DIANA REED
Correspondent
Are you ready for some football? Well, I was, so I attended the season opener for the Stroud Middle School 6th and 7th grade football team. They beat North Rock Creek 26-6 with Tigers Bobby Mitchell, Lane Day and Gideon Smalley all scoring touchdowns and Trenton Stewart scoring a two-point conversion. The game took a little longer than expected due to three lightning delays. The 8th grade footballers took the field immediately after and captured a win after being behind six points with only two minutes left to play. Devin Murfin returned a punt to score the first touchdown of the game with Peyton Moody making the two-point conversion. Peyton threw a pass to his twin brother, Parker, to tie the game with Peyton scoring the two-point conversion for the win. Doesn’t get much more exciting than that! Congratulations on starting off the season with wins. Football is all about “teamwork” and it takes all team members to make this happen.
The Stroud High School football team takes the field for their first game of the season this Friday night. The Tigers will be playing Chandler Lions in a non-district game at Chandler. Game time is 7:00 p.m. Let’s head over to Chandler and cheer our Tigers to victory.
Stroud Alumni Association Facebook page posted that Stroud alum Christine (Chris) Ford had passed away. A memorial reception was held for her on August 10th in Denver, Colorado. Chris was the daughter of long-time Stroud residents, the late Ed and Doris Ford. She graduated with the class of 1961. Ed and his brother Cecil owned and operated the Ford car dealership in Stroud. It was in the building on Main Street that is currently occupied by Newnam Feed and Supply.
I was also informed that Stroud alum Sammy Hodge died this past Monday. Sammy was a 1970 graduate of Stroud High School. He was the son of the late William and Tochie Hodges. His brothers, all Stroud graduates, were Billy, Lucian, Larry and Steve. With Sammy’s passing, Steve is the only surviving brother. They were all older than I, but I remember them well. Town Talk offers its condolences to the families of Chris and Sammy.
At Putt Putt’s grand opening in June, we served free hot dogs cooked on a Weber charcoal grill that I brought from home. It had been in Stroud for a while because Town Talk had sold hot dogs at our movie night. After the grand opening I left the grill at the mini-golf course inside our $7,000 fence so that we would have it available for other events. When I went to open the golf course Saturday night, the grill was missing. The only conclusion to be drawn is that someone got inside our fence and helped themselves to our charcoaler. It is so frustrating to work to do things to help our community just to have things stolen from us. If you see anyone hanging around Putt Putt Kicks on Route 66 when it is not open, please contact the police. We must watch out for each other and report suspicious activity. If you have any information regarding this situation, please contact me at 918-527-9833.
The new owners of the home that belonged to the late Lavon and Carlos Ward found some family mementos in their attic and contacted me to see if I could get them to family members. I took the boxes to Sammy, Carlos’ brother, and his wife Marie. They went through the boxes to see if they could find some family treasures. They did happen to run across Sammy’s kindergarten graduation program which took place on May 22, 1956, at C.B. Wright Auditorium. Kris Ann Russell, Bobbie Mashburn and Mack Coffman sang “My Country ‘Tis of Thee.” Later in the program Brenda and Linda Vickrey entertained the audience with “finger rhymes”. The Salutatorian of the class was Brenda Martin and Stroud’s very own Town Talk volunteer, David Evans, was the class Valedictorian. We could find out all kinds of interesting facts about our friends and neighbors if we’d just dust off the boxes of newspaper clippings we have sitting in our attics.
Coming back from Arkansas last week I stopped at the visitor’s center on I-40 just inside the Oklahoma border to stretch my legs. While flipping through the Oklahoma magazine for tourists a picture of the carved tree outside of Stroud’s True Value caught my eye. Gary and Monica Babinec, owners of the store, had chainsaw artist Clayton Coss do that carving and it is a “selfie stop” for tourists. Even though the picture’s caption didn’t mention exactly where it was located, it did tell travelers it was on Main Street in Stroud, OK. It’s so eye catching I don’t think anyone would have trouble finding it. Our merchants not only have a great selection of items in their stores, but they also have some interesting things outside as well. The weather is beginning to cool so it’s about time to take another stroll down Main Street, see the veterans’ banners and step inside one of our local shops to see what they have waiting for you. As always, thanks for choosing to shop local……………first!