Johnson County Year-in-Review 2023: September to December

Today we look back at Johnson County’s top stories during the last year as we focus on September through December of 2023.

The Johnson County Rural Healthcare District Board, during their meeting in September, voted to award the contract for architectural and design services for the proposed ambulance barn to Nelson Engineering of Buffalo.

The new ambulance barn is proposed to be built on lands adjacent to the County Fire Hall.

The board voted to award the contract to Nelson Engineering at a cost of roughly $134,000.

In October the Hospital Board of Trustees for the Johnson County Healthcare Center voted to approve funding for the purchase of long lead-time materials purchases for Phase III of their current capital construction project.

According to O’Dell Construction, the current cost estimate for Phase III is at $4.9 million, pushing the estimated overall cost for all three phases to $19.5 million, an increase of $500,000 over budget from the Master Plan.

A missing Buffalo woman was found deceased in mid-November.

Johnson County Sheriff Rod Odenbach said dispatch received a call on Tuesday, November 14 requesting a welfare check on Lori Jeanne Clark.

The reporting person said Clark was last seen at about noon and was thought to have been driving a white Cadillac Escalade.

Searches by by many agencies continued Tuesday and Wednesday but were unsuccessful.

On Thursday morning, November 16, a vehicle believed to be Clark’s Escalade was found on Muddy Guard Road off of Highway 16 west of Buffalo.

Law Enforcement responded to that location, finding the vehicle matching the description and Lori Jeanne Clark, who was deceased.

Also in November, the City of Buffalo was looking into the cost and possibility of running a sewer line from the Veterans Home of Wyoming under Highway 16 to connect to Richardson Park Subdivision.

Mayor Shane Schrader said the study of cost and feasibility is just the next step in the talks between the city and Johnson County to try to resolve sewer and water issues in thesubdivision, adding that nothing has been decided or is set in stone, they were just preliminary studies for the talks to continue to hopefully resolve some of the problems.

During the regular Johnson County School Board meeting in December, outgoing Chairperson Jan Johnson was presented with an award of recognition from the Wyoming School Board Association.

According to Board member Kristen LeDoux, the Champion of Education Award is for those who have made an outstanding contribution to the improvement of education in their local district.

And that’s a look back on the top stories in Johnson County from September through December of 2023.