Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years
Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years
Sorted by date Results 451 - 475 of 591
When President Donald Trump first took office and began attacking the media and barred a few news sources from a meeting, journalists around the country and the world began wondering what kind of censorship the new president might embark upon. But press briefings have continued to be held with the same media present as in previous administrations. But then comes President Trump’s latest tweet, “Maybe the best thing to do would be to cancel all future “press briefings” and hand out written responses for the sake of accuracy???” Regarding the lat...
As I’ve stated in early columns, I’m not what you would call a birder, but I still watch for birds whenever I’m out. A few days ago, I took a walk over the old bridge and then came back to Worland via the new bridge. While crossing the new bridge, I noticed a small flock of strange birds on the island, the one that’s supposed to be the culprit behind this spring’s winter ice jam. I was quite a distance away when I first saw them, maybe a hundred yards, and at first I thought they were crows. But when I got a little closer, I saw that these bir...
Last week I talked about how one of my favorite things about working for a newspaper is that every day brings something new. This week was the perfect example. There was a lot of “normal” stuff like staff meetings and coverage of government meetings. But I also had the opportunity to cover the play “Big Fish” which is a play I was not familiar with. It was delightful with great singing, wonderful sets and a good storyline. I was able to interview history teacher Randy Durr about his recent field study trip to Washington, D.C. and then ask que...
Three weeks ago I wrote about all the rain we’ve been getting in Worland. Most of the rain fell in March, and I assumed that the unusually rainy March meant a drier April. It seemed that the season was just getting ahead of itself, that we were having April (normally our rainiest month) in March. Recent events, however, have shown that despite all the rain in March, April is going to be as it usually is, very wet. From this weekend’s storm, Worland received .76 of an inch of precipitation. A very good rainstorm, indeed, representing a siz...
Last month I passed my two-year anniversary mark as the editor here in Worland at the Northern Wyoming Daily News. It’s been an interesting and enjoyable two years. I’ve written before about the pleasure of getting to know Worland as an adult rather than when I was a child living in rival Thermopolis, so this time I want to reflect on the differences working for this daily as compared to working at weeklies. I have worked on one other daily, the Laramie Boomerang, in which I was the city council beat reporter and general news reporter. I wor...
I received a call earlier this week from an astute reader and friend who was concerned about the funds the city potentially could be spending on a sign at Pioneer Square. She brought up some points and questions that the council had not asked during its discussion on Monday including is it really the city's job to promote events in the community? Yes, the city haS provided the place for banner signs on the Pioneer Square hill. But it was the event organizers who actually got the signs and put...
When did Easter egg hunts become a competitive and at times, full contact sport? I don’t recall going to any community Easter egg hunts growing up, but, in my journalism career I have covered a plethora of Easter egg hunts. When I worked in Lovell there were three in one weekend — Byron, Cowley and Lovell, with Byron and Cowley on the Saturday of Easter weekend and a few hours apart so children could attend both if desired. I remember those egg hunts as fun. Sure there was always a few children who tried to start early, and occasionally a par...
As I’m writing this column (on Tuesday, April 4), we seem to be in the middle of our monsoon season. By my count, using figures set out in newspaper weather reports, we’ve received over 1.4 inches of precipitation since the middle of March. Somewhere around 4 a. m., on Monday, April 3, that moisture, to my surprise, turned to a heavy wet snow. If weather proceeded in an orderly manner, the snow would have started the moisture parade back in March, and then turned completely to rain going into April. But, as I’ve said before, the weather is not...
Thursday’s Worland-Ten Sleep Chamber of Commerce networking and awards luncheon was a great opportunity for people to be reminded that there is a lot of good going on right now in Worland Washakie County. “Working together we can be successful.” Those were the words Washakie County Commission Chairman Terry Wolf said in opening the luncheon. And, for the most part, three of the county’s economic development organizations do work together. Chamber Executive Director Jenn Rasmussen said she and Washakie Development Association Executive Directo...
I’m not what you would call a “birder”; that is, a person with a deep fascination with birds, who invests a lot in seeds and binoculars, but I do notice birds, especially in the spring. And what I’m seeing recently are creatures that migrate; something like half of all bird species migrate. This week I spotted in our yard a robin, that wonderful harbinger of spring; I think it was the first robin of this year. My wife and I had been discussing robins and she noted that we had not seen any over the winter. I think she was right and I presumed th...
On National Ag Day and every other day, I take my hat off to the Wyoming agriculture industry. It is, reliably, Wyoming’s third largest industry. It is a cornerstone of Wyoming’s financial stability with more than 11,000 farms and ranches and $1.6 billion in annual farm and ranch income. It continues to provide a wealth of benefits to our state, citizens, and nation – food for the table, open spaces, wildlife habitat, a pleasant western style of living, and much more. Thank you, Wyoming ag producers, for all you do. Agriculture is a chall...
A total solar eclipse is coming to Wyoming, as are many eclipse viewers from around the globe, in 22 weeks and two days. If you doubt me just go to https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/ for an official countdown. First, a few notes about the eclipse, according to NASA, “The location along the path of totality that will experience the longest time in the moon’s umbral shadow is near Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois; there, the maximum duration will be 2 minutes and 40 seconds, which is just slightly less than average for a solar ecli...
The other day one of my readers stopped me, said he’d enjoyed my columns about gas stations, and suggested that I write about the history of Worland’s downtown. I was immediately intrigued, although knowing that a discussion about property owned over the last 110 years in downtown Worland represented a bigger project than my columns about gas stations. For such an undertaking, the first thing you have to find is a good source of information. The Worland newspapers, starting with the Worland Grit (which began publishing in December, 1906), and t...
I am a woman. On Wednesday I came to work. I did not wear red. I realize some women went “on strike” Wednesday for “A Day Without Women” to protest various gender inequalities and some were protesting President Donald Trump and I believe, some were just taking the day off. I heard women were supposed to wear red and not spend any money. I made sure I did both. I’ve never really liked people telling me what to wear and what to do. Having lived on my own for more than 10 years (including college) I became somewhat independent. But I never con...
As all of you know who read the Daily News, Roger Youtz died on Feb. 24 in Billings. Roger was one of my favorite people and I was distressed that he’d passed on, even though he was 93. I first met Roger in the fall of 1958, when starting my sophomore year at Worland High School. Roger had been teaching and coaching at the Greybull High School. The word on the street was that Roger was brought to Worland primarily because he was a good basketball coach, but I learned, as well, that he was a very good history teacher. I also learned that he w...
Earlier this week I made a mistake in the Daily News. The process we go through in getting the pages to press includes laying out each page and then making a PDF of each page, plating that page with the page it’s paired with on the plate by making another PDF and then sending it to the press. Well Tuesday night I failed to make the page 5 PDF for Wednesday so when I “plated” it, the system pulled the prior day’s page 5 and I failed to notice. I make no excuses. It happened. Thus in Wednesday’s paper, the same page 5 as appeared Tuesday a...
It’s one of those weeks where several thoughts are running through my mind. Perhaps it’s because I haven’t trained any of the dogs to sleep until the alarm goes off and lack of sleep makes the mind wander a lot. Or, perhaps it’s because there has been a lot going on in our community and in the world today. Whatever the reason today, you get thoughts on a couple of subjects. First, last Thursday the Washakie County School District No. 1 Board held a meeting about an idea for grade-level schools instead of neighborhood schools. The proposa...
The beauty of living in Worland is that you’re so far from major population centers. So, we can enjoy the advantages of small town living, such as knowing your neighbors and having their friendly support, a lower cost of living, and avoiding the crime and congestion so often found in large urban areas. For me as an outdoorsman, it has meant the ability to easily travel to unspoiled, unpopulated and beautiful places where I can hunt, fish and hike. The problem with living in Worland is that you’re so far from major population centers. Much as...
Having grown up and lived in small towns most of my life, you would think I wouldn’t be surprised by the huge outpouring of support that was shown this past week during the 2017 ice jam flood. Saturday morning when I arrived at the fairgrounds the Worland Fire Department was getting the sandbagging operation ready and a few volunteers had already shown up. As word spread the more volunteers were needed people continued to arrive. Families trying to protect their homes, families that were evacuated, organizations, and people young and old c...
I’ve learned a lot over the years from the dogs that we have welcomed into our family. I’ll start with things I specifically learned over past few months from our pup named Shadow. I’ve learned where confetti comes from – it comes from having a room full of paper and throwing in a dozen puppies. Puppies can shred any type of paper in under 5 seconds. They don’t have the special cut outs like at the Super Bowl, but just your standard confetti. It’s amazing how fast paper can be shredded. Also, you don’t need a paper shredder when you have a pu...
In addition to all the gas stations on main street in Worland in the 1950s, there were still more found on 10th Street and further north. Following a hypothetical driver coming from Thermopolis, such a driver could take a left at 10th Street and Big Horn Avenue and head north. The first gas station he’d see would be on the left, approximately the same location as a current motel located on Robertson Avenue and on the east side of 10th. There, Harold Schmidt ran a Chevron station. Across the street and a little further north, where the Subway i...
Threats to our schools and our students are, unfortunately, becoming all too familiar and commonplace. While Thursday’s threat at Worland High School created the most disruption it was not the first threat this year, nor even the second. The first came in a multi-state threat to government and schools in which some schools and college campuses in the Big Horn Basin locked down or shut down, while others like Worland, on the advice of law enforcement that deemed it as not a credible threat, continued school as normal. The second was a SnapChat m...
Last week I talked about how a driver coming into Worland from Thermopolis during the 1950s would first cross the bridge that we now know as the old bridge. The first gas station encountered would be Scotty’s Texaco (or, perhaps, Scotty’s Sinclair), located on the south side of the street, at Second Street and Culbertson. It was owned by Scotty Macintosh and is remarkable because it’s still there! Tipped off by my elite team of geezers, I went to Goyn’s Machine & Automotive. There, Dennis Goyn showed me how the old Scotty’s station was wrapp...
Several of our fellow Wyoming legislators have argued against the effort to reign in the federal government using Article V of the Constitution, claiming that it is too risky. We want to set the record straight for Wyomingites who might hear it said that this essential part of our Constitution, the ability for states to push back against Washington, could harm that most sacred founding document. Article V is the section of the Constitution that allows for amendments. One method, which has been used 27 times in our nation’s history, is for a t...
Everyone’s talking about the first full week of the Trump Administration, but are you paying attention to what’s happening here in Worland and in Cheyenne. Did you know — that the Worland school board voted Monday to no longer pay for the first meal out for athletic and other extracurricular activities? When I first saw it on the agenda I was surprised that they were actually paying for that first meal. When I attended Hot Springs County High School (yes a few years back) we as students were always responsible for that first meal, wheth...