2018 Year in Review – May

 

Cook and Snyder honored as LCC’s Distinguished Alumni

This Antelope Night for May 2018, Lamar Community College named Erroll Cook (1966) and David Snyder (2005) as its 2018 alumni of the year.

Snyder’s family accepted his award as he had passed away several weeks prior to the annual Antelope Night Awards. Although both Cook and Snyder are long-term residents of the area and successful in their professions and personal lives, their journeys to college were different.

 

Early each year, Lamar Community College solicits nominations from community members, LCC faculty and staff, and alumni for Outstanding Alumni candidates, with selections made in mid-March.

 

Lamar Receives EPA Brownfields Grant

Lamar is one of four Colorado communities set to receive a share of a $1.1M grant to advance environmental assessment and property redevelopment. The other three are Canon City, Florence and Pueblo.  Lamar’s share of the grant is $300,000 to assess properties along the city’s downtown core, including sites along the Arkansas River and the BNSF railroad corridor.  The EPA Brownfields grants can be used to help communities restore blighted properties and to assess potential sources of asbestos contamination in some properties slated for demolition or refurbishment.

The majority of funds for Lamar will be used to conduct a study of buildings in Lamar that have the potential for asbestos content. Several have been identified and listed for future action by the Lamar City Council.  One funding source was addressed by the council in 2016, the Brownfields Area-Wide Planning Program, created by the EPA.  The EPA defines a brownfield as “real property, the expansion, redevelopment or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant or contaminant”.

 

PMC Foundation Observes Golden Jubilee

The creation of the Prowers County Hospital District in 1968 was celebrated Friday, May 11th, at the Prowers Medical Center campus, with a gala jubilee.  The district was formed a half century ago in order to expand services and provide better and continuing healthcare to the residents of southeast Colorado.

PMC board members, members of the hospital medical and administrative staff and various community members were on hand for the semi-formal, black tie event.

Craig Loveless, Prowers Medical Center Chief Executive Officer, provided the welcoming address, thanking the event’s contributing sponsors, including CPR Anesthesia. Loveless highlighted the Foundation board of directors, noting their service to the community and the hospital since its inception in 2011.

The development of the hospital and its role in community health was also highlighted, from the years of early medical practices, dating back to the 1890s in the county, to the transitions of several hospitals into what is Prowers Medical Center today. The one facet that binds those events together was the community’s recognition of the need for a centrally located medical facility and its early financial commitment to sustaining its development for Prowers County.
By Russ Baldwin

 

Wagner Equipment Co. purchases Ag Equipment location in Lamar Colorado

Wagner Equipment Co. will be the new AGCO and Ag allied products dealer, serving customers in the Lamar area. H. Manning Co., after many years of dedicated service in the Lamar area, has chosen to sell their business assets at 7265 U.S Hwy 50 to Wagner Equipment Co. Wagner will assume operations on May 21st with no interruptions in service.

Wagner is an AGCO Dealer representing a variety of AGCO Products in select territories throughout Colorado and New Mexico. Wagner is also the Caterpillar Dealer for Colorado, New Mexico and Far West Texas.

 

Council Confirms Resolution on ARPA Bonds

The Lamar City Council, during its May 29th meeting, approved Resolution 18-05-01 which ratifies and confirms Resolution 18-03-01 approving the issuance of $143M refunding bonds by the Arkansas River Power Authority. The funds are for the outstanding debt for construction of the Lamar Repowering Project.

Since March of this year, ARPA has been negotiating with Tri-State G & T to replace ARPA as the electrical power for its six member cities.  The negotiations won’t be finalized in time to “defease” the bonds within the time limits provided for in the settlement ARPA reached with the City of Lamar.  In order to meet that obligation, ARPA is asking its members to re-affirm its previous action to refund ARPA’s outstanding bonds and to provide for the “extraordinary redemption” of the refunding bonds when the negotiations with Tri-State have been concluded.

 

Camp Amache Pilgrimage

A tradition that has been maintained for over 40 years was observed again this weekend at Camp Amache in Granada.

Over 100 attendees visited the Japanese-American internment camp which was originated in 1942 this past Saturday, May 19th. A visit to the site by relatives of those who were re-located from their homes during WW2 included a ceremony at the cemetery as well as visits to a reconstructed barrack, the restored water tank and a guard tower.  Afterwards a buffet reception was held at the Granada High School.  Those in attendance included U.S. Senator Cory Gardner, Prowers County Commissioners Tom Grasmick and Wendy Buxton-Andrade, Akhiro Izumi Consulate-General of Japan in Denver, Calvin Hada President of the Japanese American Association of Colorado, Friends of Amache and Granada teacher John Hopper and his team of volunteer students from the Amache Preservation Society.

Senator Gardner offered information on the progress being made to enable the National Park Service to incorporate Camp Amache into its domain, noting that it will be a lengthy process, but one that will help increase knowledge of the camp and the role it and other camps like it, played in in the Second World War and the impact it had on Japanese Americans who were incarcerated there during the war’s duration. “It’s an event that we should never forget, and will take steps to be certain that anything like it never occurs again,” he told the audience.
By Russ Baldwin

 

Tamarisk Program Begins Restoration Phase

A tamarisk eradication spray program begun almost ten years ago along a portion of the Arkansas River has transitioned into a restoration project this year by the Colorado Division of Natural Resources and Parks and Wildlife. Travis Black, Colorado Parks and Wildlife area manager, said a restoration program has begun which will re-seed the areas between Granada and the Kansas State Line.  “The area will be re-vegetated with natural grass species along with willow shrubs and we’re planting cottonwood poles as well,” he explained, adding that the eradication program took some hops and skips between the towns along the river to the Kansas border.

A collaboration of a number of groups including the NRCS and Prowers County sought grant funding to finance the aerial spraying of approximately 400 acres to begin with in 2009, but because of increased funding and a lower cost of service, the area was increased to 1,500 acres.

Black said, some of the spraying was more effective than anticipated as a lot of the undergrowth was killed off along with the tamarisk and that eliminated the cover local wildlife species could use. The revegetation program will help restore the riparian areas to their natural state and habitat.  Not all of the funding is complete for the entire stretch of river into Kansas, but the acreage has been cleared along the Arkansas River, especially visible as you cross the bridge along Highway 50 just a few miles west of Holly.
By Russ Baldwin