The Sundance Times Page 12Thursday, December 6, 2018

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Tourism board

reaches out to event hosts

The Crook County Pro-motion Board is aiming to spread awareness of the tools it has available to assist event hosts, local attractions and lodging properties as they work to make their tourism offerings a success. The hope is to support the hard work that the community puts forth to achieve success, says Steve Lenz, board chairman.

“I want to ensure they know about tools the Tourism Board offers that can help them bolster their reach,” he says.

“We have an active Face-book page, a new website and a new electronic news-letter. If event hosts send in-formation on their gatherings to info@DevilsTowerCountry.com we can help gain expo-sure for gatherings across the county. They can also call our marketing firm at 307-351-0730.”

During the month of Sep-tember, the tourism board’s website had nearly 7000 visits and over 11,000 page views.

“That’s a great opportuni-ty to have your information shared,” says Lenz, “and it also helps us continue grow-ing those numbers.”

“We also want to hear from lodging property owners and guides in the county. They’re listed on our website at Dev-ilsTowerCountry.com and we want to ensure the informa-tion is complete, accurate and up to date. We receive some information in associa-tion with the lodging tax col-lections, but not enough to adequately connect potential guests with properties.”

Lenz continues, “If you are planning an event for 2019, it’s also a great time to reach out to the Board. Grants are available for many entities and with the recent voter-ap-proved increase in the lodg-ing tax, we expect additional dollars to become available in the months ahead. This has the potential to have a large positive impact on our com-munities and our efforts to attract visitors.”

The Crook County Promo-tion Board operates utiliz-ing the lodging tax collected on overnight stays at mo-tels, campgrounds and other lodging properties within the county.

“It’s our goal to have a posi-tive economic impact across Crook County by helping drive traffic to our attrac-tions, events and business-es,” says Lenz. “The more information we have about events and happenings, the better work we can do on the county’s behalf.”

Travelers spent $31.9 mil-lion in Crook County during the 2017 visitor season ac-cording to a report released by Dean Runyan and Associ-ates in partnership with the Wyoming Travel Industry Co-alition. Statewide the travel industry generated $188 mil-lion in tax revenue, not in-cluding property taxes.

Travel spending by all do-mestic and international visitors in Wyoming was ap-proximately $3.6 billion in 2017, an increase of 8.9 per-cent over the previous year. This is equivalent to approxi-mately $9.5 million dollars per day.

Travelers, in the report, are defined as those who visit the area and stay over-night or drive more than 50 miles to visit Crook County. It includes those traveling for business and leisure.

Forest Day Use Passes on sale one day only

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No place like home for the holidays?

Plan ahead. Buckle up. Avoid distractions. Get there safely.

Hanging out

BY SARAH PRIDGeOnFourth graders visited the

Bearlodge Ranger District offices on Monday to hang the decorations they crafted to adorn the Forest Service’s Christmas Tree. As well as the ones the two classes made with the help of Hal-ley Legge and Tiffany Davis a couple of weeks ago, the kids brought along snow-window ornaments they made in class.

Once the kids had taken turns to hang their deco-rations around the tree – which, appropriately, had been brought to the office from the Black Hills Nation-al Forest – they were invit-ed to take a break to enjoy cookies and juice.

A special visitor enter-tained them as they did so: Smokey Bear. Smokey offered high fives and fist bumps around the room but, as District Ranger Mike Gosse explained, he wasn’t allowed to partake of the snacks as we mustn’t feed bears from the forest.

Sarah Pridgeon photos

(Top right) local fourh graders hang ornaments on the Forest Service’s Christ-mas Tree.

(lower right) The kids enjoy a visit with Smokey Bear.

www.sundancetimes.com

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The Sundance Times

On Friday, December 7, 2018, Forest Recreation Management (FRM) Day Use Passes for the 2019 season will be available for half price at several Black Hills National Forest offices including the Bearlodge Ranger District of-fice in Sundance, WY, the North-ern Hills Ranger District office in Spearfish, SD, the Mystic Ranger District office in Rapid City, SD and the Forest Supervisor / Hell Canyon Ranger District office in Custer, SD.

These passes are for USDA Forest Service facilities located within the Black Hills National Forest fee areas and should not be confused with South Dakota State Park Passes.

The Premium passes (which in-cludes the Sheridan and Pactola complexes) will be $17 (regularly $34), and the Standard passes (which are for all FRM operated day use areas except the Sheri-dan and Pactola complexes) will be $10 (regularly $20). Please

pay with cash or check.Requests made by mail with

postmarks between Dec. 7-10 to FRM, PO Box 1168, Hill City, SD 57745 will also be honored. Please include a check for the appropriate amount. Please include a self-addressed and stamped envelope.

The number of passes avail-able for purchase per individual is unlimited, making them great gifts for stocking stuffers, gift ex-changes and prizes for drawings. No other discounts will be ac-cepted with this offer and those with senior or access discounts can receive this reduced price any time.

Under a special use permit, FRM operates Black Hills Na-tional Forest campgrounds and other recreation facilities. FRM has been operating these facili-ties since 1999.

For more information on the Black Hills National Forest, visit www.fs.usda.gov/blackhills.