[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 76 (Wednesday, May 8, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2735-S2737]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                    Public Service Recognition Week

  Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, typically, when we talk about Federal 
employees or a Federal Agency, the story starts something like this. 
There was a mixup in paperwork for our constituent who had Social 
Security Administration retirement benefits. She ended up not having 
Part B Medicare coverage until later, and there was a lapse in 
coverage.
  Everyone gets frustrated over the mixup, the dropped paperwork, the 
problem, and they never hear the story of Amber Craft, who works in the 
Tulsa Social Security office. She chased the whole issue down. She did 
everything possible with the payment center to get inputs switched on 
the Medicare application and ended up getting the constituent's 
coverage to begin in the desired month to be able to get them taken 
care of. They were taken care of on their medical bills because a 
Federal employee saw the gap, ran to the need, and helped somebody in 
our State.
  This is Public Service Recognition Week, and I want to take a little 
bit of time because in this body, as with many people in the Nation, we 
catch ourselves at times complaining more than we praise. There are a 
lot of people who are scattered around the Nation right now serving 
their neighbors as Federal employees. We have a lot of those in 
Oklahoma, and there are some pretty remarkable folks who are my 
neighbors whom I get the opportunity to meet with.
  There are over 93,000 Federal employees, both active and retired, 
both Federal and on the Postal Service side--93,000 just in my State in 
Oklahoma--and that doesn't include the many teachers, firefighters, 
first responders, and other folks who work with public agencies on the 
city, State, and county levels as well. We are grateful to those folks 
because they make an incredible difference.
  There are folks like Martha Gibson, who works in the VA center in 
Muskogee. She works in the benefits office, taking care of trying to 
get benefits for our veterans when there are problems--and there have 
been problems at times. Martha works incredibly

[[Page S2736]]

well with our team. As we get a call from a constituent and try to 
chase down the issue to be able to help figure out how we can resolve 
it, Martha is typically the one we call in the Muskogee office, and 
Martha, quite frankly, pretty often gets it solved--not just helping us 
but helping other Oklahomans.
  Alexandria Hyatt is another good one to be able to talk about. She 
works in the Enterprise Services Center at the Mike Monroney 
Aeronautical Center with the FAA in Oklahoma City. She is an 
exceptional example of a Federal employee who not only works incredibly 
hard--not just for the FAA but for other Agencies, as well, that the 
FAA serves through the Enterprise Services Center--but she is one of 
those folks who we are glad is our neighbor.
  You see, she is a Federal employee, but she also, just last year, in 
2018, gave 850 hours away of her volunteer time serving with welfare 
agencies, working on weekends, and using her own leave. She is a 
licensed journeyman for HVAC. So she finds places where she can use 
that skill to serve other people, including putting in duct work and 
insulation, working on mold remediation, first aid, and teaching.
  After Hurricane Katrina, she spent 3 weeks roofing and providing mold 
remediation in the Hurricane Katrina area. In 2015, she spent 6 weeks 
in New York City insulating and inspecting HVAC supply vents on 
residency floors. After Hurricane Irma, she spent 2 weeks repairing and 
installing roofs.
  She is a Federal employee. She gives away her time, not just in her 
day job but in serving people on nights and weekends and taking her own 
vacation on this.
  We have Donald O'Connor, who spent 50 years as a civil servant. He 
also served Active Duty in the Air Force and in the Air National Guard 
for 30 years. He is a pretty remarkable servant with a pretty long 
legacy.
  Bryan Whittle is another FAA employee and an Oklahoma National 
Guardsman. He served very faithfully both for the Oklahoma National 
Guard and the FAA. It was last year when he walked into a restaurant in 
Oklahoma City and heard and saw a gunman who was opening fire in a 
restaurant. Bryan was one of them who actually ran toward the shots, 
and in a historic work and in a heroic act, he stopped a shooting at a 
restaurant in Oklahoma City, because this Federal employee and 
Guardsman actually engaged to be able to serve.
  We have Lieutenant Wayland Cubit. He is from the Oklahoma City Police 
Department. He has a program that he actually works very actively in 
called the Family Awareness and Community Teamwork program, or FACT. He 
spends a lot of time working with students trying to help to engage 
people with police officers, because a lot of times kids grow up in 
neighborhoods and communities or maybe in families where they don't 
hear positive things about their police departments. So he is 
constantly reaching out to help people. He is active in mentoring 
programs.
  This statement was written about him:

       On any given week, Cubit and fellow officers will work with 
     up to 100 children. Once a week they hold a character-
     building night in northeast Oklahoma City. Another night they 
     host the same program in south Oklahoma City. First-time 
     offenders come for a juvenile intervention program one night 
     a week. FACT hosts a youth leadership academy once a month.

  He is a police officer, but he is also a mentor and an activist to 
help the next generation of people.
  We have folks like Casey Farrar. He is a lead engineer on the B-2. 
Now, we don't think about the B-2, other than we are very grateful that 
we have the B-2. But here is what is interesting. Mr. Farrar was 
directly responsible for saving the U.S. Air Force--therefore, the U.S. 
taxpayers--$63 million in 2018. His work on several projects, including 
replacement of electrical cables on the rotary launcher system, as well 
as upgrades to those rotary launchers, improves the B-2 capabilities 
way into the future and will make an incredible difference and save the 
taxpayers a lot of money. At times, we hear about things that actually 
waste dollars, and we lose track of folks like this, an engineer, who 
just saved the taxpayer $63 million.

  Matt Lehenbauer works as an emergency management director for the 
city of Woodward and Woodward County. He has been very influential 
working through the fire seasons that we have had in northwest 
Oklahoma. He is one of those folks who is actually helping to protect 
his neighbors by working with emergency management.
  He has folks working alongside of him who are traveling down the 
roads, like Trooper Austin Ellis in the Oklahoma Highway Patrol. He was 
on a routine patrol but was shot last August--just another day for him. 
He was able to withstand the bullets and recover, despite a fractured 
rib. And, by the way--as he would want me to say to you--they got the 
guy.
  Tommie Nicholas works for USCIS, or U.S. Citizenship and Immigration 
Service. Ms. Nicholas reviews and makes case determinations, provides 
technical and administrative advice, and assigns work based on 
priorities. She has worked for USCIS for two decades and is one of 
those folks who is always ready to assist.
  She has helped in situations where there is an individual with a 
pending immigration case who needs to travel to be with an ailing 
relative overseas or when someone who needs urgent proof of status to 
work for their family, and she is the one who steps up and goes above 
and beyond to help to take care of folks' immigration issues and needs.
  You see, again, folks at times push back on people dealing with 
immigration issues, and they forget that there are great folks who are 
out there serving their neighbors all the time.
  Jim Lyall began his tenure with the Community Service Council in 1980 
as a help line program director and became associate director in 1991. 
He created Oklahoma's first 2-1-1 call center, which allowed Oklahoma 
to be the first to achieve national accreditation, and helping 2-1-1 to 
become a statewide service. At the Community Service Council, his 
leadership in the creation of Tulsa's Heat Emergency Action Plan and 
the Tulsa Weather Coalition air conditioner loan program has 
contributed significantly to the health and well-being of many Tulsans. 
He is another one of those folks serving every single day.
  We can't forget our teachers, who are out there constantly helping 
the kids in the next generation. Ms. Annette Cain teaches second grade 
at Spring Creek Elementary. On the second day of school, this past 
school year, she saw one of her students struggling to read. She 
quickly connected with the reading specialist, the principal, and the 
parents to discuss how to help this new second grader. Her concern was 
that he might need to go back to first grade or that he might be behind 
in second grade and was just going to need some additional help in 
reading. That little second grader is now caught up and has now had the 
``most improved reading'' award. That is good for him, but it is good 
for Annette Cain, who saw the problem and who responded to the needs of 
that child.
  It reminds me of stories, day after day after day, of folks like that 
who are in Elgin, OK, like Don Myers, and all the crew that is there 
doing special education and so much work to be able to help kids with 
the greatest amount of need in Elgin; just like in other programs 
around the State, where those teachers work with the parents, work with 
other educators, and work with a child to help that child way behind 
get caught up or to help them in their own development.
  I am grateful that this week we get to honor public service because 
there are millions of public servants doing amazing work to help their 
neighbors all around the country.
  Of all States and of all places, I remind this body often that 
Oklahomans pause every April 19 and remember a domestic terrorist that 
parked a truck bomb next to the Federal building and killed 168 people 
out of his hatred for public servants in the Federal Government. We in 
Oklahoma remember that public servants get up and go to work every day 
to be able to serve their neighbors, and we, as individuals, still push 
back against those who just blindly hate government and blindly hate 
people who serve in government and serve each other.
  We don't blindly hate. We deeply appreciate and are grateful for what 
they do. We as a State will never forget the 168 lives that were lost 
24 years ago of public servants taking care of their neighbors. We are 
grateful.

[[Page S2737]]

  If you are a public servant and you hear this, please accept my thank 
you. Well done. I am proud to be your neighbor.