Continuing the Crook County News Since 1884

Letters to the Editor

To the Editor,

I just finished reading your article on the Military Veterans’ Memorial in the Court House square and want you to know how much I enjoyed it. I appreciate the good things you put in about our little town. Some of these treasures we have in our town help tell and show others, especially newcomers why we are a wonderful place to live. Where people are friendly and always ready to give a helping hand and cherish the things we have here.

I have some good memories of this memorial from its beginning to now. So this is a little personal history about it that I thought I would like to share.

I remember well the bare corner of the courthouse yard and when they started the Monument. I don’t remember the exact date but know that the American Legions in the area got it going.

There was Roy Montgomery Post #80 at Hulett that encompassed Veterans from Hulett, Alva, Aladdin, Mona, Devils Tower and there was one at Sundance and there might have been others. They all got together and decided on a tribute to veterans, this was a little after World War II was over.

My father Harold Wells was very involved in the American Legion and was Commander at this time. The groups got together and decided that Sundance as the county seat was the place for a tribute to Crook Counties Veterans. What to do next? The County Commissioners looked after the Courthouse property so a committee was formed and off they went to the see the Commissioners.

Of course it was approved as the patriotic thing to do and would be a nice attraction to the area. They immediately started plans.

My father had a trucking business and had two trucks used for hauling livestock, grain, lumber and you name it. He also did a lot of building and had tools and a cement mixer.

Plans were made and a date was set for every Legionnaire who could would meet in Sundance and start the monument. Equipment was loaded in the truck and I got to go along with father.

That was a privilege for a teenage girl. I was surprised when we turned in at Devils Tower where we picked up the Ranger in charge as he was a veteran and a member of the Hulett group. His name has fled my memory but he was a very nice person who had volunteered for a day’s work on the Monument.

At that time, I chose to get in the back of the truck which had the grain box on and I could lay down on a quilt mother always insisted we travel with (I’m sure this would not be acceptable today).

It was a great day with lots of people there to work and some to watch and I’m sure some to advise. Mid day my father sent me to the truck to get a big box mother had sent, many women were there and were putting food out to feed the workers.

This was my mother’s contribution as she couldn’t be there; I seemed to remember it was a box of her famous doughnuts. The men all worked hard with more than one cement mixer and late in the day it seemed there was a large concrete base to start building the monument on. A long day but I felt it was a privilege to watch these men build a monument they believed in.

A funny little incident happened many years later. The new courthouse had been built and the museum was in the basement. They were sorting pictures and needed help. So I wandered in to help.

The box held a picture I knew. It was taken the day I have talked about and there was my father in the front row. Someone had listed names of the men in the photo but the one for my father was blank. I knew the woman who seemed to be in control so I told her that was my father.

She said she didn’t think so they were checking it out and thought it was Mr. _____ who lived on the Moskee road. I told her I knew it was my dad. So I went back to checking the names and there was the Ranger who had come with us. He always wore his officer’s cap and a uniform. So I pointed that out to her and she told me I didn’t know what I was talking about as that was young J____ who lived right there in Sundance.

She told me further that the one I said was my father couldn’t be because all the men who were there were from Sundance as this was a Sundance project. She was wrong. It was a memorial of and to all veterans of Crook County, Wyoming.

I don’t remember ever getting to go watch the work on the Memorial again but know that my father and others took many Saturdays as work days and made the trip to Sundance to do their share. As it went up they put out a call for the men to bring a special rock from their area to be used on the Memorial.

I remember my father took a large agate rock that he had brought from his homestead in Montana and I always knew where it was. I haven’t checked for a long time but when it quits snowing I will go look. The Memorial got finished and was a shining object in our town.

One day my father had been visiting us and we walked ‘up town’ with him and I saw him stand and salute. He was the most patriotic person I have known and it must have come from his service in World War I in France and Germany.

Well, time marched on and I had three sons who were avid Boy Scouts who were working toward being Eagle Scouts. Their final thing was to do was a community service project of their own choice and doing the work themselves (this was accomplished with great encouragement from long time Boy Scout Leader Tom Graham and as he would say a kick in the rear if needed).

The two younger boys quickly chose a project but Rick couldn’t decide. One day we took a walk up town and stopped at the Memorial. He looked around it and said. This thing needs some work, maybe I could fix it.

In those days it hadn’t had a so-called sponsor yet and it was dirty and the wood had peeling paint. He looked at me and said, “Mom, I could clean that up for my project”.

Good idea, so off we went to see the commissioners. They said go ahead, so he hauled a step ladder from our house and a scraper and tools.

He worked many days that summer and the peeling paint was scraped from the wood and painted. Then he announced “the glass is so dirty you can hardly see the name plates.” Again he worked on several years of dirt on the glass and it was finished. His project was complete and the Scout Council accepted it. Soon he was standing with his two brothers as the three of them were commissioned as Eagle Scouts at the same time.

Time went by and times got better and different groups started programs to take care of things like the Memorial and it has been taken care of, repaired and added to and is still a great attraction in our town.

Joining my father as a veteran was son Randy who had a long time military career and was a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne and managed to travel to many places around the world.

Rick gave 16 years of his life with the South Dakota National Guard doing Guard projects throughout the Black Hills. He also liked being Camp Cook.

I have precious memories of this memorial and great respect for veterans.

I thought the history of our family ties to the monument might be interesting to some, but then who am I to know, I’ve only lived in Sundance 68 years.

Rose Zella Proctor

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Dear Editor,

I am writing in regards to the recent article on hemp in the April 25 issue of the Sundance Times written by Jonathan Gallardo of the Gillette News Record. Hemp is most certainly a four-letter word and is already creating huge headaches for Wyoming.

Wyoming’s Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) was already overloaded trying to keep illicit drugs out of the state. Now they have to contend with hemp, which looks and smells like marijuana. The only way to differentiate the two is to test it with specialized lab equipment. Hence the state will need to spend millions more taxpayer dollars on special equipment, personnel and training.

In the April article, two people from National Organization for the Reformation of Marijuana Laws (NORML) were interviewed in support of hemp in Wyoming. Interestingly enough, marijuana was not mentioned at all. But if you go to the NORML website, it shows that they are all about the legalization of marijuana.

Maybe we missed it, but we did not even see the word hemp on their website. Twenty years ago, they would have been called drug pushers. Now they are called advocates, or lobbyists. Yet what has changed? It’s perception.

NORML’s mission is clear on their website. Just like it says in the article, NORML won’t be slowing down with the legalization of hemp. The full legalization of marijuana is what they really want. Hemp is just a stepping stone and a foot in the door.

The new genetically modified cannabis is far more powerful and dangerous, and not just a gateway drug. It causes hallucinations, psychological disorders, birth defects, suicide, violence and it’s highly addictive. It directly and indirectly causes crime and poverty.

Wyoming doesn’t need any form of cannabis to have a successful and varied economy. We have quality, hard-working people here. In Colorado, where marijuana is legal, it is difficult for employers to find employees that can pass a drug test, which is required for many good jobs like working heavy machinery or piloting aircraft. Businesses have reluctantly relocated to other states in order to find quality people.

Big cannabis companies capitalize on people’s weaknesses and suck the money and life out of a community and society at large. One of the reasons all cannabis varieties have been illegal thus far, is due to the difficulty policing it; a crop of hemp has the ability to produce widely varied levels of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in spite of human agricultural regulation. THC levels in hemp can skyrocket for no reason, imitating its so-called “distant cousin” marijuana.

I applaud Idaho and the governor of South Dakota for stopping the legalization of cannabis hemp. Let’s keep the facts and the people of Wyoming in mind the next time we go to the Republican primary polls.

Respectfully,

Jeffrey Burian

Moorcroft

 
 
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