The Ponca City Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors held their regular monthly meeting on Tuesday, May 24 at 11 am in the Chamber board room.

Chamber Chair Wendy Stobbe called the meeting to order.

The next Business After Hours will be on Thursday, May 26 at the Ponca City Country Club, hosted by First National Bank of Oklahoma.

The next Cash Mob will be on Thursday, June 2 at Freddy’s Frozen Custard and Steakburgers at 11 am.

A ribbon cutting will be held on Friday, June 10 at 2 pm for Rocky’s Hot Mess Express in the Grand Central Court building.

The Wild West Rodeo is currently looking for volunteers to help out with the event.

Chamber President Rich Cantillon provided his staff report.

A Kindness Campaign meeting was held at the Rusty Barrell Supper Club at 4 pm on Tuesday, May 24.

A retirement reception will be held for Darin Fields on Thursday, May 26 in the Atrium at Phillips 66.

A political forum will be held on Friday, May 27 at noon in City Hall with discussion over the McGirt ruling with Wilson Pipestem, Clayton Johnson, and Brian Hermanson for the panel. Each will talk over the issue and, if time allows, will answer questions. The panel will also be streamed on Facebook Live.

On Wednesday, June 8, Ben Evans will host a Chamber Lunch and Learn at Pioneer Technology Center from 11:30 am to 1 pm. The cost is $10 and will include lunch and a business workshop.

The Chamber will be sending out volunteer opportunities for the 101 Wild West Rodeo that will be held from June 9 to June 11. Ponca City Main Street and the Chamber of Commerce are working together to encourage people to wear western outfits during the week of the rodeo and put up signs welcoming rodeo fans.

The Chamber has submitted four entries for the Oklahoma Tourism rosebud awards. That will be on Tuesday, June 14.

The Chamber will be holding an Elected Officials Picnic on Thursday, June 16.

On Friday, June 24, a candidate forum will be held. All four candidates have agreed to attend the event, it will held from noon to 1:30 pm. The election is Tuesday, June 28.

Thursday, June 30 will be the Ponca City Family and Friends Celebration from 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm at Lake Ponca. Danny’s BBQ headquarters, Danny and Carey Head will feed up to 5000 people and provide food, drinks, tables to serve and paper goods. People attending are also encouraged to bring lawn chairs and blankets to use.

Zach Trantham provided the Ponca City Tourism report.

Tourism has been good for the month of May. The Chamber have made tourism baskets for the Humane Society Poker Run, 200 visitor bags for Herbfest, the Hospice golf tournament and the Northern Oklahoma Youth Services golf tournament.

Visitors have picked up in Ponca City, coming in from Arizona, California, Colorado, Iowa, Florida, Delaware, Alabama, Kansas, Maryland, Missouri, Minnesota, Washington, New York, Tennessee, Texas and in-state travelers.

A tour operator put a group together for a group with some of Ponca City’s attractions. That tour will be coming through in the rest of the summer and into fall.

Trantham will be with a travel writer on Tuesday, May 31 from Australia to showcase the attractions.

What’s Happening Ponca City has 7000 views for the month of May.

The May/June issue of Oklahoma Today is highlighting the Wild West Rodeo and other events in Ponca City.

The Chamber also participated in many roadshows and the Phillips 66 Okie Celebration.

Ally Broome with Ponca Young Employees (PYE) provided an update.

PYE had their bar crawl last month and raised $200 toward their scholarship fund at the University Center.

The PYE Cornhole Tournament at Ody’s will be on June 11 at 1 pm with the Nena’s Tacos food truck on hand. There is a $20 buy-in with prizes from Rikki’s Market, Cast Iron Co., Plaza Wine and Spirits and more.

Lori Henderson with Ponca City Development Authority (PCDA) provided an update.

Ponca City has reached a point where all but one of its industrial buildings is full. Ponca City is at full employment, meaning that anyone that wants to work is currently working.

Ponca City has a vacancy that is close to zero for rental properties.

PCDA recently approved their Duke Spec building at their April meeting and are hoping for groundbreaking soon.

Cookshack is expanding and adding 10,000 square feet to their building and are adding jobs.

PCDA has been working on Girl Power in July and several other programs with the schools.

The Small Business and Non-Profit grant program ran by PCDA and the City of Ponca City received 34 applications from small businesses, and 20 from non-profits. The grant program closed on April 30.

Mayor Homer Nicholson provided a report on the City of Ponca City.

The commissioners met on Monday, May 23 and approved a new budget of $25 million. There will be some utility increases in areas such as water and waste water. This is due in part to the cost of chemicals used to treat water going up.

Broadband is progressing east of 14th Street now and the city is ahead of schedule on the project.

The city is working on a new program called PUP (Pretty Up Ponca) this is the Mayor’s initiative to work with paint vendors in town for a discount to purchase paint to incentivize property owners to paint their property. This initiative is currently in the planning phase.

Ponca City is a member of the Northern Flyer Alliance, who have contracted with the University of Kansas to do a study on the feasibility of restoring passenger rail from Oklahoma City to Newton, Kansas. Mayor Nicholson had a Zoom meeting with the University of Kansas group on Wednesday, May 25.

Adam Leaming with Ponca City Public Schools (PCPS) provided several updates for the schools and upcoming projects.

Graduation was held on Friday, May 20. PCPS, with assistance from Mayor Nicholson, held the Ponca City Schools Surplus Auction on Saturday, May 21.

Projects including flooring, bathrooms and solid surface countertops will be starting at Union Elementary that started on Monday, March 23.

An addition to the cafeteria at Lincoln Elementary has already started, as well as replacing all the flooring in the school, enhancing the bathrooms and installing new lockers.

Washington Pre-K will have flooring replaced in the hallways and classrooms that started on Monday, May 23.

Half of the restrooms in the Howe Building at the high school are being replaced. This process has already started.

The high school commons area will have the flooring and windows replaced, and will have a multi-tiered platform to tie the upper commons area to the lower commons. Noise detectors will also be added in the bathrooms, and the student parking lot will be give a facelift.

Garfield Elementary will be

The Howe Front lawn flower beds will be excavated on Monday, May 23 from Overbrook to the front of the historic high school.

Dirt work at Garfield Elementary will happen soon to facilitate the placement of the new playground equipment. There will be nine new playgrounds to each elementary school.

A new reception desk will be at the registration location on Grand. The inside of the building will also be painted.

The Anderson STEM academy building will be ready to bid this summer. The design is 90% done at the moment.

The Concert Hall classrooms are in the planning stage.

Fire alarm systems will be upgraded and updated at the high school.

The Ag barn will receive some improvements and fencing.

District Attorney Brian Hermanson provided a Kay County update.

The Annex and the new administrative building are working well, and the courthouse is now gutted except for the second floor courtrooms. Originally they thought they wouldn’t get back into the courthouse until December 2023, but now it looks like it may be as early as April.

The first jury trials were held in the DHS building with two in the last few weeks.

DA Hermanson will be a panelist at the Ponca Politics Panel on the McGirt ruling on Friday, May 27.

They’ve also spend time dealing with SJR-43 that went before the legislature this year and would have completely changed the judicial system by firing every judge and starting over again with political judicial appointments. The judges and attorneys managed to sway the legislature away from this.

Superintendent/CEO of Pioneer Technology Center (PTC) Traci Thorpe, provided an update.

Graduations have been completed for this year.

PTC is hoping to receive their Certificate of Occupancy this week and are thrilled to have the final touches on their expansion project. No date on the project’s completion as of yet.

Summer camps and academies are coming up soon.

The next meeting will be held on Tuesday, June 28 at 11 am.