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Chow in style: Couch Restaurants’ renovation gets attention. Read the renova story on OUDaily.com.

OU drama students get thoroughly ughly modern with a musical production at Sooner Theatre. Page 4.

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Two OU students running in Tuesday’s primary CASEY WILSON The Oklahoma Daily

Law student Emily Virgin and public policy senior Isaiah McCaslin are both on the ballot for the open seat in the Oklahoma State House of Representative. Tuesday’s election is a primary, and both students are seeking to seeking to the Democratic candidate for the Nov. 2 election. The open seat is for District 44, which includes the OU campus. McCaslin said one of the reasons why he is running is things being done at the Capitol today are not working. “We rank too high on tragedies like suicides, child abuse, and poverty, and we rank too low on the health of our citizens, the quality of our infrastructure, and the number of college graduates,” he said. “I am running to do something about this. It won’t be easy, and it won’t happen overnight, but my ultimate goal is to be able to sit on my porch fifty years from now and know that my community is better because I got involved.” Virgin, who graduated with a degree in political science from OU in 2009, told The Daily in January she is following family footsteps into politics. Her grandfather, George Skinner, is a Cleveland County commissioner representing District 3.

“When you grow up around something, that’s what you end up loving,” Virgin said . “It’s really what I feel called to do. It’s my passion.” (Virgin did not respond to The Daily’s recent request for a follow-up interview.) Even in the midst of a budget crisis, McCaslin said the priority of many elected officials has been to push extremist laws and play political games. McCaslin’s resume includes serving in the U.S. Army Reserves, working full-time as a law office administrator and being on the board of the Norman Sustainability Network and OnTrac, which advocates for rail transit. “Previously I was an intern in the Norman City manager’s office where I researched policy issues,” he said. “This blend of business, government, and grassroots leadership experience will allow me to bring a fresh perspective to the Capitol.” McCaslin said he understands how different sectors of society can work together to make change. A few of the issues he would work on as a representative are expanding mass transit, attracting green jobs and renewable energy industries, restoring education funding, and protecting women’s rights, McCaslin said.

MORE DETAILS ON TUESDAY’S PRIMARIES Voting for the primary elections will be held from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday. Oklahomans will be voting for candidates to fill the following positions; U.S. Senator, U.S. Representative, state officers, judicial offices, district attorney, state senator, state representative, judicial retention and county offices. In the U.S. Senate, Oklahoma has two senators with one position up for election for a six-year term. Tom Coburn, the current state senator, is running for another term. Currently both State Senators for Oklahoma are Republicans, with two other Republicans, Evelyn L. Rogers and Lewis Kelly Spring running as well. Jim Rogers and Mark Myles are the registered Democrats running for State Senate and Ronald F. Dwyer and Stephen P. Wallace are running as Independent parties. Oklahoma state officers that are up for election will be for governor, lieutenant governor, state auditor and inspector, attorney general, state treasurer, superintendent of public instruction, commissioner of labor and insurance commissioner. Residents can go to www.ok.gov/elections to find their nearest polling place. - Ashley Horning/The Daily

SEE PRIMARY, PAGE 2

UNITED WAY SEEKS DONATIONS FOR YOUTH CAMPAIGN SPENCER POPP The Oklahoma Daily

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Lady Gaga performs her song “Telephone” with her backup dancers Tuesday night at the Ford Center in Oklahoma City.

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Lady Gaga impresses with monster performance her hit song “Telephone,” and moved them closer to the stage. Gaga also took time to talk several times about the lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender community and the need to be a With nearly 20,000 screaming little monsters in the audience, supportive society. Gaga, along with wireless carrier and tour Lady Gaga brought her “Monster Ball” tour to the Oklahoma sponsor Virgin Mobile, donates $20,000 to her favorite charity for homeless LGBT youth as part of each show. City Ford Center Tuesday night. Lady Gaga has all the tools of a season staged performer. Gaga never disappointed. The monster mistress is an inAs she slowed her set down at the mid-way your-face whirlwind; combining theatrics, point to debut a new-to-some song, “You raw musical talent and fantastic choreogand I,” that may become another No. 1 hit for NOT ALL GAGA FOR LADY G raphy on her path to the elusive Monster her. As the piano lit on fire and she discussed Ball that she seemed destined to lead her the drunken male influences on her music, The controversial Westboro Baptist fans to. the setting provides for a very Elton JohnChurch stages a protest in Oklahoma The fans in particular were another acesque vibe. City. See Opinion, page 2. cessory to the show itself, with her fans From her stage presence to her vocals, dressed as extensions of the various coswhich she effortlessly displayed during tumes she’s worn in previous videos and “Teeth,” instrumental performances and her performances. Many of the better-dressed were stopped by dance routines, Gaga left it all out there for the world to see. other fans to take pictures. As the show wound down, crowd favorite songs, outfits and Gaga used every talent she had working over the crowd set pieces were brought to the stage, including the fire-shooting through her nearly two hour and fifteen minute set, and the Oklahoma City crowd ate it up. The mosh pit bounced along in bra and panties and the large squid who stripped various pieces unison during the whole show to the driving beat of the incred- of a green dress during “Paparazzi.” Her influences are obvious, but Gaga is no slouch. Right now ible live band that backed her. she is the world’s biggest music star and she makes no apology The louder the crowd became, the harder and louder Gaga for her antics. performed. “When they asked you how the Lady Gaga show was...,” Gaga “I used to not be brave, you made me brave,” she said during said breathlessly near the end of the show. “Tell ‘em we burned one of her breaks to interact with her fans. It was during one of the place to the fuckin’ ground!” those interactions she called a fan in the audience as prelude to

PETER DAVIS The Oklahoma Daily

This Saturday, local youth groups and the United Way will host the first annual “Stuff the Bus” campaign, a school-supply donation program for low-income, Pre-K through 12th grade students in the area. Raising money and collecting school supplies for Norman’s less fortunate children, the big event will be kid-friendly with face painting and visits from special guests from the OU men’s and women’s gymnastic teams, and OU men’s soccer team, said Emily Furney, director of the children and youth council for the United Way. “We are trying to make it a fun, carnival-type event,” she said. “We have got a Norman public school bus out there and we are hoping to collect enough school supplies to stuff the entire bus on Saturday.” The youth groups involved in the program, the Norman Interact Clubs of Norman North, Norman High and the United Way Teen Advisers of Norman, are also collecting supplies at various drop-off points in the community from now until Saturday for those that cannot attend the event. A backpack full of supplies to fulfill one student’s needs costs $30. The goal of this year’s “Stuff the Bus” is to provide enough support for 425 students. The campaign this year ties in with the United Way’s ABC School Supply program, which circulates school supplies to families in the community that couldn’t purchase them, Furney said. “We are hoping this weekend people will come out to the event, donate some school supplies, meet the athletes, and hopefully stuff the bus,” she said. The event lasts from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday in the Sooner Mall parking lot.

DROP OFF LOCATIONS • BancFirst: 1201 W. Main St. OR 333 E. 12th Ave. • First American Bank: 570 NW 24th Avenue OR 801 NE 12th Avenue • Republic Bank and Trust: Robinson and 36th NW OR Lindsey and 12th St. SE OR 401 W Main St. • United Way of Norman: 550 NW 24TH Avenue (Next to Sooner Bowling Alley) Source: United Way

OU’s official Twitter account slow to gain student followers KATHERINE BORGERDING The Oklahoma Daily

An average day for a college student: sit down at the computer in labs or at home, make a few choice clicks to open. Instead of opening Office Word, D2L or e-mail, he or she will zoom straight to the words of Welcome To Facebook on its homepage. Devoting copious amounts of time, social networking is a large part of one’s collegiate social life. Seeing its potential, OU has made strides to get its bid in when it comes to social networking, developing a Twitter account and Facebook page. One is doing better than the other.

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“We want students, prospective students, faculty, staff, alumni and fans to feel pluggedin and heard,” said Kam Stocks, web communications spokesman, in an e-mail. OU’s attempts to keep students connected through the social networking site Twitter is slow-paced in gathering new followers. The Twitter account, @UofOklahoma, is operated by the web communications office. Stocks said the Twitter page is connected to the OU Facebook page. When statuses are posted on Facebook, they are reposted on Twitter. “Twitter gives us a great opportunity to listen to what students have to say about OU and share that with others,” Stocks said. “We love for students to drive the conversation about their university. You get to decide the

importance of the information.” While OU has 4,593 followers on Twitter, its Facebook presence is much larger at 105,020 fans on the fan page. In a poll taken this week, OU students said overwhelmingly that they do not follow the OU Twitter account and most said they do not use Twitter at all. An anonymous student said he finds Twitter to be obnoxious and he doesn’t see the point of it. Civil engineering senior, Daniel Ferrufino said that he has never used Twitter.

“I don’t even know what Twitter is, I know its like Facebook but I’ve never used it,” Ferrufino said. Also having never used Twitter, Diana Hernandez, petroleum engineering graduate student, said she prefers Facebook. Stocks and his team in the web communications office have plans to change this attitude and make Twitter more applicable to students. “We’ve had success integrating our social networks. We’ll run contests for Twitter or YouTube on our Facebook SEE TWITTER, PAGE 2

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