Illustrations by Jerry Bennett
The Oklahoma election cycle is always weird but it doesn’t get much weirder than the Oklahoma County Clerk — who is also running for state treasurer — informing government employees that they’re going on a work trip that will be equal parts fun and fear. “There will be alcohol involved, meaning we will drink. We will do things. We will gamble. We will do a bunch of things. Some will be fun. Some will be scary,” David Hooten told his employees during an April 26 meeting that was recorded, NonDoc reported. Oh, but it gets weirder. “I’ve been genetically altered so that I don’t get drunk no matter
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what. They gave me a chemical that changes your brain,” Hooten said. He chalked up the leaked audio in the weeks leading up to the state primary for treasurer as politicallymotivated, but “Rootin’ Tootin’ David B. Hooten,” as he called himself during a 2014 Senate run, is now in trouble with District Attorney David Prater. “He told NonDoc that he had
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been trying to take a team-building trip with his employees for five years because they’re ‘constantly fighting and they always have issues.’ He said the plan was to make his employees think they were going to be facing their greatest fears, which he said include flying, drinking alcohol and snakes. But Hooten claimed that the actual trip planned for May 6 only would
have involved going to lunch and visiting iFLY Indoor Skydiving,” NonDoc reported. If Hooten does go on to be Oklahoma’s treasurer, we can only hope that he hosts a Fear Factoresque show for state employees and that video — and not just audio — gets leaked of that.
