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Lovely Limoncello
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What People Say
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EGW
July 30 and 31, 2016
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PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING
Advance voting
numbers picking
up in
Lyon County
FAMILY OWNED SINCE 1895
By Mary Ann Redeker
[email protected]
Advance voting in Lyon
County is in full swing and
going well.
Ballots were mailed
out on July 13, giving voters the opportunity to cast
their ballots early.
Lyon County Clerk and
Election Officer Tammy
Vopat said she didn’t anticipate a huge turnout
this week, but the numbers
have been picking up.
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WWW.EMPORIAGAZETTE.COM
“The total so far is 475
as of Thursday, which is a
2.5 percent turnout,” she
said. “This week it did pick
up, so I was glad to see
that. We will have approximately a 20 percent turnout when we finish with all
of the advance numbers. I
usually go back and compare numbers to similar
elections. In this case the
anticipated 19 percent
turnout is based on the primary election of 2014.”
Vopat said these num-
EMporia Voting Precincts & Polling Sites — View Lyon County Precincts on page 3
bers include all early voting
opportunities.
“This includes early voting in the County Clerk’s
office and mail ballots,
which have been sent out
and have been returned to
us,” she said. “It also includes mobile polling that
we had for voters at all of
the senior centers. Those
total the advance and
the percentage is usually
around 15 to 20 percent.”
Vopat said a team of
board workers are hired to
assist with mobile polling,
which was a great opportunity for seniors.
“We hire a team of board
workers who we train,” she
said. “They are from the
League of Women Voters
and they actually schedule
and pick up equipment
from the clerk’s office and
go to the senior care facilities to administer the vote.
This lets the seniors come
down to the lobby where
they live and vote.”
Vopat said the workers
then pack up the equipment, take it back to the
clerk’s office and then go
to another facility the
next day.
“They schedule it for
the whole week that we
have advance voting in the
office,” she said. “There
are six different places that
these workers go to, so it’s
a great service for the seniors who can’t get out or
don’t want to get out and
they can vote in the lobby
of their own building.”
Vopat said a lot of hard
work and time, approximately six months, goes
into the preparation for
an election.
“It is the teeny, tiny
details that matter,” she
said. “Even down to pencilsharpeners and supplies
that go out to the polling
Please see Voting, Page 3
A different kind of lawn service
By Jesse Murphy
[email protected]
On hot summer days,
Mary Powell doesn’t shy
away from the heat in the
comfort of air conditioning.
She’s out with her fleet of
goats providing a service that
has become a growing trend
across the country — goat
grazing services.
Her Barnyard Weed Warriors business launched this
year, and it continues to
grow.
Last month, she was sitting out on the Magathan
farm near Cedar Point when
she had to pack up and leave
due to heavy rains. But she
was back as soon as the floodwaters subsided.
That’s been the case all
spring and summer so far. If
it’s not the heat, it’s rain. Yet
she heads out wherever she’s
called with a painted trailer
loaded with goats and supplies for the job.
“This is kind of a working
vacation,” Powell said. “I get
to be outside. The goats can
get into areas that are too
rough to mow. So it makes it
easier to just send them in.”
Her services have kept her
and her goats busy.
Along with her three bor-
der collies — Jinx, Allie and
Joy — they camp out for
weeks at a time in various
places to clean up brush.
She has enough solarpowered electric fencing to
do two acres at a time. That
work takes the goats a day or
so, and then they move on to
the next spot.
“We got into the goat business back in 2012,” Powell
said. “It costs so much to dry
lot them, and you can’t make
money doing that.”
With her partner Bob Gasper, she takes up to 80 goats
to the location that needs to
be grazed.
The goats like small trees
like elm and cedar. They also
eat hemlock and other noxious weeds.
“Sometimes the goats will
eat a certain plant and other
times they won’t,” Powell
said. “It kind of just depends
on what they’re hungry for at
the time.
“We’re providing a service.
The goats can work areas
that are sensitive to chemical
runoff near waterways. That
can cause a lot of problems.
The only natural alternative
is the goat. They are the original weedeater.”
Please see Powell, Page 3
Good Evening
Jesse Murphy/Gazette
Mary Powell talks about her herd of goats that fuel her business, Barnyard Weed Warriors, at a ranch near
Cedar Point.
VOL. 125, NO. 25
Don’t forget to vote!