Reflecting on an interesting year

For the first time in eight years, I spent Christmas in Gillette. I’d already seen my family four times this year, which averages out to once every three months. That’s pretty good, if you ask me. Plus, the weather in Gillette was unseasonably nice, so I decided to stick around for the holidays.

I got a rare opportunity to relax for a little bit and reflect.

It has been yet another interesting year in Gillette. The first half of the year was pretty run of the mill. We had candidates filing for office and people spreading misinformation about the International Pathfinder Camporee.

The most exciting thing in the first seven months was Campbell County rolling out the red carpet for a state task force that decided that Gillette was not the place to build a state shooting complex because it didn’t have mountains. And everyone knows that no one wants to go to a place without mountains.

But wouldn’t you know it? We had 60,000 visitors to our mountain-less county for Camporee, and Cam-plex, the county, city and other involved parties mostly pulled it off, despite some significant hurdles.

Then we had a historic wildfire season, with huge fires in Campbell, Johnson and Sheridan counties. At points it felt like the fires would never end. And even though no human lives were lost, the effects of the fires will likely be felt for years to come.

And we can’t forget the general election. The country decided it wanted to give Donald Trump a second chance in the White House. How that will affect Campbell County and its main source of revenue — fossil fuels — remains to be seen.

More importantly, local voters made it clear that they didn’t want any new taxes. Propositions to raise money for indoor arenas at Cam-plex, infrastructure in Wright and a new Gurley Overpass with a 1% specific use excise tax all failed by large margins. Voters also rejected a lodging tax, which was not a new tax but failed nonetheless.

Local high school sports teams also had success this year. Thunder Basin High School won state championships in softball — its third straight — and boys’ wrestling, the first in school history. In the fall, the Campbell County High School boys golf team won the state title for the first time in 41 years. And the Camels football team had its best season since the final year of the Obama administration.

2024 was an interesting year. What will 2025 bring? Well, we’ll find out soon enough. But if my eight years in Gillette have taught me anything, it’s that there rarely is a dull moment in Campbell County.

I don’t expect that to change any time soon.