Sports bureau reporter, Cheyenne, Wy.

287 between Fort Collins and Laramie is also the deadliest stretch of highway in the country.

 

WYDOT is talking about four-laneing 287 down to the state line, because of the inordinate amount of fatals in general and in particular the eight fatalities on the UW CC team down by Tie Siding, caused by a drunken driver.

Haven't heard what Colorado plans to do with its stretch. It would be better off building a north Fort Collins bypass to divert the 287/14 traffic from having to drive through the center of town to reach I-25.

In the winter, or at night, 287 can be a very dangerous stretch of highway. In the day, in nice weather, it's beautiful and quite safe, with the Snowies to the northwest and the high plains and geologic formations on either side of the highway.

Twenty years ago, I'd have leapt at an opportunity like this. Now, it's simply not feasible but if you give Laramie a chance it's a very livable, small city and you would cover a lot more intercollegiate sports than your customary 7K circulation paper.

 

I have experience at the Cheyenne paper, although it's been a while, and Gagliardi is good people. This definitely sounds like a great opportunity and with the increased integration of the two papers I'm guessing the person who gets this job will get to do as much as he or she proves she can. Columns, lots of UW coverage, whatever. They'll surely use this hire to help with CFD, which the Tribune-Eagle blows out big time, so there's your rodeo. The ad makes it sound like designing pages isn't included, so that's a plus.

Laramie isn't my favorite place in the world and the weather can suck 10 months out of the year making it even more isolated because it can be a pain to get in and out of the place (went through a serious blizzard one time in May going over the pass to cover state soccer there). But it is close to Cheyenne, Fort Collins and Denver so not too bad.

This sounds like a great opportunity and you can easily live off $25,000-$30,000 there, especially if you're young and single.

 

Not that far between Cheyenne and Laramie. I'm not surprised that they want to integrate coverage. Wouldn't be surprised to see the two papers merge somewhere down the road. After all, it hardly makes sense to have separate UW reporters for papers so close together. Don't know much they travel in the Mountain West.

I thought the UW campus was pretty nice when I visited there a few years back. Nice college town atmospher. But, you can leave campus and be in the middle of nowhere in 10 minutes. And the wind howls so much I thought my car was going to be blown off the road.

 

Laramie is an oil town. $25,000 a year isn't going to cut it if you're young and single and want to live anywhere but the slums. Apartments in this town are not relative to the town's size.

 

I've heard Laramie called many things, not all complimentary, but it is not an oil town. Casper yes, but not Laramie.

But you are right about housing. It's not anywhere near as inexpensive as you might expect for that area.

 

I guess I didn't realize the cost of living in Laramie was a whole lot different than Cheyenne, where I lived quite comfortably on a similar salary. If it is, that kind of stinks. In fact, I would have thought it would be even less. I still think you can pull off a decent living anywhere in Wyoming (well, maybe not northwest Wyoming) for $25,000-$30,000. I'd worry more about the isolation and the wind than the money. Regardless, I still think this could be a great gig, and a pretty decent salary all things considered, especially for someone fairly new to the biz.

 

NOOOOOOOW you tell me this? lol