Serving the Platte Valley since 1888
Serving the Platte Valley since 1888
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Music teacher John Steinhardt and his two elementary school bands from Medicine Bow and Elk Mountain put some rock and roll into the Jan. 21 Carbon County School District No. 2 Board of Directors meeting. Steinhardt said CCSD#2 Superintendent Bob Gates came up with the idea and Steinhardt and his students ran with it. I thought it was a good way for us to showcase (the students) and their achievements, Gates said. The Saratoga and Encampment choirs sang at the December CCSD#2 board meeting, and...
In the month after Sandy Hook, Ken Lehr’s job went from teaching and educating students to patrolling and doing door checks. Lehr, School Resource Officer in Saratoga said his emphasis on the physical safety of students will continue until the schools formally adopt new security measures. Saratoga will be hosting a “Lone Wolf” school, a program that, like its name, teaches one or two officers how to respond to an active shooter. Lehr said officers from all over Wyoming and some from Color...
Jennifer Morgan’s seven blocks stood in contrast to the Lady Tigers’ lowest game stats of the season in a frustrating 10-43 loss to Little Snake River Valley Friday night. “We came out slow and struggled all night,” coach Amy Clay said. “We were not aggressive on either end of the floor.” Ranked fifth in their division, the young Encampment (1-14), (0-5) team couldn’t find any air against the number two LSRV (11-8), (4-2) team. Adding to Cassidy Little’s 4 points, Morgan, Michelle Hooker...
With more games behind them and playing on their own hardwood, the fifth ranked Saratoga Lady Panthers (7-13), (0-7) improved their performance against Pine Bluffs (5-9), (2-3) Friday night. Saratoga lost by 6 back in December, but propelled by senior Taylor Smith’s 18 point performance, came within 3 points of a win this time. Smith polished those points with four assists. That trend is promising if the Lady Panther’s end up facing fourth ranked Pine Bluffs in a play-in game to reach Reg...
School security is always something Superintendent Bob Gates, Carbon County School District #2 Board of Directors and principals talk about, but events like the shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school in Connecticut put the conversation front and center. The challenge is to put some practical procedures in place without creating a logistical nightmare. Short of turning them into a prison and drastically restructuring students’ educational experience, there is no way to make schools c...
Walking into Jerry Wood’s studio is like walking into another era. The still grace of the sculptures themselves are the only suggestion of movement, except for the carver himself surrounded by the chink, chink of hammer and chisel on stone. Dust floats in the air and comes to rest like a skiff of sepia-colored snow on finished and half-finished pieces. Wood will be showing 20 sculptures at a solo exhibition at the Community Fine Arts Center in Rock Springs for the month of February. The s...
A proposed walking path from Veterans Island to Sandy Beach at Saratoga Lake got a boost when the Saratoga Town Council passed a resolution, at Recreation Director Lisa Burton’s request, to approve submission of a $2,500 grant to help cover the total estimated cost of $8,160 dollars. The remaining $5,560 would come out of the town’s budget and the town would provide labor and equipment. Burton applied for the grant last year, but it was not funded. The grant is administered by the Wyoming Com...
Planning, designing and running a restaurant is hard work and even harder if your business partner is your spouse. Tommy and Cassie Orduno, owners and operators of Bella’s Bistro, not only pulled it off, they won the Saratoga Platte Valley Chamber of Commerce “New Business of the Year” award in the process. The two worked together before marriage at Sullivan’s Steak House in Denver. Cassie was a graphic designer and working as a lighting consultant for architects designing commercial buildin...
Encampment Police Chief Nick Finer gave the Encampment council a letter of resignation at their meeting Jan. 10. Finer said he flew when he was in the Army and was resigning to pursue a career in aviation. His last day will be Jan. 31. Town clerk Doreen Harvey reported the town of Encampment had reached a fully executed emergency water services agreement to build an an emergency water connection between Encampment and the Sierra Madre Water and Sewer Joint Powers Board (SMWSJPB). Project...
Members of the public applauded after Councilman Steve Wilcoxson read from two letters at the Saratoga Town Council meeting Tuesday. The first was one he had written to the Planning Commission to apologize for his behavior at its Dec. 11 meeting. In that letter, Wilcoxson also said the board was not equally enforcing the zoning regulations of the town of Saratoga and the zoning ordinances should be changed to reflect what has long been allowed. Wilcoxson wanted to read his letter publicly at...
It can be hard for a conservative guy to support raising taxes, but that is what freshman representative for House District 47, Jerry Paxton, did when he voted for the 10-cent gas tax. “When I first looked at it, I wasn’t crazy about it,” Paxton said. But Paxton did some research and discovered he could support the tax based on what he found out. Paxton said Wyoming has pulled around a quarter of a billion dollars out of the general fund over the past three years to supplement road maintenance,...
The Board of Trustees for Carbon County School District No. 2 wants to update its policy governing employee use of social media and considered four policies ranging from explicit and specific to broad and general at its meeting Monday. Cell phones and social media are pervasive in society today. Staff and coaches often rely on the use of texting to organize students and communicate the logistics of travel to and from events. Board member Kay Lynn Palm said the overwhelming message she got was... Full story
The Sierra Madre Winter Carnival in Encampment has slalomed through some changes over its more than 25 years in existence. This year, the carnival will have a winter feel thanks to snowfall in December and a proactive public works department in Encampment that helped preserve the snow by piling it early on. The carnival kicks off Friday night with a treasure hunt starting at the Opera House at 6 p.m. and ending there with a roast beef dinner afterwards. Kid’s sledding, the event that was a... Full story
The biggest mill in 400 miles started operating in Saratoga in mid-December and the cold weather over the past few weeks has highlighted the smoke coming out of the stacks above the by-product fed kilns. The mill has been idle for 10 years and the new owners have refurbished existing machines and installed new equipment and brought personnel from the manufacturers of the equipment to help with the start up. “Every day it has been progressing,” Clint George, partner in Saratoga Forest Pro...
At last Tuesday’s Planning Commission meeting, Saratoga resident David Worthington was asked not to film the meeting. Worthington said he has been filming airport board and town council meetings for over a year, when he attends the meetings. The Commission voted against allowing him to film the meeting, Worthington said. “I said as long as I’m not disruptive, I can video (the meeting), but out of courtesy I turned (the camera) off,” Worthington said in an interview yesterday. Board member...
After an executive session to discuss personnel, the Saratoga Planning Commission gained ground on a common understanding of Home Occupations as they are defined in Chapter 18.06 of the Saratoga Municipal Code. Zoning officer Chuck Bartlett requested the board clarify special use permits as they relate to home occupations as a result of what he said were conflicting interpretations of the home occupation definitions. The board voted at its Dec. 11 meeting to require a special or conditional use...
Mayor Ron Bedwell swore in new Riverside council member, Margaret Weber along with returning councilman Leroy Stephenson. Weber replaced Councilwoman Helen Weiland. Stephenson reported the sewer lagoons shouldn’t have to be discharged until May or June. Riverside doesn’t have enough effluent to treat and discharge on a regular basis and generally only discharges for about three weeks per quarter. The council is considering a couple of sewer projects when the weather improves using State Lan...
Instead of the usual seasonal influenza cases in February and March, influenza showed up in the Valley early this year and is infecting more people than normal, according to Dr. Dean Bartholomew at the Platte Valley Medical Clinic (PVMC). The PVMC began seeing above average numbers patients with flu symptoms as early as November. “It’s the most I’ve seen in my fourth flu season in the Valley,” Bartholomew said. Bartholomew said it was rare for two different strains of influenza to be active...
At home, Ronda Krouch’s favorite meals are the ones her husband cooks, because she doesn’t have to. At work, though, Krouch likes to cook and will get the chance to do just that in her new role as the site manager of the Sagebrush Senior Center in Encampment. Krouch officially started on Jan. 2 and she’ll have the previous site manager, Dodey Brown on hand to show her the ropes until the end of January. Brown is retiring after seven years with the Senior Center. “This is something that I had m...
After a year with the Saratoga-Encampment-Rawlins Conservation District (SERCD), Joe Parsons is now the Supervisory Resource Specialist for the organization. Parson’s old and somewhat unique position was funded by a partnership among the Game and Fish, the Conservation District, the National Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) and Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory. Although the list of his employers is now much shorter, the list of his duties is not. “Before I was dealing with sage grouse, workin...
With temperatures dropping well below zero over the weekend and projected lows in the teens all week, anglers should have augers ready to drill through thick ice on Saratoga Lake for the 30th Annual Fishing Derby this weekend. Thirty years ago, C.J. Box, Wyoming writer and creator of the fishing derby, had lived in Saratoga for a couple of years working for the Saratoga Sun and knew January was a slow period for the town. In what was then his new role as head of the Saratoga Platte Valley Chamber of Commerce, Box said he had access to the...
This column was supposed to be about New Year’s resolutions, but it is probably going to end up going to the dogs. Either way, much has already been written about both subjects. I am disorganized when it comes to New Years’s resolutions. I’ve never started a positive change on Jan. 1 and stuck with it much longer than a week. Most of my positive initiatives have come at random points during the year, sparked by a challenge or an insightful conversation. I started running 10 years ago after... Full story
Two irrigation control boxes were run over and ripped out of the ground at the Saratoga Resort and Spa golf course over the weekend. “We’re pretty confident it had to be sometime Friday evening,” Susan Wallace, general manager for the Resort said on Monday. “A neighbor stated they noticed it Saturday morning - another member walked the golf course Friday afternoon and said it wasn’t there then.” The Resort is offering a $1,000 dollar reward leading to the identity and prosecution of the individ...
After an executive session to discuss personnel and matters of litigation, the town council approved a motion to allow Mayor John Zeiger to act on behalf of the town in a court hearing against Randy Stevens on Friday. Prior to going before the judge, attorneys for the two parties settled on a tentative deal that is contingent on both sides signing the agreement. “In my opinion, it was a win-win situation,” Zeiger said in an interview Tuesday. Stevens will empty a container and the town will mov...
Jay Shogren and the Shanghai’d were selected by the Wyoming Blues and Jazz Society to represent Wyoming at the International Blues Challenge in Memphis, Tenn. Jan. 30 through Feb. 2. “Memphis is a great music town,” Shogren, vocalist, guitarist, mandolin player and songwriter for the band, said. “It should be a great experience and good for the band. We don’t usually see ourselves in competitions, but it will be a unique opportunity to represent Wyoming.” The Shanghai’d were in Saratoga last...