Continuing the Crook County News Since 1884
Continuing the Crook County News Since 1884
Sorted by date Results 401 - 425 of 538
Dear Editor, I fully agree with Verda Swenson’s letter to the editor in The Sundance Times Thurs., Feb. 13 edition. The road on Rupe Hill is a nightmare, not the best when road conditions are favorable. Then it becomes much worse with snow and ice on it. I have had a couple – three experiences on it; very scary. I can’t imagine driving it twice a day or more. Yes, it definitely should have guard rails and other precautions to make it as safe as possible, sanding and clearing snow when necessary. I have never talked with another person that...
Greetings House District 1! After a grueling past few days, we’re now entering into the third week of the 2020 Budget Session. The majority of the past week was focused on introduction and debate on a roughly $3 billion budget for the 2021-2022 biennium. This week, members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committee introduced their respective Budgets (House, HB 1, General Government Appropriations-2 and Senate, SF 1, General Government Appropriations) to their chambers. During second r...
For My name shall be great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts (Mal. 1:11). Life is filled with an overflowing amount of information to process and categorize. Out of survival and confusion we often discard what is good with the bad. This uncertainty can elevate things into places in our lives that don’t belong there. The obvious is lost in misunderstanding, simplicity is masked by the ensuing anxiety and that which is needed most is destroyed in pursuit of that which is unnecessary. Things often fill gaps in our lives with the wrong i...
Dear NP, “I have been taking proton pump inhibitors (PPI) for heartburn daily for the last seven years. My healthcare provider has advised me to stop due to possible serious side effects. What are these side effects and are they in fact serious?” M. E. Dear M. E., Heartburn can be painful and difficult to have even once, but to people with gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), heartburn can become a daily nightmare. GERD occurs when acid from the stomach works its way into the esophagus and...
Dear Editor, Did you enjoy the Winterfest in Sundance this last week? OR was it a bothersome inconvenience? Did you want to go to the bakery for lunch or pick up some baked good? Did you need a lawyer or get anything at the Sundance Times? Did you need to do some insurance work at Security Insurance? Are you having your income tax done by Jan Denzin? Did you need to pay your light bill at PREC or your water bill at City Hall? How about a treatment with Materi Chiropractic? Did you try to pick up your mail? Forget that parking on the east side...
Hello from Cheyenne! We wrapped up the first week of the 2020 Budget Session on Friday evening. It was a busy week, to say the least. Nearly 400 (398, to be exact) bills were filed in the House and Senate this session. This includes 256 bills in the House and 142 in the Senate. Friday, February 14 was the deadline for bills to be introduced for debate, so no additional bills will be filed this session. During a Budget Session, legislative rules require a 2/3 vote for non-budget related bills to...
I’m sure the first thing that went through your mind when you arrived at the Sundance Winter Festival was: “Why do I not see Sarah at the starting line in her ski boots?” It’s a reasonable question, so I’m very glad you asked, and the answer is that I have a miserable history with skiing. My relationship with skis is, in fact, appalling enough that my participation would be bad for everyone’s health. It would at the very least be a risk to my own, and I wouldn’t make any promises to the folk l...
Dear Editor: Reference Thursday, January 30, 2020 Sundance Times, page 3 article, “Time Reporter Recognized with Four State Awards”: Congratulations Sarah Pridgeon. Your work keeps us so informed and entertained. Sarah Pridgeon is a most capable and professional journalist. We are very privileged to have her working with our local newspaper. Her reporting is unequaled in northeast Wyoming, and perhaps the entire state. She writes clearly, gets the facts straight and spells the words correctly. I should probably congratulate and thank her sup...
“If you wanted to create an education environment that was directly opposed to what the brain was good at doing, you probably would design something like a classroom.” In his book, Brain Rules, author John Medina lays out the science and research to back up this statement—and he’s not the only one. A growing number of researchers, policymakers and educators, in Wyoming and across the nation, are speaking out about the need for change. Wyoming has responded in kind in several ways: Boot-Up Wyoming is Wyoming’s computational thinking and compu...
Greetings from Cheyenne! The 2020 Budget Session kicks off tomorrow. Fortunately, the legislature is now back in the newly renovated Wyoming State Capitol! For pictures of the refurbished House and Senate Chambers, you can visit the Wyoming Capitol Square Project Facebook page. The primary purpose of this session, which will last between 20 and 24 days, is to approve and implement a budget for the 2021-2022 biennium. This budget includes operating expenses for all executive, legislative and...
I have been living in fear for the last six weeks – terror that everything I know, everything I am, was about to be thrown to the wolves. This story has a happy ending, but it’s going to take us a while to get there. My torture began just before Christmas, when I sat down with a couple of friends for a festive meal and to swap gifts. As we dined on chicken and garlic potatoes, tinsel sparkling in the background, one of them placed a box in front of each of us. She’s one of those people for w...
Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. 25 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. 26 For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? – Matthew 16:24-26 We all have been given a life and are free to choose how that plays out. What we quickly discover is that the world is anything but a playground and bum...
Certain members of this community know there is entertainment to be had in the sport of testing my Britishness. They know it’s against my nature to make a fuss about things and have discovered how much fun it is to see how far they can push this rule before it breaks. As a Brit, I am obliged to force down bad food at a restaurant rather than send it back. I must tell a hairdresser I love my new haircut even if it looks like a rat has been chewing on my head. I am only permitted to express a...
This week’s story begins with an article in my hometown’s local newspaper. It won’t come across as particularly explosive, so I’ll get you up to speed in one sentence and you’ll see why it matters later: a supermarket chain, which has been cutting jobs for a while so is clearly not in the best of financial health, bought one of the most recognizable retail chains in Britain in 2016, and has just cut hundreds more. I know, it’s bad news but also terribly boring. I wouldn’t have gobbled down...
A new Netflix documentary called “The Great Hack” based on a book by Britanny Kaiser called “Targeted” should be viewed and read respectively by anyone concerned about our democracy because of its revelations. The subject is the relationship between Cambridge Analytica and Facebook. Cambridge Analytica (CA) was an offshoot from the taxpayer-funded SCL, an intelligence service put together after 9/11 to identify potential terrorists from their correspondence and associates. CA was based in and named after Cambridge, England and given that na...
It’s been all over the news for the last week, so I’m sure you know by now that everyone’s favorite prince has flipped the bird to Queen and country and fled for the safety of Canada. Or, to set aside the histrionics, that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will be stepping back from their royal duties and splitting their time between Britain and North America. You might be wondering why the reaction has been so extreme. Even my mild-mannered mother was livid and, if you haven’t managed to forget Pi...
My cat hasn’t starred in this column as much as our other animals because, for the most part, she and her humans co-exist through a mutual pact to respect one another’s privacy. This is an effective policy until her paws feel chilly and the only solution – in her opinion – is to sit on my feet until I get pins and needles. Over the last couple of weeks, however, she has been teaching me a valuable lesson about problem solving. My life has been a live action version of the old riddle about g...
Two days after Christmas we received a generous gift in the form of a $2500 check donation to the Crook County Council of County Services (Crook County Food Pantry). Larger donations of this amount are always a welcome surprise. Included with the check was a letter from Riverside Contracting, Inc., Missoula, Montana. In part it read: “This year we have been in or around your community doing road construction. We would like to remember your community and give back to it. “On behalf of Riverside Construction, Inc., please accept the enclosed che...
Not quite done with celebrating yet? The trouble with January is that all the fun of the holidays is over and it’s back to work with a list of resolutions in hand, all of which involve having less fun than you did before the midnight chimes. I’ve been racking my brains to come up with a new tradition we could steal from my homeland to fit the gap between New Year and Winterfest. We need something to look forward to, and we’ve already brought everything from Halloween to the harvest festi...
Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. Psalm 43:5 1828 Noah Webster Dictionary. HOPE, noun [Latin cupio.] A desire of some good, accompanied with at least a slight expectation of obtaining it, or a belief that it is obtainable. HOPE differs from wish and desire in this: That it implies some expectation of obtaining the good desired, or the possibility of possessing it. • Hope therefore always gives pleasure or joy. Whereas wish and want may p...
The story of our country is often told by the decades that define it. With the end of this decade so close at hand, it can often be tempting to imagine what the last ten years will be remembered for. Or for that matter, the last year alone. For me, 2019 will be remembered by the people I had the pleasure to meet, businesses I had the opportunity to visit and the projects I have had the privilege to work on. Between spending time in our nation’s capital and back home in Wyoming, I’ve been able to meet with hundreds of workers and families fro...
As has become my tradition, I took a few moments this week to look around at all the good things happening this season. Whether it made me laugh or smile, I’d like to share a few of them with you. You have to hand it to Mariah Carey, that’s a woman with a dream she’s not willing to let go of. I think my grandmother would have referred to her as “like a dog with a bone”. A quarter century after we all started singing “All I Want For Christmas” as part of our communal festive repertoire, s...
Dear Editor, “Why do I get a bill if the ambulance takes me to the hospital?” Recently, the newspaper seems to be filled with information on the provision of Emergency Medical Services (EMS), with the discussion ranging from how to replace old, unreliable vehicles, to who should be providing EMS to the Sundance community, how does the services support itself and how should funding occur. Recently, a large company offered “informational lunches” to discuss medical transportation “membership”; however, they cancelled these meetings. Currently,...
Some people love golf, others enjoy knitting, but I like semi colons. Everyone needs a hobby; mine is the correct placement of punctuation to ensure maximum readability in every sentence. You’re probably thinking I’m one of those people on the internet who ignore your carefully worded message because you used “there” instead of “their”. As I feel quite sure it’s a bad way to share an appreciation of grammar, I promise I have never done this. I don’t even think everyone should need to know al...
This is not the most wonderful time of year after all, but only if you’re a small dog with anxiety issues. When everything from paper plates to the opening of a can of tomatoes turns you into a quivering mess, it’s no wonder that the surprises of Christmas can sometimes be too much. The small dog in question is, of course, my beloved rescue pup. Midge, who has starred in more than one column already this year because she’s a source of constant entertainment, spent the first few months of her l...
