October 2023

El Reno surpassed 2,000 total yards in the win over Noble.
 

El Reno High School’s volleyball team snapped a two-match losing streak and closed out the regular season with a 3-1 road win over Hennessey.

The 28-26/22-25/25-18/25-5 win over the Class 3A Eagles left El Reno with a 5-15 overall record heading into Monday’s Class 5A regional playoffs.

The Indians will be headed to Sapulpa for the one-day postseason event with the winner punching a ticket to state.

Pictured are members of El Reno’s eighth-grade volleyball team crowned the 2023 Suburban Conference Champions after going through the league tourney undefeated and without dropping a game, said coach Bill Reeves.

Redlands Community College’s soccer team kicked off a four-match regional road swing last week with back-to-back losses by a combined five goals.

The Cougars dropped a close 4-3 match to the University of Arkansas Rich Mountain before being shut out by Rose State College (4-0).

The losses extended Redlands current losing streak to seven matches. The Cougars are 1-11 overall and 1-10 in the NJCAA Region 2 standings, which is eighth.

Redlands logged 21 shots for the two matches, three of those credited as team shots.

El Reno High School tailback Malachi Nicholson was having a career night running the football in the Indians game with Noble last week – but he had no clue just how big.

After bursting through Noble’s line untouched en route to a 56-yard touchdown run, the senior was still breathing hard when he carried in the 2-point conversion to give El Reno a 68-61 lead with 3:26 to play.

Running off the field, he stopped to ask me a simple question.

“You wouldn’t know how many yards I have, do you,” said Nicholson.

Carol Nichols knows about the 23rd Psalm. She has lived it. She has sobbed and prayed her way wandering in the “valley of the shadow of death” and now she has written about it.

She had to write about it. What else could she do? She had lost the love of her life, her husband. And then, as if death hadn’t cut her soul deep enough, her only son was told he had months to live.

The darkness of death had swallowed Carol Nichols.

Reggie Jammer from Fort Cavazos in Kileen, Texas, reaches back to shoot a balloon off a post during the mounted pistol competition at the 2023 U.S. Cavalry Competition held last week at Fort Reno.

Riders navigate a series of jumps on horseback and must fire and bust a balloon at each station.

The rounds fired do not carry any live ammunition.

Mike Gallaway puts his aerobatic plane into a vertical climb during El Reno’s Fly-In and Community Day Saturday at the El Reno Municipal Airpark.

See Saturday’s edition for coverage from the event.

Some 300 certified master gardeners from across Oklahoma will visit Canadian County to hear from experienced horticulture professionals and tour local gardens.

Canadian County Master Gardeners will host the Master Gardeners State Conference on Friday, Oct. 6 at Canadian Valley Technology Center, 6505 E. Highway 66.

The theme is “Honoring Our Past, Growing Our Future.” The program will be inside CV Tech’s seminar center and three classrooms, with on-site vendor and educational booths.

The Oklahoma District Attorneys Association has honored Sen. Lonnie Paxton with its highest award, the Soaring Eagle.

Paxton was the only recipient of the Soaring Eagle, an award bestowed to the association’s greatest champions. Paxton earned the award for his efforts to increase penalties for dangerous drive-by shootings into dwellings as well as his efforts to help law enforcement deal with illegal marijuana operations that are plaguing so much of rural Oklahoma.