I will start by saying thank you to all of you that have been free with kind words of encouragement.  Sometimes when I sit down to write, I do not have a clue as to where I am going, those are usually the ones that I have to re-write several times before they are presentable to my editor.  Thank you everyone!

     The Ryan High School cross country team competed at the Sulphur cross country meet.  Lilybet Harmon came away with another individual win and the Ryan High Cowgirls brought home a team win with five young ladies finishing in the top ten and the final team member finishing in the top twenty-five.  The boys team also show improvement and shave time consistently.  When you see them, give each of them a pat on the back for all of their hard work.

  Two Cowgirl softball players, Samantha Good and Brooklyn Charmussen,  got to compete in the Southern Eight All Conference game on Monday night at Waurika.  Each made the team based on years of hard work and competition.  Congratulations to both of you.  It has been a pleasure to watch you play.

  Thursday evening at the Ryan High School cafeteria, the Future Farmers of America chapter will be having their annual labor auction.  I do not know if they sell by the pound or by the head but I am sure either way you will get a bargain.  Besides selling the youngsters, their will also be a live auction for baked goods, not sure yet who will be the auctioneer for this portion of the evening.  There will also be an auction for items made by the students, this will be a silent auction and I am given to understand that Marcel Marceau will be on duty doing his part trying to raise funds for the Ryan Future Farmers of America.

  Plans for this years “Christmas On the Trail” festival are coming along nicely.  They are still looking for street vendors, so if you or someone that you know are interested in setting up a booth this year, call us at the Beaver Creek Mercantile or at The Local.  You can also go on Facebook and like our page “Christmas On the Trail, downtown Ryan, Oklahoma” and we can give you all the information that you need to get started.

  This last Saturday, my brother Scott, Bill Griffin and myself went to Nocona, Tx  and toured the Horton Car Museum. If you like old cars (lets face it who doesn’t?) this trip is well worth the time and the door fee to get to see all of the cars that they have on display.  They have more Corvettes than I have ever seen in one place.  There are also Camaros and Cudas, station wagons and pickups, and a couple of Packards that boggle the mind, but if they were to offer me any car in their collection, I would now be driving a cream yellow 1951 Buick Roadmaster……..  Sorry about that but I had to stop for 3 min. and 24 sec. to listen to Mr. Bob Seger sing about “A Ship of Fools”, without a doubt an under rated classic, anyway the man working at the museum that day told us that the 130 cars on display were not the total collection.  They have other cars stored in a warehouse and they sometimes swap cars out, so its possible to go there multiple times and not see the same cars every time.

The Ryan High School football homecoming game held a lot of excitement for anyone that braved the swarms of mosquitoes that don’t yet realize that according to the calendar it is supposed to be fall.  The Ryan Cowboys came out on top in a hard fought ballgame against the Caddo Bruins with a final score of 30-20.  With all the penalty flags that were thrown and the injury timeouts, the game took longer than normal.  At halftime the homecoming queen was coronated.  I am sure is was a difficult task to pick one out of the seven young ladies that were vying for the crown, but Lily York was chosen and crowned by her escort.  Ms. York and several other young ladies have served this football season as water persons/equipment managers for the team.  During the second half, Lily did her job of handing out water to the thirsty and fetching ice for the injured, all the while wearing a tiara.

     The Ryan Jr. High School softball team won their final game this season against Geronimo.  Well done young ladies.

     Ryan Cowgirls are the 2019 Chick-fil-A North Rock Creek High School Girls Cross Country champions.  This group of young athletes have put Ryan Cross Country in front of everyone in the state and made them set up and take notice.  Most of the time they were competing against much larger schools and the team can stand proud of the job they have done.

     Put October 10th on your calendar.  The Ryan Future Farmers of America are holding their labor auction at 6:30 pm at the high school cafeteria.  Finger food will be available and a dessert auction will follow.  Come out and support the FFA chapter and get something good to eat.

     This week Christmas On the Trail started selling sponsor spots on the commemorative t-shirts that will be sold to help pay for this years festivities.  If you are interested you can make contact through the Facebook page by the same name or contact us at either The Beaver Creek Mercantile or at The Local.

     This really isn’t a plug for the store at which I work.  The truth is that I spend more time at the Mercantile than I do at any other single place, so if anything of interest is to happen then most likely that is where it will happen.  Case in point, just the other day, two fellows came in and after we all said our howdies, one of the gents said “we aren’t from around here”.  This was obvious even to me, but it’s possible that he thought that I might not be the sharpest tool in the shed.  People usually have to get to known me before they come to that conclusion.  Turns out these visitors call Perth, Western Australia home.  Peter and Colin are taking their month long holiday to travel across the United States, roughly following Route 66.  Occasionally something will catch their attention and off they go on a side trip.  On arriving in Texas, they decided that they wanted to see Dallas.  It was on their return trip north that they found themselves in beautiful downtown Ryan, Oklahoma.  Colin was documenting the trip by taking photos with his phone and both were more than able to hold their own in the storytelling department.  Peter brought with him 12 new caps, one for each state that they would be traveling through and at some point he would trade with someone in each state.  There is now as we speak, a Beaver Creek Mercantile cap being worn in Perth, Western Australia.  We also have a cap with a kangaroo on the front on display in the store.