February 2024

LAWSUITS

Freedom Mortgage Corporation vs. Isabel Garcia and Mario Garcia for $174,073.40 to pay a debt plus interest, costs and attorney fees and foreclosure of mortgage on Lots 9 and 10, Block 3, Jensen’s Addition, El Reno.

Arvest Bank vs. Dakotah Henderson for $34,843.25 to pay a debt plus interest, costs and attorney fees.

U.S. Bank N.A. vs. Delvon Colbert for $10,369.73 to pay a debt plus interest, costs and attorney fees.

Discover Bank vs. David Jackson for $10,551.80 to pay a debt plus interest, costs and attorney fees.

Damrosch Ladies Music Club will be performing Wednesday, Feb. 21 beginning at 10 a.m. at New Hope Baptist Church.

All are invited to come enjoy an hour of local talent and stay for refreshments afterward.

By switching the state’s largest two classifications to district play for the 2023-24 basketball season, the Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association eliminated traditional drama around the East/West split and final seeding rankings.

“You already know where you are headed,” said El Reno head coach Rodney Haydon.

Based off district play results after 13 games, El Reno went into last week’s regular-season finale with Shawnee with a solid notion of the paths to state for both the boys and girls teams.

El Reno High School seniors Kaylee Davis and Hannah Koen punched return tickets to the 2024 Oklahoma Girls State High School Wrestling Championships, which start Thursday at the State Fair Arena.

This year, however, the pair will have another teammate in the hunt for a state medal as Brooklynn Huggins joins the EHS lineup.

El Reno took five wrestlers to the recent Class 6A East Regional hosted by Glenpool.

The Indians compete in the upper division since the state offers just two flights for girls.

Frances Kay Masters, 78, passed away Friday, Feb. 9, 2024, peacefully and surrounded by prayers and love after complications from surgery.

Fran was born Nov. 23, 1945, to Perry and Marie Arnold in El Reno, where she also spent a very idyllic childhood. She was considered and treated like the princess of the family, and she had so many fond memories of growing up, both with her family and with her friends. She was always focused on her studies, excelling at whatever she decided to pursue.

Janis Marie Smith Black, age 81, was called home to Jesus on Feb. 10, 2024.

She was preceded in death by her parents, Eldon and Dorothy Moreland Smith of Goodland, Kan., her son, Randy Black of Yukon, and her sister, Sue Liebl of Stratton, Colo.

Janis is survived by her son, David (Gayle) Black; grandsons, Taylor (Kristin) Black and Trace (fiancée Sarajane) Black; and great-granddaughter, Emelynn, all of El Reno; brother, Alan (Becky) Smith of Cassoday, Kan.; brother-in-law, Nean Liebl of Stratton, Colo.; and numerous nieces, cousins and friends.

A long abandoned and now dilapidated motel on Sunset Drive appears to be coming down after El Reno City Council voted to level the property.

The unanimous vote to bring the property at 2408 Sunset Drive down was applauded by a representative from the nearby El Reno Bowl.

The new owner of the bowling alley, David Dunn, had said when he purchased the business last year he almost passed on the investment because of the dilapidated and vacant motel.

The stories are all different, unique in their own way.

But there’s no mistaking the common denominator that brings all of them together for one special night - love.

The Sixth Annual Night to Shine Prom held last week drew dozens of happy, dancing participants and even more happy and dancing volunteers, escorts and buddies.

Night to Shine has been hosted in El Reno by First Baptist Church along with El Reno Public Schools.

An array of community volunteers join in to create a very special evening for very special people.

Rose Witcher Learning Center resumed classes Feb. 13 at the school after being displaced for a week by a natural gas leak.

The leak was discovered Jan. 30 when maintenance crews entered the boiler room to repair a water leak. That leak came from a pipe on one of the school’s drinking fountains.

What they found was a leaking natural gas pipe, as well.

El Reno was blanketed with another round of winter weather last week with snow forcing the cancellation of school throughout the county on Feb. 12.

The wet snow was good for packing as snowmen, like this family of three on Choctaw Avenue, popped up all around the city.

However, temperatures rebounded a day later under the bright sun which caused the snowmen to melt and drop all their accessories like this snowman’s carrot nose (foreground).