The Kemmerer City Council held a meeting on Dec. 11, that included reappointments to the Zoning Board and the Fossil Basin Promotion Board. The council also appointed a Kemmerer Municipal Judge, alternate Kemmerer Municipal Judge, Kemmerer City Attorney and Prosecuting Attorney.

The Kemmerer museum is undergoing a remarkable transformation. The Fossil Country Frontier Museum Corporation was dissolved a couple of years ago, necessitating a new board, new name, new nonprofit … new everything.

EVANSTON — Michelle Nielsen of Kemmerer was awarded a scholarship from Soroptimist International Evanston on Thursday, Dec. 14, during a banquet at the Legal Tender in Evanston. Nielsen has already completed a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) degree with a background in geriatrics and is working on an RN (registered nursing) degree. She will graduate from Western Wyoming Community College (WWCC) in May 2024.

KEMMERER — New Zealand woman Monique Sullivan was sentenced to 12-17 years in prison on Wednesday, Dec. 20. Sullivan was found guilty of manslaughter by a 12-person jury in a weeklong trial that concluded on Nov. 17. She was charged with second-degree murder in February after she stabbed her fiancé, who died after being transported to South Lincoln Medical Center.

f Wyoming keeps throwing hay to help elk survive the winter, the state is creating a future where wapiti will be ravaged by chronic wasting disease and dramatically reduced in number. Hunter opportunities, likewise, will fall off significantly. At least that’s what the experts expect.

KEMMERER — Jacob and Jesica Lozier have had a busy year and while each of them has a ‘day job’ they managed to open their business, The Opera House Store, to the public on Dec. 1. The mercantile and bakery offers daily food specials including soup and salad bar.

KEMMERER — Natural gas company Williams Pipeline has applied for an expansion project that would increase capacity to Opal, a major regional natural gas hub in Wyoming, to meet growing regional and west coast demand. The MountainWest Overthrust pipeline project is an expansion of the existing pipeline system and will be regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to ensure cooperation with other state, local and federal regulatory agencies, and community stakeholders.

Karyn Black, Cindy Vetos, Laurie McKee, Jolene Bartlett and Renee Hunzie have made the once-a-month drive to Valley Fabric Shop for several years for the Saturday Sampler class. This year, they decided to work together to complete a quilt and donate it to the Turning Point as a fundraiser. Each woman completed a couple of blocks and then Jolene assembled the blocks together and Renee quilted it. This beautiful nativity quilt will be on display at the Live Nativity event. The quilt will be raffled on a Facebook raffle.

The Wyoming Department of Corrections’ transfer of 240 inmates to a private Mississippi prison due to a staffing shortage is a temporary fix to an ongoing problem, WDOC Director Dan Shannon says. “We don’t have an inmate housing issue,” Shannon told WyoFile. “We have a staffing problem.”

In a victory for transportation safety and wildlife, the Wyoming Department of Transportation will receive a $24.3 million federal grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation to complete a wildlife crossing project south of Kemmerer. The grant will be used for the Kemmerer Wildlife Crossing Project on U.S. Highway 189 in southwest Wyoming. The project will consist of five underpasses, one overpass and fencing improvements along a 30-mile stretch between Evanston and Kemmerer.

KEMMERER — Kemmerer resident and founder of Cowboy Slots Brantley Popp officially announced the Cowboy Slots gambling zone at the Shoshone Rose Casino in Lander, to open on Friday, Dec. 15. After reaching nearly 200,000 subscribers, millions of views on YouTube, and Popp’s features on the website’s caricature, he is getting used to being seen. He said his Cowboy Slots YouTube channel educates people on how to gamble smarter and, although the startup is based in Kemmerer, it has reached people across the globe.

The Turning Point Annual Hall of Trees held at the Eagles Club in Kemmerer raised funds for The Turning Point on Thursday, Dec. 7. Businesses and individual community members sponsored trees that were raffled. Funds will help local domestic violence victims. (GAZETTE PHOTO/Rose Capellen)

TerraPower and Uranium Energy Corp announced recently a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with objectives of reestablishing domestic supply chains of uranium fuel. This MOU will allow TerraPower and UEC to explore the potential supply of uranium for TerraPower’s first-of-kind Natrium™ reactor1 and energy storage system.

KEMMERER — Phrases such as “balanced multiple use” and “access” were used repeatedly during the town hall meeting in Kemmerer on Monday, Nov. 27, at the South Lincoln Event Center, where the topic of the controversial 3.7 million acres of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land was discussed following a presentation from Rep. Scott Heiner (HD-18).

KEMMERER — Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray spoke about voting integrity at a town hall meeting in Kemmerer on Monday, Nov. 27, at the South Lincoln Event Center. He’d visited Kemmerer schools earlier in the day. Gray took the opportunity at the town hall meeting to share his opinion on election integrity and bills he hopes move through the legislature.

KEMMERER — The first item of business at last week’s Kemmerer City Council meeting was to take action on the proposed amendment to City Ordinance 22-25 Section 19-9 and City Ordinance 2023-883 Section 18-19. Discussion came during the city’s regular meeting on Monday, Nov. 27.

Winter is the time of year to throw on a cozy oversized sweater, grab a bowl of homemade soup, and enjoy the comforts of home. We all love the aroma of fresh-baked bread from the oven or mom’s famous mac and cheese. Winter weather is the perfect excuse to embrace all that is gooey, cheesy and warm.

LARAMIE — The University of Wyoming Board of Trustees’ three-day meeting from Nov. 15-17 featured discussions of ongoing construction projects across campus, budget matters, and notably notices of intent to offer new degree programs, minors, and certificates that will be further discussed early next year.

Rotund, plump, hefty — go ahead and pick the fat synonym and it’ll likely aptly describe Grizzly 566, the second-heaviest grizzly bear ever documented in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. The 19-year-old male was well known to biologists in Yellowstone National Park, where the big bear resides. As a 3-year-old in 2007, he weighed in at 232 pounds. During a 2010 handling, the boar had plumped up to 393 pounds. His weight stayed in that range, registering at 381 pounds when caught and immobilized at age 9 in 2013.

Will open next summer