Article Details FBI Probe Of McAlester Foundation

By David Arnett in Tulsa Today
Monday, 12 June 2006

The daily newspaper has again shown what it takes for them to follow a Tulsa Today story – The Oklahoman and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). We have been laughing about that for several months, but that is not all that goes on behind the scenes. Sad though it may be, it is not the politicians that have been bad for America – it is the media and, most recently on the Tulsa scene, cults of personality promoted by some pundits.

Published by Tulsa Today on April 2, 2006, a story titled, “Kathy Taylor/Gene Stipe Questions” called national attention to the state funding of a shady organization called the Rural Development Foundation. In 2003, the Foundation gained permission from the Oklahoma Water Resources Board to siphon 25 billion gallons of water from Lake Eufaula each year. On Sept. 9, 2003, Foundation spokesman and consultant Steve Phipps said Oklahoma tax money should go to the group for “pondering” a water delivery system.

We asked then – as we ask now – about a career of pondering. Does the University of Oklahoma offer a degree path in pondering? Every writer on this staff is convinced they could be successful as professional “ponderers” and, apparently, the Oklahoma Legislature will fund pondering at a much higher rate than good journalism earns.

The Oklahoman covered the story in a front page exclusive on May 22 of this year as the FBI investigation became public. No fact of the Tulsa Today story was found to be incorrect, but that publication dug deeper, reporting that the Foundation has received at least $1.1 million of tax money since 2002. Further, Foundation officials never provided the state Commerce Department with a final report showing how it spent the money. They also have not returned any of the agency’s phone calls or letters since November 2004, commerce attorney Don Hackler told The Oklahoman.

The Foundation’s Steve Phipps is a known associate/partner of Gene Stipe, 79, a former state legislator currently on probation after pleading guilty to one misdemeanor and two felony counts in a federal campaign corruption case. Stipe admitted he fraudulently put more than $245,000 of his own money into Walt Roberts’ failed 1998 congressional campaign and orchestrated a cover-up after coming under investigation.

FBI agents raided the Stipe/Phipps’ abstract business in Antlers, which was also listed as the office for the Foundation on April 20, according to an article in The Oklahoman that quoted Vicki Rust, who works in a law office across the street. They wrote that she was delivering documents to the company when a half-dozen law officers entered.

“They just asked everybody to stop what they were doing and step away from the computers, “Rust told The Oklahoman. “I thought it was a big joke until somebody laid a badge down.”

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