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Friday, August 31, 2007
736 - Planes, trams and gondolas
Sure, it was just a meeting.
But in Jackson Hole, they know how to how to take a presumably ordinary event and make it pretty darned spiffy.
For example, a progressive outfit called Jackson Hole Air was holding what they call an Airline Rendezvous for the air carriers that service their valley.
Jackson Hole airport is, by far, the busiest in the state when it comes to boardings. Over 60 percent of all enplanements in Wyoming occur there.
Various other folks were invited included area politicians, regional senators and representatives, present and former members of the Wyoming Aeronautics Commission (including me) and local members of the group.
Instead of booking the banquet room of the local eatery, this meal would be served at the top of Bridger Bowl at the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort at Teton Village. We rode up the mountain in the Bridger Gondola and enjoyed a meal of buffalo or salmon.
I rode up the in the same gondola as local Jackson tourism legend Clarene Law. She was complaining about local press coverage of protests to Vice President Dick Cheney’s dedication of the Craig Thomas Discovery Center in Grand Teton Park the previous weekend. She said she wrote a letter to the editor protesting the “negative” coverage.
Meanwhile up at 9,000 feet at the top of the gondola, the featured speaker was Jay Kemmerer who has owned the resort for the past 15 years with his family.
He used airplane terms to describe what they have done recently to the resort. He described the present layout (where the banquet was being held) as his “Boeing 737,” meaning he had invested $15 million in building the gondola and restaurant and all amenities.
Then he pointed to the south and said they was where he was going to put his “Boeing 747,” which was coming next year, meaning the new 101-person tram that is being installed, which was costing $25 million.
He explained how intermingled the fates of both airlines and places like ski resorts can be. In both cases you need a tremendous initial investment and then with good marketing and good luck you hope that people will use your services.
His talk was witty, informative and down to earth. Later it was pointed out the Kemmerer family had invested $100 million in JHMR up to this point. A pretty good success story for a pioneer Wyoming family.
The original tram and three double chair lifts at the resort cost $2 million in 1966.
Airlines represented there were American, United, Delta and Sky West. The CEO of Wyoming’s own airline, Great Lakes, Chuck Howell, was there, too. He said his company is having its best year ever. Shelly Reams and Amber Schlabs of the WAC attended as did Jeff Rose, Lingle, a commissioner.
John Resor and his wife Kitty were there. His family is developing a new 18-hole golf course at the base of the ski area. Jerry Blann, president of JHMR, said the course called The Shooting Star, was being designed by leading pro architect Tom Fazio.
Also at the meeting were Larry Williamson of Grand Targhee Ski Resort and Manuel Lopez of Snow King, Wyoming’s number-two and number-three largest ski areas with artist’s renderings of their resorts’ expansion plans, too.
Two Cheyenne legislators, Republican Pete Illoway and Democrat Floyd Esquibel, journeyed to the event, as did State Senators Eli Bebout (R-Riverton), Hank Coe (R-Cody), Bruce Burns (R-Sheridan) and Rep. Dave Edwards (R-Douglas).
They conducted a legislative hearing the following day concerning the future of air service for Wyoming.
Our newest U. S. Senator John Barrasso kicked off the event and was accompanied by his fiancé Bobbie Brown. He got a positive reaction when he said he would continue to work toward lengthening the short runway at the Jackson airport.
Mike Gierau is the chairman of Jackson Hole Air and Kari Cooper is its executive director. Mr. Gierau said that the resort founder Paul McCollister called him 20 years and roped him into being involved in getting the community to do financial guarantees so that airlines would service the valley.
“Now, we are the envy of the country. It’s not just ski areas that call me for advice but places like Biloxi, Mississippi. Amazing.” Mr. Gierau said.
The meal was at the new restaurant at the top of the Bridger Bowl called the Couloir. The buffalo was so tender you could cut it with a fork.
Yes, these Jackson Hole folks know how to turn what could have been a routine event into quite a party. Amazing, indeed.
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Friday, August 24, 2007
735 Dodging forest fires in Wyoming
The headline read, “Wildfires break out in Wyoming.” To those of us living here during this drought period, this was certainly no surprise.
While on another of my road trips, I recently dodged no fewer than five forest fires while traveling from Lander to Jackson Hole, and then through Yellowstone National Park and over the Big Horn Mountains to Sheridan.
The Hardscrabble Fire near Moccasin Basin was burning so furiously that my route over Togwotee Pass was threatening to be closed. Luckily, we were able to get over the pass but the great view of the Tetons was pretty much obscured by all the smoke.
As of this writing, that fire has consumed more than 3,000 acres. Just south of Jackson you could see another fire down on the Grey’s River near Alpine that burned 2,900 acres and has 92 fire fighters working it.
After attending some meetings in Jackson, my intent was to leave on Tuesday morning. Two Cody residents, Sen. Hank Coe and Gene Bryan on Monday afternoon warned me to check with officials before assuming the east YNP entrance was open.
Sure enough, it was closed because of the 18,000-acre Columbine Fire. That meant my trip might take me on one of the most gorgeous routes in America—the Chief Joseph Highway out the northeast gate of the park. It was fun to look forward to going that way, but knew it might add three or four hours to my trip.
Tuesday morning, I headed through the park, which was at its most beautiful. And luckily, the east gate opened temporarily.
Despite the smoke, it was a glorious day while driving along Yellowstone Lake. In these times of global warming, a person can’t help thinking about a possible Yellowstone Super Volcano exploding. The caldera for that ancient volcano is 45 miles long by 30 miles wide and it is scheduled to explode every 600,000 years.
And yes, the last time it blew was 642,000 years ago. Let’s hope that it is not as reliable as Old Faithful.
It was educating to stop at Mary Bay at the northeast corner of the huge lake and read about how the thermal activity under this bay is the hottest in the lake. Yet, the water was serene on top, although surrounded by thermal features and baked white ground. It seemed the area was not just smoky all around but under the water, too.
The east entrance was a riot of 125 fire fighters and gear. The Fishing Bridge Campground was closed and being used as the fire fighter staging area. Helicopters were flying in and out of the fire area with buckets hanging beneath them.
Is there anything to equal the power and force of a forest fire in full bloom? The flames, smoke and noise can be overwhelming.
After leaving the park behind, you could see that Sen. Coe’s brother Bob’s place, the Pahaska Teepee, was crowded with visitors. It would become even more crowded later that day as the east entrance was closed again behind me because of the fire. My travel luck was holding.
Buffalo Bill Reservoir was a pristine green as I left the amazing Wapiti Valley behind. That road from Cody to Yellowstone is one of the most breathtaking drives in America. But I had more miles to go.
Not sure that I had ever been over the Big Horn mountains on 14A, the alternate U. S. highway. It is almost straight up outside of Lovell and is a helluva ride.
While up there, you could see another forest fire off to the east. It was billowing huge clouds of smoke and I was glad that I did not take regular highway 14, which was probably near its source.
This was actually two fires called the Little Goose Fire and the Bone Creek Fire burning over 8,500 acres. The fire effort required some 365 firefighters to deal with and they were working the two together.
From the summit of the Big Horns, you could see giant swaths of dead pine trees, evidence of the ubiquitous Mountain Pine Beetle. You could easily see that the beetle had killed vast areas of the Shoshone Forest along Togwotee and also in Yellowstone. Stands of pine trees in the Wapiti Valley were also killed and ready to burn. And here in the Big Horn Mountains, the story was the same.
The combination of drought and havoc caused by the beetles is the source of much of our fire danger. The forests, themselves, are ready to burn. The warm winters have prevented the killing of the insects so their damage is creating millions of dead trees – lots of fuel ready to go up in flames.
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Monday, August 13, 2007
734 Seven Natural Wonders of Wyoming
So what are the seven natural wonders of Wyoming?
When the idea came to me to promote what seemed the most likely seven wonders, well, it was not as easy as originally thought.
With lots of friends around the state, I made the mistake of asking them what areas they thought would qualify?
They came up with at least 50 wonders and you can bet when this column gets published from one end of the state to the other, well, my readers will let me know what an incomplete list that is compiled here. Doggone it, why isn’t my favorite place listed?
Two wonders were on everybody’s list. My #1 was Yellowstone National Park, the world’s first national park. And what a wonder it is! And #2 was its next-door neighbor The Grand Tetons/Jackson Hole area. Most also agreed the world’s first national monument, Devils Tower, should be #3, along with the Wyoming Black Hills, which it dominates.
But coming up with the four other wonders proved to be somewhat more controversial.
Journalist Shelley Ridenour of Rawlins talked about Aspen Alley on the Battle Mountain Highway and Silver Lake in the Snowy Range. Pat Schmidt of Thermop lobbied for the Beartooth Mountains.
Worland State Rep. Debbie Hammons said that surely my list would include The Medicine Wheel and Chief Joseph Highway?
Bed and Breakfast owner Marv Brown lobbied hard for Devil’s Gate and Red Canyon.
Kari Cooper of Jackson says the most beautiful place in Wyoming is the headwaters of the Green River near Pinedale. Carole Perkins of Sheridan touted Shell Falls outside of Greybull.
Former Cheyenne resident Mike Lindsey could not imagine how the Oregon Trail could not make the list. State Rep. Pete Illoway of Cheyenne pushed hard for Hell’s Half Acre and Wind River Canyon, with the latter also being Tucker Fagan’s favorite.
Former Gov. Mike Sullivan, Casper, pitched the Chugwater formation with its red rock formations ranging from Flaming Gorge to Red Canyon to Thermopolis.
Rodger McDaniel of Cheyenne said he thought Elk Mountain, Gannett Peak and any one of several rivers should be on my list. Secretary of State Max Maxfield likes the Big Horn Mountains and also boosted Sinks Canyon. Tom Lacock of Cheyenne wanted Wind River Canyon and the Saratoga Hot Springs included.
Pennie Hunt of Laramie thought our wide-open spaces should be listed. The Great Divide Basin in the Red Desert was pushed by Charlie Smith.
Dave Langerman wanted more waterfalls. Vince Tomassi of Diamondville railed at me for not touting Fossil Butte. My daughter Shelli thought Bighorn Canyon deserved consideration. Jeff Rose of Lingle likes Guernsey State Park. Also Veduwoo outside of Laramie.
Jim Hicks of Buffalo said the Seven Brothers Lakes and Lake Solitude are four-mile hikes into the Cloud Peak Wilderness and deserve consideration. Ernie Over pushed for Togwotee Pass and the red walls around Butch Cassidy country.
Travel Commission Chairman Gene Bryan offered up a host of sites including the usual suspects but also added the gangplank west of Cheyenne, Wapiti Valley, McCullough Peaks, Greybull’s Sheep Mountain and a special plug for South Pass for what it meant to the country.
Many agreed the vast Red Desert should count as #4 with all its various sites including the many buttes, Boar’s Tusk, Killpecker Sand Dunes and all the other unique places tucked away in this gigantic area.
The fact that the Thermopolis Hot Springs are the largest in the world makes it easy to include as #5.
Whew. Just two left to go.
Rodger is right. I need to include at least one river on my list. My choice is the North Platte River System. This huge river makes up five reservoirs and carries more water than any other river in our state. But we sure have wonderful rivers like the Snake, Green, Laramie, Sweetwater, Popo Agie, Wind/Bighorn, Greybull, Tongue and even the Powder. But the North Platte is #6 on my list with all its wondrous sites from Saratoga to Casper to Torrington.
My #7 is South Pass, with all its meaning to the country. Without this natural gap in the mountain ranges, the USA of today would probably only reach to the mountains. Some 350,000 emigrants traveled the Oregon, California and Mormon Trails in the 19th century over South Pass to extend our country to the Pacific. The history around that area is superb for any tourist to enjoy.
So there you have it.
No doubt you will not agree on all of them. You should agree with me that there are hundreds of places that are wonderful natural wonders to see in our great state.
What are your 7 favorite natural wonders of Wyoming?
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Friday, August 10, 2007
733 - Challenges to education in Wyoming
A child miseducated is a child lost. – John F. Kennedy
Lately, I have been hearing presentations by prominent people saying things like “we are trying in school to prepare our kids for jobs that do not exist yet.”
This seemed to make a lot of sense.
Also, one school superintendent said we are using 1890 methods to teach our kids, meaning the nine months on and three months off model.
Without sounding too much like an old curmudgeon, after some thought, I came to differ about how jobs will change in the future in Wyoming.
The biggest employment sectors in our state are as follows: tourism, energy, construction, manufacturing, government, services, health care, marketing and agriculture.
Let’s look at each of these and try to figure out how much these jobs may change by 2027.
Several of these are “service sectors” and it is hard to believe that in 20 years workers will be doing markedly different jobs in the areas of tourism, health care, marketing and government? Sure there will be more emphasis on more powerful computers and fancier cell phones and devices that are not invented yet but still service means inter-action between people, which will not change much.
Energy, construction, agriculture and manufacturing will change as technology improves and there will probably be less backbreaking work. But still the processes will remain essentially the same when it comes to mining coal, capturing oil and natural gas or building a road, growing food or making a widget.
So based on my quick curmudgeonly analysis, I thought these people were wrong in predicting this unknown new world.
My brother Ron and my sister Susan are both education professionals and they straightened me out when I presented them my thoughts.
Ron, who works for the Wyoming Education Association sighed at my conclusions and then quoted me the famous line from the movie Caddyshack:
Danny: “Say Judge, I would like to go to college.”
Judge: “Well, Danny, you know the world needs ditch diggers, too.”
Ron said of course there would still be these kinds of jobs I am talking about but we also have an obligation to prepare our kids for the global economy.
My sister Susan Kinneman is the Superintendent of Schools in Dubois and she said the following:
“Teaching has changed dramatically. While we are trying to educate kids for a global economy we have been confined to buildings that constrain our teaching physically.
“Students now are very, very different. Brain and learning research have added so much to our ability to teach well and individually. People don`t like to think of schools changing because of the nostalgia of their own education and ‘I turned out okay.’ Well, we don`t want medicine to be the same as in the past. I don`t think education should be either.
“We have much, much better measures of student learning now and so many more options to try to help children achieve. Yes, the nine-month school year is archaic. So is a six-hour day. And no school on weekends? Our hospitals, police force and retail stores are not open just a few hours a day.
“Students of the future need access to education from all over the world and at all times of day. The Carnegie unit is archaic. That`s the state statute that says kids have to complete ‘Carnegie’ units to graduate even if they are already advanced in the subject,” she concludes.
So today’s kids are different? Here is what a national expert says about today’s young peoples’ attention spans and their desire to be online all the time: “These kids are saying: Forget it! I don’t want to work in a place where I can’t be freely online during the day.” – Anne Kirah of Microsoft.
Many people have seen the video on the Internet called Shift Happens. If just half the stuff on it is true, well, we are in for a huge surprise in the next 20 years.
Here are just three things presented:
• The largest English-speaking country in the world in 20 years will be China.
• There are more kids in China that are considered high achievers (the top 25%) than there are total children in the USA.
• Today’s young people are expected to have held more than 10 different jobs by the time they are 38 years old.
Whew! Perhaps it is time to quote our most famous smart person: “Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one learned in school.” – Albert Einstein
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Saturday, August 4, 2007
731 Characters and character
I believe in you and your future. It is not education but your character that will count the most in the end. – President Teddy Roosevelt speaking to 10,000 people on UW campus in 1904, as quoted by Sen. John Barrasso.
During Sen. John Barrasso’s first road trip around the state, he held his first meeting in Lander, and I asked him the first question: What was your biggest shock in getting around the capitol?
After his swearing in, he was walking with the Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and former U. S. Sen. Malcolm Wallop of Wyoming into one of the adjoining rooms. They were stopped by a very serious doorman.
Sen. Barrasso reminded the doorman, that this was former Sen. Wallop, after all, and it was okay.
The doorman looked at him sternly and said, “I know who he is. Who are you?”
Sen. Barrasso is proud of his dad and cites his father’s life when he talks about character.
His dad quit school at 9th grade to go to work to support his family. He also fought in the Battle of the Bulge in World War II. The new senator wore his late father’s dog tags at his swearing in.
His dad always said that “Thank God very day that you live in America”
Not everybody was happy with the way the late Craig Thomas’ U. S. Senate seat was filled by Dr. Barrasso.
Phil Roberts and Warren Lauer of Laramie felt the Democrats deserved a little credit for their side.
Had the Republican legislature not overturned Democratic Gov. Mike Sullivan’s veto in 1993, then the way a new Senator would have been chosen would been through a different system.
Oddly, today in Wyoming in the case of a House vacancy a special election is held quickly. This occurred when our U. S. Rep. Dick Cheney was tagged to become Secretary of Defense. In the Senate, we see the current process.
So, while imagining that such a law did not exist, Mr. Roberts and Mr. Lauer put together their own dream team of people they would have submitted for such a selection (or election) process, if the Democrats were asked.
This cast of characters included two well-known Jackson Hole residents, Ted Ladd and Gary Trauner, who ran strong races in the past four years against U. S. Rep. Babara Cubin. These two men stand poised and ready for another statewide race in 2008, which could pose breakthroughs for their party against the entrenched Republicans.
Mr. Ladd has proven himself, both as a campaigner and as a member of the Wyoming Business Council, to have a good Wyoming following and will be attractive to lots of voters.
Mr. Trauner came within an eyelash of defeating Rep. Cubin in 2006. The race was oh, so close. At one time on election night, CNN even called the race for Mr. Trauner. But by morning, the incumbent had prevailed, once again.
The Roberts-Lauer list of Wyoming Democrat includes:
Tex Boggs, Chris Boswell, John Burman, Kathy Emmons, Dave Freudenthal, Dale Groutage, Kathy Karpan, Lisa Kinney, Deb Hammons, John Henley, Paul Hickey, Ted Ladd, Rodger McDaniel, Mike Massie, Pete Maxfield, Jayne Mockler, Nyla Murphy, Greg Phillips, Ann Robinson, Ann Rochelle, Bob Schuster, Mike Sullivan and Gary Trauner. And of course, you need to add to the list the compilers, themselves, Phil Roberts and Warren Lauer.
Interestingly, Joyce Jansa (former Lander mayor who now lives in Rock Springs) who ran against Sen. Enzi in 2002 was not on their list.
When you talk about our current senators, you have to give the Italians some credit for their inroads into Wyoming politics – both of our U. S. Senators have Italian surnames, Sen. John Barrasso and Sen. Mike Enzi.
Now if just former U. S. Rep. Teno Roncalio could be reincarnated – people might have a tough time discerning whether these folks represent Wyoming or New Jersey, at least by the last names, anyway.
I present this information with all due respect.
There is an obvious connection between character and ethics.
My favorite definition of character is that it describes how you behave when nobody is looking.
In Congress, the House just passed overwhelmingly a bill to improve the ethics of its members. One important consideration is not allowing retired members to lobby their former buddies for at least two years.
In Wyoming, a state legislative committee has decided to raise the individual campaign contribution limit from $1,000 to $3,0000. This seems extreme, but it is the first increase in 30 years.
Many solons think it will help clean up previous dishonest campaign contributions. I am not so sure. Could be a heck of an advantage for those candidates with rich friends, though.
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