April 2026

For more than 20 years, Nancy Salsman has been dressing up as the Easter Bunny. Her reward has been a bunch of hugs from children around El Reno. 

Last week, her husband, Larry, drove her to some special Easter egg hunts with special education students at schools around town.

The hugs continued. 

Salsman said the eggs for the hunt were provided by the Francis E. Hamilton VFW Post 4938 Auxiliary in Edmond.

That’s the post the El Reno VFW Post 382 merged with after closing its doors here.

It was a busy 24 hours at the Oklahoma Trapshooting Association Park, located off Jensen Road, as El Reno played host to yet another postseason-level event for high schools.

The OTA Park was home to the 2026 Oklahoma Scholastic Shooting Sports Program’s regional shooting championships. The two-day event brought in 1,073 high school and junior high shooters.

The OKSSSP is organized and meets under the banner of the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, which also conducts both the regional and state championships.

Roblyer Learning Center hosted its fourth annual carnival on April 2.

Families from the community gathered for an evening filled with fun, games, and the spirit of giving, all aimed at supporting students.

The carnival featured a variety of attractions. Among the highlights were games such as 2-literally pop ring toss, face painting and a cake walk.

ADA — As lawmakers weigh a sweeping re-set aimed at funding education efforts, the Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust’s director submitted her resignation last week, while the potential state question’s House author is asking Senate leaders to keep their word and send the idea to a vote of the people.

El Reno High School’s trapshooting team narrowly missed a ninth trip to state in its 10th season of competing in the Oklahoma Scholastic Shooting Sports Program.

Competing in the North Regional Championships, one of two in the state, El Reno tied with Medford for ninth place with a team score of 182. The top eight squads earn state passes, with the cutoff being Pond Creek-Hunter with 186 points.

Shuffling lineups to cover missing players, El Reno High School’s tennis teams earned two top five finishes at the 2026 Elgin Owl Western Open, held at the Oklahoma City Tennis Center.

Jacob Richey, playing No.2 singles, was the highest placer in fourth following a 6-2/6-1 setback to Elgin’s Van Jameson in the third-place match. He defeated Woodward’s Cooper Gregory (6-2/4-6/10-6) in the quarterfinals but fell to Kingfisher’s J.P. Charqueno (6-2/6-1) to play for the bronze.

With lightning and rain bearing down on the Hub Reed Baseball Complex, Mother Nature made the final out in the El Reno bracket of the 2026 Kingfisher Festival.

Play was suspended with El Reno leading Altus 1-0 in the bottom of the fifth inning. The Indians had the bases loaded following a walk by Preston Ashford, a sacrifice bunt by Matthew Velarde, an error off an Austin Steffler pop-up and a fielder’s choice bunt by Coy Atkins.

Play was to resume after a 30-minute delay, but the Bulldogs opted to take the loss and head home.

The start of District 5A-2 play for El Reno High School’s soccer teams did not go as planned as both teams dropped road matches to archrival Carl Albert.

The El Reno girls fell to 2-5 on the season with a 7-0 setback to the Titans. It was the third straight shutout loss for the Indians and the fourth in the last five matches.

Carl Albert is now 4-1 in the last five meetings with El Reno dating back to 2022 by a staggering 19-2 scoring margin. Three of those meetings were shutout losses for the Indians.

More than 1,800 students from five states converged on El Reno Tuesday for the annual Agriculture Field Day competition. The event, now approaching its second decade, is hosted by Redlands Community College.

High school and even some elementary students from Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, Texas and Missouri competed in a variety of agriculture areas including a new category, Agriculture Communications.

El Reno provided an array of locations for the competitions, with events held at Lake El Reno as well as the RCC Royse Ranch, the RCC Darlington campus and the main RCC campus.

Next weekend is going to be a big shopping weekend in El Reno!

The biggest weekend of the year for hot buys on flowers and more at the Ross Seed Co. annual Plant Days Sale, Thursday through Saturday, April 9-11. It’s a great time to get your yard looking beautiful for spring and summer.

They have great buys on flowers, potting soil and so much more.

I love it when they are setting up for Plant Days, it looks like a gorgeous field of flowers in the Ross Seed parking lot.