If you are able to read these words, consider yourself fortunate enough to have been given the gift of literacy.

According to the Oklahoma Literacy Resources Office, nearly one in five Oklahomans grow up without the literacy skills they need.

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If that isn’t enough to motivate change, www.whizkidsok.com reports a whopping 74 percent of Oklahoma’s fourth graders read below the proficient grade level.

Letting these facts and figures lay dormant in my mind was not an option.

It was enough to motivate me to do something different, and my discovery of Whiz Kids was the mold of change I was looking for.

Whiz Kids is a one-on-one volunteer tutoring and mentoring program committed to helping prevent delinquency. It is a non-profit, faith-based organization that targets inner city schools whose students are reading below their grade level.

Posthumous degree: a piece of paper announcing to the world that a student got within a single semester of graduation, and was stopped only by dying.

Adding insult to injury is an old phrase and one that aptly describes the posthumous degree.

The injury, of course, is the loss of a loved one, but the degree is just flat insulting.

It’s insulting to the family and not just because the school will only award one after a lengthy process.

It’s insulting because this is a life tool, being awarded to a deceased person. And it’s not truly a degree, but a sort of “certificate” that shows the deceased almost made it.

It’s insulting to the deceased.

On April 2, the President’s Cabinet adopted Policy No. 5078 — that is, the awarding of a posthumous degree to the family of a student who has died before completing an associate degree.

The policy declares such degrees are “unearned, non-academic degrees recognizing the meritorious but incomplete earned work of a deceased student.”

The adoption of such a policy shows that OCCC truly does care for its students beyond monthly payments made to the Bursar’s office.

When a student enters college, graduating from that institution becomes the final goal in a long, winding maze of trials and obstacles.

Q: Dr. Sechrist, in your opinion, what is the reasonable amount of time for access to an Open Records Act filing as it pertains to documents and records relating to OCCC?

Like many issues, the most accurate answer is that it very much depends on the document or record being requested. For some requests, a reasonable amount of time could be a matter of days. But for other requests, a reasonable amount of time may be weeks. Let me explain.

First, the Open Records Act requires that the College provide prompt and reasonable access to documents that are permitted to be released. The College must consider the nature of the request, the number of records requested, the format of the record, and the effort necessary to compile and review the records. The College must also ensure that essential functions of the college are not disrupted and delayed while we work on the records request.

Congenital cytomegalovirus or CMV infections are responsible for more long-term complications and infant deaths than Down syndrome, fetal alcohol syndrome, and spina bifida, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Despite also being the most common viral infection infants in the U.S. are born with, hardly anyone knows about it.

CMV is part of the herpes virus group that includes the Varicella-Zoster virus, responsible for chicken pox and shingles, and the Epstein-Barr virus that causes mononucleosis or mono. It is a fairly common infection, harmless in most cases, but once infected with CMV, a person carries it for life. The CDC estimates of every 100 adults in the U.S., 50 to 80 are infected with CMV by the time they reach the age of 40.

U.S Citizen Kimberly Hester is currently learning the consequences of exercising her First Amendment right to free speech after she posted a picture on her personal Facebook page of a co-worker’s pants around her ankles in April of last year.

The teacher’s aide at Frank Squires Elementary School located in Cassopolis, Mich., maintains the picture isn’t of pornographic nature and said she didn’t upload the picture to Facebook while at work.

Still, a parent who was friends with Hester on Facebook and could see Hester’s posts, notified the school district’s administration about the photos in question.

Hester’s boss then made repeated requests to access her Facebook account. Hester refused on every occasion.

Every time I build up a little faith in humanity, something comes along and reminds me just how awful we are as a species. Case in point: last week News9.com reported that a couple was arrested by Rogers County sheriffs while robbing a home in Claremore.

Oh, and their 4-month-old child was waiting in the car while mommy and daddy picked up some new silver. Really.

In 2010 there were 720,000 substantiated reports of child abuse, according to a report by the Administration for Children and Families. In that same document, there were 3.6 million reports.

Three point six million.

The U.S. Justice department recently shot down legislation in Texas requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls. The department claims this rule discriminates against Hispanic voters, since 11 percent of Hispanic voters do not have government-issued photo IDs.

There are a couple of reasons this law is under fire — one of them being Texas’ history of voter discrimination — but I want to discuss the inherent concept of showing photo ID to vote. First I want to address the issue of not having a photo ID.

Aside from driving, a photo ID is required to enter bars and most clubs, do a return without a receipt at a retail store, purchase certain prescription medication, write a check and even obtain a library card.

We as the people of the United States want our citizens to vote. This is the reason that our country is a federal republic and allows for the democracy that the framers of the Constitution envisioned. It is also the reason that voter drives happen. So why would we put any hurdles in the way of that process? One such hurdle is the requirement to submit a state-issued identification card at polling places in order to vote.

People who support the laws that have passed in several states including Oklahoma and, in recent months, Texas, claim that having such requirements reduces voter fraud. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been proof that this claim holds true for the kind of voter fraud such actions could prevent.

Being a sports fan your entire life, you start to notice a few trends. You become aware of how players are likely to act, predispositions of certain teams, tendencies in certain sports, and especially how the media likes to operate.

Recently, one trend that seems to stick out above the rest is that of the media. I mean all media: print, radio, television – essentially, they all work the same.

At its basic core, the media wants ratings. They want viewers. They want readers and subscribers; and with the explosion of sports blogging, they want page hits.

Now that aspect is common sense but to some, how they go about capturing the audience’s attention may not be.