Features

Dreams might be portents, or they might be random scatterings of light as the brain removes plaque. Sleep well.

Heartbreak shatters us open. This is the story of Tessa.

You know how before digital streaming and CDs, people used to make mixtapes for each other? The next hour is the radio version of that.

Last February, Jackson Hole Mountain Resort launched a new extreme skiing and snowboarding competition. 18 men and seven women competed to be crowned the King and Queen of Corbet's. At the awards ceremony, the top male won $5,000 more than the top female finisher. The incident drew attention to the fact that there's nothing in place to guarantee equal prizes in big mountain freeskiing.

The population in Tie Siding, Wyoming is technically zero - it's basically just a post office that serves homes and ranches in this part of southeast Wyoming. Even though the population is tiny, there is not one but two popular mystery writers living there. And they're married to each other.

For the past 15 years, the Plains Indian Museum at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West welcomes high school students from the St. Labre Indian School located in Montana. In two days, the students pick objects from the museum’s archive and learn the process of creating an exhibit. Wyoming Public Radio’s Kamila Kudelska spoke with St. Labre teachers, Philippe Franquelinand Cecilia Thex on the exposure a program like this gives high school students.

A new museum installation called "Arapaho Roots" is opening November 17 in Colorado at the Museum of Boulder. The pieces will be animated Arapaho stories put up on screens throughout the museum. 

Tim Lawson is a nationally recognized painter. He grew up in Sheridan and has recently moved back, after living all over the U.S. Now, his hometown is celebrating his work with a show at SAGE Community Arts. The exhibition runs through January 2. On Thursday, November 15, Lawson will give an artist talk at the WYO Theatre, followed by a reception at SAGE. Wyoming Public Radio's Erin Jones spoke with Lawson.

Most people know John Wesley Powell as the first man to travel through the Grand Canyon. However, as author of The Promise of the Grand Canyon: John Wesley Powell’s Perilous Journey and His Vision for the American West, John F. Ross found out that adventure inspired Powell to re-envision water usage in the West. 

October is coming to a close, which means Halloween is just around the corner and spooky stories are on the agenda. A little more than a decade ago, Joe Donnell was working as a park ranger Wasatch-Cache National Forest in Utah. One of his responsibilities was to manage the trail grooming program for the national forest – meaning he’d be high up in the mountains in the dead of winter. His story begins with an abandoned car in deep snow.

The University of Wyoming Symphony Orchestra will premiere a new composition Thursday, October 25 at 7:30 p.m. at UW’s Buchanan Center for the Performing Arts. The performance of Gwyneth Walker’s Earth and Sky will include multimedia elements including projections and narrators. The triple concerto will feature the Musica Harmonia string trio with the UW Symphony. As Walker told Wyoming Public Radio’s London Homer-Wambeam, Musica Harmonia commissioned the piece.

Western films are iconic like Stagecoach, The Magnificent Seven and High Noon. But has the Western genre lost its popularity in the modern days of the Avengers and superheroes? Wyoming Public Radio's Kamila Kudelska asked film critic, Dr. Andrew Patrick Nelson, whether the genre is really dying or just changing?

Considering Matthew Shepard is a three-part oratorio responding to Matthew Shepard's 1998 murder. Released in 2016, the piece moves through the events of Shepard's life and death using a chorus and a chamber ensemble. It was written by composer Craig Hella Johnson. During the 20th anniversary of Shepard's death, Johnson has toured the work around the country and will perform it in Laramie October 6, the day Shepard was robbed and beaten. Reporter Cooper McKim speaks with Johnson about the work and the role of art around Shepard's death.

The three-part oratorio Considering Matthew Shepard moves through the life and death of Shepard and the resulting trial alternating in genre and perspective throughout. The large-scale composition written for an orchestra and chorus was written by Craig Hella Johnson. The piece touches on western themes, religious ones, as well as focusing on Shepard's humanity.

A specific western furniture style was born in Cody in the 1930s. And for the past 30 years, its biggest fans have tried to spread it beyond the West by holding annual furniture expositions around the northwest Wyoming city. The style in question is an old-west, rustic look you might relate to the 1800s. Only when the community lost the exposition 15 years ago did locals realize what impact it had on the local economy.