When you look ahead to 2026, one word keeps coming up for Oklahoma: Travel. It’s not just that tourism is big business—it’s that next year may be the biggest year in the history of Oklahoma tourism. Between the Route 66 Centennial celebrations, the FIFA World Cup bringing global fans through our state, the 250 th birthday of America and a growing national spotlight on small-town charm, we are preparing for more visitors than ever before. That’s good news for Chickasha, because while travelers will come for the major events, what they’ll remember are the authentic experiences—the things you can’t get anywhere else. That’s where treasures like the Chief Drive-In Theater shine. We all know that the Chickasha Leg Lamp will draw thousands of road side attraction fans, but don’t forget that our Drive-In is one of only four in the entire state and the only one open year around. The Chief has been lighting up the Oklahoma night sky since 1949. Generations of families have rolled down their windows, tuned in their radios, and made memories under the stars. I recently celebrated my 41 st wedding anniversary – my wife and I’s first date was there. In 2026 it has the chance to be a centerpiece for Route 66 tourists looking for that classic Americana feel. Imagine a family from Germany driving Route 66 for the first time, stopping in Chickasha at J&W Grill or Jake’s and ending their night watching a movie at the Chief. Or soccer fans from Mexico City or Toronto detouring through Oklahoma after the World Cup, catching a double-feature. Those stories—and the dollars they bring with them—are what tourism is all about. Travel tourism isn’t just a statistic. It means hotels filled, restaurants busy, gas stations humming, and shops seeing new faces. More importantly, it means our Community being discovered and appreciated. Chickasha has always been known for its hospitality, and 2026 is our chance to prove it on the biggest stage yet. So when you think about the importance of travel tourism in 2026, remember the Chief Drive-In. It’s not just a movie theater. It’s a time machine, a piece of living history, and one of the reasons visitors will fall in love with Chickasha Oklahoma and #TheGoodStuff!

It is officially back to school week, can you believe it? The temperatures outside make you think summer, but the calendar says it’s time for the kids to get back to school. The nonprofit “A Beautiful Day” will again organize volunteers to welcome kids at all Chickasha schools. This has become a new tradition that both volunteers and kids look forward to, even if some of the kids wouldn’t admit it. Another Chickasha school tradition will happen on October 3 rd when CHS celebrates Homecoming! So many of us alumni have great memories of homecoming activities, I know my classmates talk about it every class reunion or informal gathering we have. So much has changed over the years, but I am hoping we can address one change this year, but I need everyone’s help. Last year during the Homecoming Parade, there were no floats done by the students. I think each class had some representative riding on a trailer, but they weren’t floats. When I inquired about why, I was told that they needed help finding buildings to build each class float and they needed more adults to help supervise the students. That sounds like the definition of alumni to me. I have alumni groups confirmed for two of the four classes and one confirmed location to build the float, but the tradition of homecoming floats needs YOU! Are you a local business that has a building in the Downtown area where a float could be built September 28 th through Oct 3 rd ? Would your alumni class be willing to connect to today’s high school students and help them understand what Homecoming meant to you when you were in school? I have made the commitment to CHS to find alumni groups and float locations and we are off to a great start, but your help is needed. Email me at jim@chickashaedc.com or call me at 405-224-0787 and let me know if you can help. Traditions are so important to our Community so please help keep this one going. This is not just about the students that are at CHS today, but it’s about the definition of alumni and keeping our School Pride going. A Community that cares about the past and that are willing to keep traditions going, well of course that’s #TheGoodStuff!

I read a story this week that the City of Weatherford Oklahoma built a giant Spaceman in their Downtown thanks to a million dollar grant from the Route 66 Commission. As the home to astronaut Thomas P. Stafford, it’s easy to see the connection. From what I understand, they wanted something that would make people get off the highway to take a picture. From the comments from the Mayor, he hopes the people that stop will also spend some money in Weatherford while they are there. When I read social media posts on the Weatherford Chamber of Commerce Facebook page, there was a lot of support, but there were also citizens who felt like the new signage and the giant Spaceman were “tacky” or that they should have put something else up instead or even some that said they shouldn’t have done anything. Does any of this sound familiar? City leaders from Weatherford, including their Mayor visited Chickasha months ago. They went down to our Leg Lamp and looked around and then they stopped by my office to ask questions. They already had their idea and a plan of how to get their Spaceman built, but they wanted to know if the Chickasha Leg Lamp had been successful in getting people to stop and take a picture. I think we all know the answer to that question. In my visits to Weatherford the past couple of years, I have been very impressed. They have a vision for their town and a plan to make it all happen. They are not going to sit back and “hope” something good happens in their Community, they are going to move forward and MAKE it happen! Chickasha has received millions of dollars of positive press since the Leg Lamp was put up permanently, but we have also been making headlines recently for other progress. I acknowledge that there will always be those that don’t like it, just like the Spaceman in Weatherford, but I believe our Leg Lamp represents a Community that didn’t want to sit back and “hope” for change, we wanted to go make change happen. If you look at the progress that Chickasha has made the last 5 years, you can NOT argue the significant improvements. Congratulations Weatherford! 2026 will be a huge year for travelers in Oklahoma. We will see our share here in Chickasha too, even though we are not on Route 66. That’s what happens when you do something different. Can a giant Spaceman exist in the same state as a 50 foot tall Leg Lamp? Of course they can, because they both appreciate #TheGoodStuff!

The work plan for the Chickasha Economic Development Council for this new fiscal year includes seven goals and each goal lists a “partner.” I believe that to make the maximum impact on economic development, we need to always be working with a partner. Among the goals, there are two that every economic development organization should start with: Recruit jobs and help local businesses expand and grow. Luckily for our Community, the OK Small Business Development Center recently opened a “business incubator” here in Chickasha to help with those goals. SBDC’s tagline is “helping Oklahoma businesses succeed,” and you know the best part of that? Their services are FREE! Imagine you want to open a business here in the Chickasha area. You have a great idea that you think is exactly what we need. So what do you do? How much money do you need to get started? Where in Chickasha should you open the buiness? How many employees do you need? So many questions…and they can be answered confidently by Angie Lewis, Business Advisor for the Oklahoma SBDC and she offices here localy at the Canadian Valley Technology Center. Angie’s previous experience is as an entreprenuer as well as decades of success at Career Tech. Besides her vast knowledge, she is also connected to other SBDC advisors all over the state of Oklahoma. They are all there to help YOU! In addition to helping start up businesses, they also help our local folks. The ones that have been in business for a while, but they need a little help with cash flow analysis, marketing plans, banking needs, etc. Did I mention that all their services are free and extremely confidential? I talk to a lot of people that read this weekly column, but I also realize that there are many business owners out there that are so busy, they may not have time to read everything. Do me a favor and help spread this throughout our Community. I want all our local businesses to know that there is someone out there that can help them grow their sales, reduce their costs, or help them make a plan for their business for the futrue. That someone is Angie Lewis and her email addres is angie.lewis@oksbdc.org. She wants to help our small business grow and thrive and she is a great example of #TheGoodStuff!

I mentioned a couple of months ago that the population in Chickasha surpassed 17,000 as of July of 2024, but it’s pretty obvious that we aren’t stopping there. For the fiscal year 2024/25, the City of Chickasha issued 124 residential permits. This has been a consistent trend the past few years and is much needed for our town. It amazes me the amount of people that work in Chickasha, but live somewhere else and commute here each day. Forty percent of the people that work in Chickasha, drive at least 25 minutes a day one way. Let that sink in for a minute. Forty percent… Most people assume that many of the people that live here commute to other areas like OKC to work, but rarely think about the amount that commute here. Where should new housing additions be built? What size of homes should be built and what price range should they be in? Should there be more housing developed in the upper floors of cool old buildings in Downtown? Lots of issues to be discussed as our City moves forward and we continue to grow. There is so much data that shows that the OKC metro is spreading toward our area. New exits are planned on I-44 and when the Highway 81 bypass is completed years from now, there will be new exits created off of that. Traffic patterns will certainly influence where new housing developments are planned. Chickasha presents a huge opportunity for the right housing developers, it will be exciting to see what happens and where. This is also great news for our local businesses that will benefit from new people moving into town. So many positives are lining up for our future, this growth will help us enjoy all #TheGoodStuff!

This past Sunday, the Oklahoma City Thunder did something that this state has never seen before — they won an NBA Championship! If you’ve spent any time at all this year watching them, their recipe for success was obvious. Hard work, great defense, no egos and everyone working together to make something special happen. It worked wonderfully for them and I think that same approach can work right here in Chickasha. No, I am not talking about basketball, I am referring to our golf course. What previously has been a semi-private country club is now owned by the city of Chickasha. The city has been approached by a group of golf enthusiasts that want our town to keep it a golf course and they have a great plan to make that happen. There are a lot of details to be worked out, but this group is currently working hard to keep the oldest golf tournament in the state going: The Washita Valley. Thanks to the dedication of these local volunteers, this will be the 97th year of the Washita Valley. This group is working through the Chamber to use the golf course Fourth of July weekend. They are spending time raising money to fund the tournament as well as spending weekends to help beautify the course in areas where possible. The ultimate goal is for our community to have a youth focused golf course for our kids to be able to enjoy. This group feels like it’s important that the kids of today and tomorrow get to enjoy the game of golf like many of these volunteers did when they were growing up in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. There are a lot of details to be worked out for this to be successful long term, but what stands out to me is the community spirit. Instead of saying “someone should do something,” this group rolled up their sleeves, got out their checkbooks and presented a temporary plan to the city. The only way our golf course will see the Washita Valley celebrate it’s 100th anniversary is if this “team” takes the script from the Oklahoma City Thunder and agrees to work together to make something special happen. When the city, the Chamber, our schools and the private sector all figure out ways to work together, good things happen in our community! I’m excited to see this kind of commitment towards a youth focused golf course and I believe it will happen because after all…I believe in #TheGoodStuff.

Back in 2020 before Covid hit, I remember talking with people about the population of Chickasha. They were concerned that our town had not seen any measurable growth in decades. We had always been around 15-16 thousand in population. I responded that at least we weren’t declining like many rural towns in Oklahoma. As you may remember, the census was done in 2020 and when they were done they reported that our population was 16,059. This number reflects people living in the Chickasha city limits and we all know there are a lot of people that live within a few miles of town that don’t show up in these numbers. One of the things the EDC has done the past few years is track out Trade Area. We define that as people that come to Chickasha at least once a month for 12 consecutive months. We use Placer data to determine this. In 2022 our Trade Area exceeded 89,000 people, but the latest data now shows that we are over 120,000 people coming to Chickasha monthly. This increase reflects how the area between us and OKC has grown, but also reflects the advertising campaign we have in the area reminding people to shop Chickasha. New estimates from the U.S. Census American Community Survey shows that as of July 1, 2024, Chickasha’s population has reached 17,014. This is an increase of almost 1,000 from the 2020 base estimate of 16,059. We finally exceeded that 17,000 number…but only for a short time. We have more housing developments underway and there will be more announced soon. Chickasha is growing! There was a time when there were NO new housing developments happening in Chickasha, but that has changed. Why is Chickasha growing? There are a lot of reasons, but the main one is because everyone is working together to make things better and to attract new business and welcome new neighbors. We hit a milestone of now being over 17,000 in population, that my friends is definitely #TheGoodStuff!

In the coming months, we will be contacting businesses from outside of Oklahoma and recruiting them to expand or relocate to Chickasha Oklahoma. My question to you is “Why”? If you were in Southern California for example, what would make you want to move your business here? How would you describe our Community to someone that’s never been here? So what is a unique value statement? It a short statement that answers the question: “What makes Chickasha different from other places?” If someone from another state likes the idea of moving to this part of the country, why should they consider our town over hundreds of other towns of similar size? I have used the marketing slogan “Eat, Shop & Play in Chickasha.” It’s kind of catchy and it rhymes and all, but does it really set us apart from other places? So how would you describe your town to someone from out of state? What makes Chickasha unique? What do you think someone from a larger metro out of state would notice about our Community. What would stand out? I’m really interested to hear your thoughts. I have some ideas but can’t wait to hear what you all think… We have been recognized as an “All American City,” we have been known as the Horse Trailer Capitol of the World. Recently we had tons of news stories about being home to the World’s largest leg lamp. But we need an “elevator speech.” Something short that describes our town and why someone would move their business and family here. I have some ideas, but I really want to hear yours. Please leave your thoughts in the comments when you read this online or on social media. What do you have to say about Chickasha Oklahoma, one thing I know for sure is that it is the home of #TheGoodStuff.

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.