From Uganda to ORU – Deborah Laker, TulsaPeople intern

Welcome to Tulsa Talks presented by Tulsa Regional Chamber. I’m your host Tim Landes.

For this episode all I had to do was ask my guest Deborah Laker to walk across the office to have this conversation. Deborah is our fall intern. She’s in her final semester as an international student at Oral Roberts University, where’s she’s majoring in journalism and political science. 

She’s from Uganda, which is located in Eastern Africa. It is a smaller country surrounded by South Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The southeast portion of Uganda is Lake Victoria which is the base of the magnificent Nile River, which flows north through the middle of the country and thousands of miles later becomes the main source of water for Egypt. 

I’ve never been there, but I’ve long dreamed of visiting that part of the world. I have lived vicariously through Paul Theroux's travel writing in Dark Star Safari, and other books plus numerous documentaries. Also there’s a lifelong obsession with ancient Egypt. 

I’d talk to Deborah from time to time about her home, but we agreed early on to do this podcast conversation, so I held off till we recorded it in late October to dive in and learn more. 

We discussed how she first learned about Tulsa, what her expectations were before arriving and how different this city and country is than what she expected. 

Being a journalist who studies global politics for fun, I wanted to learn more about what drove Deborah to chase those degrees and what she thinks she might do with them when she graduates. We also talk about the differences between our political system and Uganda’s, and what it was like for her to witness the 2020 election season.

It turns out her mom, Margaret, recently ran for office and lost this time, but she’s not going to give up according to her proud daughter. I have to say, Margaret, go get ‘em! You've got a supporter over here in Oklahoma. I'll be cheering you on when the time comes for you to run again.

I really enjoyed learning more about Deborah and how her experiences are shaping her. Toward the end of our conversation, I flipped the script and let her ask me a few questions.

It’s been great having her here as an intern. She shared a delicious curry recipe in our October issue, wrote about a new musical and courtroom dogs, and she has a great feature coming in December. She has a very bright future ahead, and I’m excited to follow her journey. 

Following my conversation with Deborah, hear a new song from Tulsa’s Wilderado. More on that later. 

Ok let’s get this going. 

This is Tulsa Talks with Deborah Laker. 

Indie-rock trio Wilderado released its self-titled debut album in October. Two of three hail from Tulsa and Mannford, respectively, and moved back home from LA in 2018 to record the album. I talked to them shortly after their return and then music writer Julie Watson talked to them for last month’s issue. 

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And with that here is Wilderado with Mr. Major.