State Sen. Wendy Davis touted the education plan that she said would draw more skilled teachers to public schools and expand full-day pre-Kindergarten education to all young Texans, during campaign stops Wednesday in Odessa and Midland.

Most of that was closed to the press, at least initially, except for a morning press conference in Midland. But Davis also met with an Odessa American reporter and photographer to talk education, energy and Greg Abbott. A few highlights of the roughly 20-minute interview:

• >> On education: Davis has recently been promoting the third plank of her education plan, “Great Start: Great Texas,” which proposes full-day prekindergarten classes for all Texans and more teacher aides. She drew a line between her plan and Abbott’s.
• “The clearest contrast is my plan is a much more comprehensive one which includes a pre-K component,” Davis said. “And the pre-K piece of mine recognizes experts not only in the state but throughout the country who have talked about the importance of full-day pre-K and its impact particularly on children who come from low-income families.”
• She targeted Abbott’s comments that referred to “waste.” And she pointed to three mechanisms that could pay for expanding pre-K education to all young Texans, which she said could cost $700 million: an opportunity at the federal level to draw down up to $300 million for full-day pre-K education, about $700 million in local property taxes Davis said was underestimated by Comptroller Susan Combs, and a surplus in the next legislative session of up to $5 billion.
• The Ector County School District struggles with a teacher shortage and 21 underperforming schools. Davis said the first two planks of her education plan could help here. Those plans call for incentives to increase the number of teachers and making college more accessible to students with dual credit programs.
• “If you come at it from two places where you strengthen the pipeline encouraging our bright high school students to pursue an education degree and you marry that with loan forgiveness and at the same time you move the salaries of our teachers as our budget will allow us to do so, I think that would really help alleviate some of the issues that we see in Odessa,” Davis said.
• >> On energy: Davis pointed to her experience in Fort Worth as a councilwoman during a boom in the Barnett Shale and on energy policy as a legislator, arguing her record shows support of industry and communities in contrast with Abbott.
• “He has no policy,” Davis said. “I have a long experience in this arena. He loves to brag about suing the federal government, but that’s not at all a proactive approach to helping to grow this industry and to balancing legitimate community interests while maintaining that growth. He doesn’t have any experience in this arena at all.”
• While on the council, Davis helped create a drilling ordinance and other rules that she said other communities have modeled. There she also worked with legislative colleagues to get state money for air monitors.
• “I think it should happen here,” Davis said. “I think it should happen in every arena where we have these shale drilling operations.”
•  And she pointed to her time in the senate, where she wrote a bill to reduce truck traffic by allowing pipeline operators of gas and waste water to stretch across state rights-of-way. Gov. Rick Perry vetoed her bill, but she said she was able to work with TxDOT to make it happen in her district anyway.
• “It made no sense that we should use private property when people objected when we could use public right-of-way to do it,” Davis said, saying expanding such an arrangement could work statewide.
• “It’s not only a potential danger having these massive trucks on residential roadways, because they clearly are not designed for that, but it clearly contributes to the wear and tear that’s costing municipalities and counties a tremendous amount of money to fix,” Davis said.
• Davis also said money from the Rainy Day Fund should be used to improve roadway infrastructure in energy-impacted areas.

It was Davis’ first campaign stop in Odessa and Midland. The stumping began with a meet-and-greet and a private fundraiser luncheon in Midland.

Then she came to Odessa for a closed round-table discussion with invited guests at the Gertrude Bruce Historical Cultural Center in south Odessa, followed by a meet-and-greet outside, where a attendees said a few things she discussed were her support for same-sex marriage, women’s rights and the DREAM Act.

Initially, both the Ector County Democratic Chair Bobbie Duncan and Karen Howard-Winters of the Ector County Democrats invited media to the Gertrude Bruce Historical Center, but the campaign via press aide Rebecca Acuña on Tuesday rescinded that invitation, saying it would be a “closed event.” Instead, Davis would meet with the newspaper at 2:30 p.m. at a location “To be determined,” before Acuña selected a closed-drive through coffee shop.

The Davis’ campaign media handling has drawn statewide press scrutiny, including an article in the Texas Observer that asserted “Her team’s mismanagement of the press is damaging her candidacy.”

Davis told the Odessa American that she has met with major newspaper editorial boards but Abbott has not, and that she always holds press events when traveling to different parts of the state.

“I think we are doing a better job of making sure that we are planning our press communications better so that everyone has an opportunity to know where I am what I am doing and what I stand for,” Davis said.

At first she deferred questions about publicizing her visit to traveling press secretary Hector Nieto, who reasserted the afternoon Odessa meet-and-greet would be closed, one of the “smaller private events where we will be hearing more of a back and forth of ideas.” He later declined to comment about planning confusion.

But in the end, the campaign opened the event with media from a few outlets came anyway. And there, they saw Davis sign a pair of pink sneakers for a supporter and greet more than 60 people who came, including those invited to the round-table.

One was Ector County Health Department Director Gino Sola, who said he was not at the roundtable but came to the meet-and-greet to thank her for her support of women’s rights and tell her that the closure of Midland’s Planned Parenthood in the wake of more restrictive law has brought more and more people to his department.

“We need these services and what they mean for West Texas,” Sola said.

Another was Ramiro Mojica, a teacher of world geography of Ector Jr. High, who asked reporters whether “this was well publicized?” because he had not heard until he was in the teacher’s lounge earlier that day. But he said he was still satisfied.

“It’s a minority out here being a supporter,” Mojica said, but he is one. “I would just like to see the person if I’m going to vote for them. I want to see what they are like.”