Serving all of Eastern Laramie County since 1908
Serving all of Eastern Laramie County since 1908
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Is there a better place in the world for a morning walk than a nice path in Wyoming? Especially quite early in the morning. This time of year, you can actually start walking about 5:30 a.m. but you might need a layered approach with a sweatshirt over your tee shirt. Most Wyoming cities and towns have wonderful walking paths. Cheyenne has done an amazing job. Greybull has a superb walking path. Sheridan. Lander, Casper and Worland are into providing spaces for walkers. Evanston has transformed...
A Sunday afternoon 30 years ago this week found me busy sitting at my desk as editor-publisher of our local newspaper office. While the weather was beautiful outside, there was work to be done inside. It was impossible to not keep looking out the window. The beautiful Lander weather beckoned to me. My output just kept getting slower. The sun was shining on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. Yet here I was, inside my office, pounding on the keys of a computer terminal. I picked up the telephone and...
Former U. S. Rep and Vice-President Dick Cheney would often tell this story about how his last name is pronounced. He says he attended a family reunion some years ago and sought out a favorite uncle who was the oldest person there. The old man was sitting in a rocking chair with a gentle dog in his lap. Dick asked his uncle: “Is our name pronounced CHEENEY or CHANEY?” The uncle paused for a minute and then said “it is pronounced “CHANEY.” Dick thanked him and complimented him on his little do...
Now this is a headline that I never thought I would write for any news story or column: Tornadoes strike Wyoming. But on Monday, June 12, sightings of up to 20 tornadoes were reported all across the state, luckily not killing anyone but causing lots of damage and scaring the heck out of everyone. Along with that came 90 mph winds in some places and hailstones the size of baseballs. It was a long night as power went out, trees came down and punishing wind, rain, and hail bombarded folks from...
As a long-time observer of our two U. S. Senators and one U. S. Congressperson, it would seem to me that today we have a chance to have more clout in Congress than ever before. Senior Sen. Mike Enzi is one of the most effective bill-passers in the Senate and holds powerful positions. He is widely respected and has been in Congress long enough that when he talks everyone listens. Junior Sen. John Barrasso has chosen a path climbing up the power pole in the Senate and currently is the...
Although they have had eight generations living in Wyoming, the Driskill clan of Devils Tower originally came from Texas and as a result, it seems most everything about these folks is big. State Sen. Ogden Driskill (R-Devils Tower) showed my wife Nancy and me around northeast Wyoming recently but also shared some of the more interesting things about his unusual clan. As for big, Ogden was feeling pretty good about his newfound self, weighing just 315 pounds. During lunch in Hulett, he was...
A flooding mountain river in Wyoming can be an “insatiable monster.” That is what I called the middle fork of the Popo Agie River here in Lander seven years ago when we experienced a 50-year flood event. Unfortunately, based on snowpack in the mountains, it is entirely possible we will see a 100-year flood event this year. For those of us who lived through what occurred here in 2010, it is hard to imagine that it could get any worse. But snowpack levels, as I write this, are at 326 percent of...
I am not afraid of tomorrow for I have seen yesterday and I love today. – William Allen White This is a message for 2017 graduates – there are just two times in your lives when you feel you are done with learning and just do not want to learn any more. First is when you graduate. Enough already! You have had your poor brain filled with so much stuff in your young life, that you are ready to just go out there in the working world and start using all that knowledge. The second time is when you...
It was 21 years ago this spring that my old friend Loraine Ocenas emceed my 50th birthday party and claimed its theme was: “How does it feel to have your future behind you?” My answer, of course, was “my best years are ahead of me” and indeed, that turned out to be true. Now at 71, if someone asked me the same thing at a similar party, I might attempt to say the same thing, but perhaps not quite so vigorously. Where did all those years go? An awful lot has happened both to me and to the world w...
Investigation Discovery, a network featuring the solving of horrible crimes, was in Wyoming this past week filming the story about how Virginia Uden and her two sons were murdered in Fremont County 37 years ago. Their bodies have never been recovered but law enforcement folks think they know where the bodies are located; the murderer has confessed and is serving time for the crime. I was interviewed by the TV crew sent to Lander for the story. We shall see if I get any air time. After 37 years...
So there we were, enjoying Easter week in Dallas with our daughter and family. Although we were a long way from Wyoming, headlines in the Dallas newspaper were asking questions about why Gov. Greg Abbott had hidden a horrible accident from constituents for almost a year. This incident occurred in Wyoming last July. Gov. Abbott, who is wheelchair-bound, somehow scalded himself in the shower of a handicap room at an un-named hotel. The second and third degree burns were so serious, he needed to go...
There have been many weird stories and odd people during the 127 years of Wyoming’s history. For example, there was the guy who parachuted onto the top of Devil’s Tower in 1941. Or the wild outdoorsman dubbed the Tarzan of the Tetons, Earl Durand, in 1939, who killed four pursuers until he was gunned down while robbing a Powell bank. But in 1977, Wyoming became notorious because of a former Miss Wyoming-World, Joyce McKinney, for her antics in kidnapping an LDS missionary in England. And a few...
For a long time, the Riverton radio station KVOW was located in a small house along the Big Wind River. Unbeknownst to statewide politicians back in 1984, the radio station moved and the building was turned into a private residence. U. S. Rep. Dick Cheney was running for reelection and late for his radio interview. He pulled up to the house and barged through the front door. He totally surprised a woman who was vacuuming the floor. A baby was in a high chair. Neither Cheney nor the woman knew...
My recent column about couples celebrating long marriages sure generated a lot of comments. I thought these were wonderful. Here goes: “My folks, who were married 45 years when my mom passed away, always said that ‘date nights’ were important. Date nights didn’t include kids, just time away from home doing something they enjoyed together. My mom always said ‘surprise’ date nights were the best,” recalled Leslie Blythe of Casper. Diana Schutte Dowling, formerly of Greybull, recalled that...
In this world, there are big ships. And there are really, really big ships. To put the name Wyoming in the same sentence as “the biggest wooden ship ever built” just would not make sense to most residents of this state. But it is true. The largest wooden ship ever built was called the Wyoming and the centennial of that event occurred about five years ago. And as might be typical of anything Wyoming, that ship’s entire existence had a lot to do with coal. But not Powder River Basin coal, but east...
Ah, spring. In much of the United States, spring is a time of tilling the soil, putting out flower plants and long walks in short sleeve shirts. Now here in Wyoming, spring often offers something quite different. Wyoming’s other seasons are quite predictable. For example: Summer features long sun-filled days, low humidity, the bluest skies in America and cool, wonderful nights. It is a time of golf and of camping. It is a time of enjoying five hours of daylight after work and birds chirping i...
Recently, we have found ourselves saying good-bye to people who were influential to us and other folks around Wyoming. The Grande Dame of our hometown of Lander was Betty Kail, who died recently at 81. She was an elegant gal with a strong backbone and an ambitious resolve to go where other women had never ventured before. In the Equality State, Betty truly proved that women are equal to men. She may have proved they are superior. She was an attorney back when there were few women attorneys. She...
Over the years, I have become convinced there is something about Wyoming that makes being married for 50 years easier here than in other places. My wife Nancy and I just celebrated that milestone. When you have celebrated an event like this, it does cause one to ponder. We have spent 46 of those 50 years out here in frontier Wyoming and we give the people of the state and these 98,000 square miles of space a lot of credit for keeping us together. Now before I get all wrapped up in how wonderful...
A few weeks ago, we were spending some warm weather time in Las Vegas. It felt good to enjoy some 75-degree weather after enduring January’s temperatures of -29 and winter conditions like 17 inches of fresh snow in Lander. We loaded up our 2005-vintage motorhome and rambled down Interstate 15. We stayed at a wonderful park called Las Vegas RV Resort, an RV park near a big casino called Sam’s Town. This column is all about my apparent attempt at passing a phony $100 bill at a lunch counter at...
If there ever were a place that required everyone to own a dog, it probably would be Wyoming. This is a true dog-loving state. And everyone has his or her favorite dog story. Here is mine: Our old family dog, Shadow, had been listless and seemed not well for most of the long winter months. She had been diagnosed with cancer and even after surgery, the vet said there wasn’t much we could do about her condition. Her days were numbered. The dog seemed to know it, too, as she moped around. She hardl...
What can you learn about America after traveling through eight states over the past four weeks? Perhaps the biggest shock to a Wyomingite is that there is so much empty space out there in other states other than the Cowboy State. We live in the least populated state. And I am among the busiest drivers in a state that includes the drivers who travel the most miles of any state in the country. Based on that, well, you just assume that Wyoming is different and has more empty space than other...
Journalists today face both the best of times and the worst of times. The good news is there is so much news to cover. And there is an unlimited audience out there that wants to feast on your excellent reporting. The bad news is that in this Facebook/Twitter age, your wonderful journalistic efforts face more competition then ever before from amateurs putting out their own news. For many years I have had the honor of lecturing to journalism students in Dr. Ken Smith’s Community Journalism class a...
The first time I heard of Charlie Belden was during a visit to Omaha where my old friend Lee Myers lives a nice retired life with his wife Barbara. Lee is a former publisher of the Cody Enterprise and is a native of Lovell. He lives near a wonderful enclave in downtown Omaha called the Old Market. It is full of old warehouses that have been converted to upscale restaurants, bars and neat apartments. He took me to a restaurant called the Twisted Fork and asked me to notice all the wonderful...
Wyoming’s oldest person is Leonard Ross of Jackson at 107. He attained that singular honor when a hero of mine, Leola Maude Dollard Reschke of Lander died last November at the age of 108. Lloyd Baker, 105, of Etna and Betty Schelliner, 105, of Douglas, round out the list of the oldest residents currently living in Wyoming. While doing research for this column, I also identified Dottie Turney who died at 107 in 2014, where she used to be the oldest person in the state. She always was proud t...
Re-reading an old favorite book is much like renewing an acquaintance with an old friend. The experience is rewarding and fulfilling. This happened to me recently when I picked up John McPhee’s classic book about Wyoming geology, Rising from the Plains. It’s been said there are no boring stories, just boring writers. With that thought it mind, it would seem that a book about geology would be interesting only to geologists. This early 1990s book ranks as one of the most interesting and most imp...
