Tag Archives: Oklahoma
Jim Thorpe, Pa., Fights To Keep Body Of Namesake
English: Postcard picture from 1915 of a “bird’s eye view” of Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, then known as “Mauch Chunk”. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Jim Thorpe, PA (AP) The hand-lettered donation jar on Anne Marie Fitzpatrick’s store counter says what many residents of this well-preserved Victorian-era town are thinking and feeling lately: “Keep Jim Thorpe in Jim Thorpe.”
The surviving sons of the famous American Indian athlete have long fought to get the remains of their father moved from Jim Thorpe, Pa., to tribal lands in Oklahoma, where he was born, and they recently won a crucial legal victory that put them close to their goal.
But Jim Thorpe isn’t letting its Olympian namesake go without a fight. Residents and business owners are helping to raise money for the town’s appeal to be filed later this month saying they have honored, appreciated and respected a man long considered one of the 20th century’s best athletes.
Hence the donation jar on the counter of Fitzpatrick’s gift shop, prominently displayed between the cash register and a rack of cat figurines.
Slain Australian Baseball Player Mourned On 2 Continents
Map of Oklahoma showing major roads and thoroughfares (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
DUNCAN, OK. (AP) – It is a chillingly simple motive: Police say three bored teens killed an Australian collegiate baseball player attending school in the U.S. for “the fun of it.”
As authorities prepared to charge the teens Tuesday with first-degree murder, family and friends on two continents mourned 22-year-old Christopher Lane, who was being remembered as a wonderful young man whose life ended too soon. His girlfriend tearfully laid a cross at a streetside memorial in Oklahoma, while half a world away, his team in Australia placed flowers at home plate.
Lane, who was visiting the town of Duncan, where his girlfriend and her family live, had passed a home where the boys were staying and that apparently led to him being gunned down at random, Police Chief Danny Ford said Monday. A 17-year-old in the group has given a detailed confession to police, and charges were expected Tuesday afternoon.
“They saw Christopher go by, and one of them said: ‘There’s our target,'” Ford said. “The boy who has talked to us said, ‘We were bored and didn’t have anything to do, so we decided to kill somebody.'”
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/nation_world/20130820_ap_bc76a2acbd01490e80a48789195d06e8.html#4h0ojdyDWk4Q11YX.99
5 Dead In Tornado In Oklahoma City Area, 75 Hurt
El Reno Oklahoma Tornado (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
OKLAHOMA CITY – Tornadoes rolled in from the prairie and slammed Oklahoma City and its suburbs, trapping people in their vehicles as a storm swept down an interstate highway while commuters tried to beat it home.
Five people were killed, including a mother and baby killed near Union City. Another person died at El Reno, the first city struck by the storm, said Amy Elliott, a spokeswoman for the state medical examiner. Circumstances involving the other two deaths weren’t immediately known, Elliott said.
About 50 people were hurt, five critically, hospital officials said.
Meteorologists had warned about particularly nasty weather Friday but said the storm’s fury didn’t match that of a deadly twister that struck suburban Moore last week. Violent weather also moved through the St. Louis area, ripping part of the roof off a suburban casino.
Oklahoma Twister A Top-Of-The-Scale EF-5
Map of Oklahoma highlighting Cleveland County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
MOORE, OK (AP) — The National Weather Service says the tornado that hit Moore, Okla., was a top-of-the-scale EF-5 twister with winds of at least 200 mph.
Spokeswoman Keli Pirtle said Tuesday the agency upgraded the tornado from an EF-4 on the enhanced Fujita scale to an EF-5 based on what a damage assessment team saw on the ground. The weather service uses the word “incredible” to describe the power of EF-5 storms.
The weather service says the tornado’s path was 17 miles long and 1.3 miles wide.
Pirtle says Monday’s twister is the first EF-5 tornado of 2013.
For more stories and video directly from Oklahoma, click here: http://newsok.com/oklahoma-twister-a-top-of-the-scale-ef-5/article/3828315
Borough To Appeal Jim Thorpe Ruling
English: Postcard picture from 1915 of a “bird’s eye view” of Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, then known as “Mauch Chunk”. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Jim Thorpe Borough Council has voted to appeal a federal judge’s order to relinquish the famed athlete’s remains so they can be reinterred on American Indian land in Oklahoma.
Thorpe’s sons sued the borough claiming the town amounts to a museum under the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA).
Jim Thorpe council met on Thursday and voted 6-0, with Councilman Jay Miller absent for a medical reason, to appeal a federal judge’s decision to comply with NAGPRA.
“I feel council made the right decision,” Jim Thorpe Mayor Michael J. Sofranko said on Friday.
Read more: http://standardspeaker.com/news/borough-to-appeal-thorpe-ruling-1.1487343
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