Observations...

This is the week for golfers, with the PGA of America holding its big event in Tulsa at Southern Hills. This is the cream of the crop of all golfers, who play a different game than most of us. The average golfer has no idea the work required for a club professional to get his Class A PGA Card--two years of school studying accounting, marketing, merchandising, member relations, and passing the dreaded two consecutive rounds of 79 or better; the next level up is the PGA tour professional, 156 of them who are the best in the world and spend years qualifying to play on tour.
So watch it on TV or in person in the heat in Tulsa, either way it is going to be a real treat...Harry Halterman has resigned from the Airport Trust Authority Board and a replacement is needed, apply to City Hall by Aug. 14...This week's rumors: GMSA and the city will sell the natural gas portion to a private company in the gas business, and Mark Morris will be named Police Chief...the Monkey Island Fire Department is so loaded with tax money it has purchased trucks for the Fire Chief and Assistant Fire Chief to drive back and forth to work in...Congressman Dan Boren has recommended a public meeting with GRDA, FERC, the Corps of Engineers and the City of Miami over flooding issues caused by operation at the Pensacola Dam. Seems to us that the last flood, biggest in many years, was caused by Mother Nature and too much rain in Kansas. When Grand Lake stood at elevation 749 for several weeks the flood ceased to exist, even in the park area near Hwy 125 bridge. A system of levees should be given study instead of constantly blaming GRDA over a lake level...Grove has a new newspaper, The Grand Lake Leader, published by Tim Langley, former General Manager for four years at the Grove Sun Daily. The paper is on newstands at area stores this week, free, and will feature loads of color photos, feature stories, and the news covering all of Grand Lake...We've been having frequent power failures from REC lately, two or three a day, which require rebooting the computer, resetting the clocks on the microwave and other digital clocks, rebooting DirecTV, etc. and we are tired of it. So we placed a call to REC in beautiful Downtown Vinita to find out what the problem might be. The answer: "Cain't say." Now there's a nice retort from this investor owned utility. We asked if it was a squirrel, a snake? "Cain't say." We hope someone at REC can read this and find out why all the power surges are occurring in our neighborhood...