It's time again for the Wyoming Governor's Arts Awards

This time every year the Wyoming Arts Council hires me to write the story on the annual Governor's Arts Awards recipients. Some of them I know from my 25 years working at the Wyoming Arts Council. Others are new to me.

I have worked or met all the 2023 awardees:

Mary Jane Edwards, recently retired director of the Jentel Foundation

The Munsick Boys, a father and his three sons from Sheridan County finding inventive ways to thrive in the music world

Geoffrey O'Gara, filmmaker and author from Lander

Milward Simpson, a live theatre guy in Cheyenne who was my former boss at State Parks and Cultural Resources

Mike and Jane Sullivan, Mike as Wyoming governor 1987-1993, and Jane as First Lady 

A great list. I learned a lot interviewing them by phone. We didn't do the Zoom thing as I am much more phone-friendly than Zoom-friendly. My background is in journalism and feature writing. I have interviewed hundreds of people remotely and in person. I prefer face-to-face but it's not always possible. For this assignment, I needed a firm desk to take notes as my right hand is still not behaving properly due to ulnar nerve surgery. Thus, my handwriting is worse than it ever was -- and that's saying a lot. People have looked at my notebook and asked: "Is this your kind of shorthand?" I usually answer in the affirmative, labeling my method Shay Script which sounds better that terrible penmanship. 

There's another aspect to the story. The nuns taught me cursive. When I began roaming around to find stories, I recorded interviews in cursive. I couldn't read it when I got back to my desk. I switched to printing when I began reporting for my college newspaper. Instead of long swoops and swirls, I now could just abbreviate words with a few letters and be able to translate it at the other end.  I sometimes get confused but that is what phone and e-mail and Internet are for.

I learned a few things. Mike Sullivan is a James Joyce fan and tickled Bloomsday fans in Dublin reciting snippets from "Ulysses" while wearing cowboy duds. There is a thing called cowboy rap which I discovered interviewing musician Tris Munsick. He sent me to YouTube to see his brother Ian's performance at Cheyenne Frontier Days. Ian brought his buddy Ryan Charles on stage and he rapped cowboy and the fans down in the pit loved it. Mary Jane Edwards has retired twice, once as a UW faculty member, and once as executive director of the Jentel Foundation and its artist residency program. She now is officially retired, or so she says.

Those are just a few tidbits from the features you can read in the February edition of Artscapes Magazine. I am busily translating and transcribing my notes. Wish me luck.

You will hear from the recipients at the annual awards gala on Feb. 23 at Little America in Cheyenne. Order your tickets here.