Comanche Times wins awards at OPA convention

June 16, 2022
OPA President John Denny Montgomery inducts Todd Brooks into the OPA Quarter Century Club in recognition of his many years of service to the newspaper industry. OPA President John Denny Montgomery inducts Todd Brooks into the OPA Quarter Century Club in recognition of his many years of service to the newspaper industry.

The Oklahoma Press Association presented its 2021 Better Newspaper Contest Awards during the OPA Annual Convention, June 10-11, at the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Oklahoma City.

Todd Brooks, owner and publisher of The Comanche Times, won five awards. He was also one of six newspaper veterans inducted into the OPA Quarter Century Club, an honorary club for those with at least 25 years of newspaper experience.

The competition divisions were based on city populations. The Comanche Times competed in Division 8, the division for newspapers with less than 2,000 residents.

Brooks won first place in the Sports Story and Features Story categories.

His piece titled, “Remembering Britny: Miller switches number in memory of cousin,” was about the heartache of Comanche High School basketball player Gracee Miller. She switched her jersey number in memory of her cousin Britny Henderson of Kingston, who was killed in a car accident a few months before the basketball season started. It won first place in the Sports Story category.

It was the third straight year that Brooks won the Sports Story category. He won in the 2019 competition with a story about former Comanche High School basketball player Misty Dossey playing her first year of college basketball. In 2020 he won with a story about Comanche football scrambling to find a last-minute opponent for homecoming after the originally scheduled team had to cancel because of COVID protocols.

Brooks won the Feature Story category with the article, “Cowgirl up: Local rancher to appear on reality TV series ‘Ultimate Cowboy Showdown’”. It was the first article he wrote about Katey Jo Gordon, a Comanche area resident, who not only competed on “Ultimate Cowboy Showdown,” but would go on to win the competition.

He also won second place in the Feature Story category with the article, “Breaking the shackles of sin,” about Kale Clinkenbeard of Comanche finding God while in prison and turning his life around.

Brooks won second place in the News Story category with the article, “Who Killed Mary? After 33 years, family still seeks answers to murder”. The story was about the unsolved murder of Mary Morgan Pewitt in Comanche and her family’s efforts to find the killer.

Brooks won third place in the Business Story category with his article, “Library emerges in hair salon,” about how local hair stylist Brenda Lingelbach started collecting books at her Chisholm Trail Family Haircare business and it blossomed into a small community library.

Joining Brooks in the Quarter Century Club were Sheila Gay of the Woodward News, Mark Millsap of The Norman Transcript, Elizabeth Ridenour of The Muskogee Phoenix, Joshua Small of The Johnston County Sentinel and Melissa Small of The Johnston County Sentinel.

Joey Goodman of The Lawton Constitution and James F. Fineup (posthumous) were inducted into the Half Century Club.