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LOVELL
What's Inside ...
Care Center culture
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Lady Bu//dogs capture
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Hunter bags large
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New specia/ ed teachers Page 14
, DAVID PECK
The Lovell up to beat the Shoshoni Lady Blue for the Class 2A West
Regional volleyball championship Saturday afternoon in Riverton. Exploding off the bench
after a key point in the title match are (l-r) Erin Robertson, Bonnie Rodriguez (hidden),
Mercedes Haney, Maddie Baxendale, Shyann Wilske and Schuylar Davis.
Pumpkin Fest this weekend
BY DAVID PECK
Love to carve pumpkins?
Proud of your work? It's Pumpkin
Fest time in Lovell.
The Lovell Area Chamber of
Commerce has joined forces with
downtown merchants to sponsor
the third Pumpkin Fest, which or-
ganizers hope will provide color
and fun to downtown Lovell dur-
ing the Halloween weekend.
The event is simple. People,
organizations and businesses are
asked to carve jack-o-lanterns and
drop them off at the Chamber of-
fice (287 E. Main) this Friday af-
ternoon, Oct. 28, during the down-
town trick-or-treat event from 2 to
5 p.m. or any time during the day
before that.
Persons presenting pumpkins
for the festival will receive one en-
try for a $25 gift certificate draw-
ing for every pumpkin they drop
off. The pumpkins will then be
placed along Main Street and lit
at dusk on Friday night and again
Saturday night. People are invit-
ed to bring their family down for
a look.
People contributing pumpkins
do not need to worry about provid-
ing a light. The Hen House is pro-
viding Glow Sticks to illuminate
the jack-o-lanterns - 125 of the
sticks each night.
The event will conclude with
a free dance Saturday night, Oct.
29, at the Lovell Recreation Build-
ing -- the old B&G Lumber build-
ing. The dance is sponsored by
Bairco, the Lovell Building Center
and The Hen House. Music will be
provided by the Cowley Boys.
Chamber of Commerce presi-
dent Sue Taylor said the beauty
of the festival is that people can
"lend" pumpkins to the festival for
two nights, then pick their pump-
kin up on Sunday for display at
their home. She said the dance is
an evening of family fun.
Taylor said the event was
started two years ago by John
STEVE HOOPER THE KEENE SENTINEL
Keene, N.H., is lined with pumpkins during its annual festival
that now brings nearly 30,000 pumpkins to the community each
year. Lovell's pumpkin festival is this Friday and Saturday.
Lafko of The Hen House, hop-
ing to pattern it after a festival in
Keene, N.H., which started with
600 pumpkins in 1991 and dis-
played nearly 23,000 in 2010 after
nearly 30,000 in 2009.
In Lovell's case, the pumpkins
will be displayed on two blocks of
Main Street at storefronts and in
the downtown parks - the veter-
ans memorial park, the park next
to Lovell Drug and the downtown
mural park.
The festival featured pump-
kins and scarecrows two years
ago, and there was an effort to ex-
pand the festival last year, but a
lack of participation has sent the
festival in the direction of seek-
ing promotional assistance and
broader participation through the
chamber of commerce.
Chamber board members are
contacting the Bulldog Boost-
er Club asking the club to use
a pumpkin theme as they wish
teams good luck as they head to
state volleyball and host a first-
round football playoff game. The
New Horizons Care Center is also
participating in the festival.
Taylor said the chamber
hopes to expand the festival be-
yond the two downtown blocks in
the future, and she said there may
be a two-story Halloween cat dis-
played in the Lovell Building Cen-
ter parking lot.
Water and sewer project resumes Monday
BY DAVID PECK
The digging will have to wait
a few more days.
The long-awaited South
Phase of the Lovell Water and
Sewer Infrastructure project
started up last week with a Wil-
son Brothers Construction crew
milling asphalt on Nevada Ave.
from Seventh St. south to Wyo-
ming Street on top of the Nevada
hill.
But then the project came to
a halt again.
Initial plans were to begin
laying sewer line later in the
week, but rainy weather delayed
Wilson crews working on other
projects and manholes needed for
the project were also delayed.
"The rain hit them hard,"
project engineer Frank Page said.
"They are working hard to finish
up those projects. There has also
been a delay in getting manholes
completed and here."
The manholes - concrete
structures placed below ground
for maintenance access - are be-
ing made in Billings. The proj-
ect will include 36 new manholes
overall, 12 this fall, Page said.
The manholes are sched-
uled to be delivered Monday af-
ternoon, and Page said Wilson
Brothers will start removing the
milled asphalt Monday morning.
"If the manholes are deliv-
ered, they should start laying
sewer line at Seventh and Ne-
vada on Tuesday," Page said.
"Once they have one week under
their belt for the sewer line, the
water line replacement will begin
about a week later."
Deaver post office
in jeopardy
BY PATTI CARPENTER
Forty-four rural post offices
in the state of Wyoming are on
the United States Postal Ser-
vice's growing list for possible
closure. The Deaver post office
was recently added to that list.
An official meeting was held
on Oct. 20 to discuss its fate.
Around 60 residents attended
to learn about the few avenues
available to them to fight the clo-
sure, and to hear about the more
likely alternatives should a deci-
sion be made to close the post of-
fice in their town.
Manager of Post Office Op-
erations Gary Sims spoke to the
group of concerned citizens on be-
half ofUSPS. Sims is responsible
for overseeing the study that is
looking at the Wyoming closures.
He started off by saying, "If
you do nothing, if you don't voice
your opinion, if you don't fill out
the surveys, if you don't ask for
the appeal if they decide to close
it, you will lose your post office."
It's not a "done deal," he
said, but if the proposed closure
for Deaver were to occur it would
happen in March of 2012.
He explained that, like most
government agencies, the postal
service is in "dire straits." Ac-
cording to Sims, the postal ser-
vice lost $8 billion last year and
is losing literally $300 per sec-
ond, seven days a week.
"This is why management in
Washington is considering clos-
ing small rural post offices," ex-
plained Sims. "When the first
mandate came out about four
months ago, they said they were
considering closing only six of-
rices in Wyoming. Now they are
looking at closing 44 in Wyoming
alone and 3,800 nationwide."
He explained that although
the Deaver post office has a full-
time career postmaster, there
are only a few hours of work
to fill his day. Also, the annual
revenue for the Deaver post of-
fice is $22,157, which is slightly
less than the $27,000 in sales re-
quired to keep the office off the
closure list.
"If you don't speak
now you will lose
your post office for
sure."
- Garj Sims
Manager of Post Office
Operations
Residents expressed their
concern about how the service
would work if the post office
did close. Sims responded that
there were about three good op-
tions, but none of them would be
staffed with a postal employee.
One option would be for a local
business to assume the responsi-
bility; the other would be for the
town to take over the function.
Either alternative would provide
reduced services. Another option
is to use the existing building,
which already has boxes in it,
but with no counter services. He
also discussed the possibility of
a cluster of outdoor boxes, where
a carrier from another post office
would deposit mail.
One citizen asked if the com-
munity cduld ever get the post
office back once it is lost.
Sims answered, "In my opin-
ion, once it is lost, the commu-
nity won't get it back."
Sims distributed a survey at
the meeting and encouraged res-
idents to not only check off the
multiple choice boxes, but also to
write in comments on the form.
"This is your last chance to
be heard," he said. "If you don't
See 'POST OFFICE,' page 6
Shoshone Municipal Pipeline
marks 20-year anniversary
BY DAVID PECK
The Shoshone Municipal
Pipeline marked a milestone re-
cently: 20 years of delivering
fresh, high quality water to com-
munities in the north Big Horn
Basin.
Water began flowing from
the then brand new water treat-
ment plant west of Cody and into
the pipeline on Oct. 14, 1991. Ac-
cording to an article in the Oct.
17, 1991, Lovell Chronicle, water
entered the Cody water lines on
that Monday and was expected to
reach Byron, Lovell, Deaver and
Frannie later that week.
Since the tap was turned, the
pipeline has delivered more than
21 billion gallons of water from
Buffalo Bill Reservoir to the 17
participating agencies: the mu-
nicipalities of Cody, Powell, By-
ron, Lovell, Deaver and Frannie
and the customers on the North-
west Rural Water District in
the Heart Mountain, O'Donnell,
South Fork, Deaver/Frannie,
Lovell Rural, Sage Creek, North
Cody, Cooper Lane and Garland
areas.
All of the treated water pro-
duced has been of much higher
quality than called for by cur-
rent EPA standards for drinking
water, the Pipeline Joint Pow-
ers Board said in a prepared re-
lease, Results of all water tests
are available at the pipeline of-
rices at 50 Agua Via in Cody, and
consumer confidence reports con-
taining water information are
distributed by each of the cities
and towns and the Northwest
Rural Water District by July I of
each year.
Anyone with questions about
any of the tests is welcome to
contact his or her local water de-
partment or call the pipeline of-
fice at 527-6492.
LONG-AWAITED PROJECT
Former Lovell mayor John
Nickle was one of the founders of
the pipeline project, along with
Cody mayor Dorse Miller and
Powell councilman Lloyd Snyder.
Also active in the planning stag-
es were Frannie mayor Bryan
Lee, Deaver mayor Hiram Bea-
ver and Byron mayor Alan Bair.
Chet Blackburn represented the
rural water users.
Lovell had been seeking a
source of higher quality water for
many years. An effort in the late
1970s that included an active lo-
cal committee, Nickle said, inves-
tigated the possibility of tapping
into the artesian wells north of
Cowley that the Town of Cow-
ley uses for water. Lovell looked
into a pipeline from the artesian
source but at a cost of $53,000
per mile for the pipeline and an
estimated project cost of nearly
$2.6 million, the Lovell mayor
and council opted to look in an-
other direction.
Nickle said that several of
the communities needed a bet-
ter source of water and/or were
nearing the end of the lifespan
See 'WATER,' page 6
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