In our first part of the 2024 year in review, we looked at the first four months.

The second part starts with some of that always-eventful spring weather and includes headlines from sports to school staffing to city government and much, much, much more...

May

Confirmed tornadoes touched down in the northwest and northern parts of Kingfisher County in the early afternoon of Monday, May 6, and into the early morning hours of May 7. Damage did not appear to be extensive from the storms.

A celebration was held at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Okarche to commemorate it being added to the National Register of Historic Places. St. John’s current building was dedicated on June 11, 1922.

David Catron quietly retired from the Kingfisher Police Department after nearly 30 years. He was in his fifth year as the chief. Assistant Chief Travis Gray was named the interim chief.

Chisholm Trail Technology Center broke ground on a new 15,000 square foot facility on the campus’ east side. Once complete, the facility will house CTTC’s growing welding program on one end and a new electrical trades program on the other. It is expected to be completed by August 2025.

Hennessey Mayor Clif Vogt announced his resignation in a May 14 meeting. The resignation would be effective June 30. Vogt was first appointed to the board of trustees in January 2018 and was elected mayor in 2023. He said he and his wife would be moving to be closer to family, prompting the need to resign.

Kingfisher City Commission approved ordinances to increase utility rates for electricity, water and sewer. City Manager Jim Thomas and city commissioners held public meetings the previous month to discuss the potential of the increase with citizens.

The KHS girls track team didn’t claim any gold at the Class 4A state meet....but it was still a record- breaking meet. The 3,200 meter relay team of Lily Lunsford, Kinley Taylor, Mattie Slezickey and Scout Snodgrass finished as the state runner- up. It also ran the race in 9:48.17, breaking the school record it set at the regional earlier in the week. Before that, the record had stood for 22 years. The 1,600 meter relay team of Snodgrass, Taylor, Slezickey and Abbie Myers finished up the meet by taking fourth. That group, however, broke a record that stood for nearly five decades. Their time of 4:04.41 downed the school record of 4:06.6 that had been in place since 1976. Cashion’s Reese Williams became a state champion by winning the 300 hurdles at the Class 2A state meet.

The Cashion baseball team continued its upward trend in recent years, this time by reaching the Class 2A state title game. The Wildcats were defeated by No. 1 Oktaha 15-5 and settled for runner-up. It was Cashion’s first-ever appearance in a baseball state title game.

An altercation in Dover left one man, Ruben Jau, dead with multiple stab wounds. Another man, Jorge Maradiago Cruz, 37, was arrested and jailed on a manslaughter complaint. He was later charged with first degree murder.

Nellie Sanders was unanimously approved by the Oklahoma Senate as the new secretary of education. The 42-0 vote came one day after the Senate Education Committee voted 13-0 to recommend Sanders’ appointment to the full Senate. She was nominated for the position earlier in the year by Governor Kevin Stitt.

Retired educators Elise Morrow and Terri Peck were inducted into the Kingfisher High School Hall of Fame during the school’s commencement exercises.

June

Longtime Cashion football coach D.L. “Dud” Robertson was inducted into the Oklahoma Eight-Man Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame. Robertson was head coach at Cashion for 15 years and was also a part of Lynn Shackelford’s staff at Cashion beginning in 2006.

Lauren Stroh defeated Jessica Conner by a vote of 1,434-1,196 to win the office of Kingfisher County court clerk. The seat opened up when longtime court clerk Lisa Markus announced her retirement effective at the end of 2024.

Mike Sparks won the Republican primary election for the District 2 county commissioner seat by downing Austin Whittenburg 526-196. That earned Sparks the right to face Democrat David Roller in the November general election to fill the seat vacated by the impending retirement of Ray Shimanek.

Jonathan Riedlinger nearly won a four-person race for Kingfisher County sheriff during the Republican primary election. Riedlinger secured 1,321 votes, which was 49.49 percent of the 2,669 votes cast. A candidate needs 50 percent plus one to claim an election, which meant Riedlinger, the current undersheriff, was just 13 votes shy. Hennessey Police Chief Aaron Pitts was second in the primary with 770 votes, putting him in the August runoff against Riedlinger. Forrest Smith garnered 490 votes and Jeremiah Loper got 88.

Arson was suspected in a rash of hay fires in southern Garfield and northern Kingfisher counties. John Peach of Hennessey said he counted 396 of his round hay bales destroyed on his property in northern Kingfisher County. That was at least the eighth fire of the day, according to authorities.

Blaine County Associate District Judge Allison Lafferty ruled at a preliminary hearing that there was insufficient evidence to find probable cause that child neglect had occurred and that the state failed to prove any act by Jeff Myers was willful or malicious in the felony case against him. The ruling came after four people testified at the hearing at the Kingfisher County District Courthouse. Three - Declan Haub, Keaton Abercrombie and Mason Mecklenburg - were former KHS football players under Myers and the fourth, Jason Sternberger, was a superintendent during part of Myers’ tenure as head football coach. The ruling meant the state’s felony case against Myers would not proceed, though Assistant District Attorney Jimmy Bunn said the state would appeal the decision.

As that hearing was happening, the state Board of Education was also meeting and voted to suspend Myers’ teaching certificate. The board will wait until Myers’ criminal case is concluded before further acting on his teaching certificate.

July

As it turned out, the case against Jeff Myers would proceed. District Judge Tom Newby ruled during the state’s appeal hearing that Lafferty ruled incorrectly. “There is sufficient evidence at the preliminary hearing to bind the defendant over. I am directing the magistrate to correct her ruling,” Newby said. Lafferty returned to the bench in August to follow Newby’s order.

Okarche town trustees received the type of audit report that one consultant called “the worst” as it called into question several practices of the police department during that fiscal year. “Due to insufficient internal controls, we were unable to obtain supporting data and other information,” said the audit report, which was prepared by Arledge & Associates of Oklahoma City. “Therefore, we were not able to obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence and misstatements are considered pervasive to the financial statements of the town…” Consequently, the auditors issued a disclaimer of opinion on the town’s financial statements as a whole for Fiscal Year 2022, according to LaDonna Sinning and Kency Duarte, partners at Arledge & Associates who presented the report at the trustees’ meeting Monday night. A disclaimer of opinion is issued by auditors when they’re unable to obtain enough evidence to form an opinion on an entity’s finances. “Disclaimers are not good,” said Frank Crawford with Crawford & Associates. “Let’s not sugarcoat it. They’re the worst.” The auditing firm was soon set to begin its audit of FY23. Sinning told trustees she expected the same type of disclaimer for that audit.

The auditing firm offered a list of 10 “deficiencies” in its audit report and all 10 dealt with the police department. The Okarche Board of Trustees voted in April to fire Police Chief Forrest Smith, who offered a response on all 10 listed deficiencies to the KT&FP. Smith called the audit “compromised” in his response to the KT&FP.

August

City Manager Jim Thomas recommended the “interim” tag be removed from Travis Gray’s title. The city commission followed suit and voted to name Gray the police chief. The move was made after an evaluation period by Thomas since Gray had been named interim chief in May.

Carried by the northern part of the county, Hennessey Police Chief Aaron Pitts was elected sheriff of Kingfisher County in the Republican primary runoff election. Pitts defeated current Undersheriff Jonathan Riedlinger 1,157-1,130. Of the 12 precincts, Riedlinger received more votes in eight of them. The four that Pitts carried were all north of the Cimarron River and by large enough margin to carry him to victory. Riedlinger had nearly won the Republican primary in June when he received 49.49 percent of the votes in the four-man race. Pitts was second to earn his spot in the runoff, then did more than close the gap in August. Riedlinger initially stated he planned to seek a recount, but later opted to not seek one. Pitts takes offi ce Jan. 2, 2025, as current Sheriff Dennis Banther is retiring.

Anthony Schwarz won a primary election over Brandi Fuxa 561-311 for the District 3 county commissioner seat. Schwarz was serving in the role on an interim basis since the resignation of Heath Dobrovolny earlier in the year. Schwarz took the oath of office in early September to fill Dobrovolny’s unexpired term.

September

Hennessey Police Department Officer Tyler Baxter resigned from his position. Baxter was being investigated after being accused of shooting a Hennessey family’s pet dog after it had been found and turned in to the department.

In the first of several moves concerning Kingfisher Public Schools’ 2024-25 budget that would garner headlines, the board of education voted 3-1 to approve a $16.2 million estimate of needs at a special meeting on Sept. 13. The estimate of needs was tabled at the previous regular meeting of the board, prompting the special meeting. Brad Wittrock cast the dissenting vote as he remained vigilant in his efforts to have the school district carry the burden of that year’s portion of a $5 million civil suit settlement agreement. Once an estimate of needs is approved by a local school board, it must then go to the county excise board for approval.

After a years-long battle with cancer, KPS Superintendent David Glover passed away in the early morning hours of Sept. 14, at the age of 65. Glover, a former superintendent at Okarche as well, had been in his role at Kingfisher since June 2022.

The Kingfisher County Excise Board had its first meeting concerning the KPS estimate of needs on Sept. 18. The board voted to table the approval. About 30 citizens attended the meeting. The move was made on the recommendation of John Storm of Storm & Hauser, who serves as an advisor to the excise board. Storm recommended tabling the estimate of needs in order to give citizens time to submit any potential protests to the county clerk.

The excise board met one week later and this time voted unanimously to amend the KPS estimate of needs from $16.2 million to $14.2 million. The amended estimate of needs will eliminate the raising of property taxes for those within the school district to help pay for the year’s portion of the civil suit settlement agreement.

The entire city of Kingfi sher was without running water for about 12 hours on Friday, Sept. 27. A burst chlorine pipe at the city’s water plant north of town submerged the pumps that distribute water to the city under about 20 feet of water. A community effort that included multiple city departments and citizens, worked to temporarily fix the issue until a permanent fix could be made.

October

Kingfisher Board of Education members voted at a special meeting on Oct. 3 to hire Andy Evans as the interim superintendent. The move came just over two weeks after the passing of former Superintendent David Glover. Evans served multiple administrative roles at KPS from 1999 through 2010. He went on to become the superintendent at Mountain View-Gotebo for three years and then Prague for two years before taking on a role with the Oklahoma Public Schools Resource Center. He was there for 10 years.

Cashion was awarded 248.8 points in winning the Class 2A competitive cheer championship in Tulsa. It was a repeat championship for the team, which also won the Game Day state title the year before as well.

Community business leader and child advocate Judy Johnson passed away Oct. 7. She was 79. Johnson was the wife of former local business leader and state senator Mike Johnson, who passed away in 2022.

Former KHS football coach Micah Nall pleaded no contest to his October 2023 felony charges of child abuse and perjury. District Judge Paul Woodward gave Nall a four-year deferred sentence and a $5,000 fine. Nall resigned as a coach at KHS in 2020 after the district’s investigation into his roll in an alleged hazing incident during a football practice. He was later one of four coaches named in a civil suit brought against KPS by Mason Mecklenburg that alleged bullying and hazing within the district. That civil suit prompted a larger investigation by the OSBI, which led to the charges brought against Nall in 2023. Nall earlier in the year had surrendered his state teaching certificate.

A groundbreaking was held in Dover to expand the south end of the campus. The work will include the expansion of the school cafeteria as well as new administrative offices.

KPS filed a petition with the state Supreme Court seeking emergency relief from the county excise board’s previous decision to amend the district’s estimate of needs. The court denied the district’s petition asking it to step in, meaning the district would need to go through other means of litigation in order to pursue relief.

KPS filed a $7 million claim with former insurer Oklahoma Schools Risk Management Trust (OSRMT), which is in its final stages of bankruptcy. The claim is an attempt to recoup at least some of the money spent in a civil lawsuit, which included more than $1.4 million in legal fees. Kingfisher’s original claim with OSRMT after the lawsuit was filed in 2021 was denied. Among the reasons told to Dr. Daniel Craig, the district’s superintendent at the time, was that OSRMT was becoming insolvent. Craig said he was also told by an OSRMT representative that the district’s policy didn’t cover the type of claim being sought.

Several dozen people attended a community discussion regarding the future of the new Kingfisher Fire Department. The discussion was hosted by city officials, who laid out the obstacles facing the new fire department since a sales tax was originally approved to fund it in May 2021. Rising construction costs being among them, it was projected the half-cent sales tax over the life of 10 years would fall well short of fully funding a proper department. Among the ideas floated to citizens at the meeting was potentially calling for an election to extend the sales tax once the current one expires.

Hayden Ryel, 20, of Hennessey, died in an auto accident in Illinois. Ryel was transporting a load to Ohio for a Hennessey-based company for which he worked. Ryel was also in his second year as a volunteer fireman at Dover.

Kingfisher’s Alli Themer and Lomega’s Madisyn Myers were named among the group of Top 10 Freshmen Women at Oklahoma State University. The recognition was for the 2023-24 class. Named among the Top 20 Freshmen Men and Women were Kyle Borelli, Ivy Hartman and Cash Slezickey, all of Kingfisher. Also named Top 10 was Gracie Maschmeier, the granddaughter of Mike and Pam Combs of Kingfisher.

Rains late in the month prevented it from being the driest October in recorded history. However, they didn’t prevent wildfires that ravaged thousands of acres in the eastern portion of the county. At least 10 homes were destroyed in the fires.

November

Former President Donald Trump became the president-elect for the second time when he soundly defeated Joe Biden in the general election. Trump won both the popular and Electoral College votes.

Republican Mike Sparks will be the next District 2 county commissioner after defeating Democrat David Roller 1,483-264. Sparks takes office Jan. 2, 2025, for the retiring Ray Shimanek.

Todd Cameron was named the Technology Leader of the Year at the Oklahoma Society for Technology in Education annual conference in Tulsa. Cameron is the technology director for Hennessey Public Schools.

As hinted at in the community discussion the previous month, the City of Kingfisher called for a special election to extend the half-cent sales tax to help fund a new fire department. The special election will be held Jan. 14, 2025.

The county excise board again had to have a special meeting regarding the KPS estimate of needs. This time it was to act on and submit another estimate of needs to the state after the first was rejected due to “numerous irregularities regarding the comparison of the total general fund levy collection to the line-item budgeted expenditures.” CPA John Storm, who advises the excise board, said the error was how the amendments were physically made to the budget that was submitted to the state for approval. KPS assisted in fixing the amendments, which were approved by the excise board at the meeting. It was also revealed at the meeting that the amended estimate of needs would result in a slightly lower tax levy than the previous year.

December

District Judge Paul Woodward denied Jeff Myers’ motion to quash due to insufficient evidence in the felony case against Myers. The motion was filed by Myers’ attorneys Joe and Kate White in October. Woodward ordered Myers to return to Kingfisher County District Court on Feb. 5, 2025, for a bond appearance.

KPS board members voted at a Dec. 11 special meeting to accept Andy Evans’ recommendation for a reduction in force. The RIF affected 18 current staff members as well as two other positions that were going to be eliminated. The move was made in order for the district to make up for the nearly $2 million budget shortfall as a result of an amended estimate of needs. Evans told the affected employees the previous week of their fates. They were given the option to resign and receive a $2,500 severance. They could also appeal the move. There were no appeals. Those affected worked through the end of the semester.

Kingfisher County Treasurer Robin Rother confi rmed tax bills were mailed Monday, Dec. 16. The tax bills are generally sent out the first week of November, but were delayed until the KPS budget situation was resolved. The taxes are generally due at the end of the calendar year, but Rother said the late mailing lent to a later deadline. The due date is now Jan. 31, 2025.