{"id":15655,"date":"2013-08-13T13:04:31","date_gmt":"2013-08-13T18:04:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=15655"},"modified":"2013-08-13T13:04:31","modified_gmt":"2013-08-13T18:04:31","slug":"how-hugo-lake-lost-its-state-park-status","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2013\/08\/13\/how-hugo-lake-lost-its-state-park-status\/","title":{"rendered":"How Hugo Lake Lost Its State Park Status"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_14545\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-14545\" alt=\"Fishing near Hugo Lake park, which lost its state park status in June 2013.\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2013\/06\/kiamichi02-300x199.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Joe Wertz \/ StateImpact Oklahoma<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Fishing near Hugo Lake park, which lost its state park status in June 2013.<\/p>\n<\/div><p>The Oklahoma Tourism Commission on June 26 voted to strip Hugo Lake of its state park status, citing low attendance.<\/p><p>The commission acted \u201cquietly,\u201d but state Sen. Jerry Ellis, D-Valliant, responded loudly, <em>The Journal Record<\/em>\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/journalrecord.com\/2013\/08\/12\/losing-hugo-lake-park-stripped-of-state-designation-capitol\/\">M. Scott Carter reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>On Aug. 2, Ellis sent a letter to Republican Gov. Mary Fallin asking that the Tourism Commission reconsider the status of the park using factual information.<\/p><p>Should he not receive notice that the vote would be reconsidered, Ellis wrote, he would issue a statement calling for [state Tourism and Recreation Department Director Deby] Snodgrass\u2019 resignation.<\/p><\/blockquote><p>Ellis\u2019 argument: The commission\u2019s attendance numbers are wrong \u2014 Hugo Lake attracts more than 30 times as many visitors as state tourism officials say.<\/p><p><!--more-->Low attendance is the biggest reason Oklahoma sheds state parks. In 2011, <a href=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/tag\/state-parks\/\">the commission voted to close or transfer seven state parks<\/a> to save $700,000. Cities assumed management of five of those parks; Native American tribes took control of the other two.<\/p><p>The Hugo Lake park is managed by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.littledixie.org\/ldcaahistory.html\">the Little Dixie Community Action Agency<\/a>, which faxed over numbers that showed only 2,982 people visited the park in 2012, the paper reports.<\/p><p>But Sen. Ellis says numbers from the Army Corps of Engineers show the park\u2019s 2012 attendance was 133,162 and has exceeded 100,000 for the last several years, the <em>Journal<\/em> reports:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>That smaller figure, Ellis said, represented only the number of reservations at cabins around the lake.<\/p><\/blockquote><p>Tourism officials are double-checking their numbers, the paper reports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Oklahoma Tourism Commission on June 26 voted to strip Hugo Lake of its state park status, citing low attendance.The commission acted \u201cquietly,\u201d but state Sen. Jerry Ellis, D-Valliant, responded loudly, The Journal Record\u2019s M. Scott Carter reports: On Aug. 2, Ellis sent a letter to Republican Gov. Mary Fallin asking that the Tourism Commission [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":14545,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[491],"tags":[89,48,111],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15655"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15655"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15663,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15655\/revisions\/15663"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}