James Wesley Jones of Kentucky was a special guest of honor of the Cherry Blossom Festival on Saturday. Jones is the grandson of William Jones, a Cherryvale city marshal who was gunned down while issuing an arrest warrant in 1906. Little was known about the slain Cherryvale marshal until a great-nephew, James Converse of Overland Park, Kan., began a hunt for information, which brought him to Cherryvale on several occasions during a 10-year period. He was alarmed to find not only that Cherryvale did not have a plaque in honor of the slain marshal but that Marshal Jones’ gravesite did not have a tombstone. With the help of Cherryvale police chief Matt Dennis (right), Converse was able to obtain funds to have the tombstone dedicated at Fairview Cemetery last year and also have a plaque erected in Marshal Jones’ honor at City Hall last Saturday. Converse brought several members of the Jones family to Cherryvale for a ceremony that named James Wesley Jones as an honorary member of the Cherryvale Police Department. James Wesley Jones is among the few living descendants of Marshal William Jones. (Photo by Andy Taylor

Two Caney people were killed and four others were injured in a two-vehicle automobile collision in Nowata County, Okla., on Saturday night (May 9).  The Oklahoma Highway Patrol is classifying the collision as a hit-and-run.

The collision happened on U.S. 169 highway near Delaware, Okla.  The Oklahoma Highway Patrol said a southbound pickup truck tried to pass a Lincoln Towncar but didn’t have enough room. An oncoming Pontiac attempted to avoid the pickup by swerving to the right but lost control, went into the southbound lanes and was hit by the Towncar.

The pickup then continued southbound.

The Pontiac’s driver was  15-year-old Kyler Blagg of Caney. He was flown to St. Francis Hospital in Tulsa, where he died. He had been pinned in the wreckage for more than an hour.

Kyler’s mother, 44-year-old Amy Blagg, also of Caney, ws taken by ambulance to Coffeyville Regional Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead.

Tara Blagg, 11, was also flown to St. Francis in stable condition.

The Towncar’s driver, 70-year-old Alfred Hobbs of South Coffeyville, Okla., was hospitalized in critical condition after being pinned for more than 45 minutes.

His passenger, 63-year-old Anna Hobbs, was hospitalized in stable condition. Another passenger, 79-year-old Harold Tedford of Coffeyville, Kan., was treated and released.

The occupants of the Towncar and Pontiac were all wearing seatbelts, troopers reported.

No other information about the pickup truck was released.

The dual fatality has left the Caney community in shock.  The Blagg family was well known in the Caney community as Amy served as secretary of the First Baptist Church.  The Blagg family was preparing to celebrate a pair of milestones in the coming weeks, including the graduation of a son, Brandon, from Caney Valley High School next Saturday evening and the approaching marriage of another son, Andrew, in several weeks.

— NOTE: KOTV provided information for this story.

Some Montgomery County residents got a rare sight on Saturday afternoon when a blimp from the MetLife company traveled through the county skies.  The large blimp was going southbound at about 1 p.m., and appeared to be following U.S. 75 highway en route to its next destination.

The MetLife website indicated that one of the company’s three blimps would be making an appearance in San Antonio, Texas, next weekend.

Intense winds — measured in the 70-90 mile per hour range — were responsible for considerable damage in the Montgomery County area Friday morning.

North of Cherryvale, the property of Randy and Louise Boss sustained significant damage after winds damaged several sheds and garages.  A huge tree was totally uprooted, falling on a carport that inflicted heavy damaged to a personal vehicle.  The Boss couple was huddled in a storm shelter outside their main residence when the tree fell on the carport.  The tree limbs also blocked their exit from the storm shelter, and a family member was quickly called to remove the tree limbs.

Ironically, the huge tree was located in the backyard, where Randy Boss poured a concrete slab for a new backporch on Thursday.
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BY ANDY TAYLOR

CANEY — For the second time in as many weeks, Caney city councilors nixed a proposal by a Bartlesville business owner to erect a cellular telephone tower southwest of the intersection of Sixth and McGee streets.

The council’s latest rejection of the proposal by Kevin Potter, owner of several Bartlesville radio stations, came Monday at a special meeting of the council.

At its April 20 meeting, city councilors voted 7-0 to deny the recommendation from the Caney Planning and Zoning Commission to rezone the property near Sixth and McGee streets from B-1 (business) to A-1 (agricultural) that was needed to accommodate the proposed 199-foot cellular telephone tower. City ordinance require cellular transmission towers to be zoned in an A-1 setting. The council also nixed a proposed Conditional Use Permit that Potter would have needed to erect that tower in that location.

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BY ANDY TAYLOR

INDEPENDENCE — Attempts to reappointment Wilbur Schwatken, Jr., as rural fire coordinator failed to garner majority support by Montgomery County commissioners on two different occasions at Monday’s meeting of the Montgomery County Commission.

Commissioners met with members of the Montgomery County Rural Fire District #1 board of directors on Monday — just two weeks after commissioners Fred Brown and Tony Fowler chose not to reappoint Schwatken to his rural fire coordinator position for 2009. Commissioner Larry McManus presented the initial motion to reappoint Schwatken at the April 20 meeting,  and he offered the same motion (on two occasions) at Monday’s meeting. However, Fowler and Brown chose not to second McManus’ motions, thereby killing the issue.
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