Megan Fischer/Photo

It was one of those moments where you can’t forget what you’ve just learned. The shock when your life suddenly changes and you’re caught completely off guard.

The disbelief is a roadblock, a thick concrete barrier, but you know all too well that what lies beyond that is something that you couldn’t have ever imagined.

News Record Photo / Kelly Wenzel

Amid the flowers, gifts and overwhelming amount of support from Gillette, Sondra and Gabe Gaston just want one thing.

They want their son to get better.

Four-year-old Connor Gaston was diagnosed with a brain tumor at the end of September. His right side also had started acting a bit funky, and it was a mystery as to why.

News record Photo/ Ed Glazar

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary when Mark Delliquadri II and his girlfriend, Kortnei Byers, were returning home from a late dinner at Wendy’s at about 11 p.m. Monday.

What they didn’t realize was that the roads had become icy from rain that had been falling all day and had frozen after nightfall.

News record Photo/ Ed Glazar

John Thompson had been selling his green chili at the Lakeway Farmers Market on Tuesday afternoon for about an hour when he asked some passers-by if they wanted to try his green chili.

What happened next left Thompson “astounded” when he was forced to dump his sealed cans of chili that warm afternoon.

Photo by: Chris Detrick

Of all the ways to get to the National High School Finals Rodeo, the Guardipee family had a trip they will remember for a long time.

All packed up and on their way for Caleb to compete in the NHSFR in Gillette this week, their truck caught fire about 40 miles north of Sheridan, Wyoming.

Ali Abu Awwad, of Palestine, and Rabbi Hanan Schlesinger, of Israel, have chosen nonviolence as a way to bridge the distance between the two nations that live right next to each other, but that do not understand each other.

The two states have been at war with each other and fighting over the same land for years.

News Record Photo Ed Glazar

When Wayne Holyoak walked past the organ sitting in the driveway of Harvest Church in Gillette, he thought it odd. When he walked into the church to find it had been vandalized, he was shocked.

“It was just so unexpected,” he said. It took a few minutes to realize what was going on.”

Megan Fischer/Photo

Every girl wants to be a princess, and that dream came true for one at the rodeo.

Kyra has a skin condition called xeroderma pigmentosum, which keeps her out of the sun because her DNA is unable to repair the light damage. The only way she could see the rodeo was this way. 

Megan Fischer/Photo

Just eight teams even made it to the 2A state volleyball tournament in Casper. And only one of those eight returned home victorious.

For the first time ever, the Wright volleyball team won the state championship title for the third time in a row, sweeping Sundance under the bright lights of the Casper Events Center.

Megan Fischer/Photo

Larissa Rathbun was just 3 weeks old when she first sat atop a horse. From that moment on, she and horses have been inseparable.

Her mother remembers this and looks at her daughter with tears welling up in her eyes.

Yes, this is a proud moment. Now, as she looks at her 11- year-old daughter, she says simply, “She’s all cowgirl.”

Megan Fischer/Photo

Robby Gallob was already a rural volunteer firefighter, but he wanted to do more. He just could never make it fit into his work schedule and his life. This year, the stars all finally aligned and he applied for the opportunity to work for the Campbell County Fire Department.

News Record Photo/ Steel Brooks

Robert Palmer can’t stop smiling.

While others are impatient and curse under their breath navigating rush-hour traffic through Gillette, Palmer is glad for the aggravation.

Many of those chauffeured trips lead to medical appointments, which Palmer also appreciates with a smile and good humor.

Growing up, I never did what you or I would probably refer to as “regular sports.” I can never seem to catch anything, and if you were to ask me to explain the rules of football to you, I would have to look them up.

The Olympic spirit has once again filled the nation as the games in Rio de Janeiro began last week. And the event that I’m most excited for: Taekwondo.

When I woke up on Tuesday morning and the temperature outside was about 10 degrees, I knew I had gone a little too far as to say that we weren’t out of winter yet.

For just about a week, Campbell County saw a small climb in temperature, something I was welcoming.

Well, I was reminded rather quickly that it was still winter on Tuesday.

When the powerful want to contain transparency for the use of political gain, they restrict the one thing that provides information to the people: the press.

Reporters and journalists nationwide were taken aback by President Trump’s tweet last week when he proclaimed that the press is “the enemy of the American people.”

The weather forecast for Saturday calls for mid-80s. Some feel this is the perfect day to watch a shootout at high noon to celebrate Gillette's 125th year, and some, like me, are going to take to morning to sleep in until 8 and then organize life. And others, well, others feel it is the perfect day to burn a copy of the Quran.

Now, I'm not saying this is right, and in fact, I'm completely against it, and on a personal level, I think that it simply should not be allowed. But it's happening; and the newspaper will be covering it; just like we do with everything else.

I remember sitting in my college composition class, and my professor asked the class to write a story using six words. No more. No less. 

I can remember sitting and pondering. I would write down two words and then scratch them out again. I wrote down three words, shook my head, and the words met the wrath of my pen again.

Who knows how I would have made it through college without you. 

And now, it's no different.

I'm pretty sure that my travel cup is always somewhere within reach and is always filled with the sweet nectar of fuel that I use to give my brain and my body a kick.