Oak Grove voters will have the opportunity on Tuesday to participate in the Missouri Presidential Preference Primary election that political observers are referring to as "meaningless."

A "multimillion-dollar nonbinding beauty contest" is another description.

Acting against the wishes of national Republican Party officials, Missouri state legislators opted to schedule the primary on February 7, rather than moving the election to March as national officials had requested.

National party officials threatened to penalize the state by reducing its number of convention delegates if the election was not moved.

Consequently, state party officials decided to elect convention delegates at party caucuses in March, making the primary election outcome next week a moot point.

Presidential candidate, Newt Gingrich, is not on the Missouri ballot. But several candidates who have dropped out of the race are on the ballot. Read more in Focus on Oak Grove.

In the late afternoon of Sunday, May 22, 2011, a catastrophic F5 tornado tore through the city of Joplin in southwest Missouri.

It began on the outskirts of the city around 5:34 CDT, just east of the Kansas border. It swept through the city with its widest point being nearly a mile. The nation was watching on television as soon as the news broke.

Shawn Morkert, LifeFlight Eagle paramedic based out of Clinton, was starting his 6 p.m. shift. Not long after he arrived, a call came to send support to Joplin for aid in transporting critically injured patients.

"Our initial call was they may have had some bad weather and the hospital had lost power," Morkert said. "We were told we would need to help transport persons to the closest hospitals in Springfield."

The helicopter crew of three, Morkert, a pilot and a nurse, left immediately for Joplin.

"In our line of work, you never know when you're doing this job what to expect," Morkert said.

As they began to reach the edge of the city, they were speechless.

"We could see people walking the streets and there was confusion and chaos everywhere," Morkert said.

From above they could see that St. John's Hospital was in ruins and one block over stood Freeman Hospital, untouched. They were contacted by first responders to begin the transfer of a four-year-old who was being transported by ambulance to the hospital.

"We circled for 30 minutes waiting for debris removal at Freeman Hospital," Morkert said. "We were the second helicopter to arrive and the space on the ground was limited."

After landing the helicopter in Joplin, Morkert contacted his wife, Kathy, a special education teacher at Oak Grove High School, who has been teaching in the district for six years.

"Shawn called to let me know what happened in Joplin and he was going to be traveling back and forth to Springfield all night long," Kathy said. "He said the devastation was incredible. It looked like a war zone."

As the crew entered Freeman Hospital, the only working hospital in Joplin, the walls were lined with people seeking care.

"There were so many people who needed help," Morkert said. "The triage system that is normally put into place could not be used under these circumstances. In a time like this, you have to categorize who can be saved and who can't."

After 20 minutes, the ambulance arrived with their first transport, a young child with head injuries and contusions.

"There was no information on who the child was when he was put into our care," Morkert said. With Morkert and the nurse ready to go, the flight began to the closest hospital, St. John's Mercy Hospital, Springfield.

Due to the nature of the injuries, the crew was unable to communicate with the child but offered reassurance that he was okay.

The flight to Springfield was an interesting one for the crew. They could see the storm ahead of them and they knew it needed to move out or they would have a rough ride. They also had a low fuel light come on as they were traveling. Read more in Focus on Oak Grove.