After decades of service Dellos retires from town

After nearly 42 years Mike Dellos will be retiring from the Town of Basin, this Friday, Jan. 3.

Dellos has served under eight mayors during his career and has seen many changes. 

In 1983 Mike was originally hired by then Mayor Bob Akin as an electrician’s helper for town electrician Dick Sanders. Dellos said he really didn’t have any experience with electricity but was willing to learn. In 1984 Dellos’ position changed and he walked across the street to the newly built water plant and became a helper to water plant operator Mike Lydle. The building was built in 1983 to facilitate the new water treatment system for the incoming river water. 

Dellos remembers the tedious job of cleaning up the river water to make it safe for the residents to use. “It was a three-tier system, the water was pumped from the river into a pre-settling tank, which would then be pumped to the new plant, chemical would then be added and it would go through two other tanks and then the backwashing tank.”  Dellos recalls in the spring when the river was so muddy he would have to backwash two to three times a day. He added that does not miss those days.”

In 1985 Dellos was approached by Doris Crowell, one of Basin’s first female mayors, to become head water operator after two other head operators had quit.

His position as water plant operator involved obtaining many licenses to be certified in water and wastewater. By the end of his career he had acquired four licenses, Level 3 water, Level 2 wastewater, Level 2 distribution and Level 1 collection. 

Besides running the plant Dellos also read the town’s meters. He said “I probably walked 15-20 miles each month.” When asked what that was like, he replied “I really didn’t mind walking the town it got me out of the plant and I was able to interact with a lot of the residents, but in the summers with some of those over 100-degree days that was brutal.”  

Walking meters did have its challenges. He recalls one summer coming around the corner to a home with a female Chesapeake and her pups, “she was startled and in protective mode and bit me in the calf area of my leg. I was sent to the hospital for a tetanus shot,” he laughed. The winters were just as rough with the below zero temperatures and ice. “One year for Christmas my wife bought me ice cleats for ice fishing and she wanted me to use them for meter reading as well, she was worried of me falling on the ice. Spring and fall were less challenging.” 

He also recalls helping out the garbage crew. “We had barrels back then and we had to heave them into the garage trucks.  I didn’t need to work out I had a variety of jobs to keep me in shape,” he said with a smirk.

Most of the changes Dellos witnessed in his career came under the tenure of long-standing mayor Phil Juillard. Juillard implemented the Raw Water system in 1988 which allowed residents to use the canal water instead of the treated city water for their lawns and other outside needs. Dellos would have to monitor the small plant and its pumps located by the pond behind the school. It also entailed starting the system up every year in April and draining the system in October. This also took away the open water ditches along the roads which helped beautify the town. 

With the high cost of operating the town water treatment plant and the poor quality of water coming from the river a need for higher quality water was evident. 

South Big Horn Water District Manager John Joyce explained that the Joint Powers Board members, which included then Mayor Juillard, began discussing drilling a well to feed water to Basin, Manderson and everyone in between. For this cooperative project to succeed it needed a water operator to run the system. Mayor Juillard approached Dellos with this agreement to be the operator for both systems and how it would be run.  Joyce said, “Without Dellos agreeing to operate the system for both the town and district this project wouldn’t have started and town residents would still be drinking treated river water and rural residents would still be hauling water. Dellos was involved in the beginning stages of this project overseeing it to the end.”

In December 1999 the project was completed and the water plant shut down. Basin started using the artesian water from wells between Manderson and Hyattville.

The running of this new water system kept Dellos busy helping both town residents and district residents with water breaks, meter readings, installing meter pits and everyday routine tasks. The district grew and now spans from the Washakie County line all the way to Burlington. 

Joyce, who has worked with Dellos for over 25 years, said, “Mike has taken care of the Joint Powers Board and the District and kept everything running smoothly. It’s a pretty large system for one person and he has done that beautifully over the years.

“Everybody has had good service and good water, he has just been so reliable for the town and the district. It’s been really impressive that he could do all that for that many years, most people when they get older give it up and he didn’t.” 

In 2021 Dellos was approached by councilman Carl Olson to fill a vacancy for Public Works foreman.  Dellos said, “I always wanted the opportunity to be foreman,” and agreed to take the position if he could continue his work with both the town and district as operator until he retired. With that agreement in place he took the position. 

Dellos originally planned to retire in July 2024 but decided he would stay on to the end of January 2025. He wanted to stay and get most of the meters installed for the radio read system. He also wanted to follow through and complete EPA requirements for lead and copper exceedance for SBH Water District.

When asked what was his least favorite aspect of the job, Dellos said, “I won’t miss the continued changes in regulations with EPA and DEQ ; they seem to never end. No one ever likes to work on water leaks especially in the dead of winter and I have done plenty over my career, but they are a necessary evil.” 

About what he will miss, Dellos said, “I always felt it was an honor to get paid to serve the people. I’ll miss the interactions I have with this community even though I’m not moving away.” He continued, “I just appreciate the crew that I got to work with the last three years, they made it enjoyable to be their foreman.”

On discussing plans following his retirement Dellos said that he will have more opportunities to visit kids and grandkids who are scattered in both directions, go  hunting and fishing as many days as he wants without having to worry about having to get back to work.

He added, “I have several older vehicles I will finally ‘attempt’ to restore. I’m sure my wife will have a list of honey do projects for me. But first on the list is a retirement trip gifted to us to Hawaii in February.”

Dellos’ start date was Jan. 17, 1983, he will miss hitting a full 42 years by 14 days as he was elected to serve on the town council in the November general election, after accepting a write-in nomination following the August primary. 

Per statute, Dellos must retire before he is sworn in Jan. 9. 

Dellos concluded, “Looks like I will still have an opportunity to serve the town.”

Pam Dellos is the Circulation manager/bookkeeping of the Basin Republican Rustler and Greybull Standard. She is the wife of Mike Dellos.