Serving the Platte Valley since 1888
Serving the Platte Valley since 1888
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POWELL — After migrating to the North Fork of the Shoshone River and more than a dozen major tributaries to spawn in the spring and early-summer months, many of the highly migratory rainbow and Yellowstone cutthroat trout return to Buffalo Bill Reservoir. This wild population of trout, which have survived without stocking efforts from Wyoming Game and Fish Department fisheries biologists, is the pride of the Cody Region. But while the population isn’t being supplemented, it...
Fresh off a regulatory defeat, and amid ongoing legal battles and skyrocketing wildfire liability costs, Rocky Mountain Power is once again asking to charge its Wyoming customers more for electricity. Rocky Mountain Power, Wyoming’s largest electricity provider, filed a new rate request with state regulators on Friday asking for an increase of $123.5 million, or an overall 14.7% hike, citing renewable energy investments and skyrocketing insurance costs for wildfire liability....
Fires are on the forefront of people’s minds recently following a relatively small wildfire near Jack Creek and two calls for hay bales struck by lightning. With the Hanna RR 316 Fire of 2020 still in people’s minds, some may be concerned about where they may evacuate to. “We did have some people raise some concerns about where they would go if a fire made a big run, which can happen,” said Saratoga Police Chief Mike Morris. “The fire departments did an amazing job getting on this and knocking it down and staying on it, bu...
For the second time in five years, Altitude Chophouse & Brewery in Laramie walked away with the coveted Steinley Cup for their Pedal House Pilsner. In doing so, they ended the winning streak of Freedom’s Edge Brewing in Cheyenne. “We know how to make a pilsner,” said Sean Minichello. What Is A Pilsner? The brew selected for the 28th Annual Steinley Cup Microbrew Competition was the pilsner which has its origins from the Czech Republic. On August 3, 10 microbreweries from...
Federal wildlife managers won’t make any jurisdictional decisions about Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem grizzly bears until early 2025 — two full years after the agency was supposed to proceed with or deny Wyoming’s petition to cease Endangered Species Act protections for the region’s grizzlies. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Regional Director Matt Hogan announced the delay in a legal filing last week, citing a mess of lawsuits and grizzly-related decisions that “directly impact one another.” “To ensure consistency b...
Nearly a month after the investigation into the Mirror Lake John Doe began, a suspect in the homicide has been arrested according to the Albany County Sheriff’s Department. As was previously reported, on the evening of July 4 the Albany County Sheriff’s Department was notified of a body near Mirror Lake in the Snowy Range mountain range. Upon arriving, the sheriff’s department discovered a body wrapped in a tarp. Initially declared a John Doe, the identity of the decea...
GREYBULL - Amid red flag warnings, dry weather and record high temperatures, Wyoming has found itself blanketed in smoke from both local and regional wildfires raging across the western United States and Canada. Since mid-July, Wyomingites have woken to blood red suns and hazy conditions. Two of the four major fires in Montana were brought under control last week, offering a brief reprieve and some blue skies, but the smoke has since returned, carried on eastern winds out of Oregon and California, and southern currents from...
Hundreds of kids participated in this year’s Energy Day at the Carbon County Fair on August 5. The annual event is sponsored by the Carbon County Economic Development Corporation (CCEDC), which focuses on providing support to businesses in Carbon County. The goal of Energy Day is to educate members of the public on various energy initiatives within the county and let participating groups showcase their businesses. “Carbon County Economic Development Corporation has been ins...
Photo credit: Richard Espinoza and Kaitlyn Campbell...
Photo credit: Photos by Kaitlyn Campbell...
A Campbell County single parent with one preschooler and one school-age child needs to earn more than $60,000 annually to cover basic monthly costs living in Wyoming, according to a new report on affordability in the state. At the minimum wage standard of $7.25 per hour, he or she would have to work a superhuman 159 hours a week to make that happen. “But there are only 168 hours in a full week,” said Micah Richardson, associate policy director of Wyoming Women’s Found...
After a two-hour service outage on July 18, Union Wireless is now investigating the reason behind the outage. As previously reported, Platte Valley customers of Union Wireless were without phone, data or internet service for approximately two hours. Initially, Union Wireless cited a planned power outage conducted by the Western Area Power Authority and Carbon Power & Light in the Elk Mountain area for the cause of the service outage. “It’s interesting that the Western Area Power Administration crew shut off the power at 10 a....
CHEYENNE — Was U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., justified in chasing down former U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle at the Republican National Convention, days after former President Donald Trump was nearly assassinated? Was Wyoming Congresswoman Harriet Hageman’s description of Vice President Kamala Harris as a “DEI hire” a full-blown racist comment? Nearly a dozen Wyoming Republican and Democratic political candidates and party leaders weighed in on the recent actions and comments by two of the Cowboy State’s...
JACKSON — A single mother with two children has to make $45 an hour to be “self-sufficient” in Teton County. The Wyoming Women’s Foundation’s 2024 Self Sufficiency Report reveals such a wage will cover a family’s basic expenses — transportation, groceries, health care, child care, taxes and housing (assuming rent is only $1,700 a month) — without room for most extraneous purchases. When the foundation last released its report, in 2020, a three-person family in Teton County had to make $39 an hour. In 2005, it was $18 an hour...
The identify of the Mirror Lake John Doe discovered on July 4 has been identified 56-year-old James Bitner of Blackhawk, Colorado, according to a July 25 press release from the Albany County Sheriff’s Office. As was previously reported, the Snowy Range between Saratoga, Wyoming and Laramie, Wyoming became the scene of an active investigation over the July 4 weekend. The Albany County Sheriff’s Office received a report around 8:00 p.m. on July 4 of a dead body in the vic...
A Saratoga man is dead following a high speed car chase which began as an attempted traffic stop in Saratoga and ended in Centennial on the night of July 24. According to information provided by the Wyoming Highway Patrol, an officer with the Saratoga Police Department attempted to stop a green and gold Subaru Outback with no registration for speeding. The driver of the vehicle, later identified as Ayden LeCureux, refused to stop and drove recklessly through downtown...
Photo by Joshua Wood Seadar Rose Davis of Screen Door Porch sings at the 19th Annual WHAT Festival north of Saratoga on July 27 as the sun sets behind her. The Jackson, Wyoming based band was one of several to play the two-day music festival over the weekend....
Valley residents saw new and returning candidates for the Board of Carbon County Commissioners participate in the Valley Service Organization (VSO) public forum on July 9 in preparation for the 2024 election. The candidates running for the three open seats are Gwynn Bartlett, Sue Jones, Jimmy Hinkle, John Espy and Garrett Irene. Jones, Espy and Irene all currently serve as commissioners and are running for reelection. Irene did not attend the forum. Patterson began the forum...
On July 18, customers with Union Wireless in the Platte Valley experienced a service outage which lasted approximately two hours. The internet, cellular and phone service outage appears to have impacted some business more than others. Scott Duke, interim CEO at the North Platte Valley Medical Center, said the service outage did not disrupt the hospital's operations a whole lot. “The hospital has redundant backup wireless and the backup wireless kicked in so we didn't c...
The past two weeks have been, for lack of a better word, interesting for Jason Williams who teaches history and government at Saratoga Middle High School. Within the span of a week, the country witnessed the attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump and the decision by President Joe Biden not to seek re-election. Were these events to occur during the school year, rather than in the middle of summer, Williams likely would speak with his students about both of...
Nearly a year after a shoot-out with law enforcement at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, the Saratoga man involved has been sentenced to 55 years in prison. Wyatt James Fluty, 29, was sentenced by Judge John Fitzgerald in Meade County Court on July 17. As part of a plea bargain announced In May of this year by Attorney General Marty Jackley, Fluty pled guilty to attempted first degree murder involving a law enforcement officer and commission of a felony while armed with a firearm...
Photo by Richard Espinoza Terry Nash recites a poem during the first night of the Grand Encampment Cowboy Gathering. See story and more photos on B9....
Members of the public got a chance to interact with and ask questions to local political candidates at the July 9 Valley Service Organization (VSO) Public Forum Three of the five candidates for Saratoga Town Council attended the forum, with Mike Cooley and Chia Valdez being the four-year-term candidates and Bub Barkhurst being the two-year-term candidate. Sophia Borg, the other two-year-term candidate, and Cory Oxford, a four-year-term candidate, did not participate in the for...
The Saratoga Town Council heard from their new appointment to the Carbon County Vistor’s Council (CCVC) during their regular meeting on July 16. Ellie Dana Raymer, the Saratoga representative to the CCVC, spoke to the council to talk about recent initiatives and the 2023 Tourism Master Plan. She highlighted specific portions of the master plan that she thought the town council “might be interested in.” Under “The Visitor Experience” portion of the master plan Dana Raymer fo...
Carbon County’s population decline, or net outmigration, and the state’s increase in baby boomers marks some trends in a recent report by the Wyoming Economic Analysis Division. The population in Carbon County declined more than in any other county in Wyoming from July 2022 to July 2023, according to a report by WEAD. The population decline for Carbon County during this period was 1.4% or 203 persons, said Wenlin Liu, Chief Economist with the Wyoming Economic Analysis Division. Population numbers are based on the 2023 U.S...