Oklahoma County is concerned about the consequences of the racist recording

IDABEL, Okla. — So many North Texans cross the border into McCurtain County in far southeast Oklahoma each week that the area has earned the nickname “Dallas-Fort Worth Hamptons.”

With their clean rivers and lakes, these forested foothills of the Ouchita Mountains have been turned into luxury lodges, and the boom in tourism over the past two decades has fueled a renaissance in the region. Jobs are no longer limited to the logging industry or the chicken processing plant, and parents are more optimistic that their children will not have to leave the community to find work.

But growing optimism about the county’s future was hit in the stomach last week when the local newspaper identified several county officials, including Sheriff Kevin Clardy and a county commissioner, who were on tape discussing the murder of journalists and the lynching of black people. One commissioner has already resigned, and elected officials, including the mayor of Idabel and Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt, have called for the others to resign.

“Just hearing it on audio and coming from the mouths of our elected officials in a meeting, it turned my stomach,” said Lonnie Watson, a lifelong county resident and seventh-grade teacher and coach who is African-American. “It was shocking. That was sad. It was hurtful. Just hearing the hate…it was heartbreaking.”

For its part, the sheriff’s office has only issued a formal statement since the McCurtain Gazette-News broke the story last weekend in which the sheriff’s office did not address the comments but claimed the recording was obtained illegally.

“Unfortunately, all of our lawyers are telling us that we’re supposed to be quiet,” Deputy Police Chief Mike Manning told The Associated Press on Thursday, declining to comment further. “I would love for everyone to hear both sides of the story.” On Friday, the governor, who has called for the resignation of Clardy and others who said they were involved in the recorded conversation, released a letter that he sent to the state attorney general. Gentner Drummond, asking him to investigate Clardy’s possible removal from office for willful misconduct.

“To the best of my understanding, Sheriff Clardy, at the very least, willfully failed or neglected to diligently and faithfully ‘maintain and preserve the peace’ of McCurtain County,” according to the letter signed by Stitt. “If he finds that reasonable cause exists for such a complaint, I urge him to initiate proceedings to remove Sheriff Clardy from office.”

A Drummond spokesman said investigators are already looking into the case.

“The Attorney General’s Office is investigating this matter. Attorney General Drummond will review the Governor’s letter and take appropriate action,” said Drummond spokesman Phil Bacharach.

While many county residents say the racist comments are a throwback to a bygone era, they still worry about the negative repercussions the incident will have on the community’s reputation.

“We have concerns. We make. Anyone in their right mind would do it,” said Tommy “Blue” McDaniel, owner and operator of the county’s first legal distillery, Hochatown Distilling, in the heart of the county’s tourist region. “But those things down there are some people. It’s not what McCurtain County is, and it’s definitely not what Hochatown is.

“It’s a diverse community, a welcoming community.”

Many in the county echoed McDaniel’s assessment. With a population of around 31,000 and bordered by Arkansas and Texas, the county is a part of the state known as “Little Dixie” due to the influence in the area of ​​white Southerners who immigrated there after the Civil War. Although about 60% of the county is white, there are significant numbers of Native Americans (18%), Blacks (8%), and Hispanics (7%).

Like many communities across the country, particularly in the South, the cities of McCurtain County were historically segregated, but have become more integrated since the 1960s. Idabel, the county seat, was the scene of racial violence in 1980 when a riot broke out after a local black teenager was fatally shot outside a white club. Tensions grew so high that martial law was declared and the governor called in the National Guard, said Kenny Sivard, a local historian.

“What didn’t help was that the great imperial wizard of the Ku Klux Klan came to the Idabel courthouse and made an appearance,” Sivard said. “That didn’t help anything, as you can imagine.”

The county also has a long history of lawlessness dating back to days before statehood in 1907, when Oklahoma was Indian territory and bandits took refuge in the mountainous country, said Bob Burke, a McCurtain County native who has written more. than 100 nonfiction books about Oklahoma and its people.

With its clean rivers and remote locations, the area also became a haven for moonshine lovers who set up stills in the heavily forested hills. That reputation for operating outside the law continued until the latter part of the 20th century when the methamphetamine epidemic swept through the area. Even today, though Oklahoma became the last state to ban cockfighting in 2002, animal rights activists say the blood sport still takes place in the region and local police sometimes turn a blind eye. . A state legislator from nearby Atoka County continues to work to reduce penalties for cockfighting.

Still, McCurtain County has worked hard to shed its reputation for lawlessness and racial strife, helped in no small part by the construction of Broken Bow Lake in the heart of the county in the late 1960s. Fed by the Mountain River The Fork, the crystal clear lake surrounded by forested hills has been a major tourist attraction that continues to this day.

The Choctaw Nation Historic Preserve encompasses the entire county and most of southern Oklahoma, and the tribe has broken ground on a $165 million, 200,000-square-foot hotel and casino complex near from the lake and Beavers Bend State Park which is scheduled to open later this year.

It’s projects like these and the growing tourism industry that residents like McDaniel, the distillery operator, hope McCurtain County will become known for.

“I see a bright future,” McDaniel said. “We have some problems that we will have to solve, but those problems, those are some dying vestiges. Those are some agonizing cries from people here who want to preserve the old ways, but we’re moving forward, and moving forward doesn’t include what’s happening down there.”

___

Follow Sean Murphy on Twitter: @apseanmurphy