Cell service comes to Shell valley

In January 2019, Kathy Ewen was driving home on Beaver Creek Road in Shell. Next thing she knew, she had careened into a telephone pole, which broke off and landed on her car. Only one mile from her house, she was stranded with a broken sternum and a broken arm. She didn’t have a way to call for help on a very rural road and knew she would have to cross one of three irrigation ditches to get to a phone. 

Ewen tried to jump a ditch, lost her footing, and broke her leg in the fall. She lay on her back on the cold winter ground for five hours before someone drove by. Al Webster, who lives on Bear Creek Road past Leavitt’s Reservoir, saw her car and called out to see if anyone needed help. Straining from her broken sternum, Ewen was just able to yell back. Webster promised he wouldn’t leave her, but had to for a moment to bring in help.

“Now right there where that was, it has good (cell) service,” Webster said in an interview on Monday. 

 Rocky Mountain Towers put up Shell’s first cell tower off Highway 14 starting in September. It came online towards the end of February and in early March. Pab Good leased the company the land, part of what he said has been a 10-year project to get cell service to Shell Valley. Previously, Good was part of a petition with former Big Horn County Sheriff Ken Blackburn that garnered 500 signatures to bring in cell service. 

“I think not only does it do a nice thing for the community, but it’s kind of a safety factor,” Good said. His own 90-year-old mother makes the drive from Greybull to Shell frequently, and now he is able to call her along part of the way. Through his tests, Good has found there is service reaching out Beaver Creek and Horse Creek, bleeding partway down Trapper Creek, and even up the Big Horns, with one location above Shell Falls even hosting service. 

During the power outage Thursday through Saturday, linemen were able to communicate with each other in areas they previously would have been unable to. Farmers too, can call their workers out in the fields rather than driving out to speak with them. 

“What we’ve discovered is, when the power is out (such as over the weekend), you can still call and text,” Shell resident Jean Petty said.

Shannon Morrelli, who works in infrastructure development at Rocky Mountain Towers, explained that they are a “mom and pop” tower company serving Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. Business owner Shelly Neace Mathisen explained that the position of the tower is determined by the wireless provider, in this case, Verizon. Since they are a third-party company, however, there is the opportunity for more providers to use the tower in the future. 

Kathy Ewen’s husband Jerry Ewen grew up on Beaver Creek, and she said “things were always slow” to make their way to Shell. In the 60s-70s, Beaver Creek still had a party line. 

“It’s a wonderful help (to have cell service) now. For me, it’s about seven or eight years too late,” Kathy Ewen joked. “It’s fine, I lived to tell about it.”