We've got your backs

Perhaps Wyoming’s State Appropriations Committee is learning you don’t mess with our elderly.

Last week, in a last minute, last ditch effort, Representative Donald Burkhardt of Carbon County introduced a bill that would have eliminated state funding for the Wyoming Pioneer Home. HB0295 went immediately to the Appropriations Committee where, fortunately, it died, not getting out of the Committee of the Whole.

This is the third attempt at either closing the doors to the facility or selling it off to a private company in three years.

This time they were a bit more sneaky. Pulling the funding would have meant disaster for the facility and then those in power could have sat smugly by saying, “I told you so”, as they locked the doors.

Hot Springs County’s Senator Wyatt Agar and Representative John Winter were right on top of things. Rest assured, they had your back.

It was the phone calls and emails to the other senators and representatives that has finally gotten through, telling them there has to be another way.

During the Appropriations Committee’s meeting last fall, the Independent Record asked the members of the committee if they even bothered to advertise the Pioneer Home and the wonderful care the facility had to offer.

They couldn’t answer.

Now, apparently, there is another plan in the works where the state is going to do some advertising to let folks across the state know this is a fantastic place to call home.

All of the upheaval about whether or not the Pioneer Home was going to shut its doors has kept many people away out of fear they would have nowhere to go in three or four months if the committee had its way.

Its time now for us to put on our Sunday best, smile and let the State of Wyoming’s older folks know we’re waiting for them to come join us in one of the most beautiful areas of our state.

Soon, they will know we’re here.