Your source for news in Hot Springs County
Your source for news in Hot Springs County
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With fires to the north and hurricanes to the south, there’s been plenty of coverage of natural disasters across the country, as well as the impact they’re having on the communities in their wake. As the effects of Hurricane Harvey continue to be felt in Texas, several churches here in Thermopolis, though a thousand miles away, are doing what they can to help. Pastor Chuck Cooper of the Federated Community Church said the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) is already at work in pro...
Sometimes, life throws you a curveball and suddenly you find yourself in a situation where you can’t pay your bills, or perhaps there isn’t enough food to get you through the end of the month. The path to finding out who can help and what you need to do can be a daunting task. That’s where the Help Center at Common Ground comes in. “We help people find help,” said Ron Philips, one of the folks there to help. The Help Center recently received a grant from the Episcopal Diocese of Wyoming to conti...
The Hot Springs Conservation District, working in conjunction with the Hot Springs County Planning Office, has recently been awarded a grant from the Wyoming Agriculture Department to conduct a study of groundwater conditions in the Red Lane area. The study will test certain privately-owned wells over a two-year period, to evaluate trends in water quality and also to observe variations in groundwater depth throughout the year. In particular, the influence of the Bighorn River on groundwater...
Within just a few days of the Maverik store closing, the building as well as the former home to the south were torn down to make room for the new store. At their meeting this week, the Thermopolis Town Council approved closing the 500 block of Amoretti for about five weeks as new gasoline tanks are put in and the area is prepped for the new building....
Hot Springs County School District #1 welcomed a number of new teachers for the 2017-18 school year. New teachers at Ralph Witters Elementary were featured in the August 24 edition of the Independent Record. This week, we are featuring new teachers at Thermopolis Middle School and Hot Springs County High School. Ayni McGee At Thermopolis Middle School, Ayni McGee will be leading the sixth grade students. McGee graduated from high school in Worland in 2013, then earned her bachelor's in...
Boaters, fishermen and those who swim in Boysen Reservoir are asked to be aware the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has discovered a potentially harmful blue-green algae bloom on the northeast portion of the reservoir. On August 24, the DEQ visited the area to investigate and collect samples to determine whether the bloom exceeded the cell density and/or toxin concentrations identified in the Wyoming DEQ’s action plan. Using an Abraxis test strip, a sample was collected at the n... Full story
Friday afternoon, following about an hour of deliberation, a jury returned verdicts of guilty for aggravated assault with a drawn deadly weapon and interference with a peace officer, in a case against Hanes Hall Jr. According to charges, on Jan. 15 Hall drew a firearm — later identified in the trial as a fully loaded high standard nine-shot .22 Magnum — on Hot Springs Sheriff’s Office Sergeant Jeremie Kraushaar, and fought the sergeant while being arrested. The trial began Thursday after...
Cheering crowds at the peak of totality marked the end of the 2017 solar eclipse, but not the end of all the preparation that went into making it a wonderful event in Hot Springs County for all the visitors. A final eclipse “wrap up” meeting was held last Thursday to go over the final outcome of months of planning and preparation. “We really had no accurate information on how many people were coming to Wyoming and certainly no information on which directions they were coming to get here,...
Beginning Sept. 1, the Farmers Insurance office will move from its current home at the former A&W restaurant on Shoshoni Street. At the same time, the business is changing hands. Julie Lehman has been the local agent for over three years. She said the business has always been a segway for her from nursing to giving the former restaurant some new life as the planned dinosaur-themed Raptor’s Family Grill and Pub. However, she doesn’t want to try and do insurance while taking on a second bus...
The Independent Record will be closed on Monday, Sept. 4 in honor of Memorial Day. In order to ensure your classified ad, display ad or legal makes the Sept. 7 edition, our deadline has been moved to noon, Friday, Sept. 1. Dealine for editorial content or news will be noon, Tuesday, Sept. 5. Have a safe and fun weekend....
Bobbi Ingram has the Red Dirt Master Gardeners' Garden of the Month for August. In addition to space for the colorful plants outside her home. Ingram also built an indoor space for them to weather the cold....
Wyoming State Parks have had a program in place for six years that allows the different parks across the state to bring in volunteers to work in their areas for the summer season. Budget and staffing cuts across the board called for some kind of help to keep the parks in tip-top shape, so a volunteer coordinator for the state was hired in Cheyenne to gather a list of volunteers and where they would like to help out. This year, Hot Springs State Park hosted four such volunteers, Glen and Arlene...
School is in full swing at Ralph Witters Elementary, Thermopolis Middle School and Hot Springs County High School, and the overall student numbers increased slightly compared to the start and end of the 2016-17 school year. According to the numbers, there are 700 students enrolled in Hot Springs County School District No. 1 as of Aug. 24, compared to 687 on Aug. 25, 2016 and 663 on May 26, 2017. To find how much each class increased or decreased, compare the student total from a class at the end of the 2016-17 year to the total of the next...
This past Saturday, Jim Wilson received the 2017 Kurt Bucholz Conservation Award, presented by the Wyoming Stock Growers Land Trust (WSGLT) during a ceremony at Elk Mountain Ranches. Wilson said the ceremony during which they presented the award, which includes a bronze statue sculpted by Wyoming artist Jerry Palen, was attended by about 225 people. Prior to the ceremony, there was a tour in the afternoon of the conservation easements WSGLT has on the ranch. Other activities included a picnic...
It was pretty hard not to notice the increase in traffic through Hot Springs County during eclipse time, but the Wyoming Department of Transportation (WYDOT) has released numbers that will give an accurate accounting of just how many vehicles there were. The state, overall, experienced historic traffic volumes on Monday, Aug. 21, the day of the eclipse – 494,000 vehicles, a 63 percent increase. In Hot Springs County, on WY 120W (Thermopolis to Cody), the five-year average on Wednesday, Aug. 1... Full story
Hot Springs County School District #1 Board of Trustees met Aug. 15, the last meeting before the start of the new school year. Laurie Graves, principal at Ralph Witters Elementary, gave a presentation to the board on how summer school went this year with the recent financial cutbacks. Graves said it was a little different, but Kinder Camp had a good three days focused on letter and word recognition. There was a 90 percent attendance rate for the little ones, which is a great turn out. First through fourth grades had almost a 100 percent...
On Aug. 14, an officer spotted a vehicle pulling a trailer fail to stop at Sixth Street and Shoshoni. The officer later observed the vehicle make an unsafe/unlawful lane change, as the driver did not utilize his turn signal. The officer performed a traffic stop, informing the driver, identified as Corey Bloom, of the traffic violations. During the stop, the officer noted a distinct odor of burnt marijuana, though the smell was not consistent. The officer also asked why there was no registration... Full story
Though a break was scheduled so those summoned for jury duty in a case against Joshua Hoyer could enjoy the eclipse, the trial was cancelled in light of a plea offer. It is important to note that, as of Tuesday afternoon, this offer had only been presented and there was no signed order from the judge. Hoyer was charged with possession of methamphetamine, delivery and possession of methamphetamine with intent to deliver. However, a plea agreement would dismiss the possession and delivery charges, should he plead guilty to possession with...
Those who have called into the law enforcement center the past few weeks might have heard a different voice answering their calls, that of Amé Longwell. Longwell has already made a name in the community, as she provided carriage rides in Thermopolis. Born and raised here, she moved back to town after managing a couple ranches in Colorado and became owner of Black Mountain Shires, raising horses that weighed up to 2,000 pounds each and were up to 19 hands high. The breed is one out of England,...
A Presidential Disaster Declaration has made 10 Wyoming counties, including Hot Springs County, and three Montana counties eligible for disaster assistance. Park and Fremont counties and the Wind River Reservation within Fremont County were declared as primary natural disaster areas and the surrounding 11 counties as contiguous disaster areas due to severe storms and flooding that occurred June 22-27. Under this designation, eligible producers with operations in any primary or contiguous county can apply for Farm Service Agency (FSA) emergency...
Several new teachers have joined Hot Springs County School District #1 this year. This week, the Independent Record is featuring the new teachers at Ralph Witters Elementary. Watch for stories on the the new teachers at Thermopolis Middle School and Hot Springs County High School in feature issues. Jessica Carswell Joining the team at Ralph Witters Elementary is K-2 Special Education Teacher Jessica Carswell. Carswell grew up in Thermopolis, and after high school earned her undergraduate degree...
The Wyoming Department of Transportation (WYDOT) has several projects in mind over the next five years for Hot Springs County. Using funding from the State Transportation Improvement Program (STIP), WYDOT is able to do capital improvement project state wide. Determining which projects are most needed comes down to input from the public, engineers, the Wyoming Transportation Commission and WYDOT. In 2018, East River Road will be seeing 4.3 miles of new guardrail installed and WY 20-789, Thermopol...
Summer vacation has again come to its end, and with the resuming of classes around town, it’s important for drivers to be aware of the increased foot traffic, particularly around the school buildings. Keep your eyes on the road and be aware of the other drivers as well, keeping in mind each new school year brings with it a batch of newly licensed high school drivers. Among the more common vehicles taking to the streets will be the school buses. These student transports are equipped with amber a...
Monday, Aug. 21 is just around the corner and we’re getting more and more excited about the solar eclipse and the thousands of people coming to Thermopolis and Wyoming to view it. What, really, is a solar eclipse? Well, sometimes when the moon orbits the Earth, it moves between the sun and the Earth. When this happens, the moon blocks the light of the sun from reaching Earth. This is known as a solar eclipse. Total solar eclipses are only visible from a small area of Earth. Those lucky ones w... Full story
Monday afternoon in District Court, Darren Dumas was sentenced to a total five to 10 years in the state penitentiary. Dumas was sentenced on three charges, including failure to register as a sex offender, strangulation of a household member and domestic violence-battery. The strangulation and domestic violence charges state he beat Christy Dumas from Sept. 23-26 and impeded her breathing on Sept. 26. As to the failure to register, Dumas was charged and convicted of the crime in 2015 and given fi...
