Events to Attend:
Happy Halloween
Volume 9 • Edition 36
October 21, 2015
*Oct. 23, Morgan County Concert Season Starts, Ft. Morgan *Oct. 23 & 24, Amercan Legion Haunted House, Keenesburg *Oct. 26: Halloween Lighting Contest, Hudson *Oct. 31: 2nd Annual Trunk or Treat, Hudson *Oct. 31: Amercan Legion Adult Costume Party, Keenesburg
Delivering over 19,000 papers to rural Adams, Morgan, and Weld Counties
Election Time Again!
I was amazed when carrying around petitions for various things the number of people that aren’t registered to vote. Their response was always “well it doesn’t matter anyway” or “my vote won’t make a difference”. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!! Let me give you some examples. I the City of Fort Lupton in the last election, council decided to put on the ballot whether or not residents would be allowed to have chickens or bees in their backyards. When the votes were counted residents voted 708-656 to allow chickens, mere margin of 52 votes. The bee question was a push of 683 for and 683 against, meaning no bees would be allowed. Residents are going to get that chance at this issue again. After the election I had people come to me saying “man I really wanted to have some bees” or “I really hate the fact that my neighbor has chickens in the back yard”. I always responded with “did you vote”? Most of the responses were that they did not vote. If 53 people had picked up a pen and marked their ballot we would not have chickens. If just one resident had voted for bees, just one, we would have bees. And they complain, really! Broomfield on their ballot had a measure to put a moratorium on fracking and it passed by a measly 20 votes to damage the economy in the Front Range. People are telling me that 21 people against the measure decided to not vote because their votes don’t count? ARE YOU Fort Lupton Mayor KIDDING ME!!! It would be very hard to take for a candidate to Tommy Holton lose an election by less than ten votes. We have elections in the past that only 32 voters bothered to send in their ballot. That is as many people that live on one city block. Where was everyone else? I don’t care how you vote, but by God VOTE and if it is too much trouble don’t complain. Your vote does count.The only thing that we really can’t change by getting involved is the weather. VOTE, VOTE!!!!!!!
Wiggins School Board Candidates Speak at Forum Organized by WHS Government Students
Kudos to the Wiggins High School government class for organizing a “meet the candidates” night at the school’s event center on Monday, Oct. 13. About 60 community members attended the forum where five of the seven candidates answered questions developed by social studies teacher Casey Clay’s government class and responded to questions from the audience. There are three board positions open. Two of the candidates, Troy Freauff and Kris Musgrave, were not able to attend the forum, but Corey Covelli, Lance Kaufman, Laura Lambert, Nathan Troudt, and Jerry Wolfswinkel told the crowd about their desire to run and their plans for the district. All of the candidates mentioned the fact the Wiggins High School was ranked in Newsweek’s “Beating the Odds” Top 500 schools in the nation. They would like to see that positive success continue and make sure that each child Board candidates: Jerry Wolfswinkel, Lance Kaufman, is receiving a quality education. and Laura Lambert. “I want to make sure that each kid doesn’t fall through the cracks,” said Troudt. “We’ve got something great going on here in Wiggins and I want to make sure that it extends to everybody.” “That’s just awesome,” said Covelli of the ranking. “That doesn’t mean we want to sit back and accept that; obviously we want to shoot for number one!” Covelli said he would look into our current policies and make sure the district continues on the right path and make sure we’re holding these things to the highest standard we can. Lambert said that she was motivated to run for the school board position because she wants the education process at Wiggins to be good for every child, not just good for one child. “I can tell you,” she added, “that I will delve into anything that you put in front of me and I’ll be educated on it.! Board candidates: Corey Covelli and Nathan Troudt Kaufman said he wanted to be a part of the board to help the faculty, help the community, and help the school stay on the right track and help it become a better place for the kids. Cont. on Page 2, See Wiggins School Board Candidates
Corporal Grant Ewing, Prisoner of War, in Korea, Returns to Fort Lupton
For twenty years, a military headstone in Fort Lupton’s Hillside Cemetery has marked the passing of a Fort Lupton Army Corporal, Grant Harry Ewing, who died more than half a decade ago as a North Korean prisoner of war. Corporal Ewing was among thousands of American Army captives who perished in POW camps near the Chinese and North Korean border and is one of the latest to be identified and brought home by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) in Hawaii. After a service in Brighton, Cpl. Ewing’s remains will finally be interred in Hillside on Monday, Oct. 19. His return is something his younger brother Dale Ewing hoped for when he purchased the grave at Hillside. The family considered Arlington National Cemetery as Cpl. Ewing’s final resting place should his remains be found, but, his niece Cindy Ewing Pinner recalls, Dale decided “We want him to have a space here if he’s ever brought home.” The outskirts north of Fort Lupton had been Cpl. Ewing’s home since his birth, 93 years ago on a farm northeast of the city. His roots in the community ran deep, as both families of his parents, Millard H. Ewing and Juanita Midcap Ewing were early settlers of the area. The Ewing family was noted for their cattle and dairy farm that included the original Fort Lupton, the walls of which eventually became a shelter for their animals. Cpl. Ewing’s first tour of duty was not with the Army but as a Navy seaman in World War Two where, according to Pinner, he was stationed in countries in the North Sea. After returning safely home when that war ended, he farmed with his father until enlisting in the Army. “I think he believed in doing your part,” Pinner observed. “I think, from what I heard from my parents, that he had a sense of duty.” Duty took him to North Korea, where he was a Field Artillery Cannoneer. Along with many of his fellow soldiers, he was captured during battle on November 30, 1950. The POW camp where they were interned, run by Chinese on their border with North Korea, was known as the Valley of Death. The lack of shelter in the harsh, freezing weather, scarcity of food and medical treatment, and the brutality of their Chinese captors led to the deaths of 800 men in the first three months of their capture. Pneumonia claimed many, including Cpl. Ewing on Feb. 28, 1951. Forty two years after his capture, Cpl. Ewing’s remains, along with many others, were brought out of North Korea to Hawaii’s JPAC center for identification. That same year, 1993, Dale Ewing was contacted by the Army to give a blood sample for DNA identification. Another 22 years would pass before the center’s painstaking work would yield a result. Finally, on July 29 of this year, the Ewing brothers were positively matched by their DNA. As the oldest, most closely related remaining member of the Ewing’s, Cindy Pinner was designated as the family’s representative to bring her uncle home to Fort Lupton, where he will be interred on what would have been his 93rd birthday. “We chose his birthday to welcome him home and put him back in the place he loved,” she said. He will also be next to one who loved him—his brother Dale, who, although he passed away in 2011, had faith that someday his brother’s final resting place would be beside his own.
What’s In This Issue:
Page 2: Way of the World Page 3: US 34 Traffic East of Greeley to Shift to New Bridge Page 5: Platte Valley Med Center Opens Plaza in Ft. Lupton Page 5: Herman Huwa to Celebrate 90th Birthday Page 7: Wiggins High School Leaders Learn from Guest Speaker Page 8: Weldon Valley Warriors 1995 National Championship Team Honored Page 8: Morgan County Republicans Plan Fundraiser Page 9: First Grade Writing Celebration at Lochbuie Elem. Page 11: Elway’s First Team Draft Picks Key to Early Success Page 12: 9th Annual Wiggins Community BBQ Page 12: Do’s and Don’ts for Hunters Page 14: Cattle Baron’s Ball Raises $473,000 for Cancer Page 16: Wiggins Homecoming Parade: A Pageant to Pride