Two Okay Men Arrested For Theft Of School Air Conditioners, Church Keyboard

Two Okay men are in the Sequoyah County jail after a sheriff's deputy caught the pair with air conditioning units from a local school district in their pickup truck early Tuesday.

Sheriff Ron Lockhart says they got a call from a neighbor of the school about a suspicious vehicle at about 1:30 a.m. When the deputy arrived, he spotted a pickup truck quickly driving away.

After a short chase, the truck was stopped and the deputy found four Rheem air conditioning units in the pickup along with an electronic organ.

The two men, Dylan Compton, 21, and Robert Ford, 21, were arrested and booked into jail on theft complaints.

Lockhart said the organ was believed taken from the Cherokee Children's Mission Church in rural Adair County late Monday.

He believes Compton and Ford could be connected to other recent church and residential burglaries in Adair, Cherokee and Sequoyah counties. Lockhart says his office is working with law enforcement in those counties.

Marble City School officials say each air conditioning unit costs between $3,000 to $4,000. To repair and replace the Freon in each unit could cost several thousand dollars as well.