Retired Educators Hold April Meeting

The Pushmataha County Retired Educators and Support Personnel held their April luncheon/meeting at the Southern Lark in Clayton.

Dixie Ranallo, President, welcomed everyone and called the meeting to order. Betty Work gave the prayer and Shirley Swain led the flag salute. Dixie Ranallo read the minutes from the March meeting. Shirley Swain made a motion that the minutes be accepted as read and Betty Work seconded the motion. Gertrude Bohanon gave the treasurer’s report.

Old business was a discussion about holding a political forum. It was decided to not host a political forum, as most of this years candidates have no opposition.

Brenda Calahan Jones gave a legislative update. As of our meeting, the two COLA bills are stalled. The proposed legislation ( HB 1277) to grant a cost-of-living adjustment for retirees passed the House of Representatives unanimously. The bill was then sent to the state Senate and was stalled. One senator has signed on as the co-author of the bill, Senator Darrell Weaver, but it has not been assigned to any senate committee!

OREA members are also supporting HB 2562. This bill would add four members to the State Board of Education. Two of those members would be appointed by the Speaker of the House, one of which shall be a rural resident, and another shall be a former school superintendent from a district with an enrollment of less than 10,000 students. The other two would be appointed by the Senate Pro Tempore, one of which shall be a rural resident, and another shall be a former school superintendent from a district with an enrollment of more than 10,000 students.

Although these appointments may not drastically change the vote of the BOE, we hope that the experience of these new board members will broaden the perspective of the board

and shift the conversations.

The next meeting is scheduled for May 1st in Antlers at the hospital con

ference room. The meeting starts at 11 am. At this meeting members will be going through the schol

arship applications. Applications are due April 19th. Applications will be picked up that day.

Seated; Betty Work and Gertrude Bohanon; Standing L to R; Don Jones, Ines Holloway, Larry Ranallo, Dixie Ranallo, Laverne Walls, Brenda Calahan Jones, and Byron Bohanon.