Town named Hooker is waiting for the punch line

The residents of Hooker, Okla., have one message for all you wiseguys out there who would never be able to resist cracking a joke about their town’s bawdy name: Bring it on.

Hooker is, after all, the town whose official Web site proclaims, “It’s a location, not a vocation,” and whose high school once gave its yearbook the theme, “Not your typical Hooker.”

Local lore has it the town was named for a cowboy whose calf-roping skills earned him the moniker “Hooker.”

Hookerites, as locals of the 1,800-person Panhandle community like to call themselves, have heard so many one-liners that the Hooker Advance newspaper is soliciting them in honor of Hooker’s centennial celebration next May.

Not all will make the printed page, however.

“You have to walk a fine line,” said Sheila Blankenship, the weekly paper’s editor.

“We are a highly Christian community,” she said.