Custer's ghost asks: Where have all the flowers gone?

Last week, the Wyoming Public Media page featured an article by Kamila Kudelska about a new book, Wyoming History in Art, compiled by the Wyoming State Historical Society. The book showcases paintings by Osage, Wyo., native Dave Paulley, who passed away in 2020. The paintings were commissioned in 1989 to celebrate the state's centennial. Historian Jeremy Johnston wrote the narratives that accompany the paintings. To buy a book, send an email to linda@wyshs.org

The WPM feature story showed one of the paintings, "Custer's Troops in Floral Valley, 1874." It shows troopers picking flowers and making bouquets. In the background, a wagon train rolls. At first, I thought it was a fanciful scene. "How interesting. The troopers killed at the Little Bighorn are picking flowers." I thought it might be some metaphor to what was to come two years later in another valley.

I hadn't yet read the book so I didn't know that it was a recreation of an historical scene. The soldiers are some of the 1,000-some that made up Custer's Black Hills Expedition. More than 100 wagons hauled supplies from Fort Abraham Lincoln near present-day Bismarck, N.D., down through northeast Wyoming and into the Black Hills. They encountered a flowered valley along the way. After weeks of barreling through the treeless plains of N.D., they were entranced by the wildflowers and stopped to pick them, make bouquets, and fashion wreaths for their mounts. 

I've lived in Wyoming 30 years and never heard this wonderful story. History is so filled with oddities. We see the echoes of those events down through our times. Custer was charged with exploring the area that hadn't yet been properly mapped by white folks. As an aside, Pres. Grant's staff mentioned that if he finds any gold, be sure to let The Great White Father know before telling anyone else.

Custer found gold among the wildflowers and all hell broke loose. A gold rush commenced and lands sacred to Lakota and other Plains tribes were invaded by rough men with demonic gleams in their eyes. Treaties had insured that the Black Hills wound remain in Indian hands. The Plains War erupted in earnest. It led to the pillaging of the Black Hills and the enmity of the tribes. Some 200 of the flower gatherers followed Custer into an ambush at what Native Americans call the Battle of Greasy Grass. 

It eventually led to the killing and atrocities that culminated at Wounded Knee. And the beat goes on.

The painting deserved a poem. So I wrote one, a prose poem. It was be a prose poem or it may be flash fiction. There doesn't seem to be a clear dividing line and maybe that's a good thing. 

Custer Botanicals

Custer’s Troops in Floral Valley, July 1874. It’s beautiful this painting by David Paulley. Oil on canvas, 24 by 16 inches. Mounted troopers on the Black Hill Expedition pick wildflowers under an azure sky of a Dakota Territory summer. A bearded trooper on a black horse clutches a bouquet of Goldenrod, Blackeyed Susan, blue flax. He looks behind him, over his bedroll, sees his young love back home run to him through Floral Valley. She wears a yellow dress, looks just as she did when her lover left for the West’s Indian Wars. She wants to send him away with a final kiss. She smiles, tears streak her skin. The sun dodges behind a cloud and when it reappears two years on, his love’s shining face is replaced by the paint-streaked dusk of a Lakota Sioux warrior. He wields a stone war club and runs to the fight. A revolver replaces the flowers in the soldier’s hand. The warrior charges. The soldier fires. The warrior falls, face pressed into the field of mashed flowers. The soldier looks up and more Lakota and Cheyenne and Arapaho charge him. They scream. Why are they screaming? Seemed like only moments ago he picked flowers in a valley, surrounded by fellow flower-mad troopers. In the distance, wagons rolled north, loaded with guns and butter, trinkets and liquor to becalm the natives. “It was a strange sight,” Custer reported to Congress in 1875, “my men with beautiful bouquets in their hands, while the head-gear of the horses was decorated with wreaths of flowers fit to crown the queen of May.” In Montana, 2021, Custer’s soldiers lie beneath the prairie, reach out for the roots of tickseed and yarrow, sunflower and beardtongue. Tell us your flower secrets. Tell us what it feels like among the bees and butterflies and sweet summer rain. Let us hold you again, wreathe our horses with you, inhale the blossoms of Floral Valley on this slow march to Valhalla.

Might be time to change that obnoxious county name

The always-interesting Meteor Blades reported Wednesday on Daily Kos some good news that came out of  Tuesday's election. Amongst reports about Berkeley, Calif., passing the first tax on soda pop and voters approving legal pot in Oregon, Alaska and D.C., was this from South Dakota:

It's Oglala Lakota County now: Voters in Shannon County, South Dakota, whose residents are 92 percent Oglala, a division of the Lakota (Sioux) people, voted overwhelmingly to change the name to Oglala Lakota County Tuesday. The vote was 2161 to 526. Shannon was the name of a guy who a lot to do with prying South Dakota land out of Indian hands.

This could be a trend. Wonder if that could ever happen in other counties around the West? Wyoming already has a county named for Chief Washakie of the Shoshone. Washakie is celebrated throughout the state, with a statue in front of the state capitol in Cheyenne and a monumental piece of the chief on horseback in front of the main dining hall at the University of Wyoming in Laramie. Ever wonder how many Native Americans are in Washakie County? Approximately 46 out of 8,289 residents. There was a time, of course, when all of the people in what is now Washakie County were Native Americans.

It's only fitting when a balance comes to Western history. Little Bighorn Battlefield in Montana used to be called Custer Battlefield. It's web site now acts to correct some of the history surrounding this place:

This area memorializes the U.S. Army's 7th Cavalry and the Sioux and Cheyenne in one of the Indians last armed efforts to preserve their way of life. Here on June 25 and 26 of 1876, 263 soldiers, including Lt. Col. George A. Custer and attached personnel of the U.S. Army, died fighting several thousand Lakota, and Cheyenne warriors. 

My town of Cheyenne, Wyoming, was first named Crow Creek Crossing by Gen. Grenville Dodge when he platted the place as a future railroad camp in 1857. Some of those who accompanied him on this expedition thought a better name was Cheyenne after the Cheyenne nation that traversed the area. I'm glad Cheyenne stuck, as Crow Creek Crossing sounds like the name for a gated community. Maybe there is one by that name. Not sure what Crow Creek looked like in 1857, but these days it's a quaint little stream that only gets significant during spring flash floods.

Our county is named for Jacques La Ramee, a French-Canadian fur trapper who frequented these parts. His name is attached to a Wyoming county, city, river and peak, among others.  

In Colorado, the name of Col. Chivington has been wiped from the map for his role in leading the Colorado militia that slaughtered Indians, many of them women and children, at the Sand Creek Massacre. The Sand Creek Massacre Trail now criss-crosses Wyoming and Colorado, its path marked by commemorative signs. Here's some info about it from the Miniscule Guide to Cheyenne blog:

The Sand Creek Massacre Trail in Wyoming follows the paths of the Northern Arapaho and Cheyenne in the years after the massacre. It traces them to their supposed wintering on the Wind River Indian Reservation near Riverton in central Wyoming, where the Arapaho remain today. The trail passes through Cheyenne, Laramie, Casper, and Riverton en route to Ethete in Fremont County on the reservation. In recent years, Arapaho youth have taken to running the length of the trail as endurance tests to bring healing to their nation. Alexa Roberts, superintendent of the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site, has said that the trail represents a living portion of the history of the two tribes.

The Wind River Reservation butts up against Fremont County, Wyoming, and is named for John C. Fremont, celebrated in history books as "Pathfinder of the Rocky Mountains." He also was incredibly ambitious, passive-aggressive and impulsive. He was the Republican Party's first presidential nominee but lost in a three-way race against the Democrats and the Know Nothing Party, which accused Fremont of being a Catholic. This incited horrors in the Know Nothing's immigrant-hating followers. You see the same reaction in Tea Party members today. When the Civil War erupted, Lincoln appointed Fremont as general of the armies of the West. Lincoln fired Fremont for issuing his own Emancipation Proclamation, although two years later, Lincoln issued a similar one. 

Wyoming's Fremont Peak, Fremont Canyon and Pathfinder Reservoir all are named after John C. Fremont. The Pathfinder's expeditions certainly opened up the West for the exploitation of its native inhabitants. But if we changed all of the places in the West named for impulsive explorers and money-grubbers and Indian traders and Indian killers and land-grabbers, well, we'd have to change a lot of names.

Sunday round-up: Retirements, departures and Sturgis season

Rita Basom, my colleague for the past 23 years, retired on Friday. We enjoyed a gala week of farewell lunches, a smashing retirement party and an art gallery reception. I will miss her. Funny how well you get to know someone when you work and travel with them 40 hours a week over the course of two-plus decades. Enjoy your retirement, Rita. See you at the theatre.

Javier Gamboa, communications guy for the Wyoming Democratic Party, is leaving Cheyenne for Austin, Texas. He's the new social media guru for the Texas Democrats. Javier's been a dynamo for the WyoDems and we wish him well in at his new job. A farewell party for Javier is being held on Friday, Aug. 8. Go here for more details.

As I write this evening, I hear Harleys roaring north to Sturgis. The sounds if Harleys remind me of my late brother Dan, who had a lifetime love of motorcycles. My only trip to Sturgis was six years ago when I drove up to meet Dan and our old friend Blake. They drove from Florida to South Dakota in a camper hauling their bikes. Dan invited me to ride as his bitch on the back of his bike, which I readily accepted, knowing that I may not be a bitch but I was pretty bitchin', even in my advancing state of aging. We rode around Sturgis, gawked at motorcycles and motorcyclists. I came out of a vendor's tent to find myself walking behind a young woman whose very tanned behind was visible out of a pair of backless leather chaps. It was hot out, so I'm sure she was thankful for the breeze. We drank a bit of beer that day. Dan paced himself as the designated driver. I witnessed my first belly shot at One-Eyed Jacks Saloon. It gave new meaning to "belly up to the bar." I miss you, Dan! You can read my posts from Sturgis 2008 here and here.

Summertime in WYO

I spent the weekend with writers.

On purpose.

It was the 40th anniversary conference for Wyoming Writers, Inc., in Sheridan. Let's take stock. How many arts organizations do you know that are still alive after 40 years? I've been meeting with the same writing group in Cheyenne since the previous century. We used to gather annually at the Retreat of the Rockies with other regional writing groups from Laramie, Fort Collins and Scottsbluff. How many of those groups are extant? Ours, which we nicknamed Cheyenne Area Writers Group (CAWG) a long time ago. Both Laramie groups are gone, but there may be others. Only one of the FoCo groups are around and I hear that hellbound twisters got the Nebraskans.

Each summer, I do a summer events calendar for the Arts Council. There are always events that existed last summer that have done an el foldo for various reasons. The organizer moves to Arizona. The arts organization "has gone in other directions." Sponsors dry up and blow away.

That's OK. Not everything is meant to last forever. We happen to be living in a renaissance of outdoor music festivals and downtown gatherings of all kinds. I read in today's Casper Star-Tribune that the DDA/Main Street group in Casper traveled to Rapid City to get a look at its downtown plaza. They liked what they saw. Kids playing in the water park during the day and bands performing at night with local food and beverages being consumed. Ever been to the Firehouse Brewery in downtown Rapid City? It sits on the edge of the plaza and serves great beers and pretty good food. In March, the last time I was there, you can sip beers while warming your tootsies by the fire. You can also drink beer after the annual St. Patrick's Day parade, which may be one of the shortest in the nation.

The Star-Trib reported that the delegation was impressed with Rapid's downtown space and guessed that Casper would like one too if they can only keep the Know Nothings away from the planning meetings. You know the people I'm talking about, Seniors Wildly Indignant about Nearly Everything or SWINE (tip of the hat to Al Capp). We don't want to spend our precious taxes (Wyoming -- lowest tax rates in the USA!) on an outdoor plaza! Next thing you know you'll be taking away our cars and making us live in Hobbit houses! Freedom! Something! Something! Freedom!

BTW, I'm a senior at 63. Not with the Social Security Administration or Medicare. But I do get the senior discount at Wendy's.

I'm a little off topic. We have wonderful summer events. If you don't believe me, check out this calendar. It offers hundreds of concerts, art fairs, writers conferences, quilt shows, rodeos, brewfests, children's art camps, etc. Here's a sampler of events happening this weekend:

June 13-14 — Fourth annual Chris LeDoux Days in Kaycee
13-15 -- Celtic Musical Arts Festival in Cheyenne
13-27 — John Kirlin’s Wild West Mu-Cycle Tour, Jackson to Rapid City, S.D.
13-28 — Stage III Community Theatre presents “Lysistrata” in Casper
14 — Tina Welling leads Writers in the Park workshop in Grand Teton National Park in Jackson Hole
14 –- Chugwater Chili Cook-Off in Chugwater
14 — Butch Cassidy Festival in Laramie
14 — Juneteenth in Cheyenne
14 — Takin’ it to the Streets in Douglas
14 — Jackson Hole Crawfish Boil in Jackson
14-15 — Hi Country Ranch Rodeo in Pinedale
14-15 — Pioneer Days at the National Historic Trails Interpretive Center in Casper

I'm heading out to the Celtic Festival and Juneteenth this weekend. You might call both of these ethnic festivals. Juneteenth is an African-American celebration that marks the belated end of the Civil War. The Celtic Festival celebrates the music and art and brewmaking skills of the offspring of the Celtic tribes of northern Europe and the British Isles plus Ireland. That includes the Scots-Irish of Appalachia, the former convicts of the Aussie Outback and a whole bunch of other white people who freckle easily. I'm one of them. So is my wife Chris, who will spend Saturday staffing the YMCA booth at Juneteenth while I distribute subversive literature for the Laramie County Democrats. Later we will go over to the Depot Plaza to hang with the Cummings clan (that's Chris's tribe) and various ne'er-do-well Irish-Americans, some of whom I may be related to. We will quaff Guinness and dance (badly) to Celtic music groups.

So what did we writers do last weekend in Sheridan? Wrote. Listened to encouraging talks by writers and agents and editors. We had an awards ceremony and an annual dinner. Bought a few books. I saw old friends and they saw me. We drank a few cocktails.

Writers need to come out of their holes once in awhile to see what else is going on in the world.

Furloughed NWS staffers keep the candles burning during Black Hills blizzard

Paul Huttner, chief meteorologist for Minnesota Public Radio, had a compelling story about the federal government shutdown in his "Updraft" blog today. Furloughed National Weather Service staffers, trapped in their Rapid City office by the blizzard, tracked the storm and provided crucial weather info as some places in the Black Hills were walloped with 55-58 inches of snow. Huttner sums it up this way:

The job performed by the staff at the Rapid City NWS was well above and beyond the call of duty last weekend. Especially considering they did it without the promise of a paycheck.

Read the entire column here.

Meanwhile, South Dakota's Republican governor has requested federal disaster assistance that probably won't arrive anytime soon due to the Republican shutdown of the U.S. government. Read more about that at Larry Kurtz's excellent and acerbic Interested Party blog.

And South Dakota still has only two senators?

I've been on the Wyoming escalator beat for almost a week now, so I wonder how I missed this story in the Saturday Sioux Falls Argus-Leader:

Unlike remote Wyoming, it’s [South Dakota] got at least six sets of escalators — or five, if one doesn’t count the stairless moving ramp that takes pedestrians between floors at the Sioux Falls Regional Airport.

S.D. has scads of people-moving elevators, too. And 309 grain elevators.

Read the rest here.

We dread the call in the night, the knock at the door

I often recommend the blog postings of Rodger McDaniel. I just can't help myself. The topics are, well, topical and meaty. The writing is crisp. And the Rev. McDaniel is a feisty Liberal, something we desperately need in Wyoming.

Rev McD served his state as director of the Health Department's Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services Division during the Freudenthal administration. So, when those topics arise, he has the expertise to address them. That's what he did this morning. He wrote about the late Sen.  George McGovern's greatest loss -- the death of his adult daughter, Teresa. After an eight-year stretch of sobriety, she started drinking again. One cold night, she got drunk, wandered out of her house and froze to death in the snow.

When the men with dour faces came to George McGovern's door in 1994, he knew their mission. This haunted him and his wife Eleanor the rest of their lives. They had decided to put some distance between themselves and their daughter. You could call it "tough love." It is the approach that one learns in AA and Alanon. That's little comfort for parents who lose a child.

We know. All of us who have struggled with this issue. We know how hard it is to say, "No more." We all dread the phone call in the middle of the night. Or the stone-faced messengers at the door. Tough love does not take away the sting of losing that boy or girl that we pushed on the playground swing and carried on our shoulders.

Read Rodger's column here: http://blowinginthewyomingwind.blogspot.com/2012/10/1972-was-not-george-mcgoverns-greatest.html

interested party blog: On not voting for Sen. McGovern in '72

South Dakota blogger Larry Kurtz had a story today about what it was like to be a young upstart in 1972. We share a similar age and history and interest in Hunter S. Thompson's "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72." Read more:

interested party: On not voting for Sen. McGovern in '72: In about 1970 or so, my very furious retired Air Force Republican father wrote the Sioux Falls Argus Leader after it ran a photo during ...

R.I.P. Sen. George McGovern, Democrat from South Dakota

Sen. George McGovern died this morning in his hometown of Sioux Falls, S.D. He grew up in the Great Depression Dust Bowl, won the DFC for his actions over Europe's skies during WWII, and was the Democratic Party presidential nominee in 1972.

He was the first presidential candidate I voted for, back when I was 21 and living in Boston.

McGovern's dedication to liberal politics was an inspiration to me then and remains so now.

This comes from an obit this morning on NPR:

President Bill Clinton lauded McGovern's achievements at the 2006 dedication of the McGovern Library in Mitchell, S.D.

"In the storied history of American politics, I believe no other presidential candidate ever had such an enduring impact in defeat," Clinton said at the time.

And this, from Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary:

Yarrow says McGovern inspired an entire generation of Americans.

"There are few and far between that measure up to the dignity, honesty and fantastic commitment of George McGovern that kept this country strong and conscious for all these years," Yarrow said.

Public servant, war hero, anti-war hero, author and fine human being. R.I.P., Sen. McGovern.

Interested Party blog: Bakken pipeline could mean the end for Wyoming sage grouse

Our blogging pals at Interested Party out of South Dakota had a post this morning about the Bakken Pipeline.

If completed, it would transport raw natural gas liquids (NGLs) south through easternmost Montana and Wyoming into northern Colorado, where it will connect to the existing Overland Pass Pipeline.

It may also spell the end of the threatened Wyoming sage grouse, and endanger equally tenuous (and drought-plagued) water supplies. The pipeline's projected path through Laramie County takes it west of Burns and Carpenter and east of Cheyenne. Did you know that? I didn't.

Read the rest at interested party.

Thanks IP!

We're number three! -- on the list of most corrupt states

At least we're not number one: States with the most lax anti-corruption laws

On a South Dakota St. Patrick's Day, I toast Sen. George McGovern and his populist legacy

Book jacket from the shelves of the
bookstore at the McGovern Center
at Dakota Wesleyan University.

When in South Dakota last weekend, I kept thinking of Sen. George McGovern.

Bomber pilot, U.S. Senator, anti-war presidential candidate, international champion of hunger relief, writer, friend of the working man -- Sen. McGovern has led a long, rich life (he'll be 90 this year) and remains one of my heroes.

I looked out on that yawning open pit mine in Lead and thought about McGovern's book on the West's coalfield wars, the era that gave us the Ludlow Massacre and strong labor unions. It's called "The Great Coalfield War" and represents McGovern's commitment to labor unions. McGovern was born in Avon and grew up in Mitchell where his father was a conservative Methodist minister (and a staunch Republican). He grew up with farmers and small town people and reflected their Prairie Populist values, honed during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. His World War II experience allowed him to look at the Vietnam War through a warrior's eyes and he didn't like what he saw. Nixon clobbered him in the 1972 election. I'm proud to say that I cast my first vote for president for McGovern. I lived in Massachusetts at the time, the only state (along with D.C.) that went McGovern's way. Boston is a long way from the West's wide-open spaces where I now make my home. But I still remember that day almost 40 years ago. The loss was tough but it felt good to be 21 and voting for someone you really believed in.

South Dakota is a bigger and more complicated place these days. I don't pretend to know the details, but Prairie Populism has turned to Tea Party Populism and the results aren't pretty. Still, there's a feistiness behind the Tea Party that one can see in the small towns that gave birth to McGovern and his family and his politics.

Before we leave South Dakota, I have a few things to say about Rapid City. We spent a couple days wandering around and I liked what I saw. The downtown is vital and filled with cool shops. On each corner is a sculpture of a president. That reflects its "City of Presidents" motto taken from nearby Mount Rushmore, the granite mountain that looks down on Rapid City. Funny to think that favorite son McGovern could have been one of the corner statues. Nixon is there instead. Someday, a statue to our first black president will rise from a corner.

Rapid City has the great Firehouse Brewery, home to the Smoke Jumper Stout that I quaffed on St. Patrick's Day. It's housed in what once was the city's main fire house. The food's good, too, and it boasts its own theatre for plays, comedians and musicians. When we were at the mall on Friday, we came upon the Black Hills Community Theatre. When the 43-year-old theatre company lost its old home, it found a new spot at the mall next to J.C. Penney and Radio Shack. The evening we were there, patrons were pouring in to see the classic "Our Town." The Firehouse Theatre's next play is "39 Steps" which, coincidentally, is the show that opens this weekend at Cheyenne's Historic Atlas Theatre. The Dahl Arts Center downtown offers a full slate or art shows and classes.I didn't get to it, but I hear that the South Dakota School of Mines has a nifty art gallery.

We spent Saturday at the St. Patrick's Day parade downtown, and then drove off to Mount Rushmore. You can see a long way from up there, all the way to the Dakota prairie, all the way back to McGovern's roots.

That night, over corned beef and cabbage at the Firehouse, I toasted Sen. McGovern. Here's to you -- one of the good ones. Your like may never be seen again.

Smoke and Black Hawks and history in the air over Mount Rushmore

We cruised up to Mount Rushmore National Memorial yesterday afternoon. It's a 27-mile drive from Rapid City past a weird assortment of tourist attractions -- sprawling waterslide parks, Bear Country USA, Reptile Gardens ("See Maniac, America's Giant Crocodile"), Old MacDonald's Farm petting zoo ("Pig races!"), Black Hills Maze, Sitting Bull Crystal Caverns, etc. Most are closed for the season. A few are closed for good.

Anyway, we got to Mount Rushmore. I've been there but my wife Chris has not. I took the kids there 13 years ago when my son was at Boy Scout summer camp near Custer. It's an impressive place. It took 14 years and 400 workers and a million dollars and tons of dynamite to carve the faces of four presidents into Harney Peak Granite. Why bother, you might ask. But therein lies the tale. Local promoters thought it would be a great celebration of American freedom and a terrific tourist attraction. They were right about the latter. The former is still being debated, which seems fitting. The ranger at the visitor center said there was a recent History Channel documentary that called Mt. Rushmore a "testimonial to white privilege." Or maybe that was "testament to white privilege." He seemed upset by the idea. But you have to admit that those are some big white faces up there on a mountain that is still claimed by High Plains Indian tribes. I'm not privy to the current state of white-Indian relations regarding Paha Sapa. But it's always been testy, not to mention bloody.

We took many photos. We walked the Presidential Trail. A beautiful day in the Black Hills. As we made our way from one interpretive placard to another, we heard the sounds of a helicopter. Looked up to see a Black Hawk hovering nearby. We wondered if it was some sort of spring weekend military demonstration. Or maybe a visit by a V.I.P.? A president, perhaps? But we would have heard about that.  

The Black Hawk dipped behind the trees, hovered, and the buzzed off. We forgot about it until we got back to our car in the parking lot and saw a plume of smoke on a nearby ridge. Uh oh. The Rapid City Journal's cover story Saturday morning talked about the extreme fire danger caused by unseasonably warm temps and high winds. On our return to Rapid City, we passed fleets of police cars and firefighting trucks blocking a side road. Smoke was in the air. So was a Black Hawk.

Good news. The authorities jumped on the fire and put it out quickly. The cause appears to be target shooters, as shotgun shells littered the charred ground and targets were affixed to surrounding rocks. Not sure what to say about that. There are many things one can do safely in a tinder-dry forest. Discharging firearms is not one of them. 

St. Patrick's Day -- a look back

On the road to the Black Hills this St. Patrick's Day. Too preoccupied with the upcoming St. Patrick's Day Pub Crawl in Deadwood to write anything original. So I'll leave my readers with this St. Patrick's Day column from 2011. It covers a lot of Irish genealogical history: Potato Famine, Irish Diaspora, excessive drinking, superiority of Irish literature, Catholicism, etc. Read it here.

"The Black Hills Are Not For Sale" mural goes up in L.A.

From Native American Netroots: On Saturday, Nov. 26, beginning at 1 p.m., there is an important event will take place at the intersection of Melrose and Fairfax in West Los Angeles. Harper's Magazine Contributing Editor and National Geographic photographer Aaron Huey, and prolific street artist of the Obama HOPE campaign image, Shepard Fairey, have collaborated and will produce a 20x80-foot mural THE BLACK HILLS ARE NOT FOR SALE installation before your eyes. It goes up during Native American Heritage Month. In case you didn't know: Part of the Black Hills are in Wyoming. That section has already been sold. (Artist's rendering above from nativeamericannetroots)

NEA Chair Rocco Landesman gets a taste of the SD/WY Black Hills this week

The Heritage Center at Red Cloud Indian School will be showcasing the musical group Scatter Their Own at the reception for National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Rocco Landesman on Thursday, Nov. 17, 10 a.m. at The Dahl Center in Rapid City. Juliana, the bass player, is a recent honors graduate of Red Cloud High School on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Landesman will be in S.D. to talk about “Creative Placemaking in the Black Hills Region.” Last time we looked at a map, some of that Black Hills region was in Wyoming. And it still is! Some of our Black Hills artists and arts group reps might want to traipse over to Rapid on Thursday to what’s cooking, creative placemaking-wise.

Outnumbered and outgunned but unstoppable -- progressive bloggers in the West

Meg Lanker-Simons

Our roundtable session Saturday at the John R. Milton Writers' Conference at the University of South Dakota was entitled, “Snarky Slacktivists or Online Outlaws?: Leftie Bloggers in Red State Wyoming.”

Presenters were Michael Shay (me), hummingbirdminds prop.; Jeran Artery, author and editor of Out in Wyoming; and Meg Lanker-Simons, the power behind Cognitive Dissonance. The fourth member of our team, Rodger McDaniel of Blowing in the Wyoming Wind, couldn't make it to USD due to a family emergency.

We were a bit of an odd fit at a writers' conference. Even though its theme was "Outlaw: Law and (Dis)Order in the American West," ours was the only roundtable session in a schedule of literary readings and academic papers. Attendance was sparse. Yet we raged on. Our session even had a soundtrack.

I was appointed chair of the session so I dutifully chaired it (and what fine chairs they have at the new USD student center). The last time I presented at this conference, events were scattered all over campus. The U now has a second floor conference center that includes a ballroom. It reminded me of the conference center facilities UW added to its student center during its renovation several years ago.

Meg's blog came out of her "Cognitive Dissonance" show on KOCA Radio in Laramie. Meg is probably the most outspoken one in this ragtag band. A neo-Marxist who says she would fit right in in Berkeley but is a little out of her element in Laramie, Still, she believes strongly in the issues and has to speak out. She's almost as angry with Wyoming liberals as she is with conservatives due o the fact that they don't speak out and give in so easily to criticism from the roaring conservative majority. Recently, one of our merry band, Rodger McDaniel, has blogged and editorialized about the death of the Wyoming Democratic Party.

Meg is a techie and knows how to set up a radio show playlist. On her blog, her posts are an amalgam of writing, video, photos, music and animation. She actually knows how to push blogging limits. I am a writer who blogs. Meg is an activist who uses blog as bullhorn, maxing out her message with all the tools of technology. She also does her research, which drives her critics crazy.

Jeran Artery

Jaren is also an LGTB activist who blogs. He grew up in Wheatland, one of the most conservative communities in our part of the state. He was married, the father of a daughter, a successful financial adviser, when he came out. His friends and family were critical yet supportive. "What took you so long," was the message he got from most of them. He moved south 70 miles to Cheyenne, where he runs his company and also is director of social change of Wyoming Equality. I got to know Jeran this past winter during the struggles against anti-human legislation proposed by our whackadoodle legislators. That's when Jeran began blogging. He's an actor and artist and not necessarily a writer. He used photos and videos to make his points. His main target has been WY Watch, a group of right-wing fundie nuts who were behind most of the anti-gay, anti-immigrant and anti-women legislation. WY Watch stalks all of our blogs and we will be seeing its minions at the upcoming legislative session. They better be ready for another fight.

My presentation centered around a writer's metamorphosis into a blogger. The outline of my presentation is presented below for your edification.

I love my fellow bloggers. We spend our time speaking out about important issues. We all are tiny voices in an immense state. Outnumbered and outgunned yet unstoppable -- we wouldn't want it any other way.

We have talked about making presentations locally about our roles as denizens in Wyoming's underpopulated progressive blogosphere. Any suggestions on possible venues?

One more thing: thanks to our supporters who contributed to the ChipIn! campaign to send us to the Milton conference. Meg lists the contributors on her blog. We thank you all.

Here's the draft outline of my presentation, "Return of the Diary of a Failed Blogger::

I created a blog on Blogger in 2001. It looked interesting and I thought it could serve some purpose in my writing career, such as it was at the time. 

I prowled around the blogs or web logs as they were originally called. Most of them were on-line journals featuring the detailed doings of 15-year-olds in the suburbs. Shopping at the mall. Who likes (and doesn’t like) whom. Teen angst. The precursor to a lot of what you eventually saw on Facebook and Twitter.

In 2005, political blogs began popping up. I was interested on the ones from a Liberal or Progressive perspective: Daily Kos, Digby, Bartcop, Talking Points Memo, Left in the West from Missoula. I began to blog about Wyoming politics, writing, ADHD, etc. At work, I transferred my e-mail newsletter for writers – WyoLitMail – to a blog. It was a place to showcase WAC programs for writers and to billboard literary events around the state. It wasn't really exciting. We have a better blog now called Wyomingarts that I edit.

My personal blog was hit or miss at this time. In the summer of 2006, the events planner of a writing organization in Denver contacted me about appearing on a panel about “Writers Who Blog.” Leslie Petrovski had a blog about knitting and it was booming. The other presenter was writer and musician Larry Borowsky, founded of Viva El Birdos, a St. Louis Cardinals site (Cards flying high this weekened, eh Larry?). I looked at both of their blogs and they were wildly popular. I looked at my blog and saw tumbleweeds rolling across the screen surface. Not much action.

My 15-minute talk to the Denver group was entitled “Diary of a Failed Blogger.” It was funny, I guess, but also a little sad. But through my knitting and baseball colleagues, I learned a few things about getting and holding readers.  Find you focus and write original stuff on that topic.

I subtitled my blog “Prog-blogging Wyoming.” That was some sort of focus. I zeroed in on the state’s crazy politics as seen in the eyes of a lifelong Democrat, one of the few self-proclaimed Liberals in a truly Red State. I was an officer in the county Democratic Party but I tried to keep my independence from the party line. In the spring of 2008, Howard Dean sent me a nice video saying that I had been chosen to blog from the floor of the Democratic National Convention in Denver. That was a great opportunity to meet my fellow prog-bloggers and exchange tips. We put each other’s links on our blogrolls and exchanged info. Over the next couple years, other progressive bloggers began popping up in Wyoming. Now we have a great group of people blogging from southeast Wyoming, some of whom are up her with me today. 

Last spring, I was voted in as a scholarship recipient at Netroots Nation in Minneapolis. It's great to be a scholarship student at the ripe old age of 60. At NN11, I was among my people. I plan on returning to NN12 in Providence, this time with my fellow outlaw bloggers. 

I blog on Daily Kos as Cheyenne Mike. In August, Chris Cillizza, editor of the Washington Post’s political blog “The Fix,” recently named Hummingbirdminds one of the best of the state-based political blogs in the U.S. Not bad for a failed blogger.

Now here comes the hard part. My fellow writers in my critique group in Cheyenne get on me often about spending too much time blogging and not enough time on my book projects. They are correct. However, I see blogging as a publishing project. Most of it is original work and not re-posting. I’ve started to put together chapbooks featuring my work through Blog2Print. My first effort is the chapbook, “The Chronicles of Tea Party Slim”). The idea is to use these chapbooks as thematic showcases of political essays, satire, humor and even short fiction. I can have them at readings and either sell them at cost or steer people toward the online publishing link where they can order copies for $18.99. It’s good to have your work out there, no matter in what form.

Michael Shay

I remember fondly the former poet laureate of Denver, Lalo Delgado. Lalo passed away 10 years ago. To my knowledge, he never blogged. Yet he published his own work in photocopied chapbooks. He sold them at his readings and gave them away. He went to events and wrote poems on the spot. On a trip to Wyoming in 1999, he and I were driving to a gig at Central High School when we witnessed a plane crash a few blocks away. A girl referred to as “America’s youngest pilot” crash-landed on take-off from the Cheyenne airport. She and her flight instructor were killed. At the end of the day, Lalo had written a poem about it and was reading it to another group of kids.

Lalo Delgado probably would be having a great time with social media if he were alive today. He was already doing it, you see. It was called “being a writer.”

Last chance to chip in for WY outlaw bloggers SD road trip

The ChipIn! widget goes down Wednesday, Oct. 26. We're almost at the $500 mark! Chip in now for the Wyoming outlaw bloggers road trip to the John R. Milton Writers Conference at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion. You'll be glad you did -- we will!

See the widget on the right sidebar. Or on the blogroll at Cognitive Dissonance and Out in WY.

Get the details of our trip here.

Public-private partnership aims to accelerate "creative placemaking" all across the U.S.

I, for one, like terms such as "creative placemaking." It heats up my blood, embiggens my hopes for a better America.

Some big foundations have joined with the National Endowment for the Arts (and several other federal agencies) to establish ArtPlace, a nationwide initiative "to accelerate creative placemaking across the U.S."

ArtPlace believes that art, culture and creativity expressed powerfully through place can create vibrant communities, thus increasing the desire and the economic opportunity for people to thrive in place. It is all about the local.

ArtPlace invites Letters of Inquiry from initiatives involving arts organizations, artists and designers working in partnership with local and national partners (in fields such as economic development, transportation, neighborhood development, entrepreneurship, sustainability, health, etc.) to transform communities. 

To apply: http://www.artplaceamerica.org/loi/. Requests must be submitted by November 15, 2011.

Here are some examples of some cool creative placemaking projects already underway:

Creative Work Fund in northern California

Lakota Art Market at Red Cloud Indian School on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in S.D.

Farm/Art DTour in Sauk County, Wisconsin

And this Whirligig Park in Wilson, N.C.

The Vollis Simpson Whirligig Park Project from Gerret Warner on Vimeo.

Snarky Slacktivists join other Wyoming presenters at 2011 Milton Conference in Vermillion, S.D.

This year's John R.Milton Writers’ Conference Oct. 27-29 at the University of South Dakota has a decidedly Wyoming flavor.

You can't get much more Wyoming that Mark Spragg of Cody, who's the keynote speaker. Mark is the author of Where Rivers Change Direction, a memoir that won the 2000 Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers award, and the novels, The Fruit of Stone, An Unfinished Life, and in 2010, Bone Fire. All four were top-ten Book Sense selections and An Unfinished Life, was chosen by the Rocky Mountain News as the Best Book of 2004. Spragg’s work has been translated into fifteen languages. He lives in Cody with his wife, Virginia, with whom he wrote the screenplay for the 2005 film version of his novel, An Unfinished Life, starring Robert Redford and Morgan Freeman.

Other presenters with Wyoming ties: Conference director and USD creative writing program prof Lee Ann Roripaugh, Laramie native; Robert Roripaugh, Wyoming Poet Laureate emeritus; Paul Bergstraesser, poet and UW prof from Laramie; Val Pexton, Laramie; Julianne Couch, Laramie (now in Ames, Iowa); Meg Lanker, Laramie; Jeran Artery, Cheyenne; and Michael Shay, Cheyenne (me).

Yes, I realize that Wyoming is not the center of the universe. It's just the place where I look out on the universe. I also spend my days promoting the state's writers, poets, essayists, visual artists, performers and musicians. I know them pretty well after 20 years on the job. We are pleased to share our views of Wyoming with our colleagues in South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota and North Dakota.

My role at the conference is as a free-range political blogger from The Equality State. Jeran Artery and Meg Lanker will join me for the presentation: "Snarky Slacktivists or Online Outlaws: Leftie Bliggers in Red-State Wyoming." Drop in to hear us 10:30 a.m.-noon on Saturday at the conference. Details here.

The three-day literary conference will include readings and book signings by award-winning featured authors, scholarly panel sessions exploring the conference theme of “Outlaw!: Law and (Dis)order in the American West,” as well as creative writing panels and pop culture sessions.  Other conference highlights include a showcase presentation of USD graduate creative writing students, a conference book fair, as well as a poetry slam sponsored by the Vermillion Literary Project at the Muenster University Center pit lounge featuring poet Kristin Naca.

Other featured presenters are Sherwin Bitsui, Kristin Naca, Karen Shoemaker, William Trowbridge, and USD visiting writer David Chan, who will give readings and book signings along with permanent USD creative writing faculty Ed Allen and Lee Ann Roripaugh.

FMI: http://miltonconference.wordpress.com or contact the Department of English at (605) 677-5229.