Your source for news in Hot Springs County
Your source for news in Hot Springs County
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I am constantly amazed at the unprofessional behavior of the Hot Springs County School Board. Most recently, the sarcastic remarks about a concerned citizen / accountant who has spent a large amount of her time the last three months trying to help the board find the half million plus dollars of taxpayer money they seemed to ‘misplace’. I believe that sum of money and the attitude of the board should be a concern to all taxpayers in our county. The auditor sarcastically berated her for 50 minutes before eventually agreeing with her findings but...
I would like to express my gratitude to both Jean Skelton and to Andrea Miller for their presentation to the Hot Springs County School Board during the month of March. If there are those who have not seen the presentation, I encourage you go on the Hot Springs County School website and review those presentations. Both individuals were able to present information to the board and to the community of events going on in our school district. We have seen in the past year a number of families deciding best to home school due to changes being...
The Lazy Fox will be closing the beginning of April. Our business survived the pandemic, the only other food business on the block burning down and the death of my mother who helped us build the bakery. This year we had been weathering rising food, power, and gas prices but the final straw was seeing another year where we could not afford health insurance. When we lost mom last year it was in part because she held off on going in when she felt sick because she had a gap in her insurance. By the time we got her to go in it was too late. We do...
I am a Hot Springs County School Board Trustee and am writing a response to the article written about our last board meeting. I would like to thank the Independent Record for its coverage of our local meetings. The paper is a good resource for keeping our community members informed. Thank you for the article congratulating our math and science teachers. There were however other important agenda items not mentioned. I thought I would take a moment to write down some key points that were missed. The meeting lasted for more than 7 hours. The publi...
If you are a Veteran in crisis or concerned about someone who is, help is here. In January, the new COMPACT Act went into effect across the U.S. The COMPACT Act is the Veterans Comprehensive Prevention, Access to Care and Treatment legislation. The Act allows all honorably discharged Veterans who are experiencing a suicidal crisis to go to ANY mental healthcare facility for no-cost treatment. Veterans do NOT need to be enrolled to use this benefit. This provision makes critical, and potentially life-saving, support available to our dedicated...
I feel uplifted and blessed by having attended the World Day of Prayer gathering Friday at the fair building. We find such goodness in Thermopolis! We see so many people helping to build the kingdom of God by being kind and caring as well as generous not only in their time but also their money to support many worthy and meaningful fundraisers. We see people reaching out and helping with the same genuine love our Savior showed. In his first epistle to the Corinthians Paul stated “There should be no schism in the body but that the members s...
Is the handwriting on the wall? ; Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin. Interpretation: Mene - GOD has numbered thy kingdom, and finished it. Tekel - Thou art weighed in the balances, and found wanting. Peres - Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians. Obviously this is Daniel warning Belshazzar the King of Babylon of impending doom. OK what does this have to do with America? Like it or not, America was founded on Biblical principals, and we claim to be, “One Nation Under GOD”. Because of that GOD has every right to send des...
This month, we will have a speaker that is specializing in woke culture. As a college graduate with a well traveled life, I would really like this person and/or organization hosting him to clearly define “woke.” Instead of using a slang term, spell it out. If it is going to be promoted as a way to control the education of ALL our children, we need you to not fight a culture war. Be honest. Georgeanne Hammond...
Are we being oppressed? Oppression - 1. dominate harshly: to subject a person or a people to a harsh or cruel form of domination 2. inflict stress on: to be a source of worry, stress, or trouble to somebody 3. suppress: to hold something in check or put an end to it (archaic) That’s a strong word to some, but none of its synonyms are any better, domination, coercion, cruelty, tyranny, subjugation, persecution, harassment, or repression. The word we all love better is the antonym, of liberty. I’m just asking that the townspeople be relieved of...
Governing a diverse people is difficult – a lot like trying to manage a family of children, all with different needs, wants and interests, all pulling at a parent’s jeans’ legs at the same time. Sometimes they ask for things that aren’t good for them. It is the same with our communities. Sometimes, well-meaning people get caught up in issues that are not good for the community. I believe this is the case with HB87- Crimes of obscenity – revisions, which calls for librarians to be subject to prosecution as child pornographers. In a state who...
World War II was in its third year in 1944. The Allies were slowly gaining on the Germans and Japanese on the European and Pacific fronts. After several defeats by the Americans in the Pacific, the Japanese were slowly being forced back toward their home islands. Now, the Americans had control of the shipping lanes and the air as numerous Japanese aircraft carriers were sunk by the allies. Now, the Japanese had to pull back to defend their homeland. They had to develop something new that we could not destroy. The Japanese assembled the...
We’d like to respond to the 1-26-2023 article regarding the Hot Springs Joint Power Board reorganization and to provide additional information, background, and our opinion. There have been two studies done and sponsored by the Big Horn Region (BHR), not by Thermopolis or the county commissioners. One was in 2018 which included the town and provided options for a new groundwater source because the BHR does not have the capacity to service the town and the other Hot Spring County districts and needed redundancy. The town decided against p...
I have wanted to write this letter to the editor for years. I started driving farm equipment here in the 60s, as did most of my classmates from the HSCHS Class of 68. We got our driver’s license at 15 years of age. I joined the Army at 17 where I drove 2.5 ton to 25 ton trucks. A year in Vietnam and 3 years in Germany with a couple of drivers’ academies. I crewed Hueys for the next 8 years, driving my car in Panama seeing how people drive in Central America – Honduras/El Salvador. After I retired from the Army, I drove 18 wheelers, 48 state...
What has N.A.T.O. done? It was formed after WWII to make sure that no country would ever be taken over by oppressors again. Ukraine has been completely destroyed - no heat, water, food or shelter is left. Putin is breaking rules of war everyday. He’s bombing hospitals, schools, refugee camps. He’s not targeting the military but the civilians. N.A.T.O. won’t use military force against him, but sanctions. Military force might cause a war, remember 1937? The war has already started. Now the world can see how weak the U.S. and N.A.T.O. reall...
A long time ago in the distant future, a cloud of gloom hovered beneath the North Pole. The Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) went South for the Winter, reversing the Magnetic Poles and causing a chain reaction of bizarre circumstances. Suddenly, Mrs. Santa was on the twelfth day of menopause. Everything she baked fell flat or burnt. As she grew grumpier by the day, there were no decorations or festive aromas nor cheerful atmosphere. AS NOT ENOUGH – Rudolph was suffering with a serious head cold. He sneezed so hard that his nose popped off a...
Each Thursday the IR arrives in the mail, and I typically go right to “On the Record” and the Obituaries to confirm I’m not mentioned in either. Lately, however, I’ve been focusing on the Record, aka the Police/Sheriff/Court blotter. I’m seeing a lot of family issues there, far too many for such a small community. And yet this trend now affects communities all across America. It includes domestic abuse, rebellious teens, drug use, alcohol abuse, and recently our little town had the threat of a teen brawl over drug paraphernalia. That’s a...
I was disappointed with a few of our candidates who are running for school board trustee. They seem to feel they do not have to answer questions from the public because the questions came from Republicans. Interestingly, many of the candidates who would not answer questions publicly stated they would be willing to answer them privately. Why is that? I realize the school board trustee is a non-partisan race, but people who run for public office answer to the public. Republicans are voters, many are taxpayers and all are obviously part of the...
In the October 20 issue, the newspaper ran an editorial about the local school board race. First off, I would like to make clear that I am addressing some issues about that race that involve a committee from the Hot Springs Republican party. I am a Democrat and have nothing personal against Republicans. I have been married to one for over 40 years. And in my 35 years of living in Wyoming, I can say I like and respect many Republicans and have voted for some. I think we can disagree and have civil discussions without being hateful or divisive. I...
To all the candidates who attended the Thermopolis School Board Candidate Forum hosted by the Republican Party: “Thank you for your courage to come and answer the questions asked of you.” The position of school board trustee is incredibly important to our schools, our teachers, our students and our community. This forum provided a very public opportunity in regard to where each candidate stood on various subjects. Sometimes these forums ask questions that may cause frustration or may cause people to be uncomfortable. However, the goal was to...
On our winter visit from Wyoming to Arizona, I picked up a volume of Louise May Alcott’s “Jo’s Boys” at an estate sale. Published in September of 1868, this book was found to be first edition. Included in this precious book were some hand-written notes that seem to be connected to the Thermopolis and Embar areas of Wyoming. My curiosity is pushing me to find if there are any relatives of the original owner of the book still in the area. The name inscribed is: Elizabeth Punteney. She gifted the book to Robert Price, Embar, Wyo. on Decembe...
Over the past several days, I have fielded an extraordinary number of phone calls asking me to run for Wyoming Secretary of State. I am not running for Secretary of State. I first learned of the effort to draft me to run, as an Independent, from news sources. I spoke with the authors of the petition and expressed that even if the required number of signatures were gathered, I would not run against the Party’s nominee and split a Party I love so dearly. I believe strongly that the Republican Party must unite around the shared principles of h...
Dr. Martian Luther King, Jr. was right when he said we should judge a person by their character, but it seems good ethics has fallen out of favor. There are more and more people saying it doesn’t matter if they cheat, steal, lie or even kill if the right outcome is achieved. Watch out voting for someone who is willing to compromise good character in order to win, gain power, or get rich. Chuck Cooper...
Thursday morning last week, we awoke to find the stock markets opening down over 2% again, and 401k accounts down 30% or more. Since this is directly due to the policies of the current administration, and no fault of senior 401k investors, I believe it is time for you, my Representative and Senators, to introduce legislation to waive the required withdrawal of a given percent of 401k accounts for those over 70 1/2. Seniors living on fixed incomes are suffering from 8.6% inflation, $5.00+ gasoline prices, 30% losses to their 401k’s and food c...
This past few weeks saw major erosions to the rights of Americans. Supreme Court decisions were made along political party lines. Us old people know this, but the young don’t, so for their benefit, I’d like to give a synopsis. There are 2 competing visions for America (called political parties: Dems and Reps). The GOP (grand old party)-Republicans push laws for putting more guns on the streets, cut worker’s abilities to unionize, strip working people from access to Medicaid, Medicare & Social Security, protect monopolies by corporations, spend...
Time will tell how much the flood-caused closing of Yellowstone will hurt the Wyoming tourism industry. Seems there was a brief boom for Thermopolis as tourists already on the way saw the signs “Yellowstone Park All Entrances Closed” or learned the bad news elsewise and turned to other locations. But what about people who are still at home, in parts east, west and south of the nation’s first national park--and that’s most of the country--and planning to go elsewhere? I sure hope they don’t go to Disneyland/World or some other artificial “theme...
