Serving the Platte Valley since 1888
Serving the Platte Valley since 1888
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Earlier this summer, over 10,000 trout got helicopter rides to their new homes in Snowy Range Mountain lakes. According to a press release from the Wyoming Game and Fish Department (WGFD), the agency stocked several alpine lakes in Medicine Bow National Forest this way for the benefit of back country anglers. "Helicopter stocking is normally conducted in even numbered years," the release read. It noted that the helicopters conduct their fish drops early in the morning to take advantage of a.m....
A run of eight and a half happy but hectic years managing the Bear Trap Cafe in Riverside is coming to a close for Seattle-native Margaret Weber. Weber has scheduled one last last blow-out “Dukes of Hazard” themed party for the night of Aug. 31, then she will hand over the keys to new-owner Jolene Pavelka the following morning. Weber experienced a wide range of emotions while describing the transition process in a recent interview. “Although it’s been a very good 8½ years, it’s been a very lon...
At the Green River Invitational Cross Country meet, “We had four guys run faster than our top guy ran last year,” said Saratoga cross country coach Rex Hohnholt. Though the Panthers rested several athletes, the team saw big improvements in times across the board, leading Hohnholt to describe the team as being two weeks ahead of where they were at the start of last season. The Panthers’ best finisher, however, was newcomer Encampment freshman Reid Schroeder, who blazed into a second place 5k fi...
As floating season draws to a close, the Platte Valley Chapter of Trout Unlimited (TU) has announced a “River Clean Up Float” scheduled for 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. September 3. TU board member Steve Heinitz is the event’s organizer, and he said the float will concentrate on the North Platte between Treasure Island and town. He hopes to get permission to access private property near the halfway point so the float can be split into two and be more meticulous. Following the clean up effort, Heini...
Although it does have a certain ring to it, we were not, in fact, supposed to be on the night train to Niangoloko. I was well into my second year of service in the Peace Corps in Burkina Faso, and checking one of the items off my Peace Corps Bucket List: traveling by train in West Africa. Along with Rebecca and Barry, two Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) friends, I was joined on the trip by Rebecca’s boyfriend David, who was visiting from the States. The four of us were headed about 100 miles west o...
Write-in candidates in municipal races across the Valley have been notified by certified mail that they crossed the three-vote threshold to be listed on ballots in the general election in November. Those who accept their neighbors’ nomination have five days following the receipt of a certified letter from the election clerk to pay a $25 listing fee in order to appear on general election ballots. In Saratoga, Glee Johnson and Steve Wilcoxson have accepted their nominations and paid the fee to a...
udents gathered under a large metal canopy adjacent to the Silver Spur Ranch shooting range 8 a.m. Saturday morning, arms crossed and fleeces zipped against an early morning chill. The class was called Advanced Defensive Pistol, and the students ranged in age from a teen competitive shooter to elderly adults looking to master new weapons. The instructors were all former police or military weapons trainers, many from the San Diego area of California. John Russell, former SWAT sniper and...
After Walden, the 200-250 person Beaver Creek Fire Incident Command Post (ICP) is currently the second biggest population center in Jackson County Colorado. Barring unforeseen developments, within two months, the tents and the trailers, the helibase and handwashing stations will all be gone. Everyone who calls this ad-hoc city home today will have moved on to other fires, or returned to the day jobs they left on hold to fight the flames here. An Aug. 17 tour of the ICP on day 59 of the fire figh...
A new fire burned about 30 acres four miles east of Hog Park Reservoir in Wyoming as of 10 a.m. Tuesday, a Forest Service news release said. The Broadway Fire, as it is being called, is believed to have ignited within the last week, and was discovered Aug.14. On the Beaver Creek Fire front, crews struggled to hold a fire line on Big Creek Road. The fire jumped the road in one place Monday, though it remained contained behind additional contingency lines, the release said As of Tuesday, there...
The Saratoga Planning Commission will have a full plate for some time to come. In an Aug. 9 meeting attended by about 10 individuals, the commission voted in favor of a rezone request put in by Trivest Enterprises and devoted the remainder of their two-hour meeting to laying out goals for the year ahead. Commission chair Rory Grubb and commission member Chris Duke were absent from the proceedings. The three to one Trivest decision came in the wake of a 20 minute discussion about the developer’s...
Sharing the sidelines of a C.J. Box Trivia event with the author and his wife, it became apparent that Box’s fanbase may remember more about bit characters in the Joe Picket series than does the man who invented them. Whether that’s due to Box’s prodigious output–16 Pickett novels and counting–or his fan’s exceptional avidity is an open question. Saturday, Box was at the Platte Valley Community Center (PVCC) to attend the third annual charity trivia event held there in his honor. About 25 turned...
“I was there when they put it in, so I guess I oughta be there when they open it up,” local historian Dick Perue said, while wearing a printing smock Saturday morning. Perue was referencing a time capsule sealed inside the cornerstone of the Grand Encampment Museum (GEM) Doc Cullerton building 49 years ago when the building was dedicated. In celebration of GEM’s 50th anniversary, that time capsule was opened up Saturday morning in front of crowd of around 150 that turned out for the occasion. Th...
At an August 3 meeting of the Saratoga Town Council, Acting Police Chief Robert Bifano had a mixed bag of developments to report to the council and public. About five citizens were in attendance at the proceedings. On the positive side, Bifano said that a suspect had admitted to committing a recent spate of vehicle vandalism in the Valley. “Last Thursday, we had six vehicle windows smashed out with a baseball bat,” Bifano told the room. He said a suspect had been caught and confessed to the cri...
Best-selling author and celebrated Wyomingite C.J. Box will be making a stop in Saratoga Saturday to help the Saratoga Museum raise money through it's third annual C.J. Box trivia event. The trivia contest will feature questions about the women in Box's popular "Joe Pickett" series of whodunnits. The fun begins 11 a.m. at the Platte Valley Community Center (PVCC), where the author will be available to sign books and greet fans. This portion of the day costs nothing. There is no such thing as a...
Sunday afternoon, members of the Type III Incident Management Team fighting the Beaver Creek Fire 24 miles north of Walden, Colo. safely negotiated treacherous meteorological conditions that rapidly expanded the footprint of the blaze. As of Tuesday, the fire had burned 34,020 acres (roughly 53 square miles), and its management is being transferred from the Type III Incident Management Team lead by John Warder to a National Incident Management Organization Team (NIMO Team) headed by Mike...
August 5, 6 and 7, Encampment will be “Grand” once again. The whole town and its sister berg Riverside will turn out to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Grand Encampment Museum (GEM), and all are invited to attend a multitude of festivities, said GEM director Christie Smith. The “cornerstone” of the weekend will be the opening of a pair of time capsules that were sealed at the museum 49 years ago at GEM’s dedication ceremony June 11, 1967. According to Smith, three members of the original...
As Encampment resident Allen Branton describes it, the job of a television lighting designer is to figure out how to squeeze wonderment into a box. Branton should know: this year he has received two of five Primetime Emmy Award nominations in the category of Best Lighting Design/Lighting Direction for a Variety Special. Branton was nominated for his cinematography of both NBC's "The Wiz: LIVE!," a televised broadway-style play, and "Adele: Live in New York City," an NBC broadcast of an Adele...
My second trail season with the Maine Conservation Corps (MCC) began, as the locals say, “way down East” in Washington County. Our assignment there was to do heavy duty maintenance on a ten-mile section of the Cutler Coast Public Lands. These paths were a little more trafficked than the deep-woods locations I’d been sent to in my first three months, but we could still work for several consecutive days without seeing any hikers. This was especially true of the inland half of the 10-mile figur...
With Wyoming's at-large U.S. Congressional seat open for the first time in eight years, the race to replace outgoing congresswoman Cynthia Lummis on the Republican ticket is crowded and entering its final stretch. July 19, that race came to the Platte Valley when Liz Cheney made a campaign swing through the area, stopping at the Saratoga Senior Center and eating lunch in Encampment prior to the August 16 primaries. About five residents, including National Rifle Association (NRA) election...
Government officials representing every corner of South Central Wyoming gathered in Riverside July 20, from Melodie Seilaff of the Dixon Town Council to Jerry Paxton, Wyoming State Representative for House District 47, as well as all five Carbon County Commissioners. The group of about 35 represented high turnout for the bimonthly meeting of Carbon County Council of Governments (COGs), and the headline item on their agenda was a resolution opposing increased taxation rates for wind power. COGs...
Outside of a resolution opposing a proposed increase in the wind power excise tax (see: COGs, page 1), there were few actionable items on the agenda at a July 19 meeting of the Saratoga Town Council. Council members Will Faust and Sue Howe were absent from the proceedings, which were attended by about 10 members of the public. The resolution opposing the increase in the wind power tax was passed unanimously after it was first presented at the last council meeting July 5. Kara Choquette and...
A coterie of seven from the Wyoming Department of Transportation (WYDOT) arrived in sharp attire to a July 20 meeting of the Carbon County Council of Governments (COGs). The mix of road workers and WYDOT officialdom represented about a fifth of the total turnout at the COGs meeting. Their presentation, delivered by WYDOT District 1 District Engineer Tom DeHoff, was a half-hour summary of WYDOT’s plan for the next seven years. DeHoff gave a brief overview of 28 different projects WYDOT hoped to c...
About 50 people attended a July 25 Candidate Forum hosted by the Valley Service Organization (VSO) at the Platte Valley Community Center (PVCC). Eight candidates auditioned for three different government positions at the event including Clerk of District Court, Carbon County Commissioner and Wyoming State Representative for House District 47. The three who ran for the House District 47 seat consisted of two Republicans and one Democrat. Jerry Paxton, the Republican incumbent, has served since...
If attendance at a July 18 meeting of the Carbon County Library Board (CCLSB) was any indication, the contention and controversy that swirled around the board in recent months may be waning. With an audience of less than five not counting media and guest presenters the CCLSB hired Jacob Mickelsen to serve as new Executive Director of Carbon County Libraries. Mickelsen is inheriting a challenging set of circumstances following the abrupt resignation of his predecessor, Bobbie Morgan, and the depa...
It’s back to the drawing board for both Triple D Construction firm and Trivest Enterprises. The fates of two separate development projects likely hinge on zone change amendments that have to pass through the Saratoga Planning Commission, and neither got the nod from the commission at a July 12 meeting attended by around 10 people. Rory Grubb normally serves as chair of the planning commission, but since he was representing Trivest at the July 12 meeting, he recused his spot at the table early o...