Serving the Platte Valley since 1888
Serving the Platte Valley since 1888
Sorted by date Results 1379 - 1403 of 1491
Editor, The Affordable Care Act (ACA) changes are coming … no matter if you view this as a step forward or backwards. We are starting to field questions on the changes and thought that we should make some of these reputable sources known to the community. www.healthcare.gov is the official website of the federal “marketplace” which also has been known as the health insurance exchange. Residents of Wyoming who are looking for insurance coverage will be able to buy coverage from this website. Small businesses will also be able...
Editor: As you are probably aware, there is a fight going on in Washington D.C. regarding various funding and budget matters, and the future of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. A few years ago, Nanci Pelosi said, “We’ve got the pass the bill to find out what’s in the bill.” Well, they passed it, and now it’s becoming clear to the majority of Americans that the bills author, Max Baucus, is correct when he says, “It’s a train wreck.” And this from one of the guys who wrote the bill and pushed it through. I needn’t go do...
Encampment and Riverside residents have been more than serious about the US Postal Service (USPS) at the Encampment Post Office. Several residents gathered at Encampment Town Hall Thursday night with the collective goal of replacing Wendell O’Connell, who has served as Encampment’s postmaster for several months. These residents spoke out against O’Connell with real passion and real concerns, and the least USPS can do is grant Encampment a representative with real authority. USPS did not have such a person at the meeting Thurs...
Editor, I would like to take this opportunity to address concerns raised in a recent article about the state of local mail delivery in Encampment, WY. I apologize to any customer who has been unhappy with our service or communications and want to assure them these issues have our immediate attention. However, I object to State Rep. Jerry Paxton’s call for the removal of the Postmaster. The Postmaster has the full support of the U.S. Postal Service and as an organization, we have a fair due process and we can’t and won...
Big Brothers Big Sisters in Saratoga taught a “Mission to Mars” program this summer. The program allowed children who attended to explore what it would take to go to Mars, and how to survive when they got there. I witnessed some of their projects, including the making of a garden that could grow in a Mars colony. What the children came up with was impressive. The goal of the project, of course, was not to actually plan a trip to Mars. The goal was to teach children about spa...
Editor: At a recent training the quote “I will not ‘should on myself’ today” was used. The whole point behind the quote is not to second guess ourselves in the decisions we make. This applies not only in our personal lives but applies if we are an elected official, business owner, a volunteer sitting on a board, or any job that we may choose to do. As an elected official it is a given that on whatever decision we make it will be wrong in somebody’s eyes. Once we make that decision we need to be willing to stand up for it even...
Liz Cheney was wrong on both counts when she said, “Newspapers are dying, and that’s not a bad thing.” Cheney made the pronouncement in Jackson after the newspaper in that community reported — accurately — that she had purchased a resident fishing license prior to establishing residency in Wyoming, and paid a fine for making the claim of residency before she was entitled to do so. One of the biggest criticisms of Cheney since she announced her candidacy for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate is that she has not lived...
On Thursday I begin my ninth year at the Saratoga Sun. Where did the time go? I would like to share the top ten things I have learned during the past eight years. Number 10 Don’t assume that people will understand your intentions when writing columns, stories or editorials. Columns are our personal opinions. They do not necessarily represent what the rest of the staff believes. Editorials are written by the newspaper staff as a whole, sharing a belief that we have as a newspaper. It also has a call to action. News stories are...
Plenty of stellar student athletes from across the Platte Valley are ready to win their way up to the top, but most importantly, have fun during this fall sports season. With our young determined athletes busting their butts during football, volleyball, cross-country or golf practice, what can we adults do to help them and make them feel respected and appreciated during games? What can we do to make them feel like their many hours spent practicing and competing in sports,...
Well kids, it’s officially that time of the year again when school has recently started, yet you’re probably still missing your fun summer season like crazy. This was the time of the year I dreaded most as a kid. Mostly during junior high or high school, I always hated being back in school right after a long, fun summer break, and I remember getting that nervous, uneasy feeling in my stomach on the morning I had to go back to school. Well, it was more like I had that feeling f...
I didn’t have what you would call a quality high school education. It’s not easy talk about, but it is a discussion worth having. I left high school unexcited about my own future, and the only motivation to go to college was my mother’s concern and the Hathaway Scholarship, money I am truly grateful for receiving. It wasn’t until my sophomore year in college I began to get excited about writing, all because one professor taught me what I should have learned in high school...
Editor: The Encampment post office is a small post office, which serves 500 people (at the most) in the two communities of Encampment and Riverside. We don’t have mail delivery to our homes and must have our mail come to a post office box. I’m writing this letter out of frustration with our new postmaster here at the Encampment post office. The postmaster has begun sending letters and packages back when they don’t meet his addressing requirements. Letters and packages addressed to our physical addresses are no longer being pl...
With news of the National Security Association going through your emails and listening to your phone calls, I want to know if you feel like you are being watched enough. When a respected magazine like “Popular Science” writes an article entitled “The NSA Sucks More Than You Thought”1, you should really begin to question why and how these people got the authority to sift through your personal communications. God only knows what drones are watching us across the country...
Editor: The date is January 1st, 1998 the location is Green River, Wyoming: Susan McDonald mother of 5 year old Carlie McDonald after becoming intoxicated choose to place Carlie in the front seat of her car and drive. Susan entered I-80 and at 75 mph rear ended a slow moving semi-trailer. There was un-survivable damage to the right front passenger side of the vehicle where Carlie had been placed instead of the back seat. Carlie who loved the movie “The Lion King” and her dog, died at the scene of the accident. I thought of...
Editor: I have a serious complaint about your newspaper and cartoonist. He did a terrible job last week regarding “Vandalism at the Hot Springs”. First, he shows the vandal with one-quarter of his brain missing, and second, he spelled “black marker” correctly. He should have eliminated the top half of his head and, of course, misspelled “black marker” with something like “blk mrkr”. We citizens of Saratoga pretty well know who these vandal ass kids are because we can spot the new crop every school year, and they are as stu...
The amount of respect the Platte Valley has for veterans is amazing. It seems everyone is pulling together to help bring Tyler Pickett Park into view to honor Carbon County’s only soldier who died during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2008. But these efforts do not mark the first time I recognized the Valley’s outstanding respect for veterans. Several months ago, my friend Nick who is in the Army National Guard, came to visit me before his deployment with the 133rd. Nick sho...
Editor, Years and years ago when I was a kid showing sheep at the Carbon County Fair, if I had “five market-WEATHER” lambs they would be named “Stormy, Wind, Rain, Snow and Hail”. However, if I was showing a market-WETHER sheep it would have been called “Lamb Chop” as opposed to “Rambo”. It’s tough to decide WHETHER that would be the right call or not. Congratulations to Corson Kerbs for weathering another fair by scoring a double grand champion slam with “Fluffy” the steer and “Stormy” the wether—described in the d...
Looking at a hundred or so tents, a dozen porta-potties and several rows of tables in what had been merely a sagebrush meadow just a few days before, it’s not hard to imagine the rise (and fall) of the mining and logging boom towns in the late 1880s. Each year across the U.S., dozens of modern “fire camps” sprout in pastures, fields and school lawns in response to wild fires. The larger ones usually include showers, tool caches, a covered eating area, laundry service, medical assistance (mostly blisters!), a payroll and c...
The loss of a friend is heart-wrenching. I know. I lost my best friend to a car accident when we were 27 years old. We had been friends since we were five. Last week, the class of 2008 lost a classmate and friend to a motorcycle accident. Young adults, parents and teachers were grieving over the loss. Eddie Escobedo had a smile that could not be resisted, and he was always smiling. Every time I saw him, he had a hug for me. Eddie was a classmate and friend of my son Garry....
My first summer spent here in the Platte Valley was definitely one to remember and included things I’ve never done before. I’ve soaked in the hot pools, gone floating down the river, hiked beautiful trails, witnessed competitive lumberjacks at work, been to rodeos and horse shows, seen several live musicians perform, sampled great Dutch oven cooking, watched outdoor sportsmen hurl axes and knives, mingled with Old West pioneers giving tours at Living History Days, and, most re...
The Saratoga hot pool, one of the community’s greatest attractions, is a point of pride for all Saratoga residents and town officials. It’s a beautiful, relaxing, well-developed and neat place for all to visit and experience. It is at the very core of the “Saratoga experience” and we are all stakeholders in it. Not only do people from this community enjoy the hot pool, but so do people from across the state, nation and world. That’s why it’s sad to hear there are those who choose to vandalize and steal from an area so pop...
Editor: There is a fine line in an editorial that is written to be informative and fair to one that is written to keep the pot stirred. The editorial in the July 24th edition was nothing more than an attempt to keep the pot stirred. Since we are not privy to who actually wrote the editorial, we can only assume that it is the one that covers the meetings and the only one that has ever bothered to come in and ask questions. Any other staff member that may have written the Editorial has never come in and asked any questions. I...
If you have just moved to a small-town rural area, someone will eventually invite you to “take a ride in the country”. This can also be phrased as “wanna see my ranch?”, “let’s head up the mountain” or any number of cleverly concealed requests. At first blush, you will think these folks are doing you a favor by showing you more of the country you liked enough to move to. This is not so. There are ulterior motives involved. Folks around here are going to be mad at me for spo...
One of the first things I learned when going to school for journalism is that you cannot obtain information via spying. It is illegal to insert video or audio feeds in people’s homes. So why is it that the National Security Agency is allowed to conduct domestic spy programs when it is illegal? Before Edward Snowden blew the whistle on the NSA, they made it a point to keep their domestic spying under wraps. Now that everything is out in the open, it seems we mistook who our e...
Saratoga Town Council members unanimously voted to continue using an inaccurate system to bill for water. The Saratoga Town Council approved this motion at the recommendation of the Water and Sewer Joint Powers Board, and against several objections from Saratoga residents. At both meetings, residents voiced their concerns about going that route. Many suggested the town bill a flat rate until the billing software was deemed accurate. That suggestion was shot down by a majority of the Water and Sewer Joint Powers Board and the...
