Wyoming
Sturgis Rally Has Just Begun, But Bartenders Asking — Where Are The…
STURGIS, South Dakota — Dozens of motorcycles carrying American flags rolled down Main Street in Sturgis, South Dakota, on Friday signaling the start of the annual motorcycle rally.
The rolling procession was part of the 84th Sturgis Motorcycle Rally’s opening ceremony and parade. It also included a welcoming message from the mayor of Sturgis for the 500,000 attendees expected to pack the small Black Hills town over the next nine days.
A member of the military sang the national anthem, and a “blessing of the bikes” was held. With the patriotic pomp and prayer over, it was go time for one of America’s most raucous events.
The odd thing was, the event was over just after 4 p.m.
Not 9 a.m. or 11 a.m. or even high noon, a time befitting of Sturgis’ Western heritage.
Why such a late start to the first day?
“They like to go riding in the morning when it’s cool,” speculated Cassey Weinhold, a bartender at One-Eyed Jack’s Saloon.
Maybe, but it’s also awfully convenient for those waking up late after imbibing a little too much on the eve of the rally, typically a big night for Sturgis bars.
The late-day start seems in-character for a city that published an entire webpage of drink recipes — like Jack’s Tennessee Honey Tea, Grape Sunrise and the Bacardi-infused Arctic Soda — on the official website for the city government.
The rally also remains one of the few major public events in the country that allows open containers, albeit in a zone that stretches about eight blocks on both sides of Main Street. Drinkers must use a special events cups, and only wine and malt beverages are permitted inside them.
Get Them An IV — Stat
This year, Sturgis has at least two vendors offering intravenous fluids to help rehydrate rallygoers.
One of those was Hydration Station IV Lounge, tucked away in the Thunderdome, a cavernous, 38,000-square-foot entertainment center located about 13 miles east of Sturgis that holds concerts and other events during the festival.
On Friday, stunt drivers were peeling out and making tight donuts in the Thunderdome parking lot as part of a rally contest; their junk cars pumping smoke, bits of rubber and screeching loud noise into the 93-degree heat.
But inside the arena, two men relaxed in foldable reclining lawn chairs as if they were in an oasis. Needles jutted out of their arms and saline solution bags dripped fluids over their heads back into them.
“When you’re dehydrated, you’re losing essential nutrients and minerals,” explained business owner Stacy Kenitzer.
It was the first year Kenitzer had opened a vendor booth at the rally. Her brick-and-mortar business is located in Rapid City, South Dakota, where she said she serves mostly people with medical conditions who have a hard time staying hydrated.
She also administers IVs for Rapid City Rush hockey players and rodeo participants, some of whom want to hydrate ahead of their events and others who desperately need to replenish fluids after.
Customers can choose a plain saline IV or one loaded with energy and vitality boosts that include vitamins C, B and magnesium, which helps prevent cramping, a symptom of dehydration.
Kenitzer, who is a registered nurse, said she believes her services would be in demand at Sturgis this year, primarily because so many riders are exposing themselves to 90-degree-plus rides this week.
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Stacy Kenitzer, 56, stands outside her booth for Hydration Station IV Lounge at the Sturgis Thunderdome. (Justin George, Cowboy State Daily) -
It may not look it by the crowds of bikes lining the main drag in Sturgis, South Dakota, but locals say the first day of the 84th Sturgis Motorcycle Rally was a little slow. (Justin George, Cowboy State Daily) -
It may not look it by the crowds of bikes lining the main drag in Sturgis, South Dakota, but locals say the first day of the 84th Sturgis Motorcycle Rally was a little slow. (Justin George, Cowboy State Daily)
Also Good For Hangovers
Kenitzer also recognizes that some of her clientele will likely be seeking help after rough nights.
Her goal was to serve 100 customers over the 10-day gathering. But by early afternoon Friday, she said she had only hooked IVs to four.
“One was really hungover,” she said. “The others were just dehydrated, overheated.”
A Slow Start
Some wondered why there seemed to be fewer people at the bars on the first day of the rally. Many of Main Street’s establishments that had opened during breakfast hours saw slower-than-normal business, bartenders told Cowboy State Daily.
Was it a case of an aging demographic? Boomers dominated the sidewalks Friday, but the rally has in recent years been getting younger.
The average age of attendees dropped from 53.1 years old in 2015 to 50.8 in 2022, according to a city survey.
At the Oasis Bar and Fireside Lounge, waitress Keri Jones bemoaned the lack of customers by lunchtime. It was her second year working the rally, and to the inexperienced eye, she seemed busy, juggling multiple tables.
But she said she only had four tables to mind. On a good day, she would be waiting on an entire section.
“Oh, looks like he needs a drink,” she said, before running over to a pair sitting at a high top. “I’m telling you, this is not busy. This is dead.”
Jones, like others wasn’t discouraged. It was just Day One. Nine more days to go.
Perhaps much like the rally’s opening ceremony, rallygoers are just getting a late start.
Justin George can be reached at justin@cowboystatedaily.com.
Wyoming
Wyoming authorities call on Rocky Mountain Power to explain role in massive November power outage
by Dustin Bleizeffer, WyoFile
The massive, multiple-utility power outage last fall that left some 250,000 customers across parts of Wyoming, South Dakota and Montana without electricity was the result of miscommunication and inadequate procedures during planned maintenance that required de-energizing a power line in southcentral Wyoming, according to a report.
The Nov. 13 incident left thousands of homes and businesses without power for 9.5 hours — longer, in some cases — and knocked out a coal-powered generator outside Glenrock. The unit at the Dave Johnston Power Plant remains offline, leaving Rocky Mountain Power to backfill some 300 megawatts of electricity — enough to power about 225,000 homes.
Without expressly assigning blame to any one party, the report — conducted by the Western Electricity Coordinating Council and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation — indicates a series of communication breakdowns between PacifiCorp (parent company of Rocky Mountain Power), the Western Area Power Administration and, to some degree, electrical grid coordinating teams.
While it’s unclear whether authorities such as the North American Electric Reliability Corporation might pinpoint fault and assess penalties, the Wyoming Public Service Commission has called on Rocky Mountain Power to appear at a hearing scheduled for 2:30 p.m. Wednesday. The commission wants to hear from the utility about “the specifics and details of the event and report,” a public notice announced, and it “may consider and take any action that is in the public interest.”
The hearing at the Public Service Commission’s office located at 2515 Warren Avenue, Suite 300, in Cheyenne, will also be livestreamed at this link.
What happened
According to the 49-page report published in June, PacifiCorp and the Western Area Power Administration were coordinating maintenance on their respective systems that, together, required temporarily de-energizing PacifiCorp’s Aeolus–Clover 500 kilovolt line, which runs east-west and is anchored, in part, by a substation near Medicine Bow.
The effort also required curtailing some local wind energy from feeding the grid, according to the report. But on the day of the planned maintenance, Nov. 13, there was confusion about whether the Western Area Power Administration would scrap its work, so wind energy wasn’t curtailed as originally planned.
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Wind turbines near Cheyenne poke into a colorful sunrise in January 2025. (Tennessee Watson/WyoFile)
The report indicates that modeling tools might have failed to accurately measure local grid conditions, so when the power line was de-energized, “power flow rapidly redistributed throughout the northeast portion” of the local grid. “Within six seconds,” according to the report, “an electrical island formed and collapsed, causing widespread effects across that portion of the interconnection.
“The disturbance,” the report continues, “culminated in the loss of more than 4,800 [megawatts] of generation from coal, natural gas, photovoltaic and wind resources.”
The cascading power failure began at about 12:45 p.m. on a Thursday, dragging down portions of service territories operated by Rocky Mountain Power, Black Hills Energy, Montana-Dakota Utilities and some rural electric co-ops.
The report points to failures in communication, process deficiencies and inadequate modeling tools. Wind energy was not “identified as a contributing factor,” according to the report. It credits both battery storage and wind energy throughout the impacted area for supporting “a faster frequency recovery across the interconnection” and for providing “readily available capacity during system restoration.”
This article was originally published by WyoFile and is republished here with permission. WyoFile is an independent nonprofit news organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policy.
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