More than ever we need veteran voices to be heard in Washington, which is why I'm inviting you to join the Service Before Self Challenge.
To Join: Record a video and post it on social media with your name, rank, and why veterans deserve a voice in Congress.
Upload it under the #ServiceBeforeSelf hashtag to all social media platforms to unite with your brothers and sisters.
Only 31 out of 535 seats in Washington are held by combat veterans.
Oklahoma has sent only 3 since World War II.
That has to change and it starts with you getting in the fight.
#ServiceBeforeSelf #DanRooney #Congress #Veterans #Oklahoma
SIGNIFICANT #TORNADO THREAT especially this evening from central Kansas down into central Oklahoma including OKC to Wichita!
Supercells should erupt along a cold front and dry line from north to south by 4-6 pm and will move into an intensifying low-level jet by the magic hour.
The #tornado threat is more conditional to the south, but has a high ceiling in terms of significance.
Stay tuned to severe weather watches and warnings OKC to Wichita and east!
Oklahoma – mostly sunny with a slight chance of strong tornadoes.
Yes, that's the forecast.
Volatile "parameter space," or overlap of ingredients... but it's unlikely a storm can form given strong capping. If one DOES, it will be very high-end and severe.
To my Oklahoma family;
this piece comes straight from the heart.
I hope you’ll take a moment to read it and feel what I felt.
Thank you for allowing me to be a small part of it.
I came to @okcthunder to play basketball. I left carrying 168 lives.
When I was traded to the Oklahoma City Thunder, I was thinking about basketball, nothing more.
I didn’t know that before I ever stepped on the court, this place would show me something that would stay with me far longer than any game.
Like any player, my mind was on the game. A new team, a new city, a new opportunity. I expected the usual routine when I landed in Oklahoma City. Physicals, practices, meetings, and a jersey waiting in a locker.
But before any of that, Sam Presti pulled me aside and told me there was somewhere we needed to go.
He didn’t explain much, and I didn’t think to ask. I was focused on the next step in my career.
What I didn’t understand was that, before I could represent the place I was about to play for, I needed to understand it.
So instead of heading to the facility, he took me to the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum.
I walked in without knowing what I was about to see, and within minutes, everything slowed down.
There are 168 chairs at the memorial, each one representing a life lost on April 19, 1995. They are arranged in quiet rows, each engraved with a name, each standing where a person once stood in that building. Then you notice something that is impossible to process the first time you see it. Some of the chairs are smaller.
They belong to children.
There is no speech that prepares you for that, no headline that captures it. You simply stand there, and the silence carries a kind of weight that is hard to describe but impossible to ignore.
As you walk through the memorial, you pass between two gates marked 9:01 and 9:03. At first, they seem like simple numbers, but then you understand what they hold. One marks the last minute before the attack. The other marks the first minute after. And in between those two gates is 9:02, the moment when everything changed.
That minute does not feel like history when you are standing there. It feels present.
The reflecting pool stretches across what used to be a city street, its surface calm and still. When you look into it, you do not just see water. You see yourself standing in a place where unimaginable loss occurred, and for a moment, everything else in your life becomes quieter.
Nearby stands the Survivor Tree, an American elm that was damaged in the blast but endured. It is not untouched. Its scars are part of what it represents. But it is still standing, and in that, it carries a kind of strength that does not need to be explained.
We did not speak much while we were inside. It did not feel like a place for conversation. Some places ask for words. This one asks for reflection.
When we stepped outside, Sam Presti looked me in the eye and said, “This is what this state has been through.”
Then he said something I will never forget.
“Every time you step on that court, you are not just playing in front of fans. You are playing for a state that carries this with it. Give them everything you have. They deserve that.”
In that moment, basketball felt different.
Not smaller, but clearer.
Because what I had just seen was not only about what was lost. It was about what remained. A state that had experienced unimaginable pain and still chose to come together, to rebuild, and to move forward without losing its humanity.
From that day on, every time I stepped on the court, I carried that with me.
On the nights when I was tired, when I was hurt, when I was dealing with challenges that felt heavy in the moment, I would think about those chairs, about that minute, about the people behind those names. And I was reminded that what I was going through did not compare to what this state had endured.
https://t.co/XfNLliRVaO
TORNADO OUTBREAK POTENTIAL PEAKS MONDAY-TUESDAY southern Plains to the Great Lakes Region with this first wave!
A massive warm sector with mid 60s dew points opens up on Monday-Tuesday with multiple modes of severe weather and #tornado potential. Even the main warm front that surges to the Upper Midwest will have enhanced severe weather and rainfall and likely #tornado potential (Wisconsin and Michigan).
On Sunday, significant severe weather and tornadoes will be possible across the southern Plains, but with more nebulous forcing on day 1 of the dry line setup.
This is the very cusp of a historically active pattern for severe weather and tornadoes this April.
THE MOST ACTIVE PATTERN FOR TORNADOES SINCE 2011 AHEAD
A historically active April for severe weather and #tornado outbreaks appears possible this month across the central ant southern Great Plains. This active stretch will begin Friday/Saturday across the Texas Panhandle and southern Plains on Sunday, then ejecting northeast on Monday.
A train of large scale troughs are upstream fed by the positive North Pacific Oscillation that has persisted since 2023. Round after round of severe weather and tornadoes appears likely through much of the month of April 2026.
By God’s grace and with a heart for service, I’m humbled to officially announce my run for the U.S. Congress in Oklahoma’s 1st District.
This decision was not made lightly. Sometimes you choose the mission, and other times the mission chooses you.
I’ve spent my life serving others through Folds of Honor, through the Oklahoma Air Guard, and through every opportunity God has placed before me. Now, I believe He is calling me to serve in a new way.
I’m ready to stand for faith, freedom, responsibility, and the values that make Oklahoma strong.
God bless Oklahoma, and God bless the United States of America.