Serving the Platte Valley since 1888
Serving the Platte Valley since 1888
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Community members are in for a treat Friday as the elementary students will be putting on their first play “North Pole’s Got Talent.” The play begins at 6 p.m. at the Platte Valley Community Center and is sponsored by the Town of Saratoga, Carbon County School Districts No. 2 (CCSD2) and the Platte Valley Drama Club. The play, written by Lavinia Roberts and sponsored by Pioneer Drama Services, is designed for a flexible cast according to pioneerdrama.com. Stage right, is director Marie Chris...
The gifting of an apple to a teacher is one ingrained into popular culture, a tradition carried from the Old World to the American Frontier with apples serving as a symbol of knowledge and wisdom. While teachers may not receive apples from their students anymore, the Platte Valley Legacy Foundation hands out crystal apples each year. This year, they awarded two of them on November 21 at the Hotel Wolf in Saratoga. “The Platte Legacy Committee (Foundation) has chosen teachers they felt gave a...
Visitors at Saratoga Middle High School are now greeted by a mural in the hallway before entering the school thanks to Noel Shepard’s art class from last year. It is the seniors’ gift to the school. Last year, Shepard had one student who helped her with the mural, Emily Gonzales. The mural is a brightly colored painting of evergreen trees with everything Wyoming and Saratoga - including Panther Paws. Study it long enough and the state bird, the Meadowlark, can be found. The bright yellow backgro...
Across Carbon County School District No. 2 (CCSD2), administrative staff encourage the relationships between educators, students and parents to ensure academic success. The results of such a relationship are probably most evident at Encampment K-12 School, which is seeing success with both primary (elementary) and secondary (middle school and high school) students when looking at American College Test (ACT) and Wyoming Test of Proficiency and Progress (WYTOPP) scores. Taking Third In Wyoming,...
The Carbon County School District Board of Trustees approved a donation made by John H. Perue Living Trust in memory of John’s late wife Linda Fisher-Perue. The trust donated $1,000 for the Saratoga Middle High School (SMHS) Art Program. The donation is for purchase of supplies and equipment. Fisher-Perue was the art teacher at SMHS from 1993 to 2014. John Perue said people made donations in memory of Fisher-Perue when she passed away in April. He decided to use that money in memory of his l...
People hear the word BOCES, but all they know is it has something to do with education. It is much more than that according to Stacey Erickson, the BOCES director. BOCES stands for Board of Cooperative Education Services and was formed in September, 2012 when the Western Wyoming Community College (WWCC) and the Carbon County School District No. 2 (CCSD2) Board of Trustees entered into a BOCES agreement. This allows the two entities to provide education services to children and adults including...
Encampment K-12 School hosted the Carbon County School District No. 2 (CCSD2) November 18, which gave Principal Jake Johnston an opportunity to show off the improvements in the school building. Improvements include new carpet in the office and hallway, a redesign of the front office for visitors and parents to check in and new bleachers. Johnston told the board, all the contractors showed up on the same day, which was a challenge for the newly appointed principal. The final product is beautiful...
When a student graduates from high school, the goal of teachers, the Carbon County School District No. 2 (CCSD2) and the Board of Trustees are to make sure each student is ready for the workforce, military, career or college. That is the purpose of the Postsecondary Readiness, which is used as an indicator to see if they are in fact ready. It measures the progress of juniors in high school and is dependent on students and what they have done to be ready for their next step after graduation....
Photo by Liz Wood Nick Wamsley, left, listens to his son Lloyd read Tuesday morning at the Encampment K-12 School for Books and Breakfast. Nick Wamsley is on the Board of Trustees for Carbon County School District No. 2....
Interest in speech and debate died out in 2021 when only four students signed up for the team and at least five students were needed to compete. This year there are nine to 11 students interested and coaches lining up to assist. COVID restrictions in 2020 resulted in the state competition being conducted online with teams competing through a computer monitor and virtual judging. The passion for debating without realtime interactions died out, at least for the Platte Valley team. Christy Keel, a...
*Editor's Note: Anthony Campbell won the local Voice of Democracy contest. We have reprinted his entry here for our readers.* Our forefathers' vision of America is not exactly how it is today. When writing on the importance of law in the United States, Founding Father James Wilson stated, “Without liberty, law loses its nature and name, and becomes oppression. Without law, liberty also loses its nature and its name, and becomes licentiousness.” This principle still holds today, especially as liberty has been questioned recently. Liberty was...
*Editor's Note: McKinley Martin won the local Patriot's Pen contest. We have reprinted her entry here for our readers.* What is democracy you may ask? It is a system of government by the whole population where voting can make changes if the people don’t agree with the laws and government. Gerald Stanley Lee said that “America is a tune. It must be sung together.” If we sing together then all the people’s voices, including my voice, will be heard in American Democracy. Voting is important because we have a responsibility to choose a preside...
At Encampment K-12 School, an empty fish tank sits in the main lobby. Soon, however, it will be home to more than 200 trout eggs. Encampment will be one of more than 60 schools taking part in the “Trout in the Classroom,” a program administered by Wyoming Trout Unlimited with the help of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department (WGFD). “Schools are getting around 250 eggs because there is quite a bit of die-off,” said Ian McCreary, Wyoming Trout Unlimited State Coordinator. “They’ll raise them...
Every spring, students in third through 10th grades participate in the Wyoming Test of Proficiency and Progress (WY-TOPP) which gauges students’ abilities based on Wyoming Content and Performance Standards (WYCPS). The test is produced and offered through an outside evaluation agency. Writing, mathematics, science and language arts are tested over several days to evaluate the progress of students year to year. Carbon County School District No. 2 (CCSD2) saw mixed results from the Spring 2024 t...
Last month, the Saratoga Elementary School (SES) Library became a miniature book store, thanks to SES librarian Luke Spiering, and Scholastics Book Fair. The students were able to shop for books they were interested in without leaving the area. Since there are not any bookstores in Saratoga, this gave students an opportunity to browse through books and toys related to books to see if they want to purchase them. The book fair was open during the school’s parent/teacher conference. The book f...
Photos by Liz Wood and D'Ron Campbell...
The common room at Hanna Elementary School (HES) is filled with projects from the students who attend the school. From math computations to writing about the Native Americans who lived in Wyoming, the students show off what they have learned. These projects are a result of a collaboration of teachers in the school and Hanna Elementary School Principal Jackie Jones, using a combination of teaching techniques. Jones, who is in her second year as the principal of the school, is very satisfied with...
When is a potato more than just a potato? According to Jennie Gordon, First Lady of Wyoming, it’s when it represents dignity for one of the 86,000 Wyoming residents who struggle with food insecurity. “At the end of the day, we are just packing potatoes, but they’re not just potatoes. They represent the passion for your community, for your school and for your state,” said Gordon. “They also represent dignity to those folks who are going to receive those potatoes. They can use them in their Thanks...
*Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series on Platte Valley school alumni returning as teachers* The author Thomas Wolfe once wrote, “You can’t go back home to your family, back home to your childhood.” Wolfe obviously never attended school in the Platte Valley, where many of those who now teach were once students. Case in point, Encampment K-12 School this year welcomed three new teachers—Mandy (Harris) Westerman, Bailey Miller and Noelle Peterson—who graduated from Encampment in 2013, 20...
It has been said art is in the eye of the beholder. Nowhere was this more evident than during the recent visit by the University of Wyoming’s Ann Simpson Artmobile (Artmobile) to Saratoga. Saratoga Art Teacher Noel Shepard’s elementary art classes were introduced to the Artmobile Oct. 23 at the Platte Valley Community Center. The first graders sat down to listen to a story read by Sarita Talusani Keller, the Artmobile Educator. The students were given clipboards, paper and pencils and asked to...
The Encampment K-12 3rd grade class paid a visit to the Saratoga Sun on October 16 to learn about the newspaper and its history. The class, led by Rayna Greenwood, spent about two hours in the Sun office where they learned about the history of the newspaper and had their writing edited. The writing assignment, given by Greenwood, paired students off before their visit to the Sun to interview each other about what they liked about their school and the Platte Valley. Joshua Wood, the interim...
As students are in their classes in the Saratoga Elementary School, an angel is secretly at work. Thursday morning, paraprofessional Valerie Larscheid had 21 paper bags lined up on a table. She was filling them with single serving items to provide breakfast and lunch for the students for the three-day weekend as there was no school on Friday. During lunch, she puts the bags in the students’ backpacks. What started as a program sponsored by Walmart in 2014 has become a community effort at the S...
Several students were recognized at the Carbon County School District No. 2 (CCSD2) Board of Trustees meeting Monday night for their sportsmanship during games by the Wyoming High School Athletic Association (WHSAA). CCSD2 Superintendent Darrin Jennings told the school board of trustees he received the letters from the WHSAA and believed they should be recognized publicly. Josie Little, who attends Saratoga Middle High School (SMHS), was recognized by a referee during the Farson-Eden volleyball...
Schools, fans turns out for Saratoga Middle High School homecoming parade...