ROBERT PIERCE
• Leader & Times
Schools are filled with students, and while the calendar still says summer, cooler weather has arrived on the High Plains.
Monday is Labor Day, and for nearly 20 years, the Saturday after Labor Day has been marked with a car show for one town in the Oklahoma Panhandle.
This year’s Hooker Car Show is scheduled to take place Saturday, Sept. 6, along Glaydas Street in the town’s downtown area. Organizer Linda Martin said this year’s show will likewise have some of Hooker High School’s former students taking part with a school reunion happening the same day.
Martin said this will make what is already a well attended event even more so.
“It’s going to be really crowded,” she said. “Going to be a lot of people coming in.”
In the past, many HHS classes would have reunions in the spring, but with the car show taking place in early September, it made more sense to have a reunion at that time.
“It’s great entertainment for them,” Martin said. “I think it’s going to help a lot.”
Martin said excitement has already been building, with many car entries filed, and vintage vehicles will be seen up and down the blocks that make up Glaydas Street.
“We have some entertainment,” she said. “We will have some music in the evening after the car show is over. They usually clear out about 3:30 or 4. About 5 or 6, we’ll have some entertainment.”
One of the cars featured in the show will be a 1970 Dodge Challenger owned by Rob Thompson of Borger, Texas, and a Ruger Precision Rimfire bolt action rifle will be raffled off for $2 per ticket, with proceeds benefitting scholarships and community activities. Three $100 bills will also be given away each hour to car show entries.
The town of Hooker has the feel of most towns its size and a sense of community, and Martin said this is much of what makes the car show, which is in its 19th year, popular.
“People like coming in,” she said. “It’s not a lot of hassle. They come in and park and go up and down the street. We have food. They meet their friends. It works out real well. Everybody is comfortable. They feel at home, which is wonderful.”
Martin said the idea for the car show originally came from a need to get more people into downtown Hooker.
“The highway’s a couple of blocks over, and that gets a lot of traffic,” she said. “Downtown doesn’t get much traffic, and this is where the businesses are. I wanted to show them off.”
With the 20th anniversary of the car show a year away, big plans could be in place for 2026, but Martin said she is not looking that far ahead yet.
“I haven’t thought about it,” she said. “I’m trying to get through this year.”
With Hooker alumni coming to the car show, Martin said she is also hoping they will bring some classic rides to put on display.
“So far, I haven’t had any, but I’m sure there’s a lot of students who went to school here who have cars,” she said. “They have a chance to show them off, and it might make it a little bigger. It’s going to be a wonderful day.”
In Liberal in May, Billy’s Blue Duck BBQ and Light Park play host to the Yellow Brick Road Car Show, and having the Hooker Car Show in September provides bookends for summer, with one show opening the season and the other closing it.
Both car shows also bring in participants from great distances, and Martin said she particularly likes the story of one entry that came from Washington state.
“They were encouraged by relatives in Woodward, Okla.,” she said.
Those relatives, Martin said, encouraged the person to stop at the car show on their way to Woodward, about 125 miles east of Hooker.
Entry forms for the Hooker Car Show are available, and Martin said flyers are up around town at local businesses to be distributed. For an entry form, call (580) 652-2333, go to the Hooker Car Show Facebook page, or e-mail
“We can mail them some entries, or I can fill it out,” Martin said. “We’ll have the same place for entries that morning there at the senior citizens. They’ll come in there to register or pick up their bags and T-shirts.”
The Hooker Car Show starts at 9 a.m. Sept. 6 with the national anthem, and drawings willl begin at 10 a.m. Merchant drawings will take place at 3:30 p.m., and car show awards and the gun drawing will be at 4 p.m.
Like always, Martin is excited for this year’s show.
“It’s always a lot of fun,” she said. “It’s a lot of work, and we’ve got some good workers and helpers. It works. This little town comes alive that day.”
