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Cooperative Extension Service Communications and Technology Department 3354 1000 E. University Ave. Laramie, WY 82071 (307) 766-6342 • fax (307) 766-3998 • www.uwyo.edu |
For Immediate Release
Story Contact
Denise Smith: (307) 334-3534
Contact: Steven L. Miller, Senior Editor
Phone: (307) 766-6342
E-mail: slmiller@uwyo.edu
Archived News Site www.uwyo.edu/agadmin/news/news.htm
Date: July 18, 2006
Niobrara
County 4-Hers exercise steps to record Lusk history
Visitors to Lusk can mix history with exercise as they follow in the steps of Niobrara County 4-Hers.
The 4-Hers have tallied the number of steps from the Stagecoach Museum to more than 22 historical sites in the community to include in a walking map of Lusk they are assembling.
“Our goal is to have the map done by our own county fair the week of July 29,” said Denise Smith, University of Wyoming Cooperative Extension Service (CES) educator for Niobrara, Converse and Natrona counties. “That week of the fair will be the 120th birthday observance of Lusk. The kids wanted to make this their contribution to the birthday celebration and to raise awareness of people to get out and get some physical activity.”
Smith hopes the maps will be placed at the local museum, motels and other locations in Lusk and made available for everyone. “We’re hoping it is something everyone will use,” she said. “The kids have been thrilled and very enthusiastic about doing it. We’d like to give credit somewhere on the map for all the kids who counted the steps and made the map.”
The Fremont, Elkhorn, and Missouri Valley Railroad arrived at the site of Lusk in 1886. Frank S. Lusk was the railroad representative and owner of the land, and the first lots were sold July 20, according to the Niobrara County Historical Society.
The map project grew out of the 4-H program last summer “Leaving My Footprints on the World,” designed to encourage more youths to walk.
“This summer, we decided to have a community project that could raise awareness of physical activity and be of importance broader than just to the 4-H members and to the people in our local “Steps to a New You” class,” said Smith. “Steps to a New You” is a CES healthy lifestyles program that combines a series of seven food/physical activity/body image classes with a pedometer-based physical activity program.
About 40 4-Hers from all six clubs in Niobrara County with family and consumer science projects have been involved. They’ve met four times this summer to strap on pedometers and step out to the historical locations, said Smith. The walks have been the final event in a day full of 4-H activities. Helping with the project have been summer intern Amy Nelson and junior 4-H leaders Erin Nelson and Cally Pfister.
The 4-Hers divided the town into loops and walked to historical sites from the museum. The 4-Hers range in age from 8 to 19, and the length of their steps varies. The lowest and highest totals were tossed out and the others averaged. Each mile is about 2,000 steps.
The shortest walk is 58 steps to a nearby bed-and-breakfast, which is in a century-old home first owned by a Lusk attorney and then a prominent local homestead family. The longest is 1,585 steps to the Niobrara County Fairgrounds. There are 1,280 steps to the Firemen’s Memorial at Northside Park and 1,296 steps to an old redwood water tower once used to refresh thirsty steam engines.
Smith attributes the popularity of the 4-H program in part to children being able to see each other during the summer. But besides exerting muscles, the 4-Hers are also exercising their minds.
“When we would walk to the various sites and I would tell the kids what I knew, they were amazed,” Smith said. “They didn’t know about the history. They were amazed that our Elks Lodge used to be the old high school and that our mortuary is where the Lusk family lived. It’s been good for them to learn some of the history of our town. It’s been good for everybody.”
On the Web: http://www.uwyo.edu/UWCES/Niobrara_main.asp
http://www.niobraracountylibrary.org/history/index.php?id=31
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