Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years
Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years
Sorted by date Results 26 - 50 of 81
The Tuesday, March 26, 1940 edition of Northern Wyoming Daily News reported that 700 children gathered 2,000 candy Easter eggs at the 10th annual American Legion Easter Egg Hunt in Worland. In 1964, the candy eggs numbered 8,000. That was one of the first years then-Legion member Lloyd Seaman reported they did not have an egg-dying party, as it had become difficult to manage the 16 to 18 cases of fresh eggs (a Safeway ad from that same paper notes an egg sale – two dozen for 89 cents). This year, American Legion Post 44 will be hosting their Ea...
Business from roughly 2012-2014 was resurrected at the Washakie County Commissioners meeting on Tuesday, March 4. Road and Bridge Supervisor Stuart Bower said that Pam Holland of Holland Ranch had brought to his attention that a previous agreement with the county to allow gravel crushing access on her property in exchange for $3,800 of gravel work done at the family ranch house had been unfulfilled on the county’s part. However, there was no accessible written record of the agreement. “I tend to agree it was on a napkin that got used for som...
“At least in my district, mule deer, antelope, and now we’re seeing a little bit of white-tails – the population is probably the lowest that I’ve ever seen,” said Worland Game and Fish Wildlife Biologist Bart Kroger at a public meeting at Washakie County Fairgrounds on Monday, March 27. Wyoming Game and Fish biologists from the region held a public meeting on Monday to go over proposed changes to the 2023 hunting seasons of antelope, deer, elk, moose, bighorn sheep and mountain goat, upland game bird and small game, migratory game bird, bis...
The City of Worland Board of Adjustment and Planning Commission approved a special exemption for 2290 Gregg Avenue to become a preschool and daycare during the Monday, March 27 meeting. Building Official and City Planner Randy Adams reported that neighbors within 140 feet of the property had been notified of the exemption, and that the facility had already been approved by the Department of Family Services and Fire Marshal’s Office. The commission found that parking would not be an issue, as the nature of the property’s use would make it a dro...
Ten Sleep School Superintendent Annie Griffin gathered students and staff in the Ten Sleep gym on Tuesday, March 14 to announce the 2023 Teacher of the Year. Words of praise echoed off the walls as she read aloud nominations from staff and parents: "'I nominate this person because of her perseverance demonstrated every day to her students in the school. She brings her A game and shows true grit in giving kids all she has.'" "'This teacher has always had a patient and loving personality, both...
At a Washakie Museum and Cultural Center meeting on March 14, the Board of Directors decided not to accept the relocation of Cottonwood Creek Bridge in Winchester to museum property. In 2021, the museum, Washakie County and Wyoming Department of Transportation entered a Memorandum of Agreement where the county would transfer ownership of the historic bridge to the museum to be displayed south of their parking lot on Newell Sargent Foundation land. However, in 2023, it was discovered that the...
When Debbie Hammons was first elected to the Wyoming House of Representatives in 2005, a reporter asked her how it felt to be a minority. She replied, "Which minority are you talking about? Being a woman or being a Democrat or being from the Big Horn Basin?" Hammons was born in 1950 and raised on a Worland, Wyoming ranch. She attended school before Title IX, and as an ambitious young girl, found there were walls in place to prevent her from competing. The boys that she played with every recess...
Worland High School's cheerleaders had two goals going into the Wyoming High School Activities Association State Spirit Competition on March 8: Zero deductions on their State Cheer Game Day performance, and to beat last year's score. They returned home from Casper having accomplished both. The team placed third in Hip Hop Dance, which the cheerleaders choreographed themselves. In Game Day, the team took home 10th place with a score of 74.2. Coach Nickie Lloyd was proud of her team's...
WORLAND – Eight hundred species of bees pollinate the state of Wyoming, and University of Wyoming Extension Small Acreage Outreach Coordinator Jenny Thompson taught how to attract them all to your yard during the Grow Washakie Workshop at Washakie Museum and Cultural Center on Saturday, March 4. Native bees encourage honeybees to be better pollinators through competition and help a wider variety of plants. Bumble bees, for example, are excellent tomato pollinators, as their large bodies are effective in shaking pollen from its flowers. A...
WORLAND — Representatives from Wyoming Department of Transportation (WYDOT), Washakie County Road and Bridge, Washakie Museum & Cultural Center and contractor C&G gathered to discuss the ongoing Winchester Bridge project with Washakie County Commissioners during their meeting on Tuesday, March 7. The memorandum of agreement between the parties was reanalyzed, determining that Washakie County’s liability involving lead paint concerns will be nulled upon transfer of the historic bridge to the museum. Road and Bridge Supervisor Stuart Bower pro...
WORLAND - "It was a learning experience, fortunately I like to learn and I appreciated the opportunity," Representative Martha Lawley (R-Worland) said of her first legislative session. The 2023 General Session closed on Friday, March 3. Four hundred and ninety-seven bills were introduced at the beginning of the session, and 196 passed. Looking back, Lawley saw many successes in her first legislative experience. According to Lawley, the supplemental budget was an exercise in fiscal restraint,...
WORLAND – "I really like how, in photography, it's kind of like a superpower. You capture moments and freeze time. In journalism, you capture people's real quotes and story-tell from their experiences," said Worland High School (WHS) Senior Victoria Boulom, recent runner-up for the Wyoming High School Student Press Association (WHSSPA) State Journalist of the Year. Boulom grew up interested in photography, taking pictures with her phone and finding opportunities to use cameras. Her junior year a...
WORLAND – Adding up the lifetimes of her eight children, Judy Martinson has accrued 93 years' worth of motherhood experience. "I never envisioned myself having eight kids by any stretch at all, ever. Yet apparently, that's what I needed," Martinson said. Martinson came from a family of five. Her mother, Susan Lockhart, stayed home with the children until they were older, then began working at the Northern Wyoming Daily News, where Martinson's father, Lee Lockhart, was publisher. After three y...
State House Rep. Martha Lawley (R-Worland) was disappointed to report the failure of her sponsored bill to amend the current property tax deferral program after it died in the Senate Revenue Committee on Feb. 24. The proposed legislation, House Bill 121, would have raised the responsibility of property tax deferment out of the counties to the Department of Revenue, a change that Lawley suggested could make it more accessible to counties who could not afford to run the program on their own. “[House Bill 121] did have some people on the Senate s...
WORLAND - “I just wanted to be a public servant,” said Rebecca George, who was sworn into her first term on Worland’s City Council on Jan 3, 2023. “I had the opportunity and willingness to serve, so I did.” George was born in Canada. Growing up, her father was an ag teacher in Wyoming until 1999, when her family moved to Idaho, where George graduated high school. She earned her bachelor’s degree in ag education and started teaching in Lovell right out of college. George also taught for two years in Meeteetse. She and her husband, Richard Geo...
WORLAND – As a young child in Las Vegas, Nevada, Peter Calderon grew up with his second cousin – Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida) – as an idol. “It was my fundamental primary exposure to politics. Marco, as a kid, he had a picture of Reagan in his bedroom. He was always discussing politics, and he was very passionate about it. I’m the oldest kid, so I always looked up to Marco as like my oldest brother that I didn’t have,” Calderon said. Calderon’s mother was a political refugee, brought to America from Cuba by her parents during Fidel Ca...
CHEYENNE — State Rep. Martha Lawley (R-Worland) reported yet another busy week in Cheyenne, with the passing of the supplemental budget and several controversial bills. Lawley said that the supplemental budget was a demonstration of fiscal discipline in her mind, with almost $1.4 billion allocated to savings. “We also fully funded Wyoming’s K-12 education system, which is something that hasn’t been fully funded in the past,” she added. Senate File 47, which would repeal immunity for corporal discipline in K-12 schools, passed out of House Edu...
Representative Martha Lawley (R-Worland) reported another busy week in Cheyenne as legislators continued to work on the supplemental budget as well as reviewing Senate Files passed over to the House of Representatives. Senate File 78, which Lawley supported in the Minerals, Business and Economic Development Committee, passed its third reading in the House on Feb. 9 on a 62-0 vote, and was sent back to the Senate for concurrence. The legislation would require the Department of Workforce Services to provide information to secondary students...
WORLAND – Over 30 years ago, a young Aaron Newell opened a present from Kansas City. Inside was a rubber football and a hand-drawn goal post with a football flying through it reading, "Merry Christmas from Nick Lowry" - Kansas City Chiefs Hall of Fame placekicker. "That was the coolest thing that ever happened to me as a kid, so I was a Chiefs fan from then on," Newell said. Newell's extended family is from the Kansas City area and are all Chiefs fans. His aunt, Cynthia Cox, was even friends wit...
WORLAND – Washakie County Commissioners saw members of the Washakie County Library and City of Worland Board of Adjustment and Planning Commission (BAPC) discuss parking during their meeting Tuesday. After a special BAPC meeting on Jan. 31, the BAPC decided to grant a special exemption for the library’s insufficient parking, contingent on the commissioners’ approval of a plan to create at least 17 parking spaces for the library on the county lot at the corner of Robertson Avenue and Eighth Street. At this week’s commissioners meeting, a motio...
Representative Martha Lawley's (R- Big Horn, Washakie) House Bill 121 moved on to the Senate on Feb. 3. "It was definitely good news for me. I'm very thankful for that," Lawley said. "We'll see what the Senate does, I'm hopeful," she said. The bill would take the responsibility of supporting property tax deferments out of the county level and place it on the Department of Revenue. It also makes tax deferments available for more people, with an added category for disabled veterans. Through...
I was still at college in New York when my friend Sara sent me a survey question for her psychology class, "What is your love language?" I stared at my phone screen for a while and thought. My brain wasn't coming up with any conclusions for me, so I went to my next-best (better) option: Google. As it turns out, the five love languages were first written about by Gary Chapman in 1992. The ways people express and receive love, according to old Chapman, are through receiving gifts, quality time,...
WORLAND – Last August, a new student joined the ranks of the Worland High School senior class. Seventeen-year-old Aurora Pagani, from south of Milan, Italy, is part of the Rotary Exchange program, which allows students from the United States to trade places with students from other countries for a period of up to 10 months. Pagani has made a place for herself in Worland by joining the swimming and cheer teams, as well as living with several local families. When asked if she anticipated she would...
WORLAND - Just inside the front door of the Washakie County Ministerial Association building on Big Horn Avenue stands a refrigerator stocked front-to-back, top-to-bottom with Styrofoam egg cartons. "Recently the food bank of Wyoming had a truck come in. Right now at the pantry I have about 120 dozen eggs," said Ministerial Association Vice Chairperson Ward Byrd. After December, the month of giving, the food pantry is well-stocked for its estimated 20-30 wintertime regulars. Monday, Wednesday...
WORLAND – Cracking the clean glass door of Flower Exchange lets heavy floral scents out into the cold air on North Tenth Street. Happy pop music plays over the speakers and 360 degrees of gift displays run floor to ceiling. Behind the counter, leaves fall to the floor around owner Katie Tommerup's boots as she strips stems clean, the shop dog peacefully curled up in the corner. Tommerup has owned Flower Exchange for 16 years – 16 Valentine's Days, she said. Before she bought the business fro...