By Jennifer Lindseyjennifer.lindsey @ardmroeite.com

At Ardmore High School, students are preparing for life after graduation through the Department of Rehabilitative Services Transition: School-to-Work program.

“I’m hoping they learn job skills that will transfer to the future and they will

be able to work and p r o v i d e for them-s e l v e s , ” said Gina

Berger, program adviser at AHS.

Students with disabili-ties who are eligible for vocational rehabilitation services are provided with job preparation training and a part-time job that they work 18 hours per week during the school year and 25 hours per week during the summer.

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75 ¢ 1 1 9 t h Y e a r — N o . 2 3 fridaY, NovemBer 25, 2011 ardmore, oKLaHoma

SINCE1893

24 PAGES

sports, page 4B

CowboystoP dolPhins

Classified 7BComics 3BDigest 4ALifestyles 7A

Obituaries 2AReligion 9ASports 4BWeather 2A

index

These stories you’ll find only in today’s print edition of The Ardmoreite.

n School-to-work pro-gram, page 1a

n Business profile — Rhonda Newton,page 1a

n“Faith, Hope & Red Kettle,” kicks off today,page 8a

page 4a page 6a

holidAy CelebrAted Among friends, others

case puBlished

Local manconfronts,detainsburglar

local doc restores man’s visionBy marsha millermarsha.miller@ardmoreite.com

An Ardmore optometrist’s work to restore the sight of a Ringling man injured in a py-rotechnics accident has been published in an international optometry journal.

Dr. Kevin Wells said he sub-mitted the case of Sam Claxton to the Journal of the Ameri-can Optometric Association because, “I thought it was a good story that should be told because Sam had been told he had such a bad future.”

Claxton’s accidentOn June 19, 2004, 20-year-

old Claxton was enjoying his part-time job as a rodeo clown at a Denton, Texas rodeo.

“I was the barrel clown — the funny man,” Claxton said.

Part of his performance in-cluded a portable grill loaded with pyrotechnics. The off/on switch for the fireworks dis-play was in Claxton’s pocket. He turned the switch on. Nothing happened.

“I thought I had turned the switch off. I went over and looked inside the grill and saw

there hadn’t been a good con-nection so I reattached it to the battery. But I hadn’t turned the switch off and it blew up in my face,” Claxton said. “I fell to the ground. I couldn’t see anything and basically my face was like a roasted marshmallow.”

Stunned and in pain, Claxton doesn’t remember his ambu-lance ride to the Denton hos-pital’s emergency room. But he does remember asking ER doc-tors and nurses that one ques-tion uppermost in his mind.

Husband and wife thomas and Kristi Crutchfield Cox, of ardmore, share thanksgiving day with friends and family thursday, serving turkey, duck and chicken with all the trimmings. DON ALQUIST/THE ARDMOREITE

Thanksgiving Joy ardmore

see JourNaL, page 13a

By marsha millermarsha.miller@ardmoreite.com

An Ardmore man put a halt to a midnight burglar’s plans to break into his home in a pre-Thanksgiving Day caper.

Sgt. Ryan Hunnicutt, Ardmore Police Department Public Infor-mation Officer, said Thursday morning Michael Newberry was apprehended by a Shenandoah Street resident shortly before midnight.

“The homeowner was awak-ened by the sound of someone breaking into his home,” Hun-nicutt said.

Armed with a handgun, the ho-meowner confronted the burglar. The homeowner fired a single shot, but Newberry was not in-jured.

However, the shot apparently was a deciding factor for New-berry. Hunnicutt said the 21-year-old man surrendered to the homeowner, who held him at gunpoint until police arrived and placed him in custody.

Newberry was booked into the Carter County Detention Center pending formal charges.see program, page 16a

PortugAl At junk stAtus As strike hits

CmYK

Tol’s Jewelers * 204 W. Main St., Ardmore, OK, 73401 * (580) 223-2260 * tols.inc@gmail.com

introduce yourself Would you or someone you know like to be profiled? If so contact michael.pineda@ardmoreite.com.

rhonda Newton has been in the jewelry business since she was 12 years old and takes pride in personal service offered to tol’s Jewelry customers. MICHAEL PINEDA/THE ARDMOREITE

Rhonda Newtonmore about rhonda Newton

age 54

oCCupatioN Co-owner/operator

HometowN Ardmore

famiLY Mark, hus-band; Garrett, son; Katie, daughter.

HoBBies Walking, yoga

in three sen-tences, can you tell us how you got into your line of work?

My dad bought Tol’s Jewelers in 1955, so I was born into the jewelry business. I started working there when I was 12 and got to love the business. I enjoy the creative aspect of it.

what do you like most about your work, and what do you like least?

I love working with people, we get to know our customers on a personal level. The jewelry business is also constantly changing and it’s exciting to see beau-tiful pieces designed. A drawback is own-ing your own busi-ness is confining to your schedule.

what makes your business unique?

With jewelry, a piece is enjoyed through-out a lifetime and passed on to others. With other items like clothing, things can wear out. You also get to take part in helping your cus-tomer choose items that are for mean-ingful occasions in their lives.

Business leader Q&a

30

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sam Claxton of ringling was badly injured in an accident in 2004. SUB-MITTED PHOTO

Celebritiesserve turkey

Los aNgeLes (ap) — Kim Kar-dashian, Blair un-derwood and other celebrities served up a thanksgiving day meal to the homeless in Los angeles.

Longtime Los an-geles mission sup-porter and screen legend Kirk doug-las along with his wife anne hosted the wednesday event for the sev-enth year in a row.

13A

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CMYK

Sam Claxton, left, now has nearly perfect vision thanks to the work of Dr. Kevin Wells, right. don alquisT/The ardmoreiTe

“I kept asking them if I still had eyes. No one would answer me,” he said.

Claxton was airlifted to Parkland Hospital in Dallas.

“I still couldn’t see any-thing, but about three days later I saw a red blur. It was a nurse wearing red scrubs,” he said.

Days later he was re-leased from the hospital and told he needed to seek the help of an eye doctor.

“I was seeing just enough to get around but that’s all. I went to an eye doctor who told me I needed cornea trans-plants in both eyes and even then I wasn’t going to have good eyesight,” Claxton said, adding the diagnosis wasn’t what he wanted to hear. “Dr. Wells had done Lasik on my brother so I went to see him and I’m glad I did. Dr. Wells was friendly, but he was honest with me too.”

Wells’ approachThe scar tissue on the

front of Claxton’s corneas was so rough Wells said it was difficult to even get a clear computerized pic-ture of the damage. How-ever, he felt certain if he could remove the scar-ring, new tissue would form and Claxton’s vision could be improved.

“I knew one of the in-dicated uses of the laser I would use was removal of scar tissue. We were hop-ing he would get function-ing vision back. We were pleasantly surprised by

the results we achieved,” Wells said.

Two laser surgeries were required. The first surgery removed the scar tissue. However, since the scar tissue was so severe, the surgery left Claxton’s corneas flat.

“We knew the first treat-ment was going to make him extremely farsighted,” Wells said.

Three months after the first surgery, the doctor performed a second sur-gery — one to reshape the corneas. And as Claxton’s eyes healed, his vision improved and kept on improving. Today, Clax-ton enjoys almost perfect vision.

“He has 20/20 in his left eye and with a little

help (a contact lens) he has 20/20 in his right eye,” the doctor said.

Wells has diplomat sta-tus with the American Board of Optometry and is a Fellow of the Ameri-can Academy of Optom-etry. Claxton’s case was one of five patients studies Wells presented to obtain his fellowship with the AAO. He said submitting Claxton’s case for publica-tion seemed like the next natural step.

“Although I don’t fore-see it, if sometime in the future I wanted to teach, I would have to have been published. Since I already had the study done, I thought I would submit it and see what happened. As I said, Sam’s story is

one I felt should be told,” Wells said.

The study appears in the August edition of the publication.

The Journal of the American Optometric As-sociation is distributed to more than 34,000 AOA member optometrists, as well as independent subscribers throughout the world. The goal of the publication is to “ob-jectively present original research studies, results of independent study, and ongoing professional commentaries by and for optometrists and other professionals in medical and optometry-related fields.”

Marsha Miller 221-6529

journalContinued from Page 1A

New York

CeNtrAl oklAhomA

Dylan cover discs to benefit Amnesty

NEW YORK (AP) — A sprawling new collection of Bob Dylan cover songs is being released in Janu-ary to benefit Amnesty In-ternational.

The human rights orga-nization said Wednesday that all of the songs on the 4-CD collection will be new or previously un-released versions, with the exception of Dylan’s title cut, “Chimes of Free-dom.”

The disc, to be released in the U.S. on Jan. 24, is being produced by the same music executives

who made a 2007 benefit album for Darfur featur-ing John Lennon songs.

Participating artists range from 19-year-old Miley Cyrus to 92-year-old folk legend Pete Seeger. Cyrus recorded “You’re Gonna Make Me Lone-some When You Go” and Seeger, with a children’s chorus, does “Forever Young.”

The disc is being re-leased to commemorate Amnesty International’s 50th birthday.

Eighty artists and 75 new songs are included.

Property tax statements going outNORMAN (AP) — Some 120,000

property tax statements will go into the mail today, Cleveland County treasurer Jim Reynolds said.

The Norman Transcript reported Thursday that taxes will be due Dec. 31, but can be divided into halves, with the second half due by March 31.

Seventy-five percent of payments come from mortgage companies, Reynolds said. Usually, only people who have paid off their mortgages or those who purchased property and paid cash will need to pay the

bill personally.People who are unsure of where

they fit into the mix should check with their mortgage companies.

“We always accept the first pay-ment that comes to us,” First Dep-uty Mona Nelson said. “When the second payment comes, we send it back.”

That works out well as long as the first payment comes from the mortgage company, the Transcript reported.

Nelson asked that people who mail checks make sure they are

written accurately, down to the penny, because even a small mis-take can cause problems.

Anyone who bought a house after Oct. 1 will not get a bill, but will still owe the property taxes.

“They still have to pay,” Nelson said.

Cleveland County is at a high rate — 99 percent — of collection for past property tax years.

“Our county is doing very well,” Reynolds said. “The economy is strong. Property is holding its val-ue.”