Serving the Platte Valley since 1888
Serving the Platte Valley since 1888
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Some people pray. Some consult friends or family. Some toss their fate to the wind and flip a coin. However they choose to deal with them, all people experience “moments of decision” in their lives, and this is the theme of the latest WyoPoets chapbook of poetry, which was released April 22. Entitled “Labyrinth: Poems from Wyoming and Beyond,” the volume includes 33 poems from 24 different poets, including Encampment’s own Dawn Senior-Trask. Wyoming Poet Laureate A. Rose Hill decided which of...
It wasn't just the cold that Milo Hunter had to battle. Hunter also confronted shifting project parameters, budget constraints, petty vandalism and even the treacherous Wyoming Department of Transportation (WYDOT) permitting process for signage. None of it was sufficient to stop the resolute Eagle Scout to-be. Hunter made a pair of signs for Saratoga's Shively Field Airport, installing the signs in late March to complete the project one day before his eighteenth birthday. Boy Scout regulations...
The gubernatorial jet touched down at Shively Field Wednesday morning, April 20. Wyoming Governor Matt Mead, was in town last week to eat lunch with a group of donors to the Platte Valley Community Center (PVCC) and high school students from Saratoga and Encampment. The luncheon was the culmination of a charity auction to support PVCC that took place in September of 2015. At that auction, Joe and Lana Elder, Jesse and Sue Portillo and Johnny and Pam Portillo pooled $2,100 to win a lunch with...
April 21 came as a relief to Judy Raymond. Since November of 2015, the operator of the Ferris Mountain Ranch near Muddy Gap had been organizing an agricultural exposition (Ag Expo) in Rawlins for Carbon County fourth graders. In comparison to arranging logistics for 29 different volunteer presenters and reserving space at the Carbon County Fairgrounds, herding 180 students and 20 chaperones from seven different schools was a breeze for the cattle rancher. By her estimate, Raymond has been presen...
“We can finally put this to bed,” Saratoga Airport Board member Richard Raymer said at the committee’s April 14 meeting. Raymer was referring to proposed changes to the lease agreement hangar owners must sign if they wish to use a hangar at the facility. David Erickson, an attorney representing Saratoga, had looked over the proposed changes in the lease and found them unnecessary. Erickson recommended that the town move forward with issuing new leases without making any of the proposed alteratio...
"When I first walked in, there were all these kids talking to the wall," Saratoga High School Activities Director Rex Hohnholt said of his trip to a speech and debate competition earlier in the year. An assembly held after classes were dismissed March 31 honored the 1A/2A state champions. "Thank you for enlightening me at the meet, and impressing me," Hohnholt said before yielding the microphone to the public speaking pros. "Speech and debate is the best because you basically make a family" said...
Saratoga High School (SHS) had it’s first athlete qualify for the state track and field championships April 15 at the Burns High School Track Meet. Sophomore Jeremy Detterer took second place in the 3200 meter run, with a time of 10:52.32, earning himself the chance to compete against the fleetest feet in the Cowboy State May 19 to 21 in Casper. Detterer also took third place in the 1600 meter event with a time of 5:02.65 “Jeremy’s been running since January,” coach Rex Hohnholt said, which p...
Saratoga Mayor Ed Glode sounded confident that the Randy Stevens affair was finally about to be put to rest at the April 5 town council meeting. “We should be done with this We just aren’t quite all the way done with it yet,” Glode said of a deal between the town of Saratoga and the owner of Quality Landscape and Nursery. Stevens and the town have been embroiled in a legal battle since 2007. A new mayor and a new director of public works have inherited the web of suits and countersuits that...
Three up-and-coming Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) got a front row view of how municipal government works at the April 5 Saratoga Town Council meeting. Katie Loose, Bradley Bifano and Thomas Ingraham were present, and, as area resident Glee Johnson put it, “all spiffied-up” to ask the council for help funding a trip to Atlanta over the summer. The students wish to compete there in the National Leadership Conference put on by the FBLA, and are trying to raise $4,500 to cover their air...
It doesn’t take long for misfortune to find me on this journey. It’s January, 2015, and I’m on the first leg of a long Greyhound voyage from Chicago Ill. to Rapid City S. D., where I’ll be visiting a friend I haven’t seen in years, in a place I’ve never been anywhere near. So begins another day in my itchy-footed life. Following a 10 p.m., snowy departure from downtown Chicago, my bus rolls dutifully Northward to Milwaukee, Wis., then Minneapolis, Minn. Not fast enough though. Sub-zero bl...
Across Wyoming on Saturday, Democratic Caucus-goers chose Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by 11 percentage points, 55.7 percent to 44.3 percent. Because of the state's delegate allocation rules, however, the presidential candidates will end up splitting Wyoming's 14 pledged delegates evenly, seven and seven, according to the Associated Press (AP). The state's also has four super delegates, who are free to vote for whomever they choose. They have all...
Weather finally permitted the Saratoga High School track team to enter competition. Over the weekend, the Panthers ran in two meets — the Okie Blanchard Invitational in Cheyenne, on April 8, and the Guernsey-Sunrise Invite in Guernsey April 9. Early spring storms had canceled the Panthers’ first two meets, and prevented the team from getting much practice time outside. Coach and athletic director Rex Hohnholt said that in spite of these challenges, he was “pleasantly surprised” by the results of...
With graduation just around the corner, and the Platte Valley Legacy Foundation (PVLF) sitting on $10,000 in scholarship funds, Susan Wallace, secretary for the foundation, is keen to get the word out. The money is there, and the foundation is eager to help area high schoolers. “Every year this foundation grows,” she said, of the 501 (c)(3) organization she helps direct. When it began in 2006, there were only four members of the board of directors, and they gave out $2,000 in scholarships. In...
Late Saturday night, a young gentleman won nearly $2,000 betting $100 a throw on who could pitch quarters the closest to a spot on top of a pool table. Railbirds are strange creatures. Whether they're flocking around a hold 'em game or pacing the perimeter of a pool hall, they always have fascinating conversations to listen to and peculiar practices to observe. A colorful crowd of this breed descended on Saratoga over the weekend, bringing a carnival atmosphere to the Valley, and a formidable...
The first canister of inert bear spray that Dan Thompson triggered in the parking lot of the Saratoga Town Hall was a dud. "That's why you don't let them expire," Thompson told the assembled group of about 25. Thompson is the supervisor for the Wyoming Fish and Game Department's (WGFD) Large Carnivore Management Section. He explained that the chemical irritant in the canisters could retain its potency after expiration, but if the propellent leaked out the mace-like substance would be ineffective...
By the middle of April, Saratoga residents will know whether the "No Truck" signs installed on Bridge Street are going to be effective or not. Gary Ervin, managing partner at Saratoga Forest Management, expects the mill to be back running at full capacity by then, with trucks again routinely hauling timber in and out of the complex. The work is moving slower than Ervin had initially predicted. When an early morning fire first disabled the plant on January 20, estimates of how long it would be...
With the arrival of new epinephrine auto-injectors to South Central Wyoming Emergency Medical Service (SCWEMS) we can all breathe a little easier. Literally and figuratively—the drug is used in emergency situations to treat anaphylactic shock, which can close a patient’s airways. Upwardly spiraling prices and restrictive state regulations had left SCWEMS ambulance director Heidi Sifford scrambling to find an affordable replacement for the service’s “EpiPens,” or epinephrine auto-inje...
Even as you read this, they are coming. Rodney Morris, from England, Johnny Archer, from Georgia, Shane Van Boening, from South Dakota, Oscar Dominguez from California; all of these pool pros will be in Saratoga over the weekend, vying to win the ninth annual Andy Billiard Cloth Wyoming Open pool tournament. According to organizer Monte Thayer, the tournament will be held in the Platte Valley Community Center, and take place between April 1 and April 3. Duke’s Bar and Grill is scheduled to s...
As Saratoga prepares to begin the work of clearing gravel bars from under and above the HWY 130 bridge, Saratoga Mayor Ed Glode has been meeting with several different agencies. "We had basically the Red Cross, the National Guard and Homeland Security here on Tuesday, (March 22)", Glode said. "Over the last year or so, we've had a couple of opportunities to have the Army Corps of Engineers here," he continued. "Usually what I do when they show up is I get them on the river right away so they can...
A combination of factors lead to the Saratoga Middle/High School track team not competing in the Glen Legler Invite March 19 in Casper. This wasn’t a huge surprise to coach Rex Hohnholt. Hohnholt said that “we’ve always tried to go,” but “about once every three years we make it (to Glen Legler) because of numbers or depending on how spring break falls.” The team would have been missing many of its junior and senior members, who were going to Washington D.C. that weekend for an educational...
The Demers MXP 150 may be spacious, luxurious and equipped with state-of-the-art technology - but you probably won't want a ride in one anytime soon. South Central Wyoming Emergency Medical Service (SCWEMS) recently bought a pair of these rugged new ambulances for $150,000 a piece from their Montreal-based manufacturer, and they arrived in Saratoga March 16. They are expected to go into service by the end of this week (one in Saratoga and one in Hanna), and a tour of their features elicited...
Contention swirled once again around plans to remove gravel bars from 200 feet above and below the HWY 130 bridge in Saratoga, with several riverfront property owners saying at the March 15 Saratoga Town Council meeting they felt left out of the decision making process. This clearing will be done through a Nationwide Number Three permit issued by the Army Corps of Engineers. Permits of this sort are meant to be used to address maintenance issues around bridges, and the project will be focused...
Initially, the Saratoga Town Council deferred to the Saratoga Planning Commission about a potential business based out of a truck. At their last meeting the planning commission deferred back to the council. Finally, it was mayor Ed Glode who broke the bad news to Steve Heinitz at the March 15 town council meeting. “I really think you need to start looking for a place in the short term, meaning this year, within the Highway Business District,” the Mayor told Heinitz. The ruling was a big dis...
As of April 1, emergency medical technicians in South Central Wyoming Emergency Medical Services may have one less tool in their lifesaving toolkit. The epinephrine auto-injectors, or EpiPens, used by EMT’s to treat potentially fatal allergic reactions are set to expire, and new supplies have yet to be secured. Epinephrine is one of the only medications that can stop rapid swelling that accompanies severe cases of anaphylactic shock. Though rare, this swelling is dangerous because it can c...
Residents of Thirteenth Street may soon have a little more protection from the western winds that sweep off the grasslands surrounding town. At the March 8 planning commission meeting, Chuck Bartlett, a former Saratoga Director of Public Works and current engineer for WLC Engineering, Surveying and Planning, presented a proposal to rezone a 6.5 acre parcel of land west of town. The parcel is bounded by the county road connecting Spring Creek Road and Jack Creek Road to the west. It’s north a...