Albin news June 7, 2010

Albin news

Dear Albin News readers, this is my third week of tending the sole outlet for Albin Community news and I'm sure there a lot of the things that Norma Jean wrote about that aren't being reported by me. In the interest of being a little more comprehensive, there a few things I think need to happen. First, I am usually pretty busy and there are some of you who I rarely get to talk to and may not even know (imagine that!). If you are reading this and you know that I don't know you very well or at all, please make it a point to call or email me and leave a little news or just say a few things about yourself and your family. If you can do this, I will do the second thing which is to maintain a community news data base to keep up with everyone. Some of you may think the Albin News is insignificant, but I for one would disagree. Those of us who have lived in a large urban area probably noticed that a sense of community like we have is something that town councils everywhere dream of. I say the connection we have is unique and worth having, and since there is no other “official” outlet for Albin news (other than the local grapevine), the Albin news is one way the greater Albin community can stay connected.

Besides keeping tabs on the people who live here, I will continue to add agriculture news since ours is an ag community and is something that I know a little more about. Now for the news!

First in news, I am very sad to report that Tim Malm had an unfortunate accident while practicing calf roping near his grandparents' home east of Albin. His horse went down and the impact of the fall caused a hemorrhage at the base of his skull. Luckily Howard and Dixie were there at the time and were able to use their emergency response training to restart his breathing and stabilize him. As of Monday evening, Tim was in a coma and his prognosis was unknown. Tim is the only son and oldest child of Howard and Dixie Malm. In 2009, he was the high school state champion calf roper in the State of Wyoming and took second at nationals. Howard and Dixie would like to thank everyone for their kind thoughts, prayers, and other help during this difficult time.

Brian Benjamin announced his engagement to Roxie Phillips. “It feels good” Brian said of the recent engagement. Brian has been a member of the Albin community for several years and has been working as a diesel mechanic for Brent Lerwick at Lerwick Equipment west of Albin. Roxie is finishing up a bachelors degree in elementary education from the University of Wyoming with a minor in Spanish. Brian and Roxie met while Brian was studying at WyoTech in Laramie. No wedding date has been set.

Jay Schmidt, Rachel Schmidt, and Elizabeth (Schmidt) and Curtis Kettler of Minneapolis, MN were home over Memorial Day.

Rachel just finished a summer class at the University of Wyoming, and now teaches swimming and is working at The Herb House/Elk Mountain Herbs in Laramie this summer. Elk Mountain Herbs grows their own herbs in the mountains, and prepares tinctures, extracts, natural body care products, vitamins, and teas for sale at the Herb House in Laramie. Jay, Susan, and Rachel went on an herb walk with Elk Mountain Herbs at Vedauwoo.

The Schmidt family drove to Minnesota to attend Eric's (Betty Anne's nephew's) graduation from Concordia Highschool in St. Paul. While there, they visited with family and took Mary Helen to the airport. Mary Helen was flying to Liberia with the Hillsboro Christian Church to continue helping a budding health care clinic there. This is her second time to do so. In addition to her personal items she also took lots of notebooks and information to share about nutrition, sanitation, and a healthy lifestyle. Mary Helen's friend Kristi went with her. You can read Mary Helen's thoughts about the trip and support her efforts by going to http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=73505925629.

The Golden Prairie School Reunion was held in Pine Bluffs at the community center on Sunday, June 6th.  A total of 29 registered for the event.  Bob Marquiss of Grand Junction, CO and Wayland Anderson of Thornton, CO traveled the greatest distance. The group was entertained by a musical group from Albin consisting of Dean and Dwayne Anderson, Kent Davis, Nancy Blomberg, and
Dixie Malm.  

The Golden Prairie School was located 6 miles east and two miles south of the Golden Prairie Church. The school was started in 1923 and closed in the spring of 1959.  Three rural school houses moved together and Golden Prairie was a part of Dist. #9 which included Egbert, Bluff View and Golden Prairie.  Three bus routes and 10 grades were taught there with at times up to 50 students attending!
A modern brick building was built in 1936 with indoor facilities, electric lights, running water, and a hot lunch program. When the building later was dismantled, David Branigan used the bricks for the home he now lives in north of Albin.  In its time, the school educated 249 students, many of them attending all 10 years at the school.  Further education was obtained at Pine Bluffs, Albin, Burns, and Egbert high schools.  One of Albin's community members, Esther Lerwick, taught primary grades there from 1946 to 1948.  As enrollment decreased the school could only offer education for 8 grades.  The last six years of its existence, only one teacher was on staff for grades 1-8.

The north and west bus route was driven by members of the Miller family during the entire life of the Golden Prairie School.  Willie Miller drove the route as long as he could then passed the job down to his son Warren Miller. There were 10 different drivers for the other 2 routes during that time.

Helen Peters spent a week at Newcastle visiting her daughter, LaRae and Delbert Blocker.  Alan, Jane Corbin and Conrad Blocker of Gillette also visited. Great grandson, Corbin, celebrated his 4th birthday during the visit.

Marvin and Donna Peters traveled by motorcycle to Spearfish, SD to spend the weekend with daughter Amy and Mike Haynes.  Amy ran the Spearfish Canyon half marathon (13 1/2 miles).

In Ag news, the sun has continued to shine and give much needed warmth to area crops. Most of the corn is up and growing well. The last two summers have been much cooler than normal which has made corn growing a dicey prospect. Much of the corn in the region last year finished with a light test weight. Corn planted in May last summer did not receive the heat needed to reach full maturity (an average corn crop that has reach full maturity will weigh around 56 pounds/bushel). One of the main ways to estimate how much heat a corn plant needs to reach full maturity is by using Growing Degree Units (also called Growing Degree Days). For those of you not familiar with GDUs, it is a measure of how much heat is received in a growing day. Each crop has a minimum temperature, or base temperature, that it needs to continue growing. The idea is that if the temperature is below the base temperature for that crop (each crop is different) then it's essentially lost time as far as the plant is concerned. The base temperature for wheat is about 42 degrees F, for potatoes it's about 46 degrees F, and for dry beans, corn, and sunflowers it's about 50 degrees F. The GDU for a given day is the difference between the mean temperature (average of the high and low temp for the day) and the base temperature. If this comes out to be a negative number, then the GDU for that day is zero. Much of the corn planted near Albin is rated as needing 85-92 days to reach full maturity. However, these ratings reflect areas that receive more GDUs in a day than we typically do here in Albin. For example, most corn planted last year on May 20, still wasn't mature 120 days later on September 20.

Since I'm a corn grower, I checked www.weather.com under the “Farmer's Forecast” to see how the growing degree days stacked up this year compared to last year. Comparing May 15 through June 5 for 2009 and 2010 and using a 50 degree base temperature, the website reported Albin, Wyoming as having 226.5 GDU for 2010 and 190.0 GDU for 2009. As expected, the warm weather this week has put us ahead of this time last year! This combined with the rains earlier in May has the corn crop looking good. A corn variety rated at 89 days needs approximately 2100 GDU to mature. I wouldn't buy a new pickup, but maybe you corn growers could celebrate by taking your wife to the Albin cafe next Thursday night.

The weather website mentioned above reported the average GDU for Albin, WY (baseline 50 degrees F) from May 20 to Oct 20 as 2075 GDU. If someone has more accurate reading on cumulative GDU for this area, please give me a call. I would like to keep a running tally on this for the benefit of the local farmers. Thank you!