Don Thorson

Last updated
Don Thorson
Member of the Wyoming House of Representatives
In office
1979–1983
Personal details
Born (1933-04-30) April 30, 1933 (age 90)
Osage, Wyoming, U.S.
Political party Republican
Occupationrancher

J. Don Thorson (born April 30, 1933) is an American businessman and politician in the state of Wyoming. He served in the Wyoming House of Representatives from 1979 to 1983 as a member of the Republican Party.

Contents

Early life

Don Thorson was born in 1933 in Osage, Wyoming. He attended the Colorado School of Mines, from which he earned a degree in geophysical engineering in 1955. [1] [2] After college, Thorson spent 2 years in the U.S. Army, including 1 year as a surveyor in Iran. [3]

Career

Thorson began working in his father Harry Thorson's oil and bentonite businesses in 1947. The oil business was known as Thorson Oil co. (Toco Corporation), which purchased and improved oil field operations. In 1947, the family founded Black Hills Bentonite company, which mined bentonite in the Black Hills region in Wyoming. [4] Thorson retired in 1990.

Bentonite is typically used in drilling mud for oil and gas wells, it was later discovered that bentonite was a good substance for kitty litter due to its absorptive strength. [1] As of 2021, Black Hills Bentonite shipped over 500,000 tons of bentonite to the Clorox. [4] Sales to Clorox and other companies that sell kitty litter represented more than 80 percent of the company's business. [5]

Political career

Don served two terms in the Wyoming House of Representatives, from 1979 to 1983. [2]

Personal life

Thorson is married to Lois Thorson. He is a major benefactor to the Colorado School of Mines, giving over $2 million to the school. [2] [6]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wyoming</span> U.S. state

Wyoming is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the southwest, and Colorado to the south. With a population of 576,851 in the 2020 United States census, Wyoming is the least populous state despite being the 10th largest by area, with the second-lowest population density after Alaska. The state capital and most populous city is Cheyenne, which had an estimated population of 63,957 in 2018.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bentonite</span> Rock type or smectite-rich clay material consisting mostly of montmorillonite

Bentonite is an absorbent swelling clay consisting mostly of montmorillonite which can either be Na-montmorillonite or Ca-montmorillonite. Na-montmorillonite has a considerably greater swelling capacity than Ca-montmorillonite.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ovintiv</span> American energy company

Ovintiv Inc. is an American independent petroleum company. The company was formed in 2020 through a restructuring of its Canadian predecessor, Encana. Ovintiv is incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in Denver, Colorado.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Green River (Colorado River tributary)</span> River in Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado, United States

The Green River, located in the western United States, is the chief tributary of the Colorado River. The watershed of the river, known as the Green River Basin, covers parts of the U.S. states of Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado. The Green River is 730 miles (1,170 km) long, beginning in the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming and flowing through Wyoming and Utah for most of its course, except for a short segment of 40 miles (64 km) in western Colorado. Much of the route traverses the arid Colorado Plateau, where the river has carved some of the most spectacular canyons in the United States. The Green is slightly smaller than Colorado when the two rivers merge but typically carries a larger load of silt. The average yearly mean flow of the river at Green River, Utah is 6,121 cubic feet (173.3 m3) per second.

Philip Frederick Anschutz is an American billionaire businessman who owns or controls companies in a variety of industries, including energy, railroads, real estate, sports, newspapers, movies, theaters, arenas and music. In 2004, he purchased the parent company of the Journal Newspapers, which under Anschutz's direction became the American conservative editorial newspaper Washington Examiner.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Litter box</span> Indoor pet feces and urine collection box

A litter box, also known as a sandbox, cat box, litter tray, cat pan, potty, pot or litter pan, is an indoor feces and urine collection box for cats, as well as rabbits, ferrets, miniature pigs, small dogs, and other pets that instinctively or through training will make use of such a repository. They are provided for pets that are permitted free roam of a home but who cannot or do not always go outside to excrete their metabolic waste.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fuller's earth</span> Any clay material that can decolorise oil or other liquids

Fuller's earth is any clay material that has the capability to decolorize oil or other liquids without the use of harsh chemical treatment. Fuller's earth typically consists of palygorskite (attapulgite) or bentonite.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Powder River Basin</span> Geologic structural basin in the western US

The Powder River Basin is a geologic structural basin in southeast Montana and northeast Wyoming, about 120 miles (190 km) east to west and 200 miles (320 km) north to south, known for its extensive coal reserves. The former hunting grounds of the Oglala Lakota, the area is very sparsely populated and is known for its rolling grasslands and semiarid climate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward L. Doheny</span> Irish American oil tycoon (1856-1935)

Edward Laurence Doheny was an American oil tycoon who, in 1892, drilled the first successful oil well in the Los Angeles City Oil Field. His success set off a petroleum boom in Southern California, and made him a fortune when, in 1902, he sold his properties.

Superior Oil Company was an American oil company founded in 1921 in Coalinga, California, by William Myron Keck, Superior Oil began as a drilling contracting firm and grew into the exploration and production of oil and natural gas. In 1930 the company was the first to successfully use directional drilling in California. Moving to Houston, Texas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Karl C. Schuyler</span> American politician

Karl Cortlandt Schuyler was an American attorney and politician from Colorado. A Republican, he was most notable for his service as a United States senator from 1932 to 1933.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ed Lowe (businessman)</span> American businessman

Edward Lowe was an American businessman and entrepreneur, noted for the invention of cat litter. The Small Business School described him as "building a huge business from nothing", and cites him as a textbook example of an individual who "created a product, brought it to marketplace, invented an industry and sold his business for millions". By the time of his death, his company was worth about five hundred million dollars.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Uranium mining in Wyoming</span>

Uranium mining in Wyoming was formerly a much larger industry than it is today. Wyoming once had many operating uranium mines, and still has the largest known uranium ore reserves of any state in the U.S. At the end of 2008, the state had estimated reserves dependent on price: 539 million pounds of uranium oxide at $50 per pound, and 1,227 million pounds at $100 per pound.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Wyoming</span> History of the U.S. state of Wyoming

There is evidence of prehistoric human habitation in the region known today as the U.S. state of Wyoming stretching back roughly 13,000 years. Stone projectile points associated with the Clovis, Folsom and Plano cultures have been discovered throughout Wyoming. Evidence from what is now Yellowstone National Park indicates the presence of vast continental trading networks since around 1,000 years ago.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Black Hills Corporation</span> Energy company

Black Hills Corporation is a Rapid City, South Dakota diversified energy company that is an electric and gas utility in South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Arkansas, Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa. The company sells power throughout the American West.

Cambria (1889–1928) is a ghost town located in the Black Hills of Weston County, Wyoming, United States. It was a successful coal mining town for decades.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Graneros Shale</span> Geological formation

The Graneros Shale is a geologic formation in the United States identified in the Great Plains as well as New Mexico that dates to the Cenomanian Age of the Cretaceous Period. It is defined as the finely sandy argillaceous or clayey near-shore/marginal-marine shale that lies above the older, non-marine Dakota sand and mud, but below the younger, chalky open-marine shale of the Greenhorn. This definition was made in Colorado by G. K. Gilbert and has been adopted in other states that use Gilbert's division of the Benton's shales into Carlile, Greenhorn, and Graneros. These states include Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and New Mexico as well as corners of Minnesota and Iowa. North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana have somewhat different usages — in particular, north and west of the Black Hills, the same rock and fossil layer is named Belle Fourche Shale.

Stacy Helen Schusterman is an American heiress and billionaire businesswoman. The daughter of oil executive Charles Schusterman and his wife, Lynn Schusterman, Schusterman is the founder of deepwater drilling company Samson Energy.

The geology of South Dakota began to form more than 2.5 billion years ago in the Archean eon of the Precambrian. Igneous crystalline basement rock continued to emplace through the Proterozoic, interspersed with sediments and volcanic materials. Large limestone and shale deposits formed during the Paleozoic, during prevalent shallow marine conditions, followed by red beds during terrestrial conditions in the Triassic. The Western Interior Seaway flooded the region, creating vast shale, chalk and coal beds in the Cretaceous as the Laramide orogeny began to form the Rocky Mountains. The Black Hills were uplifted in the early Cenozoic, followed by long-running periods of erosion, sediment deposition and volcanic ash fall, forming the Badlands and storing marine and mammal fossils. Much of the state's landscape was reworked during several phases of glaciation in the Pleistocene. South Dakota has extensive mineral resources in the Black Hills and some oil and gas extraction in the Williston Basin. The Homestake Mine, active until 2002, was a major gold mine that reached up to 8000 feet underground and is now used for dark matter and neutrino research.

The litter boxes in schools hoax is a false rumor alleging that certain North American schools provide litter boxes in bathrooms for students who "identify as cats", or who participate in the furry or otherkin subcultures. In 2021 and 2022, various American conservative and far-right politicians and media personalities promoted the hoax in response to several school districts enacting protections for transgender students. Many news outlets, fact-checking websites, and academic researchers have debunked such claims, and officials from every school named by those promoting the hoax have verified that the accusations are false. The claims have been described as internet trolling, fearmongering, and anti-transgender rhetoric.

References

  1. 1 2 Wong, Anica. "Supporting Critical Thinkers". Mines Magazine. Colorado School of Mines. Retrieved 6 July 2023.
  2. 1 2 3 "Philanthropy Awards". Colorado School of Mines Alumni Foundation. Colorado School of Mines . Retrieved 6 July 2023.
  3. "Don Thorson". www.gftpln.org. Archived from the original on 12 January 2015. Retrieved 27 January 2022.
  4. 1 2 Gross, Hannah (2021-06-02). "Black Hills Bentonite celebrates 75 years". News Letter Journal. Retrieved 6 July 2023.
  5. "How kitty litter has helped Wyoming through drilling slump". Associated Press. CBS News. 2017-01-02. Retrieved 6 July 2023.
  6. "Thorson Honors Program". Colorado School of Mines.