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GREAT NEWS! The New Leash on Life Prison Pen Pals Program director, Barbara Lewis, chose four Holdenville Animal Shelter Dogs to participate in its training program at our local prison! Riley, Chrissy, Minnie and Rosa started a ten-week program beginning on March 22, 2023 at 11:00am. Gabriel Sears, our ACO, and other three others took the dogs to the prison that morning. Collared shirts with long sleeves, long pants, closed toe shoes are required to enter the prison with only your driver’s license. No cell phones, purses, etc. will be allowed behind the walls. They will hand off the dogs to their inmate who will then spend the next ten weeks training them. After two weeks Holdenville Animal Shelter was able to take one more dog to the prison to replace one that did not fit the program. Gracie was the fifth dog from Holdenville to attend! HALO recently got a report from Barbara Lewis who runs the program that the STAR PUPIL in the program was Holdenville’s own CHRISSY! She said she is up a ready every morning asking, “what can I learn today!” We are so proud of our doggy students!

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On the afternoon of April 18th, 2023 at approximately 2:47PM, the Holdenville Police Department along with the Hughes County Sheriff’s Office responded to 214 S. Gulf St in Holdenville, OK for a report of a male subject with a gunshot wound. Officers and Deputies arrived on scene and found a male subject on the ground with a single shotgun wound to the abdomen and another man in the yard who stated to officers that he was the one who called 911 and was also the shooter. Hughes County Deputies detained the man while Holdenville Firefighters arrived on scene to render first aid response to the gunshot victim until Hughes County EMS arrived on scene. The victim was transported by ambulance to Holdenville General Hospital where he was then transferred by helicopter to a trauma center in OKC.

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The new City Council was sworn in last Tuesday at the City of Holdenville’s first meeting under the new city manager form of government. Local Attorney Ryan Pitts swore in Ron Thetford (Ward 1), Tony Wulf (Ward 2), Mike Dockrey (Ward 3), Don Merriman (Ward 4), and Lori Babb (At Large) to begin the meeting.

HOLDENVILLEKnowledge Matters, an eDynamic Learning company, and the leading provider of career-based simulations for high schools and colleges, announced today that 47,830 students from the U.S. and around the world participated in the DECA/Knowledge Matters Virtual Business Challenge simulation competition. One hundred and twenty-eight qualifying student teams will now compete at the DECA International Career Development Conference (ICDC) from April 22 through 25 in Orlando, Florida. Students will be participating in one of eight different Virtual Business simulation career tracks hoping to earn a first, second, or third place ranking, and a scholarship.

Conditions have become so dangerous at the Hughes County jail that the newly elected district attorney said it is no longer safe for detention officers or detainees and should be shut down. Jail officials failed to address violations revealed in seven health department inspections since 2019.