Month: February 2019

A Uintah High School Senior has been selected as a candidate in an elite national program. Emily Despain has been named a candidate for the United States Presidential Scholars program which selects around 4,500 students each year for their leadership, service, and scholarship accomplishments.

The Jensen area experienced a weather related power outage on Tuesday night, making the severe weather conditions even tougher for residents in the area. Moon Lake Electric Association announced that the Jensen area, as well as other areas in their service territory, experienced the outage due to the significant snowfall. “Wet snow on power lines at times can be a real problem in the Basin, causing failures with voltage power supplied during the cold season,” shared Moon Lake. “The snow will often pile up on the lines and over time do what we call ‘unloading’. As the lines unload, they bounce and slap because of the weight of the snow. This can cause arcing that results in a power outage, or in some cases, you might see blinking in your power.” It’s believed that the area received approximately 12 to 13 inches of snow in a short period of time, causing the outage.

Being a single mother is difficult. Being a single mother trying to receive training for better opportunities is close to impossible. The wonderful people at Allred’s Landscaping and Construction are offering much needed help because they see how UBTech positively impacts the community. “They are out in the community,” shared the Allreds.

KVEL in association with Utah State University Uintah Basin will be having a series of talk radio discussions focusing on local social issues. The series called Marriage and the Family will be presented by USU’s Dr. David Law and USU FCHD Graduate Latrisha Fall. Dr. Law is an Associate Professor of Family, Consumer and Human Development and is actively studying family life with three current research projects.

Both the Uintah Basin Healthcare and Ashley Regional Medical Center have been experiencing high volume of patients suffering from flu and RSV in the Emergency Room. Be aware that both facilities have activated their flu policy which affects visitation.

One Vernal woman is proving that age doesn’t have to hold you back from new hobbies and experiences though she doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about. Madge Fillingim took up bowling in her 70’s and has since crushed her goal of bowling 100 in a game. Madge is now 98-years-old and bowled a cool 165 last Thursday. The week before that was a 160.

What could have been a deadly situation, thankfully turned out to just be a highly inconvenient one. A rockslide in Glenwood Canyon in Colorado closed I-70 on Tuesday. National Weather Service reports that “rapidly freezing and thawing temperatures combined with precipitation make for ideal conditions for rockslides in extreme terrain.” Tuesday’s rockslide was an important reminder of the dangerous impact that winter weather can have in western Colorado. It took most of the day for crews to clear the roadway enough for one lane to be open. Highway 40 felt the increase in diverted traffic.

USDA Rural Development will be holding webinars and workshops to help provide information about their ReConnect Program. This program offers loans, grants and combinations thereof to aid in bringing broadband to rural areas. The hope is to bring high-speed broadband that will enable rural communities to perform critical needs such as precision agriculture, as well as fuel long-term economic development.