Your source for news in Hot Springs County
Your source for news in Hot Springs County
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Next week will see the annual observance of Independence Day, recognizing that day in 1776 when the United States adopted the Declaration of Independence and declared itself a free nation, no longer part of the British Empire. Though the legal separation of the 13 colonies from Great Britain actually occurred on July 2, it wasn’t until Congress debated and revised the language in Thomas Jefferson’s original document that the Declaration of Independence was finally approved. The following year saw the first observance of Independence Day, wit...
I wanted to say a quick “thank you” to our local businesses for all they do. We all gripe about how expensive everything is here, and how we could buy the same item online, or in a big box retail store much cheaper. I recently had an experience that I hope will encourage everyone to buy locally, and keep our hard earned dollars in our community. Last summer/fall I bought a flashlight from a local business. Sometime last winter it quit working, and as I wasn’t around to go to the store and talk to them about it, I put it out of my mind. I belie...
This past Saturday I was honored to be able to shoot photos of a very heartwarming event, the Ageless Aviation Dreams Foundation flights provided to some of the veterans at the Wyoming Pioneer Home. I watched these gentlemen getting off the Pioneer Home bus, some walking on their own, some with walkers or canes and even some with oxygen – looked over at the open cockpit bi-plane, and wondered how this was going to work. What happened was amazing. The pilot, Mike Winterboer and his wife, D...
Most teachers find after they have completed their Bachelors and spent a year in the classroom that it’s in their interest financially and professionally to seek a Masters in something...practically anything will be helpful to their career. Unfortunately, many interested in the three reasons to enter teaching (June, July, and August) soon find that they have been misled about the nature of the vocation they have undertaken. It seems there was an applicant for a high steel job in a city working on a high-rise project. Though he indicated he h...
Chamber of Commerce Executive Director We are only 53 days away from the 2017 Solar Eclipse. It is hard to believe that we have been planning for this event for almost 2 years. I have been surprised how many organizations have been involved in preparing for this “Once in a Lifetime” Event. Among the participants in these at these monthly planning meetings have been BLM, HSC Public Health, HSC Emergency Management, Mortimore Ambulance Service, HSC Search & Rescue, HSC Weed & Pest, HSCMH, Hot Springs State Park, HSC Planner, Town of The...
The Bureau of Reclamation made the decision earlier this week to up the flow from Boysen Reservoir to 9,000cfs, up from the 8,000cfs for the last week or so. If you’ve driven through Wind River Canyon you’ve undoubtedly noticed the water is high and the rapids are running swiftly. All you need do is drive over to the State Park and you’ll see a couple of the islands are “missing” and the walkway near the river is flooded in a number of places. The water at the boat dock below the terraces is so high it’s encroaching on the sidewalks there, as w...
Next month, Thermopolis will see plenty of alumni from various years when graduation weekend comes around. Still considering myself a bit of a “new guy” in the town — having been here just over a year — the weekend is one of the events I think is really interesting. I grew up in a town where the summer high school reunion was for one specific year, rather than all those years ending in a specific number, and I was thinking the other night about what my graduating class might have to say to thos...
by Bill Williams So, as most of you recall last November the Hospital District issue passed by a nearly 2:1 margin and everyone who worked so hard on getting it passed was ecstatic. The new board members all were sworn in within 10 days, the new board held a brief organizational meeting in early December and we appeared before the County Commissioners at their December 20 meeting and brought them up to date on what had been transpiring. Everything was proceeding as we expected until we got a call from our County Assessor in early April telling...
The wounding of a Congressman should have absolutely shocked and disgusted the American people, but we have degenerated to the point that political points are being raised and argued from all directions, and little is being noted about what we’ve become in the age of terrorism. ISIS with its ultimate cruelty and disregard for humanity and human life has encouraged those with mental aberrations to believe that there is some kind of divine right that allows them to indiscriminately take actions which have no relevance to problem solving. H...
by Amanda Moeller Director, Hot Springs Travel & Tourism What is the Lodging Tax? Who pays it? What happens to the money collected? According to the Wyoming Travel Industry Coalition’s Wyoming Lodging Tax Manual, “In communities that have approved the lodging tax, all establishments providing sleeping accommodations to transient guests (who stay less than 30 days) must collect this special sales tax.” Lodging tax is collected by motels, hotels, RV parks, dude ranches, bed and breakfasts, campgrounds, and vacation rentals. Every county in Wyomi...
This weekend marks the annual celebration of and for the daddies, the papas, and the old men. That’s right, it’s Father’s Day, a day that calls to mind images of dad flipping burgers on the grill and opening homemade cards and boxes containing ties. Father’s Day is a relatively new celebration, not really seen outside Catholic traditions until the early 20th century, when it was established to complement Mother’s Day — first celebrated in 1908. Father’s Day was first established in 1910. While celebrating those with whom we have genetic ties...
Mark your calendar for the Annual Gift of the Water Parade that is Saturday, August 5 at 10 a.m. The theme to this year’s parade is “Pages from the Ages — Celebrating over 100 years.” Many of our downtown buildings are celebrating their 100th birthday this year. It is amazing that we can look at some of the buildings and know that they have been there for at least a 100 years. The parade route is as follows: Line up starts at 9:30 a.m. on Arapahoe and Senior Avenue — make sure to check in and get your entry number. At 10 a.m. the parade wi...
We’ve talked a lot about spring and flowers and everything getting so green and beautiful right now, which got me to thinking about my grandmother and her little brother. In the old days, kids had to not only make their own fun, there was no such thing as an allowance, so in order to get treats, they had to use their ingenuity. My grandmother, Margaret, and her little brother, John, lived in Kirby as they were growing up. Their father, my great-grandfather, was the sheriff at the time. My g...
As part of a planned vacation, I brought my girlfriend to Thermopolis to spend the day, as I had visited the city six years ago. On that visit, I was only in town four hours as I traveled from Yellowstone to Cheyenne on my way back to Topeka, Kansas. I drove through the park, getting out to see things but did not do much else. I wanted to bring my girlfriend to see and try things that I found interesting, including trying the mineral water baths and swimming. We stayed at a local bed and breakfast, which was fantastic. I was glad to find them...
We all know the old saying about opinions and that everyone has one, and in this age of social media it’s very apparent everyone has an opinion. As American citizens, we are blessed with the freedom of speech, something many other countries are not allowed. Imagine living in North Korea where you cannot speak your mind, especially regarding anything political. While all of us may speak our minds, sometimes we forget when we’re typing away on the computer, that there is an actual human being on the other side of that screen. Granted, that per...
SHOP THERMOP! It is the war cry and basic marketing of our community’s businesses. We have all heard it, and we all have our own responses. The question I would present to these businesses is, why? What do you have to offer me that I can only get in Thermopolis? Nearly forty people recently went through an intensive half-day customer service and hospitality workshop. We all learned, or dusted off basic customer service skills that were taught many years and many jobs ago. I am sure that Mark Dykes will have written an article about what we d...
On June 14, we celebrate Flag Day. Ever since Sept. 11, 2001 we have seen more American Flags displayed at any time since World War II. Yet, if we asked the average citizen as to how Flag Day came about, he most likely would draw a blank. I thought I would take this opportunity to write this with the help of information from the Northwestern University Alumni Magazine, about how Flag Day came about in hope readers would enjoy learning about something that has long been forgotten. It all started with Bernard J. Cigrand (1866-1932), the son of Lu...
Well, we finally made it. Those few weeks where the temperatures are right in the “comfort zone,” and any moisture we get doesn’t come in flake form. It’s also a brief moment in the calendar when we get to stop complaining about the cold temperatures, before we switch gears and complain about the heat. Summer in this part of the world typically comes with at least a couple weeks’ worth of some mercury-rising days, but just because those high temperatures are no excuse to stay indoors when there’s plenty happening around town. Last weekend saw...
There is a lesson to be learned from the recent near-catastrophic failure of the Oroville Dam in California. That dam is of similar construction as our Boysen Dam. Extended heavy rains filled the reservoir behind the dam to the extent that the spillway was activated to prevent overflow and breaching of the dam. The spillway itself began to erode and fail. An emergency evacuation of 180,000 people below the dam was instituted because the dam was in danger of failing. I had an enlightening experience about rain potential in Colorado. A good frien...
Pageant Weekend is an annual event that happens the first full weekend in August, this year Aug. 5-6. It is centered around the Gift of the Waters Pageant, a play written by Marie Montabe in 1925 that celebrates the transfer of the Big Spring from the Native Americans to the United States government in 1896. Prior to that, Thermopolis was located about seven miles north of the present day town, near the confluence of Owl Creek and the Bighorn River. When the land became available to settlers, the town moved closer to the Big Spring, which at th...
by Rex Clothier In 2003 when when my bride and I decided that this piece of Wyoming would be a good place to retire, and we found a cute little place that seemed to be calling our names, and somehow, as fate would have it, circumstances worked amazingly well to allow us to enter into home ownership a couple of years before the magic date of leaving our jobs (teaching) for the idyllic life of retirement. We met the friendly older gentleman whose home bordered ours, and looked forward to becoming neighbors when we actually moved onto the property...
This map of Thermopolis indicates the area of the current Bighorn River floodplain inside the red line (4340' elevation) and the potential 80-foot fill line in green (4400' elevation) above which is safe ground. For more information, see the opinion piece by Daniel Wychgram on page 4....
Green grass, green leaves and beautiful flowers are all definite and welcomed signs of spring in Wyoming, however, in order to get all those delights for the eyes, we need to have plenty of moisture. Unfortunately, there has been an abundance of rain this spring, which added to the copious amounts of snow we had over the winter, means a lot of flooding danger. We’ve watched and waited as Wind River Canyon has suffered from the rain and the start of the run-off with boulders, some the size of houses, sliding from their precipice. Emergency m...
This past week I saw my oldest son graduate from his pre-school program, and dealt with a barrage of “why” as I tried to break down why he couldn’t go straight to kindergarten the next day. He has yet to grasp this concept of summer vacation, and I only hope his love for school holds out longer than it did his father’s — I lost it around third grade. For those students who recognize what we’re on the cusp of, it can mean a switch from learning to lounging or, in some cases, working through the...
I hope that the title of this column got your attention! It is an ill-kept secret that Thermopolis has a lot going on, and there are several different versions as to what the facts are. In an effort to communicate with the public, and put out the true facts of what is happening around the community, this column will be a weekly opportunity for nonprofits and clubs to toot their horns and inform. The basic rules will be simple: keep your column between 200-400 words, and keep it clean. This is NOT Thermopolis Confessions! To kick things off, I i...
