CHICKASHA — The Chamber of Commerce, the Festival of Light and the Chickasha Economic Development Council earned statewide honors at the 2025 Redbud Awards, taking home multiple honors for excellence in tourism, events and community branding.
Hosted by the Oklahoma Travel Industry Association and Oklahoma Tourism, the Redbud Awards celebrate the best in Oklahoma’s tourism industry. The award ceremony was held June 24 in Norman.
This year, Chickasha captured three major awards.
• Redbud Award Winner for Outstanding Agritourism Attraction: Grady County Fairgrounds and Event Center.
• Merit Award for Outstanding Event: Chickasha Festival of Light, an annual event recognized as one of the top 10 holiday light shows in the nation that features more than 3.5 million twinkling lights.
• Merit Award for Best Overall Marketing Campaign: Chickasha EDC & Chamber: “Why Chickasha?”
“These awards are recognition of the hard work, creativity and community spirit driving our efforts every day,” said Jim Cowan, president of the Chickasha Chamber of Commerce and executive director of the Chickasha EDC.
The Chickasha Chamber and the EDC “continue to take the lead in showcasing Chickasha as a vibrant, welcoming destination that blends tradition, innovation, and hometown pride to visitors from all over the world,” Cowan said – many drawn to Chickasha in no small part because of the iconic “leg lamp statue” in the downtown park. The Chickasha community has won 12 state tourism awards since 2021 including Tourism Organization of the Year last year.
The Grady County Fairgrounds and Event Center – third largest in the state behind Oklahoma City’s and Tulsa’s – entered the competition this year for the first time and won a Redbud Award.
Oklahoma Redbud Awards are presented by the Oklahoma Travel Industry Association to recognize outstanding achievements and contributions to the state's tourism industry by various attractions, destination marketing organizations, and individuals.
“We’ve also won several awards from the International Association of Fairs and Expos,” said Andy Maher, executive director of the fairgrounds.
The 65-acre facility hosts myriad events, including rodeos, performance horse shows, dog shows, concerts, roping events, barrel racing, cutting horse and team penning events, numerous local and statewide educational events, sports activities, wedding receptions and the largest antique car swap meet in the nation.
Livestock shows at the fairgrounds feature more than just horses and cattle. The annual Mazuri Alpaca Owners Association National Alpaca Show was held in Chickasha in March, for the first time.
The fairgrounds is “essentially our convention center,” Cowan said. “They are the largest venue in Chickasha, and that’s why we host the Chamber Banquet there every year for 450-plus people.” The Grady County Fairgrounds also has been the site of school events, including sports banquets, proms, FFA activities and regional contests, Maher said.
“We focus on family and corporate events as well as livestock shows,” he told Southwest Ledger.
Corporate retreats and oil-and-gas safety meetings are held at the fairgrounds. “We had three events yesterday,” Maher told the Ledger last Friday, “and two of them were oil-and-gas training events.”
During the COVID pandemic the fairgrounds “stayed open and attracted national events from large metro areas such as Denver,” Cowan recalled.
Fairgrounds personnel “are community-minded and have chaired the Chickasha Chamber and served as board members of the EDC,” Cowan noted.
Maher and his staff sponsored the first-ever peer city conference this year to offer advice and assistance to other fairgrounds across Oklahoma.
Last year, 367 events were conducted at the Grady County Fairgrounds, Maher’s records reflect. Many of the events held at the fairgrounds include catered meals, typically breakfast or lunch, “so we get to tap into local resources,” he said.
The fairgrounds’ busy schedule provides some impetus to proposals to construct a hotel nearby and to erect a pedestrian bridge over the railroad tracks in order to link the fairgrounds to “Old Town” Chickasha.