Looking Back at Pages from the Past

The following stories are summarized from past issues of the Caribou County Sun over the last fifty plus years.  The Enterprise thanks Mark Steele for permission to use the contents, and the Grace Public Library for access to the archives.

2020

Sheryl Balls brought readers an in depth accounting of the third straight championship and fourth in six years for the Soda Springs girls basketball team.  Traveling to the Boise area and playing out of Kuna High School, the Lady Cards began their quest facing off with the third place team out of District 3.  New Plymouth kept the game close in the first quarter in spite of multiple turnovers, but ultimately the Cardinals cruised to a 49-30 win in the first round.  The Lady Cards next took on Melba, a team that Soda has met the last three years to either advance to or win the state title.  Last year the Lady Cards beat the Mustangs for the championship.  Melba was a challenge Soda executed a masterful game plan to navigate past Melba into the championship game.  The championship game against Cole Valley resulted in a 67-56 for the gave Soda their third straight, which was the first time any team had done so in the IHSAA era.

2005

After just missing the finals of the 1600 meters his junior year, Keane Shuler of Soda Springs made the most of his last opportunity to run on the boards at the Simplot Games in Pocatello.  Shuler went into Saturday’s final with the 4th fastest time after winning his heat on Thursday.  Over 160 boys in 13 heats competed in the 1600.  On Saturday, Shuler ran a near perfect race to secure the 3rd place medal.  Shuler went out at a brisk pace, but settled in around 5th or 6th place.  From there  Shuler continued to move up as runners fell off the pace of eventual winner Josh Adams of Kaysville, Utah.  Adams finished with a time of 4:16:26.  Giving chase to Adams was Ige Mohamud from Denver, who finished with a time of 4:22:16.  Shuler finished less than 4 seconds behind Mohamud with a time of 4:26:55 and just ahead of Brighton High’s Jorgan Jackobsen’s 4th place time of 4:27:22.  The Simplot Games is one of the largest indoor high school track meets in the nation with 1,800 athletes from the United States and Canada.  Athletes also have the opportunity to meet Olympic athletes and gold medalists.

Elisabeth Mussler of the Grace FFA Chapter gave a good performance in the Southeastern Idaho FFA District job interview career development event.  A panel of three judges evaluated the participants based on the quality of the student’s application packages and the student’s interviewing skills.  After evaluating the participants, the judges places Elisabeth first in the event.  Grace FFA hosted the Southeastern Idaho FFA District job interview and agriculture sales career development events.  The job interview career development is designed to help students practice and demonstrate the skills needed in seeking employment within the agriculture industry.  Students must develop skills in creating a cover letter and resume.  They must also develop the skills and competencies to fill out a job application and compose a follow-up letter.  In doing this, the students establish presentation skills they will use in real job interview.  Mussler will have the opportunity to represent the Southeastern Idaho FFA District at the State FFA job interview career development event in Twin Falls in April.

Mrs. Gentry’s Class was reported on by Dillyn Deno, Nicolas Maughan, and Chelsey Rasmussen, who explained that “January has been a great month.  Josh Davis’s dad came to teach us about China and how the language is different from ours.  He even wrote ‘goodbye’ and ‘thank you,’ on the board using Chinese handwriting.  Before he left he gave us each fortune cookies and chopsticks.  We also had a couple of furry visitors to our class.  Sophie Winter’s mom brought in their pet cat, who could play dead.  Chase Petersen’s mom brought in his great big dog, Hurricane.  He is almost as big as we are and really cute.  It’s a good thing they didn’t come at the same time though!  We have started the year off with a lot of fun.

For Mrs. Clegg’s class, Elijah Christiansen, Taylor Kneip, and Logan Smith reported that “We have a great teacher.  We have fun doing computers in the computer lav.  We have fun playing flies-up at recess.  We are learning about subtraction.  We have math meeting; we do the calendar, money, date and pattern.  We write poems.  We have fun with art; When we earn 50 AR points we have a pizza party.  We had the 100th day of school on Feb 4.  We got bracelets and glasses; we had rotations.  We did a maze on out pencil holders; we did counting by 1s to 100.  We had an “All about Me” bulletin board to learn about each other.  

1995

Former Soda Springs resident Paul Lloyd donated seven computers to area schools, and is working on finding more for use in small Caribou County schools.  Lloyd has repaired these used computers and added software programming.  All have printer ports and most have mouse ports.  Bancroft and Grace school districts (which includes the Thatcher School) will each get three computers, and one will go to the Grays Lake School in the Soda Springs School District.  Lloyd said, “It is vital that all our students be computer literate.  The world marketplace is being established and worldwide competition is inevitable.  We must and will compete.  The coming generation will be proficient in the use of computers.  Students in our small rural schools should have the same opportunities to become computer literate as those in larger schools.  Let’s make sure they have the tools.”  Lloyd added that he was amazed at the number of computers in Soda Springs schools and the lack of computers in the smaller schools in the county.  While these computers are not new, he said they should be usable for the next several years in the schools and give students an opportunity to become familiar with some of the existing technology.  Lloyd, who was born in Soda Springs and lived there until age 16, is now the chief applications engineer at Microsemi Corporation in Santa Ana, California.  Lloyd hopes to move back to Southeast Idaho when he retires.  He enjoys fishing and used to hunt when he lived in the area.  His favorite foods are elk and red-meat trout.    Lloyd has one daughter, Barbie, who lives near him in Orange, California, and spends much time with her father.

An ordinance passed by the Caribou County Commissioners on Feb 13 has been put on hold.  It dealt with giving enforcement powers to the Director of Emergency Services to enforce solid waste, hazardous waste, and air pollution requirements, as well as requiring burn permits and outlawing burn barrels.  Caribou County Commissioner Edie Tracy said Tuesday the ordinance is on hold.  “We will not be enforcing it until it can be repealed or amended in the future,” she said.  Concern had been voiced to the commissioners, she said, mainly about the law enforcement provisions that would allow the Director of Emergency Services and Public Safety to have ingress or egress to “any premises for the purpose of inspecting all places and containers where solid waste is accumulated or kept, and where fires are maintained.  Under ordinance 95-02, burn permits would be required, and would be allowed only where field burning has no alternative cropping practice which provides equivalent benefits.  Burn barrels would also be outlawed because they are not considered approved incinerators.

Rex Maughan, member of the Soda Springs High School Class of 1954 and founder, president, and chairman of the board of Forever Enterprises (the world’s largest grower, producer and distributor of aloe vera products), certainly has bettered the tradition of mankind.  Maughan, an admirer of Robert Louis Stevenson, recently donated 14 works by Stevenson to the Soda Springs High School Library.  Eight of the books are a gift to the library while the other six are being loaned to the school.  The six on loan are first and second editions, dating back to the late 1800s.  These will be replaces with reading copies with the loan period is over.  In an interview, Maughan said, “I would like to share some of them with the students to give them the opportunity to appreciate Stevenson’s fine work and literary talent.”  The books are on display in a special case in the high school library.  David Larson, the high school art teacher, designed the display using antiques on loan from a local school patron. 

An article on a new patent application discusses Duane Robinson’s idea that he says will “save users money, make life with a telephone a lot easier, and even provide security for homeowners.”  Robinson, who lives south of Grace, began the project several years ago and patented the phone system.  He and his partner sold a phone business and long distance telephone company they owned in Arizona for over $3 million, only to have the new company go into bankruptcy.  “I knew there was a need for this type of phone system, and I was able to get the parent back on my phone,”  Robinson said.  The heart of the system is a black box that is called the Touch Tone Butler.  By various programs, it can lock out numbers of unwanted callers, screen calls coming in, provide voice mail, turn on your appliance or utilities, and even provide an alarm system.  “I’ve already got an order for 100 units,” Robinson said.  The price of the system will be just below $400.  According to the report “the optimistic Robinson doesn’t question whether the telephone system will sell.  He says it will and it’ll beat anything on the market.  All he needs is the investment capital.”  The device promises to allow user to “even retrieve messages while their kids are on the phone.”

Four Soda Springs couples, Dr. John and Mary Obray, Clyde and Julie Nelson, Bill and Carol Harris, and Gary and Sharman Snow, met in Salt Lake City on Feb 6, spent the night at Little America and flew from the Salt Lake Airport via Chicago and Miami to Jamaica, arriving about 10 p.m. on a weeklong, all inclusive fun in the sun tour.  The Sandals Resort Hotel in Ocho Rio was their headquarters for the next seven days, lounging during the daytime around the pool, swimming, golfing, snorkeling, sailing, parasailing, wind surfing, or shopping, and taking in dinners, many shows, and other entertainments.  Part of the group went golfing the first day, until they were rained out.  Mary and Sharman had their hair done over in small braids which they wore for the remainder of the trip, and to quote their husbands, looked quite attractive.

Grace High school hosted an INEL Scholastic Quiz Bowl competition.  The Idaho National Engineering Laboratory provided the challenging questions in areas such as math, science, history, and literature.  Teams had 10 second to answer toss-up questions.  The team with the correct toss-up then was given an opportunity to answer a bonus question within 20 seconds.  Schools competed in two divisions.  Division A teams included Highland, Pocatello, Bear Lake, Preston, Snake River, and American Falls.  Division B teams included Grace, North Gem, Malad, West Side, and Rockland.  Grace defeated North Gem and West side and lost to Rocklans by only five points.  North Gem defeated Malad’s second team, and Rockland.  Grace was led by seniors Jay McGregor, Abe Medina, Wendy Fowler, Holly Hegstrom and Becky Jones, juniors Tom Bean, Tyler Alleman, sophomores Amanda Gibson and Dwight Thomas, and freshman Debbie Bean.  North Gem and Grace High School recently competed at the INEL Scholastic Tournament Region 5 Championship. 

An alarmingly low immunization rate among 0-2 year old children in the Southeastern Health District has promoted the Health Department, with the help of VISTA volunteers, to conduct an immunization survey throughout the eight-county district.  Caribou County was one of the first counties to be surveyed.  Local grocers helped with this effort by providing the VISTA volunteers with a place to conduct the survey.  Lallatin Food Town of Soda Springs, Mick’s Market of Bancroft, and Jay’s Market and Sam’s Market of Grace generously provided spaces within their stores for the surveys to be conducted, thus helping the VISTA volunteers to obtain a large number of completed surveys in Caribou County.  Lallatin Food Town in Soda Springs donated a turkey to be raffled off among those individuals that completed the immunization survey.  The winner of the turkey was Jan Mumford.  Immunization rates among 0-2 year old children in the Southeastern Health District have been reported as approximately 64 percent.  This low figure has made immunization awareness an important priority for the area.