Features

Every year at Gathering of Nations Powwow in New Mexico, Dozens of young Indigenous women compete for the title of Miss Indian World. This year, Northern Arapaho citizen and University of Wyoming senior Christie Wildcat was among the contestants. But the powwow and the pageant were cancelled to help slow the spread of the coronavirus.

As Wildcat told Wyoming Public Radio's Savannah Maher, her preparation won't go to waste, as she plans to compete again next year.

As people follow recommendations to stay home in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, some folks are left totally alone. That can be disruptive to mental health—especially in a state with one of the leading suicide rates.

A book out this month takes an unusual look at the role of the rich in American West, examining it through interviews with the super wealthy living in Teton County.

Wyoming Public Radio's Melodie Edwards sat down with author and sociologist Justin Farrell to talk about what he learned while researching Billionaire Wilderness: The Ultra-Wealthy and the Remaking of the American West.

The auditorium at the Sheridan VA Health Care System is a space for veterans to come, shoot pool, play board games, or just hang out.

But on Tuesday, March 3, it was serving as an art gallery. The VA is hosting its annual Creative Arts Festival that allows veterans from across the state to submit a wide range of artistic creations.

Jackson Hole based singer, songwriter and musician Michael Batdorf released his eight studio album Proving Ground in 2019. He also released a new album with his band One Ton Pig. Michael spoke with Grady Kirkpatrick about his new music, moving from the Midwest to Wyoming, Tuesday nights at the Silver Dollar and camping in a tornado.

A Pinedale artist has a new show on display that was inspired by…roadkill. Cristy Anspach has spent the last two and a half years making ceramic jars to honor each animal killed on her route between Boulder and Pinedale. Over the course of eight months she made 110 jars. The show, titled "Unintended Consequences" will be on display at the Mystery Print Gallery until March 1.

Anspach talked to Wyoming Public Radio's Megan Feighery about finding beauty in death and how every creature deserves respect.

Governor Mark Gordon honored five Wyoming artists with the 2019 Governor's Arts Award, including visual artist and graphic designer Robert Martinez. Martinez is Northern Arapaho and Chicano, and grew up in a family of talented painters and beadworkers on the Wind River Reservation. He draws and paints portraits using bright, contrasting tones in a style intended to challenge the viewer's assumptions of what Native people and Native art should look like.

"You see many depictions of Natives as black and white or sepia toned, and that connotes to a dead culture," Martinez said. "So, one of the things I was doing with this bright paint was I wanted to show that we're not dead, we're alive and strong."

Wyoming Public Radio's Savannah Maher visited Martinez at his studio outside of Riverton and talked with him about his work and what it means to be one of only a few people of color ever awarded the state's top artistic honor.

On a cloudless February morning, Sheridan residents and visitors packed onto Broadway Street's sidewalks behind bright orange barricades that blocked a long ice path down the street. Skijoring Horses, riders and skiers, lined up around the start line at the north end of the road.

February marks the 100th anniversary of the Cody Country Chamber of Commerce or the Cody Club as it was known until 1970. Wyoming Public Radio's Kamila Kudelska spoke with Jeremy Johnston, historian at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, and Tina Hoebelhenrich, the president and CEO of the Cody Country Chamber of Commerce, on how the club began. Johnston said it started with the towns founders George Beck and Buffalo Bill Cody trying to attract people to the area.

An off Broadway play made waves last year for being about the most unlikely of subjects…young, intellectual Catholic conservatives. Set in Wyoming, Will Arbery's play Heroes of the Fourth Turning does not reject or promote right wing values.

Instead it lets the viewer interpret the meaning entirely for themselves. The play completed its run at Playwrights Horizons theater in New York last fall, but he hopes to eventually bring the play to Wyoming.

Arbery told Wyoming Public Radio's Megan Feighery that when he began writing, he couldn’t have imagined setting the play anywhere else.

On an unusually warm Saturday at the Antelope Butte Mountain Recreation Area, I'm on top of the ski hill located in the middle of the Bighorn Mountain Range between Greybull and Sheridan, where the elevation is 9,400 feet. An avid skier, I start down a powdery run with evergreens and big boulders surrounding me.

Wyoming Indian High School's team colors are red, white and blue. But at Monday's basketball practice, there was a lot of purple and gold on the court. The Chiefs and Lady Chiefs - who swept last year's 2A boys and girls state championships - wore the LA Lakers' team colors to honor the late NBA legend Kobe Bryant. Wyoming Public Radio's Savannah Maher stopped by practice to talk with the players and their coaches about what Bryant meant to them.

It isn't easy keeping America's folk arts alive, but the Wyoming Arts Council has been doing their best to preserve Wyoming's. Each year, they give out grants to folk artists who pass on their knowledge to the next generation.

Jack Mease braids rawhide to create beautiful horse tack like reins and hackamores, and now has taught numerous students, including Soliana Abernathy. Mease and Abernathy were among last year's recipients of the Wyoming Arts Council's Folk and Traditional Art Mentoring grant. You can see Mease's work at the State Museum in Cheyenne.

Wyoming Public Radio's Melodie Edwards visited Mease's workshop in Lander.

Wyoming has been working towards economic diversification and one way to do that is to make Wyoming's culture, arts and humanities programs a bigger part of the effort. Recently the former CEO of the Wyoming Business Council, Shawn Reese, joined Wyoming Humanities to further this effort. The Director of Wyoming Humanities is Shannon Smith and she and Reese explain the idea to Wyoming Public Radio's Bob Beck.