Features

Wyoming is one of the least racially diverse states in the country-but it wasn't always that way. A museum in Evanston chronicles a time when the state bustled with international immigrants.

For the few days on and around the Fourth of July Cody hosts a parade and rodeo, known as the Cody Stampede. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the rodeo. In its history, the event has attracted the local community, professional rodeo riders and ropers, tourists and even Hollywood stars.

The Cheyenne Board of Public Utilities is featuring a new way to conserve water and promote pollinators. Dena Egenhoff is the board's water conservation specialist and she tells us that they have created a Habitat Hero Garden featuring flowers, drought resistant plants and grasses to teach people how they can create beautiful yards while saving water. She discusses the effort with Wyoming Public Radio's Bob Beck.

Last year was the first year fifth graders from three schools on the Wind River Reservation participated in a cultural field camp just south of Yellowstone. The day camp organized by the National Forest Service hopes to give Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho children a chance to learn their culture while outdoors.

The oral histories of the Eastern Shoshone tribe say their ancestors have lived in the Wind River Basin for time immemorial. Now there is a history to help explores the tribe's relationship with the ecosystem of the area.

Adam Hodge is an associate professor of history at Lourdes University in Ohio and author of the new book Ecology and Ethnogenesis: An Environmental History of the Wind River Shoshones, 1000-1868. Wyoming Public Radio's Taylar Stagner spoke with Hodge. 

The book Treeborne is about a woman name Janie Treeborne who lives in Elberta, Alabama. She's being interviewed after learning that she may need to abandon her community after an old dam is about to break. The book takes us back through flashbacks from her life and family that goes back many years and involves an odd cast of characters. 

About 30 miles southeast of Sheridan, the Ucross Foundation sits on a 20,000-acre working cattle ranch. But that's not what it's known for.

The ranch is home to the Ucross Foundation Residency Program. Foundation president and executive director Sharon Dynak said it's a place for writers and artists to focus on their work. 

A University of Wyoming alum published her book of stories last month. Kali Fajardo-Anstine grew up in Denver. Her new book, Sabrina & Corina, tells the stories of indigenous Latina women in Colorado. Wyoming Public Radio's Erin Jones talked with Fajardo-Anstine about dropping out of high school, her ancestors' storytelling, and reaching new audiences.

Award-winning columnist and author Dave Barry will give a talk April 18 at 1:30 p.m. in the University of Wyoming Union Ballroom as part of the UW Libraries Development Board's annual author event. He joined Wyoming Public Radio's Caroline Ballard for a conversation about his career and his new book Lessons From Lucy.

The story of 20th century Sheridan immigrant and entrepreneur Zarif Khan resurfaced in the last several years. After a 2016 New Yorker story that detailed Khan's life, University of Iowa jazz studies professor and musician John Rapson was inspired to tell Khan's uniquely American story along with composer Danyel Gaglione. 

A somewhat unusual instrument claimed first place in the annual Dorothy Jacoby Student Soloist Competition at the University of Wyoming in March. As she told Wyoming Public Radio's Micah Schweizer, Mikayla Peterson is the second saxophone player in her family to perform with the UW Symphony Orchestra in the concerto competition.

The Brinton Museum in Big Horn, Wyoming, is home to a collection of artifacts and objects from many Plains Indian tribes. As it open for the season, the Brinton along with the Center for American Indian Research and Native Studies put together an exhibit centered around the Lakota creation story. Wyoming Public Radio's Catherine Wheeler sat down with Craig Howe, the director of the Center for American Indian Research, to talk about how the story has an impact today.

Author and journalist Ron Franscell is out with a new book. It tells the story of a Wyoming couple who committed several murders in the 1970s and 80s to get their own "happily ever after," and how they were finally brought to justice after several decades. Wyoming Public Radio's Caroline Ballard spoke with Franscell about his book Alice and Gerald: A Homicidal Love Story, and he told her he became interested in the story after hearing about their arrests in the news a few years ago.

A few years back, one of the world's most beloved children's book authors completed her last book just four days before she passed away at the age of 92. Jean Craighead George was the Newberry award-winning author of over 100 picture and chapter books including Julie of the Wolves and My Side of the Mountain.