Larry Garman came to Sidney from Colorado in 1964. In all his years here he has worked, raised five kids with his late first wife, volunteered with the Sidney Jaycees, was a firefighter, on the board with ROI, at the MonDak Heritage Center, helped with commodities, and nowadays volunteers at the Richland County Food Bank. (Photo by Jaymi Mozeak)
In 1964, 25-year-old Wyoming native Larry Garman rolled into Sidney with his wife, Rita, and their young family.
Larry was born in the country and grew up outside Casper, WY. He met Rita when he was a kid and they grew up together. They had married and moved to Denver, CO to start their family but the company Larry worked for, F.W. Woolworth, needed him to relocate to manage their store in Sidney. Being in the mountains, Denver can be cold and the Wyoming winds can make Casper's winters brutal, but Sidney would not be undone. Larry and Rita's first winter in Sidney had them snowed in for three weeks. Larry worked for two more years for Woolworths before changing jobs. Woolworths closed a year later. Benjamin Franklin took over the space and now it is Ribbon and Rail. After Woolworth, Larry worked for JCPenny for 11 years. Then the oil boom started. Larry got a job working for Dependent Oil where he worked for 10 years before Cross Petroleum bought them out. He continued working there for another 27 years before retiring nine years ago. Larry is not an idle man. Of his 58 years spent in Sidney, he volunteered with the fire department for 20 of them while it was by city hall. He was with the Sidney Jaycees until he aged out. He spent 18 years on the ROI board, worked for Sidney Sugars for seven seasons, volunteered at the MonDak Heritage Center, helped out with commodities, and in February started helping out at the Richland County Food Bank.
While he was working in the oil field Rita became ill and Larry's devoted wife of 40 years passed away. They had raised five children together in Sidney with their oldest graduating in 1976 and their youngest graduating in 1996. Larry said some of his greatest memories were of his children, following their sports teams, the groups he belonged to, and people he knew. Larry remarried in 2007 to Kathleen, a Sidney native. Larry said, "I think I like Sidney, I must. I'm still here. The people are very generous and caring here" Among the many things he does to give back to the community, Larry also likes to carve small wooden novelties which he donates to the MonDak Heritage Center to be sold.
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