About 55 visitors attended the open house and honorarium at McLoud Historical Society Museum and Heritage Center on Friday, July 23.

State Rep. Kris Steele, current House Speaker Designate and future Speaker of the House, hopes to implement a change that will require a 24-hour grace period between a bill leaving a conference committed and being voted on by the full House of Representatives.

A sinkhole that was discovered Monday in an alleyway on the north side of the 400 block of East Main has been repaired after the cause of the collapse was determined.

As most of the city of Shawnee’s non-union employees prepare for an unpaid three-day weekend, city officials have posted notices at City Hall that all offices there will be closed Friday, July 30.

Final unofficial results from state elections held on July 27, 2010.

Final unofficial results from Pottawatomie, Seminole and Lincoln County elections.  Numbers will be finalized on Friday.

Tri-County voters will help decide a number of political contests in today’s primary at the city, county, state and federal levels.
In-person absentee voting, which began Friday at the election boards in the county courthouses in Pottawatomie, Lincoln and Seminole Counties continued Saturday and Monday.
Diana Knight, Pottwatomie County Election Board Secretary, said Monday evening that 499 persons had voted in the 2 1/2 days of in-person absentee voting.

More than 400 citizens showed their support for local and area boys and girls by attending the Salvation Army Women’s Auxiliary’s bean supper, their annual fundraiser for the Boys and Girls Club “Back To School Basics.”

The Prague FFA will host the Red Devil Classic Cook-out beginning at 7 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 14.

The auctioning of Shawnee Mall, which had been rescheduled several times with the most-recent date set for July 26, was called off, and Scott Kingrey, mall manager, said he wasn’t sure why the cancelation was made.

Shawnee utility crews once again found themselves looking for the cause of a sinkhole in a downtown portion of the city Monday after an Allied Waste truck became stuck in a sunken area of an alleyway near East Main.
“Allied discovered a sinkhole for us,” Randy Brock, utility operations manager, said early Monday evening.

Tri-County voters will help decide a number of political contests in Tuesday’s primary at the city, county, state and federal levels.
In-person absentee voting, which began Friday at the election boards in the county courthouses in Pottawatomie, Lincoln and Seminole Counties and continued Saturday from 8 until noon, will resume on Monday. In Shawnee, the county election board will be open 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Voters must go to their respective precincts on Tuesday to vote, and polling places will be open from 7 a.m. through 7 p.m. in all three counties and statewide as well.

Voters in Seminole County head to the polls Tuesday to decide primary races for county officers.

The following are running for state offices in the July 27 primary election.

Lincoln County voters will go to the polls Tuesday to decide party nominees in races for sheriff, county commissioner and state and federal races. They also will help decide the non-partisan district judge contest.

Shawnee voters passed a bond issue in 1987 that included several projects. Among them was the widening of Kickapoo Street, which is the last of the projects to be completed. Deliveries of about 6,200 feet of plastic pipes that will be installed by contractors B&H Construction of Goldsby began arriving Thursday in Shawnee. The pipe will replace older Oklahoma Natural Gas lines — many of which are metal.

It’s Oklahoma. It’s summertime. And it’s hot — a bit hotter than normal for this time in July.
“It’s pretty typical but a little above normal,” Daryl Williams, National Weather Service meteorologist, said. “There’s no relief in sight, at least not for the next few days.”

Shawnee city commissioners, who said they could understand frustrations felt by citizens regarding delayed storm debris removal near Shawnee Twin Lakes, pushed ahead the process by awarding a contract to the lowest of five bidders prior to further review of those bids.

The Shawnee Regional Airport hosted a number of activities recently, including a 10-day Civil Air Patrol National Flight Academy and the annual Aviation Breakfast Fly-In.
Of about 235 CAP academy students this year, 16 took their first solo flights, Rex Hennen, assistant airport manager, said.

As resurfacing work ends on Wallace Street in Shawnee, other roadway projects are beginning, including the repaving of an area of Beard Street, which started Wednesday morning.
John Krywicki, Shawnee city engineer, said the Beard Street project, although in the city limits, is being funded by the Citizen Potawatomi Nation.