Usually warm weather caused tons of water to ooze from piles of stored beets in January. Holly took steps to minimize damage to the beets such as insulating the piles with straw and using huge blowers to regulate the temperature within the piles.

Noble Drilling Corp. pulled out of the Williston Basin in February. The Houston-based oil-drilling corporation had been active in the Williston area since 1952. Layoffs in the Sidney area meant six jobs and $130,000 in lost wages annually. The annual payroll of Noble's 70 employees in the Williston Basin was $1.5 million.

Sidney's victorious head wrestling coach Guy Melby kept his promise to his team after they won the 1992 Class A state title, by letting them cut his hair after the tournament. Staff from state and federal agencies gathered on the banks of the Missouri River on the Boyd Hardy Farm in the northeast corner of Richland County in March about erosion control. Hardy had been using "tire necklaces" to control the erosion along the bank for many years, but late in 1991, the Water Quality Bureau ordered Hardy to stop maintaining the necklaces. State regulations classified tire as garbage and went against the Clean Water Act. The tires had created litter problems and proved ineffective in other areas. It was found the necklace of tires seemed to be working on the Hardy farm at the time. Until the bureau could find a permanent solution for following the law, Hardy was allowed to keep the tires in place, except in a 100-foot area where erosion had become a problem.

Richland County residents lost more than $40,000 on the Richland County Land Use Atlas after Western Mapping of South Dakota went bankrupt before the company could deliver. After doing the story on the atlas, the Herald-Leader decided to produce its own version after determining that it was a much-needed product in the county. Monty Erickson of Agri-Mapping who had been working on the project since December 1991 asked the Herald not to pursue atlas project in exchange for the printing of his atlas, which the Herald-Leader agreed.

The Sidney Herald-Leader promoted Libby Berndt in April as its new advertising representative and Karen Hoffman as its new classified advertising manager/receptionist. Berndt took over for Debbe Anderson, who left to start Wood Right Refinishing. Berndt began at the Herald-Leader in October 1987 as a typesetter; in August 1989 she became the classified advertising manager/receptionist. Hoffman started with the Herald-Leader as an advertising filing clerk in October 1991.

The Jaycees rebuilt the west end of the Richland County Fair's rodeo arena in May where the roping boxes were located. The wood in the old boxes were rotten and fences were falling down. The new boxes were built out of pipe and sucker rod donated by local business.

The Sidney Area Dollars for Scholars wound up its first year by awarding 23 $300 scholarships to graduating seniors at the awards ceremony held May 24.

Fort Union Trading Post celebrated its 10th annual Fur Trade Rendezvous June 11-14. It featured more demonstration and talks then previous years, which included blacksmithing, firearm smithing and brain-tanning, with talks on Native American cultural skills and programs on beads, trade good and frontier attire.

The new Sidney swimming pool opened in June. The depth of the pool created some controversy as parents learned that their child didn't meet the new height requirement to take swimming lessons. State regulations required the depth of the pool to be 42 inches; the depth of the old pool was 36 inches. Which meant that children who were tall enough for lessons at the old depth were not able to take lessons in the new pool.

1st United Bank of Sidney President and CEO John Franklin was named the new president of the Montana Bankers Association in July.

The Richland County Fair celebrated its 75th anniversary in August, the headliner was country singer Vince Gill. While in Sidney Gill visited Jasmine DeShaw, Savage, the afternoon before the concert. DeShaw was in the hospital recovering from surgery to repair a ruptured appendix.

After a long struggle in Montana courts, North Dakota was granted permission to seed clouds in Montana until the end of August.

The Cattle

ac Nite Club, Casino and Steakhouse opened its doors officially in September when the steakhouse part of the business was ready. Owners Rod and Joyce Prewitt, Rayna Prewitt and Gary Jackson bought the old Mint Bar in March 1991, which they cleaned up and reopened. In January 1992, the owners bought the old Sidney Herald half of the building separated by a common wall from the old Mint Bar turning the whole thing into the Cattle

ac.

An ESPN film crew spent time in Richland County filming segments of the "Outdoor Adventure Magazine" in October. The crew filmed white tail bow hunting along the Yellowstone River.

Lambert area farmer William Rehbein Jr. won all Richland County precincts against challenger Allen Peterson for the District 21 Montana House of Representatives seat in November.

Hockey boosters sold Christmas trees in the Pamida parking lot in December. The trees came in four to eight-foot varieties and sold for $17 to $30 a tree.

Footnote: Information provided by the MonDak Heritage Center's archives. Previous years can be found on the Herald Web site www.sidneyherald.com/herald_facts