By: Jordan Dafnis
OKLAHOMA CITY -
For the first time since the start of the pandemic, Putnam City School students return to the classroom four days a week, Monday.
The district says that they feel ready for students to return to the classroom thanks to the opportunity for fully vaccinated faculty and staff, the beginning of the installation of new air quality technology, and the advice of the OKC-County Health Department.
Students will attend in-person Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday beginning April 5th.
Wednesday will be a remote learning day. Teachers will be in the buildings creating online content for quarantined students to use in the week ahead.
A relatively new church plans to hold weekly worship services in an Oklahoma City movie theater.
Freedom Worship, led by the Rev. Rickey M. Thomas II and his wife, Brittany Carter-Thomas, will host grand opening services at 9 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. Feb. 28 at Cinemark Tinseltown, 6001 N Martin Luther King Ave. Those who attend the church's grand opening celebration will be treated to free food from Midwest City-based Brielle's Bistro.
The Thomases, who describe their church as nondenominational, began hosting virtual worship services in the fall of 2020. Rickey, 26, said they consider their new in-person worship services as "portable church" gatherings.
"We move in on Sunday and we move out on Sunday," he said.
To Mayor David Holt, the rioters at the U.S. Capitol Jan. 6 are no different than the domestic terrorist who bombed the Oklahoma City federal building more than 25 years ago.
"Every single person I saw storming that Capitol was a version of Timothy McVeigh," said Holt, who was elected mayor of Oklahoma City in 2018.
"I'm glad that they didn't kill 168 people, but clearly they were capable of killing," he said. "They beat a police officer to death."
McVeigh was a former soldier who came to hate the federal government particularly over the deadly FBI raid on the Branch Davidian religious compound near Waco, Texas.
He blew up the federal building on April 19, 1995, the second anniversary of that raid.