Casper Star-Tribune from Casper, Wyoming • 9

WYOM Old mansion fire burns furniture Saturday, Nov. 13,1976 Star-Tribune, Casper, Wyo. 9 Water woes beset Laramie County ,7 1, CHEYENNE An evaluation of fire damage to the original mansion will not begin until next Monday. Buck Dawson, director of the Wyoming State Museum, said first stage mop-up operations should be completed this weekend from a Thursday night fire that caused fire damage to the first floor foyer and sent smoke thorotighout the home. Dawson said a "very valuable" Victorian coat rack, dating from the 1890's was destroyed and that a couple of chairs and some small furnishings received damage.

Still to be determined, he said, is what damage the smoke caused to the remaining furnishings in the mansion. gone over and given them a superifclal cleaning," he said, adding that the next step will be to go over each Item and determine whether restoration Is needed or the cleaning sufficed. He said everything in the home was by the smoke, but he does not yet know to how great an extent. The home, which contains rooms depicting the furnishings of Wyoming's governors from 1335 to the present was scheduled for a special opening on Dec. 3, but, said Dawson, "now we don't know if we can make it." Cheyenne Fire Department Inspector Charles Nichols said samples from the fire have been sent Into the state crime lab for identification and he does not know then the results will be back.

He said sending the samples to the lab-does not imply suspicion of arson, but that samples are not sent from every fire. 0 fe 4 a Unusual school AN ALTERNATE high school in Cheyenne offers an opportunity for problem students to get their diplomas through smaller, relaxed classesSchooL. director Dr. Don Lucero is in the foreground with the school staff in background. Students like this school AGC gives $75 to candidates CHEYENNE The American General Contractors (AGC) committee of Cheyenne contributed $75 each to legislative candidates.

The AGC for Good Government's financial statement filed with the Secretary of State's office lists $850 in receipts and $1,745 in expenses. The group contributed to only two Democrats, Sen. Dick Sedar, Natrona County, and Rep. H. L.

Jensen, Teton County. Wyoming House candidates who received $75 each from the AGC werefG. B. Engen, Bob Burnett and Joe Chasteen, Albany County; J. R.

Hursh, R. I. (Dick( Leedy, Gary Jennings and Harold Meier, all Fremont County? Dean Prosser Bill Mcllvain, Jim Barrett Hicks and Catherine M. Parks, Campbell County, and Bob Grant, Platte County, all Republicans. Senate Republican candidates receiving contributions were: Ted C.

Gertsch, Albany County; Don Gundall and Russell Zimmer, both of Goshen-Platte; Roy Peck, Fremont County, and Jim Van Velzor and Bill Murray, Laramie County. Court upholds variance denial CHEYENNE A district court here this week upheld the Wyoming Environmental Quality Council's denial of a variance request by U.S. Steel. Laramie County District Court Judge Alan Johnson denied U. S.

Steel's petition for review of the council's decision which denied a variance or amendment of the water standards for water emptied Into Rock Creek at the firm's Atlantic City iron ore mine. The standards concern the amount of material which can be emptied into the state's water without making it cloudy or polluted. The council had stated there were no grounds to change the standards. Getting involved at town meet By RICH NELSON Capital Reporter CHEYENNE Irrigation well levels In some parts of eastern Laramie County have been dropping dramatically over the past three years and both citizens and state officials are concerned. Richard G.

Stockdale, ground water geologist with the state engineer's office, said that citizens groups from three areas recently have requested that water control areas be established. The groups, he said, represent the Hillsdale, Albin and Pine Bluffs area. They were concerned that the water level was lowered and they felt something needed to be done to insure that a water supply would be there," he said. Most hard hit by the droppage has been the Pine Bluffs area where Stockdale said the level of some wells has "decreased significantly and some very few have gone dry The state Water Control Board has scheduled a hearing next week to consider the control district requests and also to hear some preliminary information from the state engineer's office on the cause of the problem. Establishment of a control area would mean that a number of citizens would be chosen as representatives and make recommendations to the state engineer about water management policies.

Since July 1 of this year, the state engineer has issued a moratorium on issuance of all water well permits, except for domestic and stock wells, in Laramie County pending this hearing. Stockdale said his office, along with the State Department of Economic Planning and Development and the U.S. Geological Survey last month began a water study in eastern Laramie county which should take two and a half years to complete and should give information as to why the well levels are dropping. "There is a great deal of concern on the part of groundwater appropriations as to what the situation is," he said. "These families have a substantial economic investment and the people are asking questions." Stockdale said he sees two reasons for the problem.

First, he said, Is the drought conditions that have plagued the area for the past three years with normal annual precipitation down about six Inches annually. This decreased precipitation, he said, has slowed up the recharging of ground water and "when you pump more water out and take less in the net effect is a problem." He also noted that the amount of acreage under irrigation has grown dramatically in the past few years. In 1971, he said, eastern Laramie county had about 20,000 acres under irrigation. Today there are a little over 50,000. He explained that this increase, combined with the need to nearly double the irrigation season to combat drought conditions has contributed to the situation.

Another measure of the growth of irrigation in Laramie county is reflected In the amount of low interest loans granted to farmers by the State Farm Loan Board over the past few years. Dave Zelenka, a water development engineer with the State Department of Economic Planning and Development, said that in the last couple of years the amount of projects has about doubled. At the end of June, 1976 there were 432 projects, he said, compared to 251 projects at the same time in 1974. Since the project began In the late 1950's Laramie county farmers have received $5,013,000 in loans. Although a state-wide program, Zelenka said probably 80 per cent of the funds have gone to Niobrara, Goshen and Laramie county because of the need for sprinkler irrigation systems, he said.

The study by the state engineer's office is called a computer modeling study and will cost $170,000. financed half with state and half with federal money. "The major purpose is to obtain it prediction cant lity so we can tell what effect is produced by the addition of wells and, water withdrawals," said Stockdale. The study will comprise the entire area east of Cheyenne to the Nebraska border. It will include measuring water levels in the wells, attempting to determine the total amount of water withdrawn each year and how much is recharged.

"It will tell us whether by statute we are directed to follow the safe yield concept," he said, explaining that it is implicit in state water laws that the state engineer not allow more water to be withdrawn then is discharged. However, he noted that by establishing water management control districts, the citizens representing those districts "might opt for a different situation. If they establish the control area, it would sort of throw the law book out the window. The state engineer follows closely the suggestions of the local representatives and that could include, Stockdale said, a decision to mine water and do a large volume of irrigation then wait for the wells to run dry. "Economist say that's a proper approach if you look at it from a dollars and cents standpoint," he said, but added it could have adverse aesthetic and economic impacts on other community industries.

Local citizens could also set more stringent rules and close the door on new irrigation permits. Whatever happens it is clear that whatever actions are taken in the near future will be guided by preliminary studies and cannot wait for the full examination recently begun. The water problems have also called into question the desirability of residential development in some of the eastern parts of the county. Of great concern to some residents, said Stockdale, is a state law which gives domestic wells priority over irrigation wells in case one interferes with the other. There are two to three subdivisions in that part of the county and they are not develped to "any geat extent, but in the future I think they could be," he said.

Stockdale said low irrigation well levels have caused "some econom ic loss" to farmers, but added, "to what degree I don't know." A study is presently underway, he said, to determine if adequate water supplies lie below the depths of existing wells. The study is authorized by the state engineer's office and the Governor's Inderdepartmental Water Conference. Test wells 910 feet deep have been drilled in the Pine Bluffs area to see of potential irrigation water exists. "Currently we are involved with analyzing the test results and we don't know where it will lead us right ffow," he said. The study was undertaken after requests from residents of the area who wished to know whether a supplemental water supply exists deep down or whether enough is there to expand irrigation.

Man charged with killing Casperite asked returned Lucero said he has been pleased with the success the school has had so far, although he admits there are still problems and some changes are being planned. "Attendance is a definite problem" he said. "We have 30 to 50 per cent of students absent every day." He said these percentages become less worrisome when it is realized that most of the students never attended classes before coming to the school. The absentee policy, he said, is flexible (a call from the student is sufficient), but it will be tightened up during the next trimester because, he says, "If we are going to reach and teach the students they're going to have to be here. Most of the students need some structure and we're going to be more stringent." So far, he said, about 20 students have been disenrolled from the school because of their attendance.

He said he expects that there will be about 26 openings at the school for the start of the next session. Further changes planned at the school next session include offering more elective courses to students. Planned in the future is an alternative method of evaluating students which would be by written comments from the instructors. Included in the evaluation, Lucero said, would be not only an assessment of academic work, but personal factors such as the students relationship to others in the class and his or her attitude. It is also planned, he said, to establish a student council which would recommend to the administration policies for the school.

Despite the bad previous school records of the majority of students, Lucero said so far the school has been virtually free of disturbances. During the first term, he said there were two fights and one time a tape recorder was stolen, but was returned the next day. He credits this record to the closeness of students and staff by saying, "If you treat them with dignity you'll find they respond." Education director Afflerbach says there is need for the school. "We feel that a certain number of students have a difficult time in the regular high school, whether it is due to the large number of students in class where a kid kind of loses identity, we feel there is more need for a more individualized program. They have more identity in a smaller classroom." Lucero said his most satisfaction derives from seeing students who formerly hated school now eager to go.

GLENROCK Getting people involved in the community was the prime target of the Glenrock Town Meeting 76. The Town Meeting was held at the Glenrock High School Library this week, with Gary, Forbes, director of the Institute of Cultural Affairs, as guest speaker. ICA is an organization which works with a trained staff of members who will help sponsor a local meeting. Forbes ex- plained the organization. The Town Meeting helped better community development and also helped involve people more In their community.

Community Education Coordinator Sandy Marquart was hostess for the meeting. Cheyenne man ordered to return CHEYENNE A former Cheyenne used car dealer has been ordered removed from San Antonio, Tex. to Wyoming to stand trial on federal charges. U.S. Attorney James Castberg said Wednesday that a federal judge in Texas had ordered that Richard W.

Davis, 42, be returned here where he faces fugitive charges as well as charges of Interstate transportation of a stolen motor vehicle. Castberg said that Davis will be returned to Cheyenne shortly to face a preliminary hearing on the fugitive complaint. He said the man was arrested there by local police on a shoplifting charge and officials then discovered that he was a federal fugitive. Davis originally was to have stood trial on the two motor vehicle charges in Casper on July 15, but he failed to appear. Previously, after the charges against him had been filed in January after a state and federal investigation of his activities, Davis was to have surrendered to federal officials in Denver, but fled instead, and was arrested March 22, in Seattle by the FBI while selling used cars under an assumed name.

Grayrock similar to failed Teton Guilty plea to bank robbery By RICH NELSON Capital Reporter CHEYENNE Sixteen-year-old Sally Tolle said she dropped out of Central High School in Cheyenne last year because "there were so many students theleachers really didn't have enough time to help you." This year, however, she is back at a different kind of high school and claims to be loving every minute of it. "So far I'm making really good grades," working harder and "getting into the courses more," she said. The school, called High School III, opened this fall. According to director Dr. Don Lucero, the Cheyenne school district was concerned with the high dropout rate and also desired "to cope with the problem of students' needs not met in the conventional setting." The school's annual budget is $123,500 and its per pupil cost slightly lower than the average for all students in the district.

Lucero said about 70 per cent of the students are dropouts from conventional school and the rest potential dropouts. About 55 per cent of the students are Chicano and a majority are from low income families, he said. "The attitude these students have for school Is negative and it takes time to change that," he said. Lucero admits that school has been undergoing growing pains, many of them caused by a quick opening. Lucero said the Cheyenne school board approved the budget establishing the school late this summer and hired him the middle of August.

He said he had only a week to select a teaching staff and that course programs were not set up until after the students had registered. "When we started this school it was empty. We had no furniture, no staff and no program," he said. The school is set up to handle 100 students and during the first enrollment period about 80 students had to be turned away. Next year he said he plans to ask the board "to double the enrollment and double the staff.

We have so many students on the waiting list. If we doubled the enrollment to 200 we'd still have students on the waiting list," he said. Bob Afflerbach, director of secondary education for the district, said a committee made up of principals, teachers and central office personnel is planning to submit a written review of the alternate school to the board after the first term ends the middle of the month. "So far," he said, "I think they've been making headway. They have a dedicated staff and some dedicated students.

But they also have some students who are not fulfilling their obligations. We'll probably be putting some students now on the waiting list into their slots." The school is still running on a trial basis and Afflerbach said, "My personal feeling is that we have to give them more than a year. I think we need two or three years to evaluate it. At present, courses at the school' are limited to the basic ones required by the district, but during the winter term it is planned to add more electives. Aside fiom courses, there are notable differences between this school and conventional high schools.

Said Pam Steele, an English teacher who taught two years at a Cheyenne junior high school before coming here, "We have the same type kid, except here I'm able to give much more of myself. I feel that I care so much more than I did at Johnson. The reason, she said, is the smaller class size. Teachers at High School III have about 10 students per class compared to about 30 for those in the conventional school system. The smaller classes allow more individualized instruction, she said.

Students enter into a "contract" with the teacher stating how much work will be completed before credit is given. The contracts are fulfilled at the student's learning capacity. Social Science teacher Nate Breen commended the small class, individual approach by saying that one reason his students may have failed at conventional schools is that they "were so used to being wrong that it was easy for them to stay quiet. A first year teacher, Breen said he initially employed the traditional lecture method of teaching, but that "it just squandered. It was too much.

I was overwhelming and boring them." Now, he said, his approach has become informal. "I try to put the material at their level, but keep it challenging," he said. "I have tried to make things contemporary, something they can relate to right now." The school's policy is to give no letter grades for, as Breen says, "the kids have been labeled so long." But, even so, the students are required to meet percentage requirements in course work before they are given credit and must meet the minimum requirements of the district for graduation. The high school's main purpose, according to director Lucero, "is to prepare youth for adulthood. Specifically our purpose is to help students get a high school diploma and to provide career orientation." "In this society when a person looks for a job, the first question he Is asked is if he finished high school.

To the employer it is usually a measure of persistence and character. With the way things are going now you need a high school diploma for any kind of job," he said. He added, "The most important thing we do is the approach we use to education, individual instruction, the contract system and no grades." He also said "a lot of time is spent on career orientation. There is a full-time career counselor and courses in consumer education, how to apply for a job, filling out a resume' and the like. Students are placed in part-time jobs during the school year and they get school credit for the work, he said.

CHEYENNE) (UPI) A man pleaded guilty Friday to two federal charges in connection with his attempt to rob the Wyoming Stock Growers State Bank of Worland and use 20 customers as hostages. U.S. District Judge Clarence Brimmer ordered a pre-sentencing investigation for Gary N. Hailfinger, 35. He remained in jail in lieu of a $100,000 bond.

He pleaded guilty to forcing 20 persons into a bank vault Nov. 1 during an armed robbery attempt. Poiice said Hailfinger forced the people into the vault, but the bank president quickly locked an inner fault door so Hailfinger could not follow his intended hostages Inside. He shot at the 16 times, but failed to open it and surrendered to police who surrounded the bank, authorities said. Ethete man waives his hearing LANDER A Ethete man has waived his preliminary hearing before Justice of the Peace C.

A. Croft and will go directly to district court on a charge of grand theft. Rodney Papokee, 28, is ac-cused of taking a check made out to the First National Bank of Lander in the amount of $3,088.56 from a teller's stand at the bank, and attempting to cash it at the Central Bank and Trust Co. of Lander. He is being held in Fremont County jail pending trial.

existed at Teton also exist at Grayrocks." Curry reported that the main flow of the Laramie River actually occurs below the ground in a bed of highly porous stream gravel which extends to a considerable depth under the dam site. He said this underground flow and the porosity of the materials under the dam site will create special problems in the installation of the slurry cut-off wall proposed by the utility. "There are permeable fracture zones in the abutments, a fault system runs the entire length of the reservoir, and very little is known about the geologic units which lie beneath the porus stream bed," Curry said. "These geologic conditions could also result in seepage problems affecting the stability of the Grayrocks Dam." Wigington said Curry also reported that considering the fault system under the reservoir site, "it is possible that the weight of the water in the reservoir could induce earthquakes up to a magnitude of four "which could conceivably crack a slurry cut-off wall and again result in a seepage problem. Curry also said these are some of the same problems which could have existed at the Teton Dam in Idaho and "proceeding with the construction of the Grayrocks Dam without a thorough and independent evaluation of these problems Is taking a big chance." WHEATLAND The Laramie River Conservation Council has asked re-opening of the record to include testimony the Grayrocks Dam has similarities to the Teton Dam.

Robert Wigington of the council said that Dr. Robert Curry, professor of hazard geology at the University of Montana "has confirmed the fears" for the council "concerning the similarity between the Grayrocks Dam and the Teton Dam which failed last spring." He said the council has asked the Platte County district court to re-open the record off the hearing held last spring before the Wyoming Industrial Siting Council "so that this evidence may be considered." Wigington said the Grayrocks Dam is an earthen dam which will impound up to 104,000 acre feet of water for use at a coal-fired power plant being constructed by the Missouri Basin Power Project near Wheatland. "It has recently been found that the permeability of the soil under the Grayrocks Dairi was 100-300 times greater than was previously claimed by the MBPP," Wigington said. Wigington said Curry questioned the safety and feasibility of the Teton Dam before its construction "and has now become concerned with the Grayrocks Dam. According to Curry, "People are always comparing their local dams to Teton, and I try to discourage it, but this one really does have some similarity.

It appears that some of the same failure modes that could have United Way reaches 50 per cent CHEYENNE The United Way drive in Laramie County has reached 50 per cent of its goal of $270,032, a spokesman said Friday. Although an attempt will be made to wind up the campaign by Dec. 1, there is no firm deadline, said the spokesman, who added that it is taking time to work througn some ot tne larger businesses in Cheyenne United Way supports some 22 agencies in Laramie County and has always reached its goal in the past. "I'm sure we'll meet it this year," said the organization spokesman. South Dakota officials must wait 30 days beforing honoring the request for temporary custody or availability, according to Carroll.

Either Jenkins or the" governor can disapprove the request, he said. "I cannot believe the' governor of South Dakota1 wouldn't release a man for a 1 trial of first degree to a-requesting state," the county attorney said. Jenkins will go on trial within 100 days of his return to Wyoming. He was convicted Oct. 28 of the strangulation of Gary L.

Oster, of Rapid City, and sen- tenced to life imprisonment without parole. CHEYENNE (UPI.) -Laramie County Attorney Tom Carroll Friday said he requested South Dakota authorities to return a Rapid City man to Wyoming to face a first degree murder charge which carries the death penalty. David Jenkins, 25, is charged In the March 22 strangling death of Dale Seiver, 32, of Casper at a Cheyenne motel while attempting to rob him. Carroll said he will ask for the death penalty because the murder was committed to conceal another crime, robbery. Jenkins is in a South Dakota jail on a murder conviction in the death of a 17-year-old boy in Rapid City.

Innocent plea to murder charge CHEYENNE (UPI) A woman accused of shooting to death a state security guard outside his apartment pleaded innocent to the second degree murder charge Friday in Laramie County District Court. Ada Searie, 42, of Cheyenne, remained free on a $10,000 bond. She is accused of shooting Ralph Carswell, 44, five times in the chest and back Sept. 13 with a .32 caliber pistol. Police said the shooting occurred in Carswell's apartment building..