If you're a longtime listener to “Open Spaces,” then you know the name Bob Beck. Bob was Wyoming Public Radio's news director for 34 years, and he co-created “Open Spaces” and was its longtime host. He retired in 2022.
Beck received an honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of Wyoming (UW). This is the university's highest honor. Wyoming Public Radio’s Kamila Kudelska spoke with Beck as he took a look back at his time helming the newsroom.
Editor’s Note: This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
Kamila Kudelska: Welcome, Bob, and congratulations.
Bob Beck: Thank you very much, Kamila, and it's great to be here.
KK: Thirty-four years is a long time. Let's start with highlights. What stands out to you during your time at WPM as your biggest achievement?
BB: I thought starting this program [Open Spaces] actually was a very big achievement. It was kind of a game changer for us, because we were a four-person staff back then that only did occasional features, and what it forced us to do was everybody had to pretty much put together a feature every week to be able to fill the hour, as you well know. It made us do more work. It made us do excellent work, and I think that's probably as good of an achievement as we've ever come up with.
The second one was just getting to put together a newsroom that I think all of us could be proud of. We started off, I was the professional here. We had some wonderful student employees, but we were able to grow, and as time went on, we were able to attract folks, like yourself, who were just fabulous young journalists. Just getting the station's newsroom where it is today, that's got to be the other one.
KK: A huge part of being a Wyoming Public Media reporter is going out and meeting people in the state. Can you share a memory that captures the heart of reporting in Wyoming?
BB: Boy, there's so many. One that I always tell is about this rancher who was from Pinedale. I was covering a wolf hearing when wolves were reintroduced. This was quite an issue for farmers and ranchers, and so the rancher generally was against the wolves coming in, and so this guy had something interesting to say.
He was on the other side of the room, so I walk over and introduce myself. He says, "Oh, I know who you are. I listen to you every day." And I said, "Oh, great. Thank you." And he said, "I didn't say I liked you. You're the only station I can get in the cab of my pickup." I had so many stories like that where I'd meet these people.
You have to give each other a little teasing back and forth. That's how we are in Wyoming. And we'd end up talking about people up in Gillette wanting to know how the Cowboys were going to do and things like that, and I knew about things like that.
I really miss the interaction with real, as you've heard me say before, real people who are not politicians or lobbyists or department heads, just real, good old-fashioned folks in the state and having interactions with them. I just have great memories of people in this state.
KK: During your years here, you ended up covering the Wyoming Legislature longer than any other broadcaster. What did you learn about the state through that coverage?
BB: This may or may not be the case today, but for the most part, legislators represent their constituents. That doesn't always work for people. They think you should be representing the entire state. But I think at the end of the day, 90% of people who are elected officials represent their area. So if you're from Laramie, you would expect to represent the University of Wyoming's interests, if you're a Republican or a Democrat.
That's what I learned, is for the most part, people are going to represent their constituents, and that's why a lot of times you see strange bedfellows in the Legislature on both sides of the aisle. Or where you'd see a very conservative Republican working with a more moderate Republican on an issue, because they both represent agriculture.
KK: It has been four years since you've left, and I know that you've paid a little attention to the Legislature. Has it changed, do you think?
BB: Yeah, I think we've lost our sense of humor a little bit. I think one of the things that I really had a lot of fun with is that you had people who would really get after each other on the floor, and at the end of the day, they were still friends.
I think some of that's gone away. Yes, it's serious business, but it's not, “My side is right and your side needs to be destroyed,” kind of stuff. And we're hearing, unfortunately, a little bit too much of that.
KK: You covered pretty big news in the state when you were news director. Two events stand out, the Matthew Shepard murder and the bus crash that killed eight UW student athletes. Those were both hard events to cover. What stands out to you about that time?
BB: Well, what I call the Remember the Eight crash, that was amazing and terrible. I had just seen the team, and so that always stuck with me. Then the victim impact statements, when you hear eight parents get up and talk about losing their children, that was tough. News directors aren't supposed to get teary-eyed when you're trying to be objective, and you just, it couldn't be helped.
[The] Matthew Shepard case was just so crazy, and to have the national media here and trying to separate what was fact and what was fiction. There was a lot of misreporting. Some of it's been documented out there. And so tr[ing] to be the station that presented the story accurately, didn't take things that might have appeared on the wire service that turned out to be wrong.
[One example], I was arguing with NPR. I was in the press box at the Wyoming football game. I was telling them the story they had was wrong. The fact was wrong. The governor did not endorse hate crime legislation. There was no way Gov. Jim Geringer was going to endorse hate crime legislation, and they were saying, "Well, it says it on the wire." I said, "Hang on a second. Let me go get him." I walked down to the end of the press box, grabbed the governor, put him on the phone.
He says, "Well, I'm not exactly endorsing it yet." And they said, "Okay, put Bob back on. Okay, we'll change it." So that's one of my strange memories from that time. But, you know, we did the best we could.
KK: You also led the newsroom through some tough times. The coronavirus pandemic, which revealed many Wyomingites' broken trust in medical science and public health. Also, the Black Lives Matter and Me Too movements, which led newsrooms across the country to rethink how they cover race, gender and justice. What do you see as some of your successes in navigating those times, and anything you would do differently?
BB: You break them down all differently, but I just think that year, I don't think I would do anything differently, and I just would praise the reporters that we had. I thought the stories we were coming up with and the different angles and…
KK: For the coronavirus?
BB: Yeah. I thought that coverage was sensational. I know we won stuff for what we did, and one of the great things about a small state, you can get the state health officer on when you need her, and you can do different things. Our reporters really came up with tremendous angles, things I would have never thought of on my own.
We really worked as a team then, and I guess my takeaway from that was that. When I think about how difficult, you know, the marches, which we certainly had here in Laramie and just some of the data that you were really instrumental in making sure that we were accurate in getting.We knew sometimes more than health officials knew about what the numbers were in the state.
KK: When you left the station in 2022, I remember listeners saying that they grew up with your voice. What does that mean to you?
BB: It's crazy. I used to not like hearing that. I'd have a student in my class, I taught for 20 years at the University of Wyoming. I remember talking about the flood in Cheyenne, which was in the ’80s that killed some people. Pne of my students, and this was I think 1988, said to me, “Oh that was my aunt. I never got to meet her. I wasn’t born yet.” It eventually became kind of a neat thing.
I'm very proud of the work we've done here and my part in it. Are there regrets? Probably, but I tend to focus on positive things, and I just really think we've brought some great coverage to this state. We've done some good in-depth stories, and I think the wall of awards, which you've added to since I've left, backs that up. I'm very proud of that.
