Green River Star -

Dear Editor, Charlie Manson and Donald Trump have several things in common. Both have initiated violent crimes that neither man was directly involved in, yet these crimes would not have happened except for their planning, brainwashing, and... Full story

Responding to an article by Wyoming Rep. Marshall Burt, there is a need for “A Word” from the more rational side of the COVID-19 debate. Burt is opposed to the Biden Administration’s efforts to battle COVID-19, citing that it is an...

Debasing myself politically, I’ve joined the Republican Party. I never thought I would do this. The first time that I could vote in a primary, in New Hampshire in 1980, I voted for Jerry Brown. At Winter Park, Colorado, about 1984, I registered as...

This is a story about Wyoming’s near future, though it takes place in Arizona. Entering Page, Ariz., the plan was to ask one question of ten people, “With the closing of the coal-fired Navajo Generating Station (NGS), on Nov. 18, 2019, is the...

The economic-panel discussion on Boom and Bust Cycles came to Rock Springs on Oct. 9. It was held at Western Wyoming Community College, and generously funded by the American Heritage Center. In attendance were about 75 people from the area. On the...

Running for an elective office is something I had never pictured myself doing. I’ve even looked down on politicians as somewhat less than human. Then one day I read something written by the Sweetwater County Conservation District (SWCCD), in...

Bank of the West is not unique in the clean-energy course that it has decided upon. Lots of other organizations and companies have made similar declarations. Most of the Ivy League has been divesting from fossil fuels for years, the Catholic Church...

“Mr. Gagnon you’re out of order!” shouted the chairperson. It was Aug. 2, at the regularly scheduled meeting of the Sweetwater County Conservation District (SWCCD). It’s hard to make a point in a public meeting when you’re told to make it v...

Wilderness, Old English for “self-willed land,” is suggestive of the American spirit of self-reliance, rugged individualism, and adventurousness –these characteristics receiving birth from Wilderness itself. Return visits for us and for future...

Winning enough electoral votes to make Trump president was completely unexpected. It was shocking and awful in every way. Within hours, however, a concept calling itself “The Resistance” formed. Even here in conservative Wyoming, this...

Counting down the final days of the Trump administration, it can’t come soon enough, and Wyoming is in an existential crisis. That is, who and what are we? What do we like and dislike? Do we have any values? Here we are, a well-educated people, we...

Soaring high over the Arizona desert, condors search the landscape for meat. Anything will do: a gut pile left by a hunter; a lightning killed bison; or a tourist falling over the edge of the Grand Canyon. On an autumnal drive through northern Arizon...

Unzipping the tent screen, I emerged into the dawn of the day of the great eclipse, the 21st of August, 2017. I was camped at Mistake Lake, at an elevation of 10,800 feet, in the Titcomb Basin, located in the center of Wyoming’s Wind River Range. B...

What if you were on a long trip, and away from all media, and when you came back everything had changed? I always liked the “Planet of the Apes” movies. You go on a little space-ship ride, and look what you come back to. My immediate future...

(Editor note: This column is fiction, but reflects the writer’s views of where the country is headed) Maneuvering the artillery took months longer than anyone had imagined. The impatient commander-in-chief yelled and screamed and twisted and contor...

Old Sarum, in Wiltshire, England, had seven voters, none of whom lived there, and two seats in the House of Commons. No one had actually lived there for two centuries. Elections were held under a tree in the “Election Acre.” Old Sarum came to be...

Jabez Stone was a New Hampshire farmer. The time was before the Civil War. Things weren’t going well for him. Boulders emerged in his fields, his potatoes got the blight, his corn went to the borers, his horse got spavins, his wife and children...

Walking the land is a form of poetry. My preference is off-trail walking, especially in the high deserts of the west. Every curve and slope, drainage and rock outcropping, becomes an experience. There is no better way to observe animals, plants,...

Booming times for Wyoming’s oil, gas, and coal industries might come again, but the next boom may be the last one, or, at any rate, the booms will become less and less significant. Perhaps something like open warfare breaking out between Saudi...

Riding with my friend John in his Nissan Leaf, an electric vehicle, the car made no sound at all. With the windows open you can hear the changing of gears on nearby bicycles, and you can hear the breeze in the branches over the boulevards. We were...

Finding the body was a jolting experience. The skull was facing upwards. He had a full row of upper teeth, but the lower jaw was gone. What might have been a t-shirt covered his upper rib cage, but it looked like animals had been gnawing. Arm bones...

Spotting the crack in the cliff from the dry floor of the canyon, it looked to require an ascent of about 300 feet on loose scree, some bushwhacking, and then a short climb. What I was looking for, I didn’t know, but probably would once I found...

I sometimes camp under rock overhangs of about 5-50 feet deep, and a few to several feet high and wide. Here I’ll just call them caves. In the summertime I don’t generally camp in them, because there are too many critters like snakes and...

At least now we have something to do with the rainy-day fund, and some people may need orange jump suits. It just seemed like a big hole in the ground, and how could that be bad out on the empty prairie. It was four decades ago. Cities like...