I attended the grand opening of the Production House last weekend and loved what I heard and saw. This building was purchased a couple of years ago by Reagan Elkins and the Oh18 partnership of Kristen McGregor and Kristyn Allbritton. They teamed up to remodel the building into office space, retail space, a meeting room and a film studio. Yes…we have a state of the art film studio in Downtown Chickasha! All three of these young entrepreneurs grew up in the Chickasha area. In addition to being landlords, they also have successful businesses. OH18 Creative produces an incredible magazine that showcases everything happening in the 73…018. They also help local businesses with graphic design, social media and creative design. Their award winning work has been recognized on both the state and local levels. Reagan Elkins company, Intellego Media can be seen everywhere and like Oh18, has won multiple awards. He has been involved in major motion pictures, Indy films and music videos. He also does promotional videos for companies like Hart Trailer, DeHart Airconditioning and Willowbrook. The EDC and the Chamber have utilized his talents on multiple videos and TV commercials. They are literally Chickasha’s version of the American Dream. Smart creative business people investing in Chickasha and seeing the Vision of where our town is going. Most rural towns lose talent like this to OKC, Tulsa or even Dallas. Chickasha has a bright future because they choose to live, work and play in our Community. They are helping tell our story of not only where we have been, but more importantly where we are going. When the American Dream is alive and well in our town, you guessed it…that’s #TheGoodStuff.

I saw a Facebook post recently from News 9 Weatherman Jed Castles. He was parked at 6 th & Chickasha by the Chickasha Area Arts Council mural that says: Chickasha Oklahoma…Good Things Happen Here. Jed asks his followers to guess where he was as he was waiting to chase storms and of course everyone guessed Chickasha. But as we are now at the beginning of May and storm season, it made me think about how many visitors we will be seeing here in the next couple of months. This weekend is graduation at USAO and there will be parents, family and friends in town to celebration that milestone for all the graduates. Chickasha High School and Canadian Valley Technology also have graduation coming up in May. USAO Softball will probably host another National Regional in a couple of weeks that will bring teams and their fans from all over the Country. Whether it’s Storm Trackers or any other visitor, there will be a lot of people stopping off for a bite to eat, stay the night, take a picture at the Leg Lamp…who knows why, BUT…they will be visiting Chickasha. I know for a fact that we have had major national retailers in town for a site visit. How were they greeted at the restaurant? Was the convenience store clerk nice? When you see someone that is obviously from out of town at the store do you smile at them and say hello? You never know who our visitors are, but if we try to be welcoming to everyone then that mural that the Arts Council did becomes very factual. We know that a visitor from California that saw the Leg Lamp being built liked this town enough to invest millions and he is buying the Airport Industrial Park and big news will be coming soon on that. First impressions are very important! We don’t want severe storms, but the visitors they bring are always welcome. When we appreciate someone new coming to our Community, you just never know what that could lead to? It might just be the CEO of a big company or it might just be someone that needs a smile and a friendly hello as they are passing through, either way they get to experience #TheGoodStuff!