It is an event that I call the “Annual Wyoming Reunion.”
It occurs each
November when 650 people from all corners of the state gather in Cheyenne to
celebrate our state, renew old acquaintances and take some vital readings on
the condition of business in Wyoming.
Every other
year the Wyoming Business Alliance/Heritage Society also inducts folks into the
new Business Hall of Fame.
This year’s
inductees came from all over the state. They offer classic examples about what
being a good Wyoming citizen really means.
Before
recognizing these folks, a few words about the program:
• The group
recognized the National Outdoor Leadership School of Lander for celebrating its
50th anniversary.
The school, which has the distinction of training astronauts
and Seal teams, has more than 280,000 graduates from around the world.
Most of these grads look back at
their times in connection with the Wyoming-based school as the best times of
their lives.
This was well-deserved and
well-timed.
• Main speaker
at the event was Rob O’Neill, a member of Seal Team 6, which killed Osama Bin
Laden.
Wow, what a
talk. Way too much to cover here but he
did stress the difference between fear (which forces you to prepare) and panic
(which causes you to fail).
• Gov. Matt Mead is the main host
of the event, which is carefully put together by Bill Schilling, the president of
the Alliance.
Mead gave an
excellent introduction where he provided very optimistic facts about the
diversity of Wyoming’s economy, while also being cognizant of future declines
in tax revenue because of low energy prices.
As someone who
flies in and out of Wyoming’s airports sometimes up to four a day, he commented
on how he always notices the state has big fences around the runways.
“You might
think this is to keep the bad guys out,” he laughed. “But in reality, it is to
keep our wildlife out of the way of the airplanes. Is this place great or what?”
• Because this
event occurs in mid-November each year, you can bet that weather and bad roads
will come into play.
This year, we
headed down early Monday and missed most of the excitement. Interstate 80 was closed during much of the
two-day event as winds over 80 mph slammed southeast Wyoming. I saw the snow
falling parallel to the ground on Monday night during the brief blizzard.
• Two
long-time fixtures of the Business Alliance gathering who were no longer there
were Dave Raynolds, Lander, and Mick McMurry of Casper.
Although not
present in their physical forms, their spirits could be felt hovering around
the banquet halls at Little America.
The Hall of
Fame inductees included the most famous person in Wyoming history, Buffalo Bill
Cody, who was given the “Frontier” Award. Folks from the Buffalo Bill Center of
the West were there to talk about this most famous scout.
The “Historic”
award went to Curt and Marian Rochelle, who combined to do historic things,
create jobs and become the biggest donors in University of Wyoming history.
Marian’s
daughter April Brimmer Kunz accepted the plaque and spoke eloquently about her
mom Marian and Marian’s husband’s love for the state and its only four-year
university.
Another
“Historic” award went to Admiral Beverage Corporation of Worland and founders Newell
Sargent and Forest Clay.
CEO Kelly Clay
outlined the growth of the company, which has expanded from a tiny bottler in
north central Wyoming to a colossus that has 2,000 employees and maintains
operations in seven states.
There were
three men who were presented with “Contemporary” awards. They were George Bryce of Casper, Jim Neiman
of Hulett, and Dave Reetz of Powell.
Bryce, 69, has
been “a fixture of Casper’s growth and transformation” over a 45-year
period. He is the epitome of the
individual performing public service while maintaining a successful business
and raising a fine family.
Neiman, 63, has
been at the helm of a family business entering its fifth generation in Hulett
that has pioneered their timber and ranching businesses.
Besides
creating jobs and pioneering evolutionary timber practices, he and his family
have been consistent and generous donors of programs at the University of
Wyoming.
Reetz, 69, has
been a pioneer in building his adopted hometown of Powell in just about every
way, from banking to working at Northwest College. He led the effort to have
his town named an All-American City back in 1994.
There is no
other event in Wyoming and perhaps the country like this forum.
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