Kingfisher (Okla.) Times & Free Press Sunday, July 16, 2017 5

Rebibbia Prison, where Agca was being held. Agca reportedly kissed the Pope’s ring at the conclusion of their visit; some mistakenly thought the Pope was hear-ing Agca’s confession. The Pope was also in touch with Agca’s family over the years, meeting his mother in 1987 and his brother, Muezzin Agca, a decade later.

Although Agca was quot-ed as saying that “to me [the Pope] was the incarnation of all that is capitalism,” and attempted to murder him, Agca developed a friendship with the pontiff. In early February 2005, during the Pope’s illness, Agca sent a letter to the Pope wishing him well.

Several theories existed concerning Agca’s assassi-nation attempt. One is that the assassination attempt had originated from Mos-cow and that the KGB had instructed the Bulgarian and East German secret services to carry out the mission. The Bulgarian Secret Service was alleged-ly instructed by the KGB to assassinate the Pope because of his support of Poland’s Solidarity move-ment, seeing it as one of the

View[Continued From Page 4]

the Oklahoma City Police Department, home of the late forensic faker Joyce Gilchrist. Known as “Black Magic,” Gilchrist conjured mountains of phony DNA evidence out of whole cloth in collaboration with an out-of-control district attorney over two ruinous decades.

Gilchrist, whose tainted testimony sent 11 inmates to their deaths, passed away two years ago unpunished and unrepentant.

Now, nearly a quar-ter-century after Gilchrist’s misconduct was first ex-posed, Oklahoma City has

Malkin[Continued From Page 4]

Jon’s ‘Ramblin’s’Independence Day

I wanted to write this last week in conjunction with Independence Day.

As you well know, I get side-tracked.

We celebrate Indepen-dence Day a-k-a the Fourth of July.

I’m thinking we have gotten away from the true meaning of the holiday. We have parades and shoot off fireworks and have patriotic music; in some cases awe-some celebrations.

We need to remember our forefathers who risked their lives so we could have the Declaration of Indepen-dence (and the Constitu-tion) to declare our freedom from the oppressive British government.

After the Revolutionary War for independence, it has been a struggle – wars fought, lives lost, and they gave their lives so we could have those freedoms guaran-teed us by the Constitution. And we are still fighting to preserve that legacy for fu-ture generations. Nuff said.

God bless honest people.My wife inadvertently left

her purse in a shopping cart at

I guess I’ve finally had it with the oilfield traffic that uses our road like a su-per-highway. The coun-ty came out recently and placed 35mph speed limits and “Slow-Children at Play” signs along the three mile stretch of 2880 Rd that we live on. It has had no effect whatsoever on the speed of the trucks racing down our road. In fact, the “Children at Play” sign has been run over and flattened just north of our home.

Our country life has become like living in the wild, wild west. We have no law enforcement here and the oilfield drivers have no intention of minding a speed limit or any other laws out here. They do not yield the right-of-way at our un-marked intersections, I guess thinking since they are bigger, the right-of-way is always theirs.

So I have several obser-vations to make as someone who regularly reads your paper and the Oklahoman.

I am furious with our State Legislators! I don’t care to read another article on how they had a “challeng-ing, but successful” legisla-tive session. In my opinion, the only success they had was leaving the cheap gross production tax (2%) on the wells for their first three years, thus enabling them to keep the big oil money flowing into their campaign chests while leaving the rest of Oklahoma to suffer. I reference a recent Sunday Oklahoman that headlined three separate issues: “ru-ral schools in state face funding emergency”, “OK County Jail-waiting for mental health and addic-tion treatment, ” “Fight or Flight-OK teachers staying or leaving.” All these were headline stories and I won-der if our legislators read the papers. A few pages back was an article that stated that Department of Human Services cuts threatened care for the disabled. It seems the whole state is cry-ing for funding and yet our leaders were unwilling to make the big oil companies share the responsibility of funding our government. I fully realize that the town of Kingfisher is profiting from

Had it with oilfield traffic

...A free service of the Times& Free Press is open to all.Opinions of writers are their ownand do not necessarily reflect theopinion of this newspaper.Letters may be edited for spaceprior to publication.

School is out and temperatures are climbing, which means summer is here. As your local hospital, we want to offer the following tips to keep you and your loved ones safe.Skin Safety•  Apply a broad-spectrum sunscreen that is SPF 30 or higher 15 minutes before going outside and reapply every hour, and after sweating or swimming.•  When possible, wear clothing that covers exposed skin.•  Wear sunglasses and a hat with a brim.•  Sit or stand in shaded areas.•  If you are taking medication, speak with your doctor about any possible risks to your skin.•  Visit your health care provider if you 

have a suspicious looking area on your skin and ask about annual skin screenings.Water Safety•  Learn to swim and teach young children 

to swim.•  Wear a life jacket.•  Learn CPR.•  Closely supervise children when in or around water.•  Swim with a buddy or in a lifeguarded area.•  Enclose and protect the area around your swimming pool or hot tub at home.•  Avoid drinking alcohol when near water.Extreme Heat Safety•  Avoid the direct sun.•  Schedule outdoor events early in the morning.•  Drink plenty of fluids.•  Wear hats and light-colored, lightweight clothing.•  Seek medical attention immediately if someone shows signs of heat stroke (nausea, altered mental state, lack of sweat, etc.).  Also, don’t forget to use DEET-based bug repellents to ward of ticks and mosquitoes. Check with your doctor to determine if it is okay to apply on young children.  To find a nearby health care provider, visit mercy.net/KingfisherCare. We hope you have a happy, healthy summer!Mercy Oklahoma provides this health information for the Kingfisher Community.

Tips to Stay Safe This Summer

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— Brian Denton

Your life is our life’s work.This message is brought to you by Mercy Kingfisher

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been rocked by secret hear-ings held two weeks ago in the case of former Oklaho-ma City police officer Dan-iel Holtzclaw. He was con-victed in 2015 on multiple sexual assaults after being railroaded by incompetent and biased police detectives and a DA’s office more concerned about appeasing the social justice mob than seeking the truth.

My investigation of Holtzclaw’s case helped publicize the flawed, sloppy testimony by OCPD crime lab analyst Elaine Taylor and assistant district attor-ney Gayland Gieger, who misled jurors with false

assertions about trace skin cell DNA tied to one accuser found on Holtzclaw’s pants -- the only indirect forensic evidence in the case. One of the key attendees at the secret hearings last month was Taylor’s OCPD crime lab supervisor, Campbell Ruddock.

Taylor and Gieger failed to fully inform the jury of unknown male DNA found on Holtzclaw’s pants, as well as DNA mixtures from multiple unknown female and male contributors, which clearly supported the hypothesis of innocent, nonsexual DNA indirect transfer. But Gieger base-

lessly claimed the DNA came from vaginal fluid (when Taylor conducted no such confirmatory tests for body fluids nor used an alternate light source). Gieger recklessly yoked the phony DNA “smok-ing gun” in one accuser’s case to all of the accusers’ allegations. At least two jurors publicly stated after trial that the shoddy DNA evidence persuaded them of Holtzclaw’s collective guilt.

Secrecy about the crime lab crisis is a toxic recipe for more wrongful convictions. The solution lies in great-er transparency, external scrutiny, stiffer criminal

penalties and real financial consequences for forensic fraudsters and fakers. It’s time to incentivize more whistleblowers, instead of more destructive witch hunts.

Michelle Malkin is host of “Michelle Malkin In-vestigates” on CRTV.com.

Her email address is write-malkin@gmail.com. To find out more about Michelle Malkin and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web-page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2017 CREATORS.COM

the increase in sales tax, but that does little to help our county commissioners and sheriff’s department. I have spoken to both of these de-partments this morning and found them to be as helpful as humanly possible given the constraints of their budgets.

In last Sunday’s issue of your paper, I read the fol-lowing statement:

“An oil industry group is preparing an analysis of oil and gas production in the highly active STACK play of northwest Oklahoma that it believes will provide a more accurate estimate of future revenue flows than other studies have achieved.”

Really? Are we to be-lieve that the oil industry can be trusted to present an accurate picture of their production when they clear-ly stand to pocket so much money? I have some “ocean front property just NE of Kingfisher!”

I fully realize this is a countywide problem and my sympathies to all my fellow countrymen trying to survive this oil boom.

Angry in Rural Kingfish-er County,

Ann Finley

Walmart parking lot. I’ll bet she doesn’t do it again.

Some honest folks found the purse, called one of her Avon customers and told the lady they had found the purse. They turned it in at Walmart, Walmart employ-ees put it in their safe. After showing my ID Walmart employees turned the purse over to me – good end to an almost frustrating Day.

Thanks to some honest folks no damage done and a lesson learned.

Jon Cochran Sr.

most significant threats to Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe. Bulgaria has denied the accusation.

Agca himself has given multiple conflicting state-ments on the assassination at different times. Attorney Antonio Marini stated: “Agca has manipulated all of us, telling hundreds of lies, continually changing versions, forcing us to open tens of different investi-gations.” Originally Agca claimed to be a member of the Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Pales-tine (PFLP), but they denied any ties to him.

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Trump’s businesses and the emoluments clause of the Constitution, which states that:… no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Con-gress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.

Essentially, the clause prohibits personally prof-iting from public office. Trump’s children run his businesses now, but there is not a blind trust.

In February, Rep. Jerr-old Nadler, D-N.Y., filed a “resolution of inquiry” into Trump’s investments that a Huffington Post column framed as the “first legisla-tive step toward impeach-ment.”

Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Wash-ington, or CREW, filed a lawsuit in the Southern District of New York on Jan. 22, two days after Trump took office.

“We did not want to get to this point. It was our hope that President Trump would take the necessary steps to avoid violating the Constitution before he took office,” CREW Executive Director Noah Bookbinder said in a statement. “He did not. His constitutional vio-lations are immediate and serious, so we were forced to take legal action.”

A spokeswoman for the organization told The Daily Signal she would try to set up an interview with board Chairman Norman Eisen. However, Eisen didn’t re-spond as of publication deadline.

However, emoluments faded as grounds for im-peachment as some juicy stories about Trump and Russia emerged. After a re-port in The Washington Post accused Trump of talking about classified information with two Russian officials in the Oval Office, Waters

said it rose to the level of impeachment.

In May, Waters referred to that alleged sharing of se-crets during the Oval Office discussion at the Center for American Progress, a liberal research organization. The California congresswoman said:

We don’t have to be afraid to use the word impeach-ment. We don’t have to think that impeachment is out of our reach. All we have to do is make sure that we are talking to the American public, that we are keeping them involved, that we are resisting every day, and we are challenging every day.

Yet another major story occurred after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey while the bureau’s Russia investigation was going on. Some politicians and commentators compared to President Richard Nixon’s “Saturday Night Massacre,” the multiple firings related to the investigation of the Watergate scandal.

Through a leak Comey admitted to planting, Amer-icans learned of his accusa-tion that the president asked him to “let go” of the FBI’s investigation of his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, for misrep-resenting his pre-inaugural conversations with the Rus-sian ambassador.

Comey said Trump told him, “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”

Democrats were quick to suggest this amounted to obstruction of justice.

Sen. Richard Blumen-thal, D-Conn., told CNN that Trump’s request to Comey “may well produce another United States vs. Nixon on a subpoena that went to the United States Supreme Court. It may well produce impeachment proceedings, although we’re very far from that possibil-ity.”

Sen . Angus King , I-Maine, who caucuses with

Plans[Continued From Page 4] Democrats, was asked by

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer: “If these allegations, Senator, are true, are we getting closer and closer to the possibility of yet another impeachment process?”

King replied: “Reluctant-ly, Wolf, I have to say yes, simply because obstruction of justice is such a serious offense.”

Obstruction of justice has a significant place in impeachment history. Pres-ident Bill Clinton was im-peached on this charge in the House in 1998, and it was the basis of one article of impeachment passed by the House Judiciary Com-mittee in 1974 before Nixon resigned.

Obstruction of justice also is the basis for Sher-man’s impeachment draft.

After Comey’s June 8 tes-timony to the Senate Intelli-gence Committee provided few revelations, and the ob-struction case became more difficult to make, the focus shifted back to the emolu-ments clause. Democratic state attorneys general sued for information on Trump’s business ties including his elusive income tax returns.

Comey told the panel the president didn’t order him to drop the case and, when questioned, said he knew of no prosecution based on someone’s “hope.”

Numerous legal scholars said they didn’t believe there was a viable obstruction charge based on the Feb. 14 Oval Office conversation be-tween Trump and Comey.

With an impeachment case based on Russia and obstruction of justice not as strong, emoluments made a comeback in June.

“The I-word is not some-thing you should throw around that much, and the Democrats are playing fast and loose with the emolu-ments lawsuits, where the merits are weak and the standing claims are laugh-able,” John-Michael Seibler, a legal fellow in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The

Heritage Foundation who has written about Demo-crats’ various suits, told The Daily Signal.

Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh and District of Columbia Attor-ney General Karl Racine, both Democrats, sued over the emoluments clause, accusing the president of violating the Constitution regarding foreign govern-ments doing business with the Trump International Hotel in Washington.

Following that, 198 con-gressional Democrats filed a lawsuit making essentially the same claim.

“The lawsuits would de-fine emoluments so broadly [that the provision] would be used against anyone,” Seibler said. “It’s basically an op-ed before the court.”

“You look at the bill Sen. Warren sponsored,” he added. “The lawsuits ask for declaratory judgment to fill in very wide gaps and reasoning.”

ful for the governor’s and legislature’s continuing sup-port to the tune of an ad-ditional $18 million above our last year’s appropria-tion,” said DHS Director Ed Lake. “Unfortunately, the cumulative effects over the past couple of years of several state revenue failure reductions and the neces-sity of covering additional, unfunded obligations such as growth in adoption assis-tance payments, increases in the state’s share of Medicaid programs, all add up to a $30 million budget shortfall for us.”

Over the past two fiscal years, DHS has reduced more than $80 million from the agency’s operating bud-get and cut more than 1,200 positions statewide. The prior cuts have been made primarily to administrative expenses in an effort to pro-tect core services.

“Closing this budget gap is much more difficult this year because we have made so many significant admin-istrative and small program cuts each year and also have sizeable required expendi-tures we cannot cut,” Lake

DHS[Continued From Page 2] noted. “While there was

no way to reduce this large of an amount from our budget without impacting direct services to clients, we have approached these reductions with extreme caution, working diligently to minimize the harm to the most vulnerable people being served.

“These rate reductions and service cuts will un-doubtedly be difficult for many. Because we spread the cuts across all of the populations we serve, we were able to avoid total elimination of any one program and preserve frag-ile home and communi-ty-based service systems for seniors and people with disabilities. I am so grate-ful to our many advocates and service providers for working closely with us throughout this process to find savings that have the least detrimental impacts.”

The reductions include a six-month freeze on new applications for child care subsidies, reductions to cer-tain types of services in the ADvantage Medicaid home and community-based pro-gram for seniors, reduced service levels for Medicaid

in-home supports for peo-ple with developmental disabilities, reductions to senior nutrition programs, and a five percent rate cut to foster home and adoption assistance payments.

Examples of how these cuts will affect people:

• Approximately 1,000 children and their fam-ilies each month will be denied assistance by the freeze on child care subsi-dies. This freeze may also have a financial impact on some child care homes and centers around the state that predominantly serve families who receive the subsidy.

• A senior receiving 20 hours each week of per-sonal care services through the ADvantage program may experience the loss of up to five hours per week of assistance with bathing, medication assistance and food preparation.

• An adult or child with a developmental disability living at home with his or her family may experience the loss of up to seven hours per week of services. The family still retains choice on what type of services they receive within their

approved dollar amount. Because most of these

services are provided through contracts with pri-vate agencies, private sector jobs may also be lost as a result of these budget cuts, Lake said.

Due to previous funding for the Pinnacle Plan, the improvement plan for the foster care system, DHS has been incrementally increas-ing reimbursement rates to foster and adoptive families which help cover some of the costs of raising children such as food, clothing, housing, transportation, education and other miscel-laneous expenses.

“Oklahomans serving as foster parents do this work because they care about keeping children safe and building strong families in this state,” said Lake. “We know foster families are the backbone of our place-ment system and we are extremely grateful to them for partnering with us to provide care for children who come into state custo-dy. The last thing we want to do is take a step backward from progress with these payments, but our current revenue shortfall leaves us

no easy choices.”This proposed rate cut

of 5 percent would mean a reduction of approximately $1 per day to the reimburse-ments to foster families and subsidy payments to families who have adopted children out of foster care. However, the rates will still be about $4 per day higher than they were previous to the beginning of the Pinna-cle Plan in 2012.

DHS will also make more internal administrative cuts which will mean several county office closures and consolidations around the state, and additional reduc-tions to personnel costs, contracts, IT services and training.

“DHS employees are among the most dedicated state employees I have ever had the privilege to lead,” said Lake. “Many have expressed to me their con-cerns and compassion for the vulnerable people they

serve and how they would be adversely impacted by the program cuts being considered. Although the internal budget cuts will likely make fulfilling our mission even more difficult for our reduced workforce, I am confident DHS em-ployees will continue doing their best to serve Oklaho-mans in need.”

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around 170 and 180 percent in big truck accidents and that’s a curve Shepherd and his troop-ers are striving to get ahead of.

“We learned a lot from the oil boom up north and we’re trying to implement that here,” Shepherd said. “We’re concentrating our efforts on a combination of education and enforcement.”

Troop J has been offering safety education programs to oil companies operating in the area that emphasize that, in an industry where time is money, deadline-driven aggressive driving can be costly.

“What we’re encouraging with companies and their safe-ty officers is, let your people off the hook here (with meeting deadlines at the expense of safety),” he said. “The reality is if a driver crashes trying to make deadline, the company’s going to lose that load, and if someone is hurt in the process, that’s much worse.”

OHP also has offered re-gional training programs to refresh local law enforcement’s knowledge of state CMV traffic laws, including one held this spring at Chisholm Trail Tech-nology Center.

As far as traffic enforce-ment is concerned, Troop J is concentrating its efforts to be more visible during peak hours when oilfield and com-muter traffic are most likely to be competing for road space, Shepherd said.

That’s meant more patrols along S.H. 33’s busy east-west route.

“We’re changing our sched-ules to be more proactive within the working oilfield hours and have troopers out there as early as 5 a.m. and more concentrated during commuter hours,” he said. “When school is in session, we’re also watching out for Chisholm Trail (Technology Center) students.”

Similar to OHP’s authority on the highways, the county sheriff’s office has the author-ity to enforce CMV weight limits and check oversize load permits in addition to enforc-ing speeding and other moving violations.

Before the start of the oil boom, that’s muscle Sheriff Dennis Banther hasn’t needed to flex much, focusing more on rural thefts and drug inter-dictions.

But now Banther has been training his officers to be more proactive about truck traffic and has designated one of them, Deputy Jesse Ritchie, as a full-time CMV enforcement officer.

“It’s helping. Deputy Ritchie is changing locations and adjusting his schedule dai-ly so as not to fit any routines,” Banther said, noting that he also employs a strict no-toler-ance policy.

“One guy asked if he could get a warning and Jesse re-plied, ‘yeah, don’t let me catch you speeding again.’ Then he handed him the ticket,” Ban-ther said.

Within Kingfisher city lim-its, Chief Dennis Baker also has stepped up enforcement ef-forts, but the increase in CMV moving violations created an expensive logjam in municipal court.

Because deferred sentences aren’t allowed by law on traffic tickets issued to commercial drivers, convictions have the potential to threaten their jobs and even their commercial licenses, Baker said.

“So every CMV driver was coming to court with an attor-ney, challenging their tickets and asking for trials,” he said. “With $220 plus fines being the maximum we can charge in municipal courts without hav-ing to offer a jury trial, it very quickly costs more to prosecute than can be recouped in costs.”

So instead, tickets written by Kingfisher police officers on commercial drivers are now filed in district court, which can impose more stringent sanctions.

Baker also has worked with the city’s electric department to change the timing on stoplights and wants to change some speed limits to allow earlier slowing and greater stopping distances for big rigs.

“We were getting a lot of complaints about trucks run-ning the light at Main Street and Will Rogers but when I sat out there and watched, the problem was that the speed limit is 45 and trucks coming from the north were already at Boeckman Ford before the light turns yellow,” he said. “If you’re clipping along in a big truck at 45 and get a yellow light that close to the intersec-

tion, you have to choose be-tween slamming on the brakes and hoping you get stopped or barreling on through and hoping you don’t hit anybody.’

So Baker asked Electric Dept. Supt. Jim Warner to adjust the light to extend the yellow cycle.

“That plus lowering the speed limit right there will make a huge difference,” he said.

The city also is working toward constructing dedicated, signal-protected east-west and north-south turn lanes at U.S. 81 and S.H. 33, where turning trucks can often back traffic up for several cycles.

But the project has been delayed by the death of a part-ner in the engineering firm which is preparing the job for bidding, City Manager Dave Slezickey said.

Industry’s Perspective“Our companies want to

make traffic issues go away,” Chad Warmington, president of the Oklahoma Oil and Gas Association (OKOGA) said.

One way that’s being done is through industry infrastruc-ture investments designed to significantly reduce the indus-try’s dependence on over-the-road trucking.

Installation of temporary water lines, a point of contro-versy with some area landown-ers who don’t want them in the public rights of way, plays a big part in reducing truck traffic, Warmington said.

Bringing water to drill sites via pipelines can virtually elim-inate nearly 2,000 truck trips per well, he said.

Once completely online, Newfield Exploration’s nearly $10 million water recycling plant and $40 million invest-ment in 70 miles of under-ground dual pipelines to both bring water to wells and carry wastewater away is expected to reduce truck traffic by as many as 100,000 round trips per year in the STACK play area, a company representative said.

Many of the approximate-ly 80 large producers, mid-stream companies and large service companies OKOGA represents also are implement-ing vehicle tracking systems to allow the routes and driving habits of company employees to be remotely monitored.

Newfield, MarkWest and other companies post speed limit signs for both company and third-party contracted truckers driving to and from their well sites (see related photo) and are including and enforcing safety requirements in all contracts.

Although third-party truck-ing and service companies are independent entities not directly controlled by the oil companies for whom they work, “we’ve got the power of whether or not they’ll continue as vendors,” Warmington said.

“Part of vendor contracts is a requirement to obey street signage and if they don’t, this needs to be reported,” he said. “A lot of our companies are being much more diligent about letting vendors know we will enforce routes and safety criteria will be followed or we’ll go find other vendors.

“It can put their contracts in jeopardy.”

Warmington urged anyone observing an oilfield truck operator driving in an unsafe manner to write down as much information as possible (the name of the company, license plate of the truck, location) and contact OKOGA’s community liaison Bray Haven at (405) 843-5741 or via email at bray@OKOGA.com.

“We’re running him rag-ged, but that’s part of his job,” Warmington said. “He can find out which company a driver is working for and make sure they address the problem.”

Companies also are asking drivers to watch for missing traffic control signs at rural in-tersections and visual obstruc-tions that need to be addressed, he said.

“A lot of our companies take it upon themselves to do the mowing and maintenance to have good viewing distance from all four corners and donate missing signs,” Warm-ington said. “A lot of that is just initiative on our part, but if there are issues that pop up, that’s what we want Bray to get on top of.”

Frustration ContinuesIn the eyes of some area

residents whose formerly quiet rural roads have now become heavily-traveled truck routes, industry and law enforcement actions taken so far have not addressed the problem.

“I’ve finally had it with the oilfield traffic that uses our

road like a superhighway,” Ann Finley, who lives north-east of Kingfisher, wrote in a recent email to the Times and Free Press. “The county came out recently and placed 35 mph speed limits and ‘Slow, Children at Play’ signs along the three-mile stretch of road that we live on.

“It has no effect whatsoever on speed of trucks racing down our road.”

In fact, Finley said the “Children at Play” sign just north of her residence was flattened by a passing truck), which she said would had to have driven at least partially in the ditch to hit the sign (see photo on Page 1).

Another truck took out her son’s mailbox and its driver, like the driver of the truck that hit the sign, did not bother to stop and accept responsibility for the damage, she said.

“Our country life has be-come like living in the wild, wild west,” she said.

Finley is one of several area residents who are not content to just watch trucks barrel past. She and many others take pho-tos, take down license plates and actively pursue corrective action from law enforcement and oilfield companies.

Not All One-SidedLaw enforcement officers

note that the majority of truckers they see on the road recognize their licenses and livelihoods depend on abiding by traffic laws and drive ac-cordingly.

“Most truck drivers out there are just trying to do a job, to make money for their fami-lies like everyone else,” he said.

Patience, alertness and cau-tion on the part of all driv-ers would go along way to controlling accidents, OHP’s Shepherd said.

“Everyone needs to transi-tion from reactive to proactive and not get in a hurry,” he said. “What used to be a 30-minute trip to Watonga now takes 45-50 minutes. You can let that make you an angry, dangerous driver, or accept it and drive friendly and safely.

“Part of the hurdle we deal with is frustrated driving, which leads to no good.

“OHP’s stance is that we’re trying to get everyone to func-tion and play nice on the road together.”

Safety[Continued From Page 1]

Jonathan James Gatlin, 29, of Dover pleaded not guilty to three drug charges Wednesday in Kingfisher County District Court.

Charges included distribu-tion of a controlled, dangerous substance (marijuana), includ-ing possession with intent to distribute, a felony; unlawful possession of drug parapher-nalia, a misdemeanor, and driving with license revoked, a

misdemeanor.Gatlin is due back in court

July 27 before Associate Dis-trict Judge Robert Davis.

An affidavit by Oklahoma Highway Patrol Trooper Tan-ner Beckner, arresting officer, stated that he stopped Gatlin after observing him operating a 1999 model car at a high rate of speed one-half mile south of Dover on U.S. 81 shortly after midnight on July 2.

After determining Gatlin’s license was revoked, Beckner arrested him and inventoried the vehicle, allegedly finding 29 grams of a green, leafy substance, a set of scales dis-guised as a cell phone that also contained a crystal substance as well as a green substance, and various other items of paraphernalia. The substances later tested positive as meth and marijuana, the report said.

Dover man faces 3 drug charges

8 Sunday, July 16, 2017 Kingfisher (Okla.) Times & Free Press

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In Conjunction with

89± ACRES OF PRIME HUNTING LAND

CANADIAN COUNTY, OK OKLAHOMA CITY * YUKON

AREA * KILPATRICK TURNPIKE *OFFERED IN

TWO TRACTS Auction Location: 10599 NW 63rd St, Yukon, OK 73099 Corner of Morgan Rd & NW 63rd (Forman Rd) Directions: From Kilpatrick Turnpike and Hwy 66 (Yukon/Bethany Exit), go east ½ mile to Morgan Road, then 1.5 miles north. Property start at this corner and goes west. Property lays on both sides of Kilpatrick Turnpike. Legal Description: 89.355 acres in the SE/4 of Section (2), Township (12) North, Range (5), W.I.M. Canadian County, Oklahoma, Tract Offerings: Tracts will be offered individually and then back together to achieve the highest possible price. Tract #1: 57.180 acres on the west side of John Kilpatrick Turnpike Tract #2: 32.155 acres on the east side of John Kilpatrick Turnpike Description: Tracts 1 & 2 both offer excellent deer, turkey, and water fowl hunting with scattered ponds, timber and access off

Morgan Rd or NW. 63 (Forman Rd). There is a lot of young Cottonwood, Willow, etc trees that will mature quickly for excellent habitat. Auctioneers Note: If you have looking for that special place close to the OKC metro to enjoy recreational activities, hunting, etc. then be sure to check this place out!! Selling to the highest bidder! Property Viewing: will be on your own during daylight hours only! Terms/Conditions: 10% Buyers Premium will be added to the high bid price to establish the total contract price. 10% of the total contract price is to be placed in escrow the day of the auction with the balance being due upon delivery of marketable title. Financing must be in place prior to bidding. Any announcements made the day of the auction supersede all advertising.

ABSOLUTE AUCTION

FRIDAY JULY 21st 10AM

SELLER: WETLANDS TRUST OF AMERICA

BRICK HOME * JOSEPH RIPLEY ESTATE

PERRY OK PERSONAL PROPERTY

FURNITURE COLLECTIBLES

AUCTION LOCATION: 906 Rose Terrace Perry, Ok 73077

This very nice brick home is comprised of 2,685 SF of living area with an additional ¾ unfinished concrete reinforced basement.

The home was built in 1962 and although the home needs updat-ing the home is in very good condition. There are 3 bedrooms, 2 bath, and large kitchen w/breakfast area, large living room with

fireplace, large dining area, bonus room, and lots of storage. The master bedroom has built-in cabinet and clothes drawers and ¾

bath access that also leads to the utility room. PERSONAL PROPERTY WILL SELL IMMEDIATELY

FOLLOWING REAL ESTATE Furniture/Appliances /Household/Collectibles

LOOK ONLINE TO SEE PHOTOS AND DETAILED LIST.

ESTATE AUCTION

Saturday JULY 29th 10AM

SELLER: JOSEPH E. RIPLEY ESTATE

KINGFISHER & BLAINE COUNTY LAND • WATONGA & OMEGA

75± ACRE TRACT & 50± ACRE TRACT • CROPLAND

No Minimum – No Reserve Auction Location: Offsite - Cornerstone Bank meeting room, 115 W. “A” Street Watonga, OK. 73772 Tract 1: Directions: From Omega, OK. 3.5 miles east, ½ mile south, or from Hwy 33 & 81 in Kingfisher, OK. Go 10 miles west on Hwy 33 to the Loyal blacktop, turn north to first road, then back west 2 mile west on CR 800 to property. This tract consists of 75 acres MOL of good cropland and according to the county

F.S.A. office there is Wheat Yield- 32, Wheat Base- 72.06, Farmland- 72.06, Cropland -72.06 Legal Description: E/2 of SE/4 of 15-16N-9 W.I.M. Kingfisher County, OK. Less 5 acres previously reserved. Taxes: $278.68 Tract 2: Directions: From Hitchcock, OK. Go 6 miles south to property or from Hwy 33 & 8 Watonga, OK. 73772 Go 4 miles north and 2 miles east (on curve) Highway frontage. This tract consists of 50 acres MOL of grassland and lays with highway frontage and perimeter fencing. Legal Description: 8.58 acres in the SW/4 of NE/4 and 41.89

acres in the W/2 of SE/4 of 32-17N-11W.I.M. Blaine County, OK. Taxes: $119.24 Possession: will be given immediately upon completion of the purchase contracts. Minerals: Selling surface rights only Terms/Conditions for both tracts: 10% of the total purchase price is to be placed in escrow the day of the auction with the balance being due upon delivery of marketable title.

AUCTION Thursday

August 3rd 10AM

SELLER: NAULT FAMILY

By Michael SwisherManaging Editor

Here’s a brief Suite on some off-the-field stuff that will soon be happening that will still have a big effect on our local teams...

The end of July is near, which means August is just around the corner (duh).

With that comes the beginning of softball season and not far be-hind it will be cross country and football.

But before we get there, the last week of July is also the final high school appearance of a select group of athletes who were cho-sen to play in the annual Oklaho-ma Coaches Association All-State Games in the Tulsa area.

This year’s games will be July 24-28 (more on local participat-ing athletes in our next edition).

The All-State games are what most everyone sees or pays at-tention to.

What happens that week behind the scenes can be just as interesting to goobers like me who cover high school sports as the first few days of the week also feature the coaches’ clinic.

That includes a few hundred different vendor booths, featured speakers for all the various sports

and committee meetings.One meeting that takes place

every other year by football coaches is one to draw up new dis-tricts for the next two-year cycle. This is the year for that meeting as coaches will map out the districts for the 2018 and 2019 seasons.

Why is it even more interesting this year?

There will be half as much work for coaches in Class 3A as we’re going back to “the way things used to be.”

Class 3A, which includes Kingfisher, is downsizing from 55 to 32 teams.

This will be the final year of the current classification system that began in 2010 that takes the smallest 166(ish) 11-man teams (as far as ADMs are concerned)

and divides them equally among the final three classes (3A, 2A and A).

This upcoming season - and last year - for example, Class 3A and 2A have consisted of 55 teams while Class A had 56.

That broke 3A and 2A into seven seven-team districts and another with just six teams, meaning teams had to find four non-district games (or five if in a six-team district).

Now, Class 3A goes back to the traditional 32 teams with four eight-team districts. Class 2A will have eight eight-team districts and the remaining (about 70) will be in Class A.

It also signals the end of a potential five-game run in the playoffs for teams to reach and

win the state title in Class 3A.Kingfisher made that run three

times since 2010 (and also in 2A in 2009) and it’s a brutal stretch, especially after a 10-game regular season, that takes us to the door-step of the Christmas break.

Of course Class 2A (Hen-nessey) and A (Crescent and Cashion) will still have to run that gauntlet to achieve their respective goals.

• • •How good are Kingfisher’s

chances to repeat as the Class 4A boys basketball champions?

A large chunk of the difficulty of that possibility will be deter-mined in the next week or so, months before any actual game is ever contested.

The OSSAA will soon release the Average Daily Membership (the aforementioned ADM) for each school. The ADM is the enrollment numbers for each of its members high schools (grades 9-12) from the previous year.

Those numbers are used to de-termine classifications for every sport, though each goes about it differently.

For basketball, the classifica-tions are determined annually and the release of the ADMs give us the first real glimpse at where

most teams will land (the ADMs have to be approved by the OS-SAA board after each school has a chance to view them and contest them, if necessary).

Basketball coaches will scour those numbers and see where each classification break falls. Each year, there are multiple that move up (say from A to 2A) or drop (from 5A to 4A), some of which play a big role in determin-ing the favorites to win a gold ball.

For example, everyone in Class 4A last year was elated when it determined Douglass (who has had a stranglehold on the 4A crown for several years) and Star Spencer were moving from 4A to 3A.

It just so happens those two teams played each other for the Class 3A title and it moved two major speed bumps out of King-fisher’s way en route to its own title.

Will Douglass and or Star Spencer move back up to 4A this year?

Will Bishop McGuinness drop from 5A to 4A (some coaches feel it’s a possibility)?

I guarantee you coach Jared Reese is anxiously awaiting the release of the numbers, along with several hundred of his peers.

SPORTSTIMES & FREE PRESS

KINGFISHERYELLOWJACKETS

CASHIONWILDCATS

OKARCHEWARRIORS

LOMEGARAIDERS

HENNESSEYEAGLES

DOVERLONGHORNS

CRESCENTTIGERS

SWISHER’S SUITE By

MichaelSwisher

Importance of the OCA clinic: It’s not just what happens on the field that matters