[Editor’s Note: Paul Laubach of Okeene has authorized the Times & Free Press to publish the following announcement of his intention to file for the office of District 59 State Representative. The official filing period is April 13-15.]

Okeene resident and notorious newspaper publisher Paul Wayne Laubach announced this week that he will run as an Independent candidate for the Oklahoma House of Representatives District 59.

Laubach and his family operate commercial farming andranching operations in Blaine, Dewey, Major and Roger Mills counties in western Oklahoma. In addition, Laubach is a Certified Professional Landman (CPL), and manages his family’s mineral interest in western Oklahoma.

“I’m not running to unseat an incumbent, I’m running to turn upside down an entire system of hypocrisy, corruption and unlimited partisan and special interest treachery that is hurting our state and western Oklahoma,” said Laubach. “We need systematic reform of our entire political and judicial system if we are ever going to achieve what we are capable of.”

Laubach ran for district 59 as the Democratic nominee in 2004 and received 47 percent of the vote against Republican candidate Rob Johnson of Kingfisher. Laubach switched his party affiliation to Independent in 2008.

“The Democratic Party was content on leaving every Blue Dog Conservative Democrat in rural America hanging out to dry,” said Laubach. “At the same time I’m not going to play tribute to Mitch McConnell or Mitt Romney either. Without Trump the Republican Party would be hurting too.”

Laubach says U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a conservative “Blue Dog” Democrat, is the only man keeping the country from falling into a political abyss. Laubach said that both

Laubach said that both sides of his family homesteaded in western Oklahoma in 1900. He hopes that his son Alex, age 14, and daughter Sophia, age 9, have the opportunity to live in western Oklahoma too.

“My children, our family’s heritage and western Oklahoma means everything to me,” said Laubach. “I may be a bad hombre but I intend to give every voter an alternative choice against the status quo of our current political and judicial system.”

Laubach is a member of the Okeene First Baptist Church and Okeene Kiwanis Club, Oklahoma Cattlemen’s Association, Oklahoma Farm Bureau, Oklahoma Press Association, Oklahoma City Association of Professional Landmen, and a chamber member in Canton, Okeene and Seiling.

Prior to the official filing period for the office sought, the Times & Free Press will publish a candidate’s announcement one time at no charge. After the filing period, a fee is assessed for front page political announcements, which also includes publication of the candidate’s photo, name and office sought in our political directory, which runs in the classified section of each issue.]