LOVELL
What's Inside ...
Child abductor sought 5
Four-day school week? __ 11
Joe Meyer mourned 12
Rodeo cowboy excels __ 13
LOVELL, WYOMING • VOLUME 107, NUMBER 8 • THURSDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2012 • 75¢
PATti CAP.ENTER
Three huge piles of beets are growing daily, as truckload after
truckload of freshly dug beets are delivered to the Western
Sugar Cooperative inLovell for processing .....
Sweet expectations
for sugar harvest
BY PATTI CARPENTER
The full sugar beet harvest
began on Oct. 2, and the Western
Sugar Cooperative in Lovell is
already about a third of the way
into harvesting what is expect-
ed to be a record beet crop into
sweet profits for local farmers.
According to information
provided by the co-op, one acre
will normally produce 25.7 tons
of sugar beets. Some farmers are
expecting to yield as much as 30
tons per acre this year. A ton of
beets yields about 285 pounds of
sugar or 2.8 tons of sugar. That
is 1,150 five-pound bags of sugar
that would make a line of bags
810 feet long if you laid the bags
end to end.
The factory, a cooperative
owned by the farmers, operates
24/7 to process the beets into sug-
ar. The finished product, which is
pure granulated sugar, is picked
up daily by truck and train and
delivered to commercial custom-
ers all over the country.
According to Western Sug-
ar Cooperative's senior agricul-
turalist Randall Jobman, the
harvest conditions are excellent
right now and the entire process
from digging in the fields, trans-
porting the bountiful harvest to
the factory and the 24/7 process-
ing operation is going well.
"So far, the tonnage and sug-
ar content are excellent," said
Jobman. "Just what we were
hoping for."
The sugar beet crop is a pri-
mary source of income for many
farmers in the area. The facto-
ry employs up to 125 workers
during the processing season.
Jobman said it was too early to
predict how long the campaign
will take to process the huge
yield this season. The campaign
normally lasts for about five
months and its success depends
on weather and many other
factors.
Albers
ppointed clerk
BY KARLA POMEROY
The Big Horn County com-
missioners unanimously select-
ed Deputy Clerk Lori Albers to
be the new county clerk through
2014.
Albers' duties started imme-
diately since former clerk Dori
Noyes began her duties as clerk
of district court Oct. 1. Albers
will finish Noyes' four-year term
through 2014. She was one of
three candidates interviewed by
the commissioners. Albers, Dep-
uty Clerk Deb LaBudda and for-
mer deputy clerk Beth Lampman
were selected as the three candi-
dates to submit to the commis-
sioners by the Republican Cen-
tral Committee.
Commission Chairman Jer-
ry Ewen said, "We had two can-
didates currently Working in the
office. Any of the three could have
done the job."
He said Albers had quite a
varied background and experi-
ence that could prove beneficial
in the role of clerk.
"Her positive, energetic man-
agement style will serve the pub-
lic well," Ewen said.
Big Horn County Clerk
Lori Albers
He praised the work of the
Republican Central Committee
for narrowing the list to submit to
See 'ALBERS NEW COUNTY
CLERK,' page6
Officials: Sales tax
projects in Frannie,
Deaver badly needed
BY DAVID PECK
The sixth-cent specific use
sales tax that will be on the bal-
lot in Big Horn County in Novem-
ber has been viewed by some op-
ponents as a way to fund wants
rather than needs in various com-
munities. But for municipalities
in north Big Horn County's small-
est communities, the sales tax is
seen as the only way to get some
badly needed projects completed.
Frannie Mayor Jack Cord-
ner and Deaver Town Clerk Vana
Camp said in interviews Tues-
day that the sales tax is a fund-
ing mechanism that would allow
projects the towns have needed
for many years to finally come to
fruition. Without it, they are sim-
ply too small to generate enough
revenue to even match a grant,
they said.
Frannie is seeking $1,262,655
from the sales tax, most of which
is to fund an irrigation well that
has slowed to a trickle in recent
years. The rest is for a pickup for
public works that would see dou-
ble duty as a snow plow in the
winter.
The pickup, a Ford F350, is
expensive at $46,405, but Cord-
ner said the F350 is one of the
few vehicles manufactLtred
can take a snow plow kit with-
out voiding the warranty. He said
the truck would back up the town
back hoe for plowing.
The real need,+he said,:ia the
town's irrigation well, either re-
pairing the existing well or re-
placing the well.
Cordner explained that the
well started producing water in
1955, a year after the town was
incorporated. It was originally
drilled by a man by the name of
Kirk and was thus registered as
Kirk #1. It was drilled with the
expectation of hitting oil, C ordner
said, but the well - some 4,800
feet deep - produced water in-
stead. Kirk sold the well to the
town, which then developed Fran-
nie's first water system.
The well was the town of
DAVID PECK
Frannie Mayor Jack Cordner shows off the badly rusting
irrigation water well intake pipe and valve at the well house
in Frannie Tuesday afternoon.
Frannie's potable water sup-
ply until the Shoshone Munici-
pal Pipeline was completed in
1991. Around that time, Cordner
said, the Environmental Protec-
tion Agency tested the well water
and declared that it was no longer
suitable for human consumption.
After the Shoshone Munici-
pal Pipeline was constructed, the
town added surface valves for
each water customer to allow the
well water to be used for irriga-
tion. Homes in Frannie have two
water lines each, Cordner said, a
See 'FRANNIE TOWN
PROJECTS,' page 3
Town settles with Excel Construction
BY DAVID PECK
The four-year legal battle between the Town of
Lovell and Excel Construction is over.
After years of litigation over contract obliga-
tions and work performed during the 2006-07 North
Phase of the Lovell Wa-
ter and Sewer Infra-
structure Project, the
two sides have reached
a settlement.
According to the
terms of the settlement,
Mayor Bruce Morrison
said at Tuesday's town
council meeting, all
of Excers claims against the town and the town's
claims against Excel and its bonding company will
be "fully and completely released."
The construction retainage and payment of
"only items accepted by the project engineer" will be
released to the contractor and the project closed out,
Morrison said. As part of the settlement, citizens
who appropriately and in timely fashion submitted
claims that have not already been paid will receive
compensation for damage, Morrison said.
"The town is pleased to have this litigation re-
solved and be able to move forward with complet-
ing the sewer and water reconstruction project," the
mayor said.
Morrison read the settlement terms during
Tuesday's meeting, noting that all claims between
the parties have been dismissed with prejudice (per-
manently dismissed) and the town will release funds
held for the project and make a final payment to Ex-
cel to close out the project. Payment will only be
made for those portions of the project that were sat-
isfactorily completed and accepted by the engineer.
The council voted to authorize the mayor to sign
the settlement documents.
"The town is pleased to have this
litigation resolved and be able to move
forward with completing the sewer and
water reconstruction project."
Lovell Mayor Bruce Morrison
BASEBALL TALK
Tuesday's meeting began with a request from
Senior League Baseball General Manager Sen. Ray
Peterson for the town to look into constructing a
Babe Ruth Baseball field in Lovell.
For many years Babe Ruth and American Le-
gion teams practiced and played at the baseball field
at Caboose Park, but in the last few years of that fa-
cility's use the field was used for practice only due to
the lack of a permanent
fence, Peterson.
The new field in
Cowley was opened five
years ago and has grad-
ually been improved
ever since. But it is only
one field, Peterson said,
and with the improve-
ment in the local Little
League Baseball program has come greater inter-
est in the Babe Ruth program and pressure on the
facility.
"In past years we've had four to five players
wanting to continue playing baseball after Lit-
tle League," Peterson wrote in a letter provided to
council members. "This past year we had 10 new
players that forced us to have a second team. The
Little League committee reports to us that we can
expect another 10 to 12 players next spring, as well.
"This number will increase our Babe Ruth play-
ers from 24 this year to 34 next season. This num-
ber of players will cause our committee to consider
a third Babe Ruth team. These numbers will also
increase the possibility of having two Legion teams
with a JV and varsity team."
The eventual goal, Peterson said, is to have four
Babe Ruth and two Legion teams, putting a lot of
pressure on the sole facility for practice and game
time.
The Senior League Baseball Committee is ask-
ing the Town of Lovell to begin efforts to acquire
land and build a new Babe Ruth/Legion-size base-
ball field.
"Considering the six years it has taken us to
build the field in Cowley and the numbers and needs
See 'NEW BASEBALL FIELD IN LOVELL,'
page 3
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