News

A 10-member team of inventors who are all enrolled at Canadian Valley Technology Center spend Mondays after school inside the school’s Makerspace classroom.

This innovative space on the north side of CV Tech’s El Reno Campus inspires thought and fosters creativity and imagination among students.

Currently, the CV Tech Inventor Team is developing a working prototype of a first-of-its-kind backpack alarm intended to alert students when important items are missing.

American Indian students in Oklahoma public schools could not be prohibited from wearing tribal regalia under legislation that has won committee approval in the Oklahoma Senate.

“I was shocked that this was even an issue,” said state Sen. Casey Murdock, R-Felt.

Senate Bill 429 would allow students to “wear tribal regalia on school property or at any school function, whether it is held at a public or private location.”

Legislation making it illegal to perform sex-change surgeries on Oklahoma children or inject them with cross-sex hormones or puberty blockers has won easy approval in an Oklahoma Senate Committee.

Lawmakers also voted to bar state funds from paying for those procedures.

Both measures were advanced just days after Gov. Kevin Stitt called for their enactment in his State of the State address.

WASHINGTON – Oklahoma’s mental health department rejected claims of inadequate mental health services despite an ongoing federal investigation ignited last fall by an Oklahoma law firm that claims data proves the system is failing.

Brian Wilkerson, director of litigation at the Oklahoma Disability Law Center, said that over half ― 67 percent ― of 1,100 booked into the Oklahoma County Detention Center six or more times in the past three years had sought services from the state mental health department. 

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LVNV Funding LLC vs. Patricia Swain for $3,075.33 to pay a debt plus interest, costs and attorney fees.

Residents from the Center of Family Love in Okarche attended the Rose Day gathering held last week at the state Capitol in Oklahoma City.

Rose Day is an annual event that promotes the sanctity of life and encourages lawmakers to support pro-life legislation.

Three candidates for an El Reno School Board seat fielded questions, some prepared in advance and others from the audience, at a forum last week leading up to the Feb. 14 primary election.

While the primary election is this coming Tuesday, if no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote, the top two candidates will proceed to the school board general election set for April 4.

A candidate who receives a majority vote of 50 percent, plus one, on Feb. 14 will be elected, according to information on the website of the Oklahoma School Board Association.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Two Canadian County school leaders traveled to the nation’s capital to attend an Advocacy for Public Schools Conference and Educational Equity Symposium.

Board of Education members Suzanne Cannon of Yukon Public Schools and Dorrie Parrott of El Reno Public Schools are Area 10 representatives on the Oklahoma State School Boards Association (OSSBA).

The two were among 14 OSSBA members who traveled to Washington, D.C., from Jan. 27 to Feb. 1 for the conference and symposium.

Canadian County restaurant owners - along with local leaders and residents - want voters to decide whether the county’s 38-year-old Sunday alcoholic beverage sales restriction should be removed.

Since 1985, the sale of liquor by the drink before 2 p.m. on Sunday has been prohibited in the county.

Several dozen people attended last week’s commissioners meeting, with everyone who spoke publicly voicing support for changing the liquor rule to match Oklahoma state law.

Canadian County commissioners have been asked to call an election on proposed changes to the county’s liquor rules restricting Sunday sales.

But commissioners are limited on when such an election can be called for voters to decide the issue. As it stands now, the countywide vote couldn’t be held until March 2024.

Since 1985, it has been illegal for any business in Canadian County to sell liquor by the drink before 2 p.m. on Sunday.