Boom Town Sisters

In one year the boom town of Rangely, Colo. has grown from 50 to 5,000 people. Oil did it: Rangely now has 105 flowing wells. Like other boom towns, Rangely is full of mud, mugs and bad whiskey--but it has a distinction all its own. Two women put out its only newspaper.

The women editors, Mrs. Irena S. Ingham, 46, and her sister, Mrs. Lenore Kyner, 43, know enough about roaring camps to keep their bobby pins out of oil-drilling rigs. They grew up in gold-mining Cripple Creek, published the Cripple Creek daily Times-Record. Recently Mrs. Kyner sniffed the excitement at Rangely, bought the News from an oil promoter. She and her 16-year-old daughter, Gloria, moved into a corrugated-iron shack office while Mrs. Ingham stayed in Denver as capital correspondent.

During the day, Mrs. Kyner tramps through Rangely's muddy streets selling ads, gathering local news. She calls herself "manager, editor, reporter, errand boy and devil." Often, while writing her stories and editorials, Mrs. Kyner is interrupted by the profane shouts of the town drunks. Rangely has no jail; the deputy sheriff handcuffs prisoners, nails the cuffs to a pole outside the Rangely News office.

At the capital, Mrs. Ingham, a one-time district judge, fights for proper housing, sanitation, roads, water supply and schools for the town. In Rangely, Mrs. Kyner campaigns against cheap and dangerous building construction, unsanitary sewage disposal.

Last week, after a month as owners of the weekly Rangely News, the sisters incorporated and planned to stay awhile. Oilfield roughnecks were glad. Said a rigman: "They're good scouts . . . and they don't try to shake nobody down."

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