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LOVELL, WYOMING • VOLUME 106, NUMBER 46 • THURSDAY, APRIL 26, 2012 • 75¢
Alleged reckless driving sends car over cliff
BY PATTI CARPENTER
According to Big Horn
County Sheriff Ken Black-
burn, multiple calls to 911
alerted authorities to an al-
leged reckless driving inci-
dent that resulted in a 2010
Camaro careening off a 50-
foot cliff and landing in a
riverbed below in the town
of Byron. The incident oc-
curred at 2:47 a.m. on Sat-
urday.
More than 30 search
and rescue workers, fire-
men and law enforcement
officials were at the scene
of the accident in a matter
of minutes and were pre-
pared to assist any parties
involved in the accident.
The first call to come in re-
ported that a vehicle drove
through a guardrail and
over a cliff. The caller said
he heard voices screaming.
The driver, 31-year-old
Kenneth Verran of Byron,
left the scene of the accident
and was arrested later that
morning on charges of leav-
ing the scene of an accident,
reckless driving and reck-
less endangerment. Accord-
ing to Blackburn, a report
has been sent to the county
attorney and more charges
may be pending, like failure
to report an accident, inter-
ference with peace officers
and failure to administer
aide to an injured party at
the scene of an accident.
Considering the mag-
nitude of the crash, two
passengers who were in
the car, Travis Burke and
Larry Foster, escaped with
relatively minor injuries,
said Blackburn. Foster was
transported to the hospital
with a dislocated shoulder.
"These kids started at
one end of the street driving
toward a 70 degree turn in
the 2010 Camaro. It is esti-
KER[ W]LSKE
More than 30 search and rescue workers, firemen and law enforcement officials
responded quickly to the scene of the accident that took place in Byron and were
prepared to assist any parties involved early Saturday at 2:47 a.m. Shown above
(l-r) Kyle McClure, Jim Minchow, Jason House and Dennis Woodward prepare
to load injured Larry Foster onto a gurney in preparation for transportation to
the hospital while family members observe.
mated that they were doing
about 100 miles per hour
by the time they hit the
curve in the road and went
straight over the cliffwhere
they pin-balled off of several
trees before hitting the bot-
tom of the cliff near the riv-
er," said Blackburn.
Blackburn added that
numerous witnesses at the
local bar reported that the
three were very intoxicated
when they left the bar min-
utes before the accident.
Also, reports from bystand-
ers at the scene, who had
seen the three just moments
before they entered the ve-
hicle, stated that they ap-
peared to be very intoxicat-
ed, he said.
"Here's what the prob-
lem was," explained Black-
burn. "This was a very un-
stable cliffwith a lot of river
boulders and the search and
rescue department, fire de-
partment and sheriffs de-
partment tied up a lot of re-
sources looking for the driver
and wondering if he was OK
throughout the night. Addi-
tionally, during the rescue,
one of our search and res-
cue members who had a he-
met on, thank goodness, was
hit in the head with a rock
that dislodged from the cliff.
So, a lot of people put them-
selves at risk to help these
people out."
Deputies and other res-
cuers spent several hours
searching the scene for Ver-
ran, who, as it turned out,
left the scene of the accident
and was found at his home
in Byron at approximately
11 a.m. that day. It was ap-
proximately 1 p.m. by the
time authorities persuad-
ed Verran to answer their
knocks at his door.
Blackburn expressed his
gratitude to the Lovell Po-
lice Department, the Search
and Rescue Crew and the
Lovell Volunteer Fire De-
partment for their quick re-
sponse to the incident.
"I think too often we
take these guys for grant-
ed," said Blackburn. "These
guys were out there immedi-
ately, they risked their lives
to search the river bottom,
to try to find this guy, not
knowing if this guy left in
shock and was under a bush
somewhere dying or what
the case was. If you took
the total number of the man
hours, there were at least
100 involved in this search
when all was said and done."
According to Blackburn,
due to the prolonged extrica-
tion, it wasn't until the next
day that authorities were
able to pull the wrecked
vehicle from the river bot-
tom. He also noted that the
search and rescue team set
up a rope system to remove
the injured passenger from
the scene of the crash.
"These people--the fir-
men, the search and rescue
guys and others--were down
there with loose rock coming
down on them," said Black-
burn. "It was a fairly dan-
gerous scene to be sure. It
was nothing short of mirac-
ulous that someone didn't
get hurt worse in this acci-
dent or at the scene of this
accident. The fact that the
Camaro literally played pin-
ball going down through the
trees slowed its fall and that
probably helped prevent
more injuries. There were
literally objects impaled in
the trees all along its path.
"We understand that
people make mistakes and
do stupid things, but don't
make it worse by leaving
the scene of the accident and
putting rescue workers and
everyone else at risk like
this. It is just unacceptable.
Any legal problems that this
subject may have been try-
ing to avoid by leaving the
scene may have been com-
pounded by what he left be-
hind."
Verran made his ini-
tial appearance in court on
Tuesday and was released
later that day on a $10,000
cash bond.
KERI WILSKE
The 2010 Camaro pictured above was driven off a
cliff in Byron early Saturday morning in an incident
that resulted in the arrest of the vehicle's driver,
Kenneth Verran.
Mesa Matthews accepted for
student exchange program
BY DAVID PECK
A dream has come true
for Lovell High School junior
Mesa Matthews, who found
out recently that she has been
accepted for an internation-
al exchange student program
and will receive a $10,000
scholarship to participate.
A young lady with an
amazing worldview, Matthews
will spend her senior year in
Germany, studying through
the ASSE Congress-Bunde-
stag Youth Exchange (CBYX)
Program. She will spend near-
ly 11 months in Germany,
leaving on July 29 and study-
ing into late June of 2013.
She doesn't yet know
where she will live, or which
family she will live with, but
she's thrilled to be going to Eu-
rope.
The daughter of Bill and
Mary Matthews of Lovell,
Mesa heard about the pro-
gram through LHS Counselor
Tawnya Teter when she went
to talk to Teter about the pos-
sibilities of studying overseas
for college.
"I always wanted to be a
foreign exchange student, but
I didn't think it was possible,"
she said. Instead, she was sav-
ing money to participate in the
Wyoming Ambassadors of Mu-
sic band in 2013. She plays the
French horn in the LHS band.
By the time she heard
about the ASSE program,
Matthews was more than up
against the gun when it came
to the application deadline.
She quickly completed all
of the necessary paperwork
Mesa Matthews
for the CBYX program, went
through an online interview
via Skype and crossed her fin-
gers.
"They stretched the dead-
line," she noted, adding that
she then waited for what
seemed to be an eternity.
In March she received the
news she had been hoping for:
she had been accepted for the
program and the scholarship
that will allow her to go, one of
only a few dozen to be accepted
nationwide and the only stu-
dent accepted from Wyoming.
"It was a whirlwind," she
said. "They told me I was a fi-
nalist four times, then finally
said it's for sure."
See MATTHEWS, page 3
PATrl CARPENTER
Chad Carr purchases a box of candy from volunteer Kathy Brown at the Hyart Theatre in
Lovell as Jessica Carr, the only paid employee at the theatre, organizes candy on the shelves.
The Hyart is kept afloat with the help of more than 100 volunteers.
National week of the volunteer
Volunteers work tirelessly
for community good
BY PATTI CARPENTER
Sometimes it's the little
things that make our lives better,
like pretty flowers around town or
a reasonably priced movie. Other
times it's the big stuffthat counts,
like saving a life, a home or find-
ing a lost child. In all of these
cases, the end result is due to the
tireless efforts by volunteers who
do it for the sheer joy of enhanc-
ing the quality of life for all.
From the group of ladies at
the hospital who run the gift shop
and then donate all the money
back to the hospital's care center,
to the members of the search and
rescue team, who are often called
out of their beds at night to search
for a lost or injured person, these
are all volunteers who perform
tasks with one goal in common--
to "give back" to the community.
Dennis Woodward has been
involved with the local search and
rescue group since 1981.
"It's a tremendous feeling of
gratification that we get when
we have a happy ending and that
makes this work all worthwhile,"
said Woodward.
According to Woodward, he
See 'VOLUNTEERS' page 3
