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Microcap & Penny Stocks : Olympus Ventures (OVIS) - The Naysayers -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: The Tuna who wrote (297)	11/4/1997 8:19:00 PM
From: ptm, inc	Respond to of 336

Casper Star-Tribune MONDAY NOVEMBER 4,1997 FOUNDED 1891 By TOM MORTON, Star-Tribune staff writer copyright 1997, Casper Star-Tribune TEN SLEEP - Three years of broken promises haven't drowned this town's hope that a bottling plant could jump start the economy and provide jobs, residents say. But Rocky Mountain Crystal Water's behavior, even after its Sept. 24 merger with a firm in Florida, hasn't endeared the company to Ten Sleep, either, they said. "They're sitting there spinning their wheels," Mayor Pat Beckley said. Company officials called Beckley on Monday and told him that they'd be visiting him by the end of the month to discuss future plans, he said. But even if the company does go somewhere, it also must contend with the risks of a highly competitive industry with a heavy product to ship and a slim profit margin, the president of a competing Casper bottling firm said. Casper, added Hillcrest Water President George Baker, is much closer to markets and highways than Ten Sleep. This town on U.S. Highway 16, halfway between Worland on the west and Powder River Pass in the Big Horn Mountain on the east, bills itself as "A Little Western Town with A Big Western Heart." The struggles and hopes of Ten Sleep - an agricultural community that wants to keep its character while serving growing numbers of tourists and hunters - mirror on a small scale those elsewhere in economically stagnant Wyoming. But it's got something for which towns and cities in the West will go to political war: water. Millions of gallons of pure, clear, untreated, unchlorinated water that gushes from the Madison Formation in the mountains directly to two wells 1,100 feet deep near the Town Hall. Water so plentiful that most households don't have meters and pay a flat rate of $20 a month. Merle Funk, mayor from 1992 to 1994, saw clear gold in the nearby hills, and wondered if both the town and an enterprising company would care to make some money, he said. So in the fall of 1992, Ten Sleep took out an ad in the trade publication Bottle Water Reporter, Fund said. Several firms responded, but only Colorado Clearwater of Littleton, Colo., expressed its willingness to set up shop without the help of local or state economic developments funds, he said. By 1994, an attorney hired by the town researched Colorado Clearwater and reported that it was legitimate, Funk said. So Ten Sleep and the company, which did business as Rocky Mountain Crystal Water, signed a 99-year contract in August 1994, he said. Ten Sleep granted the exclusive right to bottle its unused water, according to the contract signed by company President Michael Puhr. Rocky Mountain Crystal Water agreed to buy a minimum of 50,000 gallons a month at two cents a gallon, which would net Ten Sleep an extra $1,000 a month - welcome money for a town with a $260,000 budget, according to the contract and Funk. Rocky Mountain Crystal Water bought a former 3,000-square-foot veterinary clinic, installed manual bottling equipment, printed labels and began bottling water, Funk said. While Ten Sleep likes the easy money, Funk and other residents said it hasn't been as pleased with Rocky Mountain Crystal Water's inability to fulfill other parts of the bargain. The company promised to hire up to 50 people at between $8 and $10 an hour, Funk said. "For a town like this, that's great. There's people who drive 30 miles to Worland who don't make that kind of money." For a while, the plant ran two shifts bottling water: The Ten Sleep product called Rocky Mountain Crystal Water and sold as far away as Taiwan and Mexico; water trucked from Woods Landings bottled as Cheyenne Springs; and a temporary sports water product called Merlin Micromagic-fortified with "extra electrolytes. Then we active the water with natural fields of energy." Over the summer business slowed to a trickle, Funk said. Now, office manager Alex Lockhart is only employee, she said. Rocky Mountain Crystal Water also promised to build a new plant, according to the contract. Beckley, said that Roy Decker & Sons in Worland signed a contract with Rocky Mountain Crystal Water two years ago to build a 7,000square foot building. Constructions commenced with a concrete slab. But the bottling company never paid for framing, so Decker dismantled the steel framing, Beckley said. Beckley, Funk and other residents also said Rocky Mountain Crystal Water keeps a low corporate profile in the community by rarely helping sponsor community events. That profile is so low that the company doesn't even have a sign at its building at 97 Second St. Rocky Mountain Crystal Water entered a new phase Sept. 24 when the Fort Lauderdale, Fla., firm of Olympus Ventures signed a merger agreement and reorganized the company as Rocky Mountain International Ltd. Purr, now president of RockyMountain International's bottling division, said $5 million in cash the company plans to raise will help expand the plant with a high-speed bottling line. According to the Washakie County Assessor's Office, the current total estimated fair market value of the bottling plant and land amounts to $201,014 - $69,504 for the land and $131,510 for the building, equipment and other improvements. Roland Breton, president of Rocky Mountain International, said expansion should begin in lateNovember, and completion of the project should be completed four months later. Beckley said he welcomes any proposed expansion. But Rocky Mountain International, he said, didn't help its cause when it drafted a testimonial letter about the company calling it an "important member of our community" addressed to Puhr and asked that Beckley sign it. On advice of the town's attorney, Beckley said he refused to sign it. Rocky Mountain International also faces challenges inherent in the highly competitive bottled water industry, said Baker of Hillcrest Water. Even with the location and transportation infrastructure advantages it enjoys, Hillcrest has a profit margin of only 2 percent, Baker said. "Freight is just the killer," he said.