Official Publication of the Oklahoma Press Association

The Oklahoma Publisherwww.OkPress.com

www.Facebook.com/okpressVol. 86, No. 12

16 Pages • December 2015

INSIDETECH THE HALLS: Wilma Newby offers some ideas for tech themed holiday gifts for your friends and colleagues.

PAGE 9

PAST PRESIDENTS REPORT: OPA’s past presidents share their activities and travels over the past year.

PAGE 10

POWER OF THE PRESS: Dr. Terry Clark provides examples of the important journalism happening at Oklahoma newspapers.

PAGE 14

DONATE TO ONF to receive this Will Rogers print. Details at OkPress.com/will-rogers.

How much is a copy from the newsrackFifty cents is all it takes to buy a single

copy newspaper in 81 Oklahoma towns.It’s the most common single copy price

of Oklahoma Press Association’s member newspapers for a weekday publication, according to data collected in June 2015. Of those 81 charging 50 cents, 10 are daily publications.

The next most popular price is 75 cents. Of the 67 member newspapers charging

that price, 16 are dailies. Twenty-three newspapers, five of them daily, charge $1 per copy. One newspaper charges $1.25 for a single copy, one charges 35 cents, and three charge 25 cents.

Daily newspapers charge more for Sun-day and weekend issues. Ten newspapers charge $1.50, four charge $1.25 and four others charge 75 cents. Other prices show three sell a single weekend copy for $1.75,

and three others charge $2. Four price their product for $1.25 and one charges 50 cents.

No matter what price your newspaper charges for a single copy, it’s a bargain for readers.

With pages filled with news and adver-tising, each issue provides a view of the community, and the services and products available at local stores.

2 The Oklahoma Publisher // December 2015

Possibly the best gifts any of us receive each Christmas are precious memories.

One of my best memories is from a Christmas Eve back in the 1980s.

My wife, Linda, and I, along with our three young sons, were attending a Midnight Mass at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Seminole. Soon our boys -- the youngest clutching a teddy bear -- would be asleep in the pew.

It was a cold, clear night as we entered the small chapel closed off from the out-side world by stained glass windows and large, red front doors.

Amid red poinsettias and the smell of fresh evergreen branches, we enjoyed a traditional Rite I service with incense burning, candles flickering, Holy Scrip-ture and homily proclaiming the birth of Jesus Christ.

Right at midnight, we welcomed Christmas by partaking of Holy Com-munion kneeling with some 30 other worshippers at the altar. We sang “Silent Night” amid candlelight as the service ended.

But, the “miracle” still awaited.As we opened the sanctuary doors to

head home, we gasped in surprise and amazement.

Greeting us was a white winter won-derland.

During the hour and half service – unexpectedly -- fresh fallen snow had blanketed Seminole and in the moon-light it was breathtaking -- the scene so quiet and peaceful – a “Holy Night.”

It was a white Christmas – a time for me when heaven and earth met – one that I have never forgotten.

-RT-The month of December is always

a busy time for newspapers covering various holiday news and events and pushing to sell as much advertising as possible. Circulation folks also are very busy.

Speaking of circulation, I want to suggest that a year-long newspaper sub-scription makes an excellent Christmas gift for friends and relatives. It truly is a gift that “keeps on giving” all year.

For several years now, I’ve included an annual subscription to The Oklahoman as one of the gifts that I give my parents.

-RT-I once played Santa Claus in the

annual Seminole Chamber of Commerce Christmas Parade and then did a first-person, page 1 story for The Seminole Producer on the experience.

It was fun waving to the crowds and “dancing” from atop the big red fire truck as we snaked our way down Main Street with the Seminole High School band leading the way playing lively holi-day tunes.

Children and adults alike were ecstat-ic.

Another highlight for Santa was get-ting to crown “Miss Merry Christmas” on back of a flat-bed trailer parked in the middle of the parade route.

My wife later told me that one of our young sons pointed out to her that “San-ta’s boots look a lot like daddy’s.” Um, I thought, a future investigative reporter!

-RT-Before I end my Santa story, I also

must confess that you’ve never really lived until you’ve played Santa for a local beauty shop’s annual Christmas party featuring plenty of food and wine.

Imagine, gentlemen, having some 30 “merry” women sit one at a time on your lap, hug your neck, and tell you what they want for Christmas while the crowd laughs and cheers.

I’m certainly glad this was back in the day -- before cellphones with video cam-eras and YouTube. Enough said.

-RT-From my childhood, one of my best

Christmas memories is the morning my two brothers and I found new bicycles under our Christmas tree.

I guarantee you that morning was the “fastest” that I ever delivered my Tulsa World newspaper route.

-RT-

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

MON., JANUARY 11, 2016DEADLINE FOR NEWSPAPERS’ INTERNSHIP APPLICATIONS

Interested newspapers should complete the application to be considered by a committee of ONF Trustees. Host Newspaper applications must be postmarked by Jan. 11, 2016. For more information, visit www.okpress.com/internships.

FRI., JANUARY 15, 2016WEBINAR: FACT-CHECKING – Cost: $35, 1:00 p.m.

Join Jane Elizabeth of the American Press Institute for an introduction on accountability and fact-checking journalism. Learn how fact-checking journalism is different than “regular” reporting and how to identify factual deception, especially in campaign ads and speeches. Register at www.onlinemediacampus.com.

MON., FEBRUARY 8, 2016DEADLINE FOR BETTER NEWSPAPER CONTEST ENTRIES

Rules for the 2015 OPA Better Newspaper Contest will be mailed soon. If you want to get an early start, download rules and accompanying pages at www.OkPress.com/opa-better-newspaper-contest.

THURS., FEBRUARY 11, 2016, 9:30 AMOPA LEGISLATIVE SUMMIT – FREE but please register by Feb. 8

Oklahoma State Capitol, 2300 N. Lincoln Blvd., Oklahoma CityOPA’s Legislative Summit is free to attend, so all OPA members are encouraged to meet at the State Capitol on Feb. 11. Lunch will be provided by OPA.

FRI. & SAT., JUNE 10-11, 2016OPA ANNUAL CONVENTION

DOWNTOWN OKLAHOMA CITY SHERATON HOTEL

For more information on upcoming events, visit the OPA website at www.OkPress.com or contact Member Services Director Lisa Sutliff at (405) 499-0026, 1-888-815-2672 or email LSutliff@okpress.com.

OPA CALENDAR OF EVENTS

My Christmas memories

The University of Oklahoma Publica-tions Board voted Dec. 11 to authorize a reduced schedule for the print edition of The Oklahoma Daily.

Beginning with the spring semester, The Oklahoma Daily will be printed twice a week, on Monday and Thursday.

The final vote was 6 yes, 1 abstention, 1 no and 2 absent.

“This was a student-driven initiative, but one endorsed by the professional staff of OU Student Media and President Boren,” said Nick Jungman, director of OU Student Media. “We remain com-mitted to a print edition, but we want and need a print edition that is more than a dump of the stories we broke online in the past 24 hours. Our students are eager to build that.”

Jungman said total advertising rev-enue for The Oklahoma Daily was around $350,000. Only four percent of that comes from digital revenue, with 96 percent from print advertising, he said.

Rob Collins, who serves on the pub-lications board as the Oklahoma Press Association member representing indus-try interests, voted against the reduced print cycle. Collins is executive editor of the Enid News & Eagle. Lynn Crussell abstained from the vote.

Tentative minutes of the meeting show that Professor John Schmelt-zer, the Gaylord College of Journal-ism appointee, was unable to attend the special meeting but would have voted against the change.

“This is less of an expense problem and more of a revenue problem,” said Collins. “In particular, the OU Daily will need to improve its online revenue sig-nificantly to offset the loss in traditional display advertising.

“Besides growing online audience and revenue, I hope to see a commit-ment in the OU Daily’s print edition to re-emphasize in-depth and enterprise journalism. Journalism students are our future, and we wish them well in their efforts.”

In a Facebook post, Oklahoma Daily adviser Judy Gibbs Robinson called it a “historic day” for the Oklahoma Daily, which began in 1916.

An online editorial posted Dec. 11 on oudaily.com concluded with, “We know its founders started something special – the independent, student voice of this university. One hundred years later, our staff is charting a new course. We trea-sure The Daily’s past, but now it’s time to map its future.”

OU’s Oklahoma Daily going to twice a week publication

The Oklahoma Publisher // December 2015 3

The Oklahoma Publisher

PUBLISHERMark Thomas

mthomas@okpress.com

EDITORJennifer Gilliland

jgilliland@okpress.com

OPA OFFICERSRobby Trammell, President

The OklahomanDayva Spitzer, Vice President

Sayre Record &Beckham County Democrat

Rod Serfoss, TreasurerClinton Daily News

Mark Thomas, Executive Vice President,

Oklahoma City

OPA DIRECTORSJeff Funk, Past President

Enid News & EagleBrian Blansett, Tri-County HeraldTed Streuli, The Journal Record

Ray Dyer, El Reno TribuneMike Strain, Tulsa WorldJohn Denny Montgomery,

The Purcell RegisterMark Millsap,

The Norman Transcript

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W. B. GRIMES & COMPANYhas sold over 1,400 newspapers over the years and appraised thousands of others.

What’s Your Paper Worth? Find Out Today.A Free Confi dential Appraisal awaits via our web site.

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Considering a sale?

The Okemah News Leader recently reported that three members of the Okemah City Council were accused of violating the state’s Open Meeting Act.

Lloyd L. Raimer, Wayne J. Bacon and Bobby G. Massey were booked into the Okfuskee County Jail on Dec. 1. Each council member posted a $2,500 bond.

The three men are scheduled to appear before Associate District Judge David Martin on Dec. 15.

The alleged Open Meeting Act vio-lation occurred after a June 22 coun-

cil meeting when Bacon, Massey and Raimer went to the back of the council chambers and began discussing city business with other individuals.

Court papers state that after City Attorney Bruce Coker interrupted the conversation and informed the three men that they were violating the Open Meeting Act, Massey and Bacon imme-diately left.

After the arrest, Bacon told the News Leader that he believes the charges and arrest were politically motivated.

In an interview in the News Leader in August, Massey told the citizens of Okemah he was being investigated for a possible violation of the Open Meeting Act. After the arrest he told the newspa-per that he was glad he will finally have his day in court.

“When the tapes are released, we will be able to prove we didn’t break the law,” Massey told the News Leader.

Violating the Open Meeting Act is a misdemeanor punishable by up to a $500 fine and one year in the county jail.

Alleged open meeting violations result in arrests

An Oklahoma judge partially lifted the gag order in the Oklahoma State University homecoming parade crash case.

The order barred victims, family members and others from discussing the murder case against Adacia Avery Chambers, who is accused of driving into a crowd of people on Nov. 24 that killed four people and injured dozens others.

Associate District Judge Louis Duel lifted the portion of the order barring

parties in the case and family members from discussing it. Duel also unsealed documents in the case except for those related to Chambers’ mental or physi-cal health.

Chambers’ attorney, Tony Cole-man, filed a motion requesting that the order be lifted.

The Oklahoma Press Association also requested the order be lifted, arguing it was overly broad and vague.

The OPA contended that the court

entered a gag order without a proper hearing and evidentiary foundation.

The OPA also asked the judge to lift an order sealing future and previ-ously filed documents, arguing that a proper foundation or sealing records was never established.

“We felt it was important for us to make our own points and ask to be entered as our own party in this case,” said Mark Thomas, executive vice president of the OPA.

Judge lifts parts of gag order in OSU parade crash case

Tulsa World wins awards from Inland PressInland Press Association recently

named the Tulsa World as winner in three categories for its digital products.

Winners of Inland’s annual News-room Contests were announced at an awards breakfast during the associa-tion’s annual meeting in Chicago on Oct. 27.

OKPrepsExtra.com, the Tulsa World’s website dedicated to high school sports, received first place for general excel-lence for digital journalism.

“OKPrepsExtra is a high school fan’s delight,” judges wrote. “The layout is

exceptionally well done and the amount of information provided is impressive.”

The World also earned first place for creative use of multimedia with its Okla-homa City Bombing Memorial website at tulsaworld.com/okcbombing. The site marks 20 years since the terrorist act and includes chapters dedicated to the coverage done by the Tulsa World newsroom.

All-World Football contest, which gives the public the chance to vote for their favorite high school players, won in the best online innovation category.

“This creative online and offline ini-tiative lets the public vote online for the best high school football players – and doubled its votes this year to nearly 1.5 million,” the judges wrote. “A key was aggressive offline, school-by-school promotion and in social media, including following each player, school and coach on Twitter – with a substantial number of follow-backs and retweets.”

Inland Press Association is a non-profit organization with more than 1,000 daily and weekly newspaper members in all 50 states.

2016 PHOTO ID

PRESS CARDS are now available!

OPA BUSINESS MEMBERS

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4 The Oklahoma Publisher // December 2015

This is tobacco

marketing.

It’s a fact:Research shows that kids who shop at stores with tobacco marketing two or more times a week are 64% more likely to start smoking than their peers who don’t.Source: Henriksen, Schleicher, Feighery and Fortmann. Pediatrics: The Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, July 19, 2010. DOI: 10.1542/peds.2009 3021

You may not notice, but they do.

Talk with your kids about tobacco –learn more at StopsWithMe.com.

Kids who see it are more likely to smoke.

Mark and Sherry Codner and John D. and Grace E. Montgomery announced the sale of The Madill Record, effective Wednesday, Dec. 2 to Brett Wesner and the Cordell Beacon Company, Inc.

Mark Codner said, “On behalf of my wife, Sherry, and the Montgomerys, we want to thank our friends and neighbors in Marshall County for their support for more than 21 years. We send our sincere thanks to the advertisers that we have partnered with over the years, and to the correspondents and contributors who have graciously provided information on their communities. Most of all we say thanks to those who read and support The Madill Record.”

Wesner is the publisher of 10 other newspapers located in both Oklahoma and Texas.

“Because Brett has a group of newspa-pers, he brings resources to The Madill Record that will ensure its success well into the future,” Codner said. “We hope that you will welcome him with the same open arms that you did for us nearly 22 years ago.”

The sale of The Madill Record has been in process for several months.

Codner said he believes Wesner will be an asset to Madill, Kingston and all of Marshall County.

Wesner has been publishing news-papers for 27 years, beginning in south-west Oklahoma.

“I was born in Cordell, which has a wonderful rural weekly newspaper tradition, and I grew up knowing the importance of the local newspaper in our communities,” said Wesner. “In working with local editorial staff at what are now 11 locations in Texas and Oklahoma, I have tried to continue that tradition.

“My ties to Madill go back far. I began working with then-Senator David Boren soon after graduating from college, and Jim Pate—the former long-time owner of the Record, took me under his wing and taught me a great deal about doing my job in working with publishers. I have always been grateful to him, the Pate family, and John D. and Gracie [Mont-gomery] for the advice and support they have given me.

“Madill as a community has always punched far above its weight, and I’m honored to get to be a part of it,” Wesner said.

New owners at Madill Record

The Piedmont-Surrey Gazette and the Okarche Chieftain are under new ownership.

Roger Pugh, who owned the two newspapers for almost 23 years under the company name of Hometown News, Inc., sold the two publications to Randy Anderson.

Anderson, who serves as the news-paper’s advertising director, will operate the newspapers under the company of Piedmont Publishing, L.L.C.

Anderson said he has spent the past eight years studying how the newspaper business has evolved and will be bring-ing many of the ideas he has learned to the Gazette and Chieftain.

“We will soon begin podcasts regard-ing local issues, we will completely reno-vate our website and begin utilizing more Twitter, Facebook and several

other social media outlets to reach read-ers on the platform they use most often,” he said.

Anderson also plans to bring a new monthly glossy women’s magazine to the area, as well as an area-wide news magazine called “Piedmont Express,” which will mail to 25,000 homes starting in early 2016.

“I have been in the newspaper pub-lishing business for 25 years and am energized to be right here for 25 more as we continue to watch the ever-chang-ing world of community journalism,” said Anderson.

Anderson will continue to serve as advertising director in addition to tak-ing on the role of publisher. Pugh plans to stay on at least temporarily as news editor.

Roger Pugh sells Piedmont, Okarche newspapers to ad manager Anderson

Mark Codner and Brett Wesner finalize the sale of The Madill Record.

The Oklahoma Publisher // December 2015 5

The Hobart Democrat-Chief ran an ad on Nov. 5 asking area drug dealers to rat out their rivals.

Todd Hancock, editor of the Demo-crat-Chief, said his first reaction to the ad was that it was clever and funny.

“I thought why not?” Hancock said. “I didn’t see any problem with it.”

Hancock said the ad “stirred up a lot of conversation” and that Sheriff Bill Lancaster said they received several tips.

“I’m not sure if they got any from competing drug dealers, though,” Han-cock said.

But the ad did sell a few papers, “which is always good,” said Hancock.

The ad ran twice. Lancaster paid around $60 for the first run.

“I thought it was such a neat idea that I gave him the second one for free,” said Hancock.

Hancock said newspapers can help sheriffs in their efforts to stop drugs.

“We’ve always been willing to run sto-ries that the sheriff provides, even when it’s not specific to an arrest or case,” he said.

“I think that helps foster a good rela-

tionship with the sheriff and lets him know we are all on the same side.”

Similar ads have run in other parts of the country. In July, NBC News reported that a Georgia sheriff ran a similar ad in his hometown newspaper inviting deal-ers to give the name, address, phone number and operating hours of their competitors and their customers.

Ad in Hobart Democrat-Chief asks drug dealers to snitch on each other You’ve Got Questions!

• Can I photograph minors without consent?

• Can police deny access to recordsby issuing a press release?

• Should I alter my archiveswhen a person demands it?

• Can I report inaccurate tesimony given in open court?

• What are the laws about liquor advertising?

These are questions answered by the attorneys for the OPA Legal Services Plan members in recent months. Newspapers always need timely legal advice on issues related to newspaper publishing.

You should join OPA’SLEGAL SERVICES PLAN!

See www.OkPress.com/LSP or contact Lisa Sutliff at (405) 499-0026 or toll-free in Oklahoma 1-888-815-2672

The Oklahoma Press Association Board of Directors met Nov. 12, 2015, in Oklahoma City.

Officers attending were President Robby Trammell, The Oklahoman, and Treasurer Rod Serfoss, Clinton Daily News. Directors attending were Past President Jeff Funk, Enid News & Eagle; Ted Streuli, The Journal Record; Ray Dyer, El Reno Tribune; Mike Strain, Tulsa World; John Denny Montgomery, The Purcell Register, and Mark Millsap, The Norman Transcript. Also at the meeting were OPA/S Executive Vice President/Secretary Mark Thomas and Member Services Director Lisa Sutliff.

Vice President Dayva Spizter from the Sayre Record & Beckham County Democrat, was unable to attend.

Trammell called the meeting to order and asked board members to review minutes of the Sept. 17, 2015, meeting. The minutes were approved as present-ed.

FINANCIAL REVIEWSFinancial reviews included OPA

and LSP financial statements; the cash consolidated report and OPA and LSP investment reports all for the period

ending Oct. 31, 2015, as well as a mem-bership dues payment report.

ACTIVITY REPORTSIn activity reports, Strain said the

Education Committee met on Oct. 29 to plan the 2016 OPA Convention, which will be held for the second year at the downtown Oklahoma City Sheraton Hotel. The board previously approved the committee’s recommendation to change the convention schedule start-ing on Friday and ending Saturday night with the awards banquet. Strain said Friday sessions would focus on manage-ment with Saturday sessions suited for all staff members.

The Government Relations Commit-tee report included a review of the leg-islative interim studies and other issues Thomas is monitoring.

OTHER BUSINESSIn other business, Thomas said the

state’s Office of Management and Enter-prise Services has accepted bids to sell the building that houses the State Pub-lishing Museum in Guthrie.

Board members also discussed a third-party gag order filed in Logan County on Nov. 4 in the case against

Adacia Chambers, who is accused of driving her car through a crowd of people at the Oklahoma State Univer-sity homecoming parade on Oct. 24. The gag order proposed to limit speech of all relevant parties, as well as “any persons associated with them” and pro-hibits them from “making extrajudicial public comments to news reporters, media representatives, or in any other manner or forum reasonably likely to be publicly disseminated or published.” After further discussion, board mem-bers approved opposing the gag order.

OPS BOARD MEETINGBoard members suspended read-

ing of the Sept. 17, 2015, minutes and approved them as presented.

Financial statements for the period ending Oct. 31, 2015, were reviewed and acknowledged by the board.

The Did-Not-Run Advertising report for September and October 2015 was reviewed at the meeting. Staff reports showed 43 DNRs from 31 newspapers. In an effort to reduce the number of DNRs, OPS advertising staff increased the number of ad reminder emails to newspapers from once to twice weekly.

Board members received an update on a current advertising buy by Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust (TSET) and its advertising agency, Visual Image. Personalized letters that includ-ed run dates, expected revenue and a color sample were mailed to newspapers receiving TSET ads.

OPS is working with the Made in Oklahoma Program to show how news-papers can work for them by running 2x2 and classifieds ads in the weekly network advertising program.

The advertising network, which underwent a rate and zone restructure in mid-September, now has a dozen new clients with multi-week contracts on a frequency discount program. In addition, OPA-member newspapers sold several ads.

Following a management review, the board renewed Thomas’s management contract for calendar year 2016. Board members also asked Thomas to draw up a three-year management contract for 2017-2019 to be reviewed and approved by the executive committee at a future time.

OPA board members meet in Oklahoma City

6 The Oklahoma Publisher // December 2015

DEATHS

TONY A. WILLIAMS, a former reporter for The Oklahoman, died Oct. 23, 2015. He was 63.

Williams was born in Holdenville. He graduated from the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond with a degree in journalism. While in school, he was elected as one of the United States’ out-

standing journalism school graduates by the Society of Professional Journalists.

During his journalism career, Wil-liams worked as a reporter for The Oklahoman and United Press Interna-tional. He also worked on several politi-cal campaigns and was a speech writer for AT&T.

In addition to working for newspa-pers, Williams put his journalism skills to good use as a radio personality, news anchor and traffic reporter in Oklahoma and Texas.

Williams is survived by his son, Brian Andrew Tony Williams and wife Carrie of Oklahoma City; one grandson and several nieces.

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IDA KATHERINE ROBERTS, longtime publisher of the Fairfax Chief, died Nov. 12, 2015. She was 68.

Roberts was born April 10, 1947, in Shidler and graduated from Shidler High School in 1965.

She spent about 20 years at the Fair-

fax Chief, as both an employee and publisher. She bought the newspaper in 2001.

Roberts was a member of the Fairfax Hospital Board. She was known for her organizational skills at the newspaper and her home.

She enjoyed coffee with her friends, crossword puzzles and needlework.

She is survived by her daughters, Carrie Short and husband Jeremy of Tahlequah, and Roxanne Dixon and hus-band Ricky of Shawnee; five grandchil-dren, and eight great-grandchildren.

STEVE BELCHER, longtime employee for the Clinton Daily News, died Nov. 25, 2015. He was 64.

Belcher was born Oct. 4, 1951, in Enid and was raised in Woodward. In 1973 he earned his journalism degree

from Southwestern Oklahoma State Uni-versity.

Belcher’s journalism career began at the Woodward County Journal before joining the Clinton Daily News, where he stayed for the next 42 years. Dur-ing that time he served as news editor,

covered the education beat and wrote a weekly column called “It’s a Thought.”

In 2015, Belcher’s health forced him to retire.

Belcher is survived by his daughter, Ali Belcher of Edmond, and several grandchildren.

In Memory of Our Friends & ColleaguesRoyal Glen ‘Sonny’ Stone

Nov. 2, 2014

Charles ‘Chuck’ DownsNov. 7, 2014

Lisa RollinsNov. 13, 2014

Mac Leone BradleyNov. 17, 2014

Gloria Dee LeatherockNov. 18, 2014

Pendleton Woods Dec. 1, 2014

Walter Joe HancockDec. 3, 2014

David Lee HallDec. 19, 2014

Maebeth Cain RayDec. 31, 2014

BY TONDA F. RUSHSPECIAL FROM PUBLISHERS’ AUXILIARY

WASHINGTON – The long struggle between the newspaper industry and Valassis Inc. over the direct mail com-pany’s special postage discounts from the U.S. Postal Service appears to have ended with a whimper.

In November, Valassis filed a report saying it had carried out no mail-ings eligible for the special discount. It announced it had paid an agreed $100,000 penalty to USPS last Septem-ber.

The tension between newspapers and its long-time insert customer began in April 2012 when the Postal Service requested a special contract rate for Valassis that was designed to pull adver-tising inserts out of Sunday newspapers and into a new weekend Valassis direct mail package.

If the program had launched and

successfully mailed 1 million qualifying mail pieces, Valassis could have earned a 22 percent to 34 percent Standard Mail postage discount.

The newspaper industry fought the proposal, even taking it to the U.S. Court of Appeals. But in the end, the market ruled.

Valassis announced it had launched programs in May 2013 in Atlanta, Phoe-nix and Washington. It reported mailing 2 million pieces in 2013, but that these were not qualifying pieces under the rules of the contract agreement. There were no mailings in 2014 or 2015.

NNA President Chip Hutcheson, pub-lisher of the Princeton (KY) Times-Lead-er, said the $100,000 fine was a fitting end to an unfortunate chapter.

“We want to think of this whole expe-rience as an episode of recession fever at the Postal Service,” said Hutcheson. “They were facing grim markets, as we all were, and USPS was grasping at

straws. The fever ignited this idea of picking winners and losers in the adver-tising marketplace for the sake of maybe getting in some new mail volume.

“We at NNA didn’t think it would work, and it didn’t. So USPS got $100,000, and spent unreported thousands in law-yers and analysts’ time. The newspaper industry and Valassis spent heavily to advance their various viewpoints.

“And in the end, there was no new mail. Newspapers were undoubtedly hurt in those test markets and Valassis couldn’t come up with the advertisers.

“There is a moral to this story that every parent knows: don’t play favorites in the family. No good comes of it. We are glad this chapter is over and we intend to continue to work with Valassis to develop its markets and with USPS to improve the mail. Money is tight. We need to plant our seeds where they can grow.”

Special postage deal fades away

The Oklahoma Publisher // December 2015 7

John Newby has been named as publisher of the Muskogee Phoenix. He comes to Muskogee from Illinois where he served as publisher for The Times in Ottawa.

Newby began his newspaper career in 1990 as a circulation district man-ager at the Omaha World-Herald in Nebraska. He continued moving up the management ladder before joining Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc. in 2002. He was promoted to publisher of the group’s Ottawa Times paper in 2007.

“We are delighted John is coming aboard to lead our Muskogee Phoe-nix team in serving this very impor-tant Eastern Oklahoma market,” said Steve McPhaul, chief operating officer of CNHI, parent company of the paper.

Newby is currently North Ameri-can board president of the Interna-tional News Media Association.

Newby and his wife, Kathy, have 9 grown children and 22 grandchildren. He is a former U.S. Air Force certified weather forecaster and coached youth sports for many years.

Muskogee Phoenix welcomes John Newby as new publisher

Lee Reynolds is the new director of development at the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Oklahoma.

Reynolds returns to Oklahoma after three decades in Connecticut and the New York City area, where she held positions in fundraising, sales and mar-keting. Her most recent position was director of development at CT Chal-lenge, a cancer survivorship not-for-prof-it based in Southport, Conn.

Reynolds grew up in Norman, where

her family owned an automotive dealer-ship. She is a 1977 graduate of OU’s journalism program.

“Ms. Reynolds understands how to nurture a philanthropic culture, by working closely with donors and corpo-rate associates,” said Ed Kelley, interim dean. “She has a passion for helping pro-vide as many opportunities as possible for our students.”

Reynolds fills the position vacated by Kaneisha Lloyd, who accepted a position in the OU College of Arts and Sciences.

New director of development at OU

SEEKING GENERAL MANAGERThe Sentinel-Record in Hot Springs, Arkansas, seeks an experienced leader who is innovative and results-oriented. He or she will manage all the operations of this seven-day a week newspaper. This individual must possess exceptional leadership, marketing and communication skills as well as be dedicated to growing all aspects of a profi table newspaper. The ability to think strategically and work with managers to develop and execute plans is essential. We are looking for a proven leader with excellent organizational, fi nancial and management skills. Community involvement is also necessary and encouraged. Ideal candidates will have experience as a general manager or advertising sales leader of a newspaper. The Sentinel-Record is owned by WEHCO Media, an industry leader offering a competitive salary commensurate with experience and a comprehensive benefi ts package including health insurance, 401K and profi t sharing.

Please send resume and salary requirements to

Terri Leifeste at terril@newstribune.com

Gridiron Show falls off the gridThere won’t be a Gridiron Show in

Oklahoma City this year.The Oklahoma City Gridiron Club,

founded in 1928, voted to end the annual show that poked fun at local politicians and current events at a meeting on Dec. 6.

All funds in the club’s checking account will be transferred to the Okla-homa City Gridiron Foundation, ending the club as an active 501c4 association.

Problems with recruitment, retention and leadership involvement contributed

to the decision, said Andrew Harris, treasurer of the OKC Gridiron Club.

“These issues, coupled with ongoing decreases in show attendance, gross profits and an increasingly difficult donor environment, make continuing on with the annual show a daunting propo-sition,” he said.

Foundation trustees also elected to move forward with a plan to cease its operations at the conclusion of the 2015-16 academic year. The foundation is finalizing plans for divesting its assets.

8 The Oklahoma Publisher // December 2015

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People huddle over a young child while others react in disbelief moments after a speeding vehicle was driven into two crowds of people during the Oklahoma State University homecoming parade in Stillwater, Okla., on Saturday, Oct. 24, 2015. Four were killed and at least 46 were injured.

Photo by David Bitton, Stillwater News Press, October 25, 2015

“I don’t like having my picture taken, Ma’am,” said the boy in the photo, peeking around his cowboy hat at the Little Britches Rodeo finals in Pawhuska.

Photo by Louise Red Corn, The Bigheart Times, October 29, 2015

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The Oklahoma Publisher // December 2015 9

Annual Christmas wish list for the newspaper offi ce

I’ve got lots of good suggestions for Christmas gifts this year including hand held scanners, wireless hard drives and new scanners for police news systems.

I know of one person at a newspaper who gave herself the gift of a new chair with USB ports on the side

The market for handheld scanners is a moving target but one popular line seems to be the VuPoint Magic Wand Portable Scanner with auto-feed dock. Coming in at around $100, it comes with a 32GB SD Card and will scan at 2100 DPI. The auto-feed dock turns it into a regular scanner that paper can be fed through. The wand lets you scan things that aren’t exactly flat.

The WS1080 Digital Scanner is a newer police scanner with Motorola P25 Phase I, X2-TDMA and Phase II capa-bilities. All USA/Canada frequencies are pre-programmed onto the included SD card making it ready to use out of the box.

The Motorola P25 is a new brand that some police departments are using. Older scanners don’t hear the newer stations so it forces anyone who wants to hear what is going on to buy a new one. Whistler is the leader in these scan-ners as far as I can tell and has a price range of $399 to $599. You can check out their models at www.whistlergroup.com. Make sure the one you get has the newer bandwidths.

Wireless hard drives are something else that are useful and fun. These drives can be attached to your WiFi sys-tem just like a wireless printer. It’s great to store all those extra photos instead of filling up your internal hard drive.

A new model that does all this is the WD 2TB My Passport Wireless Portable External Hard Drive – WIFI USB 3.0. USB 3 is one of the fastest ways with a wire to transfer files. It’s priced at $174. Also look at the Seagate Wireless Plus 1TB Portable Hard Drive with Built-in WiFi for $139. There’s also a 2TB model. Both brands are reliable for any kind of hard drive.

How about a USB heating pad for your office chair? ValueRays® Chair Warmer, for $34.95, is great for a chilly office. If you get one, plug it into one of the surge protectors that has a USB port – not your computer.

Those surge protectors with USB ports are a great gift. Not only does it protect your computer, it gives you a port to charge your phone.

If I can’t convince you to put money into surge protectors that go under the desk, how about one that sits on the

desktop? Easy access to USB ports is a good thing and saves computer ports. Look for ones with higher voltage rat-ings that really protect your equipment when needed.

TURN GRAYSCALE INTO B&WAs I was helping transition a news-

paper from paste-up to pagination this month, I was reminded of an often for-gotten Photoshop tip for scanning in line art.

It’s a fast and easy way to get a true black-and-white piece of art from a scanned image.

Generally, when you scan a piece of text or art it comes in as color, which you then convert to grayscale. People often stop at this point, adjust the art and run it in the newspaper. This can make your type or artwork look gray instead of black and white.

But if you use the following steps, you’ll get true black-and-white art from your scanned copy.

To start, scan the art in color at a higher resolution, anywhere from 600 to 1200 DPI.

Now open in Photoshop – even Gimp would do – and convert it to grayscale (Image > Mode > Grayscale). If your art has a lot of gray in it, try going to Image > Mode > Bitmap.

The trick is to use the option from the pop-up menu. Hold down the pop-up menu under Method > Use >, go to 50% Threshold and leave the Output at least 300 pixels per inch. Now click OK and see if you like the results.

I’ve had much better luck with OCR programs reading the text correctly using this method. You can even use it to enlarge small black-and-white art from the Internet.

INTERNET ARTSpeaking of art from the Internet, did

you know there’s a way to search for art on Google that’s public domain or royalty free?

Just go to Google.com, click on imag-es and type in your search criteria. Now click on “Search Tools” and another menu bar will show up. On this one, click Usage rights > Labeled for reuse. Now you’ll only see art that you can legally reprint in your publication. Bing now has a similar option. Go to Bing.com, click on images, put in your search crite-ria and then look for the word License. You can use Public domain or Free to share and use. Play it safe and only use artwork from the Internet that doesn’t have a copyright.

HACK ATTACKSOver the Thanksgiving weekend I

heard from three people who had their computers hacked by the same scam.

All three received a call from some-one saying they were from an Internet

provider and that their computer had been hacked. They were then asked for permission to log into the computer to fix the problem.

Two of these people allowed some-one to get into their computer. That person immediately started looking for passwords and credit card numbers – they were bold enough to ask for the credit card numbers as well as other information.

When they realized it was a scam, they had to call their credit card com-pany to report a security breach.

I had both of them turn off their Mac computer, unplug it from the Internet and turn on the firewall (under Apple > System Preferences > Security). You may have to click on the lock at the bottom of the screen to unlock it. (If your com-puter is on a network and you need to share the machine with others look at the Advanced settings.)

The firewall should help keep out cyber criminals. But if you already let them into your computer you need to run some spyware software such as Kaspersky, Trend Macro or Norton, to find out if they left any spyware on your machine.

Speaking of antivirus software, the

free version of Sophos stopped support-ing older OSX systems. It now starts at OSX 10.8. If your operating system is older than that, you may not be fully covered.

EL CAPITON & INDESIGNWhat we know so far about El Capi-

ton (Mac OS 10.10) and InDesign CS6 in real production at a newspaper is that they work. That’s great news but there’s a very big “but.”

But it needs more than 4GB of RAM memory to run InDesign, Photoshop and the Internet at the same time. That means you need to upgrade to 8GB despite Apple saying you only need 1GB. It runs s-l-o-o-o-w on a 4GB Mac.

Also, Adobe needs Java for OSX 2015-001 to run its programs, but El Capiton installs a newer version so you have to reinstall the correct one. You can down-load that at Apple’s site: https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1572?locale=en_US

By the way, this isn’t the Java that runs within the browsers that has been declared unsafe.

OPA Computer Consultant Wilma Newby’s column is brought to you by the Oklahoma Advertising Network (OAN). For more information on the OAN program, contact Oklahoma Press Service at (405) 499-0020.

Computer Notesfrom the road

by Wilma (Melot) Newbywnewby@okpress.com

10 The Oklahoma Publisher // December 2015

O K L A H O M A P R E S S A S S O C I A T I O N

Past Presidents ReportNOVEMBER 2015 OKLAHOMA PRESS ASSOCIATION OKLAHOMA CITY, OK

The Oklahoma Press Association

compiles this annual

Past Presidents Report as a way of

recognizing and keeping in touch

with those who dedicated their time and

efforts to serve the press association.

Past presidents and their guests

gathered Nov. 12 for a reception and

tour at The Oklahoman followed

by dinner at the Colcord Hotel in

downtown Oklahoma City.

1974MARIBETH PATE (JIM)

Maribeth is celebrating 16 years in Dallas this year. Other milestones this year include her last grandchild, Catie Rose Pate, entering college; the birth of another great-grandson, Oleg Higs; and spending the summer with her great niece, Jacklyn Pate, who is a sports management grad student.

Bill and Kathe Pate, Maribeth’s Chicago-based children, are relocating to the Houston area when Bill assumes the CEO role for Par Pacific Holdings.

Maribeth recently enjoyed a visit from great-grandchildren Lane and Olden Higgs, Jennifer Pate and Jeret Higgs. Jennifer is the daughter of the late Herb Pate, who served on the OPA Board of Directors.

She recently made a trip to Norman to celebrate OU homecoming with two of her Oklahoma City area sisters.

Maribeth stays busy in her commu-nity, following her favorite sports teams and with the goings and comings of her children and grandchildren.

1975DICK & RHONDA HEFTON

Dick and Rhonda sold one of their condos at Waterford to former Gov. Frank Keating in April.

Dick continues to serve as a men-tor. He recently finished the program with Pedro, who he mentored from first to sixth grade, and has now taken on Pedro’s younger brother, Edgar.

Another big change in Dick’s life was cataract surgery. He no longer needs glasses.

Dick cut the ribbon at a ceremony for Rose State College’s first on-campus

housing complex, a nearly $10 mil-lion project. He also cut the ribbon on the Beta Theta Pi house remodel at the University of Oklahoma.

He made his second Civil War/Golf Trip to Gettysburg-Appomattox for a week in May. The trip included stops at Gettysburg, Antietam, Harpers Ferry, Fredericksburg, Richmond, Charlottesville (Monticello), Lexington, Lynchburg, Appomattox, Arlington and Baltimore.

Rhonda keeps busy with Hope House in OKC, Shiloh Camp and the Westminster Church kitchen. She attended the wedding of a 94-year-old friend, John Ballard, the former owner of Ballard’s Design.

The Heftons spent the month of August at Crested Butte, Colo., with family, friends and guests including Dick’s double cousin, a sports columnist for the Colorado Springs Gazette.

1977PAT DYER (JACK)

Pat is still working in the church, and going to basketball games for her grand-children and great-grandchildren.

She recently had a wonderful trip to Colorado with her daughter, Kelly Dyer Fry.

“The aspens were in bloom,” she wrote. “What a pretty sight.”

Pat said God knew what he was doing when he gave Jack and her their children and grandchildren. “They have been a wonderful blessing in my life,” she said.

Pat treasures all the memories she has of the OPA.

“What fun,” she wrote. “Love to all.”

1979KEN & BILLIE JOE REID

Ken Reid wrote that the year has been full of tragedy and happiness.

In March, he lost his wife of 67 years, Phyllis. Phyllis was 81.

On Aug. 14, Ken married Billie Joe, a friend of the family for 60 years. Ken and Billie Joe are living in Weatherford, where Ken’s family has lived for the past 43 years.

The Reids are looking forward to the future and are blessed with good health.

They are looking forward to garden-ing, traveling and redecorating.

Ken said his family is praying for son-in-law Joe Colley, RuthAnne’s hus-band, who is currently undergoing treat-ment at Houston’s M.D. Anderson.

“Our prayers are also for all of you,” Ken said.

1980TOM MCCURDY

Tom reports that he’s been busy with family and friends since last year.

He has three grandkids at OU, one at East Central, and one granddaughter is a freshman at Purcell High School and a standout young golfer. Her name is Jade McCurdy, and she will be a mem-ber of the defending State Champion girls’ golf team next spring.

Tom enjoyed his OU Basketball Reunion in August where he re-con-nected with his former teammates . . . including Perry “Buddy” Russell from Ardmore. Buddy missed nearly all of his senior season at OU because of a knee injury but that did not keep him out of the military the next year where he became a highly-decorated jet pilot in Vietnam and also was the pilot on

a helicopter/gunship. Buddy was shot down twice but escaped the Viet Cong. He was later nominated for the Medal of Honor for his heroics in going back to rescue some Marines who were sur-rounded. Buddy and his wife now live in Chloride, Ariz. Buddy will be hon-ored as the “Patriot of the Game” at one of the upcoming OU games, McCurdy said.

1984DON & SALLY FERRELL

The big event for the Ferrells this past year was Sally’s induction into the Oklahoma Historians Hall of Fame. This came at the annual meeting of the Oklahoma Historical Society at the Artesian Hotel in Sulphur.

“She said she didn’t deserve it,” wrote Don. “I told her I had arthritis and I didn’t deserve that, either.”

The Ferrells had four “vacations” to Houston this year for Don’s quar-terly checkup and treatment at M.D. Anderson cancer clinic – all good reports.

Don had minor surgery to correct a hernia in October. The problem showed up in the numerous CT scans he had over the past three years looking for cancer.

“I’m on limited duty for awhile,” he said.

1986JIM & BECKY MAYO

Jim and Becky still work a little, but the newspaper operation is now in the hands of son Jeff and his wife Beth.

In November 2014, Becky was diag-nosed with breast cancer. Following a mastectomy, chemo and radiation treat-ments, she is doing fine.

Jim suffered intestinal blockages in March and April, which came to a cli-max in May with surgery to remove a few inches of his upper intestine.

“Son Jeff and I travel to Houston every three months to get my throat stretched at M.D. Anderson,” wrote Jim. “These trips were exciting and worthwhile, but all things considered, we would rather have gone to a national park.”

Becky’s cancer treatments precluded the Mayos from going to Seattle for Christmas as they normally do, so son Jack along with his wife Jen and their four children came to Sallisaw.

“It was a terrific Christmas after all,” wrote Jim. “They will be coming here again this Christmas.”

1988VICKI GOURLEY (J. LELAND)Vicki said OKC Friday continues to

grow in circulation, although the oil bust has hurt their revenue.

Devon, Chesapeake and Continental Resources have pulled back from full pages in special sections, Vicki said.

She is still running the “Best of

The Oklahoma Publisher // December 2015 11

Leland” on the editorial page and receives many comments on it.

Vicki had the opportunity to travel to Mexico, Hawaii, Monterey, New York City and Washington D.C. this year. “If you want to know about a Broadway show or opera, ask me,” she said.

The DC trip was to attend the annual Cheetah Conservation Fund board meeting. Vicki has become close to Jack Hanna’s people from the Columbus Zoo. “They bring one of Jack’s cheetahs to the DC gala and also to the OKC ‘Meetah Cheetah’ party every year,” she said. The OKC Zoo party, co-chaired by Vicki and Carol (Engleman) Sander, has raised $50,000 two years in a row.

1991NEVILLE HANCOCK (JOE)

Although Neville wasn’t able to attend the dinner, she said that Joe and her “really enjoyed these dinners, get-ting to see everyone.”

Joe passed away last December.

1992/2005JOHN D. & GRACIE

MONTGOMERYJohn D. got a new hip replacement

this past December and Gracie is facing a knee replacement.

The Montgomerys vacationed in New York City for a few days where they saw “Beautiful, The Carole King Musical,” did some shopping and went to restaurants such as Tavern on the Green.

Son Matt left the newspaper busi-ness and is now working at OU in Development for the President’s Associates.

The Montgomerys are grandparents to Jack and Lane Elizabeth and love everything that goes along with it.

John D. and Gracie were accompa-nied to the dinner by son John Denny and his wife Emily. John Denny serves on the OPA Board of Directors.

1993ED & MARCIA LIVERMORE

Ed underwent back surgery for a her-niated disk in late January and invested the next five months in recovery.

“Never walked so much in my entire life!” he wrote.

The Livermores were able to take a trip to the Puget Sound in August where they met up with all their children and grandchildren. This was followed by a cruise out of Juneau.

“Ours was a small ship with only 80 passengers. We spent the entire time in the wilderness watching various critters and visiting glaciers. Amazing time,” wrote Ed.

Marcia had a great time, although she almost became an hors d’oeuvre for a humpback whale! Ed explained that Marcia was paddling with a group when the whale lunged up to the surface to feed about 20 feet behind her kayak.

“It spied Marcia and immediately dove, almost upsetting the kayak. She lost her glasses and some other stuff,” said Ed.

Although Ed didn’t see it, he said oth-ers were quite graphic in their report of the incident. “She definitely has some-thing to remember from Alaska,” Ed wrote. “Overall, it was a grand trip we’ll never forget.”

The Livermores weren’t able to attend the dinner. Ed was scheduled for Mohs surgery on his nose Nov. 12.

“Best wishes to all at the OPA and in the newspaper business,” said Ed.

1996LINUS & LEONORE WILLIAMSLinus and Leonore completely retired

this summer and turned the business over to their son, Linus Williams Jr.

The Williams travel several times a year. At the time of the Past Presidents Dinner, they were in Italy and Rovinj, Croatia.

1997TOM & SHERRY MUCHMORETom wrote that he sold the family

radio station, WBBZ 1230 AM, after it being a part of the Muchmore family for more than 65 years.

And, they’re finally auctioning off Sherry’s mom’s items that have been stored at the Muchmores’ house on Central since 2007.

Last Thanksgiving, Tom and Sherry went to New Orleans and visited family in Iowa in late summer.

Sherry was reappointed by Gov. Mary Fallin to serve another three-year term on the Oklahoma Historical Society Board of Directors.

Daughter Shannon is engaged and has taken a job in Washington, D.C., as a political reporter for Modern Healthcare magazine.

Granddaughter Taylor Lewis gradu-ated from college and has a teaching job in San Antonio. She also is engaged. Granddaughter Gabby just finished her courses at the Cordon Bleu. The last semester, when she turned 21, was spent in Paris, France.

“All kids and grandkids are doing well, working hard. We’re really proud of all of them,” the Muchmores wrote.

1999/2009WAYNE & GLORIA TROTTERIt’s a sad thing when the biggest

event of the year was a broken leg. Gloria tripped on a sidewalk in March and broke her right leg above the ankle, which she discovered after walking around on it for almost 24 hours before getting medical attention. It was a very long four months of recovery, with a lot of working from home and mobility challenges.

Wayne is doing pretty well, although nerve damage in his right hand contin-

ues to slow him down. “It doesn’t keep him from banging out those prize-win-ning editorials every week, however,” wrote Gloria.

On a brighter note, the Trotters enjoyed a cruise during late January, the second of two Golden Anniversary trips. The first was in late October 2014 to New Orleans, so the trips bracketed their 50th anniversary on Dec. 26.

Just after last year’s Past Presidents Dinner, the Trotters had to say goodbye to their beloved Mr. Black, cat extraor-dinaire. A longtime kidney disorder finally claimed him, and he is greatly missed. His sister, Miss Patches, contin-ues to take care of the family, however, carefully dividing her time between Gloria and Wayne so no one feels neglected.

Although they’re slowing down, both Trotters are still active in the com-munity. Wayne is on the board of the Tecumseh Growth & Development Authority, the city’s economic devel-opment body, and Gloria is on the Tecumseh Chamber of Commerce board, as well as the Tecumseh Together board. They took something of a back seat on running Frontier Days this year, since their staffers Aaron McDonald and Suzie Campbell did most of the work.

The OPA Convention in June was a special treat, since their part-time reporter Virginia Bradshaw was recog-nized for 50 years in the business, with her children looking on.

“It was a special time for them and for us,” said Gloria.

“But we sure miss those summer conventions when we had time to relax with our newspaper friends, share sto-ries and help each other with advice. What precious memories!”

2000JERRY & CAROL QUINN

Carol said there’s not much to tell about the past year.

“Jerry still knows me, which is good,” she wrote. Jerry has frontotem-poral dementia and is in the Claremore VA home.

Carol attended the Past Presidents Dinner with her son, Dave.

2001SEAN & DONNA DYER

The Dyers said they love coming to the Past Presidents Dinner. However, Nov. 12 is the birthday of their late grandson who passed away in a car accident.

“My son is planning a family dinner in memory of Jesse so we want to be there for support,” wrote Donna.

“We would really like to be there and would if we could. We miss everyone!”

2002BARB & BILL WALTER

Barb won the National Newspaper Association’s Emma C. McKinney Award this year.

“I was proud to accept the McKinney Award (thanks to some great letter-writ-ing recommendations from Glo [Gloria Trotter], Mark [Thomas] and others),” wrote Barb. “It was wonderful that Mark was there because we didn’t know anyone, and we really weren’t in shape to go to any of the sessions except for the luncheon.”

Bill’s son and his wife were able to attend and the Walters enjoyed going to dinner with them.

Barb said that on the way home they took a cab to the airport and everything was going well until they reached secu-rity.

“When we started to go through security, Bill couldn’t find his photo ID that he’d just had minutes before,” said Barb. “Lines were long, and they finally did accept two other forms of ID: his Medicare card and his Conceal and Carry Gun Permit ID card.”

The health of Barb’s son Nick has been an ongoing concern this past year.

Nick was admitted into ICU in Enid on Feb. 9 and was there for 50 days, which set a record. Nick had just started a new and better job about four weeks before that and had a sinus infection. He went to the doctor who prescribed an antibiotic.

The medicine resulted in a clostridi-um difficile infection (CDI), which gave him a mega-colon, and his colon was removed three days later. The skin died around the ostomy, so a second surgery was needed, and then a third for the same reason. He has had five surgeons and been to both Enid and major OKC hospitals.

Before being released from Mercy on Oct. 9, he injured a ligament in his left foot and was put in a hard cast.

Nick recently graduated to a boot and is grateful not to be on crutches. He’s still on a nutrient drip every other day, and a saline solution on alternating days.

“It’s been a tough time, but there have been a couple of good things that most of us wouldn’t think would be a big deal but are to him,” wrote Barb. “He can now drink water at some times, and can sleep at night for up to seven hours. He calls the sleep a ‘life changer’.”

2003RAY & JENNY LOKEY

Ray says not a whole lot has changed since this time last year, other than another year older.

He and Jenny have both been keeping their nose close to the grind.

They did pick up a couple of great nephews during the past year and are still enjoying a houseful of four-legged canines that think they are human.

12 The Oklahoma Publisher // December 2015

2004JOE & LIS WORLEY

Joe retired as executive editor at the end of 2014, but is a part-time Tulsa World staff writer compiling a daily A-2 feature, “Way back when: Today in his-tory.”

“It’s fun because I dig in the paper and digital archives to find stories that Tulsans may remember and that I enjoy re-visiting,” he wrote.

The most exciting 2015 development is his marriage to Lis Exon, a televi-sion reporter/producer for Oklahoma Education Television Authority. Her reporting is usually televised on OETA’s “Oklahoma News Report” each Friday.

2006DAVID & SAUNDRA STRINGERDavid and Saundra are still loving life

in Tyler, Texas.“Great job, great community,” said

David. “Life doesn’t get any better.”A trip to Cancun for a few days was

the highlight of their travels this year. There have also been lots of trips to Oklahoma to see the kids and grand-kids, lots of OU games, and jaunts to Vegas, San Antonio, Savannah, Ga., and Charleston, S.C.

David’s son, Chris, was promoted to Sergeant First Class, then was selected for Warrant Officer in the U.S. Army. Daughter Melissa gave the Stringers

their fifth grandchild, Sloane Olivia Swanson, born in July this year.

2008STEVE & SONYA BOOHER

The Boohers made their annual pil-grimage to Red River, N.M., although they put it off until late September hop-ing to take in some of the fall foliage, but they were a week to 10 days early.

Their children and grandchildren are doing well. One son, Alan, is program manager for a couple of Enid radio sta-tions; the other, Mike, is a teacher and coach at El Reno. Daughter Amanda has worked at Autry Technology Center for a number of years. She’s earned a masters and has obtained a teaching cer-tificate. Daughter Shannon is a manag-ing partner with Chili’s and is currently running the Yukon store.

“I had the privilege of represent-ing OPA on postal and public notice issues with member newspapers,” Steve wrote. “It gave me an opportunity to not only visit with good newspaper friends around the state, but also a chance to help out some of the problems all of us experience occasionally as we deal with the USPS. I hope I get the opportunity again some time in the future.”

Steve said he continues to be proud of the OPA and the work it does to advance the print industry.

“Of course, you and I know some of the finest people in the world belong to

the organization and put out some of the finest publications,” Steve said.

2010ROD & JODY SERFOSS

Rod and Jody left the farm life in April and moved to town. They are enjoying life with their children and grandchildren.

Rod continues to serve as publisher of the Clinton Daily News.

2011RUSTY & DEANA FERGUSON“We’d like to say we raised the roof

this year celebrating our 96th year of publishing the Cleveland American, but it actually was the year our roof collapsed … and there was little to cel-ebrate about that!” reported Rusty.

On a Sunday morning in February, Rusty stopped by the office before church and felt a cold breeze as he entered the building. He was soon walk-ing in inches of water.

“Our plant is comprised of two side-by-side buildings and what I quickly discovered was that the roof was laying on the floor in our north building,” said Rusty.

The print shop, break room, morgue and Rusty’s office are on the north side.

Authorities arrived and turned off all utilities. After church, friends joined Rusty to begin a “rescue” mission. The good side of the building quickly

became storage for anything salvage-able.

The “front office” was quickly moved two doors down in the front corner of Deana’s gift and flower shop so walk-in customers could easily read a sign on the newspaper’s front door and walk a short distance for service.

Computers, printers, etc. were moved to the American’s sister newspaper, the Hominy News-Progress, 10 miles away, where the American was published for the next three months.

When the crew returned to Cleveland, they slowly reclaimed the south side of the building while the rebuild of the north side began.

“Even at this writing, things are still somewhat of a mess,” Rusty wrote. “We do have a new roof and power has been reinstalled, but we have little use of the building as walls, ceiling and HVAC are being made new. In the meantime, my computer is set up in a make-shift tiny corner near the front where I regularly get sympathetic comments suggesting I should do something about the size of my office.

“It will happen … sooner rather than later, I hope.”

The Fergusons were able to get away in June when they joined a tour group and visited Israel for 10 days.

“It was definitely one of those trips of a lifetime as the Bible seemed to come to life with each leg of the journey,” said Rusty. “Other than being stuck on

Past presidents, board members and their spouses gathered Nov. 12 for a reception & tour at The Oklahoman followed by dinner at the Colcord Hotel in downtown Oklahoma City. Past presidents attending the event were: Front row: John D. Montgomery, Gracie Montgomery, Barb Walter, Gloria Trotter, Ben Blackstock, Ken Reid and Don Ferrell. Back row: Jeff Shultz, Steve Booher, Jeff Funk, Dick Hefton, Rusty Ferguson, Tom Muchmore, Ray Lokey, Rod Serfoss, David Stringer, Jeff Mayo, Wayne Trotter and Robby Trammell.

The Oklahoma Publisher // December 2015 13

a tiny hotel elevator for nearly an hour with seven other non-English speaking people, we felt safe and secure in our travels and would love to return one day with our children.”

Speaking of children, the Fergusons’ youngest, twins Landon and Layne, graduated from the University of Oklahoma in May. “Putting four chil-dren through OU was a challenge, but it’s gratifying to have a family of Sooner grads!” said Rusty.

Rusty and Deana are enjoying life as grandparents with their two grandsons, Sully, 3, and Sawyer, 8 months. Rusty said he and Deana are thankful they live in Cleveland with their daughter and son-in-law, Libby and Sol Bayouth, who are both teachers there. Son Lincoln and his wife Lauren live in Oklahoma City where Lincoln works as deputy press secretary for the Attorney General’s office.

Now that Rusty’s dad, Larry, is out of state politics, he is enjoying keeping an eye on the family’s third newspaper, The Pawnee Chief. Larry and his wife, Nina Gay, grew up in Pawnee so they both enjoy being there when they can.

“In summary, we have a roof over our heads,” wrote Rusty. “Life is good.”

2012JEFF & NANETTE SHULTZ

Jeff and Nanette Shultz reside in Pauls Valley, where Jeff is the publisher of the Garvin County News Star and Nanette is an administrative assistant for the OSU Extension Service.

Both are active in their church where Nanette teaches a third and fourth grade Sunday School class and Jeff teaches a Sunday evening men’s Bible Study.

Jeff is also active as a member of the Toy and Action Figure Museum Board of Directors.

Their oldest son, Jonathan, recently was married to Kelly Kiorpes and the couple are making their home in Madison, Wisc. Chris, their second son, lives in Oklahoma City where he and his fiance are planning a wedding in the near future.

Their daughter, Liz, lives in Denver, Colo., where she works for Habitat for Humanity.

2013 JEFF & BETH MAYO

Things got busy for Jeff and Beth last year right after the Past Presidents Dinner. Jeff and his brother Jack bought the Okmulgee Times and Henryetta Free-Lance.

Among the many changes that took place were updating the computer systems for both news and advertising. They also sold the building housing the Okmulgee Times to the City of Okmulgee. The former newspaper office will now be the new police station.

Jeff became a novice general contractor as he bought and updated

a smaller building in downtown. The office moved in late June.

Daughter Madolyn is active in band and choir and was captain of the sixth grade academic team. She was accepted into the Junior Symphony at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith as a percussionist this fall.

While Beth is driving Madolyn to symphony practice on Monday nights, Jeff is driving Maddox to hockey practice in Tulsa. After a trip in April to a Tulsa Oilers game with the Cub Scout pack, Maddox declared he wanted to play hockey. Now seven months later, Maddox is on the Tulsa Jr. Oilers Squirt Minor team as a wing.

The family traveled to Disney World and met Jeff’s brother Jack, his wife and four kids on what could have been the hottest 10 days of the summer. The vacation was great with the highlight being two days at Universal Studios to visit Harry Potter World – Madolyn and Maddox are huge fans.

If you’re looking for Jeff or Beth this year, they are probably in their cars, driving the kids somewhere.

2014JEFF & LYNNDE FUNK

Jeff continues to serve as publisher of the Enid News & Eagle. The job requires a more diverse set of skills as the Enid staff produces not only the regional daily newspaper but also seeks to reach new readers through a website, community magazine, weekly base newspaper, text alert service, email news blasts, non-subscriber publication, specialty publications and event market-ing. The downtown Enid location also is a regional printing hub for four daily and two weekly newspapers.

LynnDe serves as executive secretary of the Enid Rotary Club.

Jeff and LynnDe enjoyed hosting the OPA Board of Directors retreat in Enid in April.

“It was fun to show off part of what we love in our hometown plus Vance Air Force Base,” wrote Jeff. “After our group experienced the flight simulators at Vance, I’m thankful those jets over-head have trained pilots and not editors at the controls!”

The Funks spend their spare time with family – a daughter and 7-year-old grandson in Nebraska and a son, daughter-in-law and 2-year-old grand-son in Enid, plus LynnDe’s parents in Nebraska and Jeff’s parents in Kansas.

FORMER OPA EVPBEN BLACKSTOCK

Ben wrote that 2015 has been one “hell of a year.”

Sadly, Bonnie, his wife and life part-ner for 62 years, passed away Feb. 9. “Of course on her own terms, at home in her own bed with her family nearby during her final weeks of life,” wrote Ben.

“Thanks to the assistance and support of our children and grandchildren our family was united and peaceful as we made this transition in life,” he said.

Fortunately, with the help of his chil-dren, a few doctors and excellent mas-sage therapy treatments, Ben’s chronic back and hip pain of the past 40 years now ranges from manageable to unde-tectable.

On March 9, Ben moved to Epworth Villa into their newly built Assisted Living Center.

“My son Sam did a great job of mov-ing enough of my personal belongings to make my apartment feel comfortable and just like home – without bringing along all the crap that Bonnie had been saving for as long as I can remember,” Ben wrote.

Ben said his life is rather routine liv-ing in his apartment (with the door open most all the time) with the other 30 men and women that live in the second floor “neighborhood” (Epworth’s term for the secure floor).

“The newspaper arrives at my door each morning, we eat breakfast at 7:45 a.m., lunch at 11:45 a.m., and dinner is served at 4:45 p.m., although I’m gener-ally the last to arrive and depart because 4:45 is too damn early for dinner and I enjoy a FULL glass of Merlot before dinner while reading the New Yorker Magazine,” said Ben.

Ben enjoys an occasional visitor or phone conversation (same number 405-936-9236).

He celebrated his 90th birthday on Sept. 4 with a family gathering that included his children and grandchildren along with his brother Bob’s family.

“2015 is winding down to be memo-rable, peaceful and mostly pain free,” Ben said.

Ben has kicked the cigarette habit, although he says it wasn’t easy nor was it his idea. He learned to smoke ciga-

rettes so he could get a job as a campus marketer for Phillip Morris at OU in the late 1940s.

He divulged that the reason he quit had to do with Epworth Village having an entire smoke free campus, “which I believe should be outlawed as a crimi-nal act to take my individual American freedoms,” he added.

His family is doing well. Son Sam and his partner Jeff live in the historic neighborhood of Heritage Hills and are constantly repairing and restoring their 90-year-old house. Sam is in his 22nd year as executive vice president of the Oklahoma Academy of Family Physicians and Jeff is the general man-ager of the new Ambassador Hotel in Midtown OKC. Sam’s daughter, Jessica Blackstock, now lives in Los Angeles. She earned a master’s in Sustainability and Environmental Management from Harvard and is employed with Thrive Consulting Group. Sam’s son Beau graduated from OSU with a degree in journalism and worked at the ABC and CBS affiliates in OKC. Beau has now found his passion in the creative depart-ment at News 9 creating and producing promotional pieces for the news depart-ment.

Ben’s daughter Melissa lives in Edmond. Her daughter, Tiffany, gradu-ated from UCO with a degree in Art and is a freelance artist. Dan’s son Brian graduated from OU law school last year and successfully passed the Oklahoma bar exam. He is employed as a defense attorney at Sweet Law Firm, which focuses on medical and insurance law.

“I’m proud to say ALL of my chil-dren and grandchildren (ages 59-27) are now self-sustaining and independent of my financial support,” wrote Ben. “I do still provide them free unsolicited advice on most every topic and direc-tions on how to run their life.”

Mike Strain and Ray Lokey visit at a reception at The Oklahoman’s office in downtown Oklahoma City prior to the OPA Past Presidents Dinner.

14 The Oklahoma Publisher // December 2015

Why newspapers?Go see the movie “Spotlight,” about

the Boston Globe uncovering the pedo-phile priest scandal that rocked the world in 2001-2002.

It’s a powerful, exhausting film that will remind us all about the power and importance of the press.

It’s probably just me, but I almost teared up when the presses started. For those of us who have heard and felt that singular rumble, you understand. The power of the press is visceral.

On a smaller related note, I recently found and bought a book I wish I’d written, “The Main Streets of Oklahoma – Okie Stories from Every County,” by Kristi Eaton.

The short chapters, some with pho-tos, feature four newspapers, The Sayre Record & Beckham County Democrat, Gar-ber-Billings News in Garfield County, The Seminole Producer in Seminole County, and The Cordell Beacon in Washita Coun-ty. Each of the publishers is interviewed.

What an idea for even local articles. Both The Oklahoman and Tulsa World have done in-depth stories in the past, featuring certain streets. This could be a year-long, weekly feature in any town. Pick a street, take a photograph, inter-view someone.

Also, did you see the front page edi-torial in the New York Times about the gun violence crisis? First front page editorial since 1920! http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/05/opinion/end-the-gun-epi-demic-in-america.html

Yes, I believe in front page editorials and columns – clearly labeled. They were an American tradition. They show leadership and involvement, not bland detachment.

LOOKIN’EM OVER. Important journal-ism happens in Oklahoma on a scale much smaller than Boston.

Michael Pineda of The Ardmoreite writes a story every paper could localize,

using state statistics, headlined “Scourge on the rise” about Carter County vene-real disease rates exceeding the state rates.

Parker Perry of the McAlester News-Capital interviews a mother and relatives about the recent drug related homicide of their son, headlined “’I want some good to come from my son’s death.’”

Joy Hampton of The Norman Tran-script, headlined “Overcrowded,” writes about the city animal shelter after a puppy mill raid.

Kaelynn Knoernschild, managing edi-tor of the OSU O’Colly reports that Okla-homa State University routinely keeps secret the names of students, faculty or anyone else arrested for committing crimes on campus.

The Canton Times covers local con-troversy, “Canton Town Meeting gets bumpy.”

Holiday ideas for next year – Cydney Baron of The Times in Pryor, headlined “Real vs Fake,” writes about Christmas trees and fire dangers.

Dara Welchel of The Newcastle Pacer writes about the police taking 26 chil-dren shopping for clothes, headlined, “Newcastle PD keeps kids warm.”

Hunter Lane of the Tahlequah Daily Press, headlined “Sugar and Spice,” writes about the cooking supplies people buy for the holidays.

Gloria Trotter of the Countywide & Sun, on holiday scams, “Look Out For The Scams What Am!”

Also worth mentioning: Great tribute story by Vicky O. Misa on page one of The Shawnee News-Star about veteran photographer Ed Blochowiak.

Weatherford Daily News’ “Chocolate” edition, “Do you dream in chocolate?”

The Wynnewood Gazette’s clean make-up and flag.

Story by Patty Miller of The Edmond Sun on a Pearl Harbor survivor.

Fantastic photography and writing in the Owasso Reporter. Haylie Smart’s photo and Christian Favalora’s story on neighbors building some poor folks a home. Here’s his lead: “Ron Siens’ miracle has a front door./ It has a roof, and that’s as good as gold for Ron and his family of five./ On Sunday, rain will likely return, and Siens and his fam-

ily will dodge rain drops./ They will scoot buckets across the floor and they’ll move Brandon so he doesn’t get wet./ At the north end of ninth street in Collins-ville, Siens and his family of five eagerly await the completion of their new home. They spend each day in a run down sort of pink shack, a low dwelling with tires scattered over a leaky roof, while volun-teers hustle a few feet away to get the floors down and the lights installed and the power turned on.”

This month’s major story? Ice and flooding. Hugo News head on meteorolo-gist’s story said it all, “The Pandora’s Box of weather – November floods, tornadoes and ice wreak havoc across Oklahoma.”

There was great coverage in lots of papers, including the El Reno Tribune, The Country Connection News in Eakly and The Piedmont-Surrey Gazette.

Several papers changed their flags including The Canton Times and Woods County Enterprise.

Good headlines: The Cordell Beacon: “Beauty and The Beast – winter storm whallops Washita County”. (And thank you for using “whallops” in a headline!); The Kingfisher Times and Free-Press: “Weekend ice-capades dazzle, devas-tate.”

Spotlight shows power of the pressClark’s Critique

by Terry ClarkJournalism Professor,

University of Central Oklahoma, TClark@uco.edu

Continued on Page 15

Featured newspapers this month: Mustang News. The Piedmont Surrey-Gazette, The Country Connection News, El Reno Tribune, The Canton Times, Woods County Enterprise, The Shawnee News-Star, Weatherford Daily News, The Ardmoreite, Wynnewood Gazette and Owasso Reporter.

LEGAL ADVICEis just one of the benefits of being a member of the Oklahoma Press Association’s Legal Services Plan. Remove the worry of needing professional advice by enrolling today. For more information contact:

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Serving Northern Caddo Country and the surrounding area for over 32 years- Hydro, Eakly, Ft. Cobb, Gracemont, Lookeba, Binger, Hinton, Colony, Corn, Sickles, Oney-Albert and in between

ON

LAST MAN STANDING. What keeps one tree standing while the rest of the row bow down to ice? This mystery unfolded at the home of Donnie and Kaye Sodders south of Hydro(Staff photo by Rusty Carney)

Ice, Ice, Baby!

Oklahoma City University volleyball team visits Mustang Elementary for some reading fun.

PAGE 10A

Mustang NewsTHURSDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2015 • MUSTANGNEWS.INFO • 50 CENTS

READY TO RUMBLE: Wrestlers open regular season, 7 p.m. tonight 1B

By VICTORIA MIDDLETONBy VICTORIA MIDDLETONvmiddleton@mustangnews.info

�Commissioners debate for nearly 2 hours ballot language, Hader’s ballot proposals

Resolutions ordered for sales tax vote

Tweet lands local mom in

Barbie Battershell became an instant celebrity when she tweet-ed a picture of a sheet of ice melting off a speed limit sign this past Sunday.

The mom of Mustang North Middle School eighth-grader Katie, said she was driving into her subdivision, Timber Creek Estates, when both she and her daughter did a double-take.

“We were just coming home, knowing we had no electricity, and we saw it. I turned the car around and we both took pic-tures.”

Technically, though, Battershell has a Yukon address but she con-siders herself from Mustang since her daughter attends Mustang schools and that is why she tweet-ed the photo as being from Mustang, she said.

While Katie first posted her pic-ture on the popular “SnapChat” app, Battershell posted it on Twitter. Within the hour,

By VICTORIA MIDDLETONBy VICTORIA MIDDLETONvmiddleton@mustangnews.info

“It has been the craziest 36 hours I’ve ever had.”

Continued to SIGN, Page 11A

SPOTLIGHTSPOTLIGHTCommissioners inched

closer to calling an elec-tion on reducing the county sales tax dedicat-ed to the Gary E. Miller Children’s Justice Center. But it took a nearly two-hour discus-sion to move the issue forward.

The Tuesday meeting had to be moved from the normal meeting room at the Canadian County Administration building in El Reno because power had not been restored. Power was knocked out by the weekend ice storm that hit the area. The meet-ing was moved to the District 1 Shop.

Dist. 2 Commissioner David Anderson in October introduced reduction scenarios, but commissioners had not taken action on the mat-ter until now.

Commissioners debat-ed the reduction amount and the possibility of using the county’s use tax to supplement the center’s budget in case of a shortfall.

Dist. 1 Commissioner Marc Hader presented five ballot proposals that suggested a re-authoriza-tion vote every six years that would allow taxpay-ers the opportunity to renew the tax.

Commissioners voted

Photographer/Victoria Middleton

Dist. 1 Commissioner Marc Hader explains his ballot pro-posals he presented during Tuesday’s meeting.

to have the District Attorney draft two reso-lutions, one asking for a .30 county sales tax and the other for a .275. The county sales tax was established by voters in 1996 and set at .35 cents.

Both resolutions would include a list of all the programs funded at the center, another suggestion by Hader.

“Words mean things and this would help avoid misunderstand-ings or differences in the future, and insure all the programs continue so as to relieve concerns about programs being ended,” he wrote in his ballot proposals.

Fi fi h k

By VICTORIA MIDDLETON By VICTORIA MIDDLETON

By VICTORIA MIDDLETON

Continued to TAX, Page 12A

The Piedmont-Surrey

Follow us on Facebook On Twitter @PiedmontGazettePiedmontNewsOnline.comPNOPNO

GazetteGazette THURSDAY December 3, 2015 Vol. 40, No. 34 3 Sections, 48 Pages

Your Hometown Newspaper For More Than 39 Years! USPS 334-710

Ice storm wreaks havoc on entire area

Bent and broken tree limbs leaned and fell everywhere last weekend throughout the Piedmont-Surrey Hills area. In this scene along 164th/Washington,

branches leaning into the road, weighted down by heavy layers of ice. The ice did the same to power lines and poles, causing numerous power outages.

Roger PughNews Editor

A better name for the Piedmont-Surrey Hills area last weekend might have been Bent Tree, or Broken Tree.

This is because countless trees or tree branches from huge to small were snapped in two or bent to the ground

the year in the area.

Streets throughout the area were littered with debris from fallen branches or trees, and in some cases power poles and lines.

Piedmont Emergency Management head Andy Logan, who is also Piedmont Fire Chief, said he was not aware of any major injuries or other damage caused by the storm, other than tree damage, but said a number of people were still without power as late as Tuesday evening.

The power outages were cause when lines, covered in ice fell due to the weight of the ice, or power poles simply toppled due to the ice.

In Piedmont, Logan said multiple power poles were down in the Vails Ranchette area, in the area of 206th and Terry Lane, 234th and Piedmont Road and around Susan-na Rd and Mustang Rd.

In all, Logan said over Saturday and Sunday, the worst

Roger Pugh/Gazette

The Oklahoma Publisher // December 2015 15

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STAFF DIRECTORY Clark’s Critique Continued from Page 14

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City blanked with ice from early-season storm;wide power outages bring El Reno to standstill

Some three dozenpeople spent Sundaynight inside JenksSimmons Field Housewhere the Red Cross setup a shelter followingthe devastating icestorm that hit the areaover the weekend.

Ken Garcia, Red Crossspokesman, said thenumber of peopleseeking shelter at JenksSimmons jumped to 36after seven had spentSaturday night there.

The shelter wasexpected to remain openthrough Tuesday, ElReno Mayor Matt Whitesaid at a Sunday after-noon press conference.About a dozen city andcounty officials gatheredat the El Reno PublicSafety Center on SW27th Street to provideinformation aboutcleanup and what kindof assistance would beavailable.

The number oneconcern was gettingpower back on for homesand businesses. JimStengle of OG&E saidas of Sunday afternoon,around 5,000 people inEl Reno were withoutpower.

“If you don’t havepower now, there’s agood chance it could bea day or two before it isrestored,” White saidSunday afternoon.Crews from OG&E,Caddo Electric andCimarron Electric aswell as several from out-of-state were workingacross Canadian Countyto restore power. TheCanadian SquareShopping Center park-ing lot was transformedinto a staging area forthe utility trucks.

Stengle said by

By RAY DYERrdyer@elrenotribune.com

Continued to ICED, Page 6A

Photographer/Glen Miller

Above, treeson South DilleAvenue werefrozen and theweight of theice broke offlimbs severalinches thickin diameter.At left is abicycle frozento a drivewayand layered inice. The viewof the El Renowater toweron Highway 66,top left, isblocked byfrozen trees.

Jenks Simmons Field Houseannex converted to shelter

Bobbi Worthingtonsaid she hated notbeing able to see the OUvs. OSU football gameSaturday night, but shewas thankful for thewarmth and food shefound inside JenksSimmons Field House.

The Red Cross shelterwas set up quickly afterthe area was hit by adevastating ice stormFriday and Saturday.The storm knocked outpower to thousands of

El Reno residents andseveral of them foundrefuge inside JenksSimmons.

Grace Rivers, RedCross shelter manager,said the shelter openedSaturday evening andhas seen close to threedozen people, including15 children, find comfortand food there.

Rivers said shearrived in El Renoon Monday morningfrom Ardmore and the

By EMILY KINDIGERContributing Writer

Continued to SHELTER, Page 5A

Photographer/Glen Miller

Ice enclosed this treebranch and its leaves.

Photo/Aliki Dyer

Frozentreebrancheslay overthe topofelectricallines allover thecity,causingmorethan5,000residentsto losepower.

Electrical issuesforce El Reno, RCCto cancel classes

The power outages arecreating extra holidays forarea schoolchildren as wellas students at RedlandsCommunity College.

Superintendent CraigMcVay said several El Renoschool buildings are withoutelectricity and power lines aredown on every rural bus route.McVay said he has been told it

Continued to SCHOOL, Page 5A

City blanketed with ice from early-season storm;wide power outages bring El Reno to standstill

Victoria Middleton of the Mustang News wrote about a local woman’s tweet-ed photo that went viral.

HEAD’EM UP AWARDS. Every once in a while a headline just knocks your socks off. If there was an annual headline award – and there may be next month as I compare 12 months of first places – OU journalism student Kate Bergum will probably get the award.

First place, this month – The Oklaho-ma Daily. The story by Tanner Osborne, and photograph of a Norman cop taking a stray donkey home in the back seat of a patrol car brought this single column, four liner:

Officer spotted hauling ass home

Just wow! Thank you, Kate. A New York Post editor saw it and said he was jealous. It got national attention. The photo went international. Copy chief Mia Chism helped approve it to be pub-lished.

(A follow up story was headlined, “Man reunited with ass.”)

Makes you proud of today’s students.Second place, Lawton Constitution, on Scott Rains’ story about mysterious wood art, painted with gnomes, appear-ing around town on power poles:

There’s gnome place like LawtonThird place, tie, The Carnegie Herald

and Stillwater News Press. Carnegie:Drones, drawings and Dear SantaAnd Stillwater, on Michelle Charles’

story about shutting down wells because of earthquakes:

ShakedownHonorable mentions? All the ones

mentioned earlier in this column.

The Oklahoma Department of Transportation is hosting a public meeting to present information about two very important projects concerning Wynnewood and access to and from town this Thursday, December 3 at 6:00 pm in the Wynnewood High School Auditorium.

As part of our efforts to keep the public informed and involved in the decision-making process, ODOT has scheduled a public meeting. The purpose of the public meeting is to present the proposed improvements and the results of the environmental studies, and to solicit public input before completing the design. Engineers and planners will present information about the project and will be available to answer questions and receive input from members of the public at the meeting.

The Oklahoma Department

of Transportation (ODOT) in cooperation with the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is proposing to improve highway US-77 between SH-29 West junction and Long Avenue in Wynnewood in Garvin County, Oklahoma. There are three narrow 28-30 foot wide bridges . The existing highway is a two-lane facility with two, 12 foot wide driving lanes and 8 foot wide shoulders between the Highway 29 junction and Long Avenue on the west side of Wynnewood. The current travel on the highway averages 6,900 vehicles a day and

approximately 10,000 vehicles per day warrants construction of four lanes. The proposal is divided into to separate construction projects. The

to begin in 2018 would replace the truss bridge over the Washita

River which was built in 1959. ODOT Spokesman Cody Boyd

on the bridge deck and structure warrant replacement.” He did say the bridges were all “safe for travel but are outdated and do not meet current guidelines for roadways and bridges.” He added that the other two bridges are “just too narrow for modern vehicles and

all Wynnewood resident to attend the meeting because this will give them a chance to voice their input concerning the projects. Important aspects such as environmental impact, roadway alignment and whether the bridge could be built adjacent to the existing bridge, which would allow access to Pauls Valley and points north, will be discussed. Please make time to attend this meeting.

ODOT Seeking Input on Bridge and Highway Projects for Wynnewood

In the next couple months you’relikely to hear a lot about mills,millages, and millage rates. Butif you’re like me you might be alittle confused, and wondering whylocal governments use a term hardlyanybody uses or understands.

Is Wynnewood getting a new grainmill? We already have windmills outwest so that’s not it either.

The millage rate in localgovernment language is used inconjunction with the property tax

word that means “thousandth.” So 1mill is equivalent to 1/1000th.

Applied to taxes, that means 1 millis equivalent to $1 in taxes per $1,000in taxable value. If your property hasa taxable value of $100,000, andyou’re assessed a 1 mill tax rate,you’ll pay $100 in taxes. Well nowthat that’s clear as mud, why are wevoting to increase our millage for theWynnewood School District?

The millage you pay on yourproperty is broken up into fourseparate independent portions. Theschool bond proposal will be askingvoters to increase the number ofmills currently being assessed from2.29 to 10 mills. This would resultin a tax increase of 9.98%. At myhouse, I just received my tax billfor $1,034 dollars, which means ifthe bond passes my tax will go upabout $103 dollars a year. So doesthat mean our taxes will be higher orlower than someone who lives in oneof the towns around us? Here is a listof the current millages for schooldistricts close to Wynnewood. Asyou can see Wynnewood currentlyhas the lowest millage rate and ifvoters approve the bond we will be

what our neighbors in Stratford pay. I included this list to put our tax

bills in context with other cities.

Is There a New Mill Coming To Town?

Since the December 7th 1941 bombing of the USS Oklahoma, many of its crew are still reported as missing in action. Recently there have been seven bodies that have been recovered from the capsized vessel in WWII and these are in

Considering the amount of time that has passed, the bodies can

records.Since June of this year, the

Agency started digging up some of the graves of nearly 400

agency had traveled to Honolulu to the Veterans cemetery where the bodies of the unknown were buried after the disaster.

years they can identify almost 80% of the crew members that are still considered missing. The reason the military has started the identifying process is because of the advanced technology the forensics teams now have available to them.

remains so they can be returned to their families and be laid to

reports.

exhumed the last four of the 61 caskets that are still considered

actually have more than one body in them, making the

to identify. The families who are receiving remains have the option of taking the remains as

until there are more body parts or skeletons to make up a

process is being done in Honolulu and Nebraska; everything is done through the Armed Forces DNA Laboratory in Dover.

There were about 429 men killed on the battleship; only 35

years immediately following the bombing. Altogether, more than 2,400 sailors, marines, and soldiers were killed in the Pearl Harbor attack.

Reprinted with permission from warhistoryonline.com.

Seven Bodies from the USS Oklahoma Found and in Process of Identifi cation

THE POLAR EXPRESS

Downtown Movie Night, see banner below for details.

School Board Filing is Monday, Dec 7 through Wednesday, Dec 9 at 5pm

50¢ A COPY"Home Of CVR Energy/Wynnewood Refi ning"America’s Hometown Newspaper

Thursday, December 3, 2015

Siens of Love

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2015 | VOL. 51 NO. 20 $1.00OWASSO REPORTER

Enroll Today!Make your own path. Sign up for evening & weekend

classes at tulsatech.edu today!

“I’m not perfect, I don’t even try to be, I don’t plan to

be, at least not until I go to

Heaven”Ron Siens and Clara Hamilton were born and raised in Collinsville, now Collinsville is trying to give them a warm new home. HAYLIE SMART/Owasso Reporter

20151900 A Weekly Newspaper Published In The Interest Of Waynoka And Vicinity

Woods County Enterprise

Please see Chocolate,Page 9A

Heather HarmonStaff Reporter

Lindt Lindor Chocolate has trademarked the phrase, “Do you dream in chocolate?” Today’s

edition may make you think you’re dreaming in chocolate as we present you a newspaper printed with chocolate-scented ink. Under the glowing Christmas lights in Towne Centre Weatherford Thursday, Infinite Grace Ministries will ring in the holiday season with their first-ever holiday bazaar with

a cooking contest, hot chocolate and Christmas carolers. The Christmas in Towne Centre event will also host special guests Mr. and Mrs. Claus and free carriage rides, sponsored by Pioneer Cellular. In Weatherford’s historic old German bank building at 118 West Main Street, residents will put old family recipes to the test—grandma’s chocolate cake and pie recipes passed down from generations will give contestants a chance to win big. Only with this contest—people

Four Golden tickets to discover

Four golden tickets still remain in the Willy Wonka-style hunt for five chocolate bars containing special golden tickets worth $100 each. During the holiday promotion merchants will feature their “top ten” gift ideas for the holiday season in stores.

When a customer buys any item on the “top ten” list, they will instantly receive a chocolate bar—and a chance at a $100 gift certificate. Customers who unwrap a winner can take the golden ticket to the WDN office to collect their prize.

Christmas in Towne Centre features carriage rides, baking contest, caroling and more

Heather HarmonStaff Reporter

The Western Plains Library System’s Weatherford branch is showing off the building’s recent renovations with a Weatherford Area Chamber of Commerce ribbon-cutting ceremony followed by an open house 10 a.m. Thursday. “We’ve done a lot of remodeling in the last four months,” Western Plains Library System director Tim Miller said. “We were closed 11 days for the renovations.” Miller said the remodeling project

focused on ripping up and replacing the carpet in the entire building. The carpet was original to the 1984 building and after thirty years of traffic on it, Miller said the carpet was “in rough shape.” He said moving the bookshelves to install new carpet presented the opportunity to rearrange the library and create a more open look. The nonfiction was originally arranged in six, long rows, and Miller and the library staff wanted to open the space up to look more inviting. The library rearranged the shelves into an open-square formation with a reading area in the middle of the

space. “We did that with fiction about five years ago, and the public really responded well to it,” Miller said. Shelving in the children’s section was also replaced and new furnishings were added throughout the library. Miller said the project was a joint effort and funds provided by the City of Weatherford and the Friends of the Weatherford Library organization helped make the renovations possible. The library will also host the Weatherford Area Chamber of Commerce pictures with Santa from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday.

Do you dream in chocolate?

Library decked for holiday open houseSanta is a definite attendee

Groundbreaking has begun on the new Pioneer Cellular retail store in Towne Centre. The company is already getting involved in activities by sponsoring carriage rides with Santa Thursday evening.

By Marsha Miller marsha.miller@ardmoreite.com

(580) 223-7771

903 Grand Ave.

WE ARE NOW OPEN AT OUR NEW LOCATION!

OU-OSU PLAY IN ANNUAL BEDLAM SERIES

SPORTS, PAGE 1C

NATION, PAGE 11A

Classified 1DComics 4BDigest 4A Lifestyles 1B

Markets 6A Obituaries 2ASports 1CWeather 2A

INDEX

■ Games and puz-zles: Now available on our website

■ Email newsletter: Sign up for our news-letter and get the top area headlines de-livered right to your inbox

■ Ardmoreite.com: Check out the fea-tures on our up-to-date website

SUSPECT IN COLORADO ATTACK SAID ‘NO MORE BABY PARTS’

SPORTS, PAGE 1C

LONE GROVE ROUTS LOCUST GROVE 64-0

ONLY ONLINE

FIND US ONLINE...

The Ardmoreite

@Ardmoreite

INSIDE

$1.50 1 2 2 N D Y E A R — N O . 2 8 SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2015 ARDMORE, OKLAHOMA

SINCE1893

54 PAGES

By Michael Pinedamichael.pineda@ardmoreite.com

NARCOTICS

By Marsha Millermarsha.miller@ardmoreite.com

ENERGY

SCOURGECertain sexually

transmitted diseases

in Carter County

exceed state rates

SEE DISEASE, PAGE 5A

ChlamydiaWhere Rate*Oklahoma 532.6Carter 551Jefferson 397.3Johnston 333.2Love 358.1Murray 413Marshall 420.2

GonorrheaWhere Rate*Oklahoma 158.2Carter 206.9Jefferson n/aJohnston 54Love 51.2Murray 144Marshall 92.7*per 100,000 residents

BLACK FRIDAY

Darlene and Dennis Medrick check out TVs at Walmart. MELANIE PLEMONS/THE ARDMOREITE

By Melanie Plemonsmelanie.plemons@armdoreite.com

SEE BLACK FRIDAY, PAGE 5A

MICHAEL DRENNON

SKYLARBURNS

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2015CHRISTMAS PARADE

Holiday event ThursdayBy Vicky O. MisaVicky.misa@news-star.comTwitter: @Vicky_NewsStar

Now that Thanksgiving has wrapped up, it’s of -cial; the Christmas season is here.

Safe Event For Families

(SEFF) will be out in full force Thursday, preparing for the Shawnee’s main win-ter celebration, the annual Christmas parade.

Residents can jumpstart their Christmas spirit on parade day by attending the annual “Cans Festival”

downtown, where Jones Theatres will host a special 4:30 p.m. showing of the classic holiday lm, “Home Alone,” at the Carmike Hornbeck & Penthouse Twin, 125 N. Bell St.

Admission for one per-son is a donation of two

canned goods. Donations will be given to the Salva-tion Army.

MAIN EVENTThe Parade of Lights pres-

ents “Christmas through the eyes of a child,” this year’s theme for Shawnee’s

Christmas Parade, set for 7 p.m. Thursday.

Dell Kerbs, SEFF presi-dent, said there are some new additions to the parade this year.

A reworks display will

THE SHAWNEE NEWS-STARCovering the Tri-County Area Since 1894

$1.50

PARADE, Page 5A

STATE BRIEFS

COMING IN PRINT

• Holiday eventsLook in future papers for coverage of the Christmas Parade

Note: An in-depth look at the life and work of News-Star photographer Ed Blochowiak and the impact his career has made on the community.

By Vicky O. MisaVicky.misa@news-star.comTwitter: @Vicky_NewsStar

As the old newspaper adage says, a picture is worth 1,000 words. If that proves true, longtime pho-tographer Ed Blochowiak’s work has done an astounding amount of talking.

While he allows his work to do most of the speaking, he isn’t opposed to the occasional smart remark.

Perplexed that he’s so often asked how to spell his name, he simply spells out E, D.

For ve decades Ed, 65, has gathered visual information, capturing the essence of the community where he was born and raised.

For nearly all of those years he’s done it for the Shawnee News-Star. In fact, while work-ing in Tom Coffey’s drugstore as a teenager, Ed said he often took photos for the daily — un-til he went into the military a year after high school.

But four years later, Nov. 19, 1973 — just six days out of the air force — Ed entered into his new role as a profes-sional photographer, just like he predicted he would. He said he had told the folks at the paper they needed to hire him — and he bugged them until they did.

Ed said he liked seeing his work printed in the daily.

His love for photography started in his teens, he said, and — though he worked on

the yearbook staff in school — most everything he has learned about photography has been trial-and-error through his own experience.

He apparently was an ex-cellent teacher and student, as evidenced by the countless awards he’s won.

His photographs have earned him three Photo of the Year designations — two from the Oklahoma Press Association and one from the Associated Press. He also has been merited with more than two dozen rst-place awards as well as a bunch of others, he said — more than 100 from various contests — as well as being inducted into the Jour-nalism Hall of Fame in 2014.

If the number of awards isn’t convincing enough to believe the man has mastered his art, his range of subject matter will. Whether it’s catching a trail of slobber slinging from an agitated bull’s mouth or a rider’s abnormal posture while being ung through the air, Ed’s summer shots of the International Finals Youth Rodeo (IFYR) are an annual favorite. He said rodeo events are among his most challeng-ing subjects.

The action doesn’t stop there. Ed has been on scene to capture countless res blazing out of control and he’s been up front and center during foot-ball plays so intense that he’s actually been mowed down on the sidelines.

During his tenure, he said the Shawnee Wolves high school football team has won the state championship three times.

“I got to shoot it twice — once in 1973, then again in 2003,” he said.

Some of his favorite events to shoot have been police-related incidents and res, and anything to do with ying, Ed said.

“As part of the job, I’ve gotten to ride in a B-17 Bomber twice; an AWACS from Tinker Air

CAREER, Page 5A

RELATED

PHOTOS,

PAGES 2 & 4

More than 80,000 without power

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — More than 80,000 elec-tric customers are without power in Oklahoma as a slow-moving storm brings ice, sleet and wintry precipi-tation to the state.

Oklahoma Gas & Electric reported more than 75,000 outages about 5 p.m. Satur-day, with more than 26,000 in Oklahoma City and about 15,000 more outages in sub-urbs of the metro area.

Public Service Company of Oklahoma had more than 5,000 outages in southwest-ern Oklahoma. More than 1,500 outages were in Caddo County, more than 1,200 in Washita County and about 1,000 were in Grady County.

The National Weather Service said an ice storm warning would remain in effect in central Oklahoma until noon Sunday and a winter weather advisory is in effect until noon Sunday for the remainder of the western half of the state. A ood warning is in effect

until 11:15 a.m. Sunday for southeastern Oklahoma.

Refugee director says pause admitting Syrians

TULSA, Okla. (AP) — The director of resettling refugees in eastern Okla-homa says the United States should pause the admission of Syrian refugees until the government can ensure the safety of Americans.

Deacon Kevin Sartorius of Catholic Charities in the Diocese of Tulsa said that it’s the government’s job to keep citizens safe. Sartorius said that after a safe way of accepting Syrian refugees is established, some should be accepted into the U.S.

He told the Tulsa World that Catholic Charities brings refugees to Tulsa to reunite with family already in the community.

Concern about Syrian refugees jumped following deadly terrorist attacks in Paris.

Catholic Charities in the Diocese of Tulsa and in the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City are the two agencies in Oklahoma that work to re-settle refugees in the state.

Blochowiak

11292015 A01.indd A1 11/29/15 12:05:10 AM

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16 The Oklahoma Publisher // December 2015

Thank you for continued support of “Share The Warmth”Read the Winning Columns & Editorials on the OPA website:

www.OkPress.com (Under Contests)

Enter and Win a $100 Check

from Oklahoma Natural Gas!

The October Oklahoma Natural Gas Column and Editorial Contest was

judged by a member of the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame.

1. Each month, send a tear sheet or photocopy of your best column and/or editorial to Oklahoma Natural Gas Contest, c/o OPA, 3601 N. Lincoln Blvd., Oklahoma City, OK 73105-5499.

2. Include the author’s name, name of publication, date of publication and category entered (column or editorial).

3. Only ONE editorial and/or ONE column per writer per month will be accepted.

4. All entries for the previous month must be at the OPA office by the 15th of the current month.

5. Winning entries will be reproduced on the OPA website at www.OkPress.com.

Entries must have been previously published in print. Contest open to

all OPA member newspapers.

Although Oklahoma Natural Gas Company selects representative contest winners’ work for use in this monthly ad, the views expressed in winning columns and editorials are those of the writers and don’t necessarily reflect the Company’s opinions.

The Newseum Institute™’s latest State of the First Amendment national survey, published on July 4, showed that 70% of respondents dis-agreed with the statement that “overall, the news media tries to report the news without bias.”

Is the Oologah Lake Leader biased?

Of course, and that’s what you expect of us.

We’re biased in favor of our community. We’re advocates for the students, adults and senior citi-zens who live in Oologah, Talala and northwest Rogers County.

We’re biased in favor of open government, whether it be the local school board or the state legislature.

We’re biased in favor of listening to a variety of opinions on local, state and national issues.

We’re biased in favor of victims, and strive for a law enforcement and justice system that is fair and effective.

We’re biased in favor of local young people, and will gladly report sporting events from a Mustang fan’s point of view.

We’re biased in favor of quality education and give thanks every day for our outstanding educa-tors who work with our children.

We’re biased in favor of our local businesses that

provide jobs and tax revenues to keep our com-munity economically healthy.

We’re biased in favor of our local churches, which offer a range of worship styles and theologies but come together in community service.

We’re biased in favor of lovers who are success-fully married for 25, 50 or 60 years.

We’re biased in favor of Oologah Lake, local scenery, and wildlife that make a drive into town a delight.

We’re biased in favor of Will Rogers, our local hero.

For 33 years, the Leader has been an advocate for this community.

The Leader began as a black and white newspa-per that distributed about 800 copies.

Now, the Leader has color pages, special sec-tions and more than three times the distribution. Most copies reach more than one reader. The tattered one on top of the stack in the local store has probably been borrowed and read by a dozen people.

In addition, readers looked at 34,072 pages online at Oologah.net in September.

Our Facebook reach last week was 11,482.

Our methods of communication have expanded, but we’re still biased in favor of you.

OCTOBER 2015 EDITORIAL WINNER

FAITH WYLIE, Oologah Lake Leader

Are we biased? You bet!

OKLAHOMA NATURAL GAS CONTEST WINNERS

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE OCTOBER 2015 WINNERSOctober Column: BRIAN BLANSETT, Tri-County HeraldOctober Editorial: FAITH WYLIE, Oologah Lake Leader