Fresh from a river trip through Cataract Canyon in Utah, five passengers and the pilot of a single-engine Cessna faced a nasty emergency: The plane from Redtail Aviation was lugging, failing to gain altitude. Adding to the tension was the weight of at least one man, reports the Times-Independent of Moab, Utah.
He weighed “above normal” and two other men were “in the 200-pound range.” It isn’t clear who made the decision, but it began to rain river bags over Lake Powell. The lightened plane lifted and landed safely in Moab. Three of five dry bags that were dropped have been recovered, but two are sought, and in them are firearms valued at about $500 each. Guns, however, are prohibited inside Canyonlands National Park, where the river trip took place. The FAA is investigating the incident.
On a Web site for candidates, Paul Tuss of Cut Bank, Mont., declares that he wants the Democratic Party’s nomination for secretary of state, yet it seems he hasn’t had time to think why, reports the Billings Gazette. A two-sentence summary of his candidacy reads: “The secretary of state’s office is important because blah, blah, blah. As we enter the next millennium, I think it’s crucial that we XXX.”
A mysterious caption ran in The Denver Post recently, under a photo of two laughing women about to embrace: “Here is the copy for this cutline at whatever size and whatever number of lines and legs indicated herein and so on and so on and so on and so on.” Every editor dreads running the space saver instead of the real thing. And it’s so easy to spot them – after an issue is printed.
A sheriff’s deputy entered the realm of the mysterious, a police blotter item in western Colorado’s Daily Sentinel reveals: “A Mesa County Sheriff’s Department deputy responded to a report of a strange light shining on a Grand Junction woman’s barn early Sunday morning. The responding deputy was able to assure the woman that it was only the moon.”
How can you be a good neighbor when your neighbor is in a state of decay? Residents of rural George, Wash., say they’re besieged by a 15-acre mound of apple pulp that’s up to 3 feet deep. The reeking mass of mash not only breeds swarms of fruit flies, reports Capital Press, but it also attracts rodents and other pests. Jim Weitzel, who lives a quarter-mile from the waste pile, says his backyard trees have been devoured by fruit flies so tenacious he sometimes can’t leave his house. The county health department now hopes a composting plan might work. The apple pulp has been decaying for two years.
The problem is hog manure in Wheatland, Wyo. “I woke up this morning with a strange odor in my nose,” said one resident, “and it smelled like pigs.” What’s worse, reports the Casper Star-Tribune, is that neighbors feel frustrated because they believed Wyoming Premium Farms manager Doug DeRouchey, that “manure doesn’t smell.” Now, a state air quality engineer is hog-tied because Wyoming codes are weak. A county commissioner admitted his hands are also tied: “We couldn’t stop Wyoming Premium Farms from the beginning from coming in here because we didn’t have the planning and zoning regulations,” said county chairman Chuck Frederick. Residents recently signed a petition protesting “the increasingly offensive odors permeating our properties and profoundly affecting our daily lives.”
Hikers in the outback occasionally find weird stuff. If you wander around 13,365-foot Gold Dust Peak in western Colorado this summer, you could find four 500-pound bombs. Also be on the alert for 91 flares, 194 30-mm shells, and the odd piece off a $9 million war plane. The weapons are what was not found after an Air Force captain slammed his jet into the mountain on the White River National Forest in 1997. The Air Force says the pilot probably blew up the bombs before he crashed and that scattered flares post the greater risk to tourists. When tripped, phosphorous inside the flares burns at 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit for five seconds. Hikers in the remote area will see warning signs illustrating what’s missing from the plane, plus the possible risks of stumbling onto something military. What no one has learned is why the 32-year-old pilot flew from a bombing range in southern Arizona to a deadly rock wall near Vail, Colo.
Signs of the times: A bumper sticker spotted in Jackson, Wyo., targets cellular-phone-aholics with the message “Hang up and Drive.” In Laramie, Wyo., Satoko Kurita says a worker at the Pedal House got so mad at having her bicycle stolen that she whipped up a sticker reading: “We still hang bike thieves in Wyoming.”
If you’ve seen one little owl, have you seen them all? Arizona Gov. Jane Hull apparently thinks so. Pesky federal biologists have stymied subdivisions by declaring 731,000 acres of state land critical habitat for the pygmy owl, she complains. “(The pygmy owls) actually belong in northern Mexico,” she explained, during a weekly radio show. “If you want to see them, you can go to Mexico and see plenty of them. I have been arguing with the Forest Service about turning all of Tucson almost into an owl habitat.” Conservationists such as Kieran Suckling of the Southwest Center for Biological Diversity said Gov. Hull’s comments show “she has no concept of protecting state land,” reports the Arizona Republic.
Wherever she is resting, Margaret Mead is probably rolling over at 500 rpm. “We will march (through the heart of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho),” said Aryan Nations leader Richard Butler, July 9, who then paraphrased the late anthropologist: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, proud and committed people can change the world.”
Close quarters that might tempt a man to sin will no longer tempt an Air Force officer in Minot, N.D. Ryan Berry, 26, who is married and the father of a baby daughter, has been “decertified from working with nuclear missiles,” reports the Associated Press. Berry, who said he was a strong Roman Catholic, never objected to women in the military; he said he couldn’t be cooped up with them. Women found his attitude off the wall: “You’re so busy and dirty that the last thing you want to do is take off your clothes and have sex,” said Alison Ruttenberg, who in 1979 became one of the first women to work in an underground missile silo. The Air Force had been routinely assigning Berry only male colleagues when crew members complained that this was special treatment.
Heard around the West invites readers to get involved in the column. Send any tidbits that merit sharing – small-town newspaper clips, personal anecdotes, relevant bumper sticker slogans. The definition remains loose. Heard, HCN, Box 1090, Paonia, CO 81428 or betsym@hcn.org.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Heard around the West.
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