'Not supposed to bury our children': Fromberg teen death rattles small community

Less than five miles outside of Fromberg, a memorial has been set up on Bluewater Road where 16-year-old Payton Stetson died after rolling the truck she was driving Saturday night.

A 13-year-old boy from Fromberg and a 16-year-old girl from Deaver, Wyoming, were passengers in the truck and both were taken to a local hospital.

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“Every year we seem to be losing kids and it's just hard to deal with,” Fromberg Mayor Tim Nottingham said on Monday. “The road's (Bluewater Road) kind of windy and twisty out there.”

Stetson was a student at Bridger High School. Nottingham said that Fromberg High School students have already reached out to their fellow students just seven miles away.

“The Fromberg school, they made cards and posters and sent them to the school in Bridger,” he said. “We’re all one community. We all are together and when you lose one child out of that it affects everybody. Because everybody knows, everybody feels that heartache."

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The heartache felt throughout the community is something Nottingham has felt firsthand.

His son, Timothy Nottingham, died in a single-vehicle wreck 24 years ago at 17 years old.

“He loved to make people laugh, that was his thing,” Nottingham said. “Every time there’s an accident like this, it just opens up that file cabinet drawer in your mind and you drag out all the memories and you go through it all again.”

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Car wrecks that Nottingham said happen far too often, bringing up his past and taking away someone's future.

“The number of kids that we’ve lost in this valley, the number of parents that have to deal with this, time after time. It doesn’t get any easier,” Nottingham said. “Tell your children every day how much you love them.”