Former state Sen. Owen Laughlin filed Friday with Oklahoma Ethics Commission to explore a run for state treasurer.

During the next few weeks and months, Laughlin, a Woodward Republican, said he will determine if there is support for him to make the run next year.

“We’ll expect to make an announcement in the next month or two,” he said. “We will be around the state to test if there is going to be good support for that. We expect there will be. We will be doing some intense campaigning in the next few weeks.”

Laughlin said he has considered a run for state treasurer because of waste he saw during his tenure in the state Senate. He served in the Senate for 12 years, leaving because of term limits in 2008.

“I have been appalled in the last few years at the enormous waste in state government,” he said. “It is literally robbing our schoolchildren, our road building and every other necessary endeavor of government. Now is the time to mount an all-out war on waste in government.

“I believe that the treasurer of the state of Oklahoma is uniquely positioned to attack these abuses and to prevail.”

Laughlin said he has seen poor business practices being used by the state and hopes to address them as treasurer.

“For a number of years in the Senate I have seen a lot of times that we have used less that good business practices,” he said, “instances where we took the highest bid not the lowest. We have warehouses full of things we don’t have inventoried.

“We are paying large sums of money to store things we don’t even know what is in there. We have places where the rent has rolled over for 30 years ... we could own the building by now, but we continue to rent. I think the state treasurer is a great place to address these issue.”.

Laughlin also an-nounced Oklahoma City businessman Brad Yarbrough will serve as his campaign chairman.

Yarbrough has been involved in the oil and gas industry and other businesses in Oklahoma and was appointed by Gov. Frank Keating to establish the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

Yarbrough agrees with Laughlin about excess of government spending.

“This is an era of unprecedented government spending,” he said. “It is our money. We deserve a treasurer with the highest ethical and professional standards to guard the public purse. Owen is that person I trust and in whom fellow Okla-homans can put their trust.”

Laughlin graduated from Southern Nazarene University in 1973 with a bachelor of arts degree in political science and from Oklahoma City University in 1976 with a law degree.

“I’ve represented northwest Oklaho-ma for 12 years,” he said. “I think people in northwest Okla-homa have lots of common sense, and I’d like to bring that common sense to the state treasurer.”

National Repub-lican Legislators As-sociation named him 1999 National Legis-lator of the Year.

Laughlin was in the banking business for 20 years. He also is a certified flight instructor and attorney. He manages real estate interests.

“I’ve been a businessman for all my life. I’ve been in the banking business for about 20 years. We owned two banks. I practiced law for about the same time. I’ve been in several businesses in oil fields and others,” said Laughlin. “I think it is a good background to help the state improve its efficiency and business practices. A regular business couldn’t stand with the business practices that the state uses. It would have been out of business long ago.”

He and his wife, Charlette, have made Woodward their home for 32 years. They have been married for 35 years and have four children.