Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years
Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years
Sorted by date Results 51 - 60 of 60
Except for six weeks in the first semester of my senior year (when I went to school at NCHS in Casper), all my pre-college schooling was done in Worland. For some reason, the other day I started thinking about my old teachers and the schools I attended in Worland. I started school on Sept. 2, 1949, which was, not coincidentally, also my sixth birthday. I went to the Watson school, then located on the north end of a block between Robertson and Pulliam Avenues and Ninth and 10th streets. The location became part of the Pepsi complex, and, in...
I’ve been watching closely the situation near Burns, Ore., in which armed men took over control of a small federal facility. The underlying dispute here arises because the federal government owns large quantities of land in the West. I’m not sure how this situation came about in Oregon, but all western land started out as part of the public domain and, of course, the United States held it from the beginning. No other entity could have owned it. These lands were subject to patent in the names of private citizens if claimed under a land set...
I’m a Peyton Manning fan, although I confess that I wasn’t always a fan. When he played for Indianapolis, I remember yelling at the TV, complaining about that blankety-blank quarterback who was scoring so many points on Denver. But when he signed on with the Broncos, I took a closer look at the guy and the more I looked the more I concluded that he is really quite an admirable human being. I read a number of small news stories showing what a decent guy he is, when time and again he demonstrated real kindness to people in distress. Sports Ill...
In 2006, the Jim Gatchell Museum Press (Buffalo) published a writing by Gil Bollinger and Scott Burgan titled “Spanish Explorers in Wyoming,” in which the authors looked at evidence regarding the presence of Spaniards in Wyoming in the 18th century. They employed heavily a collection of Glen Sweem, a Sheridan archaeologist and historian who had spent a good part of his life running down evidence of the presence of Spaniards before 1800. When, in the late 1990s, I looked at the question of 18th century Spanish presence in Wyoming, I knew Swe...
I’m a guy who likes a good mystery, as some of you have probably figured out. Back in the late ‘90s, George Frison told me of an intriguing enigma. He said there is an inscription in a stone near Big Trails that appears to be authentic, one that refers to a date in the late 18th century and is clearly European in origin. For some time, conventional wisdom has declared that John Colter, who dropped off from the Lewis and Clark expedition as the members were returning to the United States, was the first white man in Wyoming, starting in 1807. But...
In the last month or two, I’ve done a lot of traveling, mostly around the Big Horn Basin. September and October are good times to take road trips, because the land is so appealing. How much the leaves have changed depends on altitude and the exact date of a trip, but, usually, a fall trip gives you the best of western scenes, with clear skies during a cool day, and deciduous plants in various hues ornamenting the landscape. In September I drove to Cody because I decided Cody was the only place I could buy ammunition for my 28-gauge shotgun. I...
Through the years (and through long diligent application my years have accumulated greatly) I’ve gotten to know a lot of interesting and exceptional people. Though I didn’t know it, this was inevitable given my attendance at Casper College, the University of Wyoming, and, especially, the College of Law at UW. When I went through law school I met a good portion of the future leaders of the state; I had no idea that this fellow or that with whom I played cards in the law school would become a supreme court judge or an important politician. But...
Usually, scientists are our best hope for ferreting out scientific fact from scientific fiction. They are, or at least should be, professional skeptics, demanding that people prove their assertions. But, with respect to global warming, they seem to have retreated from this responsibility. The issue of global warming has become political, with each side heatedly denying the other side’s position. More than that, each side has a large constituency. Generally speaking, liberals enthusiastically support the theory and conservatives contest it. S...
It’s a wonderful thing to own a house, but it’s distinctly a mixed blessing. My wife and I moved into our home 34 years and 10 months ago and it’s given us great joy and pride. It’s also been a major source of work, worry and expenditures of mass quantities of money. I’m learning more about the everyday chores associated with my house. For 40-some years I practiced law and my wife was the main person taking care of the house. Since retiring, though, I’ve been accorded the privilege of performing more of the nitty, gritty maintenance...
On a recent Sunday, my wife, Celia, and I decided to undertake an excursion. The trip would have to be short because we had a 5 p. m. dinner scheduled with some friends. I reviewed my mental list of “one of these days” spots – places I’d said to myself I should go, but never got around to it – and came up with the BLM’s dinosaur track display near Shell. So, we headed out of Worland about 10 a. m. It only took about an hour to come to a sign declaring “DINOSAUR TRACKS,” found about 10 miles east of Greybull on the south side of U. S. Highway 1...