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Thursday, July 30, 2015
1532 - Crazy things happen during Dog Days
Some terrible crimes and some oddball happenings have been
occurring here during the hottest time of our Wyoming summer.
In many parts
of the country, the hottest days of summer are referred to as “dog days”
because canines cannot stand the heat and go crazy. And so do people.
Horrible,
incredible crimes occurred in Riverton and Cheyenne during the hottest days of
Wyoming’s summer of 2015.
In Riverton, a
13-year city employee walked into a detox facility and tried to kill two
American Indian men, succeeding with one and inflicting lifelong injuries on
the other.
Roy Clyde, 32,
said he was tired of picking up after “park rangers,” which is the local slur
given to drunks who have a tendency to gather at Riverton City Park. Clyde, a
city employee, who spent a lot of his time picking up debris left behind,
apparently snapped and went on his killing spree.
Although the
men he shot were apparently sleeping off their inebriation at the detox center,
neither was homeless and both came from well-known Arapaho families on the
reservation.
Stallone
Trosper, 29, was murdered by Clyde while Sonny Goggles, 50, is fighting for his
life in a Casper hospital. Clyde shot both men in the head.
Some 200 miles
away, another horrible crime was being committed.
In Cheyenne
during Frontier Days, a killer walked into the Coin Shop and gunned down two
popular local men.
Dwight
Brockman, 67, owner of the Coin Shop and George Manley, 76, were the victims. Police are seeking a lone gunman, believed to
be a Hispanic male, who they think did the killings.
On the same
day, Dave Doyle, a former long-time Cheyenne resident, was stabbed to death in
North Carolina, where he had moved, further stunning the folks who live in the
capital city.
We were in
Montana last week when a terrible story occurred up there involving two
murders. Two Good Samaritans, Tana and
Jason Shane, saw a guy stranded near the town of Pryor so turned around and
went back to help him.
The stranded
man said later he thought their daughter was laughing at him so he killed the
husband and wife and shot the daughter, Jorah Shane, 24, in the head and back
as she tried to run away. She is hospitalized in Billings.
The killer was
identified as a Worland man, Jesus Deniz Mendoza, 18. He had recently been
released from jail pending burglary and drug charges. He reportedly said he killed them because “he
was tired of waiting around.” He drove
away in the couple’s car and was subsequently arrested in Wyoming eight miles
north of Meeteetse. Mendoza is in jail in Cody.
Sad stories
and crazy times. Condolences to the
families of the victims.
Craziness can
even affect the weather.
While July is
normally Wyoming’s hottest month, the weather took an odd turn on July 28 when
it dropped to 24 degrees in Laramie. Outside of Lander, it was 36 degrees. The
guys at the Fox News All-Stars coffee klatch that morning were wearing jackets
and long pants, after weeks ago switching to summer attire of tee shirts,
shorts and sandals. None on this cool
day. Snow was reported in the Tetons, even.
Remember that
wet spring we had? In Carbon County, the drought is now over. Banker Richard Chenowith said he is seeing
his area flooded with cattle grazing on all that new grass. One 30-year old son of a rancher had never
seen grass as high as it has been this year.
Last year when
most of Wyoming was green, Carbon County was the lone dry spot. Not any more.
During a
recent trip to northeast Wyoming and also to the Black Hills, we stayed at the
fine Alex Johnson hotel in Rapid City.
Funny thing
about their management group is their corporate name is the ISIS Group and it
has been a proud name for them for over 15 years. No more. Wisely, they are changing it to Liv
Hotels. Odd how things work out.
Six months ago
I reported in this column about a Wyoming native, Doug Owsley, working to prove
that an ancient skeleton called Kennewick Man was not American Indian but descended
from some other race.
Subsequent to
that story, it was later proved that the skeleton was, indeed, that of an
American Indian. It was more than 9,000
years old but had facial characteristics that were different from traditional
Indian skeletons found from that time.
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Monday, July 20, 2015
1531 - Those fantastic Wyoming Black Hills
There is so much more to see than just Devils Tower.
I am writing
about the “Wyoming Black Hills,” which although lesser known than their South
Dakota big brothers, still offer some wonderful visiting opportunities.
Yes, Devils
Tower is the center of everything. This
towering monolith was our nation’s first national monument back in 1906 and it
is a totally impressive place.
State Sen.
Ogden Driskell has a historic ranch up there and also operates the KOA
campground, which looks up at the tower. They love their country there and will
spend lots of time talking about it to you.
Another
national historic place is the Vore Buffalo Jump, which is right next to Interstate
90. In fact, it was in the way of the proposed highway and that was when it was
discovered.
Luckily, they
moved the highway. You can get a family tour for $20 from some friendly folks
there. We were in a hurry and skipped the tour but peered over the fence at the
big sinkhole. Different groups of
Indians would get together over centuries and stampede herds of bison to their
deaths over the side. It is estimated
that 20,000 bison died in one 300-year period before white men wiped out the
vast herds. Easy to get to and well worth the stop.
Just up the
road from the Jump is the new (well, five years new) Wyoming Welcome Center.
This is an impressive place for tourists to visit. It is also a nice place for Wyoming folks to
visit, since it is full of educational and entertaining displays and television
programs about the state.
As a side
note, it was always interesting to me that two of Wyoming’s most important
welcome centers were on the wrong side of the highways for tourists coming into
the state.
We talked
about this a lot when I was chairman of the Travel Commission back in 1993,
this situation has been cured.
The former
welcome center in northeast Wyoming was on the left side of Interstate 90 for decades
forcing tourists to cross over the Interstate to get to it. Studies showed that tourists just did not
want to do this and so, large numbers of them did not stop.
Worst case was
the state’s main welcome center in Cheyenne. Again, for decades, it was located
on the left side of Interstate 25 for tourists entering Wyoming from the
south.
Today, we have
a spectacular welcome center on the inbound sides of the Interstate highways in
both Cheyenne and in northeast Wyoming. But
I digress . . .
Back to
northeast Wyoming. The area is full of charming little communities like Newcastle,
Sundance, Beulah, Pine Haven, Hulett, Aladdin, Moorcroft, Upton and other burgs
almost too small to remember.
Hulett is
unique because of its small town charm with a big-time sawmill. There is a
serious amount of wood being produced at the mill there.
I always liked
Sundance because you could see Sundance Mountain from 50 miles away. It was always unique to be going east on Interstate
90 and look to the north and see Devils Tower in the distance and look straight
ahead and spot Sundance Mountain.
Newcastle is
located at one of the prettiest sites in all of Wyoming. By all appearances, you might think it is a
“mountain town” except there are no big mountains around – just those beautiful
hills.
While we were
in the area we ventured to Rapid City and stayed at the amazing Alex Johnson
Hotel downtown. Lots of nightlife.
Mount Rushmore
was its incredible self but the changes at the Crazy Horse Memorial were most
impressive. It is the biggest rock
carving on earth and is taller than the pyramids. Worth a look.
Our group swam
at the Evans Plunge in Hot Springs a wonderful respite after a day in the
hot sun.
Earlier, we
visited the venerable Reptile Gardens in Rapid City. Started in 1937, it
continues to impress with the largest collections of its type in the country.
Then it was
back to Wyoming and heading home. Lots of road construction. We hit a pothole so deep in Edgerton, thought
it was going to wreck us. Who do I send the realignment bill to? The town or the construction company?
Despite that
one literal bump in the road, the trip was excellent. It was capped off by my
Texas grandkids being totally amazed by Hell’s Half Acre between Casper and
Shoshoni.
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Tuesday, July 14, 2015
1530 - Coal is in a fight for its life
The history of coal’s significance to Wyoming’s economy is
being written today. It is beginning to
look like a swan song.
Wyoming’s long
love affair with coal can be written in five brief epochal paragraphs:
First,
plentiful underground coal in places like Hanna, Rock Springs and Kemmerer were
key determining factors in the Union Pacific Railroad choosing a route through
the future state of Wyoming in the 1860s.
Without the railroad, the state, as we know it, would have not come into
being. Coal was a very big deal in our early days.
Second, when
the railroad switched to diesel, the coal mines dried up and Wyoming’s economy
suffered. Suddenly this abundant resource had fewer large customers.
Third, for
decades everyone knew that the Powder River Basin in northeast Wyoming had the
most abundant coal reserves on the planet.
But the coal was not as hot burning as coal from places like West
Virginia and Kentucky so it remained buried in the ground.
Fourth, an
environmental outcry in the 1970s saw a nation hungry for cheap energy turn to
Wyoming for coal that was “clean burning” and not nearly the pollutant that
that black, smelly stuff from back east provided. Wyoming embarked on a coal boom that lasted
four decades and is still going.
Fifth, today,
even so-called clean coal is under attack because scientists claim the
pollutants from it are destroying the atmosphere and causing climate change.
Coal is under assault across the world. Here in Wyoming, growth is stymied and
there is no easily growing market for our coal.
The statistics
are both grim and impressive. Some 17 percent of the coal-fired electrical
capacity in the nation will disappear in the next few years, according to the
Bloomberg New Energy Finance report.
Worldwide,
with places like India and China still building coal-fired plants, that same
outfit predicts the peak usage of coal will occur in 2025 and then a steep
decline will start. Here in America, it is already happening.
Internationally, some of the blame
is focused on Australia. Australia?
The dollar has
surged against the Australian currency in the past two years, causing worldwide
prices for product from that country to be much more competitive than American
coal.
This has put
American companies in distress because their hole card in selling more coal has
been a hoped for increase in exports as domestic demand goes down.
But exporting
coal is chancy as best. Bloomberg points out that China cut its coal imports by
34 percent since 2013.
What is most
depressing to Wyoming folks is that there still lies 300 years of coal in the
ground, yet to be mined. Expensive infrastructure is in place to mine it . . .
if there only was a market?
Jim Hicks, a
county commissioner and former newspaper publisher in Buffalo, is a funny
guy. And a clever one, too.
With apologies
to a guy named Sweat who first wrote this ditty 60 years ago and was talking
about whiskey, we get to read what Jim has to say why we should love coal and
why we may want to hate it, too. Here
goes:
“If you are talking about the black scourge that is pumping out tons of
monoxide into our atmosphere each day, creating global warming, violent
weather, damaging the lungs of the young and elderly . . . the product of the
greedy and wealthy people who run corporations placing stockholder profits
above the future of the very earth where we live, and have a heartless view of
our fragile environment with no concern of the many very species of animals and
birds which inhabit the earth . . . then my friend . . . I am opposed to coal
with every fiber of my
being.
“However, if by coal you mean the God
given blessing placed in abundance in this wonderful State of Wyoming, which
has provided cheap power for virtually every kind of industry and commerce in
our country, creating millions of jobs because that very power source has made
our goods and services competitive on the world market . . . the resource in
such abundance that it generates security for hundreds of years to come and
generates the tax dollars which create quality education, health services, law
enforcement, safety, good roads and highways, low unemployment and a higher
standard of living for all . . . then my friend, I am absolutely, unequivocally
in favor of it.”
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Friday, July 10, 2015
1529 - How to harness powerful Wyoming winds
Although local Wyomingites
are not surprised by this fact, out-of-staters are always stunned by the
velocity of our wind. It is scary powerful. And it is probable that our wind is
cursed more often than it is viewed as a blessing.
But when it comes to the
future of renewable energy in America, Wyoming’s abundant, cool afternoon winds
are viewed as a gold mine. And one of the biggest prospectors in this modern
day gold rush is an incredibly patient Denver billionaire with some Wyoming
history.
Phil Anschutz has been trying to get the country’s biggest
wind turbine project built for the past nine years and it is still stalled by
regulations and environmental studies. All these cautions might guarantee that
this most-environmental friendly project in the country may never come to
fruition.
If there ever was a project
that deserved a fast track from the feds, this could be it. But that is not meant to be. Anschutz might as well be building a
coal-fired power plant or even a nuclear plant.
The plan calls for a 500-windmill project in phase one that
would transport electricity along a proposed power line from Wyoming to California.
California people have also been wondering what the holdup
is with this project that long ago was designed to provide green clean energy
for them.
A media outfit called Pacific
Standard sent reporter Gabriel Kahn to find out. His story focused on
Greybull native Bill Miller who has worked at the 500-square mile property in
Carbon County called the Overland Trail Ranch. It was Miller who first took
notice of the ever-present monstrous winds that blew every afternoon.
Wyoming’s afternoon winds are of high value to California
power brokers because power is generated here at the same time that it is
needed the most out west.
Some years ago, a map of Wyoming was distributed which
showed the highest wind rates across the state.
The highest areas were in the Laramie Peak area. Also along an area paralleling Interstate 80.
It seems that not just Union Pacific trains and huge semi
trailer trucks follow that Interstate 80 route – but brisk winds do, as well. Of
course, we all know that. Most anyone
who has driven that Interstate has horror stories to recall.
Anschutz’s horror stories are of environmental regulation
issues. He hired squads of observers
because there was fear that the 32-story high windmills with their 200-foot
long blades would obliterate eagles.
Some wind farm owners across the country have been fined large amounts
and treated like criminals because of eagle kills. Few eagles were even spotted
here, though.
The Pacific Standard
article included some very interesting insights, including:
“Roxane Perruso, the project’s
general counsel went to an American Wind
Energy Association convention where someone asked her how big the farm would be.
Being modest, she responded that it was over 2,000 megawatts. ‘He put his
hand on my shoulder, sighed, and said, Oh, sweetheart, I think you’re
confused— you must mean 200 megawatts.’
“Confused, no. Audacious,
yes. The wind farm, which Miller named the Power Company of Wyoming,
would be so big that the construction phase would amount to a modern
version of pyramid building. Just getting the first 500 turbines up and running
would take two years. To get around the fact that the turbines were too large
to bring in via standard 18-wheelers on the public roads, Miller’s engineers
drew up a plan to build a two-mile rail spur leading to the ranch from the
old Union Pacific rail line. Trains 100 cars long would haul the first batch of
turbines to a special staging area where they would be unloaded.
“From there, they’d be
moved into place along the ranch’s ridges and bluffs via 500 miles of newly
constructed access roads. To build the roads, the engineers would first have to
dig out limestone and gravel from a quarry on the ranch. Rural Wyoming lacks
the manpower for such an endeavor, so workers would have to re-locate to the
area. The project called for building a ‘man camp’ with up to 500 beds and an
RV park that could handle 250 trailers.”
The ultimate bad news for
Anschutz in all this is that these regulatory delays could cause the project to
be much smaller than envisioned. So much
green power is now being generated by local California resources, the obvious
need for Wyoming wind power of just a few years ago may not be as acute today.
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Friday, July 3, 2015
1528 - Wish I didn`t know now what I didn`t know then
Charles Pelkey, a state legislator and attorney in Laramie,
put a story on Facebook about the pitfalls of being a grown-up adult in today’s
society:
“A bit of an existential crisis: I stopped by my favorite liquor
store for a bottle of wine. A couple of folks were sitting at the bar as I
ordered the Pinot Noir I planned to enjoy with dinner. One of them turned to me
and asked ‘are you a lawyer?’
“’Yes. Yes, I am,’ I replied, perhaps thinking I had another
client in the hopper.
"Cool," said the young man, "because you LOOK
like a lawyer."
WTH?! I am now officially "The MAN?!" Not "Da
Man," but "the MAN."
“In my heart, I am still that 21-year-old hippy-dirt-bag many of
you knew back then and, suddenly, I am The MAN?! What would 21-year-old Charles
Pelkey think of that? Fifty-seven-year-old Charles Pelkey has been sent into a
serious identity crisis.
What
next? Will they someday tell me that I look like a politician?
Oh.
Never mind.”
Pelkey’s post brought out 77 comments
from people who both shared his image issues or remembered him as that 21-year
old, and yes, wondered what in the heck happened to him?
But I was intrigued more by his idea of
what would that 21-year old version of himself say to that 57-year old version
of himself?
Sort of like the old TV commercial where
a young man is visited by an older version of himself, who advises him that
things are going to turn out okay and that he is on the right track.
Would that not have been great to have
our future self come back in time and advise us as young people? How many times have we all said to ourselves
“if only I would have know then what I know now.”
But then if you twist all these words
around, you come up with something else.
I love the following musical version of this similar line:
“I wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t
know then,” are the poignant words from one of my favorite Bob Seger songs.
Perhaps another version of that “if I
had only known . . .” could apply to folks driving back roads around Wyoming
with these fancy new navigation systems in their cars or on their phones.
Two New York women were found driving
around the desert southeast of Riverton recently when their navigation system
instructed them to take a two-track road. They ended up eight miles off the Sand
Draw highway before getting stranded.
Fremont County Sheriff’s officers heard
about their plight and rescued them.
I assume they might have taken a road
known as the Hudson-Atlantic City BLM road, which is actually pretty good. It is gravel and can be fairly narrow and,
yes, there are no convenience stores or rest areas within a great many miles.
Yet it will turn up as a real road on
that navigation screen.
Same thing happened to me one time in
Colorado.
I had just acquired a car with
navigation and plugged in that I need to go to Montrose, CO where our daughter
and grandchildren live. It steered me
halfway up this steep, snowy pass before I realized that it was a seasonal road
and was closed!
After carefully backing down a ways and
turning around, I learned not to be totally trusting of these new-fangled
things.
Those of us who have experienced a lot
of change in our lives can be excused for some times yearning back to a simpler
time. When our phones were used as
telephones, for example.
Folks who fight technology today are
still known as Luddites, after a 19th century man in Great Britain
named Ludd who fought valiantly against the progress brought about by the invention
of various machines that reduced labor and improved efficiency.
Lately I have been doing historical
research in Wyoming and our early history of underground coal mines sure has
its share of awful tragedies.
One mine disaster near Hanna killed 169
men while another near Kemmerer killed 99.
Men were literally taking their lives
into their hands when they ventured down into the underground mines.
Photos from back then showed men whose
faces were completely black. Many photos
show them carrying their pails of beer, which usually was much safer to drink
down in the mines than the local water that was available.
Yes, we have made progress. Thankfully.
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