When Rep. Mike Osburn made a late-March announcement that he would not seek a sixth and final term representing House District 81, political consultants and electoral hopefuls scrambled to make candidacy decisions in a core-Edmond seat open two years ahead of schedule.
Four months later, HD 81 Republican voters are preparing to choose between telecommunications professional Troy Talley and petroleum and real estate businessman Rusty Rains, each of whom said he decided to run after being approached by family friends who are political consultants.
Talley, who touts his rural roots, said former House Speaker Lance Cargill asked him to run.
“I just feel like it’s time for me to serve and to do a hard thing,” Talley said. “My life has been transformed through my service and my church, and (I can) use that at the state Capitol.”
Rains, who wants to apply his industry experience to analyze the state budget, said he was approached about running for office by Jackson Lisle, a founding partner at Amber Integrated.
“I’ve considered myself fairly abreast of the issues, but I never sought to get to the Capitol. It was an opportunity to serve around District 81,” Rains said. “There’s issues we need critical thinking around, and that’s kind of what I’ve done my whole career.”
Talley is endorsed by Edmond Fraternal Order of Police and the Edmond Firefighters Association. Rains is endorsed by the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce, the Oklahoma State Medical Association and the Petroleum Alliance.
With about 1,900 people voting in the June 16 primary, Talley (47.5 percent) and Rains (35.8 percent) advanced to the Aug. 25 runoff. The eventual GOP nominee will face Democratic nominee Megan-Hornbeek Allen in November. The candidate ultimately elected to House District 81 will represent residents living in central and southeast Edmond and a small portion of north Oklahoma City.
Talley: ‘I do believe that experience will be really helpful to me’
Rains holds a degree in finance from the University of Oklahoma. He wields 40 years of experience in the oil and gas industry, which he continues now at 3R Energy. He also operates HGMR properties, a real estate and remodeling entity, as well as TMCR Investments, a partnership focused on mineral assets and energy development.
“(For some of my time at Conoco) I was responsible for our financial budgets, our profit and loss statements, and more importantly, looking at modifications we need to make when revenues didn’t match with our budgets,” Rains said. “From there, I moved to a Six Sigma process within Conoco to see if there was waste so we could eliminate waste within the budget.”Â
Rains also managed more than 600 employees across the region and orechestrated multi-million dollar acquisitions for Conoco.
Talley holds a business degree from the University of Central Oklahoma and works at Chickasaw Telecom as a senior account manager. He is also a deacon at Henderson Hills Baptist Church.
“My heart for service is, I would first quote the great John Wooden. He famously said, ‘The best thing you can do every day is go out and do something for somebody expecting absolutely nothing in return.’ And that just kind of captures in a sentence a heart for service,” Talley said. “I’ve experienced that at my church serving as a deacon, serving in various ministries there, and then going out into the community.”
Rains and his wife attend Faith Bible Church. He also chairs the finance committee at Oakdale Baptist Church where he was baptized.
Asked what qualities he looks for in a candidate when voting personally, Talley said he appreciates a candidate who is led by a higher power and their faith.
“I think someone that seems to be over-promising is a red flag to me,” Talley said. “I appreciate someone who acknowledges they have a lot to learn and to grow, but they’re going to work hard and build relationships to try to find common ground so they can truly serve their constituents. (…) Those are the same things I’m expecting of myself.”
Rains said most voters want a conservative like him.
“I look for someone who is going to support our veterans, first responders and teachers. Because that’s who I have in my family. My wife is an ER nurse, and my mom was a 40-year public educator,” Rains said. “To me, a conservative individual is more than where you go to church. It’s, ‘Do you support our veterans, first responders and teachers? Are you pro-Second Amendment?’ I am. ‘Pro life,’ which I am. ‘Are you a fiscal conservative? Do you live within your means? Do you do what you say you’re going to do when you negotiate deals in your business life or personal life? Do you have integrity?’ Those are the things I look for in a candidate. If you look at some of these current statewide races, as I parse through that, I look at their past, because the greatest indicator of how they are going to perform in the future is their past.”
Both candidates said they value the quality of listening to understand issues rather than acting rashly.
“I’ve always appreciated people that are really quick to listen, slow to speak and even slower to get overly emotional about things,” Talley said.
Rains said he wants to dig into data.
“Sometimes there’s not a perfect answer and you have to be willing to weigh in with facts and data to make the best decisions for the constituents of District 81, because that’s ultimately who I speak for,” Rains said.
Talley, who spent the first 20 years of his life in LeFlore County, said those years were formative.
“Life experience is a little bit different than living in the city and being around a lot of people whose incomes are coming from farming and cattle,” Talley said. “Even though I wasn’t involved with them myself, those kinds of people I was around a lot, so I do believe that experience will be really helpful to me.”
Rains: ‘Without strong economy, it’s hard to have strong educational system’
Talley and Rains both aspire to improve Oklahoma’s education system while they learn about the Legislature.
Student reading proficiency, teacher-to-student ratios and testing for learning disabilities are issues Rains said he values from listening to teachers.
Asked if he has any policy ideas to improve education outcomes, Rains said he needs to enter the Legislature and learn about the details.
“These are just issues that were brought to my attention. You’ve got to be ready to get into the data,” Rains said. “I’ve done some work around the budgets to kind of determine A) how it’s funded, but B) how those dollars get spent. I have had folks say we have quite a bit of costs at the administrative level as opposed to the classroom. From my perspective, and what I’ve been told, our admin costs exceed the dollars that we’re putting into the classroom. So are there opportunities to reduce or allocate the costs from administrative functions into more the classroom, teacher facing?”
Asked if he had any solutions in mind for issues HD 81 faces, Talley said he had not “thought deeply about a lot of these things.”
“I wasn’t planning on doing any of this stuff. I haven’t been particularly really politically engaged, other than taking dead serious my privilege and my freedom to vote,” Talley said. “I’m going to rely on constituents and other people that have lived and worked in certain environments to help inform me on things.”
Although he acknowledges his own learning curve if elected, improving education is top of mind for Talley.
“What policies and laws can we work on together to improve where we are? We have got to do better by the students. We have got to help find a way to help the families become more engaged,” Talley said. “We have got to find solutions to the obstacles that everybody encounters in trying to get their kids to do something that they don’t want to do so they can become the people they really want to become.”
Talley emphasized the connection between education and the economy.
“It’s really hard to attract new businesses when our schools are at the bottom of the barrel,” Talley said.
Rains reinforced the connection.
“Without a strong economy, it’s hard to have strong educational system,” Rains said.
Asked how he differs from Rains, Talley said his relational skill set would be valuable at the Capitol.
“I’m a highly relational person that wants to connect with people,” Talley said. “I think if there’s anything that differentiates me from my opponent it’s the ability to connect with people quickly, build trust and find common ground, regardless of party, regardless of how divergent our views may be, so that we can do the very best work for the state of Oklahoma.”
Asked what would differentiate him from Talley, Rains said his experience creating jobs and his fiscal conservatism set him apart.
“I’m almost certain we don’t need more taxes,” Rains said. “We need to find a way to cut the waste. For me a real priority for me is (…) understanding what’s in the budget, why we’re spending money on those particular items and not having particular outcomes.”
In his free time, Talley does endurance training, runs in marathons and competes in triathlons. These activities reinforce his campaign mantra that he can do hard things.
For his enjoyment Rains said, “There’s two seasons in my life: college football and hunting.”
Talley encouraged voters to show up to the polls for the Aug. 25 runoff.
“Regardless of what the race is, vote your convictions, vote your conscience and do right by that opportunity that God’s given us in the greatest country in human history,” Talley said.
