We hope everyone had a wonderful Happy New Year’s eve. We enjoyed a fun party with our decorated champagne glasses, drinking white grape juice and enjoying delicious snacks. We did a toast to good health. We didn’t make any New year’s Resolutions because we knew we would break them.
We are enjoying some beautiful flower arrangements. A special thanks to Maynell Walker for sharing them with us. Our continued prayers for her and the family of Kenneth. He was a sweet, kind and caring man.
Again, we would like to thank everyone who helped make our Christmas so wonderful from bringing cards, lotions, blankets and visits.
We really appreciate you.
A few more names given to me were FCCLA and Mrs. Bruner, Stacy Dalton, Comanche School for the beautiful cards and Amber Samek for the Arborne lotion and candy canes in the festive socks. Thanks again.
A special thanks to Harold Burden for the large bag of stuffed animals.
We really appreciate Brother Mike and Peggy Bates and Ron Switzer for their faithfulness in coming every Monday for Bible Study and singing. Also to Joyce Garrett of Garrett’s Flower Shop for the beautiful flowers each month for our resident birthdays.
1. How do you feel about your last year? I am super excited to get to move on to bigger things in my life. Although, I am sad that I won’t get to stay a kid with little responsibilities anymore, I am excited.
2. Sum up your school experiences? I enjoyed school, it taught me more than what I thought it could have, and prepared me for a great future.
3. Activities/organizations you have participated in? I have cheered all four years, ran track my fresh. and soph. year, cross country my fresh. and soph. year, powerlifting my freshman year, FFA my fresh., soph and junior year, showed a goat my freshman year, yearbook and FCCLA and basketball my senior year.
4. Plans for the future? I plan on attending a college, cheerleading while I’m there and majoring in English.
5. Favorite memory at WHS? After the Empire football game, Colton and Gatlin dumped the water cooler on me while it was freezing cold outside.
6. What teacher class prepared you? Over the years I have enjoyed all of my English classes and all of the teachers that have helped me love English even more than I already did. I can’t wait to become an English teacher myself.
7. Give advice to an underclassman? Remember to have fun while you can, because high school ends in the blink of an eye.
8. Anyone you want to thank? I want to think my mom and dad for pushing me to be the best I could be. I would also like to think the rest of my family and friends.
9. Do you have a fear about leaving? I do not want to grow up and be an adult. I love high school and I’m afraid to move on past it, although I feel it is not as bad as I make it out to be.
10. Are you going to miss being at WHS? Yes, even though I moved here my senior year everyone has been so great to me and I gained so many friends and I am sad that I did not get to know them longer.
Kristina Torrez, Waurika EMS, speaks to the Waurika teaching staff about dealing with students who are seriously wounded. Leah Newton, from the Jefferson County Hospital, assisted in the presentation. The Waurika Police Dept. and Sheriff’s Office participated in preparing teachers to deal with emergencies.
Rachel Masoner, Waurika High School teacher, learns hot to apply a tourniquet to an open wound with Leah Newton of Jefferson County Hospital.
Ron Howard is more than just a famous actor (Happy Days and the Andy Griffith Show), and a director from Hollywood. He is also related to Waurika’s Elementary Principal, Mrs. Patricia Cook, by marriage.
Cook’s husband Bill is a cousin of Howard. He called during December and said he wanted to visit Duncan and see the hospital where he was born and other places related to his childhood.
The Cooks picked up Howard from the airport and brought him back to their home in Duncan.
They spent an afternoon together.
Cook said Howard is down to earth, very thoughtful and pleasant to talk to.
The world’s oil supply is vanishing, the stock market is plummeting, and the key to saving the future seems to be a baffling historical mystery. Can the NUMA crew crack it in time? ‘Sea of Greed’ is the suspenseful new NUMA Files novels from the #1 New York Times-bestselling master of adventure, Clive Cussler.
After an explosion in the Gulf of Mexico destroys three oil rigs trying to revive a dying field, Kurt Austin and the NUMA Special Projects Team are tapped by the President of the United States to find out what’s gone wrong. The trail leads them to a brilliant billionaire in the alternative energy field. Her goal is the end of the oil age; her company has spent billions developing the worlds’ most advanced fuel-cell systems. But is she an environmental hero…or a rogue genetic engineer?
The NUMA crew discovers that the oil fields are infected with bacteria that are consuming the oil before it can be pumped out of the earth–a bacteria originally lost decades ago when two submarines vanished in the Mediterranean.
With hired killers on his trail, can Kurt Austin locate a submarine that’s remained hidden for more than fifty years? And even if he can, can the biological terror that’s been unleashed be stopped? Check out ‘Sea of Greed’ from the Waurika Public Library.
Christmas may be over but you can still use smile.amazon.com to support the Friends of the Waurika Library when you use Amazon throughout the year. It works just like Amazon with your existing account. When you login, simply choose ‘Friends of the Waurika Public Library’ as the charity you would like to support.
For information about events, activities and more, visit our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/WaurikaPublicLibrary/
Happy New Year to everyone! 2019 started out the year on a pretty cold note with some winds to make it feel even colder. We are in the season of winter, so, this is to be expected. The forecasters are predicting we might get some form of precipitation beginning on Wednesday evening, going over into Thursday, with highs of 34 degrees.
I have had Brionna with me for a good little while and took her back to the Ranch on Sunday after we got out of church. I had a lot of things to tend to at the store and I spent hours there after I got back from taking her. I went back early Monday and picked her up to come back to the store for our last day of business as a drug store. We gave and received a lot of hugs and shed a few tears in the process as we finalized our last day. We have to look forward in our lives when we make decisions that affect our own lives and, also, the lives of so many others, too. I have noticed as time travels along, our bodies and minds can’t take as much as we have grown to be accustomed to. Having an aging parent, a daughter, and a mother-in-law that has just lost her husband of 62 years, and a business that demanded a great deal of my time and efforts, this was what I felt I had to do. I have been blessed with nearly 30 years of business in this town, and Brionna has been a part of it her whole life. She has been part of this business and she has enjoyed being part of it. She hasn’t known any other way of life outside of this drug store. Time will go on and tomorrow’s will come and go, but, we need to be thankful for each day that we’ve been given and look forward to whatever is in store for the future. God has control of the fate of each and every one of us, and, that is comforting to keep in mind.
Kim’s news for this week:
What a wonderful Christmas me, Ruffy Tuffy, and Foxy had. On Christmas Day, Foxy and I went to my Dad’s, and on Christmas Eve I had lunch with Gail and Steve.
A Note from Mollye
For several years, I have made a commitment to Curtis to write an article for ‘Round Ryan News column. I took over writing when my mom’s mind began to fail her. Joyce would call me that she hadn’t gotten Mom’s article, so, there were several occasions that I would write her news for her and nobody ever knew the difference (I don’t think). Mom was at a point that she felt they needed to find another writer for the column, and then, they asked me to write the column. Now, I would like to pass on the invitation to see if there might be another individual from around town that might be willing to take on this task. I have thought of several folks that are connected to the community, but, I will see if maybe someone will come forward to volunteer to keep this column going. If someone out there is interested, please let me or Curtis know. I still plan to be an active part of Ryan, but, I just want to see if someone else might be interested.
Everyone have a Blessed 2019 and ask God to guide us throughout each day of all of our lives. I love you all!
(l-r) Mollye Compton, Brionna Compton, and Lynette Weatherly
They closed the doors on Monday of this week, December 31, 2018.
It’s as much a part of Ryan as City Hall, or the bricks on Washington street.
Ryan Drug has been an essential part of the community since Dewey and Gladys opened the doors on January 1, 1924.
While operating the drug store, Dewey also found time to raise a farm.
The store evokes fond memories for many.
Jon Harris, former Ryan resident and Jefferson county historian, remembers Dewey and Gladys Nash.
“His wife, Gladys, was one of the sweetest, most benevolent humans to visit this earth,” says Harris.
She had been his sixth grade teacher at Ryan.
Dewey Nash and his wife Gladys. (submitted photo)
“I remember him smoking his pipe,” Harris remembered. He also remembered that you could get pipe tobacco in the store.
What Harris really enjoyed was the strawberry ice cream soda you could get at the old soda fountain.
Visiting the Ryan Drug for Harris back in the day was like stepping into a Norman Rockwell painting.
Another one of the former customers remembers seeing Dewey in the store on Saturdays dressed in his dress shirt and slacks kicked back in his recliner watching a ball game.
Harris said both Dewey and Gladys would enjoy their recliners during their later years at the Ryan Drug.
Their son, James Lyle, helped out around the store after he left social work around 1985.
They had two daughters as well. Their names were Kathleen and Juanita.
Juanita is the mother of Mollye Compton, the current owner.
Originally, the store was confined to the building on the east side of the current location. It was actually in just half of the building. The other half belonged to Peggy Baker and her dress and flower shop.
This bench was a gift from Lanette Weatherly, Glenda White and Shirley White. Leman Webber did the engraving.
Mollye’s interest in the Drug store began when she was 9 years old.
That summer Mollye and her twin brother Mel would visit while their mom was working on her master’s degree in special education.
Mollye learned to work at the soda fountain making cherry limeades and salty dogs. A salty dog is shaved ice with a lime squeezed in and topped off with salt. She said there were lots of people who liked the salty dogs including Diane Breeze.
She would follow her grandad around the store. It was during one of those times that it began to dawn on her that she might want to become a pharmacist when she grew up.
This epiphany came to her during a time when she was exploring other interests.
Mollye had been in the band since she was in the seventh grade. This fostered her love for music during the time she was growing up in Denison, Texas.
She graduated from Denison High School in 1978. After graduation she attended Grayson County Junior College for two years and took the pre-requisites for pharmacy school.
She was accepted at Southwestern in Weatherford, Oklahoma.
Mollye earned her pharmacy degree in December of 1987.
This was an opportunity not afforded to Kathleen, Dewey and Gladys’ oldest daughter.
Kathleen was born in 1925. Once she graduated from high school she wanted to become a pharmacist, but her father wouldn’t allow it. He told her, “It’s not a career for a woman.”
Instead Kathleen became a teacher.
Mollye officially began working as a pharmacists for her grandfather on April 1, 1989. At that time Dewey was 90 years old.
She bought the store from her grandad in 1990, just after her daughter, Brionna, was born. Dewey passed away in 1991. It was before he passed that she bought the building the drug store is now in.
“I didn’t think I was going to get to buy it,” she says. She couldn’t get a loan at the time.
One day Jack Savage came in. She said, “I thought, ‘What have I got to lose?’, so I just asked him if he thought his bank would loan me the money.”
Jack asked her how much she thought she would need. She told him and he told her, “Just come and fill out the paperwork.”
Archie Fulton owned the building just to the west. He had bought it from Robert Huff. Birdie and Claude Thorpe originally owned it when it was a movie theater.
The main part of the current store collapsed in 2000 and had to be refurbished. It had to be completely gutted. Ronnie Campeche and Raymond Pollan did the work. It didn’t take them very long she says.
After the remodel, she moved the old soda fountain into the new part. It was nostalgic for customers, especially those who hadn’t been in town for years. Hershel Shoffner was the one who kept the soda fountain in proper working order.
She recently sold the old soda fountain to her nephew Brian Hander who lives in Denison, Texas. He has acquired a building in Denison to show off the fountain along with the memorabilia from Dewey Nash.
Molley has enjoyed the years she has operated the drug store. However, she is ready for the change.
“I just want to slow down,” Mollye says. She is ready for less stress in here life. However, she goes to explain, “You hate to leave something like this behind,” she says with tears coming into her eyes. It’s obvious she has a deep love for the people of Ryan and those she has served over the years.
She knows that there is a level of customer service that the community receives from businesses in a small town that they don’t receive in the larger cities.
Lanette Weatherly has worked with Mollye off and on for over 20 years. It was sad to watch her say goodbye to Mollye and Brionna Monday evening as the last shift of the store’s official business day came to a close. It was the end of an era.
Brionna has her own fond memories of growing up at the Ryan Drug store.
Brionna remembers the fun she had with Dru Harper. Dru would always stop by at 3:00 pm for their daily snack. You could say that Dru was like a second mom to Brionna.
Mollye and Brionna will pack up some of the remainder of the items slowly as they begin a new chapter in their lives.
Mollye will be working some for Biff Eck at Eck Drug in Waurika. She looks forward to less hours and less stress. However, she is grateful to everyone who was such a blessing to her. With tears in her eyes, she expresses her love for the people she has had the privilege to know. “This place wouldn’t have been around all these years if it hadn’t been for the people,” she says. She has had customers drive from as far away as Nocona, Texas.
She wants to say Thank You to everyone who has made working at the Ryan Drug a pleasure.
The Cameron University/Lawton Civic Chorus will join the Lawton Schubert Music Club and Fort Sill’s New Post Chapel for the 77th annual presentation of Handel’s “Messiah.” The annual Lawton tradition will take place on Saturday, December 8, at 7:30 p.m. at the McMahon Auditorium, located at 801 Northwest Ferris Avenue in Elmer Thomas Park. Admission is free; donations will be accepted.
The Lawton Schubert Music Club initiated the first performance of “Messiah” in December 1941. The event has become a performance tradition during the Christmas season in the Lawton/Fort Sill area. The performance will be approximately one hour in length and will feature soloists and a professional orchestra which accompanies the volunteer chorus. For the 32nd consecutive year, the chorus and orchestra will be conducted by Doris Lambert, director of choral music at Fort Sill’s New Post Chapel and adjunct music instructor at Cameron.
Select choruses from “Messiah” will be performed and will include selections from each of the three portions of the Biblical text lyricized by Charles Jennen and which represent the prophecy, the life, death, resurrection, and the promised return of Jesus Christ.
For more information, contact the Cameron University Department of Art, Music and Theatre Arts at 581-2346.
I had the great privilege of traveling across this great nation with President Bush 41. Our time as friends took us from the White House to Camp David – which included Air Force One – to inaugurating the Points of Light Foundation at Disney World, to the opening of my theater in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, to Houston, Kennebunkport and every place where proud Americans reside. He was the best man, most generous patriot, and greatest friend a man could ask for.
President and Mrs. Bush invited me to stay overnight at the White House where I slept in the Lincoln bedroom but never actually slept. The President and I watched Lawrence of Arabia in the theater room with just the President and I — played several songs on piano for him in the foyer. Then I stayed up all night reading the Gettysburg Address.
There are many events on the campaign trail when we had personal time together. We were in the motorcade leaving one event when he pointed out the window at a single person standing on the sidewalk his quote was – “this is how you win an election – one person at a time.”
At each event he would speak and I would sing following his speech. At one event in Indiana my music track failed to play. After the second time with no music playing I sang without the track. He congratulated me when we got into the car.
He treated me and my wife Kim like family and made us feel so comfortable around him. Sometimes I would pinch myself that I was in the presence of this war hero and giant of a man – the President of the United States. He was so kind to our sons Dalton and Parker to send notes upon their birth through their graduations.
Our last time to see President Bush was in Kennebunkport in August. We thought it might have been our final goodbye. He sang the words of my song “God Bless The USA” as I sat at his piano & played the song that tied us together for so many years. It was perhaps the proudest moment I had ever sang the song. Just me, 41, Kim and the Secret Service agents – it was a moment that made me such a Proud American and proud that I could bring him a moment of joy!
