it grows here in southwest Oklahoma... And getting a straight piece isn't that terribly hard.
It would be hard to find a piece that was absolutely straight, so i dont know about the idea of turning the whole thing... I made a cool cane for a friend not too long ago... Unfortunately i didn't think to take pictures of it.
I took a piece that was long enough to make a cane out of that had a jagged point on top from where it split off of the plant at a crotch. I cut the "knob" off the top of it, and cast just the knob in resin. Then i turned it to a handle shape and sanded and polished it. I didn't do anything at all to the cane itself.