Johnson County Year-in-Review 2020: January-April

Today we will begin our look back at Johnson County’s top stories during the last year as we focus on January through April of 2020.

In January, former Buffalo Chamber of Commerce CEO Angela Fox filed an appeal of her convictions with the Wyoming Supreme Court.

In May of 2019 Fox was found guilty of three counts of felony theft stemming from her use of chamber of commerce credit cards to make personal purchases for just over $8,600 and was sentenced to two to five years for each count, to run consecutively.

Her sentence was suspended except for 90 days and she was given 10 years of supervised probation until restitution in the amount of just over $16,000 is paid to the chamber of commerce.

Johnson County and Carbon Creek/Powder River Midstream reached an agreement in the tax protest concerning disagreements on tax assessments from 2016, ’17, and ’18.

The Johnson County Commissioners agreed to the settlement that will put to rest the litigation over the three years’ worth of mineral taxes, but won’t affect the tax protest for 2019 or the expected upcoming protest for 2020 taxes.

The big news for all of 2020 was of course, COVID-19, and in March, the Johnson County Healthcare Center in Buffalo established some precautions at the facility to help protect health workers and the public.

Screening restrictions and other measures were enacted at the hospital, clinic, and the Amie Holt Care Center, which remained in place for the remainder of the year.

The First Positive Case of COVID-19 in Johnson County was confirmed by the Wyoming Department of Health at the end of March.

Wyoming State Health Officer Dr. Alexia Harrist reported to county officials that the patient was an adult male, probably middle-aged, and was not hospitalized but self-quarantined at home.

The first COVID-19 related death in the state happened in Johnson County in April.

The patient, an older male that resided in the county, was treated at the JCHC, and had serious underlying medical conditions and comorbidities.

He was hospitalized for one day before his death.