Fatigue and bitterness creep in

Entry fees and concession proceeds from Saturday's Little Buckaroo Rodeo in Huntington — more than $1,000 — will all go toward the nine accounts set up at Zions Bank for the families of the trapped miners and their would-be rescuers who were killed.

In Price, a car wash raised more than $800 as of 5 p.m. Saturday and a representative of a nearby Taco Time said the restaurant would match the donations raised by the car wash.

Car wash organizer Crystal Tyerman lives next to the home of trapped miner Arturo "Manuel" Sanchez, and two of her uncles have worked since Aug. 6 at getting to Sanchez and five other miners still inside the Crandall Canyon Mine.

"God put it in my heart," Tyerman said about why she organized the car wash. "God wanted me to do it."

Tyerman is a deeply devout Catholic who always wears three crosses and a scapular around her neck. She has not stopped praying for the trapped miners and those who have worked tirelessly to rescue them. She hopes the money she raises will help put food on the table and buy clothes for the families of the trapped miners.

"They're probably going to need help," she said. "You don't know what to do — it's the least thing we can do to help those families."

Huntington Mayor Hilary Gordon estimated Saturday that around $30,000 has been raised so far for the nine family accounts, including about $17,000 raised last Wednesday during a benefit concert in Huntington.

Gordon and her husband, Brent, and their daughter, Tammy Oviatt, helped organize Saturday's Little Buckaroo Rodeo starting last June.

"We kind of wondered if we should cancel this," Oviatt said, in light of the mining tragedies.

But livestock being driven from Tooele County was already booked for the event. Plus it had been at least 10 years since the rodeo was put on here.

"We decided that the kids are the ones that keep us going," Gordon said.

Rod Magnuson brought his wife and four children from Castle Dale, with one boy entered in the mutton bustin' event.

"It's just to bring us all closer together," Magnuson said. "We're helping each other out."

Oviatt's husband, Terry, had worked in the mines for 20 years with Dale Black, one of the men killed last week.

She said Black's brother, Drew, credits Dale Black with the idea to remove a water line and replace it with an air line into the mine not long after the initial collapse. She said the way her husband put it, Dale Black was always the man with the "million dollar idea."

"I think (Black) deserves credit for that," Oviatt said about getting air into the mine after the first collapse. Her husband now works in the Deer Creek mine.

She added how Black's wife, Wendy, has been holding up "remarkably" well, but how a huge void in her life has been created by the loss of the man with whom she used to ride ATVs and go camping.

"There's going to be an emptiness," Oviatt said. "She said, 'That's my best friend."'

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E-mail: rpalmer@desnews.com; sspeckman@desnews.com