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Your source for news in Hot Springs County
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In just a few days, Santa will be making his annual trek around the globe and boys and girls everywhere will be leaving milk and cookies beside the tree before drifting off, dreaming of what they will find in the morning. While we all remember at least one special Christmas as a child, as we grow older our lists become shorter and our understanding of the season becomes more clear. I remember being under foot helping my grandmother make fudge and divinity, little sugar candies with walnuts,...
It seems that Christmas and the holiday season gets here faster and faster each year. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, as it means more time with family, shared meals, gifts and cuddles under a warm blanket. But as everyone knows, it can also get pretty hectic with all the shopping going on. I’m still not done, and probably won’t be until the 23rd, but the other night I was able to take in one of the calmer aspects of the season — the lights. One thing about Thermopolis when Thanksg...
Granted, we’re still a few weeks away from Christmas, but so far I’ve been really lucky in regards to my Christmas tree and my...cats. You’ve probably seen videos of nefarious fur balls eating ornaments, gnawing their way through light strings and even knocking the entire holiday beauty to the ground. I’ve had cats through the years who have done just that. “Fish” (yes, the cat was named Fish) was notorious for climbing up the center of the tree and peeking out at me from between the branche...
Christmas is half way over for me. That deserves some explanation. For more than 10 years, holidays have been split between my family and that of my fiancée/wife Louise. Occasionally in those years, several members of her family have been able to make it home for Thanksgiving, but not for Christmas. This results in quite the heyday at my in-laws, with Thanksgiving celebrated on its regular fourth Thursday in November and Christmas the following Saturday. That still leaves time for that Black...
Yes, I am one of those weird people that already has all my Christmas shopping done. Well, with the exception of a few little ‘stocking stuffer’ kinds of things. Nothing is wrapped and my tree is definitely not up, but I buy things throughout the year when I see them, knowing someone on my list is going to love this little trinket or that. I’ve definitely come a long way from when I was married. It used to be we would put off Christmas shopping until the very last minute and then it was a flurr...
Tuesday night I took in the annual Fall Showcase put on by the Hot Springs County High School Drama Club, getting a look at what the students are taking to the State Drama Festival next month. To say I was in awe would be a drastic understatement. Watching the individual and duo drama pieces, as well as the musical performances was incredible, and the applause the students received was well-deserving, though I wish it could’ve been more — more seats full, more performance time, more of eve...
We awoke Wednesday morning after a long, hard battled election, some feeling wonderful about the choices made, others, not so much. There are changes coming in a number of positions in Thermopolis and Hot Springs County, but now that its all over, we need to embrace those changes and understand that even if our candidate didn’t get in, we voted and our voice mattered. It was exciting to see so many people step up for the primary, putting their name on the line to make our little slice of h...
Well, Halloween has come and passed once again. The holiday has always been a favorite for me, even taking a higher place than Christmas, largely because of the amount of fun you get to have dressing up as a creature of the dark, a silly clown or some other figure and banging on doors to demand candy. In my childhood days, I always wanted something cute like a clown, but as I aged the costumes got a bit darker. Zombies, Riff Raff, the grim reaper, etc. I did once go back to being a clown, but Pe...
Halloween marks the start of the holiday season, from Thanksgiving through New Year’s Eve, with lots of food and family time. Holiday dinners with family were huge when I was growing up. My grandmother hosted them all in our house on Fifth Street, getting up at the crack of dawn to get things cooking. My job was to set the table and then sit with grandpa to wach the parades on TV. Just the scent of my grandmother’s rolls baking in the oven were enough to fill the whole house with that fee...
When I was graduated from high school and college, I thought I was done repeatedly going over lines in preparation of a stage production. Then along comes Dr. Fox and the Nosy Pig. For those of you who don’t know, this story of talking animals and learning to be yourself is what students in the Lights On program have been rehearsing and preparing for the past couple weeks, with opening “night” this Wednesday (Oct. 17). Not only have they been practicing their lines, but also getting invol...
I just completed watching the first episode of Ken Burns’ “Dust Bowl” which was originally aired on PBS several years ago. It had a special meaning for me since both my parents were “Kansas kids” whose lives were forever impacted by what some ecologists call the greatest ecological disaster ever on the North American continent. Memories of Mom’s response to questions about the “dusty bowl” as I called it were mostly confined to “It was just something that happened before you were born.” As the years passed, I discovered there were a lot of thin...
Its here! That smell of fall is here! You can step outside in the morning and the air actually smells different. There is no way you can escape the constant barrage of pumpkin spiced everything, either. Who decided we need pumpkin spice yogurt pretzels? Pumpkin spiced smoothies don’t really sound appealing to me, nor does pumpkin spice Jell-O. Non-alcoholic pumpkin spice sparkling juice? You can also find pumpkin spiced kettle corn, moonshine and salsa. I kid you not. Now that’s not to say I don...
The adage about March coming in like a lion certainly didn’t take Octobers like this one into account. It’s a very rare that I get woken up by nature, and when it does happen it’s usually something peaceful like a low roll of thunder somewhere miles away or raindrops hitting the roof. Not some kind of eerie howling wind that’s got me running around the house making sure the doors and windows are closed and wondering where I could go that has a storm cellar. But that howling seems fairly appropr...
We have hit that time of year when some days it feels as if Mother Nature is having some kind of psychotic episode – freezing in the morning and roasting in the afternoon. That’s the wonderful thing about Wyoming. It also makes it difficult to decide what to wear for the day, whether its sweater and boots weather in the morning or jeans and a t-shirt in the afternoon. I’ve lived in a few places in my life and it seems like the contents of my closet have been different everywhere I’ve been. F...
Everyone who has lived here through a summer knows how crazy the traffic can get during tourist season. While here at the Independent Record we provide stories about what’s going on in town, often times those visiting for a few days during the summer months are sharing their own stories. One recent example is a story written by Joshua Berman about his family’s finding Thermopolis while on a trip around Yellowstone to avoid the typical tourist traps like Yellowstone. But it doesn’t end there...
One of my favorite times of the year is here...football season! Although I love sitting on Sunday and watching my Broncos, I’m really talking about all the youth football we have around here. This last weekend was so fun. I had the chance to shoot the little guys playing rec football as well as the older kids with the middle school and the high school athletes on Friday night. It really gave me a perspective on how the game is played. The rec kids are having so much fun, learning as they go, a...
Tuesday marks the 17th anniversary of one of the most horrific attacks on U.S. soil, a day that will forever stir memories and emotions when someone mentions the date — 9/11. It’s weird to think that many of our high school upperclassmen weren’t even born when the news came over of the planes striking the two towers of the World Trade Center, only learning of it through textbooks and what their parents have told them. Though a time of extreme fear for our country, it was also a period when we ca...
I could tell this last weekend that there was a touch of fall in the air. Not because it was cooler outside or getting dark a little bit earlier, but because I had the urge to bake. There's nothing like the smell of fresh baked anything, whether its pie, cake, cookies, whatever. So I tried out a new recipe on Sunday for apple pie bites. The premise is an apple pie in a cookie sized bite. There are none left. I was very lucky to grow up in a multi-generational home with a grandmother who taught...
This election season certainly had an abundance of candidate to choose from, but with the increase of people running for office it seems the amount of mudslinging — in public, at forums and especially online — did as well. While that is typical of election season, there were some comments that stepped a bit too far over the line. But, as of Tuesday, we made it. The votes were cast and most of the local positions have been decided. For those who won their races, best wishes to the coming yea...
Most people you talk to will say this political season has been completely exhausting. Yes, it has been exhausting, but it has also been refreshing. Refreshing in that this little community has stepped up their game, coming to the table and not only running for elected offices, but talking openly and honestly about their hopes for the future of Thermopolis and Hot Springs County. It doesn’t matter where you go, you’re going to hear someone talking about this candidate or that one. Dis...
One of the political races that has seen more commentary than others is the five-candidate race for Hot Springs County Sheriff. In the various campaigns and forums, a topic that sees a lot of discussion is what is being done about the drug problem in Hot Springs County, and rightly so. If there’s one problem that doesn’t seem to have a solution, it’s drugs. As soon as one method of dealing with the issue is found, dealers and users seem to find 10 other ways to get around the law. It can feel...
As I get older, I realize more and more how everything eventually comes full circle in your life. This weekend is a prime example for me. I remember as a kid, selling programs at the Gift of the Waters Pageant for 50-cents through the Girl Scouts. Granted, at the time it was one of those fun things, meeting people from all over the world, but honestly, other than the fancy Native dancers, I didn’t get much out of it. Later on, it was the Saturday parade. This was the only parade the Wildcat Band...
This week, with all the political hubbub going around, take a break and take in the annual Hot Springs County Fair. Fair gets underway with the Pee Wee and 4-H and FFA Youth Horse Show this weekend, and there’s certainly plenty to see and do over the next few days. Of course, there will be plenty of critters to see when the fair buildings are open, but it’s also important to support our local youth as they show their skills and knowledge about their animals during the week’s shows. There...
We’ve been talking around the office this week about businesses which have come and gone here in Thermopolis and its funny how I remember so many of them, but most I couldn’t tell you exactly which storefronts they were once in. For instance, we had a bakery on the south side of Broadway. They would decorate their windows with delightful goodies every week, but the best were the holiday displays of treats they featured. My favorite was Easter. They would fill the windows with these amazing hollo...
Well, the PRCA Rodeo and fireworks show have come and gone, and both drew a crowd, but the summer activities here in Thermopolis are far from over. Coming up next for big events we’ve got the reunion weekend, providing a chance for classmates to get together and reminisce about school and share memories of our town, while also visiting about what they’ve been up to since graduation. Always a busy place, the fairgrounds will be active in the last couple weeks of July with the WJRA Rodeo, 4-H...
