Looking Back At The Top Stories From 2019

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December 31st, 2019

By News Director Jared Atha and Paul Joseph

As 2019 comes to a close let’s take a look back at the top 5 stories from the past year.

5. Late last summer the Canute School Board approved to bring a $13.5 million dollar bond proposal to the vote of the people. There were two propositions. The first was toward a new event center and the second was for funding going toward transportation needs and school buses.

The first proposition failed receiving only 22% of the vote and the second fared only slightly better receiving just 34% of the vote.

4. Elk City voters approved the CAPPs program in February. CAPPs, which stands for Community Action Project Plans is comparable to Oklahoma City’s successful MAPs programs. CAPPs passed with 64% of voters approving the measure that extended an already established one-cent city sales tax. It includes the possibilities of bringing in, among other things, a new conference center, an AG expo center, a wellness activity center, playgrounds, splash pads and hiking and biking trails.

3. As usual it was a wild spring storm season in Western Oklahoma with tornadoes and floods striking local communities. Flooding damaged the Sayre community park, and also the Elk City Golf and Country Club, and an estimated $800-thousand dollars in damage was done to Custer County roads and bridges.

In early May three tornadoes struck the area. The National Weather Service confirmed that a tornado touched down about 10 miles north of Butler on May 7th was rated as an EF-0. The town of Rocky was hit by a tornado that same night as a mobile home lost it’s roof and other residences suffered from power outages. Storm spotters tracked it as it headed straight north towards Cordell, however, it evaporated just as it entered the southern parts of the Cordell city limits.

Beckham County’s Emergency Management Director Lonnie Risenhoover reported the next day that there was a funnel cloud confirmed in the southern part of Beckham County, but it never became a tornado, however he said there was a confirmed tornado that left Harmon County at dusk and entered Beckham County.

There were no injuries reported.

2. In April a fire claimed the life of three Elk City residents. The afternoon blaze consumed and totaled a mobile home in the Cedar Village Mobile Home Park on the city’s southwest side.

The homeowner said he awoke and noticed smoke in his bedroom. When he went to check on others down the hall, his daughter, her common-law husband and their 2-1/2 year-old child, he told Paragon News that the doorknob burned his hand. When he opened it, the blaze knocked him back. The homeowner was able to escape the blaze that totally destroyed the home.

Witnesses says they saw a man exit the mobile home, but may have gone back inside.

1. A former Sweetwater science teacher and coach was sentenced to serve jail time earlier this month after pleading no contest to five charges involving sexual conduct with two students when he was a teacher.

30-Year-old Cameron David Gladd received 15 years in the Department of Corrections to serve 9 years on charges of rape by instrumentation and two counts of forcible oral sodomy. Gladd was also sentenced to five years in the DOC for one count soliciting sexual conduct or communication with a minor by use of technology and one count of sexual battery. Because of the nature of his crimes, Gladd will be required to serve 85% of his sentence and register as a sex offender following his release from prison. Gladd’s sentences will run concurrently.

Gladd plead no contest to rape by instrumentation and soliciting sexual conduct or communication with a minor by use of technology, two counts of forcible oral sodomy and one count of sexual battery. Dismissed were the felonies of violation of an Oklahoma statute of using a computer and two counts of sexual battery.

According to a probable cause affidavit, Gladd participated in inappropriate text messages with a 17-year-old student and then met the student, privately, on at least three occasions. At least one sexual incident happened at school, according to the court document.