The year in review

Thursday, January 3, 2013
The Trinity Ridge Fire drew national attention due to its size and its threat to the mountain community of Featherville.

Fires dominated the news and led the list of top ten stories in Elmore County for 2012.

Beginning in June, with a range fire that destroyed six homes just south of Mountain Home, throughout the summer wildfires blackened Elmore County. Eventually, more than a third of a million acres in the county would burn, the largest single blaze being the Trinity Ridge Fire, which burned 150,000 acres of prime national forest land in the mountains north of Mountain Home.

Hundreds of firefighters battled the Trinity Ridge Fire for nearly two months. It drew national media attention as it threatened the resort community of Featherville, but crews were able to stop the fire almost literally at the edge of town. Its smoke filled the Treasure Valley, with visibility on some days reduced to less than a mile. Although very few structures and personal property were damage, the fire is expected to have a major impact on wildlife habitat for years to come.

Second on our list of top ten stories were the spring primary and fall general elections, where voters made decisions on their political leadership for at least the next two years.

Following a contentious series of months before a redistricting plan was approved, the new Legislative District 23, which includes all of Elmore and Owyhee Counties and the eastern fifth of Twin Falls County, resulted in two long-time incumbent legislators, Tim Corder of Mountain Home and Bert Brackett of Twin Falls (technically Rogerson) facing each other in the primary. Corder lost.

It also saw Bud Corbus win the Republican nomination for county commissioner and state legislator Pete Nielsen turn back a primary challenge for House Seat B.

It was the first primary that was closed to only registered Republicans if a voter wanted a GOP ballot.

In the fall, every major contested race on the ballot in Elmore County was won by Republicans in a stunning sweep of the electoral landscape that showed the strength of the local GOP. Elmore County Republicans got even stronger when one of its local leaders, Barry Peterson, was named head of the state Republican Central Committee.

Voters also renewed a $2.7 million supplemental levy that kept the school district from having to make major cuts in programs and activities.

Third on our list of top stories was the murder trial of Jorge Lopez-Orozco. He was found guilty of three counts of premeditated murder in the 2002 death of his girlfriend and two of her children, whose bodies were found in a burned-out car in southern Elmore County. Lopez-Orozco fled the area at the time and eventually made the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list. He eventually was arrested in Mexico in late 2009. The death penalty had been taken off the table by a previous county prosecutor because Mexico will not extradite anyone facing a capital crime. It took nearly three years to extradite him and bring him to trial, but in a month-long case, County Prosecutor Kristina Schindele convinced a jury to convict him. Sentencing is set for January. He could face up to life in prison for the crimes.

Fourth on our list were crimes in general, ranging from the conviction of a woman on a $400,000 embezzlement charge to an incident at a local bar where five people were stabbed, to someone setting off bombs in area mailboxes and major poaching incidents. Overall, law enforcement and the courts were kept busy this year with some high-profile cases.

Fifth and sixth on our list were where changes in leadership, with the city's first full-time fire chief retiring and a new Gunfighter 1, respectively.

Phil Gridley Jr. retired after 35 years as a firefighter and the man who took a good volunteer fire department and turned it into a model for the rest of the state as one of the best -- volunteer or professional -- firefighting units in Idaho. He was replaced by Alan Bermensolo, a business leader in the community as head of B Transfer, and a long-time volunteer fireman.

On base, Col. Chris Short became the 53rd person to command the 366th Fighter Wing. He replaced Col. Ron Buckley.

Seventh on our list of top stories were the multiple deployments of wing units into war zones and the loss of two aircraft in accidents, including the first death of a wing pilot on a combat deployment since Desert Storm.

Our eighth top story involved urban development. The Mountain Home Urban Renewal Agency bought and renovated the King's building downtown, then promptly filled it with a Bealls store, bringing a major retailer back into the downtown area.

At the same time, the county continued to wrestle with two planned communities in the Mayfield area that potentially could result in a major city being built on the western edge of Elmore County.

At number nine on our list of top stories are the changes in the medical landscape. Voters approved this year a merger of Elmore Medical Center with St. Luke's Regional Medical Center, which is expected to expand and improve the staff and clinical capabilities of the local hospital. Some technical problems have delayed implementing the full merger until early 2013.

At the same time, some medical capabilities were diminished when LifeFlight shut down its air ambulance helicopter base in Mountain Home. The company cited financial reasons for the closure of its operations here.

At the last and final position on our top ten list was the lack of movement by the Western Elmore County Recreation District on its capital campaign to raise $600,000 to build Phase I of a community recreation center. A campaign that had been promised to begin in January still doesn't even have a committee put together to launch the effort.

Phase I of the center would involve a number of recreation facilities including a gym and meeting rooms, which would be run by the Treasure Valley YMCA for Y programs. Phase II, which would follow about a dozen years later, would expand the project to include an indoor swimming pool (the main purpose for which the district was created in 2000). That would require an additional fundraising campaign.

There were other stories of importance throughout the year -- stories of heroes and villains, honors and awards won by local students and other residents, the deaths of long-time community leaders and the tragedies of accidents that took the lives of citizens.

A month-by-month account of key stories that occurred during the first six months of 2012 appears in this week's edition of the Mountain Home News. For the full story, pick up a copy of the newspaper or click on this link to subscribe to the newspaper's online edition.

Respond to this story

Posting a comment requires free registration: