January 2022

Bennie Lee Cullen Sr., loving father and husband, passed away Jan. 25, 2022. Born in Chickasha to parents, Freddie and Edna Cullen on Jan. 3, 1948, Bennie grew up in El Reno.

A proud Army veteran, Bennie served his country in Vietnam as a mechanic. Once he was back home, he spent his teenage and early 20s carrying on with that career as a mechanic and eventually working as a farmer, which he did for over 20 years.

He also worked for Canadian County as a heavy equipment operator/road grader for over 20 years and retired from this in February of 2020.

T.D. Gordon Meadows (“The Tractor Man”) was born July 8, 1930, in Granite, Ark., and passed away Jan. 20, 2022, at his home in El Reno with his family by his side.

Gordon married Carol Ann Daugherty Hutchings in El Reno on Feb. 25, 1977. He owned Sunset Auto Center and worked there for 43 years. He enjoyed buying and selling tractors.

Gordon is survived by his wife, Carol Meadows and his children, as well as two brothers and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Katherine “Kathy” Joyce Biller passed away peacefully on Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2022, at the age of 80.

Kathy was born to parents, Buster and Eileen White in El Reno on March 8, 1941.

She attended El Reno High School, graduating in 1959. She married Gene Elmenhorst in April 1960 and they had one daughter, Trudi.

A few years following Gene’s death, Kathy married Joe Biller on Aug. 5, 1965. They shared 56 years of marriage together and had three daughters, Lori, Jamie and Kerri.

Funeral services for Patricia Kay Rhodes of Minco were held Tuesday at First Baptist Church of Minco, under the direction of Huber-Reynolds Funeral Home.

Pat passed away Jan. 22, 2022, at her home. She was born March 19, 1944, in St. Paul, Minn.

She grew up in Lawndale, Calif., where she graduated from Leuzinger High in 1962.

Pat moved to Minco in 1972, where she enjoyed baby-sitting over 80 children over the years. She was a member of First Baptist Church of Minco.

In a fitting conclusion to her record-setting night, El Reno High School’s Ashlyn Evans-Thompson sealed her team's win over Class 4A’s sixth-ranked Kingfisher with success at one of her self-proclaimed weaknesses.

The senior hit two free throws with 6.5 seconds left as the Indians defeated the Yellowjackets 38-34 in the first of four games before the reporting deadline for playoff pairings.

El Reno, ranked second in the state among West-side schools in Class 5A, improved to 12-3 on the season.

Despite 89 games and more than 1,200 career points under her belt, Ashlyn Evans-Thompson had a freshman case of the butterflies going into the game with Kingfisher.

“I was really nervous,” said Evans-Thompson.

Who could blame her?

Sitting on the home side of Jenks Simmons Field House was her family, friends and fans all focused on watching the task at hand – setting El Reno’s career scoring mark for 5-on-5 girls basketball.

A pair of freshmen came up with two upperclassmen clutch plays in crunch time as El Reno High School’s boys basketball team pulled off an upset that could affect two classifications for the upcoming playoff pairings.

El Reno, now 8-7 on the year and ranked eighth in Class 5A among West-side schools, defeated Class 4A’s top-ranked Kingfisher 45-43 in non-conference play.

After losing to Guthrie in the 2022 Suburban Conference Championships earlier this month, El Reno High School’s wrestling team felt it had a score to settle.

Mission accomplished.

El Reno, which slipped to sixth in the latest Class 5A Dual Team rankings, defeated the fifth-ranked Bluejays 39-33 to move to 7-4 on the season.

The Indians never trailed in the road dual as Niko Gonzalez (106) scored a 1-0 decision over Kaedin Herendeen and Terry Guzman (113) got six forfeit points.

For a third time this season, Calumet High School’s girls basketball team suffered back-to-back losses following a 52-47 setback to cross-county rival Southwest Covenant.

The loss dropped Calumet to 13-9 on the season.

The Chieftains led 31-18 at the break but were outscored 34-16 over the final two periods by the Patriots. Calumet ended the game shooting 43 percent from the floor after making 14-of-24 shots from inside the arc (58 percent), but hitting just 5-of-20 3-point attempts.