Sorted by date Results 1151 - 1175 of 1692
October is the month when most think of Halloween. Over here at the Sweetwater County Library, we think of Harry Potter. For years now, we have worked hard each October to create the best, most realistic, and most fun Harry Potter party for you. We love doing it and we hope you love coming to it. The party starts at 1 pm.. on Saturday and this year, we’re celebrating “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” the fifth book in the seven-book series. Everything is new this year – activities and crafts that you’ve never seen before. Begin by me...
In Wyoming, we know how devastating floods can be to our communities. With Senate passage of a bipartisan water bill, towns across Wyoming are one step closer to improving dam safety and better preparing for floods. Senate Passes Bill to Help Wyoming Communities Prepare for Flood On Sept. 15, the Senate passed the bipartisan Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) by a vote of 95 to 3. This bill authorizes the Army Corps of Engineers to improve and maintain dams, inland waterways, ports, and projects to prevent flooding and ensure water delivery...
This month’s featured artifact is a Geiger counter donated to the Sweetwater County Historical Museum by Arnold M. Hannum. Geiger counters are used to detect ionizing radiation, and similar objects have been used in the uranium mining business in Wyoming. This particular Geiger counter was produced by the Eberline Instrument Corporation of Santa Fe, N.M., and was copyrighted July 29, 1966 as the PRM-4 model. The Eberline Instrument Corporation was established in 1958 by Howard Clayton Eberline, a former employee of the Los Alamos Scientific L...
We realize safety is a major concern, however that doesn’t mean we should shut everything down the moment a threatening email is received. We think cooler heads could have prevailed Thursday, especially when looking at the email from a logical perspective. Hiding 500 pounds of plastic explosives across 40 schools across the state would take an impressive amount of coordination. Couple that with filling 10 school fire-sprinkler systems with napalm, hiding 650 pipe bombs in government buildings, 50 sets of C4 explosives at Cheyenne Regional Airpo...
Recently I got a note from a reader of these columns who lives in Warren, Ohio. He had seen conflicting reports about next year’s insurance premiums. The man was skeptical of an article he had read, which reported that insurance premiums are cheaper than they were in 2010, and that the Affordable Care Act will cost $2.6 trillion less than estimated. Somehow that didn’t compute with what he had read about premiums going up. He was right to be skeptical, and his comments are important because they zoom right in on the spin that’s been circu...
On Sept. 27, the City of Green River was the guest presenter for the Green River Chamber’s “Lunch and Learn” series they have each month. This is the second time they presented the “State of the City,” for chamber members and guests, and they did it to a packed house. What’s good to share at these events is the many programs, projects, and updates from different department head perspectives and governing body representatives. This year we also had a guest speaker from the state director for the office of the Corporation for National an...
We realize we might be beating a dead horse with this, but think about another grocery store in Green River. Yes, that survey conducted by the now-defunct Sweetwater Economic Development Agency argued Green River could not support another grocery store, but let’s suppose we walked away with the wrong interpretation. At face value, it appears Green River residents have a number of options for their grocery needs. Yet, a majority of those “options” were actually convenience stores -- places residents wouldn’t do a bulk of their grocery shoppin...
One year ago this month, the Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell stood on a stage flanked by Republican Governor Matt Mead of Wyoming and Democratic Governor Steve Bullock of Montana. They were joined by ranchers, conservationists and other westerner stakeholders to proclaim the Fish and Wildlife Service determined that the greater sage-grouse did not warrant a listing under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) due to the creation of the strong, science-based Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and U.S. Forest Service (USFS) land management plans...
June 12 seemed like just another early summer Sunday. At least, until 3:45 p.m. when a damaging hail storm passed through. In addition to the piles of hail and leaf covered streets the storm left in its path, it also left behind damaged roofs, siding and even a few broken windows. Almost immediately after the storm, Green River Community Development started to see an increase in permits for re-roofing projects. Of the 50 building permits issued in the month of June, nearly half (23) were issued for re-roofing projects. The extent of structural...
I, like millions of other people, have a Facebook account. I don’t use it all the time; and when I am on vacation I don’t even bother looking at it. I am not one of those people who are constantly updating my Facebook status on what I am eating, where I am eating it at, what I am watching, what I am reading and just about anything else one can think of posting. A lot of my posts are about my kids, but in that area too, I don’t go overboard. On Thursday, I was trying to find story ideas. Every...
Recently I attended a meeting with the Bureau of Land Management on a proposed drill site in Fremont County. The proposed unit and resulting test well have been in the planning stage for many years and hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent to date with the preliminary work, scientific interpretation, leasing federal minerals, state minerals, and private minerals. Now they need a drill permit. It was clear the BLM was never going to issue the permit. At the end of the meeting I did ask the BLM officials if they could simply, at the...
Is the message that the nation is getting too fat beginning to sink in? The answer is “yes but,” says the Trust for America’s Health, a nonprofit, non-partisan group that aims to protect the health of communities and make disease prevention a national priority. And a study of healthcare quality and quantity across the nation suggests some reasons why things are not improving uniformly. Obesity is a disease, and for the last 13 years the Trust and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation have monitored obesity rates in the country, focusing on the p...
Without a doubt, the events of Sept. 11, 2001, will forever live with the people who experienced them or watched the tragedy unfold live on TV. Some may have been students walking into class when the events took place while others may have been sitting to breakfast or starting their workday. Like when John F. Kennedy was assassinated, the Challenger space shuttle exploded or, going further back, when Pearl Harbor was attacked, there is a generation of people who have where they were and what they were doing that day permanently etched into...
And so it begins. Another school year, another year of sick kids. This was the thought I had the minute my youngest son, John, 4, said he wasn’t feeling well. I had just returned home; and he was hiding underneath a blanket with his favorite monkey, while my oldest son Matthew, 6, was running around the room playing with toys. I didn’t even have to ask. I just knew something wasn’t right. For any of you who have met my John, you can vouch for me when I say that boy is always running, jumpi...
We’ve got a new business downtown. Pyper Jeans Hair and Nail Salon is a cozy little shop that joined us in June at 551 E. Flaming Gorge Way. Yvette Portillo, shop owner, was raised in Green River and says it is definitely home to her. She feels safe and secure here and thinks it’s a great place to raise a family. Portillo has six children, ranging in age from seven to 33, and they were all brought up here. She said that some of her favorite things about Green River are the wildlife in her backyard, and all the recreational activities that are...
Usually, when Stephanie Thompson or I sit down to write a food column, the idea is to share a recipe we enjoy, or in the case of my switchel column, the result of a sleepless night spent on Youtube. This time, I want to share a few observations I made during a recent trip to Canada. Food is one of the easiest ways to experience culture and while traveling to the Western portion of Canada is more like going to another state as opposed to another country, there are still some interesting things...
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 scorpions, various bugs and rodents. This is especially true in ones that have a lot of loose and broken-up rock, cracks in the walls, odd combustible items, and sometimes moss or dripping. The time to camp in a cave, to be a caveman, is in the winter. I have half a dozen such places scattered around Wyo...
By John Barrasso, M.D. U.S. Senator With Congress out of session in August, I traveled around the state extensively and visited with folks in communities across Wyoming. I also fought harmful new Obama administration executive actions on carbon-based energy and on our Second Amendment rights. Both of the president’s proposals hurt small businesses and law-abiding individuals around our state. White House Finalizes Climate Change Directive On Aug. 2, the White House Council on Environmental Quality released its final direction to federal agencie...
We don’t think camping should be allowed in FMC Park. While camping would show off the area’s natural beauty and give great access to bicycling and hiking trails, we don’t think camping spots would benefit the city and would ultimately be wasted resources for a city already struggling in the face of continually reduced revenues. One exception we would like to make involves the city’s Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, Girl Scouts and other youth-oriented groups. Those groups should be allowed to use the park in a educational manner and camping, permitt...
I have extremely fond memories of coloring as a child. Whether it was within the pages of a Mickey Mouse coloring book, on a piece of construction paper, or scribbled upon a scrap of lined notebook paper, I was a child that could be counted upon to be found sprawled out on the floor with my box of 64 Crayola coloring crayons composing a work of art. When I think about coloring books and crayons, I’m overcome with a heartwarming sense of nostalgia. Coloring books have a long history. The Little Folks’ Painting Book is credited as the first col...
This year, there were no tears from anyone in the family. I guess you could say I was more prepared or maybe it came so fast I didn’t have time to react. Yes. My son Matthew is now as we like to call him a “hot-shot first-grader;” and John started his second year of preschool. While other parents were once again encased in death grips from their children, who were crying uncontrollably as they attempted to drop them off for that first day of preschool, my John just ran off. Once again, witho...
We all know that the older we become the need to stay active and healthy is an absolute priority in our lives (or, it should be). Our muscles and joints are pretty much a “use them or lose them” deal with our human bodies, which can decline in efficiency as we age, become injured, and sedate. Staying active can be difficult for these afflicted with injuries, dealing with arthritis, head trauma, and other physical challenges. I learned how staying active after an injury was difficult, but soon learned of a solution! When I suffered a back inj...
What to do with the local deer population has been a contentious subject in Green River for the past few years, but while they can be pesky, at this point, they’re probably better left alone. One caveat we would like to make involves deer proven to be aggressive against city residents and other animals. We think they should be killed as they present a tangible threat to others. The deer living in the city are here to stay, with the only thing changing that is a mass culling designed to devastate the population. While some may see that as an a...
Dear Editor, Mr. Ryan Greene, Wyoming congressional candidate, informed me Aug. 25, he is pro-choice (pro-abortion) and opposed to capital punishment (excusing a convicted killer from the death penalty). As a conservative baptist preacher (independent, fundamentalist, King James Bible-only-believing, Christian), I find Greene’s position to be reprehensible. Every citizen-voter of moral conscience in this state must recognize that abortion is murder under any circumstance, and that the Authorized Word of God requires execution of every c...
Dear Editor, Nomis is not qualified to be Fire chief, just because he is a Nomis. He didn’t take college classes or serve as interim fire chief and then get the shaft. We need new blood and the city needs to get into a new era. Mike Liberty worked for the job and then he was only good enough to be the interim fire chief. Green River, shame on your politicians. Christine Pope Bountiful, Utah...
