Bounty hunters: Panhandle needs a quick picker-upper

Published: July 16, 2008

NOW we know why Gov. Brad Henry didn't pick up the westernmost part of the Panhandle when he stood for re-election in 2006: The governor has a price on his head in Cimarron County.

The governor lost all three Panhandle counties to Ernest Istook. They were the only counties Istook won.

Henry will visit the Panhandle today to survey drought conditions that have made Oklahoma weather in the past year a tale of two regions — the wettest of times in many areas and the driest of times out west. Cimarron and Texas counties have been named federal disaster areas. Henry's been accused of ignoring the Panhandle, and a Boise City publisher put a $50 bounty on the governor — offering the cash to anyone who could prove Henry had ever set foot in the county.

This is no laughing matter. Cimarron County depends on agriculture and agriculture depends on rain. Some rain fell last week, but hardly enough to reverse months without nature's bounty of rain.

While much of Oklahoma has been soaked in the past year, leading to devastating floods, the Panhandle and the western rim have gone begging for moisture. Who knew? Certainly the folks in the Panhandle did, but as recently as April the National Integrated Drought Information System listed the Panhandle as suffering from a "moderate” drought while the downstate western border with Texas was "abnormally dry.”

Now, the western Panhandle has jumped three categories in the NIDIS rating system to "exceptional drought,” a distinction shared by only two other areas of the country: central Texas and the southern Appalachians. Not even southwestern Arizona needs to pick up as much rain as Boise City.

Panhandle folks are accustomed to not sharing in the bounty enjoyed by downstaters, but the drought has forced the governor to head west. We'd pay $50 to see him get the Panhandle's plight around his head.

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