August 12, 2024 |
Photo – County’s building in Medicine Bow – Courtesy Carbon County Commissioners
Carbon County commissioners will sell an unused building to Albany County for use as a rural school.
Garrett, Wyoming lies roughly 34 miles northeast of Medicine Bow as the crow flies. The remote Albany County town is home to the Andersons, a fifth-generation ranching family. Since 2022, Anne Anderson and her husband, Carson, have been in a legal battle with Albany County School District Number One to build a school for the small community. The Andersons were told that the low population of Garrett did not warrant its own schoolhouse.
After numerous denials by the school district, the Andersons took their case to the Wyoming Supreme Court. Their lawsuit was dismissed due to a lack of jurisdiction, but the case got the attention of the Wyoming state legislature. The state set aside $300,000 towards the construction of a new schoolhouse in the town of Garrett.
Once the money was allocated, Carson Anderson said Carbon County Commission Chairwoman Sue Jones offered an unused county building for Garrett to use as a schoolhouse.
The building, located on the corner of Highway 487 and Beech Street in Medicine Bow, was purchased in 2019 using impact assistance money from the nearby TB Flats wind turbine construction project.
Commission Chairwoman Jones told Bigfoot99 that the building was originally intended to house a county Road & Bridge employee on one side and a sheriff’s deputy on the other. The sheriff at the time, Archie Roybal, planned to have a deputy live in the building and patrol Medicine Bow and the surrounding area. Chairwoman Jones said the plan did not work out. Sheriff Roybal was unable to find a deputy to live in Medicine Bow and the county hired a Road & Bridge worker who already lives in town. Additionally, the Medicine Bow governing body used impact money to open its own police department a couple of years later. The building has sat unused for the last five years. The county began searching for a buyer so the property can be returned to the tax registry. Chairwoman Jones has other plans, however. After hearing about the Anderson’s plight, the commission chairwoman offered to sell the structure to the Albany County school district for $80,000.
Anne Anderson said the structure will also serve many other purposes for the remote community.
Without a nearby school, the Andersons were left with two options for their children’s education: homeschooling or sending them over 40 miles away to the Rock River school. Anne Anderson said homeschooling doesn’t offer her children the same type of education a trained teacher can provide. As for sending her kids to Rock River, Anderson said winter weather means they can’t return to the family ranch for much of the year. A community without a school doesn’t encourage families to stick aro
Commission Chairwoman Jones recommended requesting a quote from Albany County’s contractor to remove the remaining concrete foundation and fill in the hole where the building once stood.
In a written statement to Bigfoot99, Chairwoman Jones stated that the commissioners felt that selling the building to Albany County benefited both parties. Carbon County may not have been able to sell the building, or it may have gone to a member of the public and continued to sit vacant and unused. This way, writes Chairwoman Jones, Carbon County passed the building onto another government entity for a public use, as it was purchased with public money.
