Oklahoma state Senate candidates lookling to make the grade

Less than two weeks before their runoff, two men trying to win a state Senate seat find themselves defending their educations.

Ron Sharp and Ed Moore meet in the Republican runoff Aug. 28. The winner will earn the Senate District 17 seat because there’s no Democrat in the race.

Sharp, a former teacher in Shawnee, got his doctorate online from a California school that was later shut down. State regulators called it a “diploma mill.” Moore, pastor of a Baptist church in Newalla, received his degree from a nonaccredited religious school in Indiana.

Both men say they worked hard for their degrees, and there’s no reason to think that’s not the case. Our guess is Republican voters in District 17 will be most concerned with how either man will represent their interests at the Capitol.

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