two of Lovell`s - The Lovell Chronicle

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We are proud to share the
Lovell Chronicle’s
2010 Historical
Section
with our web readers …
Take a step inside for stories about the
National Guard’s deployment to Korea;
two of Lovell’s finest town fathers, Dr.
Scott M. Welch and Bill Powell; Lovell
Senior VIPs and a very daring Mel
Kuper!
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June 17, 2010 | The Lovell Chronicle Historical Section
60 years later:
Remembering the Korean War deployment
By Brad Devereaux
Last year’s Wyoming National Guard
deployment has been called the largest
deployment in the state’s history, with
some 941 soldiers from Wyoming heading
to Kuwait as part of the deployment of the
115th Fires Brigade.
Looking back, the next largest Wyoming National Guard deployment was also
its first deployment, about 60 years ago, to
the Korean War in 1951.
National Guard units from Lovell,
Sheridan, Thermopolis, Worland and Cody
made up the 300th Armored Field Artillery Battalion. The orders to ship overseas
were received in January of 1951, and the
300th left shortly after, after four months
of training at Fort Lewis.
About 65 men from Lovell were deployed as part of the 300th Service Battery. The service battery was responsible
for maintenance of equipment, and also
supplying ammo, arms, food and other
supplies to the rest of the battalion. They
went on line May 16, attached to the Second Infantry Division.
Don Dover of Lovell was working at
the National Guard Armory at the time
of deployment, and was given the job of
contacting the men in the unit to tell them
they had been activated. Some of them
were surprised, but most soldiers knew it
was coming, he said.
Dover said there were advantages and
disadvantages that many of the men in
the battalion were from Lovell.
“We were all friends, so we didn’t get
homesick as much. We all worked together
and helped each other,” he said. “The bad
part was, you could have the whole unit
wiped out in one deal.”
Fortunately, the 300th Service Battery did not suffer a single causality during the war, although other soldiers from
northwest Wyoming in the battalion were
killed. But that’s not to say there weren’t
some close calls for the Lovell soldiers.
Courtesy photo
Bob Baird (right) stands next to his
Korean friend, Gus, who Baird hired
to help with construction and other
tasks around the Army camp.
Dover remembers a tense trip when
he and another soldier left the service
area and took a drive up to the artillery
line. Dover was in charge of distributing
rations to the service battery and spent
much of his time organizing, preparing
and delivering food, but he also traveled to
the front lines on occasion.
“A Jeep sped by in the opposite direction and the guys were yelling at us to
turn around and go back,” he said.
They watched as artillery blasts landed in the center of the road, one every 10
feet or so, coming toward the jeep. They
quickly jumped out and took quick cover
on the side of the road. Seconds later, a
shell dropped just feet from where they
dug in.
It was a dud.
They jumped back over to the jeep,
which was covered in dirt from the blasts,
and took off down the road, passing an
artillery outpost that had been blown up
and a few marines who were killed in the
blast.
Dover remembers taking baths in
a Korean river during downtime and a
bunch of soldiers floating down the river
on air mattresses. Dover snagged his mattress on a barbed wire hanging over the
water and had to walk a few miles on the
riverbank to catch up with the group.
“They were laughing so hard at me,”
he said.
Even during downtime, there were
constant reminders of the war, he said,
recalling the bodies of Korean soldiers and
civilians floating down the river alongside
them.
Trucking ammo
Ammo Supply Sergeant Wes Meeker’s
main responsibility was to make sure the
three firing batteries in the battalion had
the ammo they needed during combat.
He said most of his time was spent running ammo trucks back and forth to the 18
artillery guns of the battalion. The service battery was equipped with 12 trucks
to haul equipment, and also a radio truck
and a jeep, which served as a quick back
and forth between the artillery and the
service battery. They typically hauled boxes with two shells in each, at 48 pounds
per shell.
Vehicles of the 300th were stamped
with a Wyoming bucking horse logo on a
bumper plate, Meeker said. The pride of
the logo also extended to troops not native
to Wyoming, he said.
The ammo supply soldiers stayed in
tents with the rest of the service battery
during the winter, Meeker said, but often
they operated more like infantry, staying
between the front lines and service battery, digging holes in the ground and making small shelters out of ammo boxes filled
with dirt. With a tarp pulled over top,
Meeker said some nights he slept pretty
good and the structure helped keep the
soldiers out of the way of shrapnel flung
by exploding artillery rounds.
Meeker said the battalion was put on
a task force to break through enemy lines
to try to cut off Chinese troops in May of
1951. The opposing soldiers caught the
300th, along with the Second Infantry Division they were supporting, in a narrow
passage and they were forced to back up
with M7 howitzers to vacate the area. The
force was made up of 12 Chinese divisions,
an estimated 120,000 troops. Meeker said
the Second Infantry was overrun terribly,
with many killed and wounded.
The Second Infantry Division and the
300th Armored Field Artillery Battalion
received a distinguished Unit Citation for
“deserved honor and distinction,” for their
actions during the operation on May 16-
Soldiers of the 300th Armored Field Artillery pictured in 1951 in Korea are (front
row, l-r) Mel Baird, Lyle Townsend, Cecil Carlton, Uel Moore, Bob Lindsay, Jerry
Horsley, John Mckay, Kay Parks, Don Dover, Jim Larson, Robert Earhaart, Bob
Tillett, Harley Higuraski, Darrell Stevens, Don Pickett, Aaron Owens, Perry
Alsager; (second row, l-r) Bob Baird, Alvin Doerr, Ira Summer, Harry Ryan,
Max Chandler, Kim (Korean boy), Dean McArthur, Jerry Fink, Agpowa, Dastis,
John Pilaroski, Roman Silkowski, Fred Davis, George Torre, – Edwards, George
Manhart, Dale Quinn; (third row, l-r) Austin Prestice, Wayne Porter, Ian Ross,
John Vankershaver, Mark Robertson, Arnold Korell, Mr. Brown, Lt. Smith,
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Courtesy photo
Members of the 300th pictured are (unknown), Bob Baird with his pheasant
shotgun, Lyle Townsend and Dale Quinn. The Wyoming bucking horse is
stamped on the upper left corner of the truck.
22, 1951. The following is a passage from
the citation:
“The Third Chinese Army Group drove
the full force of its savage assault against
the Second Division with the specific mission of annihilation of the units. The right
flank of the unit was completely exposed
when enemy pressure broke through adjacent United Nations elements. Pressure
increased and each night enemy forces
bypassed the staunch defenders and occupied positions to their rear. Tactical
units of the Second Division launched
fierce counterattacks which destroyed enemy penetrations, successfully extricated
themselves, and through readjustment
of positions, stopped the onslaught of the
Chinese forces.”
The 300th received another citation
for their efforts on July 10, 1953, to provide artillery support until infantry units
could establish new positions further
ahead.
“The magnificent fighting spirit exhibited by members of the 300th Armored
Field Artillery Battalion reflects great
credit on themselves and the military service,” the citation reads.
“We had a good outfit. I was really
proud of our outfit,” Meeker said. “We
hauled a lot of ammo.”
By the time Meeker left Korea in February of 1952, the 300th had fired more
than 285,000 rounds of artillery fire.
Ice cream was the thing Meeker said
he missed the most while overseas. He
said ice cream was made at camp and distributed twice to the 300th during their
time there.
Meeker made a point to mention that
First Sergeant Mel Baird was “the finest
first sergeant you would ever run into.”
Baird, a WWII veteran, was also instrumental in getting the new national
guard unit started in Lovell after the old
115th Calvary was disbanded after mobilizing just prior to WWII in 1940.
Meeker was the first non-veteran to
join up, he said, and he spent some time
recruiting. He said he talked to many local
soldiers about joining up including Dover,
Dick Doerr and Pete Moncur, to name a
few.
“I told them it was a good deal,” Meeker said. “You got to wear a uniform, got to
go to camp and you got paid.”
The last day troops were in Lovell,
See ‘korea,’ page 4
Douglas Reutzel, Thorald Rollins, George Husby, Wilbur Clark, Wes Meeker,
Bill England; (fourth row, l-r) John Richadson, Norald Emmett, Jack Johnson,
Elmer Ezzell, Farrell Walker, Fred Fitchner, McElkinny, Bob Halliwell, – Price,
–Burger, Andy Anderson, Gordon Olsen, Walter Jones, Bill Shumway, Dr.
Freeman, Ralph Wilkerson; (fifth row, l-r) Don Blackburn, Rex Reasch, Bill
Whalen, Sgt. Wooley, Ken Blackburn, Jack Frost, Wayne Kinser, Lew Nicholls,
Dick Doerr, Don Moncur, Eugene Lewis. Not pictured: Graham Simms, Richard
Sessions, Mondell Workman.
Courtesy photo
2 | The Lovell Chronicle Historical Section | June 17, 2010
www.LovellChronicle.com
2010 Mustang Days Parade marshal:
Town father Dr. Scott M. Welch believes in serving
Scott Meeks Welch was born
Jan. 25, 1925, in Cowley. He attended school in Cowley, graduating from Cowley High School.
Scott served as an ensign in the
Navy during World War II from
Nov. 1943 until Oct. 1946. He
married Kathleen Peterson, also
from Cowley, Sept. 4, 1945.
After the war both Scott and
Kathleen continued their education at the University of Wyoming. Scott played football for
the Wyoming Cowboys, starting
as quarterback in 1946 and 1947.
In the spring of 1948, Scott and
Kathleen both received their
bachelor’s degrees.
After graduation, while
waiting for placement in dental
school, Scott was the assistant
football coach for the Wyoming
Cowboy freshman football team.
Scott attended dental school
at St. Louis University in St. Louis, Mo., graduating in the spring
of 1953. Scott and Kathleen moved to Lovell where he practiced
dentistry until 2004. Scott was
always active in the community.
He served on the North Big Horn
Hospital Board for 24 years. He
served on the board for Big Horn
County School District No. 2 for
29 years. He served on the Foster
Gulch Golf Board for 25 years.
Dr. Welch was also very active in state, national, and international dental boards and
organizations, He was a member
of the American Association of
Dental Examiners (AADE). Dr.
Welch served as Third Vice President, Second Vice President,
Vice President, President-elect,
President and Past President for
the United States AADE. He was
honored with the great distinction of being named The American
Association of Dental Examiners
Scott Welch and grandson Scotty Dillon smile for the camera
while Dillon was on leave from active duty in November of 2005
at a Veterans Day ceremony in Cody.
“Citizen of the Year” in 1988 by
the AADE.
A member of the American
Dental Association (ADA) and
the Wyoming Dental Association
(WDA), Dr. Welch attended the
National ADA meetings as the
delegate for Wyoming for 15 years, always delighting everyone
with honey candy from Queen
Bee Gardens. Dr. Welch served as president of the WDA in
1978/1979. The ADA also honored Dr. Welch with a distinguished service award in 1984 for
serving on the Joint Commissions on National Dental Examinations 1978-1984.
Internationally, Dr. Welch
was a member of the Pierre Fauchard Academy. Dr. Welch served as Vice President, Presidentelect, President of the PFA in
2002 and Past President in 2003.
He served as Pierre Fauchard
Chairman of Wyoming from
1973-1995. He then served as a
regional PFA Trustee for Section
5, which represents the western
United States – Alaska, Hawaii,
California, Oregon, Washington,
Idaho, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Wyoming – from 1996-1999. He was
honored to receive the Outstanding Contribution to the Arts and
Science of Dentists Award by the
PFA in 1995. Dr. Welch received
a Fellowship from the American
College of Dentists in 1976 and
was also a fellow in the International College of Dentists.
Dr. Welch has also been very
active in the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints. He
served as bishop from 1959-1966.
He served on the stake high council and in the Big Horn Stake
presidency as the first counselor
to President M. Dale Ensign.
Dr. Welch, with his brothers
John, Art and Ford, (the Welch
Brothers) sang at countless funerals throughout the Big Horn
Basin, “Beyond the Sunset” being requested most often. Dr.
Welch was in many honor guards
and color guards in the Memorial
Day services in Byron, Cowley
and Lovell, singing at many of
them.
Dr. Scott and Kathleen
Welch are the parents of seven
children. All seven children graduated from Lovell High School
and hold bachelor’s degrees or
higher. Chauna Welch Bischoff
lives in Lovell and teaches music
at Lovell Elementary School. Robert P. Welch (Dori) is a financial advisor in Salt Lake City,
Utah. Dr. Scott P. Welch practices dentistry in Lovell. Dr. Brad
P. Welch (Cindy) and Dr. Greg P.
Welch (Wendy) practice dentistry
together in Las Vegas. Dr. Barry
P. Welch (Lori) is an ophthalmologist practicing in Cody. Krystal
Welch Brown (Carl) is an artist
living in Houston. They have 33
grandchildren and seven greatgrandchildren.
Dr. Welch loves his family
and church, believes in serving
and helping everyone and takes
pride in putting in a good day’s
work. Dr. Scott and Kathleen
still call Lovell home.
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Scott Welch, pictured in his
younger years, is wearing a
letterman’s sweater during his
time in high school or college.
Scott Welch was honored as
AADE Citizen of the Year in
1988. He is pictured posing
with a plaque and his wife,
Kathleen.
Cracklin’ Rosie hits the Rose City Monday of Mustang Week
By Brad Devereaux
While many performers’ careers are ruined or
badly bruised by accusations of lip-syncing, Conner
Lorre actually takes such
a charge as a compliment.
Then again, he isn’t actually lip-syncing, but singing
the songs live.
Lorre will be in Lovell
Monday to start Mustang
Days with a diamond-studded free performance at the
Lovell Community Center.
His show begins at 7 p.m.
and goes until about 10.
Once you hear his voice,
you’ll be a believer, or maybe a skeptic wondering
if Lorre is lip-syncing on
stage, as he belts out extremely accurate vocals designed to sound exactly like
the recordings made by the
bands he is imitating.
“I make my best effort
to sound most like the original recording as humanly
possible,” Lorre said in a
phone interview this week.
“I’ve spent hours scrutinizing every swoop and swirl
of every note. It’s very time
consuming, but my audi-
Conner Lorre
ences are really loving it.”
His specialty is Neil Diamond, but he also does the
Beatles, Oasis, the Eagles,
Elvis, Dean Martin, Frank
Sinatra and Tom Petty, to
name a few. His show Monday will be filled with a variety of imitations of songs.
“You’d be hard pressed
to find anyone else who
would sound more like
them,” Lorre said about the
performers he emulates.
A one-man show, Lorre
sings along with a live band
shire, Cincinnati, Denver,
Kansas City, Minnesota
and Wisconsin. When he’s
not traveling, he stays busy
playing local gigs near his
home in Georgia. This will
be his first time in Wyo-
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backtrack and interacts
with the audience throughout the show. While he sings
plenty of oldies, Lorre said
his performances are something that people of all ages
can tap their foot to.
Lorre tells a story of
when he was fired in the
middle of performing a twoweek contract in Florida
years ago because event organizers accused him of lipsyncing.
“I scheduled a meeting with the manager and
thanked him for the compliment,” Lorre said, adding
that he offered the manager $1,000 if he could prove
Lorre was faking the performance. “Obviously he failed
to prove I was lip syncing.”
“From that experience
I was very, very inspired,”
he said. “It was literally the
birth of my voice impersonation show.”
Lorre hails from Marietta, Ga., and spends a lot
of time flying on commercial
airliners to places around
the U.S. to perform. His recent stops include shows in
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June 17, 2010 | The Lovell Chronicle Historical Section | 3
www.LovellChronicle.com 2010 Mustang Days Parade marshal:
Town father Bill Powell served his country and community
By David Peck
Editor’s note: The following story is an
edited version of a story that was printed in
June of 2000.
There are many facets to Bill Powell,
who will be honored this Saturday as one
of two grand marshals of the Lovell Mustang Days Rose Parade.
There’s Bill Powell, the World War II
war hero; Bill Powell, the successful businessman; Bill Powell, the band leader and
trumpeter; Bill Powell, the community
leader; Bill Powell, the patriot; and Bill
Powell, the husband, father and grandfather.
A good-natured man who’s as quick
with a joke as he is with a friendly smile
and a handshake, Powell is deeply proud
of his country, his community and the
many organizations he has served over the
years, and his enthusiasm is infectious.
Born March 19, 1923, to Alva A. and
Lila Rogers Powell in Billings, where his
father was the assistant master mechanic
for the Great Western Sugar Co., Powell
moved with his family to Lovell as a baby
when his father was made the master mechanic for the Lovell factory.
In 1932, Alva Powell was transferred
to Billings again, and the family lived in
Billings for a year and a half before Alva
died of a heart attack. The family moved
back to Lovell, where Lila Powell raised
the family.
After Bill’s father died, his mother
owned and operated a hotel where the
Haskell Apartments now stand.
Trumpeter
Powell’s school days brought him one
of his greatest loves – the trumpet.
When young Bill started the first
grade, the school music program was reorganizing the band, and anyone in school
who could come up with an instrument,
no matter how young, was invited to play.
Ted Stevens, the Great Western landman, gave Bill his silver trumpet, and Bill
joined the band.
He played for 12 years and was first
chair his final four years.
“I loved the instrument, and I always
have,” he said. “I played in dance bands off
and on for 20 years with four or five different orchestras” – Ralph Ericksen, Carroll
Whalen, Jake Adolph and others.
Later, Powell ran the Mustang Band
for 16 years, leading the popular Dollies of
the Follies in song.
“Nobody had more fun in that band or
dancing than I did,” he said. “We played in
the Basin, Greybull, Lovell, Cowley, Powell, Cody and Red Lodge parades and won
many trophies. Other bands would play,
and the crowd would clap, but we’d come
along and the crowd would go hog wild.
“We thrilled the crowd more than any
other band in the parade. We didn’t sound
better, but the cancan girls were so beautiful.”
Military career
When Bill was a junior in high school,
he joined the 115th Cavalry, Troop A,
based in Lovell, and he was, naturally, the
bugler.
When the 115th Cavalry was activated
for federal duty in 1940, Powell wanted
to serve, but Capt. Wendell Poulson, the
LHS football and basketball coach, told
Powell stay in school because he had another year to go.
“He said ‘we’re leaving and you’re
staying’,” Powell said. “He was a man I
wanted to pattern my life after. He was a
wonderful man.”
Lovell High School had to make do
without four top educators that year when
the Cavalry was called to patrol the Pacific
Young aviator Bill Powell poses at the cockpit of his P-38/F-5 photo
reconnaissance fighter plane. Powell flew 70 missions in his F-5.
in the Army Air Corps, and I had been biding my time,” he said.
Powell applied for the Aviation Cadet
Program and survived a rigorous testing
procedure. Of the class of 27, only nine
passed the academic test and four passed
the physical test. In the end, Powell was
the only cadet to complete the course and
earn his wings.
The young airman worked his way
through a number of posts during his
training, including stints in Texas, Spokane, Wash., Santa Ana, Calif., Tucson
and Phoenix, Ariz. and Muroc Army Air
Base in California. He then served as part
of the West Coast fighter patrol, flying the
Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter out of
Glendale and Van Nuys, Calif.
One day a notice appeared on the bulletin board seeking pilots for F-5 photo
reconnaissance planes, a fast, high-flying
version of the P-38 used for taking pictures of enemy formations, installations,
etc. No one signed up because all of the pilots wanted to fly fighters, but two or three
days later Powell saw his name on the list.
He had been “selected.”
Buzzing Lovell
After training in Colorado Springs and
Oklahoma, Powell shipped off to England
to enter the war, but not before he made
a memorable flight to his
home town. On Saturday,
Aug. 28, 1943, he took off
on a training flight ostensibly to fly over Shreveport,
La.
Instead, he flew to
Lovell to say hello to his
mother and buzzed downtown Lovell numerous
times after buzzing Thermopolis, Worland, Basin
and Greybull along the
way.
He flew his P-38 so low
that he could recognize
people walking on Main
Street. For instance, he
recognized Oscar Kilian
walking near the Big Horn
Market with his apron on.
“I flew between the water tower and the smoke
stacks,” he said. ‘It was
absolutely against regulations. I was almost between
the buildings coming down
Main Street. Reg Croft
Twenty-year-old Bill Powell (center) poses with his (dentist) said he could see
crew chief J.P. Culler (left) and his assistant crew into my cockpit (from his
chief in France after 46 missions.
second story office). I made
six passes or so.”
Powell said his superiCoast and guard against enemy infiltraors never knew. He, of course, took no photion, Powell said – Coach Poulson, Supt.
tos and said his camera must have malof School Archibald Black, assistant coach
functioned.
and teacher Reed Colvin, and ag teacher
The brash young pilot was assigned to
Norman Lewis. All were excellent examthe 30th Photo Reconnaissance Squadron,
ples to follow, Powell said.
first stationed at Chalgrove, England and
Powell graduated from LHS as presithen Middlewallop, England. Eventually,
dent of the senior class in 1941, and he
he flew out of Field A-9 in France, Verwas working for the sugar factory on
saille, France, and Gossilies, Belgium.
December 7 when the Japanese bombed
Powell and the other members of his
Pearl Harbor. He quickly enlisted in the
squadron flew direct support of the First
U.S. Army Air Corps.
“My lifelong ambition was to be a pilot Army, taking critical photographs of the
front line and of enemy formations and installations behind enemy lines to provide
target information to the artillery and
bombers. The F-5s also took post-raid photos for bomb damage assessment.
The information gathered by the photo
recon pilots was vital to the Allied war effort, so much so that Powell said of the
Axis forces, “They couldn’t make a move
without us knowing it.”
On June 6, 1944, Powell flew and photographed the coast of Normandy in France, the day
of the Allied invasion, flying both morning and afternoon missions. The day
was to be known as D-Day.
The F-5 was able to be
equipped with a variety of
different cameras, depending on the mission. Often,
Powell flew with a 40-inch
focal length camera that
could clearly photograph
railroad ties from 35,000
feet.
“It was the finest camera in the world,” Powell
said.
F-5s were unarmed
and had only light armor,
but they could out-run
anything in the sky.
“The only thing we
had was altitude and
speed,” Powell said. “We
were never to engage the enemy, and we
had to keep our head on a swivel, checking
our tail. We had to get the film back.”
Some branches of the Air Corps had a
set number of missions for its crews. B17
crews, for instance, got to go home if they
survived to fly 25 missions, Powell said.
But there was no set number of missions for photo recon pilots, and by the end
of the war, Powell had flown 70 missions,
which he said put him probably in the top
20 of photo recon pilots who flew in the
war. He said the average photo reconnaissance pilot’s life span was eight missions.
Powell earned the Distinguished Flying Cross, among other medals.
After VE Day, Powell was granted
leave in February of 1945 and returned to
Lovell, where he quickly fell in love with
Lucy Robertson, who had been Lovell’s
first Rose Queen and was “the prettiest
girl in high school” when he was in school,
Bill said.
Lucy was two years ahead of Bill in
school, but he said she wouldn’t even look
at him when they were in high school. But
when he came home with his uniform on,
it must have made an impression. Bill and
Lucy were married on March 22, 1945,
and Bill was then assigned stateside until
his discharge in January of 1947. He flew
in the reserves as a captain until 1958.
Businessman
Returning to Lovell after his discharge, Powell worked at the sugar factory, at the Ford garage as a parts man and
for the Ohio Oil Co. When Ohio Oil left
town, Powell bought Kilian’s Men’s Store
from Oscar and Harold Kilian, taking over
the operation on January 1, 1957. He said
the store was in the storefront where Big
Horn Dispatch is now.
He ran Kilian’s until disaster struck
the block on January 23, 1967. A huge fire
destroyed several buildings, including the
historic Snyder Building, which Powell
had purchased as a rental property from
Jesse Robertson in 1965.
Seizing the moment, Powell went in
with Phil Reasch to build a new building that housed Lovell Drug and the new
Bill Powell’s. The new building had much
more room than his former location, so
Bill was able to add women’s clothing to
his product line, and the name changed
from Kilian’s to Bill Powell’s. The new
store’s grand opening was Sept. 5, 1967,
and Lucy assisted Bill with operating the
store for many years.
Bill and Lucy Powell stayed in business for more than 30 years until his
health forced him to retire. Bill Powell’s
closed for about 14 months from August
of 1989 to November of 1990, re-opened
for nearly two years, then closed for good
on Sept. 19, 1992. He had re-opened during the optimism surrounding the prison
project and had hoped to sell the store as a
going concern.
Bill had the perfect personality to run
a store, gregarious and out-going. He has
a way of making each person he meets
feel appreciated, and that’s how he ran his
store.
“I like people, and you can own a store
and treat people other than friendly and
never get them back,” he said. “People who
had moved away always stopped by my
store when they were back visiting. That
pleased me so much.
“I always felt the customer was the
most important person. Without them,
you’re sunk.”
Civic leader
Powell has been very active in the
community over the years, serving on the
North Big Horn Hospital Board for 20
years, including a time as chairman; helping develop Rose City West as president of
the Lower Shoshone Valley Projects, Inc.,
then serving as president of the board for
16 years; helping to promote the development of the gypsum wallboard plant now
operated by Georgia-Pacific; and serving
as president of the Lovell Rod and Gun
Club. He was a long-time member of the
Lovell Area Chamber of Commerce, serving as president of the board, and he now
holds an honorary lifetime membership.
He served as bishop of the Lovell First
Ward of the LDS Church, as well as other
positions. He also coached Little League
basketball and baseball, helping to revive
the baseball program when it was struggling by raising money and purchasing
new uniforms and equipment and by serving as the head umpire.
Bill and Lucy Powell
Family is also important to Bill Powell. He and Lucy raised seven children:
Linda (Grant) Dayley of Mesa, Ariz.;
Monte Jo (Gary) Laing of Loa, Utah; the
late John William Powell; Florence (Jim)
Thomas of Kaysville, Utah; Lila (Robin)
May of Rock Springs; Debra (Mike) Archibald of Kemmerer; and Roger (Vicki)
Powell of Golden, Colo. They have 30
grandchildren and 20 great-grandchildren.
Patriot
Perhaps Bill Powell’s most indelible mark on the Lovell community is his
many years of service to area veterans
and their families. He is a 62-year member of the VFW and a 61-year member of
the American Legion, and he organized
Memorial Day services at the Lovell, Byron and Cowley cemeteries for decades,
serving as commander of the color guard.
He also conducted military graveside services for many, many years, often playing
Taps on his trumpet, as well.
Bill Powell can speak eloquently
about what it means to be an American
and live in Lovell, but he summed his
feelings up with a few words:
“I’ve lived in a wonderful country and
had a wonderful time. I’ve raised a family and am proud of each and every one
of them. I’m proud to be an American
with the blessings and freedoms we enjoy. We’re free to travel, free to work in a
place we want to work. We have freedom
of speech, clean air, clean water, a wonderful food supply supplied by wonderful
farmers. We are a blessed people.”
That feeling of pride, which fills Bill
Powell’s heart, is what he is all about.
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4 | The Lovell Chronicle Historical Section | June 17, 2010
korea
Continued from page 1
they were asked to lead the Mustang Days
Parade down Main Street. Meeker said
the soldiers chanted a sound off and remembers the parade was “a lot of fun” before leaving for Ft. Lewis, Wash.
He said “the whole town” showed up
at the train depot to see the soldiers off as
they left to pick up more troops before flying to camp from Billings.
Meeker said he was one of the last
soldiers to return home from the 300th
Service Battery deployment. He had dated Iva Lee Lewis in high school, but she
moved to Gillette and the two lost track
of each other. Meeker’s mother told him
Lewis had stopped by to talk with them
while he was at war, and encouraged him
to write her a letter. Reluctant at first,
Meeker wrote a letter and the next day, he
received a letter from Lewis. The two letters had passed in the mail, he said.
They dated for a while and eventually
married, celebrating their 57th anniversary this year, Meeker said.
Meeker recalls a time when the troops
dug out a swimming hole and started
playing submarine tag in the water. A fellow soldier named Jerry dove in and hit
his head on a large boulder just under the
surface of the water. Meeker said the medic didn’t have all the right supplies to fix
the soldier up at the time, so he used dental floss and a needle to stitch his wound
while the soldier finished the better part
of a bottle of whiskey.
“He was singing when the medic got
through with him, and he wanted us to
harmonize!” Meeker laughed.
Meeker said his mother sent a lot of
letters along with the Lovell Chronicle. He
said it was always great to read about the
happenings back home and to hear from
family. His father, who worked at the post
office, would write short messages on the
envelopes of the mail going to soldiers.
They also received the GI newspaper
sometimes, he said.
Honeymoon at Fort Lewis
Lovell veteran Bob Baird married his
wife, Ann, just after he graduated high
school. He was given deployment orders
soon after, taking his new bride with him
to Ft. Lewis to be together before shipping
off to war.
Baird said he remembers working
on WWII equipment before heading into
combat and said it took a while to get the
tanks, artillery and other gear ready.
He said many of the Lovell soldiers
hadn’t seen any combat action, though he
and a few others were previously deployed
in WWII. Their five months of training
La De Da
www.LovellChronicle.com
gave them an idea of what to do, but once
deployed they had to be ready to do their
job right away.
“A lot of people weren’t too sharp on
the jobs they had,” Meeker said. “We had
a few things to learn.”
Pushing up toward the 38th parallel for several days without much sleep,
Baird remembers burning trucks, equipment and piles of rubble blown up in their
path. When they reached the first spot to
dig a foxhole and set up for the night, the
soldiers closed their eyes for some muchneeded rest.
Baird woke up to the sound of artillery
falling all around him from his spot under
the shade of a truck. He watched as artillery shells fell, exploding next to soldiers
bathing in the river. An allied artillery
gun took out a plane flying overhead about
100 yards away and Baird knew he had
arrived and was at war.
Later, he said when the bodies of Koreans were lined up, with dog tags hanging off their big toes, it made him sick
to his stomach to think of all the telegrams that would be sent to the families
of the deceased men. However, the sights,
sounds and smells were something a soldier had to get used to, he said, and soon
they were used to the horrible things happening all around them.
Baird said many of the men in the
300th were Mormon, and they held church
service sometimes when time allowed. But
the war wouldn’t be quiet for religion or
any other reason, and the church tent was
once hit with a wall of dirt sent into the air
from a mortar blast on a nearby hill.
Baird agreed it was bittersweet to have
many friends there. He also had his brother, Mel, with him, as did other soldiers in
the group.
He recalled one time when he found
Mel hit by a piece of shrapnel after an artillery attack on the camp.
“He was sitting there and said he had
been hit, but he didn’t know how bad it
was,” Baird said. “He was setting a trip
flair at the time, sitting behind a stump
with his leg hanging out from behind the
stump. He thought his foot was gone and
he was afraid to feel it. I felt it and found
it wasn’t too bad.”
Danger was everywhere, sometimes
lurking where the soldiers in the new environment did not expect it at first.
“We had to be careful. We didn’t go
anywhere we didn’t have to go,” he said.
“There were a lot of land mines, even on
the roads. Anytime we went anywhere,
we would follow the guy’s tracks in front
2
Brad Devereaux
Korean War veteran Bob Baird looks at an illustration that is framed along
with a description of one of the 300th Armored Field Artillery’s citations.
of us.”
The military was a good experience,
Baird said, but it’s not something he
wanted to make his life’s work.
“It has a lot to do with who I am today,” he said. “It was good to be doing
something and doing a good job at it.”
His grandkids enjoy hearing the many
stories he has to tell about wartime, he
said.
A positive memory of the war was of a
Korean man who Baird hired to make him
a desk and help with other tasks around
camp. Baird skipped his native name and
instead called his friend Gus, because it
was easier to pronounce and remember.
Gus built a nice desk for Baird, which
kept a photograph of his wife, Ann, and
other family, before he eventually had to
leave the desk behind.
Gus was working to send money to his
family in Pusan, and he was impressive
at building things, Baird said. He carried
with him a small pouch containing small
homemade tools for his craft.
When Baird was looking for a shotgun
to shoot pheasants with for sport, Gus
helped him find one – buried underneath
his home – because shotguns were illegal
in Korea at the time.
Meeker also hired a Korean boy,
about 12 years old, while deployed to help
out at the ammo station. The boy couldn’t
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speak English, but he was a great help to
the battalion, Meeker said.
After losing track of each other, Meeker and the boy were reunited when the
boy pulled up riding in a jeep one day and
ran up to Meeker and slapped him on the
knee, grinning ear to ear. He still didn’t
speak English, but it was apparent they
were happy to see each other.
The two were together through the
rest of the deployment and Meeker taught
him how to speak English. Meeker said
his parents sent the boy a red wool sweater and a pair of shoes for Christmas, and
the boy loved his new sweater.
He remembers a humorous time when
the Korean boy was hanging around a
group of American soldiers while waiting
for a movie to begin, beaming with pride
while wearing his bright red sweater, surrounded by soldiers who were decked out
in drab brown uniforms.
“They were having more fun with him
that night than they did with the movie,”
Meeker said.
The boy, now a man, got back in touch
with Meeker in recent years, finding his
address and sending a letter from his new
home in Texas. The two old friends met
up at a battalion reunion in Cheyenne
and Juan’s wife sang a traditional Korean
song at the event. Meeker said they still
keep in contact with phone calls today.
Murphey’s
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Stop in and check us ou
186 E. Main
548-2030
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Stop by, say hi, and check
out our bargains!
G-P Gypsum reminds you to have a safe and
wonderful Mustang Days Celebration.
Georgia-Pacific Gypsum LLC
80 e. Main st., lovell
Welcome to Lovell
548-6546
Welcome toys!
Mustang Da
and
Mustang Days!
Have a safe and enjoyable weekend!
Deb Good, Agent
Haskell
Funeral
Home
605 E. Main • 548-7678
307.548.7891
8 E. Main St., Lovell
Mon.-Fri., 9am-5pm
Welcome to
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Service &
Food Court
Have a fun & safe
Mustang Days!
Be sure to enjoy the
Cowley Boys
in our parking lot Friday
night at 8:30 pm
Fun for the whole family!
JIM MINCHOW, OWNER
Burgers &
Fries!
Open late during Mustang Days!
317 E. Main • Lovell
Station: 548-7211
Food Court: 548-7979
Convenience Store • Cooper Tires • Propane
Interstate Batteries • Complete Service Work
Gas • 24-hr. credit card fueling • Diesel
Bulk Deliveries • Computer Spin Balancing
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June 17, 2010 | The Lovell Chronicle Historical Section | 5
www.LovellChronicle.com Enthusiasm for life keeps Mel Kuper flying high
By David Peck
Mel Kuper has a zest for
life. The 79-year-old Lovell
resident has nary a dull moment in
his active life. Following his retirement 1992, he dove
headfirst into his hobby of restoring furniture, quickly
developing into a master craftsman. He loves to travel,
often taking to the road to visit his children or friends. He
loves to ride motorcycles.
His latest passion? Skydiving. Kuper
took up skydiving at the age of 76 and
has three jumps under his belt. With
two more he can jump solo. He had
hoped to solo before the age of 80,
but poor weather on several attempts has delayed his progress.
Kuper almost got into the
sport on a dare. He and his late
wife, Carol, were good friends
with neighbors Marv and Jan
Hubbs when they lived in Cody. After
the Hubbs moved to Lander, the couples
kind of lost track, but after Marv died, Jan sent a Christmas card to Mel and Carol, not realizing that Mel had
lost Carol earlier that year – July of 2005. Jan was living
in Ft. Collins by then.
Mel let Jan know that Carol had passed, and the two
old friends caught up on each other’s lives.
One day a few months later, Mel received a call from
Jan that intrigued him.
“Your birthday (Aug. 3) is past, but mine is still coming up,” Jan said. “I have something to do that’s special,
but I want you to do it with me.”
“I said, ‘Sure, I’ll be there.’ I never asked what it
was,” Kuper said. “When I got there she said, ‘Are you curious?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I’m a little curious.’
“’I want to go skydiving, and I want you to go with
me,’ she said. I said, ‘Let’s hop to it.’ I was all for it.”
And so at age 76 on a fall day in 2006, Mel Kuper
made his first jump.
Mel Kuper and Carol Jean Solberg, both age 15, pose
at Big Stone Lake near the Minnesota-South Dakota
border on their first date.
“I was lucky,” Kuper said. “I got a young guy who was
30 years old and the day he took me up was his 1,000th
jump. He lived it. Unfortunately, a month or less later
they had an exhibition (of skydiving). There were a whole
bunch of them and he was killed.”
Kuper donned a jump suit and in the air was
strapped to his instructor. He was one of 17 jumpers that
day, he said. He said the instructor had both a chute and
a backup chute, and there was a ring he could reach in
case something happened to the instructor.
Amazing experience
“I couldn’t wait to get out of that plane,” he said.
“That was the best part – that freefall. Oh, god, we went
out of that plane and as we jumped out we did a big, ol’
somersault and then there was the photographer just lying on his back – just floating there (and taking photos).
He had jumped out first. He came right up to me and
gave me a ‘high five.’”
After about 43 seconds the instructor told Kuper, “We
have to open the chute now.”
“I said, ‘OK,’ and the photographer took a dive and
down he went. And ‘Zingo!’ up we went.
“The view
was mind-boggling. It was the most
fantastic thing,” Kuper
said. “He let me steer the parachute. We went down and
then back up in a loop. We were the first of the 17 out of
the plane and the last to land.
“We made one more loop and when we got close he
said, “When I tap you once, put your feet out, and when I
tap you again, put your feet down and start running.’
“When he tapped me the second time, we hit and I
took one step. We were standing right smack dab in the
middle of that X (painted at the airport). That’s how good
he was. I just stood there dumbfounded.”
Meanwhile, Jan and her instructor had sailed out
over some office buildings and landed out in a field on the
airport grounds.
“Poor Jan was about a half a mile away,” Mel said.
“They didn’t have to come look for us.”
Mel was thrilled, but when told, his children weren’t
as thrilled.
“I didn’t tell either one of my kids,” he said. “I was going to do this thing. Joel (in Greybull) said, ‘Boy, you’re
lucky you didn’t tell us.’ Then he added, ‘You would have
gone anyway,’ and I said, ‘You’re right.’
“My daughter (Robyn Stacey of Woodruff, Utah) cried
and said, ‘You’re going to get killed.’ But hey, on any day
you can get in your car and you could get killed. I thought
I was old enough.”
Was Kuper scared?
“No, not a bit,” he said. “When you get my age you
don’t worry about that stuff. I’ve lived a good life. I’ve
done a lot of good things.”
Kuper said his goal is to jump solo. He has three
jumps in now – “It’s always a thrill,” he said – and he
needs two more to solo. He wanted to solo by his 80th
birthday, but he said when he has tried to get more
jumps in over the years he has sometimes run into
“squalls, lightning and wind, wind, wind.”
“I want to beat George Bush (senior),” Kuper said. “I
want to solo before he does.”
An interesting life
Kuper was born in 1930 in northeastern South Dakota near the town of Marvin about 40 miles from the Minnesota border. His father and mother, Harm and Myrtle
Kuper, farmed some 320 acres plus some leased land,
raising cattle and crops.
The Kuper farm was about 25 miles from the closest
high school, and there were no buses. When Mel’s brother
Marlyn joined the Air Force, his dad told him he needed
him on the farm. There were few hired hands around because of the war. Mel attended one week of high school.
Later, his folks moved to town and bought a grocery
store. Mel worked at the store and got whatever odd jobs
he could find. He soon went to work for the Milwaukee
Railroad, which was building a double track in the area.
His job was to replace the broken handles of sledgehammers. He also worked for the railroad on the signal crew,
checking and repairing signals.
Meanwhile, Kuper attended high school basketball
games, dances and other activities. He met a girl from
Summit, S.D., named Carol Jean Solberg.
“It was love at first sight, I’ll tell ya,” he said. “That
was it. I never had another girlfriend. We went to basketball games, tobogganing, movies and dances.”
Mel and Carol Kuper were married in 1950 and
moved to Sioux Falls. After about a year they moved to
Racine, Wis., where Mel worked at a J.I. Case tractor factory and Carol worked for Whitman Publishing and Western Printing. But the climate in Wisconsin didn’t suit
Mel, who had suffered from rheumatic fever as a child.
Mel and Carol gave it a go back on the family farm in
South Dakota, but when his brother, who had moved west
to work as a linotype operator, said he had a chance
at a job in Cody, he told Mel, “If I like it, why don’t
you join me out here?” He took the job and
in March of 1958 Mel and Carol moved to
Cody.
“When Carol saw her first mountain,
she loved it,” Mel recalled.
Kuper had taken a correspondence course in appliance
and electronics repair and went
to work for Samuelson Economy Furniture and later became
the chief electrician for Big Horn
Gypsum, later Celotex, working at
the wallboard plant in Cody for 25½
years.
He moved into quality control at the plant later
in his career and retired in February of 1992.
Carol’s health had begun to deteriorate, and
she experienced an irregular heartbeat. The couple
looked for a smaller home at a lower elevation and
moved to Lovell around Christmas of 1999, settling in at
283 E. Main.
“She enjoyed it here. She loved it here,” Mel said.
Mel plunged into his woodcraft passion, building a
shop behind the garage, building a deck in front of the
house and filling in the space between the house and the
garage. He loves to craft, rebuild, repair and refinish furniture, and his work can be seen at his storefront at 214
E. Main in Lovell.
Mel is self-taught in the furniture business.
“If you work hard enough, you can do anything,” he
said.
Carol died in July of 2005, and Mel sold his home
in 2006. He bought and refurbished Vera Poe’s home
on Carmon Ave., then sold it. He has lived a somewhat
nomadic lifestyle since then, living out of a motor coach
at times, spending time in Arizona and driving to see
friends and family around the country.
In Arizona, he heard about the needs of a Baptist
church in Florence that did a lot to help the local populace but needed to quickly raise $25,000 to pay for a new
steel building. Kuper donated his motor home to the
cause, and a man bought the coach and added $5,000
more, giving the church enough to cover its costs.
“I was tickled,” Kuper said.
Back in Lovell now, he is diving back into his furniture business and living out of a rented apartment. He’ll
probably travel again by the time the snow flies. Whatever he does, he’ll do it with his usual enthusiasm for life.
“That’s what keeps you young,” he said. “I refuse to
get old.”
And that is what keeps Mel Kuper living large.
Mel Kuper poses with some of his refinished furniture
in his shop at 283 E. Main.
Welcome to Lovell and
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Lovell Drug has been in
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100 Years!
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Real Estate Professionals
235 E. Main, Lovell
Lisa Marchant, Sales Associate,
Jyl Duffy, Sales Associate,
Sarah Johnson, Broker/Owner
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2010 Senior Center V.I.P.
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and Service District
757 Great Western • Lovell, WY • 548-6556
Proud to be serving North Big Horn County!
Lovell • Cowley • Byron • Deaver • Frannie
Last year we served
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meals in our dining
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Caring for those
who cared so much
for us!
Thank you for your
continued support!
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6 | The Lovell Chronicle Historical Section | June 17, 2010
www.LovellChronicle.com
VIPs give back with volunteer service
By Brad Devereaux
The 2010 North Big
Horn Senior Center VIPs
are certainly important to
the people they volunteer
countless hours to help.
VIPs Lyle and Carole
Aichele enjoy eating lunch
and socializing at the center, but they also volunteer much of their free time
helping others there. Lyle
is a dedicated meals-onwheels delivery driver and
Carole is a member of the
quilting team at the center,
which is made up of women who chip in to work on
quilts for raffles to raise
money.
Lyle, 81, said many of
the people on his food delivery route are younger than
he is, but he enjoys taking the ride and checking
on all of his friends on the
route. He delivers meals
on Mondays, Wednesdays
and Fridays, as long as he
is at home. Lyle works as a
car courier, driving behind
wide loads with flashers,
and said he never knows
where he will be called to
work any given day. Many
times, he’s rushing back to
Lovell from the Canadian
border just in time to pick
up his meals and pass them
out on his route.
Lyle started the volunteer job a few years ago
when Senior Center Director Denise Andersen asked
him if he would, and he said
he’s been enjoying the role
ever since.
“It keeps me busy and
keeps me young and running all the time,” he said.
Lyle says a quick hello to some on his route and
gives a sarcastic jab to others, but it is obvious that ev-
eryone is happy to see him.
Carole said she is looking forward to the Mustang
Days celebration this year
and said it is an honor to be
named a VIP. Carole and
Lyle are both from Oregon
originally, and Carole said
she moved to Lovell to be
with Lyle.
She is a member of the
Pindroppers Quilting Club
in Lovell and, along with
other members, donates
her quilting skills and materials to the senior center.
The center is always raf-
fling quilts to support a variety of causes, and the volunteered time is invaluable,
Andersen said.
“The Pindroppers club
is the most supportive group
of women I’ve ever met,” she
said. “They are all very talented and nice to each other.”
She said she appreciates the center and all the
other volunteers who work
there. She said the center
consistently has good food
and the cooks are “the best
in Lovell.”
Lyle’s passion is classic
cars, he said, and the couple will probably be riding
in the parade while waving
from his 1957 Chevy.
Andersen said the Aicheles were chosen as the 2010
VIPs because of how helpful
they are to the center. Andersen drives Lyle’s route
on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and she said everyone he serves appreciates
his friendliness while on
the route. The quilting work
Carole donates is always
high quality, Andersen said.
Look for
coverage of
Mustang Days
Round-Up 2010
starting in our
June 24 edition!
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Where YOU are FIRST!
Senior VIPs Lyle and Carole Aichele
A hot and cold deli, featuring
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A wonderful selection of
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