Casper Star-Tribune from Casper, Wyoming • 13

Casper Star Tribune Friday, NovMnbw BORDER TO BORDER B2 OBITUARIES, MORE WYO NEWS B3 Cheyenne woman loses international custody case Parties wrangle oyer campaign finances By JA80N MABSDEN Star-Tribune staff writer CASPER Wyoming Democratic Party Chairwoman Matilda Hansen 'should explain why her party wired to the Kansas Democratic Party on Oct. 18, state Republican Chairman Diemer True said Thursday. Hansen replied Thursday the wire-transfer in which several oth-rer states' parties Joined followed the wishes of contributors and that no Wyoming-directed dollars were diverted away from Wyoming races. Hansen, for her part, had called on True just the day before to withdraw local newspaper advertisements around the state paid for by local GOP groups calling on voters to support Bob Dole, Mike Enzi and Barbara Cubin. Hansen pointed out that federal election law doesn't allow such arms of a state party to support candidates for federal office except through a segregated bank account.

True said he's instructed the local party chairmen to obey that rule -though Hansen has had to do the same. Ironically, the Carbon' County Please see MONET, B6 By KERRY DRAKE Star-Tribune capital bureau CHEYENNE Two children who formerly lived in Cheyenne should remain in the custody of an English woman who is accused of kidnapping them from the United States, a British court ruled last week. The decision went against two American women who both sought custody of the youngsters: Teresa Owens of Cheyenne, the biological mother; and their paternal grandmother, Gloria Resmondo of Foley, Ala. The international custody battle began in October 1995, when Teresa Owens was notified that her former husband, U.S. Army Staff Sgt.

Mitchell Owens, had been killed three months earlier when he was struck by a streetcar in Heidelberg, Germany. At the time of his death, the father had temporary custody of his two sons, John and Michael, who are now 5 and 4, respectively. Teresa Owens learned that her ex-husband had remarried a woman from Leeds, England, named Nicola Walker Owens. She also discovered that after the stepmother took the boys to Alabama for their father's funeral, Nicola Owens returned with them to Germany and then brought them to her home in England. Resmondo, Mitchell Owens' mother, had obtained temporary custody of her grandchildren before their departure from the U.S.

Earlier this year a federal grand jury in Alabama indicted Nicola Owens on two counts of kidnapping. The U.S. State Department is seeking her extradition from England. But the year-long court battle by Teresa Owens and Resmondo to have the boys returned to the U.S. ended when a British judge ruled it is in the best interest of the boys for them to stay in England with their stepmother.

However, the boys remain wards of the British court. Teresa Owens, who has at least tern-Please see CUSTODY, B6 Past, present governors Canyon colors pan term limits proposals Sbrmer speaker 'appalled' at Treasurer's actions Star-Tribune, Morton said he was "appalled" to see Smith on television endorsing the term limits ballot proposals. "Upon completion of his present term, Smith will have Gov. Jim Ger-injger and former Govs. Mike Sullivan, Stan Hathaway and Cliff Hansen came out jointly against both term limits ballot proposals Thursday.

In a release, the served 16 years in the same office," Morton four, governors called on, citizens to vote 'We truly have wrote Smith could not be against Referendum No. 1 and Initiative No. 1 next Tuesday. said Wyoming is-better served by its 1995 equal term limits law, which provides for 12 years each in the House and Senate. In a related term a citizen Legislature.

It serves us CLOT HANSEN, FORMEl GOVKXNOI reached for comment Thursday. Referendum No. 1 would repeal the 1995 state equalizer law and impose the unequal term limits of six years in the House and 12 years in the limits development, a former House Speaker, Warren Morton of Casper, has criticized State Treasurer Stan Smith for supporting both the referendum and the initiative term limits ballot proposals. Smith's full page open letter endorsing the two ballot proposals was the centerpiece of an ad printed in Wyoming newspapers Thursday, including the StarTribune. TJje ad was paid for by Wyoming Citizens for Responsible Government, whose chairman is Jack Adsit of Sheridan.

In a letter to the editor of the Senate originally adopted by voters in 1992. Initiative No. 1 requires candidates for public office to pledge support for congressional term limits or be identified with a notation after their names on the next general election ballot. "We agree there's a need for fresh faces and new ideas in government and have no underlying problems with term limits," the governors said in the release, "but it doesn't make sense to accomplish that through some Please see TERMS B4 UN FMNKUMStef-TribWM Late afternoon light sweeps across the Red Canyon area near Lander enhancing the colors of the region. Wyo beet harvest above average Commissioner districts on Weston ballot Sugar content exceeds last year Would be first ever, tf voters approve Todd was able to gather the required number of signatures to have the ballot proposition placed on the general election ballot, a courthouse spokesman said.

The commissioners, under the state law, would have until March to draw the district lines. The state law requires that geography, population and economics be taken into account in creating the districts. Todd could not be reached for comment. Elliott said he has been working against passage of the proposition. He said that even some voters who signed the petition, after learning more about its implications, "have decided they made a mistake." on the commission, and was seeking election to a four-year term.

Under the same 1985 state law that authorized the enlargement of county commissions from three to five members, the Legislature authorized the creation of up to five separate commissioner districts, with one commissioner from each district. According to Jim Mitchell in the Secretary of State's office, petitions for changes in the form of the commission or the number of commissioners must be signed by 10 percent of the county electorate. No county to date has ever opted for the division of the county into commissioner districts. By KATHARINE COLLINS Southwestern Wyoming bureau ROCK SPRINGS Weston County voters will decide Nov. 5 whether to divide the county into five commissioner districts, with voters in each district selecting a commissioner every four years.

"I don't like it," said Ted Elliott a sitting county commissioner not standing for election this year. "As it is now we represent the whole county, and not just the area we come from." Elliott said the measure stems from one "unhappy candidate," Alan Todd, an Upton rancher who lost the Republican primary last August Todd was appointed to fill a vacancy JEFF GEAKINO StaTribune state reporter TORRINGTON Wyoming farmers will be completing the last bit of the fall sugar beet harvest over the next few days and Holly Sugar Company managers say it was a good year for the state's crop. Predictions last month of an above-average 1996 sugar beet crop have come to fruition and the regular harvest has come off without a hitch, company managers in Torrington and Worland say. harvest has gone really well and we're just finishing up this week with our last couple of growers," said Kelvin Thompsen, district manager for Holly Sugar's Torrington factory. "Quality wise, it's an above average crop this he said.

The Holly Sugar Company's Torrington factory processes sugar beets from growers in Laramie, Platte, Goshen and Niobrara counties in eastern Wyoming. The company's Worland plant processes sugar beets from growers in Hot Springs, Big Horn, Washakie, Park and Fremont counties in north central Wyoming. Estern Wyoming farmers began the regular sugar beet harvest the first week of October. Some beets also harvested early in September as a sam ple of the crop. Thompsen said beet samples from the regular harvest are showing this year's sugar content to be about 2 percent higher than last year's crop.

"We've been averaging right close to 17 percent sugar, which is really good," he said. "And as a result, the factory is having a great campaign." Thompsen said because the factory is receiving such high quality sugar beets, the plant is setting record slice rates and record sugar extraction rates. "The higher the quality of the raw product the growers supply, the greater the factory efficiency is improved," he said. Growers in eastern Wyoming were aided by a very good growing season in the summer and fall, he said. This year's crop should average out around 18 tons per acre.

"It's been a real good year for us," Thompsen said. Worland Holly Sugar Ag Manager Ray Haase said Bighorn Basin sugar beet producers "had a good, dry harvest" that was completed last week. "It's probably been, in recent memory, one of the quietest harvests the guys have had," he said. Haase said this year's crop came in around the mid-17 percent in sugar content and at around the 20-tons per acre range. "We're now processing those sugar beets, running them through the factory and turning them into sugar," he said.

Write-in challenging two-term Rep in HD 34 By KATHARINE COLLINS Southwestern Wyoming bureau ROCK SPRINGS A Democrat written in Whiteman, who is also a student at Central Wyoming College, said one issue of particular importance to him is the management of state trust lands. The lands should remain in pub Karpan: Use coal money for mine buyout during the primary is again challenging Republican Frank Philp, who is seeking election to a thired term as representative from House District 34. Allen Whiteman filed for the seat in 1992, losing in the Democratic primary, then lost to Philp in 1994. The 35-year-old waiter said he was 'kind of on vaca lic hands with maximum access by the public he said. He noted that Philp served on the House Agriculture Committee that was late in reporting to the floor a bill that would have imposed a one-year moratorium on the sale of state lands.

Philp, a sheep rancher who lives between Riverton and Shoshoni, iCASPER Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Kathy Karpan Thursday said in a release she thinks the federal government ld use money generated by th. anticipated sale of a coal tn in the Powder River Basin to buy the mining rights at the proposed New World Mine, just aorth of Yellowstone National Pack. The Clinton administration this summer struck a deal with the Crown Butte Mines and No-raitda Inc. to halt the development of the New World Mine, which critics say could damage the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

To seal the deal, the federal government needs to trade assets worth $65 million. Karpan said rather than take the money from the Federal Treasury, the government could divert federal funds acquired from developing the Thundercloud coal tract According to the Karpan release, the tract contains an estimated 432 million tons of low-sulfur coal and the federal government could receive as much as 15 cents a ton once the lease sale is completed, or about $64.8 million. Karpan said in the release that if she's elected to the U.S. Senate, offering legislation to pursue the Thundercloud-New World Mine deal would be a leading priority. "The New World Mine was the wrong project in the wrong place," Karpan said in the release.

"But the Thundercloud expansion of our magnificent Powder River coal fields is a good project for the good of Wyoming." tion and missed the filing deadline this year, but received enough write-in votes for his name to appear on the Nov. 5 ballot. HD 34 includes the east end of Riverton, the town of Shoshoni and rural areas. Republican voters outnumber Democrats by a greater than 2-to-l margin said he did vote for the moratorium, but that since he was not the committee chairman, he could not control the flow of bills. Philp said "having a fire sale of state lands is not in the long-term interest of the state." For the long term, he said, "land is a pret-Please sec HD 34, B6 State Editor Charles Brown.

For information, questions and comments about this page, call (307) 2660682 or (800) 442-6916; email statetrib.com; fax (307) 2660568..