero bales of hay this year. I grow cotton, harvested zero bales of cotton.”

The problem with failed crops is that the effects reach far beyond just the farmer and the grain elevator owner. Those wheat crops produce several things we buy in the grocery store. Those hay crops feed cattle that may someday be in the grocery store as well. Those cotton crops are used to make clothes that many people can use to protect themselves from the harsh weather that so often threatens the crops themselves. The weather affects everyone, but so does agriculture.

One Family’s Efforts to Memorialize Son Through Programs That Will Save Lives of Others
By: Delanie Howell

One of those benchmark times in life that we look forward to is turning 16 and being able to drive ourselves around. In order to get a driver’s license to do so, however, we must take driver’s education to become eligible to take the driving test. While kids may think driver’s education is pointless and boring, parents take comfort in knowing their child will be well prepared to get on the road. Why isn’t the same comfort afforded to parents when their child’s vehicle of choice is a motorcycle? In Oklahoma, the only requirement for obtaining a motorcycle license is the driving test itself. The lack of a required safety course in combination with a limited helmet law and motorcycles that have no governor for speed became a parent’s worst nightmare for Leon and Teresa Fanning when their son Austin had a fatal accident on a motorcycle he had owned for only two days.

A collection of Austin's things that his parents have on display in their home: photos, his wrestling uniform, a baseball cap, his funeral program, his obituary, and some poems. PHOTO: Delanie Howell

“I still have the last text he sent me. He said ‘Hey, I got the bike.’ I just don’t have the heart to erase it,” Mr. Fanning said.

Although they’re still hurting, Austin’s parents aren’t just going to sit back and let this sort of thing continue to happen. They are working on developing a program and figuring out how to lobby the government to tighten motorcycle laws in Oklahoma. Mrs. Fanning, Austin’s mother, explained, “Most cars, from what I understand, have a governor on them to where they can’t go over 98 to 99 miles per hour. Cars are a lot safer than motorcycles. This particular motorcycle that he was riding, from the factory, 160 miles an hour. That’s without any enhancements.” Also, according to BikerEzine.com, there is a limited helmet law in Oklahoma, which means that after the age of 18, a rider is not required to wear a helmet as long as he or she wears some sort of eye protection. Sunglasses count in this case.

There are motorcycle safety courses available in the state of Oklahoma, but most are fairly expensive in today’s economy, at $150 per rider. The Fannings are hoping to create a fund in Austin’s name that will allow riders who wish to take the course to take it for free in an effort to get more riders educated about the dangers of driving a motorcycle irresponsibly. Mr. Fanning showed great concern about this issue. “That’s all I want. That’s what we’re trying to get, the financial backing in a trust fund. If we can come up with some kind of trust fund or grant process, where we had the funds set up where kids can actually take the course for free, paid for by this fund.” They have come up with a pretty creative way for raising the money to start such a fund. Mr. and Mrs. Fanning are collecting - and asking everyone they know to collect as well - the aluminum tabs from the tops of beverage cans for recycling.

A bumper sticker that was made to keep Austin's memory alive. PHOTO: Delanie Howell

“If we can stop one kid from getting killed on this deal, if we can save one kid’s life, if we can save one parent from going through what we’ve been through, then every penny out of our pocket, every ounce of energy that we spend on this, is going to be well worth it,” said Mr. Fanning. His wife, echoing that sentiment and understanding they have a long road ahead of them, said, “This is just the beginning, we’re still trying to figure things out, but we’re hoping to make an impact, a big one.”

The Not-So-Common Knowledge About Gun Control and Unintentional Firearm DeathsBy: Delanie Howell

Most people would likely agree with the assumption that as the number of guns purchased increases, as does the crime rate, and thus, the number of people who die from firearms. Think about this scenario for example, an individual with criminal tendencies is waiting in the parking lot of a mall and sees an elderly woman coming out carrying her purse. Now that there are so many guns available for private ownership, it is going to be a lot easier for that elderly woman to be robbed by this individual. Several people would say that’s probably true. However, statistics show that actually, the opposite is true. The increase in private ownership of firearms applies to that elderly woman as well, and the potential robber has no idea which elderly women are now armed and which ones are not. Therefore, that robbery is actually less likely to happen because that individual doesn’t want to risk being shot.

Gordon Robertson, a member of the Firearms Department at the Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation’s Forensic Laboratory, said, “Everywhere they have started concealed carry, the violent crime rate - the rapes, the assaults, the robberies - have gone down quickly, and they’ve gone down significantly.” In his opinion, this can be attributed to the above explanation. No one knows who around them is armed anymore. By this same token, however, this raises concerns of how to keep firearms out of the hands of criminals. This is where the National Instant Check, or NIC, System comes into play. When a person goes to buy a firearm from a licensed dealer, he or she must fill out pertinent information which is then sent through the NIC system. This system runs a federal background check on the customer in which all of the states are required to enter information. If that customer has ever had a felony conviction, regardless of what the conviction was for, he or she cannot purchase a firearm. The possible results of the NIC are deny, which means do not sell the gun; delay, which means there is a minimum 72-hour waiting period so it can be further examined; or proceed, which means the gun can be purchased.

However, no system is perfect and Robertson understands that. “It keeps the bad guys from buying guns at the gun store, it doesn’t keep them from buying guns off the streets, or from a drug dealer, or whatever.” Robertson has served in law enforcement for 41 years, including 29 years as a member of the Oklahoma City Police Department and said that while law enforcement are doing what they can to protect the citizens, they are “more of a response organization. I’ve often told people we could put a police car with a police officer in every driveway in Oklahoma City and somebody is still going to shoot somebody in the bedroom. That officer wouldn’t even know it happened. The point is, firearm purchases have steadily been increasing because people are scared. There are more people that own guns in the United States today than ever in history, and that has shown to be a deterrent for criminals.” Robertson also mentioned that there are currently 25,000 laws on gun control in the United States.

According to the “Summary of Violent Deaths in Oklahoma”, a report done by Oklahoma Violent Death Reporting System (OK-VDRS), also shows evidence that despite common belief, more guns does not necessarily mean more accidents. The information put together for the OK-VDRS comes from the Oklahoma State Department of Health, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, and the Child Death Review Board. This report contains information breaking down all violent deaths in Oklahoma from 2004 to 2008 into very specific categories. The category of Unintentional Firearm Deaths is defined as “a death resulting from a penetrating injury or gunshot wound from a weapon that uses a powder charge to fire a projectile when there is a preponderance of evidence that the shooting was not intentionally directed at the victim,“ essentially meaning that it is obvious it was an accident. These represented only 1% of an average of 883 violent deaths per year, or a total of 4,417, during this time period in Oklahoma. This amounts to 51 total unintentional firearm deaths, or an average of about ten per year. To further dissect this category, the unintentional deaths were broken up into circumstances surrounding them. Those circumstances included “playing with a gun (22), showing a gun (11), hunting (6), loading a gun (6), target shooting (3), thinking the safety was engaged or engaging the safety (2), and cleaning a gun (1).” The report also states that in 18 of the 51 cases, the shooter thought the gun was unloaded and in eight, the gun went off when dropped.

Miles Hall, founder and president of H&H Shooting Sports Complex here in Oklahoma, acknowledges that the ultimate goal is to get the number of accidents to zero but until that is accomplished, simply banning firearms “makes no sense. If we’re going to take that analogy, then we need to ban cars because there’s car wrecks.” In his opinion, firearms are an important part of American culture because while the First Amendment actually contains several amendments, the founding fathers separated the Right to Bear Arms into an amendment by itself, the Second Amendment. Because the United States is the only country that allows non-law enforcement use of firearms, international visitors who want to experience something unique to America often turn to shooting. For this reason, Hall had to translate the rules for the shooting range at his complex into nine other languages in order to communicate safety to his visitors. Hall’s principle goal in opening the complex was and still is education, because there is such an increase in the availability of firearms to the general public. He is doing his part to reduce the number of firearm accidents. “We teach reloading, we teach gun cleaning, we teach basic gun handling skills, we teach shotgun skills, we teach, we teach, we teach.”

Education is one way to be proactive in the fight against unintentional firearm injury and death. Hunter education classes are now required for people over the age of 16 in order to obtain a hunting license. The Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation is one organization that offers these courses and game wardens volunteer to teach them. Chance Whiteley, a game warden for Oklahoma County, said, “The majority of our programs are for safety, that’s pretty much our goal. As the number of programs we’ve done have increased, the number of accidents reported have gone down drastically. I’ve got the numbers of reported hunting accidents from 1955 until now and it started out around 20 to 30 per year; now it’s about six to nine a year.” New regulations like this one requiring more education in order to purchase or use firearms, and one prohibiting the purchase of a firearm until age 21, are steps toward improving the number of unintentional deaths due to firearms.

OU Students “Take Back the Night”
By: Delanie Howell
"Out of the halls, into the streets, we won’t be raped, we won’t be beat!” Thursday night students around the University of Oklahoma Campus Corner were coming out of bars and restaurants to hear the chants of “Take Back the Night” participants. “Take Back the Night” is an annual event put on by the Women’s Outreach Center at OU that is aimed at helping victims of sexual assault regain their confidence and informing others about the resources available to them should they or someone they know experience sexual assault in the future. The event included poetry, testimonies offered up from victims in the crowd, and then a candlelight march with chanting.

Lauren Zuniga, who is a performance poet and the Co-director of Oklahoma Young Writers, was asked to be the speaker at the event, but afterward said the whole thing had moved her as well. “I was feeling gut-punched every time a girl stood up and told her story, and then, when they guy stood up and told his story, I about lost it. That was really, really moving. And then, walking around and shouting, seeing candles behind me and in front of me was really encouraging.”

Lauren Zuniga addresses a crowd of attentive students at Take Back the Night, presented by the University of Oklahoma Women's Outreach Center. PHOTO: Delanie Howell

The University of Oklahoma is not the first to host a “Take Back the Night” event. According to Takebackthenight.org, the official website for the movement, “Thirty-three years ago, women started to stand up and speak out against sexual violence under the banner Take Back the Night. During those years, Take Back the Night became known internationally as a visible way to take a stand against sexual violence, specifically violence against women.” However, at this year’s event on the OU campus, it wasn’t all about women; there were men present in the crowd as well, listening to the stories and taking it all in. One male attendee, Brandon Paul Ranallo who is a junior at OU said, “It was amazing. It was definitely life-changing.”

One of many candles that were carried during the march around Campus Corner. PHOTO: Delanie Howell

Sexual assault and domestic violence are issues that are felt worldwide. Matt Atkinson, Director of Rural Sexual Assault Programs at the Oklahoma Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, has said that most people who study rape statistics, himself included, will tell you that the national average is that about one out of every 6 women will experience rape, or an attempt, in her lifetime. With this kind of number, programs like Take Back the Night are an important step in both prevention of and recovery from sexual assault.

The Women's Outreach Center is selling these T-Shirts in an effort to raise awareness about the importance of consent. PHOTO: Delanie Howell

Emma Newberry-Davis, the Interpersonal Violence Awareness Intern at the University of Oklahoma Women’s Outreach Center, said that she really enjoyed the entire event this year but there were definitely improvements that could be made for next year. “I think we just have to work on promotion and advertising. Really just making it known that it’s important, that people should come and that, um you know, it’s worth coming out here in the cold to do because it really will, like, change you, change your life.”

One Victim’s Story, Myth Busting, and Everything You Need to Know About Sexual AssaultBy: Delanie Howell

Sexual assault is an issue that widely affects the population, yet many people don’t know how to confront it or don’t really like to talk about it. According to Matt Atkinson, the Director of Rural Sexual Assault Programs at the Oklahoma Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, says, “Today most people that look at the statistics say it’s going to be about one of out six” women in the United States who will be a victim during her lifetime. When looking more specifically at college students, Atkinson mentions that “The last study we’ve got on those numbers was from 2007. It was about one out of eight. One out of eight college students, female, in Oklahoma, would experience either a rape or an attempted rape during her time at a university.”

One victim, who wished to remain anonymous, shared her story. She said, “I was a new freshman in college and very eager to pursue the full ‘college experience.’ At a party, I ran into a senior guy who I had briefly met once before. He and I stood there talking, and then he leaned in to kiss me on the cheek. As he led me down the hall to the bedroom, I felt sleepy and loopy. I knew I wasn’t drunk because I had not had that much to drink. As I sat down on the bed, everything was very blurry and muffled. He leaned in to kiss me again, this time on the mouth. I felt so weak that I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. I was not asleep for very long and when I opened my eyes, I saw through my blurry vision that he was on top of me. I felt so helpless in that moment because it felt like there was nothing I could do. His strong arms on either side of my body made me feel trapped.” This woman is one of many. After her incident, everything changed. “Everyone treated me differently after that; they thought I was crazy for ‘thinking’ I had been raped. One friend that he and I had in common - a girl who was dating his roommate at the time - called me and came to my dorm room, sat down on my bed, and said, ‘We need to talk. I think that you just need to ask God for forgiveness.”

Atkinson is passionate about busting the myth that most of the time women are simply making it all up. He says “less than 8% of all rape reports turn out to be false. And when you look at the physical pain and embarrassment of a rape kit, a rape exam, when you look at the social stigma they go through, making false reports doesn’t give women some kind of unfair power advantage, it turns their lives upside down. It’s ridiculous.” Atkinson’s wife is a survivor and now is open to sharing her own story with other women to help them understand they are not alone and should not be embarrassed by their own strength and courage in dealing with their experiences.

Kathy Moxley, Director of the Women’s Outreach Center at the University of Oklahoma, also hopes to clear up some of the myths about sexual assault in order to change the way it is perceived. “I think one of the ones our students are most surprised by is that most college rapes are acquaintances, that it’s not a stranger. Most of the time, people are assaulted by someone they know and trust so changing that perception is really important.”

So, this seems like mainly a women’s issue, why should men care about it? Atkinson says this aspect is one that is very personal to him because of the choice he was given when his wife told him about her experience when they were in college. “A lot of guys that I’ve talked to don’t really know how to get engaged in this, they don’t know what they’re role is. But here’s the most important statistic I want men to know: of women who do report their assaults, half of them turn to a male as the first person she’ll go to for trust or help or advice. There’s this amazing opportunity for men to be effective allies and supporters; not controlling, not judgmental, not critical, not know-it-all heroics, but just allies, equals, and supporters. And until we deal with men on the basis of that potential, then we won’t make half the progress we could because half of our population gets left out of the issue.”

The University of Oklahoma Women’s Outreach Center has taken some steps toward improving the issue on our campus. Moxley says the goal of the WOC is “awareness, education, training, and response.” The programs that have been implemented are aimed not only at the female student body, but the males as well. Moxley gave some examples including the White Ribbon Campaign. She said, “The White Ribbon Campaign is men, on our campus, who are considered high visible men, who wear white ribbons and get their pictures taken for a poster. The white ribbon is someone who is standing up against violence against women.” The WOC also does student body education and participates in Rape Awareness Week and Sexual Assault Awareness Month activities, and is currently working to implement a mandatory online education for incoming students, similar to the alcohol education program at OU.

However, there is always more that can be done to help with any issue. Atkinson encourages continued training of law enforcement to deal with sexual assault cases, more political activism, and more programs that allow survivors to come together to share their experiences with people who understand. Moxley believes the thing that will make the most difference is changing the culture on our campus so that it’s not embarrassing for women to come forward and report incidents.

The WOC has a Sexual Assault Response Team that is available 24 hours a day seven days a week to assist students who have been victimized. Moxley said, “We can provide any level of support. If someone just wants to get a referral to counseling, we can do that. But if someone wants a forensic exam, they want to talk to law enforcement, we can be there as well.”

If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, there is help available. Below are some links to legal resources as well as resources for victims who wish to connect with other survivors taken from a pamphlet called “You Can Take Back Your Power: A Guide to Your Rights After Rape.”

Oklahoma Safeline: 1-800-522-7233 (SAFE)

Oklahoma Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault: www.ocavdsa.org

Oklahoma District Attorneys Council, for victim’s rights and services:
www.ok.gov/dac/

www.pandorasproject.org

Resurrectionafterrape.org


For Men:www.mencanstoprape.org

www.malesurvivor.org

From Division I to the World Stage: One Athlete’s Journey to the 2012 Olympics

By: Delanie Howell

Every four years people stop their lives to watch the best athletes in the world compete in the Olympics. But what if during the time between Olympic competitions, you walked by one every day and had no idea? Alex Naddour is one of those you might miss.

Being born to parents who both competed at the college level in the same sport is not something everyone can say. Naddour’s mother, Sandy, competed at Ohio State and his father, Mike, at Arizona State in gymnastics. Mike Naddour also owns USA Youth Fitness Center in Gilbert, Arizona and coaches the Arizona Flairs, a team Naddour would later join. With his father as his first coach, Naddour began to realize that he was a natural at the sport and said,  “I did try other sports, but gymnastics was the one that stuck.”

When Alex Naddour made the decision to attend the University of Oklahoma, he did so over such prestigious schools as Stanford, Cal-Berkeley and Penn State. He liked the tradition of excellence in the gymnastics program at OU, as well as the coaching staff. Naddour’s coach at OU, Mark Williams, is excited about the success of his athletes and looks forward to watching some of them in the Olympics; Naddour possibly being one of them. Williams said he wanted Naddour on his team because his “talent level stands out from some of the guys we looked at, [he] just [has] aspects that, um, drew me in as a coach and wanted to take [him] to the highest potential [he] had for the sport.” There are four OU students on Team USA, as well as the alternate. The team recently brought a bronze medal back to the states from the World Championships in Tokyo, Japan.

Naddour feels his chances of making the Olympic team are “pretty good. The World Team is made of six people; the Olympic team will be made of five. Most of the time, the Olympic team is the World team. Judging by that alone, if I wasn’t on the team, it would drop our team score two points.”

Those who are around Naddour often say that he is pretty laid-back about all of his success.  His roommate, Raymond White, commented on Naddour’s preparation for Tokyo, “It was kind of weird, you would think that living with someone preparing for something so big like that, things would be different with crazy packing and like going off to Wal-Mart to buy whatever you need. His attitude would change, but not really. None of that actually happened. It was pretty normal.”

Alex Naddour competing at a home meet in 2011.

PHOTO: Whitney Ewing

Naddour is grateful for the success he has achieved, but ask him about his car or his dog, and you’ll get much more out of him. 

Obesity and Childbearing: Could You Be Hurting Your Baby With Too Much Of A Good Thing?

Reproduction is a necessity for the continuing of every species and in order to reproduce, one must eat. However, the old saying “eating for two” while pregnant could be doing more harm than good. In America today, obesity is a much larger problem than ever before. According to Alison Steube, M.D., many women are gaining too much weight during pregnancy, which can lead to complications for both mom and baby. But, what is too much weight? Dr. Steube, Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, says it’s “35 pounds or more for a woman with a normal body mass index, or BMI. Gaining too much weight is linked with… higher odds that both mom and child will be obese later in life.”

Dr. Garrett Lam, who serves as the Director of Maternal-Fetal Medicine at Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center in Phoenix, Arizona says “Obesity affects pregnancy in profound ways.” He discusses some of the complications that can occur during pregnancy. He mentions that ultrasound technicians have a harder time dating pregnancies and getting a good look at the fetus if the mother is obese. This means due dates and trimesters may be inaccurate. Also, Dr. Lam says, “It not only increases the risk for underlying diseases such as preeclampsia and diabetes, but it can even lead to… fetal defects such as spina bifida.” Laci Brown who is a Licensed Practical Nurse in Labor & Delivery at Jackson County Memorial Hospital in Altus, Oklahoma, says the most common complication during the birth is shoulder dystocia. “The baby comes down and the mother has enough skin that it’s hard to do a maneuver where you put your fist into the pelvis to remove the shoulder below the pelvis and we end up calling it a turtle baby. So we end up having to go for an emergency C-section to get the child out.”

The obesity rate in the United States has risen to dangerous proportions. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately one in three American adults are obese and “17% (or 12.5 million) of children and adolescents aged 2-19 years are obese.” Oklahoma is below the national average for population obesity, but not by much with a 30.4% obesity rate.

What does all of this really mean? James L. Lindsey, M.D., found in his research that “A meta-analysis of 96 population-based studies found that maternal overweight and obesity was the highest-ranking modifiable risk for stillbirth.” In addition, he says that preexisting diabetes and hypertension are also important contributors to stillbirth. This is important because hypertension, or abnormally high blood pressure, is a major part of preeclampsia, which was mentioned above.

So what can be done to ensure maintenance of a healthy weight during pregnancy? Keeping up with a regular exercise routine which can be modified in intensity as the pregnancy progresses is important. The most important factor, however, is diet. Amanda Doyle, a Junior in Nutrition at the University of Oklahoma, says, “Pregnant women need to eat a high fiber diet that includes at least five servings of fruits and vegetables. They also need to eat a higher level of folic acid so that the baby’s spine develops properly. They should stay away from processed foods that are made with a lot of additives, as well as caffeine.” Also, it is never too early after the child is born to begin preventing obesity and instill it in their mind at a young age. Chancie Robbins, who is a mother of three, explained that she “always encourages her children to do activities outside and if it’s too hot or they just want to play a video game, I will only allow them to play on a Wii console, so that they are still being active.”

So there you have it, American moms, eat well and encourage activity so you and your child can avoid becoming part of the statistic.