By Robert Medley
Managing Editor
Larry Annuschat lost three brothers and his sister in his longtime Okarche family to COVID-19, and he has battled the virus himself, hanging on and fighting through it. His sister Victoria Lynn Marks, 66, lost her battle Friday, Nov. 22.
Ronald “Ron” Annuschat, 58, died of COVID-19 on Oct. 30. Then older brother Paul “Mac” Joseph Annuschat, 68, died of the virus Oct. 31 . Nicholas “Nick” Thomas Annuschat, 59, died Friday, Nov. 6. All died at Mercy Hospital in Oklahoma City, devastating the Okarche farming family and community.
But the memories of two of the Annuschat boys’ most victorious of sporting seasons have not faded, and are as important as ever.
There is a rich tradition of basketball in Okarche that spans back decades. And decades ago, in Okarche, a school district without a football team, Okarche basketball was, and still to this day is important to the community. Okarche remains today in school Class A, just like in 1979, when Ron and Nick Annuschat were on Coach Bob Carter’s only state championship team. Nick was named to the All-Tournament team in the quest to bring home the title.
Kevin Rother was also a senior on that team. The team played inside what is now the Okarche Elementary School gymnasium and they played in the old Skyline Conference, Piedmont, Kingfisher, Deer Creek, Tuttle, Bethany. On cold winter nights, the solid wood floor had plenty of spring, and the walls carried the sound of the bouncing balls, the smell of the popcorn served in white paper bags filling the house.
It was within these walls just a year ago, that members of that 1979 Warriors State Championship team met for a reunion. Ron and Nick Annuschat were there as was Larry Annuschat, who would graduate in Okarche in 1985.
Larry Annuschat said Coach Bob Carter and basketball were part of the foundation of the community.
“I remember Nick and Ron my two brothers, when they would get their chores done in the evenings out here and it would still be daylight in the summertime. They had a wooden pole and Nick made a backboard out of 2X6 boards and Nick and Ron would stay out there and play basketball until midnight when they were in seventh and eighth grade,” Larry Annuschat said.
They played on a shale court too, he said. Larry Annuschat would nail the rim back to the board many times while he played during his youth at home. The shale court helped them condition, Larry said.
“You think about playing on that thick, dusty shale and that is the best thing for your muscles,” Larry said.
Rother was a senior guard who also played some forward on that championship team. Rother, who lives in the Clinton area today, also remembers the year before the state championship title of ’79. It was in 1978 when Rother and Nick were juniors in the Class A Championship game against Fairfax, he remembers well too. Okarche lost that final game in double overtime and ended the year as a State Runner-up.
The Warriors were back the next year under Coach Carter who was in his 10th season with a 162-93 record. He had not won a state championship.
“I had started first grade with Nick in public school. I remember he called himself a ‘streak shooter’ and he would go hot and cold,” Rother said.
“He (Nick) got hot there at the end of that last game,” Rother said.
Rother went to his attic recently and found a scrapbook with newspaper clippings about the season and game.
The Oklahoma City newspaper’s coaches’ poll had Okarche first in the Skyline Conference preseason ahead of Tuttle, Kingfisher, Piedmont, Deer Creek and Bethany. The Daily Oklahoman’s Ray Soldan called the Skyline Conference “one of the strongest in the state in its enrollment group.” And Okarche was loaded.
They were also the Catholic boys team. Every player was also a Holy Trinity Catholic Church member. And they were coached by a Baptist. The last names of the players read like a parish directory, Annuschat, Baustert, Bomhoff, Coffey, Gilles, Grellner and a Cronkhite. They represented hard-working German immigrant Catholics, many who continue to live on, work in town or farm the land today. The Annuschats were one of those families, living and working together on the farm in Kingfisher County.
On Jan. 9, the Deer Creek Antlers and emerging sophomore stars Tod Kessler and David Walker nearly beat Okarche in a one-point squeaker, as the Antlers upset bid fell short 49-48. Walker had gone to elementary school in Okarche and knew Ron and Nick. Kessler remembers the battle was against more than just the basketball team, but an entire town.
“Deer Creek always had a rivalry between Piedmont, Kingfisher and Okarche. That year (79) we played Okarche first and lost a heartbreaker,” Kessler recalls, who lives in the Dallas, Texas area today. “The Town of Okarche was the reason they won, they had the 12th man in the stands but in basketball terms. I remember how this was one of the most important games of our season and during the game as a sophomore I could understand why they were so good, they played and fought hard like families do and you could tell they all were friends first.”
In Nick’s obituary, it is mentioned that he liked to tell others about what happened in his last game and what title he carried through life.
And in that last, glorious game at state, the final game that Nick, Ron, Kevin and the others would play, Nick poured in the points.
That last game, and it would be the last organized basketball game Rother would ever play in, was against Turner for the 1979 Class A State Championship. Turner had an all-star player named Marvin Gaines, who almost changed the ending to the story.
With time running out, and Okarche ahead, Gaines flung a prayer from half-court that tied the game and sent the Warriors into another state championship overtime.
Rother said memories of basketball have been important in his life.
“There have been a lot of good basketball teams in Okarche,” Rother said.
In fact, he says for the first 25 years of his life, having won a state championship was “the most important achievement in his life.”
“For my first 25 years of life, that game was the top, the cream of the crop,” Rother said.
And in that ’79 game the Warriors found themselves down 47-41 in the third quarter at the State Fair Arena. Then the Warriors fought back as Nick Annuschat lighted things up from the field.
“We came back and we were ahead,” Rother said. “And then they hit that shot to tie it from half-court.”
The seniors were not going to lose again in overtime. And they barely did it, winning 63-62.
“We had been through it the year before and we had come so close and we felt like we wouldn’t be denied that year. Nick came out and hit a couple of big baskets for us,’ Rother said. We got lucky enough to pull it out.
Rother tried to walk-on at Cameron University after high school, but Cameron at the time “was loaded,” and Rother didn’t make the team. Rother has been in the water business with Culligan since then. He still keeps in touch with players and families in Okarche.
“I have to tell you, Nick was probably my best-est, best friend growing up. We had a lot of similarities we both came from very large families and both grew up on a farm. We started school and went all through the 12 years of schooling. We couldn’t have won that state championship game without Nick.” And he married Donna Eischen of Okarche, who he went on a double date with Nick. “They were loved by everybody in that community,” Rother said of the Annuschats family. “Nick has a pretty special place in my heart,” Rother said.
Larry Annuschat looked through newspaper clippings and photographs from 1979 that remain in the home where Paul had lived before the recent outbreak of virus and deaths of the family members.
He remembers that Nick scored 20 points in his last game in basketball that won the state title. Nick didn’t play in college.
“That group of guys were so close, that is why they accomplished what they accomplished,” Larry Annuschat said.
The Warriors of ’79 almost lost, but won the district finals when a player for Garber missed two free throws with no time remaining, Larry Annuschat recalls.
Okarche won the area tournament against Oktaha, and they beat Shidler in the regional tournament.
The memories of that season live on, despite the tragedies of COVID-19, Larry Annuschat said.
“You always hope that as you pass on in this life, that God makes it be one at a time or as simple as possible, but to me what happened here was all four of them passed at one time,” Larry Annuschat said. “I lost them all at one time. You have to pick yourself up and dust yourself off. We’re still here. This Earth will keep moving. You just have to take one day at a time and honor their memories to the best of your abilities. The memories are what the human body needs here on Earth.”
