Northern Wyoming News - Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years

Saturday I attended my second CultureFest. I had been here just a few months last year when CultureFest rolled around. I attended late afternoon when apparently several vendors had already left. This year I attended mid-morning and stayed until early afternoon, partly this year because I was covering the event, which I wasn’t last year; partly because I had company as I had brought along my sister; and partly because it was a lot of fun.

There was a great variety of entertainment with a different styles of music and dance. There was a wide range of vendors and while I didn’t buy anything, except some kettle corn, what I love about outdoor fairs/festivals is, for window shoppers like me, it’s perfect. I get to browse and visit without ever feeling pressured to buy. My sister and I visited with the Guardian Flight personnel, I noticed the tractor equipment from Tractor Guys seemed to be a big hit as many people were looking. Being animal lovers we probably enjoyed the petting zoo as much as young children did.

It was fun watching the children enjoy the dunking booth as one kid exclaimed when he came up out of the water, “That was fun.”

And the smells from the various food vendors were heavenly.

Not having attended CultureFest when it was on Main Street at Pioneer Square I can’t say which venue is better but I like the grassy area at the Worland Community Center Complex. Yes, there could be more shade but that’s why they have planted trees in the back field to provide that shade in future years.

Is CultureFest as big a draw for downtown businesses as its former location? Probably not, but it could be.

As we drove around the city showing my sister some of Worland and what had changed since our youth I thought, why couldn’t the downtown have like a Crazy Days celebration at the same time as CultureFest. We attended CultureFest a couple of hours, well short of the full eight hours it ran. I suspect most people did the same. Some probably came to watch specific entertainment, some for some food, some to bring their kids to the events, some to window shop like me.

But we leave and all’s quiet in the rest of the city. It doesn’t have to be.

There are ways to making CultureFest work at its current location without having to block off streets and worry about safety, some of the concerns on why it was moved. With the growth of CultureFest it had outgrown Pioneer Square and jumped over Highway 20 (10th Street) to the courthouse. Vendors like being on grassy areas so that made sense, but it doesn’t make sense to have pedestrians crossing a highway all day long. And I’m not sure it makes sense to block off parts of a major highway, or two as you’d likely have to block off part of Highway 16 (Big Horn Avenue) for 8-10 hours.

CultureFest is a great event for Worland. It’s been going strong for 15 years and the community center personnel work hard to make it something special each year. Working together, it can be a draw for the entire community, not just the back field of the center.

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As for other news this week, who didn’t love the feel good story of Stony the mustang pony. Ryan Butler came into the office and reported he was going to be able to take Stony home on Friday. He also agreed to do a follow-up after Stony is settled in his new home. We’re rooting for Stony and the Butler family and kudos to the Tharp vet family for never giving up on any of their patients.

And as feel good as it was, then came the story of the dog who had just had a litter of puppies and was killed in a cruel manner. My outrage was about as strong as when I read the horrific things NFL quarterback Michael Vick did to his dogs he was training to fight. It was actually more so, as the person who treated a beloved dog like that lives in my community, and that sickens me there are people with no respect for life. It also scares me a little. If the person or persons responsible have so little concern for life and can be filled with such rage or lack of compassion or no feelings whatsoever, what could they do next?

But we had other feel good moments, like the story of Norma Worley being this year’s unsung hero. Congratulations to her. Several of our student-athletes are performing in all-star games today in Casper and Sheridan. Congrats to them as well.

We saw judgement served in several criminal cases this week, including the prison sentence for the young Thermopolis man who was sentenced in the death of one of his friend’s and for injury of two others from a crash that occurred in 2014.

It was a news-filled week full of lots of emotions.

And they say nothing happens in a small town.