Laramie River Station employees make a splash in their community

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Eric Bohlander, Laramie River Station maintenance planner; Brandon Graves, Wheatland mayor; Levi Mickelsen, Laramie River Station plant manager; and Braden Fagenbush, Laramie River Station warehouse supervisor; at the pool. Photo credit: Mark DeLap at Wyoming Newspapers, Inc.

Although the days of summer, sun, and tanned skin are behind us, the spirit and joy of the past summer season was extra high in Wheatland, Wyoming, thanks to Laramie River Station employees coming together to save the Wheatland community pool.

The Wheatland pool was in desperate need of a new pool pump as the original had been having technical problems. Platte County Parks and Recreation Director Steve Pollock wanted to solve the issue as quickly as possible to get ahead of a potential decrease in function.

During a council meeting, the Platte County Parks and Recreation board approved $15,000 to buy a new pump. Unfortunately, before the city was able to order the new pump, the old pump’s inner workings began to fail, causing the pool to shut down and remain closed at the time.

The heat was unbearable at this point; temperatures of over 100 degrees were keeping children and families inside without the community pool to cool them off. This is when the heroes of the summer, and the community, sprang into action to repair the existing pump instead of waiting for a new one to arrive.

Braden Fagenbush, Laramie River Station warehouse supervisor, along with his supervisor Jerrod Issak, Laramie River Station maintenance superintendent, stepped up to help their community pool.

“The new pump would have taken six to ten weeks just to be delivered,” Fagenbush says. “Then the contractor was estimating a couple extra days to install the pump.”

They searched for and gathered the parts needed to repair the broken pump themselves. Donations came in from around the Wheatland area as well as volunteers to help with reparations.

“We only needed a few small consumable type items that we had in our repair shop,” Fagenbush says. “We brought the damaged pump out to the power plant and our repair shop did all the fabricating work to it.”

Jeremy Perkins, Laramie River Station mechanic, and Joe Suko, Laramie River Station electrician, played key roles in the success of the repairs to the broken pump.  

Because of the efforts of the employees at Laramie River Station, the community of Wheatland was quickly able to enjoy their pool and the rest of the summer again, and a new and expensive replacement pump was no longer necessary and shouldn’t be for a long time.  

Fagenbush says he felt it was important to do whatever it took to get the pool up and running again as quickly as possible. “There were only about three weeks left in the summer pool season, so if we had waited for a new pump, the pool would have been shut down for the rest of the summer,” he says.

“I personally do not use the pool much, but there are adult exercise classes there, and kids are always at the pool during the summer,” Fagenbush says. “There are not many things to do in Wheatland, so I felt like it was important to do whatever we could to help out our community.”

Full list of pool rescuers: Levi Mickelsen, Laramie River Station plant manager; Jerrod Isaak, Laramie River Station maintenance superintendent; Braden Fagenbush, Laramie River Station warehouse supervisor; Tom Haeffelin, Laramie River Station maintenance supervisor; Eric Bohlander, Laramie River Station maintenance planner; Jeremy Perkins, Laramie River Station mechanic; and Joe Suko, Laramie River Station electrician.