Through all the chaos and turmoil our state has experienced over the past few years, it's nice to know that some things – like The Oklahoma State Department of Health (OSDH) being in shambles – remains the same.
Late Friday afternoon, just minutes after I left town for a little weekend getaway, word hit the Oklahoma social media sphere that Dr. Lance Frye – the good old boy Kevin Stitt hand-picked to lead our state's awful response to the pandemic – had resigned.
In addition to that, it was announced that Jennifer Lepard – a well-known local politico who was the COO of OSDH – had also resigned to accept a job working for Stitt's political rival, and likely Democratic gubernatorial opponent – State School Superintendent Joy Hofmeister.
The news seemed to take the local media herd completely off-guard.
The quick knee-jerk analysis was the resignations had to do with the big news story about the OSDH allowing a non-binary person to change their birth certificate from M to X.
KOCO, The Oklahoman and even noted TLO super-fan Barbara Hoberock all made sure to mention it in their write-ups. Oklahoma Watch's Paul Monies went so far as to directly connect the two in his story lede: