August 2026 Newsletter

Our WE non-partisan meetings are held at the Rogers County Building, 416 S. Brady, Claremore, OK at 4:30 on the last Thursday of each month. 
Significant others are always welcome.

76 Days!!!

That’s the countdown to the election in November and our chance to start “Restoring America.”  

We Need Your Support for the

Voices of Women Conference!

Our second conference on Saturday, August 29 is almost here. All of our vendor booth space is reserved; we have some very nice prizes for our drawing; and we have a fabulous line-up of speakers. We have had great publicity to date, but we need you to help spread the word. Register now. Invite friends and family. 

If you are planning to attend, don’t wait any longer; go online here to register. Not only will we need to know how many lunches to have prepared by Sunday, August 23, but it’s the deadline to purchase your ticket for $40. After that, tickets must be purchased at the door for $50.  

Members, we do need as many hands as on deck as possible setting up Friday evening from 6:30-9:00 AND with packing up at the end of the conference (see calendar). If you can help on Friday, let someone on the conference committee know or just show up at the Claremore Community Center, 2301 N. Sioux Ave. If you can help pack up, just stay after the conference and help us.

From the President's Desk
Yes, there are nasty things happening to our country. We have gotten down to the worst of Project 2025 and the current president’s agenda. The handwriting is on the wall for him to see. He knows he is in deep trouble if the November election favors the D’s in both the House and the Senate. That has spurred 47 to do everything he can to rig or even prevent this election. It will take the vigilance of the people and the courts to stop his nefarious plans. And he’s doing it and saying it all out in the open now. He has fired the people who work to protect our elections; he’s requested gerrymandering changes in several states; he’s gone after mail-in voting (even though that’s how he votes!); his administration is even threatening nursing home workers if they help the elderly in their care with voting. 

Nothing is going well for 47 right now, and it appears that is changing some Maga minds.  His approval rating is extremely low.  He can’t figure out how to end the unnecessary war he started; the economy is hurting all but the wealthiest; he’s doing nasty things to the environment; his push with tech companies for an extreme amount of data centers is uniting people against them, regardless of party. I doubt that the graft he and his family are accomplishing while he’s in office is pleasing many of his voters either. His gold-plating everything in sight while the fact that people can’t afford food or medicine isn’t sitting very well. No one is telling him “It’s the economy, baby.”



We must keep faith in a free and fair election and be ready to defend it in whatever way we are allowed. None of us ever dreamed we would be experiencing anything like this with a Supreme Court paving the way and having a party in power in Washington fearful enough to stand by and do nothing to stop it.

Keep faith in America—we will get through this and begin the recovery, hopefully rebuilding with safeguards and improvements. Obviously, what we had, while beautiful, was naïve and trusting. We need BETTER!  

Right now, the very best thing you can do is tell people to get out to vote, either during early voting this Thursday, Friday or Saturday, or next Tuesday. Everyone has something they can vote on. Remind them about the terrible low turnout rate Oklahoma has for run-off elections and why that’s being counted on to pass the two state questions on the ballot next week. Share with them why we should vote “no” on the state questions or refer them to sites where they are explained. Early voting starts tomorrow which allows people to go early in the morning to beat this awful heat.

This heat tabled our additional efforts to get attention to this upcoming vote. We had hoped to paint car windows with voting day info. and “Say No to State ?’s”, etc., this weekend, but we aren’t giving up on the idea. 

We will set some days in October to do postcard campaigns for the mid-terms, and we will definitely try again for painting car/truck windows. (The paint is designed to be safe for this purpose.)   

Oh, My, Our Environment

Many of our members are concerned with being as informed as possible about the environmental challenges we are facing in Oklahoma. In addition to being represented at various events in the city and county by our Environment Chair, Amber Robinson-Rodriguez, WE members have attended two events in Tulsa during the first week of August. 

Some of those who attended the FREE Panel Presentation

Eleven members of WE plus family members attended the program “AI Data Centers: WHO Pays THE PRICE?” hosted by an organization known as FREE. The event was held at the BIG TEN facility in north Tulsa on August 2. The president of FREE, Clara Mattei, a Professor of Economics at Tulsa University, was the moderator for the panel which was part of the programming and included former U. S. Congressman Brad Carson, OK Representative Amanda Clinton, Edward Ongweso, finance editor of Logic magazine (NYC).  

A wide variety of the aspects of the AI issue were discussed during the evening covering both the good and the bad of what is being called “the largest industrial development and transformation in history.” 

They announced that the U.S. already has 5,400 data centers! How many data centers are going to be enough? Among the many other issues on the problematic side of AI, could this unregulated growth become another economic bubble like Enron?

On Friday, August 7, Jon and Sharon Douthitt represented WE at a meeting sponsored by the Regional Resilience Collective (RRC) and hosted by the Tulsa Area Arkansas River Advocates (TAARA) downtown at the Tulsa City County Library.

We heard some outstanding presentations and learned a great deal about what other groups in the collective are organizing and what they are working on. We saw film previews of two award-winning documentaries, one revealing what happened to those who lived near the burial grounds for 77,000 tons of nuclear waste in the 1980’s, the other showing the devastating long-term effects on the Navajo community from uranium mining. We heard from a representative of one of several groups that have formed in Inola fighting the location of the aluminum smelter. Our host group, TAARA, brought attendees up to date on the pollution of Zink Lake and the Arkansas River.

The most alarming news was shared by Pam Kingfisher. She is part of a lawsuit against the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. We learned from her that Gov. Stitt has a 7-year nuclear project in the works. We don’t just have data centers and an aluminum smelter to be concerned about; now we see nuclear energy trying to rear its ugly head again in Oklahoma. Pam reported that our state is one of five finalists for three states to be chosen for a nuclear facility, but if we “win,” we must accept nuclear waste from other states to be buried in our ground in bore holes a mile deep. This is what is already happening in Parsons, KS that has people in that area up in arms now that they know what is happening. The powers that be are apparently looking at locating bore hole sites in the Anadarko area next to an aquifer as a possible site for the waste sent to us.

Bits and Pieces

A Thank You

Thank you, Dynda Post and Debbie Whitfill, for our program last month, and thank you, Debbie, for taking the time to assemble all of the news sites suggested by attendees at our last meeting so that they could be shared with everyone.

New Vocabulary

platformization—voter persuasion videos on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok 

flocking—a license plate was looked up by an automated police camera network

 Will Rogers: (March 13, 1933)

“Some people spend a lifetime juggling with words, with not an idea in a carload.”

Standing Together for a Better Tomorrow

Sharon Douthitt, President

Calendar of Events

You can find these events on our website under the Calendar tab

August

Thursday, Aug. 20 - 22 Early Voting

Tues., Aug. 25—SPECIAL ELECTION

Sun., Aug. 23, 4:00 - 5:00 - Cyndi Munson at Claremore's Eggbert's


Thurs., Aug. 27—No regular monthly WE membership meeting

6:30 Rogers County Democrats will still meet at the Rogers

County Community Building in Claremore


Fri., Aug. 28, 2:00-3:00 - Brecheen Town Hall, Claremore Conference Center, 1400 W. Country Club Road

Fri., Aug. 28 from 6:30 - 8 p.m.—Set up for Voices of Women at the Claremore Community Center, 2301 N. Sioux Road. Help needed!


Saturday, Aug. 29 9 a.m. - 2:30 p.m.—WE VOICES OF WOMEN CONFERENCE. Claremore Community Center, 2301 N. Sioux Ave.

8:00—Community Center opens

8:30—Registration begins/Visit vendors

9:00—Conference Begins

2:30—Conference ends and group photo*

*Must be packed up, cleaned up, and out by 4:00!

(Help needed)

September

Weds., Sept. 2, 11:30—Leading Ladies Luncheon

Tues., Sept. 8, 2:00—Bylaws Committee @ office

Thurs., Sept. 10, 4:00—WE Board Mtg. @ office

Thurs., Sept. 17—Rogers County Fair begins

Thurs., Sept. 24 - WE Membership Meeting

4:00—WE Sign In & Table Sale

4:30—WE Membership Meeting

6:30—RoCo Democrats

Fri., Sept. 25—CHS Homecoming

Fri., Sept. 25, 6:30-9:30 Appleseed Awards (Tulsa)

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