No-Man's Land: Girls from Keyes help Boise City make state
Courtney Williams felt strange the first time she put on the No. 11 orange and black jersey of Boise City High School. It wasn't blue. Williams always had worn blue. Blue is the color of Keyes High School, 15 miles northeast of Boise City in the Oklahoma Panhandle, and Williams still wears blue. She'll graduate from Keyes in three months, same as her sister did, and her father, and her grandfather, and her great-grandfather. But the generational lineage soon could end. Williams will graduate in a class of two. Keyes is the smallest high school in the state. Its average enrollment last school year was 13. This year, Keyes High School has 10 students. But Keyes will be represented in the Class B girls state basketball tournament, which begins Thursday at State Fair Arena. Williams and Keyes junior Nayali
Valencia play for Boise City in a co-op agreement that allows Keyes students to participate in athletics. They've done more than participate. They've been a part of a team that is 25-2, ranked eighth in Class B and plays Burlington at 3:30 p.m. Thursday in the state quarterfinals. “It's worked out pretty good,” Williams said Wednesday morning before boarding a bus for the trip to Oklahoma City. It's usually 326 miles to OKC but a little more this time, since it started with a slight detour up to Keyes, so the kids at what not long ago was Boise City's arch-rival can celebrate a sendoff. “It was a little strange, especially with all the rivalry. But we got along pretty well.” The Keyes story is the story of Cimarron County, the farthest west of the Panhandle's three counties. Agriculture-dominant. Declining population. Cimarron County, Oklahoma's fourthlargest county in area, with 1,841 square miles, had an estimated population of 2,162 in 2016. In 2000, the population was 3,148. Cimarron County's last decade with population growth was the 1940s. Keyes at one time had a thriving helium plant. And there were hopes for a major wind farm. But these days, Keyes' commerce is down to a convenience store, a repair shop and a branch bank. And the school isn't likely to survive. Superintendent Frieda Burgess held a town meeting last July to discuss the future and let parents know the options, but she said mostly only senior adults attended. “It's going to be tough,” said J.B. Stewart, who has run a farm outside Keyes for 50 years. “It's going to be a challenge. I think we've got a huge struggle ahead of us. We have an excellent facility, but it's pretty hard to do an effective job with just that many students in high school.” Stewart is pleased for the Boise City success and doesn't begrudge the co-op. “There's a lot of excitement,” Stewart said. “A lot more than I ever dreamed there could be, because when I was in school, there was such competition between Keyes and Boise City. Something like that could never have happened. It's worked out extremely well.” For decades, the school and its athletic teams bound Keyes. Ballgames. Fundraisers. Events. Lose the school, and you're down to churches and a civic organization. Burgess works two days as the Keyes superintendent, two days as the superintendent at Optima 58 miles east and one day a week as a counselor at Texhoma, 47 miles to the southeast. “The board still wants to keep the school next year,” Burgess said. “We hope to keep it open.” Part of her Keyes job was hiring transportation to take the junior high athletes over to Boise City, return to pick up Williams and Valencia, take them to Boise City for basketball practice, take the junior high kids back to Keyes and finally return to Boise City and transport Williams and Valencia back. “It's worked out pretty well,” said Boise City coach Roxi Bratcher. “Those two girls have been a real asset to us. At first, it was kind of awkward. But it didn't take `em very long to get to know each other better. They get along really well.” And now the Wildcats, who sport a couple of Pirates on the roster, are in the state tournament and will have all of Cimarron County cheering them. Heck, all of the 166-mile by 34-mile Panhandle, since Boise City is the only state-tournament qualifier from the original No-Man's Land. “I'm so excited for how well we've done,” Williams said. “Still so baffling. Crazy that we get to go to the state tournament and I get to end my senior year with a bang.” Wearing orange and black at state, then switching to blue for graduation. Berry Tramel: Berry can be reached at 405-760-8080 or at btramel@oklahoman. com. He can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including FM-98.1. You can also view his personality page at newsok. com/berrytramel.