Continuing the Crook County News Since 1884
Continuing the Crook County News Since 1884
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We never have arguments about the things you’d expect in this office. It’s not current events or politics, philosophy or even sports, because that would make this a normal place to work, populated by normal people. Last Tuesday, smack in the middle of getting the week’s issues ready for print, we had a knock-down, drag-out fight. It was about dried fruit, and for the record: I was right. It began when your newspaper editor announced that he was planning to make a “mincemeat pie.” I think he was...
I was tasked with making dessert for this year’s Thanksgiving feast, because my sister-in-law is as clever as she is a good host. I opted for a raspberry cheesecake and apple crumble tassies, because the pumpkin pie was already covered. You may be wondering why we needed extra dessert on top of the traditional choices, and the answer to that question is that we didn’t. Necessity is beside the point. My sister-in-law knows that I’ll be anxious to the point that I will vibrate around the edge of h...
I don’t wish to brag, but in just over two weeks I will be indulging in the purest form of Americana. For the first time in my life, I will do something I never envisioned as a possibility: walk through the gates of Disneyland. You may be thinking I’m far too old to spend a weekend with Mickey and Pluto, but you would be wrong. I am as eager to encounter Captain Jack Sparrow and his friends as I would have been at the age of seven. We chose the most magical time of the year to visit the mos...
Dear editor, Deer population is conspicuously low. I carefully read the article on the deer harvest being down, but feel that the deer population is down farther than the article suggested. I’m sure that our game wardens and biologists are far better equipped to measure the population than I. However, since 2019, my wife and I have thrown our deer tags in the trash because we didn’t feel it was right to take deer when the population was so conspicuously low. However, I hope that Chris Teter and other game wardens and biologists in nor...
Dear NP, “Are diabetes medications helpful for weight loss? Are there any bad side effects if I take these medications for weight loss and am not diabetic? What are the requirements to have them prescribed for me?” Dear Reader, Losing weight is a struggle for many people. Recently several medications that are used to treat diabetes have also been found to impact weight loss. If you have diabetes and need to lose weight, trying one of these medications may be helpful, but what about people who...
Dear Editor, People have questioned why so many people are vaccine hesitant, especially here in northeast Wyoming. I think a quick look at a Pfizer vaccine fact sheet available at vaccine distribution outlets will shed some light on why folks are not trusting of the information they are getting on these vaccines. I offer these direct quotes from a revised sheet dated 23 August 2021. Third paragraph down on page 1: “The FDA-approved COMIRNATY (COVID-19 Vaccine, mRNA) and the FDA-authorized Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine under the Emergency U...
Considering that the only complaint I have ever had about the War of Independence is the wasteful tossing of teabags into the wrong kind of water, you’d think my loyalty to a proper cup of tea would be absolute. But this is not the case for, while I might be British, I am also European. The Brits have been on board with the wake-up juice for half a millennium, since the first coffeehouses opened and the British East India Company took to importing it. These days, of course, it’s all about the...
Dear Editor, Senator Driskill’s opinion essay (Sundance Times, October 14) on the topic of Medicaid expansion stated that we should base our opinions on the facts. I could not agree with him more, so I undertook a search of facts. On the issue of the financial impact on hospitals, I found an American Hospital Association study that showed hospitals in Medicaid expansion states are doing better than they were before. Mr. Driskill is right that Medicaid reimbursement rates are lower than private health insurance rates (although there is no r...
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth (Gen. 1:1) NORMAL: Conforming to a standard, pattern, level or type. Considered usual, typical and routine. We’ve heard a lot about returning to a new normal post COVID-19. Whatever that is, whatever that was, we find difficult to define or desire to do. For many, the before was not very attractive, nor is the ahead. A reason for this apprehension of the prior and subsequent normal is that our soul may not be satisfied with the standard that was set and routine that followed. What is n...
Everything changes, nothing lasts forever: these are facts we are all expected to live with. Unless your name is Nigel, in which case a formal request has been sent for your assistance in raging at the dying of the light. A pub landlord over in the UK is asking every Nigel in the world to head through his doors next year for a prestigious event known as “Nigel Night.” And if you scoffed as you read that sentence because it seems unlikely we’ll find any Nigels to send, you should know that the l...
Were half the villages of my home county given new names to save the sensibilities of a queen? This is not a question I expected to ever ask myself, and it’s all the fault of a goose. I keep up with the latest goings on in Dorset through our local newspaper, you see, and last week my attention was caught by a big and important news story. A goose was reported to have been causing a potential hazard to motorists on the A35 near the Puddletown turn-off. According to the Dorset Echo, this e...
Every session for the past several years, the Wyoming legislature has endured one push after another for Obamacare Medicaid expansion. For my part, I have held steady against expansion in every debate. My position has brought no end of criticism from the media, certain special interests and many of my less conservative legislative colleagues. Fortunately, a majority of senators have had the courage to stand up against those special interests that are pushing Medicaid expansion on Wyoming. It...
I am not sure what I expected our country to look like in 2021, but I certainly did not expect it to be so fractured and so bogged down in hate. My oldest son was a year old on September 11, 2001. The wave of patriotism following that day gave me hope for the America that my kids would inherit. Fast forward twenty years, and that hope has been overtaken by fear. Fear that our country has become so polarized on every issue that it may not survive. In 1858, Abraham Lincoln said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand”. Never in Ame...
One of the more common stereotypes about the British is that we have a tendency to be snobbish. I would argue that most of us aren’t, but I’m not going to deny there is a certain sector of society that embraces the sensation of looking down on the choices of others. I’ve never been particularly interested in whether or not Lady Something-or-Other likes my socks, but I did have a revelation this week when society magazine “Tatler” released its latest list of the things that one is and is not al...
Dear NP, “How can I lower my cholesterol without taking prescription medications? Does a keto diet worsen cholesterol levels?” Dear Reader, Prescription medications are often recommended to treat elevated cholesterol levels. However, many people wish to try to lower their cholesterol levels through diet before taking medication. When considering how to lower cholesterol levels, you’ll need a basic understanding of the different types of cholesterol and how they respond to various inter...
Dear Editor, Hi folks. As you might or might not remember, the Crook County Cattlewomen started a pilot program “Beef for the Hulett School” in the spring of 2018. The program was mirrored after a similar program in Montana and was well received by the Crook County School District, who was very much in favor of the program. The program has been a huge success and has expanded to all three schools – Hulett, Moorcroft and Sundance. The school cooks receive far more compliments from both staff and students when they’re served the home-gr...
Has it really come to this, even here in Wyoming – spiteful, hate-filled words spewing from the mouths or keyboards of those opposed to a particular political action or position? We first noticed an increase in nasty rhetoric last year during Governor Mark Gordon’s weekly COVID-19 news conferences. On the news conference Facebook feeds, so called interested citizens launched malicious broadsides against the governor, who was trying his best to walk the line between public health officials who wanted to shut everything down in the name of saf...
Spare a thought for my homeland this week, which is quickly running out of… well, everything. From chicken wings to home heating, my countrymen are lacking in even the most basic of commodities thanks to a comedy of errors. If you thought we had it bad here during ToiletpaperGate, you should see the state of the supermarket shelves in Britain. The temptation is to look for a single issue that’s causing the scarcity, but it’s actually down to a long list of smaller issues adding up into one g...
And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love. – 1 Cor. 13:13 As we know, see and live, when there is no hope, when all is hopeless, nothing fits together. Hopelessness strips life of its proper perspective and creates a void that is insurmountable to ascend. Things lose significance, including life itself. The world is lived not as it was intended, but as what sin has created and what we often learn to accept. Without hope, faith and love have no chance to b...
As Wyoming’s economy and her communities continue their recovery from the impacts of the global pandemic, the state is now faced with a new challenge. How do we best utilize the additional stimulus funds the federal government has appropriated to help Wyoming regain its footing? The American Rescue Plan (ARP) funds are one-time infusions that can help build a stronger, more resilient Wyoming, and they should be treated as such. We have an opportunity to use these dollars to shape the future of our state, and it’s important to maximize the opp...
I am once again under siege. The local wildlife has issued a vendetta against my person and it appears there are multiple species willing to contribute to the cause. My latest tale of woe begins with a fence. It’s a lovely fence that surrounds a sizeable portion of the back yard. It was installed earlier this summer to contain the exuberance of our canine companions. Between our home and the next-door-neighbors, we now possess a total of seven dogs. You might be thinking this is an excessive amo...
Dear Editor, I read the recent article in the Sundance Times, about the culling of our local deer population. While I am not in favor of the killing of wildlife, I understand that the deer may cause problems when they become numerous and lose their fear of humans. However, the Mayor was quoted as saying “Anything that you can kill…I am indifferent to what species, I am indifferent to what size.” What a callous remark! I find that lack of empathy surprising and distasteful. As a leader of a community, I would expect him to at least show some...
As smoke from summer Western wildfires spreads all the way to Maine, the entire country finally realizes what the West has long known: America’s forest-management policies are not working. This record-breaking fire season has seen more than 5 million acres burn in 81 large fires across 10 states. California’s Dixie Fire has torched more than 700 homes and now totals nearly 1 million acres. It is approaching the size of Rhode Island. Oregon’s Bootleg Fire is now so large it’s generating its own weather, including lightning. In my home state o...
As the old joke goes, the time has come for everyone in Wyoming to start locking the doors of their vehicles, because zucchini season is here. This is certainly close to the truth for my next-door-neighbors, who have been hauling armfuls of tomatoes indoors for weeks. Those neighbors are, for the sake of clarity, my parents-in-law, whose newly created vegetable patch has transformed into a veritable jungle. Hiding among plants that are now as tall as trees, Mom-in-Law has managed to grow the lar...
Dear NP, When is flu season and what is the best time to get the flu vaccine? Dear Reader, Influenza circulates year-round, but the peak season for flu is during the fall and winter months. Cases of flu may begin to increase as early as October, with the highest number occurring between December and February. In some years, flu activity can be seen as late as May. Because the flu virus remains active year-round, it is possible to get the flu at any time during the year, but most cases occur...
