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Rural Relocation. Now the movement is into, rather than away from Oklahoma. Escaping metropolitan racial problems and physical decay, residents elsewhere are responding to Governor Dewey Bartlett's notion of rural relocation for both industry and individuals. Since his election as Governor in 1966, Republican Bartlett has made his pitch personally to 106 presidents of the nation's top 500 companies, calculates that he has attracted $422 million worth of new industry and 26,300 jobs. He has even mailed 58,000 letters to former Oklahomans, inviting them to return to the state. Some 11,000 have expressed an interest.
"This is God's country," says Sallisaw Methodist Minister Don Williams, "and I ought to know." Adds one Sallisaw native: "Every time they have an earthquake or a hippie rebellion in California, another handful of Okies comes back home." That mixture of parochial pride and disdain for urban problems elsewhere may yet make Oklahoma one of the last bastions of white, middle-class American society.