Last World War II Veterans Honor Flight on Tuesday

CHEYENNE – Honor Flight Wyoming will send  the final group of Wyoming’s World War II veterans on a two-day trip to Washington, D.C., on Tuesday and Wednesday.

This will be the sixth and final trip to the Nation’s Capitol sponsored by Honor Flight Wyoming, a non-profit foundation. A charter aircraft will carry more than 160 veterans, guardians, and staff to visit the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.

The public is invited to a community farewell ceremony for Wyoming’s World War II veterans at 7:45 a.m. on Oct. 11, at Cheyenne’s Ice and Events Center at 1530 W. Lincolnway.

Cheyenne Mayor Rick Kaysen will speak.

The Cheyenne police will escort the veterans’ motorcade to the Wyoming Air National Guard. Veterans will be transported on school buses and trolleys, accompanied by World War II re-enactors in military vehicles and members of the Patriot Guard motorcycle group.

Partnering with the Wyoming Veterans Commission and numerous individual and group volunteers, Honor Flight Wyoming provided free trips to more than 600 Wyoming veterans. Guardians are matched with veterans on a 3:1 ratio in most cases and donate $800 to make the trip. The money goes directly to covering costs for the veterans.

The group will depart from Cheyenne on the charter aircraft from the Small Air Terminal at the Wyoming Air National Guard base.

The public is also invited to welcome the veterans home in the Cheyenne Regional Airport terminal at about 8:30 p.m. Wednesday.

For more information, call the Wyoming Veterans Commission at 307-777-8152.

Grizzlies continue to stay active – hunters need to stay alert

CODY – State wildlife administrators are warning residents, visitors and particularly hunters that bears remain active and dangerous this fall.

On Oct. 3, two hunters in separate areas encountered grizzly bears; both suffered minor injuries. In each case, the hunters surprised a bear which then became aggressive.

Mid-November usually marks the denning period for grizzly bears, but until then, they will remain very active in their search for food.

According to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, a Casper hunter in the Dubois area chose to “drop and cover” when the bear charged. He was bitten on the buttocks and ankle and the bear left the area.

In a second encounter on the same day, an Oregon hunter near Meeteetse surprised a bear. It charged, knocking the hunter down and biting him on the hand as it ran past.

Game and Fish investigators determined that both bears were acting naturally. No attempt to capture either bear will be made.

When threatened, grizzlies generally exhibit one of three behaviors; grizzlies either run away, bluff charge, or charge with the intent of removing the threat, according to Dennie Hammer, Cody information specialist for the Game and Fish.

A bear that hears or smells something that it cannot identify may stand on its hind legs to get a better look or smell. That is typically not an aggressive behavior. A bear that runs toward you with its head up, ears erect, and stiff legged is probably bluff charging. One that has its head down and ears laid back, however, feels threatened enough to charge, Hammer said.

When there is not time to read the bear’s behavior or to use a deterrent such as bear spray or a firearm, the only viable option is to “drop and cover.”

Lying flat on the ground with your fingers interlocked over your neck is the best way to drop and cover, Hammer said.

To improve the odds of minimizing hunter-bear conflicts, Hammer suggests:

• Carry a bear deterrent and know how to use it. Many aggressive bears have been deterred through the use of bear spray and all hunters should carry it where it can be reached and know how and when to use it.
• Hunters should hunt with a partner and keep relatively close together.
• When using calls, pay close attention to your surroundings, not just the area within which the hunted species is located.
• Continuously watch for bear sign which includes tracks, scats, and diggings and for the bears themselves.
• Retrieve game animals as quickly as possible and watch for approaching bears when field dressing and quartering.
• If game must be left on the ground overnight, separate the carcass from the entrails when field dressing and place the carcass in an area that can be viewed from a distance.
• When retrieving game, make lots of noise; use binoculars to search the area for bears and to determine if the game has been disturbed by bears prior to walking in on the carcass.
• Bears often daybed near food sources.
• If a bear has claimed your carcass, leave the scene and report the incident to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.

Wyo Democrats critical of Romney’s embrace of the right

CHEYENNE – While in Wyoming Thursday, Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney said President Obama has been like a “deer in headlights” in dealing with economic trouble, making all the wrong decisions.

But Wyoming Democrats held a news conference Thursday too, saying that Romney’s recent embrace of radical rightwing policies are what frighten them.

As governor of Massachusetts, Romney governed and advocated moderate policies, said Wyoming Democratic Party Chairman Chuck Herz on Thursday.

To get the Republican Party nomination, however, Herz said Romney is advocating a radical Tea Party agenda and ideological intransigence.

Romney now favors, Herz said, “policies that place a huge burden on seniors and on middle class families but preserve at all costs unnecessary and unaffordable corporate subsidies and preserve likewise tax cuts for the very wealthiest Americans.”

Herz said the radical agenda is an attempt to go back to an economy that existed before the New Deal and before the Progressive Era of the 20^th century. That was a time of Robber Barons, cycles of recession and depression and no social safety nets for the poor, sick or old.

“Folks had better start paying attention to it because it is absolutely essential to what kind of a country we are going to have,” Herz said

According to reports from the Star Valley Independent and the Jackson Hole News & Guide  about 400 people came out to the Afton Civic Center for a meet and greet with Romney Thursday.

The Jackson Hole News & Guide reported his western Wyoming stops included an evening fundraiser at the Jackson Hole home of residents Dick and Maggie Scarlett, and a $2,500 per-person breakfast at the Star Valley Trout Ranch.

The Scarlett’s were partners in the Jackson State Bank & Trust before it was sold to Wells Fargo, the News & Guide reported.

He has fund raisers in Idaho and Utah this week as well, according to Romney’s campaign website.

“We need to get the economy going again, Obama’s been like a deer in headlights. Almost everything he has done as president has made it harder for the economy to get going,” Romney is quoted as telling the people at Afton on his campaign website.

Romney won the Wyoming Republican caucus in 2008.

A member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Romney has family and religious ties to the Utah, western Wyoming and southern Idaho region.

Weekend celebration set for Heart Mountain Learning Center

CHEYENNE – The grand opening of the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation’s Interpretive Learning Center is Aug. 20.

The new museum is at a World War II concentration camp in Park County where nearly 14,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry were imprisoned from 1942 to 1945.

The grand opening is part of a three-day celebration, Aug. 19-21, called “Lessons from the Past … Guidance for the Future.”

The weekend also will include the premiere of the film, “All We Could Carry: The Story of the Heart Mountain Relocation Center,” by Academy-Award winning filmmaker Steven Okazaki.

Some 1,000 former internees, descendents and supporters across the nation are planning a pilgrimage to the site to honor Heart Mountain survivors and commemorate the opening of this lasting tribute to their experiences, according to Shirley Ann Higuchi, chairwoman of the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation.

A public dedication ceremony at the Heart Mountain Interpretive Learning Center is planned for Saturday, Aug. 20, with tours of the Interpretive Learning Center to follow.  The museum will remain open until 8 p.m. on Saturday, and on Sunday and Monday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.  The Foundation also is planning two dinner events at the Park County Fairgrounds scheduled for Friday, Aug. 19, and Saturday, Aug. 20.

Journalist and author Tom Brokaw will be the special guest speaker for the pilgrimage dinner Aug. 19 at the Park County Fairgrounds in Powell. Brokaw’s best-selling book, “The Greatest Generation,” includes the story of the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.

The grand opening banquet will be Aug. 20 at the Park County Fairgrounds.

A panel discussion will include Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Lance Ito, a civil rights and judicial reform advocate, whose parents were incarcerated at Heart Mountain; Irene Hirano Inouye, president of the US-Japan Council; and Dr. Melba Vasquez, president of the American Psychological Association.

The Saturday dedication ceremony will be 10 a.m., adjacent to the Interpretive Learning Center. It will feature a keynote address from Sen. Daniel Inouye of Hawaii. A World War II hero, Inouye worked to pass the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 issuing a formal apology and token redress payments to surviving Japanese Americans incarcerated during the war.

The Heart Mountain Interpretive Learning Center is located on Road 19, off Highway 14 between Cody and Powell, 60 miles east of Yellowstone National Park.

More information is at www.heartmountain.org.

Natural Resources Trust recognizes Trout Unlimited’s work

SARATOGA – The Wyoming Wildlife and Natural Resource Trust has named Wyoming Trout Unlimited its “Partner of the Year” for 2011.

The award was presented today at the board of directors’ meeting in  Saratoga.

Chairman Delaine Roberts of Etna said Wyoming Trout Unlimited had “done incredible work for several years, but this past year has been something out of this world.”

The group has helped to reconnect more than 500 miles of stream habitat for native fish throughout the state, Roberts said.

Trout Unlimited has worked in most of the major drainage basins in the state, he said, and has helped to restore wetlands, improve irrigation efficiency for landowners, and keep fish out of irrigation ditches and canals.

In the past two years, Trout Unlimited has undertaken more than 20 projects throughout the state.  Voting for the annual award is done each year after board members nominate outstanding partners.  Roberts said Trout Unlimited was named on eight of nine ballots, either as the first or second choice.

Other groups nominated for the annual award included Wyoming Stock Growers Agricultural Land Trust, Wyoming Game and Fish Department, Wyoming Land Trust, Saratoga-Encampment-Rawlins Conservation District, and The Nature Conservancy.

Town hall meetings to discuss 2013 state education assessments

CHEYENNE – The Wyoming Department of Education will hold a series of Town Hall Meetings to discuss the upcoming Request for Proposals for the 2013 State Assessment.

Three events are slated for Casper, Moorcroft and Rock Springs.

The meetings will be to discuss the process for developing a statewide assessment and how it will be used.

Town Hall meetings will be:

• 8 a.m. Aug. 18 – Ramkota Best Western, Casper;
• 5 p.m. Aug. 29 – Moorcroft Elementary, Morrcroft;
• 10 a.m. Aug. 30 – Sweetwater County School District No. 1 Central Administration Board Room, Rock Springs.

Wyoming State Superintendent of Public Instruction Cindy Hill will be joined at the meetings by assessments expert, Jim Popham. He is a former UCLA professor who devoted much of his career to the study of effective assessments.

Assessment system vendors are scheduled to have responses submitted to the state by September.

Please visit http://edu.wyoming.gov/Programs/statewide_assessment_system/paws.aspx for more information.

Cody grizzly cubs headed to zoo in Cleveland

CODY – Two Cody area grizzly bear cubs are on a journey to the Cleveland Metro Parks Zoo in Cleveland, Ohio.

The male and female cubs were orphaned when their mother was euthanized when she became a chronic problem bear to residents living in the Lower South Fork Shoshone River valley.

The mother bear had been captured in the same general area for bad behavior in October 2006 and was subsequently relocated to the Caribou-Targhee National Forest 90 miles away. Within 27 days of her relocation, she returned to the same general area and was trapped and moved again for causing property damage, said Mark Bruscino, bear biologist for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.

Under the federal nuisance grizzly bear guidelines, a female grizzly that becomes a chronic problem and is captured three times because of problem behavior may be removed after consulting with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

According to Bruscino, the cubs are healthy, weighing about 50 pounds each. They will be the main attraction of the grizzly bear display at the Cleveland Zoo.

Dawn Sides named Corrections Field Services Administrator

CHEYENNE – Dawn Sides has been selected as the new Field Services Administrator for Wyoming Department of Corrections.

Sides has been the deputy administrator for prison support services since April 2008. She will assume her new duties Sept. 1, Wyoming Department of Corrections Director Bob Lampert announced today.

Sides has been with the department for 24 years. During her time with the department, Sides has served as associate warden at the Wyoming Women’s Center, where she began her career as a correctional officer, and warden of the Wyoming Honor Farm.

In her current capacity, Sides has overseen support services for the prison division. That includes supervision of key programs such as inmate health care, treatment, education, work, case management and preparation for release.

Deadline approaches for Wyoming tax refund program

CHEYENNE – The August 31 application deadline for the Tax Refund for Elderly & Disabled Program is quickly approaching, according to the Wyoming Department of Health.

The program financially helps qualified applicants by providing a financial benefit intended as a refund of sales and use taxes, property taxes and utility and energy costs.

Those eligible, by statute, are individuals 65 years of age or older, or 18 years of age or older and 100 percent disabled for one full year prior to the application date. Income limits, based on 2010 income, are $17,500 for single individuals and $28,500 for married couples.  Refund amounts are based on actual income with the maximum benefit for a qualified single person currently set at $800 and $900 for qualified married couples.

New applications are needed each year, and they must be postmarked by August 31. Eligibility is determined by the Wyoming Department of Health and checks are mailed for qualified applicants by December 20.

Local senior centers around Wyoming have applications and details.  More information is also available by calling 1-866-989-8901 or online at http://health.wyo.gov/main/tred.html.

Star-Tribune editor named UW communications director

LARAMIE – The editor of the Casper Star-Tribune has been hired as director of Institutional Communications at University of Wyoming.

UW announced today that Chad Baldwin will begin work Sept. 12.

Baldwin is a native of Wyoming and graduate of the University of Wyoming.

Baldwin, 46, has been the editor at the Casper Star Tribune since 2008. His career began in 1988 as a reporter at The Riverton Ranger.

Baldwin will oversee the University’s communications office, which works to raise the university’s profile through news stories and features, and serve as university spokesman.

Baldwin also worked as editor of the Uinta County Herald in Evanston, managing editor and editor of The Ranger and city editor of The Times-News in Twin Falls, Idaho, before joining the Star-Tribune staff as state editor in 2004.

Next Page »