The Pioneer Woman Mercantile has meant more attention being focused on the city of Pawhuska. In the state of Oklahoma, news networks out of Tulsa and Oklahoma City have covered the Osage County area extensively, but Executive Director for the Pawhuska Chamber of Commerce, Joni Nash says a television station out of Lawton recently did a feature on Pawhuska. Nash says it is small things like this that will help the city grow even more.
Nash sends things like this to the film company who is shooting, “Killers of the Flower Moon.” She says it does nothing but excite them that they are getting to come here later this year. As long as everything goes according to plan, film crews hope to begin shooting the movie in May. Barnsdall and Pawhuska enter Friday night's contest heading in opposite directions. The Panthers have won five of their last six ballgames while the Huskies have dropped four of their last six. Pawhuska won the first battle between the two Osage County teams, getting a convincing 71-35 homecoming victory before the Christmas holiday.
Pawhuska coach Jake Christenson says his team has had trouble getting excited to play games recently. He doesn't expect the Huskiesto have that issue Friday night. The Panthers now sit at 10-10 on the year and coach Wade Corder knows his team has turned a corner from when the season first started. Friday night's game in Barnsdall can be heard on Sportstalk KPGM FM 99.1. Pregame coverage will start at 7:50 p.m. Pawhuska has hired a full-time police chief to lead the city.
Nicholas Mahoney was hired on Tuesday to replace Nick Silva, who had been fired in January by City Manager Dave Neely. Mahoney most recently worked as a Lieutenant with the Muskogee County Sheriff’s Office. Prior to that, he worked with the Wagoner County Sheriff’s Office and also spent time working with Tulsa Public Schools, totaling 15 years of law enforcement experience. Neely said he has known Mahoney for more than 12 years and Neely expects him to do great things for the city. Mahoney looks forward to working with the residents of Pawhuska and making the city better. Drugs have been a major problem facing the city of Pawhuska, but Mahoney knows there is more to work on than just that. Lorrie Hennesy had been serving as the Interim Police Chief. She has now been appointed to Mahoney’s assistant police chief. Hennesy continues to serve as the school resource officer as well. Neely also announced that Kenneth Freeman will be the new EMS Director for the city of Pawhuska. Freeman had been working full-time with Bartlesville EMS. Freeman will be working on a part-time basis with both jobs until he moves to Pawhuska The Pawhuska City Council met Tuesday evening and Barbara Albritton with the Indian Nations Council of Governments let the council members know they were eligible for a community development block grant. Albritton first spoke on how Pawhuskabecame eligible for the grant and what it is.
The council has went about getting this grant in the past, but have been denied. They spent time hashing out ideas on where the money would be best spent, but decided it would be best used on attempting to get a new one million gallon water tank. The council hopes to get this new tank and then make repairs to the existing tank as well. This grant is made possible on a yearly basis by the Oklahoma Department of Commerce. Also at Tuesday's meeting, they approved the Pioneer Woman Mercantile to block off streets in downtown Pawhuska and sell alcoholic beverages during the July 4th festivities. City Manager Dave Neely said sales tax for the city is up six percent. Residents living outside the city limits will now pay the same water, sewer and electric rates as residents living inside the city limits. Sanitation rates will increase. They have increased since the contract was signed five years ago, but the council said they will evaluate that contract this fall. The next regularly scheduled Pawhuska City Council meeting will be Tuesday, March 10th at 5:30 in the evening. There will be a runoff election for the Councilman at Large Seat in the City of Pawhuska.
Steve Tolson garnered 47.9 percent of the vote and the incumbent, Rodger Milleson, garnered 25.1 percent of the vote. Amber Nash and Byron Cowan combined to get the remaining 27 percent. The top two vote-getters, Tolson and Milleson, will have that runoff election in April. There were 426 total votes cast. Voters in Wynona also voted in favor of a proposition to use $450,000 of bond money to make improvements to the Wynona School District. That measure passed with 52 votes for the proposal and 33 against it. At Monday evening's school board meeting in Pawhuska, Jodi Culver was honored for being the spotlight teacher of the year. Superintendent David Cash says she is a long time teacher at Pawhuska and as a result has the respect of her peers.
(Photo Courtesy of Pawhuska Public Schools Facebook Page.) Pawhuska Schools recently held its second club day at the school and Superintendent David Cash says the students are enjoying the idea. This is an hour where students have the option to take a cooking class, play chess, or any other activities they find interesting. Cash even got out and took part in the fun last week.
Cash says he is glad the students are engaged in so many different activities. Initially, they had planned to have these days once a month, but Cash says the students are enjoying the clubs so much they might begin doing it every three weeks. The Pawhuska School Board met for a regularly scheduled meeting at the Administration Building Monday evening and got a number of things accomplished.
The board honored junior high teacher Jodi Culver for being the spotlight teacher of the year. Superintendent David Cash said Culver does a great job encouraging her students to be the best they can. Assistant Superintendent Beverly Moore, along with Cash, got their contracts renewed for the 2020-2021 school year. The school board accepted the 2018-2019 financial audit, which was presented by Sanders, Bledsoe and Hewett. This is a yearly audit the board is presented with. The board approved NASA students to have an Indian Taco Fundraiser this coming Saturday at Wakon Iron. They also approved the treasurer’s report and the student activity fund account. The next regularly scheduled Pawhuska School Board meeting will be Monday, March 9th at 5:30 in the evening. The Pawhuska City Council will meet for a regularly scheduled meeting at City Hall Tuesday evening to discuss a wide array of topics.
There will first be possible action regarding holding a public hearing for a Community Development Block Grant application. If passes, there would then be action to adopt a citizen participation plan. The council would then begin selecting a project for the 2020 CDBG application. If approved, the council would then adopt a resolution and authorize the mayor to execute the application documents. There will then be possible action taken to grant permission for the Pioneer Woman Mercantile to block off streets in Pawhuska and sell alcoholic beverages during the July 4th festivities. The meeting begins at 5:30 in the evening for those interested in attending. All three Board of Osage County Commissioners know it is important they find a way to re-furbish the current or get a new courthouse in Pawhuska. District Two Commissioner Kevin Paslay wants to see an annex built in Skiatook so that his constituents in the southern part of the county won't have to drive to Pawhuska to pay for minor traffic violations and the like. He said maintenance and utilities costs are $130,000 annually for the courthouse, district attorney's office and others. Paslay says there is no reason they can't combine all of these offices into one. Paslay said the time to vote on this measure is now and he believes it could be on a ballot in late June.
Paslay acknowledged that he didn't want to tear the current courthouse down. He suggested it could be used as a museum and welcomed input from others at the meeting as well. Paslay added that he is handing out a petition for those showing interest in the new courthouse and annex in Skiatook. District One Commissioner Randall Jones and District Three Commissioner Darren McKinney were both concerned about how they would go about funding the project, especially if it were to come out of the health department's budget like Paslay mentioned. Residents of Osage County have voted on the idea of getting a new courthouse down three times. Jones said he believes there are more pressing issues that they can use with the money and this is one reason he believes it would fail a fourth time. McKinney agreed that there were other things the county needed to work on at the time, but Paslay concluded by saying this is the right time to vote on the measure. The commissioners will consider forming a committee next week to conduct town halls to gauge the interest of the residents for this proposal. |
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