Interviews conducted by state auditors indicate the town election held four and a half years ago in Bradley, Oklahoma, resembled a college fraternity kegger.
The event “turned into a riot,” ex-Mayor Donna Thornburg said. Former Clerk Charlene Brown arrived at the meeting and “signed in” but left before casting her vote “because everyone was yelling and screaming,” Thornburg recalled. One attendee said it “was like a grade school election.”
Twenty-seven townspeople were eligible to vote, but 29 votes were counted in the election of a town councilor, and 28 ballots were cast for the clerk/treasurer. Furthermore, 30 people wrote their names on the sign-in sheet; one person signed in twice and two others “were not on the Grady County registered voting list,” auditors learned. The last person “arrived late, after the board member vote was complete,” an auditor wrote.
The election was held at 5:30 p.m., April 6, 2021, in the Bradley Community Building. Voters elected a member to Position 2 on the town’s Board of Trustees, along with the clerk/treasurer. Both offices were for four-year terms.
Notices of the election were posted 10 days in advance. Photographs of the postings “appeared to be in five separate locations,” auditors reported – although it could not be confirmed that the sites “were accessible to the public.”
The election was not announced in any newspaper, according to Clerk/Treasurer Anita Fowler. Then-town attorney David Perryman “advised Bradley did not have to publish notices in the newspaper because there was not a local paper that serviced all of the citizens,” Fowler was quoted as telling a state auditor.
No official printed ballots were used in Bradley’s April 2021 municipal election. Former Trustee Darin Johnston told an auditor that “pieces of paper were torn up and handed out,” and each voter wrote the name of the candidate “for whom they wished to vote.”
Kathy Fitzpatrick squeaked past Kimberly Beal by a vote of 15-14 to capture the trustee seat. Fowler defeated Nataline Harrington by a vote of 17-11 to win the clerk/treasurer post.
Darin Johnston’s brother, Mike, signed his name but didn’t vote because his voter ID card listed his address in McClain County. Also, “he thought it was a sign-in sheet rather than a voting sheet,” Fitzpatrick said.
Thornburg said she and Darin Johnston counted the ballots “in front of everyone” at the polling site, “and the results were announced to everyone.”
Although “ineligible votes” were cast in each of the two elections, no one contested the results within the next three days, per state statute, so “the results of the election stand.”
State Auditor and Inspector Cindy Byrd recommended that the trustees adopt an ordinance “to have the Grady County Election Board conduct Bradley’s town elections…” Byrd and her staff performed a forensic audit of the Town of Bradley that was released on Nov. 21, 2025, in response to a citizen petition.
The petition was “sent out” on June 8, 2021, and was due back a month later. To be accepted it had to be signed by nine registered voters in the town of approximately 85 residents; the Grady County Election Board verified 12 signatures on the document.
Bradley is 18 miles southeast of Chickasha, on SH-19. A sign proclaims that the town was established in 1891; however, reportedly the community was officially incorporated on Jan. 3, 1939. “Three inspectors were duly chosen and took the oath of office at that time,” state auditors reported.
Ex-Mayor Thornburg was asked for any records indicating the town incorporation, charter, ordinances, or town creation records. “She stated she doesn’t have anything” and the town “does not have any ordinances.”
According to the Oklahoma Municipal League, Bradley has operated under the “Statutory Town Board of Trustees Form of Government” with three trustees since its incorporation.
Comments made to state auditors during their investigation indicate that Bradley Board of Trustees meetings in 2021, and perhaps even earlier, resembled a Wild West saloon with pistol-packing participants.
Thornburg said former Trustee Fitzpatrick was once threatened during a meeting by a townsman armed “with a gun on his hip.” During one meeting, Thornburg told auditors, “about seven of them had guns on their hips, and Fitzpatrick left out the back door.”
The town’s “official” website lists a mailing address but no telephone number nor any of the town officials.
The OML’s 2025 directory of Cities and Towns lists current officers in Bradley as Mayor Earl Cox, Trustees Zanna Shipman and Dean Beverly, and Clerk Rachel Snyder. However, Cox resigned and was replaced by Brian Pennington. Perryman was succeeded as Bradley’s town attorney by Lucas M. West of Nichols Dixon law firm in Norman.