Absentee Candidate Runs For State House Seat

There are a lot of ways to serve your country. You can volunteer for the military or you could run for political office. If you're Wayne Guevara, you can do both at the same time. Wayne is about

Tuesday, August 1st 2006, 6:05 am

By: News On 6

There are a lot of ways to serve your country. You can volunteer for the military or you could run for political office. If you're Wayne Guevara, you can do both at the same time. Wayne is about to become an absentee candidate.

News on 6 reporter Steve Berg explains. Meet state House candidate Wayne Guevara, because he won't be here long. "Runoff is August 22nd and supposedly going to be coming back August 25th."

Guevara is heading for the Mexico border with the Oklahoma National Guard's 245th and won't be back until 3 days "after" the election. How's that going to work? "That's what we're meeting with people this evening about, trying to figure out how we're going to make things happen, who's going to be able to pick up the torch and run with it while Iâ€™m gone."

Guevara will have his laptop and cell phone, call it tele-campaigning. "I'm going to be coordinating a lot of things from out of state, and a lot of people are being supportive." Guevara spent the evening brainstorming with his supporters.

On the one hand, serving in the military could help his campaign, what could be more patriotic? Then again, there's the old saying, out of sight, out of mind. "Because my goal was to really get out and let people know who I am, put a face with the name and have the opportunity to ask me questions."

So he doesn't know if it will help or hurt him, but there's no question, it's unusual. "I love the military and it's something I decided to go ahead and do because I love serving my country."

Guevara is running for the District 74 seat. That covers Owasso, Catoosa, and the Port of Catoosa. His opponent in the upcoming runoff is Carl Weston of Catoosa.