Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years
Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years
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At least for a while, Dwain Christopherson, his family, and his business Performance Auto in Otto were characters on Motortrend's "Roadkill" show after filming in June and airing in a brief segment of an episode. Christopherson said that in June, he was being repeatedly tagged by friends in a Facebook post about the show "Roadkill," a web series hosted on MotorTrend+ about outlandish project cars. The show's crew would be travelling to Billings, Montana, and then drive to Denver, Colorado, and...
Community member Beth Lewis addressed the Hot Springs County School District No. 1 Board of Trustees during their Oct. 19 meeting about alternatives to cancelling elementary overnight field trips. The district is planning to phase out these field trips due to safety concerns that have presented themselves from incidents that have occurred on such trips in the past. Lewis said, “Field trips bring the classroom to life and build lasting memories while developing connections within student cohorts … We live in a community where the exp...
When you think of commercial crops grown in the Big Horn Basin, you most likely think of sugarbeets, barley, alfalfa, corn or beans. Bill Pennington is looking to add hops to this list. His company, Hillcrest Hops, is still in its infancy – having their hops' first brew just last month – but Pennington believes there will come a day when he provides for himself solely with his bitter crop. A pilot by trade, Pennington had an unusual career path to commercial agriculture. He moved with his wif...
Originally a two-part operation, a Big Horn Regional Joint Power Board plan that would both increase the capacity of the water line from U.S. Highway 16 to the Worland Municipal Airport and install a water tank in the town of Kirby to supply the Lucerne area with water reserves is splitting into two projects Big Horn Regional Joint Powers Board Director John Joyce said in an interview last week said that he planned to announce to the board at the Oct. 18 meeting the drastic change in plans for their upcoming water projects. Joyce said, “That w...
“Annihilation” flew under my radar for a long time, actually. I have no idea how, because when it popped up on my recommended queue on Netflix, I read the description about Natalie Portman being a soldier/biologist and I hit play. That sounded like a good movie by itself, honestly. Really, “Annihilation” is ultimately an action movie about an all-female cast heading toward an unknown threat. I think that just at that level alone the movie functions very well; there’s more than enough gunfighting and explosions to satiate fans of the genre. To...
In September of this year Erich Berryman, a Worland firefighter who has served for 23 years, took a crew of himself, Taylor Horath of Worland and Clemens Abbott of Thermopolis to Redding, California, to fight fires. They were there on severity levels where there is perilously low number of firefighting personnel to assist with the fires in the area. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection staged them in the Sierra National Forest as part of their initial attack. The first...
Kendyl Garza wasn't a stranger to Worland before she moved here, and now she's happy to call it home after getting hired as a first-year second grade teacher at South Side Elementary School for the 2023-2024 school year. Garza grew up in Powell, where she graduated high school. She didn't know what she wanted to do after high school, and instead of going to school she went on a mission with the Christian organization Youth With a Mission. She said, "I spent three months with that program in...
The State Shooting Complex Oversight Task Force met last Wednesday, Sept. 27 in Riverton to continue discussion of creating a state-of-the-art shooting sport facility in Wyoming. Survey results and criteria for scoring site proposals were on the agenda for this meeting. The meeting included both legislators and members of the public. Representing Worland’s interests in the facility were Mayor Jim Gill and Worland Shooting Complex Board of Directors Chairman Tom Outland. Outland said that the meeting was preliminary in nature. They spent the f...
October holds a special significance for me, more so than any other month of the year. There comes a noticeable shift in weather over a short period time; the cold brought on by night begins to linger into the day. Brisk winds and sporadic rainstorms become reason to spend less time outside. Ambient noises of the summer fade away, with the insects falling silently to the ground after completing their life cycles. At the exact right time to maximize food production and minimize water loss, trees let their leaves die in a dramatic synchronized di...
On Sept. 21, Ray Witt visited Brandon Vicker's social studies classroom at Worland High School to talk to his outdoor adventure students. As the owner of The Outdoorsman, a retail store for all things outdoors in Worland, Witt was invited to offer his insight to help students with their "Hunting Trip of a Lifetime" assignments. Students were tasked with planning a mock hunting trip given a set budget. They could go anywhere in the world, but had to work out the logistics of how to get there,...
Hot Springs County High School Principal Catelyn Deromedi and Middle School Principal Darren Luebbe got in front of the Hot Springs County School District No. 1 Board of Trustees on Sept. 21 to share the testing results of Thermopolis students last year. An “accountability rating” was assigned to the cumulative performance of the students of all three school levels using three parameters: achievement, growth and equity. Achievement is a simple measure of proficiency, growth is a measure of proficiency from one year to the next, and equity is...
Jeff Mackay had an unusual day of work in May, when he was convinced to go to Sheridan to pick up a van that didn't exist and ended up at the annual Wyoming Trucking Association Convention. On May 12, Mackay won Driver of the Year 2022, and he had his picture on the cover of The Wyoming Trucker magazine. Mackay said of the experience, "Our safety team, Bart [Richardson] and Brian [Mathews], they had me fill out an application for this award but didn't tell me they nominated me for it, so I...
On May 12, Zach Richard, a mechanic for Admiral Transport Corporation in Worland, won the 2023 Mechanic of the Year award at the Wyoming Truckers Association's Annual Convention in Sheridan. When asked if he was surprised by the award, Richard said, "A little. My wife isn't very good at keeping secrets." Richard said that before the convention, Brian Mathews took him along on the errand of delivering vehicles. He said, "Brian was asking a whole bunch of questions that led me to believe that...
In August, Desiree Ross was selected as a competitor in a nationwide contest held on Facebook where fans vote for one person to be that year's "Face of Horror." The winner will receive a $13,000 cash prize, paid travel expenses for a three-day trip to Los Angeles, California, for themselves and one guest, and an exclusive photo shoot with Kane Hodder – an actor known for his role as Jason in the "Friday the 13th" series – for Rue Morgue magazine. The photo shoot will take place in the Woo...
An unusual request crossed the table during the Sept. 11 meeting of the Washakie County School District No. 2 Board of Trustees. Participants of a wedding planned for Nov. 4 asked to lease one of the district’s school buses to shuttle the wedding party throughout the day. The route will go from Ten Sleep, to Buffalo, to Meadowlark Lake and back to Ten Sleep. The party would be responsible for costs related to mileage and the driver. As this circumstance is covered under the district’s liability insurance, the board saw no issues approving the l...
The highlight of the Sept. 5 meeting of the Ten Sleep Town Council was the approval of an amendment to a contract between the Town of Ten Sleep and HDR Engineering Inc. from Gillette. The contract for the project of extending the water/sewer network in the town was set to award just under $50,000 for the initial phase of the project. The new amendment, which will go into effect at the time of project completion, adds $359,250 to the contract and brings the engineering cost to $489,186. Mayor Ernie Beckley said the total cost of the project is...
Like many who travel through Ten Sleep, Grace Kienzle mused on what it would be like to live in such a place. She said, "My now husband and I went on a trip to Yellowstone last August, and we drove through Ten Sleep on our way. As soon as we got here, I said 'Oh my gosh, where are we? I want to live here.'" Fate would have it that Kienzle would do exactly that when she accepted the position of K-12 music educator at the Ten Sleep School for the 2023-2024 school year. A 2023 graduate of Dakota...
The Circle J Ranch is currently host to a unique group of volunteers; retirement-aged members of the Methodist Church from across the country are spending three weeks doing summer projects for the ranch. The ranch had two projects that it wanted done ahead of the Apple Fest on Sept. 30 – painting and repairs to the boys dormitory and constructing stairs at one of the ranch's entrances – and they brought in the NOMADS to get them done. Project Leader Suzanne Cronin, a volunteer from Texas, explai...
A team of researchers led by Dr. Larry Loendorf recently completed the field work for a project to record and categorize superimposed rock art at Medicine Lodge Archaeological Site. Having worked in archaeology for 60 years, Loendorf believes that time is of the essence in his field. Whether it be natural erosion or human activity, rock art is disappearing and being destroyed at an incredible rate. For this reason, 12 years ago Loendorf started Sacred Sites Research, a nonprofit organization ded...
Approved as the sole certified staffing change of the August 28 meeting of the Washakie County School District No. 1 Board of Trustees meeting, Worland alumni Connor Warner will return as an elementary extended learning instructor. Warner will also be serving as an assistant football coach. Warner has experience playing football at the collegiate level, having played defensive back at Dickinson State University. COMMUNICATIONS Hayden Reichel graduated late after completing his graduation requirements. Omar Deniz was recognized late for having...
The Board of Directors of the Washakie Medical Center held office elections during their meeting on August 22 which resulted in no changes from the previous term. Dean Carrell was re-elected as president, Sheri Gunderson remains vice president, Bryony Volin remains board secretary and Ryan Baumeister is treasurer. Each officer obtained unanimous votes from their fellow board members. FINANCIALS Washakie Medical Center reported $3.8 million in gross revenue for the month of July, down $700,000 from July of 2022, according to Banner Health Chief...
To those who know her, it came as no surprise that Desiree Ross found herself entered to compete in the Face of Horror contest. Surrounded by costumes and trinkets in her store, Second Treasures in Worland, Ross explained the details of the contest. This contest consists of over a month worth of rounds of fans from across the country voting for their favorite contestant, judging from pictures and responses to questions that they submit to their profile. After nine rounds, the grand prize winner...
James Seckman was present at the Aug. 14 Washakie County School District No. 2 meeting to deliver a report to the board on the results of the annual audit for the fiscal year 2022-2023. Seckman said that he was able to identify no major issues in the audit, and expressed that the results were positive overall. One issue that did come up as a possible point for improvement in Ten Sleep School employees was “segregation of duties,” a concept that is difficult to practice in a small district, he noted. NEW SCHOOL UPDATE In an update on the new...
The 22nd Nowoodstock Festival, a music event held every year in the summer in Ten Sleep, will take place this weekend. “We’ve got an awesome lineup again this year,” said Kurt Steinke, assistant festival director. He added, “We have an excellent lineup, including local acts but also some nationwide bands. Davina and the Vagabonds are kind of our headliners this year.” According to the band’s website, “Davina Sowers and the Vagabonds have created a stir on the national music scene with their high-energy live shows, level A musicianship,...
Although volunteers and law enforcement have been unable to locate Breanna Mitchell, after nearly two weeks of searching Washakie County Sheriff Austin Brookwell said that he and his team have learned the value of having a mobile command center for just such scenarios. He told the commissioners at Tuesday’s regular meeting that having a designated place to coordinate drone flights and interagency rescue operations would be a huge improvement for them. For this reason, he and Washakie County Homeland Security/Emergency Management Director K...