A Look Back At 1998; The Year In Review Recapping the year's happenings in Garfield County has been a tradition to kick off the New Year. It's always interesting to check back on a year that seems to have passed by much too quickly. What will the final year of this millennium bring? The following events didn't all happen only yesterday it just seems that way: JANUARY A Shaky Start Most Garfield County residents were shaken suddenly and sharply awake by an earthquake that jolted the area at 12:28 a.m. on Jan. 2. The quake, centered in Beaver, measured 4.6 on the Richter Scale. Forest Revenues Dixie National Forest Supervisor Super-visor Hugh Thompson announced that the previous year's timber program had yielded an estimated $12,131,021 in income to local communities and sustained about 63 local jobs. Retirees Dave Harris, range technician on the Powell Ranger District of the Dixie National Forest, retired after 31 years of service. Jerry LeFevre, civil engineering technician techni-cian with the Panguitch Engineering Engineer-ing Organization of the Dixie National Forest, retired after 30 years of federal service. Both retirees are Panguitch residents. Garkane In the first week of January, nearly 6,000 member-consumers of Garkane Power Association received their ballots to vote on the proposed move of the cooperative's headquarters from its longtime Richfield location to a location on the company's service system. There Was Snow! Cross country skiers were enjoying their favorite wintertime sport at Rubys Inn located in the Bryce Canyon area where there was abundant early January snow. Discussions Start on Wild And Scenic Rivers The Planning Team for the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (GSENM) began a series of meetings on possible Wild and Scenic Rivers designation in the monument. First Baby of 1998 Garfield Memorial Hospital welcomed the first new baby of 1998, Elizabeth Dee Ahlstrom, who was born to Mike and Lesa Ahlstrom of Tropic. Fund-Raiser Starts Fund-raising efforts got underway under-way for little 15-month-old Jose Luis Mendoza Diaz of Peru who was badly in need of surgery to correct a cleft palate. Coordinating the fund-raising efforts were Elder Mark Munson who was serving an LDS mission in Peru and his mother Sharon Munson of Panguitch. Pan-guitch. Impending Road Closures Dixie National Forest Teasdale Ranger District Ranger Marvin Turner, Loa, explained impending road closures scheduled for the top of Boulder Mountain to Garfield County Commissioners. Basketball In the early weeks of January, Panguitch High School's boys basketball team won the Cowboy Classic at Kanab, defeating Hurricane Hurri-cane 68-49 and Snow Canyon 55-53. 55-53. The Bobcats then traveled to face region co-leader Wayne at Bicknell and blew past the Badgers 68-53. In other games, Escalante buried Fredonia 86-61. Panguitch girls lost to top-ranked Valley 62-34. 62-34. Panguitch moved into first place all alone with their win ove , Wasatch Academy, with Escalante in sixth place and Bryce Valley in seventh. Then the Panguitch girls captured first place in the Sophomore Tournament on Jan. 17 in a thrilling overtime with Wayne 52-47. In boys play, Panguitch improved to 11-1 with wins over Milford 65-52 and Bryce Valley 69-43. 69-43. Escalante lost to Valley in a close one 54-46 and lost to Piute 68-48. Bryce Valley played one of their best games of the season before losing to Wayne 63-59. In varsity girls games, Valley defeated Panguitch at Valley 56-42. Panguitch Lake Snowmobile Drag Races The First Annual Panguitch Lake Snowmobile Drag Races took place on Jan. 24 with great success. Coming from as far away as Idaho, Nevada and northern Utah, over 100 entrants raced in 13 heats near Beaver Dam Lodge. Andalex Valued At $59.5 Million Andalex Resources announced (See RECAP on page 4-A) RECAP From Front Page that it had delivered an independent evaluation of its Smoky Hollow Mine to the U.S. Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C. indicating that the fair market value of the mine the day before the creation of the Grand Staircase-Escalante Staircase-Escalante National Monument was $59.5 million. Garkane Members Vote On Move After Garkane Power Association's Associ-ation's member-consumers cast their votes in the proposal to move the company's headquarters from Richfield to a location on the company's service system, judges counted 1,884 (63 percent) votes in favor of the move and 1,104 against (37 percent), three percent short of the two-thirds majority the company's com-pany's attorney claimed was necessary. neces-sary. Hospital Foundation Sets 1998 Goals At their January meeting, the Garfield Memorial Hospital Foundation Foun-dation Board of Directors discussed the success of earlier fund-raisers and considered future means of raising moneys to benefit the hospital and long term care center. State Bank of Southern Utah Holds Grand Opening A grand opening was held on the last Friday in January for State Bank of Southern Utah in Tropic, marking the establishment of the first full service bank in the Bryce-Bryce Bryce-Bryce Valley area. Wes Clarke was named manager, Nellie Mecham, operations manager; and Cheri Feltner and Cheryl Pollock. Panguitch Shakes Again Another earthquake marked the final Friday at 2:53 in the afternoon, after-noon, centered about 1 1 miles north northwest of Panguitch. It measured mea-sured 3.0 on the Richter scale. Basketball That night, the Panguitch High boys basketball team got past a very good Wayne team 66-53 to assure themselves of at least a tie for first in the Region 15 regular season. The Bobcats had a two-game two-game lead on Milford and a three-game three-game lead over Wayne with two games to play. Milford and Wayne would have to battle it out at Bicknell and each would have to play an always tough Piute team. Escalante swept past Wasatch Academy by a whopping 96-42 and were getting ready to play Panguitch. Pan-guitch. Bryce Valley played Milford Mil-ford and were scheduled to host Valley. The Panguitch girls defeated Escalante, and combined with Wayne's losses to Piute, sewed up second place in the region to enter the state tournament as the second-rated second-rated team behind Valley from Region 15. , When the Panguitch Bobettes arrived in Panguitch on Saturday night, cheering fans greeted the first place state championship 1-A drill team after their impressive victory at the state tournament in Orem. Travel Council Revenues Travel Council revenues for the previous year totaled $473,376. Bryce Canyon National Park experienced exper-ienced a 3 percent drop in visitation in 1997. Figures for both the Travel Council and for BCNP for 1998 should be forthcoming soon. FEBRUARY A Narrow Escape At Bryce on Feb. 1, two Las Vegas residents who flew in to Bryce Canyon Airport to vacation for the day in the area, had a brief harrowing experience trying to fly out again. Jen Blessly and pilot Gary Button were forced to land in a relatively flat area about five miles north of the airport after a takeoff that failed to gain their Cessna 150 sufficient altitude to fly. Neither was injured and the plane sustained little damage. Sports News In the first week of February, the Panguitch High School wrestling wrest-ling team placed second at the Region 15 wrestling tournament held in Junction. In basketball, the Panguitch girls defeated Milford 57-36, 57-36, and the boys stopped Escalante 68-55. Valley defeated Bryce Valley Val-ley 68-50 before their final game with Piute. Escalante was set to travel to Milford and Panguitch would host Wasatch Academy as the regular season began coming to a close, down Annual Winterfest In full regalia, from cowboy hats to cowboy boots, local cowboys cow-boys and cowgirls took part in a special race at the 14th Annual Rubys Inn winterfest at Bryce. Some very enthusiastic Bryce Canyon National Park Service personnel also participated in the always-popular people-powered sled raceS. PHS Wrestlers Take Second in State The PHS wrestling team captured a well-deserved second (See RECAP on page 5-A) RECAP ; ' ' From page 4-A : place at the 1-A State Wrestling i;. Tournament where three team . members, Jeremiah Bogcr, Jeremy Poll, and Shaun Olsen captured first place wins. $12.5 Million Escalante Center Announced The official announcement of plans for a multi-faceted $12.5 .' million artsscience center, to be known as the Escalante Center. The project is a collaboration of Southern Utah University, the . Garfield County School District, ; the Last Wagon History Museum, the Escalante Canyons Center for the Arts and Humanities, The Escalante Eco-Resort, and the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monu- ment. . . Garkane Board Decision The controversy over moving Garkane Power Association's headquarters head-quarters from Richfield to Hatch : : appeared to be live and well. At the ' electrical cooperative's board of directors meeting in Kanab, board members passed a motion, five to three, to stay with their original . August 1997 decision to move the ' company's headquarters to Hatch. Girls State : : : Basketball Tournament - The Panguitch High Bobcats made a surprise entry into the girls 1-A. finals on Feb. 21, riding a three-game winning streak before ' falling to Valley 64-41 in the championship game. Escalante, meanwhile, made their first-ever ; state playoffs and won the consolation championship, defeat-.; defeat-.; ing Monument Valley 43-38. . Panguitch opened up the tourn-'; tourn-'; ament blasting Salt Lake Christian " 61-31. Escalante lost the first day to the number-two-rated Dugway Mustangs 55-30. Both teams played well the second day as Panguitch won on the championship side 63-47 over Waterford and the Moquis won a close one 46-45 over Wayne. On . Friday, Panguitch defeated Manila in the semi-finals 44-40. Escalante ,' ' had to go overtime before stopping -,- Green River 52-43. On Saturday, Escalante won their final game and ; the consolation championship, 43- 38. Panguitch came into the tourn-. tourn-. ament ranked fourth and came away second. Boys Region Basketball On the final Saturday night in February, the Panguitch High Bobcats won the Region 15 Basketball Tournament in Cedar ' City with a tense 53-45 victory ' ' over Milford. It was the first re-'. re-'. gion tournament championship for PHS since 1990. In other games, . . Valley finished third, Piute fourth, Wayne fifth and Bryce Valley sixth. On the first day of the tournament, Panguitch defeated .Wasatch Academy; Valley stopped Escalante 69-61; and Milford defeated Bryce Valley 58-37. On ' ' the second day, the Bobcats defeated ; Piute 66-55 and Bryce Valley '- defeated Escalante 73-65. The final day of the tournament saw Bryce .. Valley lose to Wayne 73-53, but : with still a chance for state , competition if they could win in a playoff game against Tintic They -lid, and headed for state competition. compe-tition. MARCH Boys State Tourney The Panguitch High Bobcats won their second state basketball v . championship in a decade on ' Saturday, Mar. 7, when they defeated the Rich Rebels 65-59 at -.the Cedar City Centrum. Perhaps 'more impotent than the final victory were the game and pre-game : activities on Friday. Prior to the game between Panguitch and " : number-one-ranked Tabiona, the Bobcats bus carrying the team in a ! violent snowstorm to the Centrum : was involved in a freeway accident '. j: with a semi-truck. The team was shaken but real tragedy was averted ; . : by skillful driving and a group of :. ' nervous players continued in the ' ' bus to the Centrum, arriving only X40 minutes before tipoff. Minor injuries suffered by one team member were stitched by a Panguitch physician there for the games. The shaken team was behind 33-23 at the half but rallied in the second half and began pouring it on the Tigers to take the game. In the other two games for Panguitch, the Bobcats simply blew away the competition, winning Wednesday over Inter-mountain Inter-mountain Christian 82-62 and Wendover on Thursday 90-40. After defeating Tintic in an exciting playoff game, the Bryce Valley Mustangs moved into the state finals for the first time in five years, meeting the terrible Tabiona Tigers for their first game and losing 65-42 on Wednesday. Thursday's game against Enterprise was a heart-breaker, with the Mustangs losing to the Wolves 67-66 67-66 in overtime. Proposed New Signing For Federal Lands Local federal agency representatives represen-tatives met with Garfield County commissioners to introduce proposed pro-posed new signing for federal lands with roads to be designated according to the agency's maintenance main-tenance level. The signs and their designations were being adopted nationwide. More Shaking and Quaking in Panguitch Panguitch was shaking again after a 3.7 earthquake on Sunday, Mar. 15 at 10:57 p.m. The quake was centered about 1 1 miles north northwest of Panguitch and was felt as far away as Cedar City. Sue Nava, Seismograph Network manager mana-ger at the University of Utah said that some 60 earthquakes had been reported in the area since Jan. 1. Sterling Scholar Contestants Seventeen Garfield County students entered competition for Sterling Scholar honors and scholarships. schol-arships. From Escalante, Riley Gait; from Bryce Valley, Tarynn Piatt, Triessa Ramsay, Sarah Johnson, John-son, Cherlynn Twitchell, Brit Twit-chell, Twit-chell, Paul Shakespear, and David Thompson; and, from Panguitch, David Klein, Jeremy Poll, Joni Nelson, Christi Nay, Danny Yard-ley, Yard-ley, Brooke Walter, Catherine Howard, How-ard, Caleb Osborn, and Jennifer Bulkley. Panguitch High Debate Team Takes 3rd in State The Panguitch High School Debate team, in tough competition against six 1-A teams and 12 2-A schools at state competition at Dixie College, came home with a coveted third place win. Students competing were Danny Yardley, Sara Marker, Jeremy Poll, Holly Emerson, Bracken Englestead, Catherine Howard, Lindsey Brem-ner, Brem-ner, Cortney Coffman, Cynthia Prince, Caleb Osborn, Casey McCullough, Preston Gilbert, Cade Crofts, and Pepper Hatch, with alternates Paul Hulet and Airean Emerson. APRIL Sterling Scholar Winner Brit Twitchell, Cannonville, a senior at Bryce Valley High School, was named first runner-up in the Applied Technology category in Sterling Scholar competition held April 2 at Dixie College in St. George. He is a son of Monte and Rita Twitchell of Cannonville. Antimony Road Improvements Garfield County. Commissioners discussed proposed improvements to the Johns Valley Road between Bryce and Antimony that will run approximately $750,000. Funds will be 93 percent federal funding with a 7 percent match from the county. The section would include 5 to 6 miles heading into Black Canyon and could be up to two years away. Bryce Canyon National Park Survey of Visitors Results of a visitor survey conducted at Bryce Canyon National Park during the summer of 1997 were released, with a careful study of those results expected to aid local businesses in their planning for the future. Panguitch Main Street Because of its previous success as a fund-raising project, the Panguitch Main Street committee again began offering for sale a unique coverlet that captures the spirit and history of Panguitch. The coverlet depicts early days in Panguitch and focuses on the historical Quilt Walk. Aquarius Ecosystem Restoration Meet In an effort to encourage public input on road issues for the Aquarius Ecosystem Restoration Project on portions of the Aquarius Plateau and the Barney TopTable Cliffs, the Escalante and Teasdale Ranger Districts of the Dixie National Forest set an open house for Apr. 25 at the Escalante Interagency building. Packets Become Available Preliminary determinations of classification and eligibility for Wild and Scenic Rivers in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument became available for public review and comment by website or through the Cedar City office of GSENM. Body Found Near Ticaboo A decomposed body found Apr. 20 by hikers in the Maidenwater Springs area Ticaboo was taken to Salt Lake City for analysis. The still unidentified female had died execution-style. Firefighters Certificated Tropic's volunteer fire department has a seventh certified firefighter after Gayle Pollock was awarded his certification by Assistant Fire Chief Ron Harris. Five additional tropic firefighters were expected to take their written tests shortly after and were well on their way to the same certification. Mammoth Creek Road Coverage of the first-quarter meeting of Garfield County Commissioners with representatives of local federal agencies revealed that cedar City Ranger District Ron Wilson had told the commissioners that the possibility existed for completing the balance of the Mammoth Creek Road project. Knowing the Constitution Knowing the Constitution paid off well when Bryce Valley High School students returned home victorious after capturing a first place win in a competition that, until 1998, had been held predominantly along the Wasatch Front. The Constitution Stars Bowl was held in Cedar City on Apr. 16 where BVHS students Kirsten Shakespear, Marshall Thompson, Denise Clark, Esther Johnson and Savannah Johnson captured medals, plaques and $30 each. Garkane Preceding Koosharem's annual meeting, board members met for there for their regular meeting monthly board meeting where Genral Manager Carl Albrecht presented his plan for closing the Richfield office to the board in executive session. Member-consumers Member-consumers who were present were told that the presentation required an executive (closed) session because it contained recommendations that could affect the lives of the company's employees. The motion failed to pass, due to a tie. Details of the vote were not revealed. Following the executive session, Albrecht explained his new plan. Contrary to a vote by the board In August 1997 to place the company headquarters in Hatch, Albrecht's plan was to build new permanent offices in Loa, Hatch and in the Kanab service area. Anasazi Curator Recognized Bill Latady, museum curator for the previous four years at Anasazi Indian Village State Park in Boulder, was honored at an awards dinner held in conjunction with the Utah Division of State Parks and Recreation Employee Development School. Latady was presented the Directors Award of Merit by Division Director Cortland Nelson for his work in completing cultural resource inventories at three park locations around the state. Bryce Canyon National Park Policy Changes Recent changes at Bryce Canyon National Park (BCNP) began making maintenance of Garkane Power Association's equipment located within the park's boundaries not only more difficult but also more costly, according to a company spokesman. Following a recent power outage, Garkane's line crews discovered a broken cross arm on an electrical pole in a precarious location in the northern part of the park. The park refused Deer Herds Will Be Up Says DWR Hunters were likely to see more of the mature buck deer they had been asking for after the Division of Wildlife Resources applied its new strategies in Deer and Elk Management Plans were approved in April. The plans would require some changes beginning in 1999 the agency said.