Oklahoma Weather

As I have heard it said for many years, "If you don’t like the weather in Oklahoma, just hang around five minutes and it will change." Such has been the case over the past few months. March 20^th the Mid-America Chapter PVA had scheduled a one day Bass Tournament on Lake Ft. Gibson. As I tried to contact our anglers who had shown an interest in attending, they informed me that the weather channel was predicting cold and snow. The weather up to that date had been warm and warming like spring had sprung. Tuning my ear tuned to the weather channel, I decided to postpone the fishing tournament. True to the quote the weather from March 19^th we went from warm, temps in the low 60’s to March 21^st when the snow begin to fall. Before the day was done parts of eastern Oklahoma received more than 14 inches of snow, wet heavy snow. March 22^nd the sun was shining again and the temperature began to warm. As I traveled through parts of eastern Oklahoma, the roads were clear but the snow was piled high on the hills and in fields, beautiful all and all. By the end of the day ole Mr. Sunshine had done his duty, there was only traces of the former day of snow, just patches of snow dotted the landscape in the shaded areas. Now transitioning into spring we are faced with the dreaded tornados, which have been very active already this season. May 10^th Oklahoma saw its first major outbreak of tornados. Official count of tornados thus far for May 10^th has been sketchy but from many reports there were at least 27 confirmed touch downs. In many parts of central Oklahoma there was major damage. Unfortunately I was in the storm that began in Moore, just south of Oklahoma City, but I was fortunate enough that I only received a broken back glass and dents from the hail in my van. Others in the path of the storm lost their homes, there were 7 deaths attributed to these storms. My prays and thoughts go out to those who have had losses in these storms.

National PVA has sent me a reminder of the disaster relief program that they have in effect. Details of this program and who qualify are listed in this newsletter.

On a brighten note, we have been busy planning for the Crappie Derby, Jimmy Blackburn Memorial Kids Fishing Derby and our Annual Trap Shoot. The Crappie Derby was held on April 19^th at Molly Browns Marina on Lake Eufaula. We had seven angler plus friends and family. The crappie had move up closer to shore and away from the marina, so fishing was a little slow. Jon Bostic and Peggy Smith came away winners of the Crappie derby, congratulations to both of them. The Jimmy Blackburn Memorial Kids Fishing Derby will be held on May 22, 2010 followed by the Trap Shoot in Wichita, KS May 28-30, 2010.

Again this year I was honored to have presented a laptop computer, donated by the chapter, to the Tech-Now winner Billy Madewell from Bethany High School. Tech-Now is a program that helps High School kids with learning disabilities to focus on their abilities not their disabilities. The students develop a project, they take their project from its infancy to finish. The students learn to work together with other, solving problems taking their project from an idea to a finished project. This program has been in effect for 12 years and has grown from 2 or 3 schools to 31 schools. Not only has this program grown in size but also in success. The program has helped many of the students, who otherwise may have falling through the cracks in education, develop skills that have helped them mainstream into employment with many major companies in Oklahoma. The dropout rate for the students who participate in the program is zero. We look forward to supporting Tech-Now in the future and congratulate all who participated.