Serving the Platte Valley since 1888
Serving the Platte Valley since 1888
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If you received your newspaper on a Thursday, there’s no need to worry. The mail wasn’t late this week. Instead, this week marks the Saratoga Sun’s return to Thursday publication. We have switched to a new printer, one in eastern Wyoming, in our continued efforts to provide you with the best product we can each week. When we use the term return in regards to Thursday publication, it may be confusing to some of our readers. It may seem to some that the Sun has published on Wednesday forever. Long-time Saratoga locals, however, can tell you d... Full story
Editor, World peace remains elusive, thus raising the question of whether it is possible. Even peace within our country is in question. For tribalism is continuing to tear us apart. Unless we learn to view and treat each other each other with respect, it will continue to threaten our existence as a human race. You could argue that we have existed with it for centuriesand you would be right. But we have become a global community, interconnected and dependent upon one another. All conflicts and environmental crisis’s now have the ability to d...
To say the photo used for my column in the Saratoga Sun is outdated would be a bit of an understatement. In October 2021, I made the decision to finally commit to my balding and began shaving my head. Now I’m beginning to think it was some serious forethought on my part, presumably to prevent me from pulling out what was left of it. The past few months at the Sun office have been a little strained, to say the least. Change, they say, is the only constant in life. For those who pay attention t...
I found out Tuesday morning I was an orphan. The last of my four parents had passed away quietly at 5:45 a.m. Although I had been warned by a nurse the day before my stepfather’s end was possibly approaching, I was positive he would rally as he has done before. I was reinforced in my belief all would be fine when my sister, Michelle, saw him on Monday and talked to him for about an hour. My stepfather, Stuart, has been in my life since I was little over 5 years old when both my parents remarried...
Did you know that when Interstate 80 is closed for weather, that US 30 next door is automatically closed, too? This is to prevent the 8,000 semi-trailer trucks a day from storming that more narrow, more local highway as an alternate route. The resulting crush of giant rigs would be a disaster. Those frequent closures create a national financial disaster when goods are no longer moving to their destinations. Del McOmie Jr. pointed out this fact out when he was asked about the creation of an alternate Interstate 80 highway that would follow the... Full story
SUPER BOWL HALFTIME “SHOW” Did you happen to see that halftime “Show”? At least they called it that. It did not make much sense to me. I thought it just fell flat. I did not understand it - that football halftime show. Those folks were hip-hoppin’ all around as if they had to go. Is that “rappin” now called singing? If it is, then I’m behind. It just didn’t make a bit of sense at least in my old mind. That poor gal’s dress was skimpy. Glad the weather there was warm ‘cause she surely would have perished in just a mild Wyoming storm. I thin...
One of the hardest things for me to do right now is read the news coming out of China. I cannot believe a country that was turning into a world partner has taken the opposite road. About a decade ago, I lived in China. Suzhou, Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzen were all my residences at one time and it afforded me the opportunity to see the Chinese people turn these cities into world class destinations. It was 2009 and my first time living in China was in Suzhou. It has a populaton of 8 million and...
This year 2022 was, once upon a time, shaping up to be one of the most interesting political years in memory. The last big election year like this, back in 2018, was a doozy, with three governor candidates spending over $2 million each, plus we saw over 10,000 Democrat and Independent voters cross over on election day. Wow, what a series of events. It is beginning to look like the performance this year may fail to live up to the potential for drama we had earlier anticipated. For example, here are three races I was foreseeing this year: First,... Full story
Where has the time gone? In many ways, it feels like just yesterday my son, Jareth, was born. Tomorrow (Thursday) he’ll be 8 years old and I find myself both amazed at what a wonderful young person he is and afraid of how quickly the years will continue to slip by. What’ll be even harder, this year, is that I won’t be around for his actual birthday. Instead, I’ll be in Casper at the Wyoming Press Association Winter Convention. Living in Wyoming, I’ve often joked with people that I remember...
In another life, much younger, I was a kindergarten English teacher in Taichung, Taiwan. It was an early job when I first arrived fresh from Hawaii. It laid the ground for me teaching English at hospitals and becoming a private teacher. It was an amazingly fun era for me; as I look back. Especially teaching kids. After living in Hawaii for two years, I came to island with only an English degree from the University of Maryland. Good luck was with me and within three months I found myself working...
“How’s the most beautiful woman in all the Valley?” That was how I would greet Elva Evans whenever I saw her around town. Whenever I’d say that, she’d get a big grin on her face and laugh which, in turn, would bring a smile to my face. I wasn’t always that way. When I first met Elva, I was in high school. I was at the grocery store with my mom and we were behind Elva at the cash register. Mom, even then already knowing so many people, introduced us. When I spoke, I thought Elva was going to me...
I find it funny how I have to go to kids’ concerts to remind myself how important the arts are to school programs, and to me. I was a lucky kid growing up around Washington D.C. because both sets of my folks liked to take me to plays and concerts even though, sometimes, I wasn’t really into going. Still, I saw Broadway shows which came to town and I even went to New York a few times. Culture was being ingrained into me whether I wanted it or not. My mother was always playing classical music in... Full story
What does the next year look like for you? Are you hoping to do the same old same thing or to walk into 2022 with a breath of fresh air? No matter what your goals are for the new year I hope you enjoy the little things in life as well as the big. One way to spark joy for some could be to focus on the really important stuff. Or perhaps to stop engaging in bad habits or negative situations. For some even stopping to smell the flowers or eat lunch can spark joy in their day. Discard the things in...
It started out as a bona fide stupid and crazy idea. We drove from Lander to Cheyenne on Christmas Day. It is a 348-mile trip. But the young man working the Christmas Day shift at the Fast Lane at the corner in Shoshoni made my day by saying “God Bless You and Merry Christmas,” as we bought some coffees. Then there was the young gal named Marissa who helped me air up my tires at a convenience store in Wheatland. I could not think of a worse thing to happen on this day than to have a flat tire along that vast empty stretch on Interstate 25 fro...