youth

As we focus on suffrage in Wyoming, we are taking this opportunity to preview a new podcast that Wyoming Public Media and the Buffalo Bill Center of the West are in the process of creating. The KidsAskWhy podcast amplifies the voices of kids who want to ask questions. And it turns out Wyoming kids want to know about women's suffrage as well. Wyoming Public Radio's Bob Beck spoke to producer Kamila Kudelska.

One of the difficult things for children who are placed in group homes is how to manage when they leave that setting. It used to be that when those 18-year-olds left a group home, they would essentially have to fend for themselves. In Laramie, Cathedral Home for Children has the Extended Families Program that tries to help young people navigate the so-called real world.

Destiny and Taylor are both 17 years old and from Rock Springs. In 2019 both attended a disciplinary school in Sheridan called the Wyoming Girls School. They say there are good parts of Wyoming, but difficult experiences are pushing them to leave. For our "Belonging" series, the two sat down to discuss how their experiences in and out of Rock Springs have shaped them and their ideas of community. Destiny starts the conversation off. 

Sarah Mock and Mackenzie Muirhead both loved growing up in Cheyenne. Now, as they build lives and careers in Washington, D.C., they both dream about giving back to the communities that raised them. For Wyoming Public Radio's "Belonging" series, Sarah and Mackenzie talked about their changing relationship to Wyoming, and how a lack of jobs in their chosen fields - journalism and foreign affairs, respectively - prevents them from moving back.

Growing up on the Wind River Reservation, Gabby St. Clair and Angelo Sage say that their families, traditions, and languages gave them a sense of belonging. But they both attended high school in predominantly white Reservation border towns. For Wyoming Public Radio's "Belonging" series, they sat down to talk about how the love and support of their tribal communities - St. Clair is Eastern Shoshone and Sage is Northern Arapaho - helps them through life's challenges and pulls them to stay here in Wyoming.

Recent Torrington High School graduates Quentin Meyer and Ryan Walson love Wyoming as it is. For our "Belonging" series, the childhood friends sat down to reflect on the agriculture and stories that pull them to stay while acknowledging the career possibilities that may draw their lives outside of the state they hold dear.

The Internet has changed a lot of things about the way we read, think, and do politics, and it's also changed the creative writing of teens. Spoiler, this is a positive story about kids and the Internet.

Though they have felt like outsiders at times, Allen Pino and Catalina Pedroza—who are both pursuing careers as educators—feel a strong sense of loyalty to Wyoming. For WPR's "Belonging" series, they sat down to discuss racial identity and how Wyoming stereotypes can be at odds with a vision of a state full of potential.

June is Pride Month. So this first installation of the "Belonging" series is a conversation between Connor Sears and Jesse Archambeau. They're both 2018 Cheyenne East High School grads who left for college in Peoria, Illinois where a more prominent LGBTQ community has helped them to foster their own identities. Now, they struggle with the reality that their absences perpetuate a trend that leaves Wyoming's queer youth without the mentorship they themselves yearned for.

The back-to-school episode. Young Wyomingites experience opportunities and challenges.

The Cathedral Home for Children just north of Laramie is a boarding school for teens that have had traumatic experiences. Besides providing a safe space, the home helps the kids deal with their emotions. This summer they’re trying something new – drumming circles.

Seventeen year old Robert Bruner has put his mom Jackie through hell--and he’s the first to admit it. Bruner says it all started a few years ago, when he was hit with a serious depression.

“Instead of coping with it the right way: writing stuff down, listening to music, being positive,” he says,  “I would smoke weed, snort pills, do whatever.”

They fought a lot. Robert was on probation for drug use, and when, one night, his mom caught him sneaking out to get high, she couldn’t take it anymore.

“So I brought him to the Crisis Center in Laramie.”