Christmas & candidate

The Hanna Agriculture Resource Team (HART) met at 5:30 p.m. on Sept. 28 at the Hanna Market. Rose Dabbs, chairman of HART, turned over her lead position to Perry Goodrich.

Dabbs said she would like HART to think about having a Christmas party for the town centering on the kids. She said HART did not have a Christmas party last year, but the year before was successful.

"We built gingerbread houses with the kids and had a Santa Claus and it was a lot of fun," Dabbs said.

She also announced a little farmers market would be held at the Hanna Market Saturdays between noon and 3 p.m. that would include vegetables from the Community Garden. Dabbs said there would also be eggs available.

Once Goodrich was established as chairman, the meeting centered on posing questions to HART's guest, Lois Buchanan, one of the two candidates for Hanna town mayor.

Before asking questions to Buchanan, Dabbs said she would like HART to help sponsor a forum where the mayoral and town council candidates get together and answer questions. It was suggested to get together with the Hanna Recreation Center and Senior Center to help pull together the forum.

HART has had mayoral candidates come and visit before. Jon Ostling answered questions from members back in the spring when he decided to run for the office.

Ostling and Buchanan are the two candidates for Hanna mayor that will appear on the November 6 ballot.

Buchanan gave her history with the town and why she was running.

She came from Dubois in 1986 to work as a Hanna police officer.

"I not only worked here once as a police officer, I worked here twice as a police officer, so I am aware of what it is like to be an employee of the town." Buchanan said. "I owned a business here for 22 years, the bar Dingy Dan's which I sold last year and currently I am a school bus driver."

Buchanan said she took the job as school bus driver because she liked to be around the children of the town. She is also strongly involved with Wee Folks Pre-School where she is the chairman of the board. She said that the youth of Hanna are important to the community in so many ways and is why she tries to be involved with helping them, whether it is keeping the pre-school open or making sure students get to classes.

"I have owned my home here for 31 years and I have a real interest in the town," Buchanan said. "I served a term on the SCWEMS (South Central Wyoming Emergency Medical Services) board for Hanna."

Buchanan said she wanted to follow through on what was important to the residents of Hanna and enforce ordinances that are in place.

When asked about the possible resistance to the ordinances in town, she acknowledged some residents might not like it, but the ordinances were there for a reason.

"It is in black and white and the governing body wanted it to be that way for a reason," Buchanan said.

She said the town has gone through changes since she started living in the town and understood the frustration of long term residents who see places slowly falling apart because of absentee owners. Buchanan said she hoped to remedy the problem by not only enforcing ordinances that would require these abandoned homes to be cleaned up, but she wants to go to Carbon County Economic Development Council meetings and Carbon County Council of Government meetings to listen on how Hanna can benefit from being located where it is in Carbon County.

"I am all for bringing in anything I can far as economic growth as long as it doesn't hurt the town," Buchanan said.

She said she wants to help the Hanna Recreation Center get a higher profile in the county. Buchanan said she would work with the current director, Vivian Gonzales, to consider the different ways the center can be utilized.

"The most important thing I can say is, I may have to listen and learn from many sources, whether it is the residents, Carbon County or State officials, but I truly care about this town and I will do my best for it," Buchanan concluded.

She said when she came to Hanna as a police officer, the town had a female mayor thirty years ago. The town has had female mayors over the years and Buchanan said she would be honored if it happened again this year.

The HART members thanked her for coming.

The next scheduled meeting will be at 5:30 p.m. on Sept. 25 at the Hanna Market.