Casper Star-Tribune from Casper, Wyoming • 14

WYOMING AND THE WEST Saturday. July 17. 1999 B2 Casper Star Tribune 1 WIND News director leaving after 20 years in Wyoming radio vS 5 h.ih mi M- 1 DAN CCPf DASUK TrttMHM Rich Bircumshaw talks Friday morning with KTWO-TV photojournalist Jacek Boguckl during Bircumshaw's going-away party at the Casper Police Department. Bircumshaw is leaving his position as news director at KTWO radio to work as news director for affiliated radio stations In Fort Collins, Colo. ty Director Art de Werk, it's not what Bircumshaw does that makes him a great media professional, it's how he does it.

The award bestowed on Bircumshaw by de Werk recognized the broadcast veteran for his excellence in covering public safety issues while maintaining a sense of mutual respect within the often adversarial relationship between police and the press. "Rich is a true professional," de Werk said. "You're able to have an excellent working relationship (with him) and he doesn't let that friendship get in the way of his reporting the truth and the facts. As an agency head I can only respect that." KTWO Radio General Manager Bob Price called Bircumshaw a valued member of the community and said though co-workers will miss him, they're happy he will still be involved in the same company. Fie also called Bircumshaw a "consummate professional, the type of person you can rely upon for not just his professional acumen, but also he has a great sense of personal worth.

By that I mean, he has a keen sense of By ZACHARY SCHNEIDER Star-Tribune stall writer Alter 20 years of reporting news in Wyoming, KTWO Radio News Director Rich Bircumshaw is leaving the Cowboy State. Bircumshaw announced Friday that he will be leaving KTWO Radio after nearly seven years at the station to take the news director position for four Fort Collins radio stations owned by KTWO's parent company Clear Channel. Bircumshaw's departure was marked by an award ceremony at the Casper Hall of Justice on Friday morning, at which city firefighters tore into a police department conference room and, in a show of affectionate roasting, blasted Bircumshaw and several others with carbon dioxide fire extinguishers. "It was nice, but a bit overwhelming," Bircumshaw said of the send-off. "I don't really do anything different at my job than anyone else does.

I mean every other media individual -whatever service they provide Is just as important as what I do and in many instances more important." But according to Public Safe national energy policy. He cited wind energy as another way capitalize on the state's natural resources. "Wyoming is an energy state," he said, noting coal, oil. natural gas, and uranium pro duclion But, he later added, don't want to focus our ergy on any one thing." Pat iliCorp owns W) percenl of the facility, while the Eugene Water and Electric Board hold the balance. San Diego-baed SeaWesl Windl'ower was the main de veloper and will continue to operate the plant on a contractu? al basis for PacifiCorp.

BEAR Continued from 'Wyoming' six yearlings and calves last week in the Crow Creek area ol Pinyon Ridge. Dave Moody, trophy game coordinator for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, said the grizzly was one of the bears that preyed on livestock in the area last year but was killing at a much faster rate this year. "It's the same area, the same time, the same track size, everything," he said. Grizzlies have killed more than 150 head of livestock in the past four years in the UppeY Green River region. The state compensated ranchers $67,000.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service last month approved guidelines allowing nuisance grizzly bears outside the Yellowstone recovery zone to be killed in an effort to reduce livestock and financial losses. Grizzlies are considered a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act but the stale allows grizzlies to be killed outside a bear recovery zone.1 Continued from Wyoming some kind of an incentive for wind energy. That tax credit, according to Robert Sims, vice president of engineering at SeaWesl. was the reason two new projects at the Foot Creek Rim totaling al most 27 megawatts were put on a fast track lor development this spring Both began in March and were operational by the June 30 deadline, he said.

Gray said that the potential was already there in the market demand, as is evidenced by the growing number of green electricity pricing programs, such as that being considered by PacifiCorp. "If people want this stufl so badly that they are willing to pay extra for it, I think that says a lot about the desirability of the resource," he said, calling the facility near Arlington an important piece in the wind energy puzzle. "For us, it's important simply because there is a very large wind energy potential in Wyoming and Montana, and this Is the first commercial project that has sought to take advantage of that," (iray said. He pointed out that wind energy is about l10th as expensive now as it was in the early 1980s and still gaining ground with new technology. Last month, U.S.

Department of Energy Secretary Bill Richardson announced a plan to boost wind energy production to 5 percent of the nation's electricity by 2020. The federal government, the nation's largest consumer of electricity, would rely on wind for 5 percent of Its electricity by 2010. Calling Wyoming an "energy state," Gov. Jim Geringer said during his keynote address Friday that wind energy has a bright future in market-driven rr KTWO Radio In November 1997. Aside from his duties at KTWO, Bircumshaw also provided color commentary of Wyoming Cowboy football games on the Wyoming Radio Network.

For his efforts, he earned the Wyoming sportscast-er of the year award three times in 1981, 1992 and 1994, and was named "sports professional of the year" by the Casper Chamber of Commerce in 1995. WALL: You Ve got guilt on both sides, 5 reiki rm loyalty and (he is) an all-around good human being." The Utah native worked in radio broadcasting in Riverton for 12 years before taking the news director position at the AM station in 1991. In January 1997, he was hired as news director for KGWC-TV Channel where he worked for 10 months before being laid off in October of that year. Bircumshaw returned to says John Anderson fighting for their lives, never knowing if they're going to be killed and then 24 hours later, they're back in the U.S. and they're supposed to stop that," she said.

"It's very difficult." She paused as a man approached. She suggested another Web site that could help him track down his buddies. "You know, they spend 30 years trying to forget and now that they want to remember, it's not always coming back," she said. MILLER Continued from Ca8per' For example, Miller said, The United States of America" on the dollar bill is a fraudulent statement because it makes "America" a verb, not a noun. The United States is in bankruptcy with England, and Its money is under the jurisdiction of the Postmaster General, he said.

"These are, in fact, postage stamps." Hi 2 3 5 A I 043 4055 jjdJallllJSraM hum yjjy 3 John recalls a man in Charleston, S.C., who placed in front of the traveling replica a 1969 newspaper photo of four Marines carrying a wounded soldier off the field. His wife told John that her husband was that soldier, the Marines had died In the rescue and the newspaper had hung in their living room for 30 years as a shrine to the men who saved him. The Wall That Heals absolved his guilt. Even 75 percent of the U.S. Constitution is a fraud because it's based on a banking document, Miller said.

He's rewritten the Constitution, he said. lie's also encouraged people to file suit against courts because they display flags with gold fringe, which are not real American flags and that means the courts are wrong. a group of students about how he lost trust in his government and the rejection he felt upon returning to the United States, one woman stood on the sidelines, listening intently. When he finished, the woman walked to the front of the crowd. She told him she had protested the war, apologized for her actions and welcomed him home, thanking him for fighting for their country.

"You've got guilt on both sides," John said. "Now people are realizing they shouldn't have treated them like this. And the kids were witnessing that. It was a history lesson right in front of them." The men who survived share their burden of guilt. When the Andersons were working in Mansfield, a woman was looking for a pilot, her former fiance, who had served in John's unit.

When her marriage crumbled years later, her husband burned all her pictures of her former love. She had no physical memory of him left. John pulled out his yearbook, showed her his pictures and put her in touch with the pilot who trained him, a man who had always felt responsible for his death. In a six-hour personal meeting, she reassured him nobody could have swayed him away from doing what he loved. He had wanted to fly in Vietnam.

For every story tells, he has more tucked cway. And Linda has gained a better understanding of her husband's experiences. "One day they're over there Rent 12 Months and Receive Months FREE! PosWliJEf Continued from 'Casper' The man was looking up names for his boss who couldn't be In town that day. As they talked together, they ended up finding 200 men from John's unit and have planned a reunion for next year. Even though the Andersons acknowledge it's a tough job to be away from their families, constantly on the road, John sees It as better than any job anywhere.

"I know it's mellowed me out," he said. "I get a different view from somebody else's perspective." It was the Berkeley, trip that the Andersons remember as their most powerful visit. They had set up The Wall That Heals In the same park where the peace wall is ed, near a high school. As a local veteran talked to WMC Continued from 'Casper' moving, Muirhead said. "Patient census is the highest in recent memory." The patient census, a ratio that measures patient use of a hospital, has been 15 percent above budget projections, he said.

The number of surgeries, Schrader said, is 10 percent higher than expected volumes and the new outpatient surgical center has posted consecutive record volumes. other business, Muirhead said the board of directors passed a resolution supporting the University of Wyoming's Family Practice Center, which has been under scrutiny as the university considers budget cuts. The board accepted the retirement of board member Bob Miracle, who was appointed by the Natrona County Commission. The commission names three board members, the medical staff names three members, and three members are at-large. The commission nominated, and the board accepted, former Mayor Mike Reid as the new MC board member to replace Miracle, Muirhead said.

The board also elected officers: Muirhead will continue as chairman; Dr. Mike Walker will be vice chairman; and Pat Murphy will be secretary. The Wyoming Medical Center Inc. is a nonprofit, tax exempt corporation that manages the hospital assets of Natrona County. A five-member board of trustees called the Memorial Hospital of Natrona County oversees the lease letween the county and the WMC.

and the lease requires that the hospital provide care for indigent 1 Ymr II(mw (iV' CY Ave (We8t of Sutherland) 7:00 a.m. Buyers Breakfast 8:00 a.m. 4-HTFA Jr. Livestock Sale (441 Show Tent) Noon -Exhibit Halls Open Noon Bill Hames Carnival Opens (Noon 5 p.m. $10.00 Armbands) 1:00 p.m.

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