School board honors golf team

The Hot Springs County High School Boys and Girls Golf Team was honored before the school board on Oct. 20, as the husband-and-wife team of Brandon and Catelyn Deromedi extolled the students’ virtues.

Catelyn Deromedi, who serves as principal of Hot Springs County High School, introduced both the team and their coach, Hot Springs County School District Activities Director Brandon Deromedi.

“They hit an all-time high as far as state championships,” Catelyn Deromedi said. “They are now being celebrated for their fifth state championship in a row for golf as a boys team.”

Catelyn alluded to “several accomplishments” by the team that Brandon could address more fully, which he set about doing after he acknowledged, “It’s kind of interesting being introduced by my wife, but it works.”

Brandon Deromedi’s reasons for being “very, very proud of this group” include the team’s unique status, since as far as his research was able to determine, “The boys are the only five-time state champions in the history of Wyoming, (or) at least as far back as the archives go.”

Hadley Johnson was the individual state champion, “which was amazing to see,” in coach Deromedi’s estimation, and Hot Springs County had four of the five boys in the All-State category.

“So they made the top 10,” Deromedi said, noting that another boy on his team “was right there. He was going to make it. He was one stroke off, which would have been unprecedented, to have five of the top 10 positions belong to Thermopolis.”

As it stands, Deromedi deemed the team’s achievements “a testament to their hard work,” adding, “I don’t know how many hundreds of hours these guys spent up at the golf course. They may have spent more than any other member that belongs to the golf course. They also took their own time to go, prepare, watch, play the course and study the course.”

According to Deromedi, “We do a lot of course management talk, and there’s no better way to do it than to go play it,” even though “it’s a long drive, four and a half hours to get over there, and four and a half hours to get back, but they were committed, and it paid off in the end.”

Deromedi was just as “blown away” by the degree of the team’s improvements “from day one to day two,” as he recalled how last year’s team was tied for first place after day one, whereas this year’s day one saw his team score a five-stroke lead ahead of one team, and a seven-stroke lead ahead of the other.

“I don’t know how they do it,” Deromedi said. “They’re better than me, because they show up the next day and blow it out of the water. We won by 21 strokes this year, ahead of second-place teams.”

Deromedi then turned to the girls on his team, commending them for their “perfect timing,” as two of them have sought to recruit some more girls, so they could also have a chance at a state championship of their own.

“We’re one member away from having that opportunity, and we have a few prospects that we’re going to go out and recruit,” said Deromedi, who credited the one girl with making it onto All-State this year, while the other girl “was just a little bit short, but both girls have grown tremendously,” each one cutting off between 30 to 40 strokes from their respective games.