Five winners will be honored in Tulsa on Nov. 17

Make reservations to attend the sixth annual Champions of Health awards ceremony on Tuesday, Nov. 17  at the Renaissance Tulsa Hotel and Convention Center. The event reunites Oklahoma State University President Burns Hargis as keynote speaker with local attorney and Flash Point political talk show co-host Mike Turpen as emcee. Reservations are $30 each and will be accepted through Friday, Nov. 6. Call (866) 876-4376 to make your reservation today. VISA and MasterCard are accepted.

The Champions of Health awards program is presented by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Oklahoma, the Oklahoma Hospital Association, the Oklahoma Osteopathic Association, the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, the Oklahoma State Department of Health and the Oklahoma State Medical Association.

For information about sponsorships, go to the sponsorship page at www.championsofhealth.org or contact Ivy Lark at (918) 551-3397.

Before being named OSU President, Burns Hargis had a long and distinguished legal and business career, with active civic and philanthropic leadership across many fronts. He also is familiar to many Oklahomans through the political perspective and wit he provided on the award-winning television program Flash Point.

Prior to coming to OSU, he was vice chairman of Bank of Oklahoma, N.A. Before joining Bank of Oklahoma in 1997, Hargis practiced law in Oklahoma City for 28 years, most recently with the firm of McAfee & Taft. He is a former president of the Oklahoma County Bar Association, former president of the Oklahoma Bar Foundation, and is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation. Hargis served as vice chairman of the Oklahoma State Election Board, the Oklahoma Constitutional Revision Commission, and served as Chairman of the Oklahoma Commission for Human Services. He is a former member of the Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. Hargis was a candidate for the Republican nomination for Governor of Oklahoma in 1990.

Hargis and his wife, Ann, have two married children and three grandchildren.

In 1982 Mike Turpen was elected attorney general for the state of Oklahoma. He served as Muskogee County District Attorney from 1977 to 1982. Since 1987, Turpen has been a partner in the law firm of Riggs, Abney, Neal, Turpen, Orbison & Lewis in Oklahoma City.

While no longer serving in public office, Turpen remains politically active. He appears weekly on Oklahoma City NBC affiliate KFOR’s award-winning public affairs show, Flash Point with Turpen & Humphreys. He appeared twice on ABC’s Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher and was  featured on PBS’s national documentary, Vote for Me: Politics in America. He had a long-running monthly column,Turpen Time, for the OPEA monthly newspaper and was a featured columnist for Microsoft’s internet magazine, Slate. Turpen is a nationally sought after public speaker, having keynoted conferences of the National Association of Attorneys General, the Fourth Federal Judicial Circuit, and the National Family and Juvenile Judges’ Association. 

2009 Champions of Health award winners announced

Tulsa County Recycled Medication Program has been named the Community Health Champion and recipient of the 2009 Rodney L. Huey, M.D., Memorial Champion of Oklahoma Health award, the highest honor of the Champions of Health awards.

This sixth-annual awards program recognizes outstanding organizations and individuals dedicated to improving the health of Oklahomans. The Recycled Medication Program serves as a model for the public-private volunteer physician partnership and is the first program in the nation to legally “recycle” unused prescription drugs from nursing homes to charity clinics. Read about the Recycled Medication Program and the four other winners to be honored on the Champions of Health Web site, www.championsofhealth.org. 

About the venue:  
Renaissance Tulsa Hotel and Convention Center

2009 marks the first year for the Champions of Health awards to take place in a Tulsa venue. 

Find out more about the Renaissance Tulsa Hotel and Convention Center online. 

For information on Champions of Health or to submit a story idea, e-mail Sarah_Gatlin@hcsc.net.
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