With all apologies to the Oklahoma Health Department, the saddest, weirdest and strangest local news story that happened while I was away on paternity leave had to do with Ardmore resident Tracy Garcia. She was mauled to death by a pack of vicious wiener dogs outside her Ardmore home.
Naturally, the story was picked up by the national online clickbait news circuit. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pageview-starved magazines, newspapers and local TV news channels picked up the story and it's WTF, made-for-clicking headline.