Youth News
On the Hot Seat: Tyler Norvell Defends OYE Funding
Wed, 20 Mar 2013 02:39:43 CDT
Appearing on "The Hot Seat" segment on News9, KWTV in Oklahoma City, the executive director of the Oklahoma Youth Expo argued the benefits of the OYE to Oklahoma. Tyler Norvell appeared on the weekend segment with host Scott Mitchell- You can watch Mitchell and Norvell by clicking on the play button in the video box below.
"The Oklahoma Youth Expo is the world's largest junior livestock program. We will have 13,000 head of livestock from all of Oklahoma's 77 counties come to Oklahoma City over the next ten days to be exhibited by more than 6,000 young people. What we do is promote rural economic development and rural community development."
He said there are specific benefits to the taxpayers of helping fund the OYE
"We're benefitting our rural communities, No. 1. Number 2 is education. The young people have the opportunity to win scholarships through our program and through the academics in our program. And those scholarships can only be spent at Oklahoma universities and colleges. So, our program is also an investment in human capital. When you talk to the sponsors who put private dollars into our program they say, 'We support the Oklahoma Youth Expo because you promote education and kids, but also the kids that go through your program stay back home and are the employees we want to hire.'"
OYE has awarded over $2 million in scholarships over the last ten years, Norvell said.
He said the OYE also benefits agriculture in a general sense.
"Just the other day I had a parent tell me between his breeding livestock that he produces show animals for his kids and his kids' show animals, he buys $100,000 worth of feed each year locally back at his local co-op. That's a lot commerce and business and that's just one example."
Norvell said Oklahoma State University is preparing a study to learn the economic impacts of the livestock show industry on the state in general and he believes they will find that the impacts are enormous.
He said the main reason taxpayers should continue to fund the OYE is because it is an investment in human capital.
More information on the OYE is available by clicking here for their website.
You can see our photos from the 2013 Oklahoma Youth Expo on our page on Flickr- click here for our 2013 OYE Photo set.
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