TRANSCRIPT:

Mack Burke: I'm Mack Burke, host of We Are Land Grant, and I'm joined today by Dr. Lee Denney, veterinarian, OSU alumna, former speaker pro tempore of the Oklahoma House of Representatives and longtime advocate for veterinary medicine. Dr. Denney, welcome.

Lee Denney: Well, thank you. Thank you for having me today.

Mack Burke: You've had an incredible career spanning more than four decades, and you continue to be a strong advocate for veterinary medicine in Oklahoma.

What keeps you motivated?

Lee Denney: Well, being a veterinarian, I'm very proud of my profession. I think that we are such a stalwart for health in the entire state. Not only do we regulate food, animal medicine, so keep the food supply safe for the people in the state, but we also most of our animals are sentinel for diseases coming into the state.

So I feel like we're a part of the one health, part of the state of Oklahoma and keeping Oklahomans healthy and keeping our food supply healthy.

Mack Burke: In 2024, HB 3 1 96, better known as the Lee Denney Act, was signed into law. Were you excited to have your name tied to this piece of legislation?

Lee Denney: Well, I have to tell you, I was totally shocked.

I was named after this piece of legislation. Several years ago when I was in the legislature, we started a scholarship for veterinary students that really wanted to go into large animal practice. And it didn't get funded, and it certainly wasn't to the magnitude that the one that was signed into law this year did.

Mack Burke: And to this point, do you know what kind of impact that's had on the outlook for rural veterinary medicine.

Lee Denney: Yes. The veterinary school actually asked me to sit on a committee this spring to interview students to be the first recipients, and we gave five fourth year students a scholarship and three third year students to help defray their costs.

All eight planning to go into rural Oklahoma and practice large animal medicine.

Mack Burke: Can you speak to the depth of that challenge for rural Oklahoma in terms of filling the needs of all these communities?

Lee Denney: Well, the number one piece of significance is it reduces their college debt when they graduate. And that being said, rural veterinarians in mixed animal practice usually don't make the dollar amount that small animal veterinarians in our urban areas make.

And so this gives them a leg up on paying their college debt back and allows them to make a good living in rural oklahoma. There's more benefits than just dollars though in the rural way of life. And I think these students that plan to go into this type of medicine realize the advantages of living in a small town and of course raising their future families in a small town.

Mack Burke: They're just 33 veterinary colleges nationwide, and Oklahoma State has the only one in Oklahoma. Why is the OSU College of Veterinary Medicine such a crucial pillar for our state?

Lee Denney: The impact for Oklahoma is we are a huge cattle state. Not to mention also pigs sheep and goats. But having such a food animal presence per capita, we're number one in producing cattle in the state of Oklahoma, and it's very vital that we have a robust veterinary climate in rural Oklahoma so that we keep these animals healthy and help producers get to market healthy animals that will sustain our food supply.

Mack Burke: How can Oklahoma best position itself for the future to ensure we're able to meet that demand?

Lee Denney: Well, the legislature's actually helping us out in that, in increasing funding to the College of Veterinary Medicine. The teaching hospital is going on 50 years of age, so renovations need to be made.

Equipment needs to be purchased for different specialties, but we wanna be able to attract the best specialists in the country to Stillwater Oklahoma to our way of life and offer the services of outstanding veterinarians for the individuals and the animal owners of Oklahoma.

Mack Burke: You spoke a little bit about the concept of One Health.

Can you talk a little more about that and how veterinary medicine plays into that?

Lee Denney: You know, a lot of diseases we have are zoonotic diseases. Right now in the news we're talking about avian influenza, which is affecting our chickens and, and our egg production and stuff like that. But we're also seeing crossover into our dairy herds. Not a lot yet, but a little bit. And so these diseases can mutate in nature and cross over to humans. And so that's the one health keeping all of our populations healthy and disease under control.

Mack Burke: Dr. Denney, thanks for joining us.

Lee Denney: Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.