March 2023

El Reno High School senior Bre Spann recently signed an NJCAA national letter of intent to play soccer for Redlands Community College.

Calumet High School senior Allie Harris won the 3-point shooting contest at the Class B state tourney.

For her efforts she earned a $1,000 check for science and math supplies.

Jennifer Douglas can now check off one of the postseason honors that has eluded the veteran coach in her seven seasons at the helm of the El Reno High School girls basketball program.

Douglas was named by her peers as Coach of the Year on the 2023 All-Suburban Conference Girls Basketball Teams. The seven member coaches voted on three squads and honorable mention prior to the state tourney.

“I did not expect to get it. I thought Coach Carr (Eric) at Piedmont deserved it because this was his last year and they beat us and won the conference.

Three El Reno High School wrestlers picked up the highest honors of their careers recently during voting by the selection committee for the 2023 Oklahoma Coaches Association’s All-State Wrestling Squads.

Will Heger and Dailey Jennings were elevated to All-State status and will wrestle for the Large West squad in the All-State Games. Those wrestling matches will be held at Tulsa Union High School on July 26 at 7 p.m.

Prior to a few days of rest ahead of the Union City Spring Break Festival, El Reno High School’s baseball team split a home doubleheader at the Hub Reed Complex.

El Reno dropped the U.S. 81 meeting with Chickasha by an 11-3 margin after allowing nine runs in the third inning – helped along by three Indians errors.

El Reno led the game 2-1 at that point despite leaving the bases loaded in the bottom of the first inning.

Rebounding from the loss, El Reno scored three runs in the bottom of the first en route to a 4-0 win over Clinton.

Calumet High School’s baseball team, ranked third in the first Class B rankings of the season, kicked off its spring campaign with wins over Hammon and Cashion.

The Chieftains blanked Hammon 13-0 before posting a 10-7 win over the Wildcats, ranked eighth in Class 2A.

Calumet posted a .391 batting average for the two games, going 18-of-46 with six extra base hits. Kyler Thiessen logged two doubles, followed by one each from Carson Cooper, Dalton Belcher and Kaleb Thiessen.

Caleb Meschberger added a grand slam in the win over Hammon.

Redlands Community College’s golf team kicked off its spring schedule earlier this month with an 11th-place finish at the 2023 Diffee Invitational held at Kickingbird Golf Club in Edmond.

The Cougars were the lone junior college team in the 15-squad field, carding a 36-hole total of 637, which was 69 strokes over par. Redlands was one stroke out of 10th place and nine back of ninth-place finisher Oklahoma Baptist University.

Henderson State (567) won the event by 20 strokes over the University of Arkansas Fort Smith. Southwestern Oklahoma State (589) was third.

NORMAN – Putting up yet another fourth-period rally, El Reno made Sapulpa work for every point over the final eight minutes before falling 58-44 in the semifinals of the 2023 Class 5A Girls Oklahoma State High School Basketball Championships.

“I’m so proud of the girls. We put up our five goals for the season on the board and we met every single one of those goals. We wanted to make it to state and we reached the semifinals.

“Sapulpa is a good team and they ended up winning the title,” said Douglas.

After a career of nearly 40 years in higher education that included being inducted into the Oklahoma Higher Education Hall of Fame and serving a decade as president of Redlands Community College, Jack Bryant said he will retire effective Aug. 1.

Bryant will be named president emeritus. The Redlands Community College Board of Regents last week named Executive Vice President/Chief of Staff Jena Marr interim president effective April 1.

Canadian County commissioners have started work reviewing formal requests totaling $16.63 million for $12.17 million in federal stimulus funds they have left to allocate.

Canadian County received $28,806,702 from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) of 2021, a $1.9 trillion economic stimulus bill designed to speed up the country’s recovery from the economic and health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and an ongoing recession.