Continuing the Crook County News Since 1884
Continuing the Crook County News Since 1884
Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 32
Trudy Mae Hoskins, 84, of Canon City, CO, was called home to our Lord and Savior on February 5, 2019. Trudy was born January 31, 1935, in East Orange, NJ, the daughter of John Hulick Conover and Jancina (Janet) Kjargaard. On June 21, 1953, she married Robert Policky in Omaha, NE sharing 19 adventure-filled years raising three boys until Robert's passing in 1972. On June 14, 1983, God blessed her with a fantastic soulmate when she married Charlie Hoskins in St. Onge, SD. Trudy had a passion for...
Now in its fifth year, one might expect the novelty of the Sundance Winter Festival to have worn off for the people of this community. The impressive crowds that turned out for the first couple of years would, in many parts of the world, have dwindled over time into a tiny, hardcore following. But not here in Sundance. Here, it seems as though the community experienced a revival of town spirit when the festival was launched and has continued to stand in support of an event that it turns out really does cast our little city in an excellent...
Greetings from Cheyenne! In this, the fifth week of the 65th General Session, Monday was the last day for Committee of the Whole in each Chamber. With so many bills under consideration this year, that meant that good bills were not heard prior to the cutoff – including a couple of my bills. Thankfully, four of my bills have made it to the Senate for consideration. The House has also started considering Senate bills this week. Members of the House will work these bills with due diligence to m...
Hello from the fifth week of the 2019 General Session. Monday was the last day for legislation to be heard by Committees of the Whole in each chamber of origin. I am happy to report that all of my bills but one made it out of the Senate by this deadline and are in the House for consideration. The Senate has started working on bills we have received from the House. Bills of note include: HB78 – Education major maintenance funding HB69 – Collection of sales tax by marketplace facilitators HB4...
Dear Editor, As I ponder whether to write a letter about legal protection for the minority among us who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer, I am forced to consider what could be the purpose of writing. If my purpose were to change anyone’s mind, it would be better for me to remain silent, for I think that we all reach our opinions, not primarily by what we read, but by a combination of many factors. I believe that we need laws designed to give equal rights to people of the LGBTQ community, because as a conservative Christian y...
“I’m not doing the groceries today,” said my husband last week, a look of pride upon his face. I didn’t think a great deal of this comment; after all, it was cold out and the roads were slippy and I was fairly sure we still had at least one bag of green beans at the back of the freezer. I told him it wasn’t a problem and went back to what I was doing, setting myself a mental reminder that we’d need to replace the bag of beans. We do a lot of our shopping locally, you see, but every so often we...
The kids of Sundance Elementary School want you to join them next week in celebrating Random Acts of Kindness Week from February 18 to 22. “Sundance Elementary headquarters is challenging our classrooms to complete four secret kindness missions of their choosing (dubbed Operation Kindness) throughout the week and would like to challenge the community to do the same,” says Sarah Ellsbury, Administrative Assistant. The school will also be issuing daily challenges to staff and students that members of the community might be interested to try. On...
A pair of horses along Government Valley Road east of Sundance had plenty of help from a group of locals in cleaning up their hay on Tuesday morning. Given the past stretch of cold temps, the deer appeared to be quite appreciative of the mid-winter buffet....
The Sundance City Council will seek a new Insurance Service Office (ISO) evaluation on the recommendation of Fire Chief Chris Tomford. With improvements to the city water system now in place and better training and maintenance records within the fire department, Tomford believes the city could score higher on the assessment. House insurance is dependent on that rating, said Mayor Paul Brooks, so it could indeed be worthwhile to seek a new evaluation. “We have the opportunity to maybe see an improvement in that ISO number and help people’s ins...
Having sworn Randy Stevenson in as the newest member of Sundance’s Land Use Planning Committee, the council last week took the opportunity to discuss some changes in how residents may improve their land. Some of the regulations may need updating for current needs, the council agreed. For example, Mayor Paul Brooks mentioned that personal solar panels and wind generators are becoming more common across the nation. While they are not readily spotted in Crook County yet, he suggested it would be a good idea to lay out the ground rules for when the...
The window to secure federal funding that could be used to improve access to high-speed broadband across Crook County won’t be open for very long, said Russ Elliott of the Wyoming Broadband Advisory Committee (WBAC) last week. Elliott urged the county commission to work quickly to gather data about service levels across the county and determine where help might most be needed. Elliott explained that a federal “Connect Fund” has been established specifically for rural areas in America. Around $600 million has been made available to encou...
After a month of snowfall and storms, Dr. Heath Waddell, EMS Medical Director, and EMS Division Chief Jay Kenealy brought concerns about plowing to the county commissioners last week. Though aware that clearing the roads in the wake of a snow event is a long-standing issue for the county, Waddell asked if there might be a way to reevaluate the snow plan to help medical crews reach patients more quickly and easily. The county is growing, said Waddell, and picking up more people in areas that can...
Crook County Library in Sundance will host a program by Beulah resident Vernon Davis on Friday, February 15 at 7 p.m. in the library meeting room. The program is free and open to the public. The topic of Mr. Davis' program will be "Saving the Past: Preserving Historic Black Hills Cemeteries." Davis has longtime ties to this area that date back to his ancestor, Buckskin Johnny Spaulding, who led a wagon train into the Black Hills in 1876 and helped build the Spearfish stockade to protect...
Eastern Wyoming College is pleased to announce that thirty-six students were inducted into the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society on January 31. This is the largest class of PTK inductees in EWC’s history. Phi Theta Kappa is the world’s largest and most prestigious honor society for two-year college students. Students inducted into the Alpha Omicron Lambda Chapter of PTK include: Jonatan Arvidsson, Lulea, Sweden; Earl Baker, Jr., St. Croix, US Virgin Islands; Hailey Barkhurst, Saratoga; Mar Bastida-Olivares, Barcelona, Spain; Kelli Bowers, Lon...
Sundance High School senior Tanner Hofland was named this week as one of the 36 football players from across Wyoming as a Shrine Bowl nominee. The 46th annual event will kick off in Casper at the Dick Cheney Alumni Field on June 8. Wyoming head coaches from each high school football team nominated players from their squad, in their senior year, to be considered for the honor. Shrine Bowl coaching staffs then collaborated to select the players who will make up a North and a South teams. Hofland was selected as a member of the North Team, who...
The Sundance Bulldog wrestling team participated in the Powder River Conference Meet held last Thursday at the Sundance High School Gym. The injury-riddled Bulldogs were able to go 1-3 on the day with only 5 wrestlers healthy enough to wrestle. The lone victory came against Tongue River 30-24 as all five wrestlers won by pin. Sundance did have one individual champion as Gavin Robinson won the 220 lb division by going 4-0 on the day. Other records were Myles Stefanich 3-1, Titus Schelling 3-1,...
SHS Girls The Lady Bulldogs fell in the final seconds of their game against the Newell Irrigators on Tuesday night in Sundance. The opening eight minutes of the game saw the Newell Irrigators controlling the tempo as well as the score. While turnovers plagued the Bulldogs, they were able to keep the score close trailing 7-12 at the end of the first quarter. The Bulldogs started to turn up the pressure on the Irrigators in the second quarter as they switched to a man-to-man defense and were able to handily control the defensive rebounds,...
Cake decorating was the theme for the February 4-H Friday event. Crook County 4-H members and friends of 4-H were taught a new project skill by local cake baker, Jenna Ellsbury. Participants learned about different decorating tips and had hands-on instruction on making different decorating designs. The event ended with participants decorating cookies for the Sundance Assisted Care facility for a Valentine's Day treat. The next 4-H Friday event is March 8. For more information about these...
Although fatalities were down last year due to drivers being more cautious, more work is needed. Statistics from the Wyoming Department of Transportation’s Highway Safety program indicated Wyoming had 108 fatalities in 2018, which was one of the lowest in six years. However, since the beginning of the year, there have been 16 fatalities, which is a relatively high number that month. “Over time the public has done an incredible job helping us reduce fatalities and ensure they stay safe when driving on Wyoming’s roads,” WYDOT Director Bill Pa...
The question of control over what happens on private property arose in the county commissioners’ room last week when local landowner Monte Straley questioned who is responsible for protecting a person’s rights when a nuisance is caused by a neighbor. Straley visited the commissioners to ask for information as part of his own research. County Attorney Joe Baron explained that there are “some things that some entities can do” when it comes to what happens on private property, but that the county has few rules in place on issues such as zoning...
Sundance’s efforts to revitalize the downtown area are continuing this year with an action plan for the recent transformation strategy and a second grant application that could see the new Central Park green space completed in 2020. Kathy Lenz said last week that the Main Street Committee has been working on creating an action plan. “We don’t focus a lot on bringing in new businesses but on trying to help the businesses we do have stand up,” she said. “Our focal point is that, since we have so m...
The annual audit review for the City of Sundance threw up no particular surprises, according to Paul Stille of Leo Riley & Associates. Stille presented the audit findings to the council last week, mentioning just two items of interest. The first of these was the usual issue with separation of duties, in which there are too few eyes on a single transaction as it moves through the process. Having a different person be responsible for each step, from accepting a check to recording it, increases the checks and balances on the city’s finances, w...
The Kid Prints Inc. team introduced themselves to the Sundance City Council last week and shared their plans for 2019 at the city-owned daycare center. After a year of successful fundraising, said previous president Megan Franzen, it’s time to put some plans into action. “We are planning to do an outdoor classroom,” Franzen began. This differs from a playground, she explained, as it has interactable items such as trees for the kids to experience. The money was raised for this during 2018 and the goal this year is to implement it, Franzen said....
The closure of the municipal landfill has finally wrapped up, with the Sundance City Council approving a final change order and payment application. The net change to the $2.59 million project from overages and underages was a modest $1031.48, said Jeff Young of Trihydro. The final price did increase from the original contract estimate of approximately $2.28 million, however, due to change orders along the way. The landfill closure project hit a few hiccups when unexpected trash was uncovered in the two borrow areas, reducing the amount of...
Crook County Sheriff Jeff Hodge has issued rules for spectators and jurors in the trial of the State of Wyoming vs. Marty Smith, which is scheduled to run from February 19 to 25. The rules will be as follows: All jurors and spectators will enter the courthouse by either of the main courthouse doors and will be directed from there. All persons entering courthouse for trial will be subject to screening including but not limited to metal detector, and or personal search. No firearms are allowed. No electronic devices will be allowed in the...
