Oklahoma
Oklahoma Changes Criteria for Bible Bids
This article was originally published in Oklahoma Voice.
OKLAHOMA CITY — The Oklahoma State Department of Education’s request for bids from Bible suppliers, which many speculated would result in the purchase of Bibles affiliated with former president Donald Trump, has been changed at the urging of another state agency.
The Education Department’s original request for 55,000 King James Version Bibles to place in Oklahoma classrooms would have accepted only products bound in leather or a leather-like material that also contain the Pledge of Allegiance, the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights and the U.S. Constitution.
The agency announced Tuesday it amended its request for proposal, called an RFP, to allow the extra documents to be bound separately from the Bible when provided to schools. The new RFP also adds “price” to the evaluation criteria.
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The Office of Management and Enterprise Services, which oversees RFPs and state contracts, requested the changes. The Education Department and its head, state Superintendent Ryan Walters, said they are “pleased to make” the amendments. OMES did not return a request for comment.
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Reporting by Oklahoma Watch found few Bibles would have met the original RFP requirements, but two products matched the criteria — both of which are Bibles endorsed by the Trump family.
Trump has earned a name, image and likeness fee for his endorsement of Lee Greenwood’s $60 God Bless the USA Bible. A similar $90 product, called the We the People Bible, has been endorsed by Donald Trump Jr.
Walters has endorsed the former president for reelection.
He ordered all public school districts in Oklahoma to keep a copy of the Bible in classrooms as a historical reference and to incorporate the Christian text into their lesson plans, especially for history courses.
Walters said the bid process wasn’t targeted at any particular vendor. Doing so would be illegal.
“There are numerous Bible vendors in this country that have the capacity to fulfill this request,” he said in a statement Tuesday. “The purpose of the RFP process is to find a vendor that can provide the product we need, of reasonable quality, at the best value. There are numerous state employees engaged and committed to a process to determine who that best vendor will be, and I have no involvement in that process, as it should be.”
Vendors have until Oct. 21 to submit bids under the amended RFP. The winning bidder will be awarded a one-year contract to ship 55,000 copies of the Bible to Oklahoma schools two weeks after receiving the contract.
Walters said his agency set aside $3 million to pay for the Bibles and will request another $3 million from the state Legislature next year. A spokesperson for Walters said the agency is using money saved from administrative and personnel costs. Rep. Mark McBride greets state Superintendent Ryan Walters before a House education budget hearing Jan. 10 at the state Capitol. (Photo by Nuria Martinez-Keel/Oklahoma Voice)
Rep. Mark McBride, R-Moore, requested an opinion from Attorney General Gentner Drummond about whether the Education Department can move funds from one budget category to another without legislative approval. McBride, who leads a House committee on education funding, also asked whether this expense would require approval from OMES and the governor’s secretary of education.
The amended RFP requests the extra founding documents to be bound in durable material when provided separately from the Bible. The Bible is not allowed to contain study guides nor additional commentary, according to the RFP documents.
“My number one goal is to ensure that our classrooms have copies of the Bible so that it can be utilized as an appropriate tool to properly and accurately teach Oklahoma students of its important influence in the history of our country and its secular value. Period,” Walters said.
However, several district leaders have said they have no plans to incorporate the Bible into their school curricula beyond what is required in Oklahoma Academic Standards.
The academic standards already mandate that schools teach about world religions and the role of religion in the establishment of American colonial governments. Oklahoma law allows districts to decide how they teach state standards.
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A school-focused law firm in Oklahoma City, The Center for Education Law, predicted Walters’ Bible mandate is “likely” to end up in court. A coalition of civil rights organizations, including church-state separation advocates and the American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma, has requested public records explaining the $3 million budget and the Bible mandate.
“Diverting millions of taxpayer dollars to purchase Bibles is nothing more than a blatant attempt to divide Oklahomans along religious lines and undermine the public-school system,” said Dan Mach, director of the ACLU’s Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief.
Oklahoma Voice is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oklahoma Voice maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janelle Stecklein for questions: info@oklahomavoice.com. Follow Oklahoma Voice on Facebook and X.
Oklahoma
Oklahoma State expected to lose talented EDGE to transfer portal
Oklahoma State EDGE Kyran Duhon plans to enter the NCAA transfer portal, On3 has learned. Duhon was a member of the 2024 recruiting class.
Duhon spent one year at Oklahoma State, logged 16 total tackles (eight solo) across nine games. He began his career at UTEP, where he had a productive true freshman season, Duhon finished 2024 with 43 total tackles, including seven sacks and two PBUs.
At UTEP, his one season there resulted in second team All-Conference USA honors. He was also named to the On3 True Freshman All-America Team as well as the the Conference USA All-Freshman team.
However, Duhon’s stay in Stillwater didn’t go as expected. Oklahoma State finished the season with a 1-11 record, which included the Cowboys firing longtime head coach Mike Gundy after a 1-2 start. Doug Meacham was named interim head coach but ended the year 0-9.
Eric Morris has since been named as the program’s next head coach. He comes from North Texas, which finished with an 11-2 record and a trip to the American Conference championship game this past season. However, it doesn’t appear that Duhon will be sticking around during the changing of the guard at Oklahoma State this offseason.
Before college, Duhon was the No. 1,706 overall player in the class, and was recruited as the the No. 165 linebacker during the cycle, per the Rivals Industry Rankings, which is a proprietary algorithm that compiles ratings and rankings from all four primary recruiting media services. He was ranked as the No. 242 overall player out of Texas.
Once the NCAA transfer portal opens on Jan. 2, players can officially enter their names in the NCAA transfer portal and go on to initiate contact with their preferred schools. The portal will be open for 15 days and close on Jan. 16.
Notably, players who are on teams competing in the national championship game are allowed five extra days to make their portal decision. The College Football Playoff championship game will be played on Jan. 19, so the players on those teams will be allowed until Jan. 24 to enter the portal and choose their next school.
To keep up with the latest players on the move, check out On3’s Transfer Portal wire. The On3 Transfer Portal Instagram account and Twitter account are excellent resources to stay up to date with the latest moves.
Oklahoma
Oklahoma man doing target practice in back yard charged in fatal shooting of neighbor
A man in Oklahoma is facing a manslaughter charge after he allegedly shot a woman several blocks from his home while firing a gun he got himself for Christmas at an energy drink can in his back yard.
As told in court documents reviewed by NBC News, the death of Sandra Phelps at the hands of Cody Wayne Adams illustrates how deadly the consequences can be when those engaging in the US’s prevalent gun culture do so unsafely. Adams’s back yard was not equipped to stop bullets from leaving the property and striking unsuspecting people in the surrounding area, according to authorities.
Phelps was sitting under a covered porch with family on Christmas and holding a child in her arms when they heard gunshots north of the house, said an affidavit laying out the circumstances of Adams’s arrest.
“Sandra commented that someone got a new gun for Christmas and then shortly after Sandra said ‘ouch’ and collapsed,” the affidavit said. It said there were no more gunshots after that.
Emergency personnel were dispatched to Phelps’s address at about 3.15pm Thursday, the Stephens county sheriff’s office said in a statement.
“We later received a call stating an individual had just received a gun for Christmas and was target practicing in his backyard and that they believed it would be pointing in the direction of the scene,” the sheriff’s office statement added.
“Investigators went to the reported address and spoke with an individual [who] confirmed he was shooting a target in his back yard and that he had heard that someone has died from a gunshot wound a couple of roads over.”
That individual was Adams, 33, who showed deputies a Red Bull can in his back yard that he had been shooting with his handgun, according to the affidavit justifying his arrest.
Authorities allegedly concluded that the vantage point from where Adams was shooting aligned with the angle of the bullet that killed Phelps. They also determined the home lacked a suitable shooting backstop meant to protect those in the surrounding area from being struck by stray bullets.
“Adams became visibly upset and began to cry” when he learned of Phelps, the affidavit added. He was arrested on a count of first-degree manslaughter and later released on a $100,000 bond.
In the US, unintentional deaths from firearms are a small percentage of gun deaths in the country. But they occur four times more often in the US than in comparable countries – and most involve a handgun.
Oklahoma
Oklahoma man accused of shooting neighbor dead during Christmas target practice
What began as Christmas Day target practice in an Oklahoma neighborhood ended in tragedy when a stray bullet fatally struck an elderly woman as she sat on her front porch holding a baby.
Cody Wayne Adams, 33, has been charged with first-degree manslaughter after firing the fatal shot, according to a probable cause affidavit obtained by ABC News.
The woman, whose identity was not disclosed, was sitting on the front porch with family members at a home on County Road 1800 on Thursday afternoon when she was shot from several blocks away, the Stephens County Sheriff’s Office said in a press release.
According to the affidavit, the victim was seated on a love seat and holding a baby in her left arm when she was struck in her right upper arm. The bullet then entered her chest cavity.
Family members told the responding deputy that they had heard someone firing five to seven gunshots and that the victim had “commented that someone got a new gun for Christmas” and shortly afterward “said ‘ouch’ and collapsed,” the affidavit stated.
As investigators canvassed nearby properties north of the shooting, deputies found that all but one home had “suitable shooting backstops or firing locations,” according to the affidavit. The only exception was Adams’s home.
Adams allegedly told deputies that he had been shooting a Glock 45 he recently bought for himself for Christmas, using a Red Bull can as a target in his backyard, according to the affidavit.
When a deputy told Adams he suspected the shooting may have caused the woman’s death, Adams “became visibly upset and began to cry,” the affidavit stated.
Adams made his first court appearance Friday. A judge set his bond at $100,000, according to online court records. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for February 26, 2026.
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