Publisher’s Perspective

By Tim Douglass, Publisher of the Pope County Tribune

There are a couple of photos on Page 5A of this issue that clearly indicate the higher water level of Lake Minnewaska right now.

I was recently at the outlet dam near the Starbuck Marina and measured the water level and it was 20 inches over the dam.

Compare that to a year ago.  

A photo taken in July of last year revealed that water level was well below the outlet dam and not even a trickle was moving out of the lake.

We all remember how low the water level was last summer and fall. Many took docks and lifts out of the lake early because they tired of trying to move them farther out into the lake.  They also worried about not being able to get them in as water levels continued to fall.

Most of us were prepared this spring for more of the same once that initial spring thaw was finished.  We were optimistic about water levels going up slowly as we came out of a drought that lasted most of the growing season last year.

But in just a few weeks, heavy rains fell on the area and made April and May two of the wettest months on average.

The water levels in all the area lakes rose significantly, almost to the point that they are now too high.

Thanks Brent for your work at PCHS

I read in the recent newsletter of the Pope County Historical Society that Brent Gulsvig won’t be working at the museum any longer.  

“Our archivist of eight years (Brent), hung up his hat on June 10. 

“Brent has made substantial changes to the way we index newspapers and capture family history news today,” it was stated. “We use new phrases to describe clipping and gluing news items—pdf, scan, Photoshop, backup drive, jpg and tiff.”

Those who visited the museum have come to know Brent’s passion for history.  “He became our military service expert. Several revisions and expansions of the veterans photo gallery have been completed under his direction. We have even created a new section in our collection management software to track military service of Pope County residents,” it was stated in the newsletter..

A few of Brent’s other projects for PCHS included production of “Pope County 150,” an award-winning 20-minute video with highlights of local history; exhibit construction; graphic design of exhibit labels; and installation of a video security system. 

Thank you to Brent for his work preserving the history of Pope County.  His many skills have been a great asset to the Pope County Museum.