Oklahoma

CHEROKEE COUNTY, Oklahoma …rancher was shot to death in his rural home Sunday evening… deputies were called the man's home after a hired hand found Charlie Kirk at about 6 a.m. Monday.…

…One hundred singers from 24 states and several countries had gathered to rehearse for one week and to perform this work at the magnificent St. Patrick’s Chapel at Maynooth University outside of Dublin, Ireland. Our nametags indicated that we were both from Philadelphia. We began to chat and somehow, within a remarkably short time — maybe about one minute — we figured out that we were both from Bartlesville. Then rehearsal began.…"

…Riggs was eight years old when Indian Territory and Oklahoma territory fused in 1907. Riggs’ mother was a Cherokee Indian and Blackburn said many of the songs in “Green Grow the Lilacs,” were Cherokee-inspired folk songs.

…As the rift over Indian Territory grew deeper, another rift developed. Cowboys felt threatened by farmers and the settling of territory, Blackburn said.

“In a way, ‘Green Grow the Lilacs’ and ‘Oklahoma!’ brings you this same story of the wild wild West with the free ranging cowboys who live off their whips, the gun on their hip and a bedroll on their horse. They control their destiny,” Blackburn said. “Suddenly the land is being broken up into these farms with fences that hem you in and keep you tied to the land, because once you farm it, you have to mortgage your land.”…

…[Gary] Linderman ran the Ole Miner Pharmacy, the last business in Picher. He was known as the "last man standing" or "Lights out Linderman."

Customers from miles away visited the pharmacy in the once-booming lead- and zinc-mining town about 20 miles southwest of Joplin, Missouri.

Most residents left after the Environmental Protection Agency declared Picher a federal Superfund site in the 1980s. A 2008 tornado devastated those who remained. The town ceased municipal operations in 2009.…

Even though Bartlesville remained unscathed from the severe storms last week, extreme weather conditions have challenged residents since the city’s founding more than a century ago.

Established in the floodplain of the Caney River, the City of Legends was the scene of regular flooding until upstream dam projects brought the river under control in the late 1940s.

One of the first recorded floods in the town’s history took place in the spring of 1885, when, according to one eyewitness, a “25-foot wall of water” roared down the Caney River.…

[Correction on date of tornado]

Liquor stores could sell refrigerated, high-point beer under legislation approved Wednesday by the Oklahoma House… House members voted 68-21 for the Senate-passed measure, which now goes to a joint House-Senate conference committee where it may undergo major changes before lawmakers seek final passage, said its author, Rep. Glen Mulready, a Tulsa Republican. "There's great demands coming for changes in our liquor laws," Mulready said. He said lawmakers should engage the consumer-driven appetite for convenient access to beer and wine.

The Oklahoma Republican Party ousted its chairman on Saturday despite the party's November election success in increasing its majority control of both chambers of the state Legislature, winning every statewide elected office, all five U.S. House and both U.S. Senate seats.

The party elected former state Sen. Randy Brogdon as its new chairman, replacing Dave Weston. Party spokeswoman Courtney Blossey said Brogdon defeated long-time GOP activist Pam Pollard in a runoff after Weston was earlier eliminated from the race. …

Brogdon thanked Weston for his leadership, and said he does not think the vote was a repudiation of Weston.

"It's not necessarily someone doing a bad job, just people wanted a change," Brogdon said. "I've always been a grass-roots campaigner ... we just had more of our people there."

Brogdon said he wants the party to become more conservative, supporting limited government and individual freedom.

"I want to move the party in the 'right' direction," Brogdon said, meaning that he wants to move it politically to the right, not that it's been going in the wrong direction. …

…At 89 years old, Thibault’s health is failing, and she’s ready to leave her perch not far from the bar, but she would like to see the restaurant continue to serve customers. …hopes to sell The Haunted House to a new proprietor at an auction April 16… “I hope to sell it to someone who loves the restaurant business…. This place has been my life for more than 50 years.” … Thibault and her late husband, Arthur Thibault, opened The Haunted House restaurant in 1964, which then sat not far off the old Route 66 highway….

Could Oklahoma’s archaic and cumbersome liquor laws finally be modernized? It appears public demand for change is generating pressure. And lawmakers may finally tackle this tough issue — but not until next year. …

"An Oklahoma House committee last week passed a bill that would prohibit the state from helping the federal government implement and/or enforce any federal action that 'exceeds the authority of Congress granted in Section 8 of Article I of the Constitution of the United States.'"

"…'Music of Italy' will be the theme for this year’s festival set for June 6-13. The 2015 season, OKM’s 31st consecutive year, which makes it a legendary phenomenon in national music festival history…"

"You may be under the impression that the Wild West ended in the early 1900s. You'd be wrong, according to former rodeo cowboy and lifetime Bartlesville resident, Al Jay Kester. During a recent interview, Kester talked about what it was like in Bartlesville during the 1950s."

[Audio MP3, 3:31]

Bruce “BooBoo” Long, 68, of Bartlesville, passed away suddenly, Thursday, June 26, 2014. … BooBoo always said “Clowns never die, they just parade away.”

Most years, two term Congressman Jim Lankford (R-OK) would be considered a shoe-in to replace retiring Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) as his party's nominee in the upcoming Oklahoma U.S. Senate Republican primary this June 24. With a reliably conservative voting record (Heritage Action Scorecard rates him at 82 percent) and the support of the Washington establishment, Lankford entered the race when Coburn suddenly announced his retirement in January with a 37 point lead in the polls.

But Lankford's top challenger, former Oklahoma House Speaker T.W. Shannon, has made a surprisingly strong challenge, climbing from a huge deficit to run neck-and-neck with Lankford in polls from this spring.

Shannon served as the youngest Speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives ever from 2012 to 2014. While there, he established a strong conservative record as a fiscal hawk, supporting efforts to eliminate the state's debt by selling off unused state assets. He has continued in his Senate campaign to support classic conservative positions.

Shannon's limited government message has garnered the support of a host of national Tea Party groups--including the Senate Conservatives Fund--as well as some high profile Tea Party favorite politicians. Sarah Palin, Mike Lee, and Ted Cruz have all endorsed him.