Serving the Platte Valley since 1888
Serving the Platte Valley since 1888
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The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated – famous quote by Mark Twain concerning American press reports of his demise while on a speaking tour in Europe in 1897. And like Mark Twain, reports of the death of media are also wildly exaggerated. Media, especially here in Wyoming, consists of a hardy lot of men and women who, although taking some blows, are still reporting the news and are nowhere near expiring. They have been pricked, pickled and pummeled, but the newspaper people, broadcast people, digital media people, and others are...
Are you feeling a little overwhelmed at the moment with everything that’s been going on recently? Well, you’re not alone. When I left the office on March 13, I probably should’ve taken the hint that it was Friday the 13th. The biggest thing on my mind was finishing up an article on the workshop held by the Town of Saratoga with James Childress and auditors from Carver, Florek and James. In a 48-hour period, that all changed. While the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, was on my radar as cases were...
I have talked about toilet paper more in the past week than I have probably ever before in my life! The COVID-19 virus does not even have symptoms that would require the use of extra toilet paper. Many of us are stunned at the level of hoarding and lack of respect for fellow community members. There are plenty of elderly and people who live on fixed incomes that cannot afford to purchase groceries and supplies ahead of time. They shop on a week to week basis. The panic purchasing that has been...
By Dr. Dean Bartholomew I personally and professionally have struggled with how to think about the novel 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Let me share with you where I am with COVID-19: It is a real pandemic; our government's drastic efforts at containment measures are necessary; the containment measures are sincere efforts to help the American people. Why do I say this? Settle in, because we are going to have to put on our thinking caps. First, we need to talk statistics. I have seen...
By now, we have all seen the news and heard countless coverage on the COVID-19 situation. However, there is something else that is spreading among us, and that is fear. The amount of emotional and mental energy fear and worry take is quite staggering. Mix this with an unprecedented situation of “social distancing” and we as humans are sitting in a recipe for anxiety, depression, sadness and mania. Watching the internet, constantly refreshing for updates, and checking your phone every few minutes are cyclical activities that provide the ill...
When I was living in Taiwan, my awesome stepmother passed away and I felt a major loss. My father had died a couple years before, so that parental group was gone out of my life. They both died fairly young and I hoped my mother and stepfather would live many more years. I was lucky up until March 6 when, I am sad to write, my mother passed away. No one in my family really saw it coming but, I have to admit, she was not the same person I knew and admired growing up. Many people know my Dad...
Editor, In response to the article by Mike Armstrong,”A Missed Opportunity” I would like to support both Mr. Armstrong’s reporting and the members of the CCVC as well as other tourism partners. As Bill Sniffen noted in “Tourism is a runaway success for the Cowboy State,” tourism is the second-largest industry in the state, with promises of greater growth and expansion ahead. If you are a conservative who believes in trickle down economics, tourism spending is essentially putting money in the bank. For every dollar spent on promoting tourism,...
Last month, the Saratoga Sun informed our readers of three pieces of legislation that had made their way through the House of Representatives and were headed to the Senate (see “Your right to know is at stake” on page 4 of the February 19 Saratoga Sun). Since then, we have kept an eye on that legislation. On Wednesday, all three bills were overwhelmingly passed by the Senate. The bills were then sent over to the House of Representatives for concurrence to determine if the House agreed with changes made by the Senate. All three bills passed con...
During the course of my business career, our companies have published and distributed over four million magazines promoting tourism in the Cowboy State. My first magazine was started in 1970 called Big Mountain Country that sang the praises for my Fremont County, home of the biggest mountains in the state. Flash ahead 50 years, and I am attending the annual Wyoming Governor’s Tourism Conference in Cheyenne. Hundreds of members of the 31,000-plus people who work in the hospitality industry were there. Over the years the tourism industry has f...
Growing up I lived in some small towns in Texas but, even then, they were in close proximity to Houston. When my folks moved to the D.C. area, my father had us live in suburbs. My mother liked living more rural. She and my stepfather liked being away from what they called “anthill living” which meant having a house with a bit of acreage and in small towns that were just outside the D.C. metro area. Dad liked the suburbs and, since I lived with him most of the year, that lifestyle was my upb...
Much like a bad penny, attempts by the Wyoming Legislature to remove public notices from the pages of Wyoming newspapers, and leading to less informed constituents, have returned. Despite the failure of three similar bills last year, these bills—HB0050, HB0051 and HB0052—would amend Wyoming State Statute to where the only notice required would be on the state procurement website. On Friday, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved these three bills. These pieces of legislation, having now passed the House, will go onto the Sen...
I have been sending out quite a lot of emails to friends in Asia telling them to be careful as the current coronavirus keeps taking its toll. I actually know of one person who was in Wuhan that caught it in December but China wasn’t acknowledging it then. He survived but the virus put him the hospital for a couple weeks. I feel for acquaintances and friends that are taking a hit from this fast spreading beast. When SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) hit in November of 2002, my restaurant in Taiwan had been open for about eight months. I...
Dear loyal readers: Please indulge me this week as I pay tribute to a former Sun employee and "adopted daughter"-Carrie Ann Craig who recently passed away at the too young age of 63. Carrie was a student trainee at "The Saratoga Sun" in the mid-to-late 1970s and was a reporter, photographer, darkroom technician, printer's devil and all around "gofer". Although she worked at the award winning weekly newspaper for only four years, she often bragged that that training and experience were the basis...
The Saratoga Sun recently went to the 121st Wyoming Press Association and won 10 Pacemaker Awards. On a weekend in which we are able to meet and visit with our peers, getting recognized for the hard work we put in over the year is also a very wonderful feeling. It’s even more wonderful when you consider how many newspapers are in the small weekly category with the Sun. That category seems to grow annually. You can see the awards won by the staff of the Sun on page 5 of this week’s paper, but...
I was a tyke when I first started watching Jonny Quest. For those who don’t know this cartoon (which I think is near impossible) it came on TV in 1964. It was not the first time a cartoon was in prime time, but it was the first attempt at being for both kids and adults. Jonny Quest was a preteen who had a super scientist for a father, a body guard named Race who was cooler than James Bond, a best friend named Hadji who was from India that lived with the family and a pug pup called Bandit. Consid...
“How strange it is to view a town you grew up in, not in wonderment through the eyes of youth, but with the eyes of a historian on the way things were.” ~ Marvin Allan Williams A couple weeks ago, I had a conversation with a former high school classmate. We discussed a variety of things, but the one topic we seemed to discuss most was growing up in and returning to the Valley. Not only that, but the realization we had both come to that we now had a responsibility to be the change we want to see...