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Robert Russin: Legacy in Bronze and Stone

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Celebrated Wyoming sculptor Robert Russin created works of all sizes in bronze and stone. Though not a native of the state, Russin lived and taught in Laramie for sixty years, and his work continues to influence artists, students, collectors and the public.

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His life

Robert Isaiah Russin was born on Aug. 26, 1914, in New York City. World War I had begun just a month earlier; still, New York City was a bustling metropolis, already a center for the arts and a great place for a young artist to learn his trade. Russin would have been exposed to New York’s many public sculptures, located in nearly every major public park.

A young Russin would have had access to some of the greatest works of sculpture from antiquity to modern times in New York’s superb collections. No doubt such exposure would have had a lasting impact on the young artist.

Russin was educated at the City College of New York where he earned his bachelor’s degree in 1933 and his master’s in 1935. He completed additional graduate work at New York’s Beaux Arts Institute of Design. Already accomplished by his mid-twenties, Russin won two national federal sculpture competitions. While still in New York, Russin taught at the Cooper Union Art School for three years. He later earned a Ford Foundation fellowship, which allowed him to study in Italy.

In 1947, Russin made a dramatic change and left New York for Laramie, Wyo., where he accepted a teaching position at the University of Wyoming. The young artist and his wife and children experienced quite a culture shock, relocating from the metropolis to a small, windswept university town, but the move was definitely a positive one. Russin came to consider Wyoming his home. He taught at the university for four decades.

Once retired, Russin assumed the position of resident artist at UW, continuing his relationship with the university while pursuing his highly successful artistic career. A dedicated educator, Russin created the Robert Russin Excellence Award in Figurative Sculpture, which continues his artistic and educational legacy to this day. The award can be a scholarship, or a fellowship for a post-bachelor student preparing a portfolio to apply for graduate study.

russin2.jpgRussin died in 2007 at the age of 93, leaving as lasting legacies both his work and the countless students who had learned from a master. His ashes were interred inside the hollow granite base of the Abraham Lincoln Memorial Monument, one of his best-known works.

His work

To his students and fellow instructors at UW, Russin was best known as an educator, but the more tangible legacy is his sculpture. Though he is recognized largely for his work in bronze, he worked in a variety of media, including plastic and stone. His works range in style from realism to abstraction, often settling somewhere between the two.

Russin’s sculptures can be found throughout the country and the world. Nationally known works are located at the Embarcadero Center and the City of Hope in California, the Menorah Medical Center in Kansas City and the United States Department of Energy Building in Washington, D.C. The largest concentration of his work, however, can be found in Wyoming.

The 13-feet-high Abraham Lincoln Memorial Monument, located on Interstate 80 between Laramie and Cheyenne sits atop a tall, hollow, granite base—with lightning rods for protection. The piece is comprised of nearly 30 individual sections that were assembled into the likeness of President Lincoln. The bust weighed more than 4,000 pounds; Russin spent more than a year working on it.

The sculpture was contracted for by the Wyoming Parks Commission and dedicated in 1959 to commemorate Lincoln’s 150th birthday. It was located at the highest spot on the Lincoln highway from New York to San Francisco. Wyoming was not even a territory when Lincoln was president. He did, however, sign into law the Pacific Railway Act of 1862, which enabled the financing and, later, construction of the Union Pacific Railroad—the highest point of which was not far from where Russin’s great sculpture was later located.

“The grandeur of the landscape recalls the nobility of his soul,” Russin wrote of the 16th president. The bust was later moved less than a mile to its present location overlooking I-80, after that highway was finished in 1969.

While Russin may be known for his monumental works, he also created smaller, more intimate pieces. Laramie boasts several works by Russin including a sculpture of Benjamin Franklin.

His work, “The University Family” was created in 1983 for the University of Wyoming and resides at an outdoor commons area for students and visitors to enjoy. The sculpture depicts an abstracted image of three people holding hands. The white stone looks soft and Russin has conveyed a sense of movement in the motionless figures, linked together.

Perhaps the most endearing work by Russin is the stone “Fulfillment” at Ivinson Memorial Hospital in Laramie, which shows a mother embracing her young infant. The sculpture looks soft and warm despite the cold, hard materials chosen by the artist. The highly personal work was in the collection of the artist for some number of years before he donated it to the permanent collection of the hospital.

The Russin family donated the sculpture “The Beloved is Mine and I am His” in 2008 to the Nicolaysen Art Museum and Discovery Center in Casper, Wyo. The sculpture is based on the artist’s interpretation of biblical passages from the Song of Songs and is one work in a series. The 3-feet-tall sculpture rests on a marble base, in Bryce Hall on permanent display.

Nicolaysen Curator Eric Wimmer says “Russin was an influential sculptor in Wyoming and having a piece in the permanent collection of the Nicolaysen allows future generations of visitors and artists alike to study and appreciate his contributions to contemporary art in the West.”

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“The Fountainhead” is another large Russin sculpture and has become one of Casper’s landmarks. It is located in front of Casper City Hall and features three figures around an oil well, actually a water fountain that runs in the warmer months. The work is a testament to Wyoming industry. The three stylized metal figures in red contrast nicely with the blue of the fountain. The angularity of the figures juxtaposes strongly with the flowing water.

Prominent in front of the Natrona County Public Library in Casper is Russin’s 16-foot polished bronze “Prometheus,” commissioned in 1975 by the Friends of the Library. The sculpture portrays Prometheus, the mythological Greek hero who gave fire and with it the spark of knowledge to humankind, diving head first with flames in his outstretched hands. A perfect choice in subject for the public library, the character Prometheus seems to be flame-like himself. The work has become entwined with the public image of the library.

His legacy

Russin’s teaching and endowments have left a legacy of learning for Wyoming’s artists and UW graduates that will carry on into the foreseeable future. His dozens of sculptures, scattered throughout the world on public and private display, continue to delight viewers. Wyomingites and visitors to the state will benefit from his public works as he has been woven into the fabric of the state’s artistic history.

Of Russin, former senator Alan Simpson said, "The genuine notoriety that he has brought to our state because of his remarkable gifts" will live on "in the hearts of Wyoming people."

Resources

Notable Works by Robert Russin:

  • 1. “Abraham Lincoln:” I-80 between Cheyenne and Laramie, Wyo.
  • 2. “Prometheus:” Natrona County Public Library in Casper, Wyo.
  • 3. “Benjamin Franklin:” University of Wyoming in Laramie, Wyo.
  • 4. “A Wyoming Family:” Prexy’s Pasture University of Wyoming in Laramie, Wyo.
  • 5. “Wyoming Crystal:” Wyoming State Capitol in Cheyenne, Wyo.
  • 6. “The Beloved is Mine and I am His:” Nicolaysen Art Museum in Casper, Wyo.
  • 7. “Spirit of Life Fountain:” City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, Cal.
  • 8. “Fulfillment:” Menorah Medical Center in Kansas City, Mo.
  • 9. “Chthonodynamis:” The United States Department of Energy Building in Washington, D.C.
  • 10. “Man and Energy:” Casper Chamber of Commerce in Casper, Wyo.
  • 11. “The Fountainhead:” Casper City Hall in Casper, Wyo.

Primary Sources

Secondary Sources

Illustrations

  • In the article, the photo of Russin sculpting is from Wikipedia. The color photo of the Lincoln monument today is from AARoads. Both are used with thanks. The photo of “The Fountainhead” in Casper is by Tom Rea.
  • In the photo gallery, the photo of Russin with the Lincoln head and the two of the 1959 dedication ceremonies are from the University of Wyoming photo service, with permission and with special thanks to Marlene Carstens. The photo of “A Wyoming Family” on the UW campus is by Jan Yarnot. Used with thanks. The photos of “Prometheus” at the Natrona County Public Library and of "The Beloved Is Mine and I Am His" at the Nicolaysen Art Museum are by E.K. Wimmer, used with permission and thanks. The photo of “Chthonodynamis” is from a blogspt at DC Art Attack. Used with thanks.

The Black 14: Race, Politics, Religion and Wyoming Football

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During the second period of the season-opening football game against Arizona on Sept. 20, 1969, a packed house at the University of Wyoming's War Memorial Stadium watched as Cowboys' split end Ron Hill, a sophomore from Denver, caught a pass and took it 24 yards into the end zone. It was Wyoming's first touchdown in the 100th anniversary year of college football.

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In the third quarter, Jay Berry—then called Jerry Berry—a sophomore safety from Tulsa, Okla., intercepted an Arizona pass on his own 12-yard line and returned it 88 yards for another touchdown.

But these football triumphs faded quickly from public memory when a controversy that fall linking sports, race, religion and protest politics swung the nation’s news spotlights to Laramie, Wyoming at a time when Americans were already deeply divided over civil rights and the Vietnam War. Controversy erupted over the expulsion of 14 African-American football players from the Cowboys’ varsity. They came to be known as the Black 14.

A Winning Team

The Cowboys opened the season by defeating Arizona, the Air Force Academy, Colorado State University and the University of Texas at El Paso, and were ranked 12th in the nation in the United Press International coaches poll as the players prepared for their next game against Brigham Young University. The UW team led the nation in rushing defense.

black142.jpgblack143.jpgUnder Head Coach Lloyd Eaton, Wyoming had won three consecutive Western Athletic Conference championships in the three previous years; had won 31 of the previous 36 games; defeated Florida State in the Sun Bowl and very nearly upset Louisiana State University in the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1, 1968, after going undefeated during the 1967 regular season.

The 51-year-old Eaton, a native of Belle Fourche, S.D. was at the peak of his career. On Oct. 11, 1969, the Madison, Capital Times reported that Wisconsin Athletic Director Elroy Hirsch was considering Eaton as a candidate for the Big Ten team's next coach.

But on Friday morning, Oct. 17, 1969, the day before the BYU game, Eaton summarily dismissed Hill, Berry and the 12 other African-American players on the UW team when they appeared at his office as a group wearing black armbands on their civilian clothes. BYU is owned and operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, better known as the Mormons. By wearing the armbands, the players were protesting the LDS policy then in force, which barred black men from the priesthood.

The coach's action deeply affected the players’ lives, and soon caused the demise of his own coaching career. The university, too, was profoundly affected.

A turbulent time

The controversy came at the end of the turbulent 1960s. The decade profoundly changed the nation but had apparently had less of an effect, so far, on conservative Wyoming. In 1968, the Tet Offensive had shown Americans no quick end was likely for the Vietnam War, a politically damaged Lyndon Johnson had declined to run for re-election, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated and protest spread wider and wider across campuses and capitals.

In October of that year, U.S. sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos indelibly linked sports to racial politics when, standing on the medalists’ platform at the Summer Olympics in Mexico City, they raised black-gloved fists as the Star-Spangled Banner played over the loudspeakers.

In the western United States, some college athletes learned of the Mormon Church’s policy of barring black men from the church’s lay priesthood and thus from leadership in the church. The students felt they could bring attention to what they saw as an injustice by protesting when their teams played Brigham Young University. BYU, located in Provo, Utah, is wholly owned and operated by the Mormon Church.

In November 1968, at San Jose State in California, black football players boycotted a home game against BYU, and only 2,800 fans “braved threats of disruption and demonstration” to come to the game, BYU’s football media guide noted the following year. In April, 1969, black track athletes at the University of Texas at El Paso were ejected from the team when they refused to participate in a meet at Provo. On Oct. 6, an Associated Press story in Wyoming newspapers reported that an Arizona State black student group had asked black students to boycott the Sun Devils' Western Athletic Conference game against BYU that week because of alleged discrimination against blacks at BYU.

Protest comes to Laramie

About a week before the UW-BYU game, slated to be played on UW home turf in Laramie, Willie Black, a 32-year-old math doctoral student with a wife and four children living in student housing, had learned of the Mormon policy. Black was chancellor of UW’s Black Students Alliance. On the Monday before the game, he informed alliance members, including the black football players, of what he had discovered. On Wednesday, he delivered a statement entitled "Why We Must Protest" to the UW president and athletic director. The document announced plans for a demonstration at the stadium before the BYU game.

black144.jpg"Our Humanity Demands: . . . That all people of good will--whatever their color--athletes included" protest this policy, the document noted. Further, it called on UW and all WAC schools to stop using "student monies and university facilities to play host to [BYU and] thereby, in part, sanction those inhuman and racist policies. . . ."

Also on Wednesday, Laramie townspeople and students took part in the Vietnam Moratorium, a nationally coordinated series of demonstrations and teach-ins. It was the largest set of antiwar protests the nation—and Laramie—had seen so far.

After practice on Thursday afternoon, Oct. 16, Coach Eaton warned Wyoming's tri-captain Joe Williams about the coach’s rule prohibiting participation by athletes in demonstrations. Williams conveyed this information to his fellow black players that night, and they decided to meet with Eaton to discuss the issue.

About 9:15 a.m. on Friday, the 14 black players gathered at Washakie Center in the dormitory complex. They donned black armbands and walked to Memorial Fieldhouse where Eaton had his office, hoping to persuade the coach to allow them to show some solidarity with the BSA call for a protest.

Seeing them together, wearing armbands, Eaton led them into the upper seating area of the fieldhouse and, according to the players, immediately told them that they were all off the team. After that, according to the wife of a faculty member who was walking on the fieldhouse floor below, the coach insulted the players in an angry manner, which further polarized the situation.

"It was pretty belligerent talk," Ann Marie Walthall recalled more than 20 years later in a documentary on the Black 14 produced by University of Wyoming Television. "I felt embarrassed for the young men hearing this tirade."

Eaton would later testify in federal court that he "told them that if the program at Wyoming was not satisfactory then perhaps they had better think about going to Morgan State or Grambling”—both traditional black colleges.

The players emptied their lockers and walked to the student union. They asked UW President William Carlson to arrange a meeting with Eaton at Old Main. In the afternoon, the players met with Carlson, Athletic Director Red Jacoby and student leaders, but Eaton did not appear.

That evening, the coaches and players met separately with the UW Board of Trustees and Wyoming Governor Stanley K. Hathaway during a special meeting lasting from 8 p.m. to 3:15 a.m. Saturday. At that late hour, the university issued a press release saying the trustees confirmed the dismissal of the 14 players. The players "will not play in today's game or any during the balance of the season,” the press release noted, and added: "The dismissals result from a violation of a football coaching rule Friday morning."

black145.jpgblack146.jpgAthletic Director Jacoby further noted in the release that "(a)mple notice was given to all members of the football team regarding rules and regulations of the squad, some of which cover a ban on participation in student demonstrations of any kind. Our football coaching staff has made it perfectly clear to all members of the team that groups, or factions, will not be tolerated and that team members will be treated as individuals.”

According to Jacoby, the staff had “no recourse” when the 14 players appeared as a group at the coach's office. “We had no choice but to drop them from the squad. It is unfortunate this happened, but an open defiance of a coaching staff regulation cannot be tolerated."

On Saturday, the Cowboys, suddenly an all-white team, defeated all-white BYU 40-7 while the 14 dismissed black players watched from the student section of the stands. Fans on both sides of the stadium chanted, "We love Eaton." After the game, Eaton said, "The victory was the most satisfying one I've ever had in coaching."

The players

Statistics published in the program for the game showed that the 14 African-American players had contributed substantially that year to the team's unbeaten status through the first four games. John Griffin, a junior college transfer from San Fernando, Calif., was the leading receiver; Ron Hill of Denver led in kickoff returns; and Joe Williams of Lufkin, Texas, and Tony Gibson were third and fourth, respectively, in rushing. Ted Williams, another transfer from Port Hueneme, Calif., relieved the injured Joe Williams (no relation) in the CSU game and rushed for 87 years to lead the Cowboys' ground attack.

Mel Hamilton, a junior and a former mayor of Boys Town, Neb., had moved into a starting position in the offensive line, and Gibson, a junior from Pittsfield, Mass., started at fullback in the UTEP game. Ivie Moore, a Pine Bluff, Ark., defensive back who transferred from a Kansas junior college, was listed as a starter for the BYU game.

Defensive end Tony McGee, a junior from Battle Creek, Mich., had keyed the Cowboys' thrilling come-from-behind win at the Air Force Academy by tackling the AFA quarterback for losses seven times.

Only one of the 14 was a senior at the time of their dismissal. Two—Mel Hamilton and Earl Lee—had already served in the U.S. Army. Half of them were under 21 years old.

The national spotlight

The dismissal of the 14 brought camera crews from the three big TV networks to Laramie, and articles appeared in newspapers and magazines throughout the nation. The Nov. 3, 1969, issue of Sports Illustrated carried an article whose photographs included one showing 10 of the dismissed players sitting on the south steps of the Wyoming Union. The Casper, Wyo. Quarterback Club, the Rock Springs Wyo. City Council and the University of Wyoming Alumni Association supported the coach.

Aside from some of the students, the Denver Post and the student newspaper at UW, one of the few expressions of concern for the dismissed players, ironically enough, was an unnamed source close to the BYU Board of Trustees quoted in the Oct. 24, 1969, issue of the Denver Post.

"It's most disturbing,” said the source, “to think that the Negro athletes at Wyoming could lose their education."

Aftermath

Early in 1969, the Wyoming Legislature had adopted a law allowing the UW student body president to sit as an ex-officio member of the Board of Trustees. This allowed ASUW President Hoke MacMillan to sit in on all of the board’s sessions that Friday night and early Saturday morning.

black147.jpgblack148.jpgIn response to the dismissals, the UW Student Senate, with MacMillan fully involved, adopted a resolution by a 15-3 vote alleging that “coach Eaton refused to grant a rational forum for discussion, choosing instead to degrade and arbitrarily dismiss each player....” The resolution said the ASUW Senate "expresses its shock at the callous, insensitive treatment afforded 14 Black athletes. . . .[T]he actions of coach Eaton and the Board of Trustees were not only uncompromising, but unjust and totally wrong."

On the Wednesday after the game, Eaton and Carlson appeared at an on-campus news conference to announce that the coach's rule prohibiting student athletes from participating in demonstrations was being amended to apply only while on the playing field. When Eaton was asked if the dismissal of the 14 would have happened if the now-modified rule had been in effect the previous week, he left the press conference, the Associated Press reported the next day. The UW student newspaper, the Branding Iron, published an editorial advocating reinstatement of the players because the no-demonstrating rule had now been withdrawn.

English professor Ken Craven stated at the October 19 faculty meeting that he would resign if the players were not reinstated. Some of the other UW faculty members supported the coach, however.

During the week after the BYU game, four black trackmen—Huey Johnson and Grady Manning of Chicago, Mike Frazier of Pueblo, Colo., and Jerry Miller of Battle Creek, Mich.—quit the team and left UW in protest of the football players’ dismissals. Two of them had been conference champions in their main events the previous year.

The Cowboys finished their home slate with a victory over San Jose State a week after the BYU game. A plane pulling a banner proclaiming, "Yea Eaton," flew over the stadium, and the crowd responded with a roar and a standing ovation. Many wore "Eaton" armbands. All of the SJS players wore either black or multi-colored armbands.

A Casper Star-Tribune article on October 21 reported that Casper businessman Dode Gerdom "has started a fund drive to provide moving expenses for Ken Craven or any other faculty member" who opposed Eaton's action. "We don't care if Wyoming wins another game--we stand behind the coach," Gerdom said.

Eaton and numerous others at UW claimed that the athletes were pawns of outside agitators. But on October 24, the Associated Press reported that UW President William Carlson said those charges were unfounded. "I'm convinced their decision was on an individual basis,” Carlson said. “The BSA has acted in a most responsible manner."

On Oct. 30, 1969, the faculty of the UW College of, Arts and Sciences—the university’s largest—voted 114-38 to pass a resolution charging that "fourteen black athletes have been given deep human injury and have been dismissed without a trace of due process by Coach Lloyd Eaton. . . .[T]his faculty believes that the action. . .was unjust, unconstitutional, and unwise, bringing the entire University into disrepute."

On Nov. 12, 1969, Stanford University President Kenneth Pitzer, acting on recommendations from the campus Human Relations Committee, declared he "today barred any new commitments to intercollegiate competition with institutions sponsored by the Mormon Church." The statement said church officials had confirmed that black men could not become priests. Pitzer’s statement also quoted a New York Times article saying that BYU had only three black students among an enrollment of 25,000.

On Nov. 25, the Cheyenne Quarterback Club held "Cowboy Night" at the Little America hotel, and a large crowd was on hand to honor Lloyd Eaton, his staff and his seniors. One of the “special guests” – according to an article in a Cheyenne newspaper -- was U.S. District Judge Ewing T. Kerr who was at that point presiding over a civil rights lawsuit brought by the 14 players against the state and the university.

Sorting it out in federal court

The week after the athletes’ dismissal, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People sent a Detroit attorney, William Waterman, to Wyoming to file the federal lawsuit seeking an injunction ordering the reinstatement of the players and asking for damages for violation of their civil rights.

Judge Kerr in Cheyenne denied the injunction, and five months later threw the case out of court after a hearing, but without a trial. The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision on May 14, 1971, but, after a trial this time, Kerr again ruled for the state on Oct. 18, 1971. The appeals court eventually affirmed him.

Kerr had been admitted to the Wyoming bar in 1927, and served as a federal prosecutor and state attorney general before being appointed to the federal bench in 1955. During the hearing before his first dismissal, Kerr rejected the assertion by Weston Reeves, a Cheyenne attorney representing the Black 14, that the issue of race ran through the case.

"From my observation of almost half a century in Wyoming,” Kerr said at the hearing, “I have never known of any prejudice against any race in the state of Wyoming and I think the fact that the coach went out and solicited and gave scholarships to a large number of colored people is strong evidence that he was not prejudiced against any race." This prompted the NAACP in Cheyenne to point out that Cheyenne newspapers very recently had printed an article saying that the Wyoming Labor Commission had ruled that a black teacher had been discriminated against by the Rock River, Wyo. School Board.

The athletes’ accounts

When the case came before Kerr a second time, there was a trial in federal court in Cheyenne on Sept. 27, 1971.

Mel Hamilton, one of the 14, testified that he never told trustees he would not play against BYU without an armband. "Eaton agreed to speak with them [the players] at their request,” Hamilton said, “but then told them: 'Gentlemen, you can save time and breath. As of now you're off the football team.'"

Tony Gibson, another of the 14, told Ryan Thorburn, author of Black 14:The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of Wyoming Football, in a 2009 interview, "Students on the campus were planning a demonstration against the Mormon policies and we voted that we would take part in that demonstration. And our part was wearing black armbands, if coach Eaton would let us. If Eaton didn't let us, we would just play the game. That's the part that was never brought out enough after the fact."

In interviews the week after the BYU game, Eaton claimed he had given the players ten minutes to speak. But in interviews in national magazines the following November, Joe Williams denied it. "Like hell he gave us ten minutes” Williams told Sports Illustrated. “He came in, sneered at us and yelled that we were off the squad." In Jet, Williams was similarly quoted saying Eaton booted the players "before we had a chance to talk."

In an interview reported in the Laramie Boomerang on Sunday October 19th, Joe Williams stated: “We just wanted to discuss this in an intelligent manner. We wanted to play this game no matter what. We hadn't even decided to ask permission to wear the armbands during the game. … If only he had listened.”

Player Jay Berry said he joined the group not because of Mormon beliefs and policies, but because he had heard that Wyoming's black players had been mistreated at Provo the previous season. "We wanted to play BYU in the worst kind of way," he said, and he saw the visit to Eaton as "a starting point for negotiations." But Eaton, Berry said, "opened his statements to us by saying ‘were it not for him we would all be on Negro relief.’"

Eaton acknowledged at the Cheyenne hearing in 1971 that there was no discussion. He said, "They had already violated our coaching rule. There was no purpose in talking."

Reversal of fortunes

The events had a devastating effect on Wyoming football. After six games, UW was still unbeaten and still rated among the top 15 in the national polls. Many fans were convinced the Cowboys could continue their winning ways without any African-American players.

But protests against Eaton’s actions followed the Cowboys on the road, and they lost the last four games of the 1969 season by lopsided scores.

The 1970 team lost all of its home games and all but the CSU game on the road, finishing with one win and nine losses--the worst record since the no-wins one-tie season in 1939, and the first time UW lost all its home games since 1931. It was the Cowboys' first losing season since 1948. And future prospects looked dim because the 1970 freshman team had a winless season. Support for Eaton evaporated.

During the first week after the 1970 season ended, Wyoming sports pages included columns quoting Eaton on his plans to step up recruiting across the country, particularly from the junior college ranks. But on Dec. 6, 1970, Lloyd Eaton's coaching career came to an abrupt end.

In a press conference after their meeting, the UW Board of Trustees announced that Eaton was "retiring" from active coaching and would become an assistant athletic director whose duties were still undetermined. Eaton said the decision to retire had been made two years earlier, after the Sugar Bowl game. Defensive line coach Leonard F. (Fritz) Shurmur, 38, was appointed to replace Eaton. In 1971 Eaton left UW and held administrative and scouting positions in pro football, including a stint as Director of Player Personnel for the Green Bay Packers.

But the negative publicity affected Wyoming’s football program for years. Following the dismissal of the 14, the Cowboys lost 26 of their next 38 games through 1972. They had only one winning season during the 1970s. Paul Roach, one of Eaton's assistant coaches in 1969 returned to Wyoming as athletic director in the mid-1980s, and in 1987 also took on the head football coaching duties. His 1987 and 1988 teams went 21-5 and played in the Holiday Bowl both years.

Eaton died in Idaho in 2007.

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The players in later life

Tony McGee became a dominant player in the NFL, starting in a Super Bowl for the Redskins. For many years McGee has hosted a sports television talk show in Washington D.C. Joe Williams also earned a Super Bowl ring with the Dallas Cowboys and then developed his own investment consulting business.

Several of the Black 14 managed to obtain college degrees. Mel Hamilton graduated from UW and has had a long career as a public school teacher and administrator in Casper. Guillermo Hysaw, originally from Bakersfield, Calif., and Lionel Grimes from Alliance, Ohio, became employment diversity executives with Ford and Toyota. Jay Berry—“Jerry Berry”--became a sports anchor for television stations in Tulsa, Chicago and Detroit and was named by Associated Press as the top sports broadcaster in Texas in 1977

black1410.jpgTony Gibson retired in 2011 after working nearly 38 years as a lineman for a Massachusetts power company during which time he responded to mass outages in Puerto Rico, Canada, Florida and several other states. Ted Williams has worked that long as a foreman at a specialized paint manufacturing company in Illinois. Ron Hill became a physical education teacher in Colorado. John Griffin has worked for the YMCA in Denver, for a hazardous waste abatement firm and as a manager for Sports Authority in Denver. Ivie Moore has worked as a floor subcontractor in his native Arkansas.

James Isaac died in San Bernardino, Calif. in 1976 after a dispute with his wife; Don Meadows died in 2009 and Earl Lee in 2013. Lee had a distinguished career as a teacher, coach and principal in the Baltimore area. Isaac, an all-sports star for Hanna-Elk Mountain High School in Wyoming, played football and ran track for, and graduated from, Dakota Wesleyan University in South Dakota. Don Meadows had a restaurant business in Denver.

In the records section of the 2013 University of Wyoming Cowboys' Football Media Guide, the name Jerry Berry appears with two other players who are tied for most interceptions returned for touchdowns in a season, and with three others for most returns for touchdowns in a career.

Berry's entire career at UW consisted of the first four games of the 1969 season. After his 88-yard return against Arizona he carried another interception 24 yards for a touchdown in the CSU game two weeks later.

Epilogue

A Salt Lake Tribune article published Nov. 6, 2009, relates that the Black 14 incident quickly provoked changes at BYU, according to Tom Hudspeth, BYU head coach in 1969. Hudspeth was quoted as saying that he “cannot remember the exact date or how he was 'made aware' that LDS Church leadership wanted him to add African-Americans to his team, and fast. The following year, BYU's team included Ronnie Knight, a black defensive back from Sand Springs, Okla."

On June 9, 1978, the First Presidency of the Mormon Church, composed of President and Prophet Spencer Kimball and Counselors N. Eldon Tanner and Marion G. Romney, announced that a divine revelation had been received to open the Mormon priesthood to African-Americans, ending the longstanding tenet.

An AP article datelined Salt Lake City said the change came after many hours of "supplicating the Lord for divine guidance." According to the article, this was the most significant change in church doctrine since polygamy was discontinued in 1890. Church spokesman Jerry Cahill was quoted in the article as saying, "It's a momentous day, a great day we've lived through today."

Earlier that year, the LDS church had announced plans to build a new temple in Sao Paolo, Brazil—a very mixed-race place.

On May 9, 1982, the Denver Post published an extensive retrospective about the Black 14 incident, including the only interview Eaton gave after he left UW. "Divorced, Lloyd Eaton now lives a bachelor's life in a small home in Kuna, Idaho, where he refuses to have a phone," the article said. Eaton declared that he had never regretted what happened and that he would do the same thing again if given a second chance.

In an interview in 2009, Tony McGee said, "When it was over, I had more hurt feelings from how the Wyoming people reacted and the way I was treated than the whole thing with BYU."

Since the turn of the 21st century the University of Wyoming football team has had upwards of 25 African-Americans on its roster nearly every season. The 2016 roster includes about 40 African-Americans.

Resources

Primary Sources

  • Ashworth, William. "Inside Story of Fired Black Athletes", Jet (magazine), 37 no. 6, (Nov. 11, 1969), 62-69.
  • Associated Press. "BYU's Racial Policy Is Under Fire Again,"Riverton Ranger. Oct. 6, 1969.
  • Associated Press. "Demonstration Rule is Relaxed,"Riverton Ranger, Oct. 23, 1969, 1.
  • Associated Press. "Mormons Will Welcome Blacks,"Paris (Texas) News, June 11, 1978, 26.
  • Berry, Jay. Personal interview with author, Sept. 27, 2010.
  • "Brigham Young versus Wyoming," Oct. 18, 1969 game program, University of Wyoming Athletic Department Files.
  • Black Fourteen Collection, 1969-70, University of Wyoming American Heritage Center.
  • Branding Iron, (UW student newspaper) Oct. 17 1969; Oct. 23, 1969; Oct. 31, 1969.
  • Casper Star-Tribune, Oct. 21, 1969, 7.
  • Denver Post Empire Magazine, Nov. 2, 1969, 31.
  • Drew, Jay. "BYU Football: Remembering the Black 14 Protest,"Salt Lake Tribune, Nov. 6, 2009.
  • Fetsco, Pete. "Negro Athletes Out for Failure to Abide by Athletic Department Rules,"Laramie Daily Boomerang, Oct. 19, 1969, 1.
  • Madison (Wis.) Capital Times, Oct. 11, 1969.
  • Putnam, Pat. "No Defeats, Loads of Trouble."Sports Illustrated, Nov. 3, 1969, 26.
  • Racine (Wis.) Journal Times, Oct. 12, 1969.
  • Reilly, Rick, “Eaton Has No Regrets, Says He'd Do It Again”, Denver Post, May 9, 1982, 6E.
  • Riverton Ranger, Oct. 24, 1969.
  • United Press International. "'Revelation' Lets Blacks into Mormon Priesthood,"Salina (Kan.) Journal, June 9, 1978, 22.
  • University of Wyoming Press Release, Oct. 18, 1969, University of Wyoming, American Heritage Center, Irene L. Kuttunen Schubert Black 14 Collection, Accession Number 10405, Box 2, Folder 8.
  • "Eaton Here to Testify At 'Black 14' Hearing,"Wyoming State Tribune, Sept. 28, 1971, 1,11.
  • “Which Comes First in Wyoming,” editorial, Denver Post, October 21, 1969, p. 4.
  • Williams v. Eaton, 310 F.Supp. 1342 (D. Wyo. 1970), rev'd, 443 F.2d 422 (10th Cir. 1971), on remand, 333 F.Supp. 107 (D. Wyo. 1971), aff'd 468 F.2d 1079 (10th Cir. 1972).
  • 2013 Wyoming Football Media Guide, accessed Sept. 11, 2013 at http://www.gowyo.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/2013-14-media-guide.html.

Secondary Sources

  • Bullock, Clifford A., "Fired by Conscience." In Readings in Wyoming History. Laramie, Wyo.: Skyline West Press, 2000.
  • Demas, Lane. Integrating the Gridiron: Black Civil Rights and American College Football. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2010, 102-174.
  • McElreath, Michael. The Black 14. Laramie, Wyo.: University of Wyoming Television, 1997. DVD.
  • Olsen, Jack. The Black Athlete: A Shameful Story. New York: Time-Life Books, 1968, 109.
  • Thorburn, Ryan. Black 14: The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of Wyoming Football. Boulder, Colo.: Burning Daylight, Pearn and Associates, 2009.

For Further Reading and Research

Keeler, Susan. “’We were villains:’ how Wyoming’s Black 14 blazed the way for Missouri protests.” The Guardian, Nov. 11, 2015. Accessed July 13, 2016 at https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/nov/11/we-were-villains-how-wyomings-black-14-blazed-the-trail-for-missouri-protests

Illustrations

  • The 1969 team photo of the Wyoming Cowboys football team is from the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming. Used with thanks.
  • The photo of 10 of the Black 14 players on the steps of the Wyoming Union was originally published in Sports Illustrated. Used with thanks.
  • The photo of Coach Lloyd Eaton is from the University of Wyoming photo service. Used with permission and thanks.
  • The two photos of protesters are from the Branding Iron Collection at the American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming. Used with permission and thanks.
  • The images of the Eaton bumper sticker and the Black Student Alliance’s call for protest are from the Irene Schubert Collection, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming. Used with permission and thanks.
  • The 2009 image of John Griffin tying an armband on Mel Hamilton is from the Laramie Boomerang, photo by Andy Carpanean. Used with permission and thanks.
  • The image of the trustees’ late-night press release in the Irene Schubert collection at the American Heritage Center is from a scan by the author. Used with permission and thanks.
  • The photo of the bronze Black 14 memorial statue is by Tom Rea.

Former University of Wyoming Football Player Mel Hamilton on his life and the Black 14

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Oral History Conducted Aug. 27, 2013

Interviewed by Phil White

At the Casper College Western History Center

Casper, Wyo.

In October 1969, University of Wyoming Head Coach Lloyd Eaton dismissed 14 black football players from his team when they donned black armbands to protest certain policies of Brigham Young University and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormons. The incident stirred controversy in Wyoming and throughout the nation, and the players became known as the Black 14. Here, player Mel Hamilton shares his recollections with interviewer Phil White, who was a UW student in 1969 and editor of the student newspaper, The Branding Iron.

Transcription notes: Some reference footnotes have been added to this transcript where appropriate. In most cases, redundant ands, ers, uhs, buts, false starts, etc., have been deleted. If an entire phrase was deleted, ellipses were inserted . . . Where you find brackets [] words were added for explanation or to complete an awkward sentence. Parentheses ( ) are used for  incidental non-verbal sounds, like laughter. Words emphasized by the speaker are italicized.
~Transcribed by CCWHC and further edited by WyoHistory.org September 2013

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Phil White: Ok, there it says record. Ok. They both say record.

Mel Hamilton: K.

Phil: I am Phil White from Laramie [Wyo.]. P-H-I-L W-H-I-T-E. And I’m here with Mel Hamilton, M-E-L H-A-M-I-L-T-O-N at the Western History Center at Casper College. It’s August 27th, 2013, Mel, do we have your permission to record this and put it on the web?

Mel: Yes, you do.

Phil: We’re being helped here by Vince Crolla of Casper College and Tom Rea of Wyohistory.org. Today is the--or tomorrow is--the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington. So we’re here talking with Mel Hamilton about one of the most important events in University of Wyoming history, and perhaps Wyoming history, the Black 14 in 1969. Mel, Mel has a unique perception of this because he originally came to UW to play football in the fall of ‘65, he was then on the starting lineup in 1966 of a team that went nine and one and defeated Florida State in the Sun Bowl. After that, he had a disagreement with the coach and he joined the [U.S.] Army, even though this was the primary period for the Vietnam War.

Mel: Right, yeah.

Phil: He then, when he completed his service in the Army, he returned to the University of Wyoming and again became a starter on the football team for four games when the coach, Coach Eaton, threw the black players off the team. So we wanted to get an oral history from Mel about his life and interactions in Wyoming. I wondered Mel, umm, at the time of Martin Luther King’s march on Washington, you were 16 years old and what do you call about that at the time?

Mel: Well I was in Boys Town, Nebraska [the famous orphanage, founded by Father Edward Flanagan in 1917], at 16. I remember, in our history classes, the priest talking about the Civil Rights Movement. I ever, I was in a period of my life, I was taken away from the black community by going to Boys Town, so I--I didn’t have--I had missed two years of that indoctrination, so I--I didn’t have anything to compare the march to because I was in Boys Town learning a whole new different way of life. And so, it wasn’t that important to me at that time, but as I grew up, obviously it became a very important part of black history and I took more interest in it when I grew up. As a kid, I had no--no interest in the march.

Phil: Now you were born in ’47, in South Carolina, Charleston.

Mel: Charleston, South Carolina.

Phil: What was your dad doing at the time there?

Mel: My father worked for the naval yard, and we--there’s some discrepancy in the family history what he was doing at the Navy yard. Someone said that he was a rigger, and I didn’t know what that was, so I looked it up. And it--it was a person who organized the docks and told people where to go and how to do and so forth. And--and then my dad, I always remember him saying, when I was a child, that he was a machinist. He said, “I’m a highly skilled machinist.” I’ll never forget the way he said it. And--then I heard that he got in a fight with the commander and, in his eyes, was forced to resign. And so he resigned from the shipyard and took the family to what he thought was Wilmington, Delaware, and then woke up and found himself in Wilmington, North Carolina. So instead of growing up a Yankee, I grew up a Southerner in North Carolina, in Wilmington and I remember as a child, we lived in a place called Tank Town when we got to North Carolina, a place called Tank Town. And Tank Town was an abandoned oilrefinery, and my dad was successful in getting a storefront building. Used to be a grocery store I think, and we moved in. And that was my beginning in North Carolina.

Phil: What about your schooling there at--the… .

Mel: My mom--well my dad was always a [Roman] Catholic, he came from Mississippi, Natchez, Mississippi. And my mom was a Methodist, and when she married my dad, she converted to Catholicism. And so, being a very devout Catholic, I mean extremely devout, she made sure we were brought up in a religious manner. Made sure that we carried ourselves in a Christian manner and she would drag us to church with her, she went every morning, including Sundays obviously. But, every morning, and drag us with her sometimes. We grew up--I grew up going to Catholic schools. I went from kindergarten through 8th at St. Thomas in Wilmington. St. Thomas was an all-black church; however the priests were white, and I always thought that was kind of different as a child. But I was an altar boy growing up. I at one time thought about, and I think many Catholic boys who are altar boys grow up thinking, that they would someday be a priest. And I thought that someday, I would be a priest. And I say that just to give a groundwork on my demeanor growing up. Very passive, very high achiever, overachiever in most cases. Just trying to do the Lord’s work. I did that until about the age of 13, and at that time, puberty sets in, my mind starts to wonder, I started hanging around with guys drinking wine, smoking, shoplifting and that kind of stuff. And so, my mom said, “No way that’s gonna happen.” And she and my priest, who is--who was Father Swift, S-W-I-F-T, and umm--they worked behind my back to get me accepted into Boys Town. And surely enough the day--the day before I was supposed to go, I was told I was going to Boys Town. And my mom hid it from me ’cause she knew I’d probably try to do something stupid, to run away or something. But it was a gut-wrenching experience at that age, 14, being stolen away, ripped away, from your family. So I went--I went to Boys Town.

Phil: What was the composition in there and how many students?

Mel: There was a thousand students, 500 on the elementary side and 500 on the high school side. There were boys from all over the world--Germany, France, Brazil. All over the world, and very--I think the racial composition was about 80-85 percent white, 10 percent black, and then a mixture of many races--Chinese, I don’t know if we had any Vietnamese, but Chinese, Japanese and so forth. So that was quite an experience for me, because you’re coming from segregated South, where I couldn’t go to the school that was situated literally a block from my house, and then went to Boys Town, where brotherly love, you are your brother’s keeper, all that was taught. I mean taught very earnestly and we lived it every day, we lived it, we took care of each other, we disciplined each other. Boys Town really was ran by the boys at that time. The commissioners and councilmen and so forth. And so we lived that philosophy that we would take care of one another.

I ended up leaving Boys Town with that belief, that--that indeed I’m here to take care of Phil White, to take care of Tom Rea, to take anyone who needs my help. So that’s the demeanor that I left Boys Town with. And it was a blessing, and then it was a curse at the same time, because once I got back into the world, I left Boys Town and went to Laramie [Wyo.]. Once I got to Laramie, I saw that I wasn’t a--I wasn’t received quite good enough, I wasn’t received properly. And I mean by that is, I was stared upon, I was uh--I was

double-guessed all the time as whether I was going to steal something or whether I was going to be just a great-good patron. So yeah, it created a lot of stress in me, a lot of questioning--doubt as whether or not Boys Town taught me the right thing because people weren’t treating me like I was treating them. And uh--it was a tough situation.

Phil: What about your sports at Boys Town and your participation in that government convention?

Mel: It’s a funny story, um, when I was at--North Carolina, going to school, there was no sports. So I had not played sports at all--not organized sports. Of course, we’d have pick-up baseball games in the field and so forth. But there was no organized sport at--when I grew up. So I went to Boys Town and everybody is expected to do something during the summers. You just couldn’t wait around the house and do nothing. Well, I was going to lay around the house and do nothing because I was a loner and didn’t mind being around people, but I preferred to do things on my own. So that’s the approach that I took when I went to Boys Town. Consequently, I got in a lot of fights because a lot of people thought I was stuck up. So I just hung around myself, go and do some adventures and look around Boys Town.

And finally, one of the counselors came to me and said, “Mel, in Boys Town, you gotta do something. You know, you either have to work on farm, or go out for sports, or do something.” And I said, “Well, I don’t want to do that.” And Coach Spencer was freshman football coach at that time and he had heard about me, and someone must have told him that they thought I’d make a fairly decent football player. And he came to the ca--the cottage--we called them cottages--and um--he said, “I would like for you to come try out for the football team.” I said, “I don’t want to do it.” I said, “I’m content doing what I’m doing.” And he finally left and said, “Well, I don’t think you’re tough enough.” And what did he say that for? What did he say that for? He knew exactly what he was doing. I said, “I could beat anybody you got up there.” I said, “I haven’t seen them, but I could beat anybody you got up there.”

Sure enough, I sort of took my time and walked up to where they were practicing, practicing football and just watching from the sideline. Coach Spencer came over and said, “Oh, I see that you want to give it a try?” And I said, “Ah, yeah, I’ll give it a try.” And that’s how I got into sports. Didn’t want to. Didn’t know I could play football. I didn’t know anything that I could do as-you know-organized-wise.

Turned out that I played the game pretty well. And the rest is history there. But there was a governmental system in Boys Town. When I said that Boys Town was ran by the boys, it truly was in those days. We started out with the councilmen, and the councilmen took care of the house and 25 boys. Each house had 25 boys. He would represent those boys to the commissioners, and commissioners would take it to the mayor. I became the councilman of cottage 32, no excuse me, cottage 35. Then became commissioner of the whole choir section and ran for mayor on my senior year and became mayor. So that was my beginning of my political participation. Up to that point, I was very laid back, stayed to myself. If someone was in trouble, I would help them, but I didn’t--I didn’t put myself out front.

Phil: And you also went out for other sports?

Mel: Yeah, went out for wrestling and track and went to state on my wrestling ability. I’ve got real short arms, so the takedown was very easy for me--for them on me. And so, once I got on the bottom, my short arms, they--they had me. But I did pretty well, I can’t--I can’t knock my wrestling, I did pretty well, I did go to state. Didn’t win, matter of fact, I don’t think I even placed at state. But then I went out for track and threw the shot put and the disk and went to state tournament on my shot put, my best was 56 and 3 and 4 quarters, I mean 3 and 3 quarters. And that--that was pretty good in those days. My son beat it when he was in high school. He threw 60, and so that was his mark, all his track career, was to beat Dad. And those were--well I majored in--I lettered in all three, three years in a row, so yeah.

Phil: And how did you, how did it come about that you came further west?

Mel: Well, in those days, and I don’t know if now it’s the same procedure, but the councilmen and the counselors, adults and the director received all your mail. When you go to Boys Town, your parents have to sign their rights to Boys Town in order to make decisions on your behalf. So I was in the custody of Boys Town, they read my letters to see which ones I should receive and which one I should not receive.

They gave me letters from Cornell, Northwestern and Eastern Michigan and so those are the only three scholarships I knew I was being offered. Other people said that they had a scholarship that they never received. So I don’t know if I received more than--than those or not. But those three I did receive and was considering going to Cornell, and was going to go to Cornell, until my best friend, Ken Gilchrist, he got a scholarship from Wyoming. And that was the only scholarship he got, even though he was an All-American center. All-American in the country. And he didn’t get as many as I got.

So he said—well, he didn’t say, Father Wagner said that, and Father Wagner was the director of Boys Town at that time, said that, “You know, Kenny won’t go unless you go,” because we were so close. Wherever I went, you could bet that Kenny was around or vice versa. We just--matter of fact, one of the Omaha Heralds I think, one of the Omaha papers [possibly Omaha World-Herald]said that we were the “Gold Dust Twins” on the football diamond--football field. And truly we were twins, we did everything together.

And so Father Wagner told me, he said, “You know, it’s sometimes better to be”--in reference of me going to Cornell or Wyoming, even though Wyoming didn’t offer me a scholarship--he said, “You know, sometimes it’s best to be a big fish in a small pond,” thinking Wyoming was much smaller than Cornell. So I said, “I’ll give it a try.” Again, you know, this altar boy will do anything that authority told him to do, and so I took that advice and went with--came to Wyoming with Ken.

Phil: And Boys Town helped with your… .

Mel: Yes, Boys Town. I walked on and Boys Town paid my tuition and upkeep for that first semester and then I won a scholarship, and they let me go after that, and I was on my own after that.

Phil: And then, what do you recall about the players that you came in contact with at Laramie and that one year on the varsity, ’66. How was that experience?

Mel: The black players or all players?

Phil: All, whoever you want to.

Mel: Yeah, I, you know, I came with close with [athlete] Byra [Kite], I--and that’s because Byra and I were competing for the same spot. He was just as good as I was. And we just battled and battled and nobody would move anybody, and finally Coach Baker said, “I’m gonna move Byra, I’m gonna move you to the other side.” And that’s how that was solved. And then Dave Rupp was a junior—no, he was a sophomore--when I was a freshman, and Dave Rupp, matter of fact I just emailed him last night. We--we stay close on the Internet, and he’s a good friend of mine. He left Wyoming, graduated from Wyoming, went to Sheridan [Wyo.] and worked in a coal mine as a supervisor. And now he’s in Florida and so we stay very close together. And basically, Gene Huey--who gave me my nickname by the way--and I became friends. And I--I’m the type of person, I can be friends with anyone, and I think I was friends with most of the Black 14.

However, I did not socialize with anyone, black or white. Allen, umm, probably the closest person I socialized with was Allen Gardzelewski, and he’s a lawyer in your town [Laramie]. And he came back from the Army and maybe that was the connection. We were both veterans. He, without a doubt, was my closest friend. And he majored in philosophy, got his law degree from the University of Wyoming.

But I’ve always been a low-key, never wanted to be out front, but as fate would have it, I was always, after the 14, I was always pushed into the front to do something. And I think that’s why a lot of people today think that I was the leader of the Black 14--is because I was always put in a position where I had to step up, and I wasn’t gonna not step up. You know, I was--I told the superintendent [of schools in Natrona County, Wyo.] that I was having difficulty with--in my career. I said, “You know, I just got finished talking to uh…” who was the guy that ran for governor? Bebout. [Wyoming State Senator Eli Bebout, Fremont County, Republican gubernatorial nominee in 2002]

I said, I just got finished talking to Bebout and he and I was talking about me having to fight wherever I go and I said, “I told him what I’m gonna tell you,” you know I’m talking to the superintendent, “I’m gonna tell you, Mr. Superintendent, what I told Mr. Bebout, “I do not ever start a fight. I do not ever start a fight. But I will finish a fight.” And I tried to get that message saying, “Please leave me alone. You know, if you want a fight, I’ll give you a fight. But if you don’t, just leave me alone, and I won’t--I won’t cause any trouble.” And that’s the way I live my life, and unfortunately, there are things that happen that you have to step up.

Phil: Now what happened to Ken Gilchrist?

Mel: Gilchrist! Everybody called him Cookie Gilchrist because of the Gilchrist that played for Buffalo, was it? I think he--yeah, he was an All-American high school, All-American center. He was a shot put- and discus-thrower in track, and he also was a wrestler. He wrestled one weight lower than myself. I’m trying to get the sequence because when I went as a freshman to Wyoming, he was supposed to go. He stayed in Omaha. I went on to Wyoming. I was very distraught because this was the first time this guy and I had been away from each other for four years, the prior four years. So I went to Wyoming on my own.

Later on in the season, he came--I heard a knock on my dorm door, and it was Coach Baker and Gilchrist standing at the door. So we were back together again that first year. Then, Ken stayed about six months, and he had been in the Boys Town since 1956 to 1965, a long time to be at Boys Town and being away from society.…So he was a wreck, a mess. I think that’s why he took to me, because I was someone who--who showed him some interest and stayed with him. To this day, he calls me almost twice a month. But he did not stay in Laramie because of the atmosphere in Laramie and the atmosphere on campus towards blacks. And then he saw also that everybody was against blacks dating whites, and he didn’t like that. And I think he just--his mentality wouldn’t allow him to fight those kind of discriminations without striking back. I mean physically striking back, so he left. He left.

Phil: He played one year on the freshman…

Mel: He played on year on the freshman team.

Phil: He was pretty good?

Mel: Yeah, and he and I were so good on the freshman team that the coaches—varsity coaches--would call us up to help spar against their varsity team. And we did and…we were going through those guys as freshmen; we were just tearing their offense up. That’s how I won my scholarship, I’m sure. And that’s how we got notarized, and it’s too bad that Ken couldn’t put up with the atmosphere and the discrimination. You know, yeah, I saw it as well. But I said, “You know, I’m just gonna do the best I can and hang in there.” Because if it wasn’t for my mom, I don’t know if I would have hung in there, ‘cause she always wanted me to graduate. And if it wasn’t for that, I think I would have left with Ken. And he went to Vietnam, and got all shot up.

Phil: Oh, he did?

Mel: Yeah, and came back, and I don’t think he returned to Wyoming after that. The last--next time I saw him was about 20 years later. He found me in Casper; he was in San Francisco. He gave me a call and said, “Man, I’ve got to make a change.” He was on dope and alcoholic, but yeah, he was on San Mateo police department. He said, “I need a change,” and I said, “Come on down” or “come on up.” He brought his wife with him, and he lived with us for a while ’til they got their own place. He later became a parole agent for the state of Wyoming and retired after 20 years, and now he is in Akron, Ohio. Retired.

Phil: And he--so his career was in Casper?

Mel: His--yes, his career was in Casper. Yeah. So yeah, Kenny was a big part of my life, and really, still is. But he was the only person I associated with. And I--and I don’t mean I didn’t associate with other people, that’s not a bad thing, it’s not in a bad way. It’s just that when I was around him, we got along, we laughed, we told jokes, we were friendly, but after practice, I went my way and they went their way. So, you know, I never, I never ran with them, I guess is the correct way to say it. Yeah.

Phil: Now, something happened after the ’66 season that caused you to… leave Laramie.

Mel: I think… I’m gonna be honest, I think, I think that incident before I went into the military was actually the beginning of the Black 14. I really do. So I guess what I’m saying is: That incident formed my opinion about Coach Eaton that I took with me to the Army and came back two years later in 1969 with--that tainted picture of who he was--and I didn’t like. And at the BSA [Black Students Alliance] meeting where we formed the Black 14, not intentionally, I let that anger out at that meeting and said, “Here is what he did to me.”

So in 1966, the pre-14, if you call it that, when I wanted to marry Kathy Kinne because she was pregnant with my child and I went [to] Red Jacoby, [Glenn “Red” Jacoby, UW athletic director 1946-1973] who was the athletic director--keep in mind the athletic director’s in charge of all coaches--and he told me--I went to him and said I wanted to get okay for married student housing, because I was going to marry this girl. He knew she was white. He said “Mel, that’d be fine, fine, why don’t you go tell Lloyd [Coach Lloyd Eaton] to write the papers up.”

And as I was going into the Field House and Coach Eaton was coming down, we met on the steps and I said, “Just the man I’m looking for, here’s what Mr. Jacoby said, I need for you to write up the papers.” [He said,] “No way, Mel. That’s not gonna happen.” I said, “What do you mean?” [And he said,] “I can’t let you marry this girl on Wyoming’s money. The people of Wyoming’s money.” He said, “Especially the people of Casper, they won’t allow me to let you do this.”

I didn’t know where Casper was; I didn’t know why he mentioned Casper until 30 years later. My wife works for First--well worked for--Hilltop National Bank. The owner of Hilltop National Bank is Dave True. The big oilman. I happened to look on my diploma and whose name is on the diploma, as chairman of the Board of Charities for the University of Wyoming, Dave True. That was the only connection. And I thought about the years, why did he say Casper. I thought, man, that gave me the picture that Casper was the most racist place in the world and why would I want to live in Casper? And 20 years later I found out that Dave True was chairman and he signed--his signature was on my degree.

So what Lloyd was telling me in ’66 was that the chairman would be very upset if I allowed that to happen. And anyway, it didn’t happen. My girl, at the time right after that, before I went in the Army, we were staying together, in Laramie, off-campus, and she gets a call. I’m mad and I’m fuming, pouting and carrying on. And she gets this call that her mom and dad were both killed at the same time. Her parents owned the Elephant Head Lodge in--is there a place called Wapiti? Is there a place called Wapiti?

Phil: There is, a Wapiti, Wyoming.

Mel: Wapiti, Wyoming. And he was--they were riding the horses and trying to cross some river. She got into trouble, the wife got into trouble, he turned back around in mid-stream and they both were killed. He was trying to save his wife and they both were killed. So you can imagine what that was would do [to] a twenty-two/twenty-three year-old person’s mind. So we-we--she went her way, and I went my way. And the rest of the story, she had my oldest child, my first child. Her name was Kimberly. And I went into the Army, of course.

Phil: What were your experiences there?

Mel: In the Army? I was a radio communications specialist. I went from E1 to sergeant. Actually, equivalent is sergeant, but they don’t call specialists sergeant. They just call [it] a specialist 5. I was specialist 5. I made that in 18 months. I was proud of that. I went from--I went from private 1 to Sergeant in 18 months and I was fortunate enough to go to Turkey instead of Vietnam. And I remember the last guy, they went right down the alphabet, and they were sending people all over the world, and they came to Vietnam, and they went down the ages and the guy before me was Hamm, H-A-M-M, and Hamm was the last person in the alphabet that went to Vietnam. Then they started Turkey, and Hamilton was next and I went to Turkey. It was the luck of the draw. I mean, who would have thought? Just one person ahead of me and he went to ’Nam and I went to Turkey. I don’t know what happened to David Hamm, but I hope he made it through. But that doesn’t mean that I would not have gone to Vietnam, I really didn’t have any--any perception about not going to ’Nam or going to ’Nam, I would have gone anyplace they sent me, and willingly. I just got lucky and didn’t go.

Phil: You--were you at all thinking about coming back to Wyoming after the Army?

Mel: No! No, no.

Phil: You thought you were off onto whole new adventures. Toward the end of your time then in Turkey, you did communicate with the university?

Mel: Umm, well, I got a communication from Lloyd Eaton, telling me that--asked me how I was doing in the military and of course, I knew he had also been in the military, and telling me that once I was through, stop by the office and we would talk about things. And I knew what that meant, even though he didn’t come out and say it. I knew what that meant. And so I did, I said I thought I had time to think about it, and I said, “Where else do you want to go?” Right after the 14, you called San Jose, you called those other schools in the WAC [Western Athletic Conference] and they wouldn’t touch you. So where are you gonna go? And so, swallowing my pride, I--I came back to Wyoming.

Phil: But that was bef--you came back in ‘60--fall of ’69.

Mel: Right, fall of ’69.

Phil: After your--were you in the Army two years--two…?

Mel: About 18 months.

Phil: 18 months.

Mel: Mmm-hmm. About 18 months.

Phil: Umm, and so then you had four games, you made your way back into the starting lineup.

Mel: Mmm-hmm.

Phil: And you had four games, you won all four games. At that time, a week before the BYU [Brigham Young University] game, you were--UW was ranked number 12 in the UPI Coaches Poll.

Mel: Right.

Phil: You were undefeated.

Mel: Right.

Phil: And what happened that week then?

Mel: Well, you know, we, everybody was high spirits. The blacks and whites were talking, getting along. And we just knew we were gonna be undefeated, we just knew that. At least, that’s what we were striving for. And the mood was great and high and fun. So we didn’t have--there was very little argument among the white and black players at that time. ’Course you had a few, you know. But, on all in all, it was a good team to be on. So we didn’t have any reason to think that we--that anything was gonna be different.

Now, once we went to Eaton and got kicked off the team, we were highly disillusioned. Highly disillusioned, that the white players would [not] come to our aid. Think, think now. Fourteen blacks, starters in most cases, was kicked off the team. There’s got to be eight starters that are white to comprise the rest of the team, on both sides of the ball. What if they would have said, “Coach, we support the blacks.” What if anybody had protest[ed] on that team that was white? Would that have made a difference? You know, sometimes you think that Lloyd was crazy enough to have said, “The hell with ya, I’ll cancel the season.” And I think he would have cancelled the season.

But nobody tried. I think that’s what hurt. Nobody tried. When I came out to Wyoming in ’66, I drove out with Frank Pescatore. He just gotten a brand new mustang I think, some fancy car, and he lived in Passaic, New Jersey, I think. And my sister lived in Patterson, New Jersey. So I was visiting her and Frank and I bumped into each other working out one day in Patterson in high school. And he said, “Why don’t you drive back with me?” And we drove back from New Jersey to Wyoming. You know, we were, having a great rapport. I would think--he would have said something.

Phil: Was he still there though in ’69?

Mel: Yeah, he--matter of fact, he started an insurance company there when--after the ’69, in Laramie. It was on Grand Street in that hotel? So I don’t know if Frank is still there or not, I hadn’t heard any more about it.

Phil: I don’t think so.

Mel: But if they would have said something, maybe they could have--we could avoid this whole experience, but they didn’t. And so, that was the extent of the white players helping us. As far as I know, nobody did anything. Not even my good friend Dave Rupp, and I love Dave Rupp. And I’ll tell you right now, even to this day, I love Dave Rupp But, even he didn’t do anything. Well, the only [thing] Dave would say is, “Man, you know he’s crazy. Why did you guys do it? You know he was crazy.” You know.

They had--Dave told me stories about Lloyd Eaton having a blackjack in his--in his drawer, and that’s that thing that cops have with a weight into--a weight sewn into a leather pouch--they call it a blackjack. It’s like a baton really, except leather and steel. He kept that in his desk just in case we got out of line. Any of the players got out of line. He said, “You guys know he was crazy, why did you do it?” And I was disappointed in Dave for saying that, but he--he still remains one of my dearest friends. So.

Phil: Umm, well tell what--what happened on that Thursday, Thursday night, and then the Friday morning, as best you recall.

Mel: Thursday night, when we decided to wear the black armbands?

Phil: Yeah.

Mel: Uh, after the meeting, well at the meeting, and that’s why I say the ’66 incident with me and Eaton was the pre-Black 14, cause during that meeting [with the other players], I said, “Look, here’s what happened to me in 1966. Here’s why I went into the military. I know what the man can do. And if you don’t do anything to--to support this--to fight against this Mormon policy,” I said, “They will continue to do these kinds of things to me, to you, to all black Mormons. They will continue to try to run you over.” I mean I was vocal. And where did that come from? I don’t know. I don’t know where that came from. But I’ve always been thrown--at least I think--I’ve always been thrown into doing something.

Phil: Uh-huh.

Mel: So all that came out. And we decided to go to [Black 14 member] Joe Williams’s room, talk about what we’re gonna do. We gave the--the guys that had wives and kids an opportunity to back out and nobody backed out. Everybody said they wanted to do it, and we had to do it. We were caught up in a moment of history with a social revolution happening outside of Wyoming. Outside of Wyoming. So we--everybody’s out there doing their part. [Olympic sprinter John] Carlos and [Tommie Smith] were doing their part at the Olympics, and--I personally, I personally couldn’t have stand not doing anything.

This opportunity came before us, we had to grab it, it was our turn. We had to grab it. And that was me. And like I said, I don’t know where that came from, it was--it was bottled up for two years and it all came out that night. And so, we went to the room, and we talked it over and everybody said, “Let’s go.” And I was talking to Tom Rea over lunch today, and I said to Tom …so we decided to wear the armbands. Now, think about this. And I only thought about it over lunch.

We were under the impression that Eaton said, “Don’t wear your armbands, you will not be allowed to wear your armbands in the game.” That was our impression. We did not think by wearing our armbands to the office that he would be offended. We wore the armbands to the office because we wanted to show solidarity. So if Eaton had given us an opportunity to speak, he would have said, probably, “Oh no, you want to wear it during the game? Oh hell no, you’re not gonna wear it to the game.” We would have said, “Ok, what can we do?” And then we would have had a dialogue. We would have came up, hopefully, we would have come up with something we both would agree on. Whether that was getting together in the middle of the field before the game, saying a prayer before the game, something to make a statement, but he didn’t allow that to happen. So.

Phil: Wha--what did happen?

Mil: Well, uh, he took us to the bleachers in the Field House and sat us down, and the first word out of his mouth was, “Gentlemen, you are no longer on the football team.” And then he started ranting and raving about taking us away from welfare, taking us off the streets, putting food in our mouths. If we want to do what we want to do, we could [go] to the Grambling [College] and the Bishop [College], which are primarily black schools, historically black schools.

And so he--he just berated us. Tore us down from top to bottom in a racial manner. I remember looking at him right in the eyes and the whole time I’m thinking about 1966 and looking at him right in his eyes, smiling. I did not let that smile break, because I wanted him to know that he wasn’t--I wasn’t a little kid anymore. I’m not frightened of you. And you’re not gonna stop me from doing what I think I should do. And I know then that he was—he was constitutionally wrong, even though we weren’t prove—we didn’t prove that that was right, but I wanted him at least to know that I thought he was constitutionally wrong and was going the wrong way, and it wasn’t gonna frighten me.

Phil: So, you left there, and later that day, they called a meeting of the trustees and after that meeting, did any of the Black 14 actually have a direct interaction with Eaton that day--the rest of that day?

Mel: The rest of that day? If they did, it was not to my knowledge.

Phil: I think then, what I’ve always heard is that the trustees and the governor were there, they met with the players, and they’d meet with the coaches separately.

Mel: Well, the trustees with--yeah, I was at that, that meeting. And you’re talking about the midnight meeting?

Phil: Yeah, yeah, went ’til 3 a.m.

Mel: Yeah, yeah and Governor Hathaway, I was sorely disappointed in him. Uh, he had the ability, of course politically, it wouldn’t have been a good decision, but he had the ability to stop it, right there and then. And I think that when someone asks, would we play for Eaton without wearing the black armbands, one of us said no, and I don’t know which one of us said no. I think once we said that, the governor said, “Well, that’s it. You know, basically, our hands are tied. And we’re gonna support Eaton.” I think they were, of course, supporting Eaton way before that statement was made. But yeah, we did meet, and I remember walking out and saying to the reporters when they asked, “How was it?” And I said, “It was all-white. We didn’t have a say at all, it was all-white.”

Phil: So then what was the reaction the next--the next week?

Mel: Uh, boy, you can imagine, we had--we had national coverage. We had media from all over the area--all over the country. I remember a group of umm, these things just pop into my head, I remember a group of ministers from all walks of life, and even Darius Gray, the black Mormon, they sent down and tried to talk to me. And I, I was gonna talk to them. And a black media, had to be from Washington D. C., in that area, looked at me and shook his head. And I said, “You don’t think so?” And he said “No.” So I didn’t talk to the ministers that came to talk.

Phil: Uh-huh.

Mel: And so, I had--I don’t have any knowledge what they were gonna talk about. But, umm, yeah, there were people all over wanted us to make quotes. I got a call from--well, actually [BSA member] Dwight James got a call from Berkeley, a radio station on [the University of California at] Berkeley campus, about what was happening in Wyoming, and “Would you [tell] our audience what was happening?” Dwight came to me, I was in the Union, [UW student union building] and said, “The people in Berkeley want to talk to you.” I don’t know whether they did or not. I think Dwight, you know, he was gonna be doctor and was gonna be in the FBI and probably didn’t want to get involved that way, and he said, “I do know somebody who will talk to you,” and obviously, he picked me and I talked to them. So everybody all over the country was calling and sending their people and it was very hectic, very hectic.

Phil: You stayed and got your degree.

Mel: Yeah.

Phil: From UW.

Mel: Yep, physical education. I remember, I graduated in ’72 and by that time, I had been married to Tearether Cherry and everybody called her Chi-Chi, that was her nickname. And she had a semester to go, to finish up, and so I stayed in Laramie. Finally I said, “I need to make some money.” So I found my ex-Boys Town boy, living in Denver, who was a bigwig with Shell Oil Company and asked if he had a job for me until my wife graduated, and he gave me a job and I stayed there for a month--I mean a semester--and when my wife finished up, went back to Laramie, picked her up, packed her up and took her back to North Carolina.

And then she, of course, being a Casper girl all her life, had a very difficult time adapting to the southern ways. She didn’t like the people, she didn’t like the climate, she didn’t like the roaches and she was constantly complaining. Wherever we moved, there were roaches. I said, “Babe, there’s gonna be roaches down here.” And I said, “I’ll tell you what, they built some new condos over here, we’ll get one of them and see what that does.” And of course I knew. You know, you can’t find all the eggs of a roach. When you move, you gotta make sure you do not bring an egg. Not one egg. And obviously, we got in that new condo, and sure enough, six months later, there they were. And it didn’t matter whether you had no eggs or not, the person next door to you could have eggs and they would get into your apartment. And so, she came back to Casper, like I said, she had my first boy born, and I didn’t want anybody raising my kids but me. And so, a couple months later, I told Corning Glassware, who was I was working for as a mid-management supervisor, that I was going back to my wife. And so, a good job too, that was the best--one of the best jobs I ever had.

Phil: And she was a graduate of Natrona County [High School in Casper].

Mel: Yes, graduated from Natrona County.

Phil: And what did her parents do?

Mel: I think they were just… Dorothy Bourough B-O-U-R-O-U-G-H worked at the library. I think she was just a cleaning lady, I’m not sure. Didn’t have a dad. So she came down and ah, I remember when she came down, the--my second semester or my first semester. My second semester. I was standing at the line [at UW] at Old Main.

Phil: This is uh, in like 1970, spring semester of ‘70?

Mel: No, she was there for the 14, so she must have been the same 1960--no it wasn’t ’69. Had to be the first time I was here. Wait a minute. Uh, it had to be after I came back from the Army, and before the 14. We were standing, registering, in front of Old Main. I was with, I’ll never forget it, I was with uh, Father ????? in Hudson. [Wyo.]

Phil: Svilar?

Mel: No, uh.

Phil: Oh, Vinich.

Mel: Vinich! I was in line with Vinich, the son. I said, “Man, who was that you were talking to?” He said, “Oh, that’s Chi-Chi, you want to meet her?” And that’s how I met my first wife. John introduced me to her and ah--and then we started going together immediately, and we got married after the Black 14 happened. Oh, I would say, that next August. That’s how--that’s all that happened, John Vinich [later a longtime state senator from Fremont County]. I sometimes curse him for that.

Phil: So, your wife and the bed bug--or the roaches brought you back to Wyoming.

Mel: Yeah, and uh… .

Phil: What did you do here?

Mel: I came back uh and I worked for--I went up to the Natrona County headquarters [Natrona County High School] and applied for the teaching job. They didn’t have any positions, so I worked as an assistant manager for Kmart in their appliance department and worked at night at the Star-Tribune as a baler. And…then, uh, a coach from Kelly Walsh [High School in Casper] retired--not retired, he quit…They called me. And I started out just as a replacement for him, and of course, they couldn’t promise me whether I’d have the job the next year or not, but as it worked out, that was my foot in the door, and I did get the job.

Phil: And what were you doing there?

Mel: And I was a P.E. [physical education] coach and coach. Yep, in football and wrestling and track. I remember I was trying to make $12,000, and I just barely made $12,000 teaching and coaching three sports. And to me, that was the barometer of being a success, getting to that $12,000 mark. My first salary--I mean contract was for $8,645. I look back on that and say, “I don’t know how we made it on that.” But we did.

Then in the meanwhile, my wife and I were not getting along, so we ended up divorcing and I--in ’77--and I quit teaching. I got--couldn’t handle it, the divorce. Keep in mind, I’m a Catholic, altar boy, I mean Catholics had--did a real good job on me, and divorce was, it was the last thing you wanna do. And…it tore me apart. And so I quit teaching, I couldn’t concentrate at all. And went into the oil field and--turned out that was a pretty good move. I had a good time, I made a lot of money, bought my first house, umm, it gave me another possibility on what I could do. And …my self-esteem.

And so when the bottom of that oil field fell out in ’86, I went back to teaching, started it over again at Roosevelt High School [in Casper]. Dr. Carl Madzey had--had heard about me and followed my career and asked me to come over. And that was in 1986, and then I went to Kelly Walsh as a P. E. instructor, see I didn’t say that the first time. As a P. E. instructor in ’88 and coached football, wrestling and track over there.

Got my masters in ’92. Dr. Madzey said, “Now you’ve got to work with me. You got your masters, exactly what I need. And I need an assistant principal, now you can do that for me.” So I go back to Roosevelt in ‘92, got my masters, I’m working with at-risk kids again, I’m enjoying it. I became the vice principal of Roosevelt, the first time they’ve ever had a vice principal. Over the years, worked myself into administration, in 1996, became a principal at East Junior High School [in Casper] and that was a terrible time in my life. ’96 and ’97 had to be the worst years in my career. Even over the Black 14 incident. That was because I was not given the chance to run a school the way I thought a school could be run.

And I wasn’t given the chance because when I applied for the job, two of the principals--vice principals at the time--currently in the vice principal role, were vying for the same position. They did not get it. I knew immediately, when I found out the two had ran for the principalship, I knew immediately I was in trouble. And I took them out to lunch, and I said, “Look, I know you guys tried out for the position and didn’t get [it]. I know how that feels, you were in a building, you build up trust and they didn’t give you the opportunity to work as a principal.” I said, “But, however, we can’t let that stop us from being a successful school.” I said, “I need your promise that you will--you will work with me.” Well, one of them did. That was Stutheit, Brad Stutheit, did not hold any animosity. If he did, he didn’t show it with me. He was very respectful. Did his job, didn’t show anything.

But the other guy was the snake--was a timber rattlesnake. He was just working behind my back, having special meetings at lunchtime with disgruntled employees, other teachers that didn’t want me. And I thought, I think they didn’t want me because I was black, I was being called the head nigger in charge. Someone stopped by my house when I wasn’t there, snow on the ground, and there was a big “666” written in the snow in front of my house. They were passing around jokes about E-Ebonics, trying to play at my manner of speech.

One of the counselors there said that it was a concerted effort to get me out of there. Concerted effort. And then, I didn’t know of course, all these things were happening, until about eight teachers came to me one day and said, “We need a meeting with you,” and told me what was happening. And as I stated many times before, the worst part of all of that was that when it came time for me to sit down to evaluate my performance, I couldn’t because every time I tried, I would always interject, but if this racism didn’t exist, that would have happened, this would have happened.

So I never could--could fully evaluate myself as to my progress. And I--and I truly wanted to be able to do that, because I think I would have had the ability to say, “Mel, you should do something different here,” or “You’re doing something wrong here.” I have that ability to do that. I couldn’t in this because the racism kept popping up. So that’s what they took away from me. So, did I do a good job? I think I did, but I don’t know.

Phil: So how long were you the principal then?

Mel: Umm, ’96 to ’99, and then there was so much heat, they moved me from—they caved in to the politics of it--and moved move to a new program with at-risk kids, cause that was my forte. And they said….

Phil: And how--so how long was your career in public schools?

Mel: 28 years.

Phil: 28 years.

Mel: Yeah.

Phil: Retired when then?

Mel: I retired in--in 2011.

Phil: So tell me about your family and your wife--your current wife--and kids in…

Mel: Yeah, I got--matter of fact, Carey C-A-R-E-Y, is my current wife of 33 years. She is a Wyoming girl from Osage.

Phil: Oh really.

Mel: Yes. Of course her friends and my friends both, because we were so different, didn’t think it would last a year, and 32 years later, here we are. She is a--is a very understanding, very loving person, and I think that’s what attracted to me, she didn’t--my race wasn’t an issue. My race was not an issue. When I went out with her, she was concerned about other people--the people that came up to say “hello,” which were many. I was impressed by that, and that further told me she was a good person.

We got together and had two kids, Malik and Zella. And then of course, I have my oldest daughter in California by Kathy Kinne--the Wyoming incident young lady--and she had Kimberly, my oldest child. And then Carey and I had two, and Chi-Chi and I had two, Malik and Amber. Carey and I had Derek and Zella, and then Kathy Kinne and I had Kim. We been together ever since.

Phil: And they’re all doing… pretty….

Mel: All doing well, yeah. Kim, uh, as I once said, she is—ah, was in an all-girl fire unit in San Francisco. I’ve got a picture of her—well, she’s got a picture that I want, of climbing the San Francisco Bay Bridge. Man, what a beautiful picture that was. Malik, my oldest boy, is in Provo, Utah. He became a Mormon after much, much consternation. He thought that I would be very angry, and I don’t know why he thought that, because I was fighting for the right of blacks in the church to do something, to be able to do something. So he’s a Mormon chef, working at University Valley, Utah Valley University, in Provo, Utah. And then I have Amber, who is a director of Home Shopping Network down in Florida and a buyer. She buys a lot of their stuff. And she’s in Florida somewhere now. I can’t remember if she was in… Disney World, where is that there?

Phil: Orlando?

Mel: Orlando, she was there at one time. But I don’t know if she’s still there, but she’s in Florida. Um, uh…

Phil: Derek.

Mel: Derek is working for Weatherflick, no. Weatherford. An oil patch, and he really enjoys it. Matter of fact, he’s sort of jokingly asked why I didn’t tell him about the oil patch before he got into it because he really enjoys it and didn’t know it would be that much fun. Umm, Weatherford got him under a five-year contract to be management, to be in their management program. Just got a raise, he said the other day, and he’s really having a great time. They’ve sent him to Houston for many schools, to certify him in all things he needs to be certified in. And then Zella, we just found out unfortunately, found out that she has the M.S. [multiple sclerosis] and she’s back home with us. And the way we found out, that she came home one day and the whole left side of her face had drooped. And I thought she had a stroke and her doctor thought she had a stroke too, and that’s how we began to find out that she had M.S.

Phil: Oh, dear.

Mel: And so she’s back home with us, and her baby girl, Maya, she is my heart these days. She keeps me going, and I love her dearly. And so, that’s my family.

Phil: And they have--and you have five kids, and they have, uh eight….

Mel: Eight grandchildren.

Phil: Grandkids.

Mel: And Derik has one on the way. But thank God, no, no great-grands yet.

Phil: Ah. Hope that happens.

Mel: Hope that happens in it, in its time.

Phil: But uh… .

Mel: In its time.

Phil: But you’re facing some challenges in the health department. . . .

Mel: Yeah, I’ve ah--my, my whole retired family, my side of the family, had problems with diabetes. And most were sorta heavyweight, but even the ones that aren’t heavyweight has diabetes. My mother lost her--a foot because of diabetes. My sister lost both legs because of diabetes. It’s just a vicious, a vicious disease. Umm, and I’m having problems with it, I’ve gotten gastroparesis, which happens to a lot of diabetics and that’s basically saying that my stomach does not empty its food in a timely manner. Takes too long, the food or the fluids, to exit my stomach. And it causes many different symptoms.

I can’t literally lift five pounds or walk a half a block because of it, and that’s causing problems ’cause I gotta exercise to lose the weight, and I can’t exercise. Ah so, as I’m trying to get the lap band to help me lose weight, and the doctor said they usually can’t do that on people with paresis. Because you can imagine, if you shut down half of the stomach with the band, then that paresis is working on--only on half the stomach and it’s gonna be just as bad. It’s gonna be doubly as harmful to me as it is now.

So we’re trying to figure out what’s wrong with me. I--uh having a tough time walking, I don’t know what that is. I had back surgery thinking that it was spinal stenosis, and I got a second opinion that said it was spinal stenosis. And it turns out that it wasn’t spinal stenosis, because I got the same problem. I can’t walk more than half a block or three quarters of a block without stopping. My muscles feel like they’re atrophied, and I don’t know--you know, I remember five years ago, walking all over Atlantic-Baltimore and Savannah, Georgia, and all of a sudden, I started having a problem walking. Now if it was then that I’m thinking, “If my daughter’s got M.S., maybe I got M.S.” So, I’m going to have that looked at. ’Cause that’s the only thing I can think of.

Yep, so I’m not doing too good these days. I know I gotta lose weight, but the insulin puts weight on ya, and umm, you know, and I can understand how people feel when they gotta disease that stops them from losing weight. Then people--other people think that they’re lazy and just won’t do it. I can understand those people now. It’s--it’s a vicious circle. If I don’t take my insulin, my sugar goes up. If I take my insulin, it puts weight on me. So what do you do? You take your insulin, and you get bigger and bigger and bigger and so, especially when I can’t exercise. That’s the problem. Exercise, not being able to, is the problem. It’s not the insulin, it’s not the eating, it’s not being able to exercise.

Phil: Well, I hope that works out better for you.

Mel: Well, I’m gonna, I’m gonna get, I’m not gonna stop with the doctors. Somebody knows how to--how to help me, and I just have to find that person.

Phil: Sure, yeah. Well, Mel, it’s certainly been a pleasure talking with you.

Mel: Well, I hope we covered everything. ’Cause--that we covered the first time.

Phil: All right. I wish you the best, and we’ll keep in touch.

Mel: I will, umm, and when you gonna write that book?

Phil: Well, I’m still thinking about it.

Mel: Well, you should, I was telling Tom Rea over lunch, I said, “If anyone,” I said, “you’re like the pivotal point of this whole story, and if anyone should write a book, you--you would know the ins-and-outs of this 14 thing.” And I really mean that. Even if I write a book, it’s gonna be about my growing up in--in and how I got into this 14 thing in the first place.

Phil: Uh-huh.

Mel: But I wouldn’t be able to write it from your perspective. You know, so.

Phil: Well, see what we can do.

Mel: Yeah, k.

Phil: K.

Mel: All right man, is your wife out there prob-

Illustrations

The 2009 image of John Griffin tying an armband on Mel Hamilton is from the Laramie Boomerang, photo by Andy Carpanean. Used with permission and thanks.

Grace Raymond Hebard: Shaping Wyoming’s Past

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The talented and ambitious Grace Raymond Hebard remained well known and respected as a historian throughout Wyoming during her lifetime. Though her books, articles and pamphlets contained the racism and stereotypes common in her era and were also criticized for historical inaccuracy and poor writing when they were published, Hebard soldiered on unfazed.

She also exerted a powerful influence at the University of Wyoming, where she was employed for more than 40 years, first as a paid secretary to and voting member on the board of trustees, and later as a professor of politics and history. Several of her books remain in print today, continuing Hebard’s influence on the history of Wyoming and the West—and continuing the controversy over the value of her work.

Not long after her death, a campus-wide memorial service was held Dec. 7, 1936 to honor her. Speakers heaped praise on Hebard. University President A.G. Crane described her as a prolific writer who “was a pioneer in discovering and preserving the early history of this region.” U.S. Senator Robert Carey told the audience that Hebard’s historical work was well done and “would remain as monument to her.”

Former Governor B.B. Brooks saw her as a “most accomplished author” and her literary work as “Wyoming’s best.” Her co-author of The Bozeman Trail, journalist, cowboy poet and Indian Wars historian E.A. Brininstool, said the late professor was “a most painstaking historian . . . never satisfied with anything but the truth and actual facts” in her historical research and writing. Others went on to describe Hebard as an “astute historian,” a “renowned scholar,” an “eminent authority” on Wyoming history.

Author Agnes Wright Spring—Wyoming state historian, director of the Federal Writers Project in Wyoming and, later, Colorado state historian—told those gathered in the auditorium that in her book on Sacajawea, Hebard “built an impregnable fortress of truths which will, I feel sure, withstand attack.”

Since that time, however, many scholars have come to believe that Hebard too often brought predrawn conclusions to her work, and then found so-called “facts” to fit them. Too often, the facts turn out to be more like fables when compared with stronger, contradictory source material, some of which was available to Hebard, and which she apparently ignored.

But she probably did not act out of any deliberate intention to deceive. Hebard was a strong-willed woman who gained significant power at a new institution—the University of Wyoming—that was run by men. She was a strong supporter of women’s rights at the turn of the last century and politically active as a suffragette. These views seem to have led her to place certain women in central roles in Wyoming’s past that they did not in fact play. She portrayed them as strong-willed women who made things happen—women like herself.

Early life and education

Grace Raymond Hebard was the third child of George and Margaret Hebard. Following their marriage, George and Margaret moved to New York City where he studied at Union Theological Seminary, graduating in 1857. George preached at a Presbyterian church in Clayton, N.Y., for a year before moving his wife and their first son, Frederic, to Clinton, Iowa, in March 1858. In Iowa Margaret gave birth to the couple’s daughters, Alice Marven on Feb. 21, 1859, and Grace Raymond on July 2, 1861.

Following the birth of their last child, George Lockwood, the family moved to Oskaloosa, Iowa, in 1869. But within a year George Hebard contracted pneumonia and died on Dec. 14, 1870. Margaret wanted all of her children to have college educations so she moved the family to Iowa City, home of the State University of Iowa, where she purchased a large house and rented out half of it as a source of income.

Grace’s education was very different from that of her siblings. As a result of almost continual ill health, she attended public schools for only two years. For the most part she was homeschooled by her mother. As she grew up, Grace saw her parents as pioneers, moving from New York to what was, in her mind, the western frontier. Watching her mother struggle to hold the family together while ensuring that all the children received a college education, Grace was determined to carry on the family’s pioneering spirit and acquire a degree in engineering at the university.

Being the only woman in her engineering courses, focusing primarily on surveying and mechanical drawing, Hebard received a good deal of criticism from her classmates, however. She graduated in 1882.

Drafting for the surveyor general’s office

Upon graduation Grace Hebard was offered a job working for the United States Surveyor General’s office in Cheyenne, Wyo., at the time in the process of surveying and mapping Wyoming Territory. With her mother Margaret’s asthma problems and the doctor’s suggestion that she would fare better at a higher altitude in a drier climate, the entire family moved to Cheyenne. Grace worked in the surveyor general’s office at the rate of $100 per month, a very generous salary for a 20-year-old woman in 1882. Her sister, Alice, found employment with the school district in south Cheyenne where she would work for more than 30 years.

Frederic opened a law office but still lived at home with the family to help with expenses. Lockwood became the organist at the Episcopal church, which the entire family, with the exception of Grace, attended. Grace did not attend church at all.

When she began working in the surveyor general’s office, Grace was one of 46 draftsmen employed there. She knew the work would not last indefinitely, however, so she began taking correspondence courses from the State University of Iowa to earn her master’s degree. Even though State University did not have a graduate school until 1900, its records did indicate that a Master of Arts degree was awarded to Hebard in 1885. She later claimed not to remember her thesis topic.

By 1889, there were only two individuals still working in the Surveyor General’s Office, and Grace’s job ended later that year when mapping work was completed. Upon leaving that position she received an appointment to work in what would become the state engineer’s office. Although she served as deputy engineer, Hebard did not like the work and received only $40 per month, a significant reduction in pay.

Making a place at the University of Wyoming

During her time at the surveyor general’s office, Grace cultivated a relationship with Edward C. David, the man who ran the office. David was also related by marriage to Territorial Representative Joseph M. Carey. Both men carried significant political influence.

In 1886, as construction began on the brand-new University of Wyoming, Hebard kept her eye on developments at the new school. Through her connections to the David and Carey families and with her brother Frederic’s election to the territorial assembly in 1888, she received an appointment to the University of Wyoming Board of Trustees in January 1891. In the spring of that year, Grace became the first member of her family to leave home. She boarded a train for Laramie, 49 miles away, and would work at the University of Wyoming until her death 45 years later.

Throughout her life, Hebard saw herself as a pioneer, but she was not the first woman appointed to the university’s board of trustees. Augustine Kendall of Rock Springs and Mattie Quinn of Evanston also served on the board. Hebard wasted little time moving to secure a position of power among the trustees, however. She was made the board’s paid secretary, and as such, produced all of the meeting minutes. With six of the nine trustees scattered across the state, Hebard and the other two board members living in Laramie made up the executive committee and had oversight of day-to-day operations at the school.

The following year the executive committee took over the responsibility of filling all faculty vacancies. During that period, Grace completed correspondence courses and received a Ph.D. in political economy from Illinois Wesleyan University. In 1894, with her Ph.D. in hand, Hebard was appointed librarian for the University of Wyoming. At the same time, she kept her position on the board of trustees. During the 1893-1894 academic year, she taught a correspondence course on constitutional history and took on the additional jobs of secretary for the correspondence school and the agricultural extension school.

When Frank Graves resigned as president of the university in 1898, the trustees considered hiring Hebard for the position, but she declined. She already held most of the power and influence at the university, and she was continuing with pioneering work in other areas. In 1898, Grace took and passed the Wyoming State Bar exam. Though she never practiced law, Hebard was the first woman in Wyoming admitted to the bar. In addition, she would become the Wyoming women’s tennis and golf champion.

These accomplishments would have been substantial for anyone; for a woman at the turn of the last century they were extraordinary. At the same time they seemed to instill in Grace a sense of infallibility. Soon, she and her ally, Board President Otto Gramm, became the targets of Wyoming journalists who said that no university employee or professor could hold a job at the school without Hebard’s approval.

Teaching political economy

In 1906, Hebard was appointed associate professor of political economy. Herbert Quaintance, already serving as a professor of political economy, opposed her appointment and insinuated that her Ph.D. degree was a fake from a disreputable school. With her influence at the university, Quaintance was forced out and his job given to Hebard, who was then named to head the Department of Political Economy and Sociology.

Grace claimed that she never sought the position, but only accepted the job to help the school. As a result of that shake-up, Hebard’s longtime roommate and History Department head, Agnes M. Wergeland, convinced Grace that she should begin studying the history of Wyoming and the West. Wergeland informed her friend that studying history would be a much “better hobby than trying to show everyone who was boss.”

Shaping history

Hebard took her friend’s advice and began researching the history of the West with a focus on Wyoming. A lifelong suffragette, Grace had a particular interest in women and their contributions to the discovery and settlement of Wyoming and the West. Even though she published books on Shoshone Chief Washakie, pioneers in the West, the Bozeman Trail and several editions of a book on the government of Wyoming, she became obsessed with two women—Sacajawea and Esther Hobart Morris.

In her writings Hebard insisted, in spite of documentation to the contrary that she was aware of, that Sacajawea—the young Shoshone interpreter for Lewis and Clark—lived to about 100 years of age and was buried on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming in 1884. Most scholars today agree there is much stronger documentation to show that Sacagawea, as the name is now more often spelled, died in 1812 at Fort Manuel Lisa on the Missouri River in what’s now North Dakota.

Hebard is probably best known in Wyoming for popularizing the Esther Hobart Morris story. Early in 1870, soon after the Wyoming Territorial Legislature had given women the right to vote and hold office, Morris was appointed justice of the peace in the gold-mining town of South Pass City.

Two generations later, Hebard and a surviving resident of early South Pass City, H. G. Nickerson, began telling the story that two candidates for the territorial legislature, Nickerson and William Bright, met with Esther Morris and others at Morris’s home—a story that Nickerson himself seems to have originated in 1916. According to this story, Morris extracted a promise from both men that whichever of them was elected to the legislature would introduce a bill supporting suffrage for women in Wyoming. Bright introduced the bill and it passed, giving women in Wyoming the right to vote and hold office.

Hebard described Morris as “The Mother of Woman Suffrage.” As with many of her other romanticized stories, Hebard found an individual—Nickerson—to corroborate everything she claimed as fact.

Hebard claimed that some of her information had been received in a letter from Bright’s wife, but the letter Grace wrote to Julia Bright was returned marked “addressee deceased.” By contrast, in a letter to the suffrage paper The Revolution, Robert Morris, Esther’s husband indicated that the first meeting between William Bright and Esther Morris did not take place until after the suffrage bill had been signed into law.

At no time during her life did Esther Morris ever claim to have had anything to do with the introduction or passage of the suffrage bill in Wyoming. And yet the story has shown remarkable staying power because people often seem to prefer the romanticized version to the facts.

Hebard was a dogged researcher who hunted for every bit of information she could find on her subjects. Problems arose, however, when the facts did not mesh with her often predetermined outcomes. Hebard’s papers in the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming are filled with documents—like the unread letter to Julia Bright—that contradict her often romanticized versions of events. That is, she knew what she was doing. She knew her work contradicted the work of distinguished historians and often times was not supported by the documents she herself located.

And though she won high praise for her work from all kinds of influential Wyomingites at her memorial service, peers more closely connected to her work seem not to have thought highly of it. The American Historical Review described her book on the Bozeman Trail as “commonplace history” adding “the most striking shortcoming is the deplorable English.”

The manuscript for Grace’s Sacajawea book was so poorly written that her publisher, Arthur H. Clark, hired Robert Cleland of Occidental College to ghostwrite it. Outside reviews of her manuscript of a book on the Pony Express, which was never published, described it as “poor grammatically,” “disjointed” and “decidedly poor, rambling, and pointless.”

Over the years, Grace Hebard involved herself in a number of other projects that were important to her. She spent a good deal of time traveling across Wyoming to mark the location of the Oregon Trail, work that was generally accurate. She took the leadership role in a project dealing with the Americanization of foreign-born immigrants. Working to organize a statewide Americanization program, she sent outlines of subjects she believed should be taught and tested to schools, courts, and individuals teaching citizenship courses. The subjects included the U.S. Constitution and early U.S. history

She also pushed for the adoption of child labor laws aimed at keeping youngsters in school and preventing businesses and individuals from taking advantage of children in the workplace. Hebard maintained involvement in the child labor and Americanization programs until her influence waned and recognition for her work decreased. She then moved on to other projects, usually associated with research and writing.

With her books on Washakie, Sacajawea, the Bozeman Trail and the Oglala Sioux war leader Red Cloud still in print almost 80 years after her death, and the ongoing popularity of the Esther Morris story, Grace Raymond Hebard still has an influence on the history of Wyoming and the West.

Resources

Primary Sources

  • Cora M. Beach Collection, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyo.
  • Grace Raymond Hebard Collection, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, box numbers 1, 2, 3, 16, 32, 42, 46, 55, 62, 63 and myriad folder numbers from each box.

Secondary Sources

  • Beach, Cora M. Women of Wyoming. Casper, Wyo.: S. E. Boyer & Company, 1927.
  • Clough, Wilson, O. A History of the University of Wyoming 1887-1937. Laramie, Wyo.: University of Wyoming, 1937.
  • Hardy, Deborah. Wyoming University: The First 100 Years 1886-1986. Laramie, Wyo.: University of Wyoming, 1986.
  • Hebard, Grace Raymond. Sacajawea: A Guide and Interpreter of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, with an Account of the Travels of Toussaint Charbonneau, and of Jean Baptiste, the Expedition Papoose. 1932. Reprint, New York: Dover Publications Inc., 2002.
  • _________. “How Woman Suffrage Came to Wyoming.” Pamphlet, printer unknown, 1920.
  • _________. Washakie: An Account of Indian Resistance of the Covered Wagon and Union Pacific Railroad Invasions of Their Territory. 1930. Reprint, Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska Press, 1995.
  • Mackey, Mike. Inventing History in the American West: The Romance and Myths of Grace Raymond Hebard. Powell, Wyo.: Western History Publications, 2005.
  • Pearson, Lorene. “A Path-Breaker in Woman’s Activities.” The Relief Society Magazine, February 1934.
  • Van Nuys, Frank. Americanizing the West: Race, Immigrants, and Citizenship, 1890-1930. Lawrence, Kan.: University Press of Kansas, 2002.
  • Wentzel, Janell M. “Dr. Grace Raymond Hebard as Western Historian.” Master’s thesis, University of Wyoming, 1960.

Editors’ suggestions for further reading and research

  • Ewig, Rick. “Did She Do That?: Examining Esther Morris’ Role in the Passage of the Suffrage Act.” Annals of Wyoming 78, no. 1 (winter 2006): 28-34. The story that Esther Hobart Morris gave a tea party in South Pass City before the 1869 election to extract a promise from Bright and his Republican opponent, H.G. Nickerson, that whichever was elected would introduce a woman suffrage bill, was invented by Nickerson in 1916. Ewig examines the story’s roots and its remarkable staying power.
  • Massie, Michael A. “Reform is Where You Find It: The Roots of Woman Suffrage in Wyoming.” Annals of Wyoming 62, no. 1 (spring 1990), 2-22. Accessed Sept. 27, 2013, at http://archive.org/details/annalsofwyom621231990wyom. The article contains especially good information about William Bright, South Pass City, the roots of the Esther Morris tea-party story and the personalities and politics leading to the bill’s passage.
  • Scharff, Virginia. “Marking Wyoming: The West as Women’s Place,” her chapter on Grace Raymond Hebard in Twenty Thousand Roads: Women, Movement and the West. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002, 93-114.
  • Directions to the grave where the woman Hebard believed to be Sacajawea is buried are given in the Wind River Reservation field trip suggestion, below.

Illustrations

  • All photos are from the Hebard Collection at the American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming. Used with permission and thanks. Thanks too to Randy Brown of the Wyoming chapter of the Oregon-California Trails Association for locating the marker in the 1915 photo. It still stands on a dirt road paralleling the trail and the North Platte River south of Lingle, Wyo.

The Fountain and the Mural: Remembering a Tragic Cowboy Welcome

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Halfway from Old Main to University Avenue on the University of Wyoming campus, a seldom-noticed stone drinking fountain blocks the long, straight sidewalk. Almost hidden among the summer flowers at the base, carved words note that it was built in memory of Lowell O’Bryan, who died Oct. 10, 1922. Above the stone inscription and the now inoperable fountain is a brass plaque: “He gave himself . . .”

Ironically, the fountain shares a historical connection with the more familiar work of art, the painted mural hanging on the west wall of the student union ballroom. Both the fountain and the mural recall aspects of the same event in the university’s history. The mural recalls the “cowboy welcome” given to newly arriving UW President Dr. Arthur G. Crane. The fountain memorializes the tragic death of a student involved in organizing the welcoming ceremony.

In August 1922, the board of trustees announced that Crane, then serving as president of a college in Edinboro, Pa., had accepted the UW presidency. He would come to Laramie in October to begin his new job. Consequently, a group of students decided to greet the new “prexy” in traditional western style. With the help of faculty advisors Dr. Samuel Knight and Coach John Corbett, they planned an elaborate ambush: They would dress as cowboys and, on horses, meet the new president’s automobile as it was coming down through Telephone Canyon into Laramie from the summit of Sherman Hill to the east of the city.

On that sunny October morning, nine masked men on horses, later joined by about 50 “cowboys bedecked in regalia,” according to UW historian Deborah Hardy, ordered Crane out of his car and into a stagecoach where he was joined by outgoing President Aven Nelson and Board of Trustees Chairman W.C. Deming. Crane’s family continued on to town in his family automobile.

Did Crane enjoy the unique welcome? Probably not. Hardy describes a photograph taken at the time: “Out from the window he peers like a prisoner; he is neither smiling nor waving nor eagerly surveying the sagebrush around him. If anything, the camera catches a tone of disapproval for this youthful, high-spirited prank.”

The riders escorted the coach to the east edge of Laramie where the three occupants were transferred into a new Marmon automobile for the ride to the grandstand of the nearby fairgrounds, near today’s Washington Park. There, students, faculty and townspeople welcomed Crane and his family, Student President Fred Parks presented Crane with a ten-gallon hat and the crowd watched two cowboys ride bucking horses. Later, after a few speeches, the assemblage adjourned to the university commons for a special dinner.

But the festive ceremonies were dampened by an accident that had occurred earlier in the morning as the cowboys were preparing for the ambush. One of the best horsemen on campus, Lowell O’Bryan, a 23-year-old junior, helped ride out the mounts for the Crane reception—that is, ride them until they calmed down and stopped bucking. O’Bryan was “topping off each horse as it was saddled in order to ensure that no amateur should accidentally get on an unsafe horse and be thrown,” Hardy reports.

O’Bryan intentionally made his mount buck; then, suddenly, the horse broke toward a wire fence. Fearing the horse would break through and into a group of students, “O’Bryan started to dismount, a feat no different than he has often accomplished in the course of his everyday work,” according to the report of the UW student newspaper, “but the saddle slipped and he was thrown underneath the horse, badly kicked and dragged about thirty yards before being rescued by his comrades.”

The Wyoming Student reported that he was “taken to the hospital unconscious. Dr. Robinson and Dr. Turner were called to attend him and at this hour O’Bryan’s condition is extremely critical …” Dr. Willard A. Robinson was the young man’s stepfather, with whom he lived while attending UW.

A week after the mishap, President Crane announced at the morning student assembly that O’Bryan had died. He never regained consciousness from the accident. The student newspaper published a special memorial edition, noting that O’Bryan’s death cast a “pall of sadness over the University.”

Accounts emphasized that every effort had been made to save his life. “A nurse and a physician have been constantly at his side and several other surgeons have been called into consultation. Several students have taken turns in sitting up with him,” the student newspaper reported. O’Bryan, a native of Santa Rosa, Calif., died at his stepfather’s home. He was 23.

“Lowell has been popular among faculty and fellow students,” the Wyoming Student obituary read. “He was studying agriculture and was active in the Agricultural Club and other college activities.”

Later in the decade, friends and classmates of O’Bryan raised funds to construct the memorial fountain. In 1939, to commemorate the first anniversary of the construction of the student union building, the university and the Federal Art Project hired Utah artist Lynn Fausett to paint a mural depicting Crane’s arrival. Originally hung in the student lounge and later in the grand staircase of the union, the mural was moved to its present location in the west ballroom in 2003, following restoration funded by the class of 1958.

Five individuals significant to the university’s history are depicted in the mural—Crane, front and center; Nelson, next to him in black hat and suit; longtime university board secretary, faculty member and historian Dr. Grace Raymond Hebard on the left in a green skirt; longtime psychology Professor and Department Chair Dr. June Etta Downey in a red dress; and next to her longtime Greek and Latin Professor and Dean of Liberal Arts Dr. Justus Soule, in gray suit and red tie.

But did the artist include Lowell O’Bryan in the mural? No reference is made to the fact, either in the commemorative label below the mural or in the Branding Iron article published the week of its dedication on March 3, 1940.

Might he be the hatless cowboy on the rearing horse behind the main group at the center of the painting? Is he the distant, red-shirted cowboy on a bucking horse, right of center? One art historian contends he is the man in chaps, just left of center, the sole male figure facing away from the picture, only the back of his head visible.

Whether O’Bryan appears at all, the mural recalls the celebration of Crane’s arrival while the fountain west of Old Main memorializes the young man accidentally killed while preparing for the Old West welcome depicted in the painting.

Resources

  • Branding Iron (UW student newspaper), fall term, 1939; March 3, 1940.
  • Crane, Arthur. Biographical file, American Heritage Center, UW.
  • Hardy, Deborah. Wyoming University: The First 100 Years, 1886-1986. Laramie, Wyo.: University of Wyoming, 1986, p. 115.
  • Young Rider Was Thrown from Horse and Badly Injured.” Laramie Republican, (daily edition), Oct. 2, 1922, 8. Accessed Oct. 5, 2015, at http://newspapers.wyo.gov. Later issues contained articles about Lowell O’Bryan’s family and his obituary.
  • O’Bryan, Lowell. Biographical file, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyo.
  • Wyoming State Tribune, October 1922.
  • Wyoming Student (UW student newspaper), October 1922.

Illustrations

  • The photos of the fountain are by the author. The photos of the mural are by Greg Nickerson. Used with permission and thanks.

Emma Howell Knight

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Emma Howell Knight, the University of Wyoming’s first dean of women, was born Elizabeth Emma Howell on August 24, 1865 in Millbrook, Ontario, Canada. The Howell family moved to Omaha, Neb. when Emma was still a young child.

While attending the University of Nebraska, she met Wilbur Knight. They married on October 16, 1889 and moved to the Keystone mining district in the Medicine Bow Range about 35 miles southwest of Laramie. There, Wilbur had already been working for two years as a mining engineer at the Florence mine. Their first child, Florence, was born in 1890 and named for the mine.

In 1892, they moved to Laramie. Wilbur took a job the following year teaching mining engineering and metallurgy at the University of Wyoming. Emma and Wilbur had four children—Florence (who later changed her name to Wilburta), Samuel H. Knight, b. 1892, Everett Knight, b. 1894 and Oliver Knight, b. 1901. Emma was active in Laramie society and campus activities. She was the secretary of a women’s club in Laramie and she played the organ during Sunday services at the Wyoming Territorial Prison.

In 1903 Wilbur died unexpectedly of a ruptured appendix, at the age of 44. To support her four children, Emma ran and was elected to the position of Albany County superintendent of schools in 1904. The job required her to travel the county frequently, inspecting schools—by horse and buggy in the early years and later by automobile. Often she took her children with her.

At the same time, she continued her undergraduate education, begun in Nebraska, at the University of Wyoming. She graduated with her BA in spring 1911, in the same class as her daughter Wilburta.

Emma Knight was appointed advisor of women and assistant head of home economics at UW in 1911, then assistant professor in 1913. “…[S]he has even routed the old idea,” her students wrote of her in the 1911 yearbook, “that the dean of women should be the natural enemy of every male student. Now that’s going some. We wish her every success.”

In 1918 she became UW’s first full time dean of women, a post that she held until her retirement in 1920. Emma died on September 24, 1928 at the age of 63.

In 1941 UW named the new women’s dormitory in her honor. Knight Hall currently holds administrative offices. Emma is buried at Greenhill Cemetery in Laramie, Wyoming.

Resources

Illustrations

  • The portrait of Emma Knight and her son, Everett, about 1900, is from the S.H. Knight Collection at the American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming. Used with permission and thanks.

Stephen Downey

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Stephen Wheeler Downey, a prominent Laramie lawyer and legislator, was born on July 25, 1839, in Westernport, Allegany County, Maryland. As a young man, he passed the bar and worked in a law firm until the start of the Civil War.

In October 1861, he joined the 3rd Maryland Infantry, Potomac Home Brigade as a private. In January 1862, he was promoted to lieutenant and in March to lieutenant colonel. On Sept. 10, 1862, he was wounded in fighting associated with the Antietam campaign near Harper’s Ferry, Va.

Downey was discharged shortly afterward because of his injuries; by the time of his discharge he had attained the rank of colonel. If quick rise in the ranks is any indication, his daughter Alice Downey Nelson believed many years later, it is likely he eventually would have become a general in the army.

During the 1860s, Stephen Downey married, and he and his wife had two children. In 1869, he followed his brother, William O. Downey, a surveyor, to Laramie, Wyo. The move came at a steep price, however, because Stephen’s wife died shortly after they arrived.

In Laramie, Stephen Downey began practicing law and in 1869 and 1870 served as Albany County’s first prosecuting attorney. That means he was working as a prosecutor in Laramie at the time when women began serving on both grand juries and petit juries there.

In the fall of 1871, Downey entered politics when he was elected to the Council, the upper house of Wyoming’s Territorial Legislature. That same year, he played a crucial role upholding votes for women in Wyoming. The legislature had made Wyoming the first government in the world to grant women the right to vote two years earlier, but in 1871, there was a move for repeal.

The House passed a repeal bill by a strong margin and the Council, where Downey was serving, unanimously passed the legislation. Gov. John Campbell vetoed it, however. The House voted to override the veto, again with a strong majority. In the Council, the 5-4 vote to uphold the veto was just one vote short of the two-thirds majority needed for successful override and passage of the bill. Downey was one of the four; he had changed his mind since the earlier Council vote, and by doing so helped save the opportunity for women to vote in Wyoming.

In 1872, Downey married Evangeline Victoria Owen. They had ten children together, including Stephen Corlett Downey (1873-1961), a lawyer who partnered with his father; June Etta Downey (1875-1932), a psychology professor at the University of Wyoming who was the first woman to head a university psychology department in the United States and whose research won national renown; Sheridan Downey, (1884-1961), who became a U.S. senator from California; and Alice Downey Nelson (1882-1969), who became the family historian.

After marrying Evangeline, Stephen Downey was elected twice more to the Council, in 1873 and 1877, and also in the 1870s served separate stints as territorial treasurer and auditor.

In the fall of 1878, Downey was elected to serve as Wyoming Territory’s delegate in the U.S. Congress. Territorial representatives, then as now, were allowed to introduce bills but not to vote—that was a privilege that came only with statehood. Downey made national news in 1880 when he introduced a bill to spend $500,000 in federal funds on murals in the national Capitol showing “the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.” During debate, he asked for and received permission to enter added remarks on the subject into the Congressional Record. Taking advantage of this privilege, he had the Record publish a 2,500 line poem, “The Immortals,” which historian T.A. Larson characterizes as allegorical, mythological and morally instructive.

Downey’s bill failed. The New York Times pointed out, after the fact, the unnecessary excesses of the poetry publication. Laramie newspaperman Bill Nye couldn’t resist poking fun, concluding in a mock-biblical voice, “The wise men arise and say, after it is too late, ‘This is indeed the work of one who laugheth at us and putteth up a job on us of the size of a Presbyterian church.’ And no man wotteth why it is so.”

Perhaps that was enough of national politics for Downey; in any case, he did not run again for the job, but he remained active at the territorial level. He was elected to the Territorial House of Representatives in 1886 and again in 1890, the last session before statehood, when his fellow representatives elected him speaker of the House. In the 1886 session, he introduced a successful bill for funding a university, and is thus considered a founder—even father—of the University of Wyoming. In 1889, he was a delegate to the state constitutional convention.

After statehood, Downey served as president of the University of Wyoming’s board of trustees from 1891 to 1897. Downey was also instrumental in persuading Bishop Ethelbert Talbot to have what is now known as St. Matthew’s Episcopal Cathedral built in Laramie during the years 1892 through 1896.

Downey also served two more terms in the Wyoming House, in 1893 and 1895, when he was again elected speaker. A hint of the esteem in which his colleagues held him came during the 1893 session of the Wyoming Legislature, perhaps the most contentious session the state has ever seen. It was the winter after the notorious (HYPERLINK: http://www.wyohistory.org/essays/johnson-county-war) Johnson County War, which split Wyoming politics right down the middle.

The Legislature was divided among 22 Republicans, 21 Democrats and five Populists, who held the swing votes. At that time, U.S. senators were still elected by state legislatures, not by a vote of the people. U.S. Senator Francis E. Warren was up for re-election, but his sympathies were so closely identified with the invaders of Johnson County in the conflicts of the previous year that he could not win enough votes. In the end, no senator was elected, and Wyoming had to get by with just one U.S. senator for the next two years. But of the many candidates for the many ballots taken during that long fight, one of the highest vote getters was Stephen Downey, with 21 votes.

Through all these years, Downey was one of the best-known lawyers in Wyoming. One of his many clients was the Carnegie Museum of Pittsburgh in its 1899 negotiations to get possession of an enormous dinosaur to which the University of Wyoming felt it had a prior claim—and the museum was eventually successful.

Also in 1899, Downey again became the Albany County attorney, a position he held until his death in Denver August 14, 1902. He is buried in the Greenhill Cemetery in Laramie.

Resources

Primary Sources

  • Laramie Sentinel, Aug. 14, 1886. Downey Family Papers, 1866-1997, Box 2, Folder 5, Collection Number 10555, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.
  • Nelson, Alice Downey, compiler. Biographical Sketches of Stephen Wheeler
    Downey and Eva V. Downey. Laramie, Wyo., 1938. 4-6.
  • Downey Family Papers Biography, 1866-1997, Collection Number 10555, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.

Secondary Sources

  • Antietam on the Web. “Lieutenant Colonel Stephen Wheeler Downey.” Accessed Apr. 6, 2012, at http://antietam.aotw.org/officers.php?officer_id=1096. There are more details on Downey’s service in the Civil War and a blurry photo of him as a young officer.
  • Beard, France Birkhead. Wyoming: From Territorial Days to the Present. Chicago and New York: The American Historical Society, Inc.: 1933, 242, 498 n. 8.
  • Larson, T. A. History of Wyoming. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1965, 84-85, 137, 145-146, 148 n.7. See especially Larson’s long footnote on p. 148 about Territorial Gov. Francis E. Warren’s contempt for Downey in 1886 when Downey supported a bill that would have allowed territorial payments of $1,000 to the widows and orphans of miners killed in the mines.
  • Rea, Tom. Bone Wars: The Excavation and Celebrity of Andrew Carnegie’s Dinosaur. Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001, 56-60, 63, 74, 108-9, 117.
  • Roberts, Phil, David Roberts, and Steven L. Roberts. Wyoming Almanac. Laramie, Wyo.: Skyline West Press, 2001, 501.
  • Trenholm, Virginia Cole, ed. Wyoming Blue Book, Vol. I. Cheyenne: Wyoming State Archives and Historical Department, 1974, 486, 624.

Illustration

  • The photo of Stephen Downey is from the Stephen Downey photo file, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming. Used with permission and thanks.

Robert Russin: Legacy in Bronze and Stone

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Celebrated Wyoming sculptor Robert Russin created works of all sizes in bronze and stone. Though not a native of the state, Russin lived and taught in Laramie for sixty years, and his work continues to influence artists, students, collectors and the public.

russin1.jpg

His life

Robert Isaiah Russin was born on Aug. 26, 1914, in New York City. World War I had begun just a month earlier; still, New York City was a bustling metropolis, already a center for the arts and a great place for a young artist to learn his trade. Russin would have been exposed to New York’s many public sculptures, located in nearly every major public park.

A young Russin would have had access to some of the greatest works of sculpture from antiquity to modern times in New York’s superb collections. No doubt such exposure would have had a lasting impact on the young artist.

Russin was educated at the City College of New York where he earned his bachelor’s degree in 1933 and his master’s in 1935. He completed additional graduate work at New York’s Beaux Arts Institute of Design. Already accomplished by his mid-twenties, Russin won two national federal sculpture competitions. While still in New York, Russin taught at the Cooper Union Art School for three years. He later earned a Ford Foundation fellowship, which allowed him to study in Italy.

In 1947, Russin made a dramatic change and left New York for Laramie, Wyo., where he accepted a teaching position at the University of Wyoming. The young artist and his wife and children experienced quite a culture shock, relocating from the metropolis to a small, windswept university town, but the move was definitely a positive one. Russin came to consider Wyoming his home. He taught at the university for four decades.

Once retired, Russin assumed the position of resident artist at UW, continuing his relationship with the university while pursuing his highly successful artistic career. A dedicated educator, Russin created the Robert Russin Excellence Award in Figurative Sculpture, which continues his artistic and educational legacy to this day. The award can be a scholarship, or a fellowship for a post-bachelor student preparing a portfolio to apply for graduate study.

russin2.jpgRussin died in 2007 at the age of 93, leaving as lasting legacies both his work and the countless students who had learned from a master. His ashes were interred inside the hollow granite base of the Abraham Lincoln Memorial Monument, one of his best-known works.

His work

To his students and fellow instructors at UW, Russin was best known as an educator, but the more tangible legacy is his sculpture. Though he is recognized largely for his work in bronze, he worked in a variety of media, including plastic and stone. His works range in style from realism to abstraction, often settling somewhere between the two.

Russin’s sculptures can be found throughout the country and the world. Nationally known works are located at the Embarcadero Center and the City of Hope in California, the Menorah Medical Center in Kansas City and the United States Department of Energy Building in Washington, D.C. The largest concentration of his work, however, can be found in Wyoming.

The 13-feet-high Abraham Lincoln Memorial Monument, located on Interstate 80 between Laramie and Cheyenne sits atop a tall, hollow, granite base—with lightning rods for protection. The piece is comprised of nearly 30 individual sections that were assembled into the likeness of President Lincoln. The bust weighed more than 4,000 pounds; Russin spent more than a year working on it.

The sculpture was contracted for by the Wyoming Parks Commission and dedicated in 1959 to commemorate Lincoln’s 150th birthday. It was located at the highest spot on the Lincoln highway from New York to San Francisco. Wyoming was not even a territory when Lincoln was president. He did, however, sign into law the Pacific Railway Act of 1862, which enabled the financing and, later, construction of the Union Pacific Railroad—the highest point of which was not far from where Russin’s great sculpture was later located.

“The grandeur of the landscape recalls the nobility of his soul,” Russin wrote of the 16th president. The bust was later moved less than a mile to its present location overlooking I-80, after that highway was finished in 1969.

While Russin may be known for his monumental works, he also created smaller, more intimate pieces. Laramie boasts several works by Russin including a sculpture of Benjamin Franklin.

His work, “The University Family” was created in 1983 for the University of Wyoming and resides at an outdoor commons area for students and visitors to enjoy. The sculpture depicts an abstracted image of three people holding hands. The white stone looks soft and Russin has conveyed a sense of movement in the motionless figures, linked together.

Perhaps the most endearing work by Russin is the stone “Fulfillment” at Ivinson Memorial Hospital in Laramie, which shows a mother embracing her young infant. The sculpture looks soft and warm despite the cold, hard materials chosen by the artist. The highly personal work was in the collection of the artist for some number of years before he donated it to the permanent collection of the hospital.

The Russin family donated the sculpture “The Beloved is Mine and I am His” in 2008 to the Nicolaysen Art Museum and Discovery Center in Casper, Wyo. The sculpture is based on the artist’s interpretation of biblical passages from the Song of Songs and is one work in a series. The 3-feet-tall sculpture rests on a marble base, in Bryce Hall on permanent display.

Nicolaysen Curator Eric Wimmer says “Russin was an influential sculptor in Wyoming and having a piece in the permanent collection of the Nicolaysen allows future generations of visitors and artists alike to study and appreciate his contributions to contemporary art in the West.”

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“The Fountainhead” is another large Russin sculpture and has become one of Casper’s landmarks. It is located in front of Casper City Hall and features three figures around an oil well, actually a water fountain that runs in the warmer months. The work is a testament to Wyoming industry. The three stylized metal figures in red contrast nicely with the blue of the fountain. The angularity of the figures juxtaposes strongly with the flowing water.

Prominent in front of the Natrona County Public Library in Casper is Russin’s 16-foot polished bronze “Prometheus,” commissioned in 1975 by the Friends of the Library. The sculpture portrays Prometheus, the mythological Greek hero who gave fire and with it the spark of knowledge to humankind, diving head first with flames in his outstretched hands. A perfect choice in subject for the public library, the character Prometheus seems to be flame-like himself. The work has become entwined with the public image of the library.

His legacy

Russin’s teaching and endowments have left a legacy of learning for Wyoming’s artists and UW graduates that will carry on into the foreseeable future. His dozens of sculptures, scattered throughout the world on public and private display, continue to delight viewers. Wyomingites and visitors to the state will benefit from his public works as he has been woven into the fabric of the state’s artistic history.

Of Russin, former senator Alan Simpson said, "The genuine notoriety that he has brought to our state because of his remarkable gifts" will live on "in the hearts of Wyoming people."

Resources

Notable Works by Robert Russin:

  • 1. “Abraham Lincoln:” I-80 between Cheyenne and Laramie, Wyo.
  • 2. “Prometheus:” Natrona County Public Library in Casper, Wyo.
  • 3. “Benjamin Franklin:” University of Wyoming in Laramie, Wyo.
  • 4. “A Wyoming Family:” Prexy’s Pasture University of Wyoming in Laramie, Wyo.
  • 5. “Wyoming Crystal:” Wyoming State Capitol in Cheyenne, Wyo.
  • 6. “The Beloved is Mine and I am His:” Nicolaysen Art Museum in Casper, Wyo.
  • 7. “Spirit of Life Fountain:” City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, Cal.
  • 8. “Fulfillment:” Menorah Medical Center in Kansas City, Mo.
  • 9. “Chthonodynamis:” The United States Department of Energy Building in Washington, D.C.
  • 10. “Man and Energy:” Casper Chamber of Commerce in Casper, Wyo.
  • 11. “The Fountainhead:” Casper City Hall in Casper, Wyo.

Primary Sources

Secondary Sources

Illustrations

  • In the article, the photo of Russin sculpting is from Wikipedia. The color photo of the Lincoln monument today is from AARoads. Both are used with thanks. The photo of “The Fountainhead” in Casper is by Tom Rea.
  • In the photo gallery, the photo of Russin with the Lincoln head and the two of the 1959 dedication ceremonies are from the University of Wyoming photo service, with permission and with special thanks to Marlene Carstens. The photo of “A Wyoming Family” on the UW campus is by Jan Yarnot. Used with thanks. The photos of “Prometheus” at the Natrona County Public Library and of "The Beloved Is Mine and I Am His" at the Nicolaysen Art Museum are by E.K. Wimmer, used with permission and thanks. The photo of “Chthonodynamis” is from a blogspt at DC Art Attack. Used with thanks.

The University of Wyoming Textbook Controversy, 1947-48

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UW President Dr. George "Duke" Humphrey, hired in 1945, was conservative and strong-willed. American Heritage Center photo.Americans in 1947 were still celebrating the long, difficult victories over Nazi Germany and Japan, but beginning to have doubts about the intentions of one of the former allies, the Soviet Union. Spread of communism had worried Americans in earlier times, but their concerns in 1947 were fueled by ideology as well as by Soviet occupation of Eastern European countries, by gains of Communist insurgents in China, and by rumored experiments with atomic weapons.

In this atmosphere, universities in America were prospering from the millions of returning war veterans going to college on the newly passed “GI Bill.” The bill granted veterans up to $500 per year for tuition and a minimum of $75 per month for living expenses. The University of Wyoming was experiencing a similar boom—the largest in its history. In 1945-46, enrollment languished at 1,500 students. A year later, the number more than doubled to 3,364—more than 2,000 of them veterans. Some 1,560 were newly admitted freshmen.

University officials scrambled to provide housing for the new students as well as sufficient classroom space and courses. Between 1945 and 1947, 150 new faculty members joined the ranks at UW. Dr. George “Duke” Humphrey, hired in 1945 from Mississippi, served as UW president during this boom period. A conservative, strong-willed administrator, he already was pressing to make UW athletics competitive at the national major-university level.

When Humphrey introduced the commencement speaker, Governor Earl Warren of California, in June 1947, he was working under the direction of an influential group of Wyomingites serving as university trustees. Milward Simpson, prominent Cody attorney and unsuccessful Republican candidate for the Senate in 1940, held the chairmanship of the board. His vice chair was newspaperman Tracy McCraken, the longtime Democratic Party chairman who owned daily papers in Cheyenne, Laramie, Gillette, Worland, Rawlins and Rock Springs.

That summer, Simpson and the board treasurer, Torrington dentist P. M. Cunningham, attended a meeting of the governing boards of land grant universities on the campus of the University of Michigan. During the sessions, speakers urged the assembled trustees to return to their home institutions and press for mandatory training for all students in the U. S. and state constitutions. Simpson and Cunningham smugly noted that such a requirement had been in Wyoming law since the middle 1920s when, at the insistence of the indomitable Dr. Grace Raymond Hebard, the Legislature mandated "one year's instruction" in the constitution. (The requirement remains in the statutes and UW's university studies program thus requires a "V" course--instruction in the Constitutions of Wyoming and the United States.)

Later at the meeting in Michigan, a speaker warned of possible “Communist subversion” in the form of textbooks being used in various universities. Simpson noted that one example—not used at UW—was an economics text preaching the clearly Communist doctrine that “government deficits aren’t bad.” To the minds of most of the fiscal conservatives among the UW trustees, such doctrine was a prima‑facie example of Communist propaganda.

When the trustees met on Oct. 27, 1947, the board worked on numerous proposals to accommodate the ever-increasing student numbers. At one point, Dr. Cunningham made a motion that President Humphrey “appoint a committee to read and examine textbooks in use in the field of social sciences, to determine if such books were subversive or un-American.” The motion was seconded and passed after practically no discussion.

Without delay, Humphrey announced appointment of several deans to such a committee, naming R. R. Hamilton, dean of the law school, as chairman of the examining group. The faculty reacted almost immediately. The newly established chapter of the American Association of University Professors noted the potential problem, and when the faculty met on Nov. 19 for its quarterly meeting, it voted 123-24 the members’ opposition to having such a censoring board. The faculty voted to have 15 of their number represent the faculty position before the board. Dr. T. A. Larson, chair of the History Department, was chosen as chairman of the “committee of 15.”

UW History Professor Dr. T.A. Larson chaired a faculty committee that opposed the trustees' censorship attempts. American Heritage Center photo.The committee of 15 met later that week and agreed that the faculty had two goals: end the investigation and affirm principles of academic freedom.

Laramie Republican-Boomerang editor Ernest Linford editorialized on the side of the faculty, noting that the board was trying to restrict the “free marketplace of ideas”—a bedrock American principle. His boss, the owner of the Boomerang, was trustees Vice Chairman Tracy McCraken. In his editorials published in the Wyoming Eagle (Cheyenne), McCraken took the opposite position, arguing that “academic freedom” could be used as an excuse for “practicing subversion.” Soon after, Linford quit as Boomerang editor, moving to the Salt Lake Tribune. His departure was perhaps prompted by his stand on this issue.

Students, many of them veterans, got involved. Some were particularly annoyed when one trustee argued that the investigation was necessary in order to protect “impressionable young minds” of UW students. The student newspaper, the Branding Iron, published editorials opposing the investigation, and a newspaper titled Common Sense began a short-lived publication run entirely devoted to opposing the investigation. But the trustees’ position had support as well. Local chambers of commerce and a few labor unions endorsed the investigation plan.

Soon, the University of Wyoming was the subject of national media reports—many of them favorable to the board, some darkly implying that the university was troubled with subversives. To strong UW boosters like Simpson, McCraken and Humphrey, these reports were alarming. How might the controversy color national opinion about UW?

Meanwhile, the committee of 15 hammered out a nine-page series of arguments against the trustees’ efforts at “censorship.” One provision noted that the plan was an “insult to faculty,” implying that they were either incompetent in choosing textbooks or subversive. One statement pointed out that few classes at UW actually used textbooks, arguing that textbooks were a “crutch” for poor teachers who couldn't develop their own course materials.

The rhetoric escalated on both sides, and the shrill voices of the national papers and commentators seemed to be impugning UW. Vice Chairman McCraken, nervous about what he saw as a coming black eye for his beloved university, wrote to T. A. Larson on Dec. 31. He suggested that a compromise was possible and recommended that a meeting be held between two trustees and two of Larson’s “committee of 15.”

Larson answered that he and the vice chair of the committee of 15would meet with the two trustees for lunch at the Plains Hotel in Cheyenne mid-January to discuss the issues. While the four were meeting on Jan. 20, President Humphrey back in Laramie released the report of his investigating committee. After examining 65 books, Humphrey reported, the investigators found not a single instance of “subversion.”

At the lunch, Larson assured the two trustees that “no radical doctrines were being taught.” As the conversation continued, the groups agreed that the entire committee could present its case to the board of trustees at a special meeting.

The board met the faculty committee four days later. After committee representatives again made their case, the board agreed to drop the investigation, although President Humphrey pointed out that the investigation essentially exonerated the faculty by its report on the 65 “clean” books.

The board then acknowledged that the faculty should continue to make book selections based on their usual procedures. Even more important, the board confirmed that principles of academic freedom would be applied at UW from that time forward. It was a clear victory for the faculty even though various board members continued to assert that such a concession did not diminish their diligence in uncovering “anti-American activities” in education.

The most junior member of the committee of 15, untenured history Professor Gale McGee, later said that the “faculty came of age” as a result of the incident. He also later claimed that unnamed trustees hired students to take notes in his lectures, hoping to uncover “anti-American statements” that could lead to denial of tenure. McGee was elected to the U. S. Senate in 1958, serving in that capacity until 1977. He once told this writer that had he not won the Senate race in 1958, he would have been seeking work elsewhere because Humphrey fired him when McGee announced for the Senate that summer.

The textbook incident brought an extraordinary level of student involvement. Many of the students were World War II veterans. Several went on to prominent careers in journalism, law and business in Wyoming.

The controversy came to a quiet close through a distinctively “Wyoming way” of interacting. Principals on both sides were well acquainted—even friends in most cases. In a different place where anonymity would have been more likely, such a result probably would have been impossible. To defuse the controversy and satisfy all sides, civility prevailed.

But despite its abrupt and relatively amenable conclusion, the incident did not represent the end of anti-Communist activities in Wyoming. Simpson, McCraken and President Humphrey remained active in "anti-subversive" organizations.

As the controversy was unfolding, wealthy Cody area philanthropist William R. Coe noted the university’s stand on anti-Communism. In the ensuing years, he continued his friendship with Milward Simpson and developed a close friendship with UW President Humphrey. Coe proposed forming a program of American studies at UW where principles of capitalism and anti-Communism could be taught to Wyoming students. Following his death in 1955, his will not only provided additional funds for construction of an “American Studies Building” but also “if sufficient funds remained,” the university could use the money to build a “general library” as a wing to the other building. The result is today’s history building and the attached Coe Library.

An incident seemingly headed toward acrimony and discord, perhaps student strikes, faculty dismissals and open warfare on the board instead led to some positive results. (Later, similar incidents led to far different results at universities, such as the University of Washington, where faculty were investigated by the Canwell Commission.)

The University of Wyoming gained funds for creation of an American studies program and construction of a library and for the first time the faculty members at UW were guaranteed an enduring notion of academic freedom. The university enjoys both to this day.

This article is a summary of the Constitution Day lecture given by Phil Roberts, associate professor of history, Sept. 18, 2006, at the University of Wyoming’s Student Union building.

Resources

Primary Sources

  • Branding Iron.
  • Laramie Republican-Boomerang.
  • Wyoming Eagle.

Secondary Sources

  • Clough, Wilson. History of the University of Wyoming, 1887-1964. (Laramie: University of Wyoming, 1964).
  • Hardy, Deborah. Wyoming University: The First 100 Years, 1886-1986. (Laramie: University of Wyoming, 1986).
  • Hewitt, William. “The University of Wyoming Textbook Investigation Controversy 1947 to 1948 and Its Aftermath,” Annals of Wyoming 56 (Spring 1984), pp. 22-33, accessed Oct. 20, 2016 at https://archive.org/stream/annalsofwyom56121984wyom#page/n23/mode/2up/se....
  • Milward Simpson Papers, Acc. No. 26. American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.

Illustrations

Robert Roripaugh, Wyoming Poet Laureate 1995-2002

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Robert Roripaugh. Margaret Johnson photo.Robert Roripaugh was born in Oxnard, Calif., on Aug. 26, 1930. His father was a rancher and a petroleum engineer, and his mother was a schoolteacher who also wrote poetry and encouraged him in his writing. He had one brother as well. Robert graduated from high school in Midland, Texas, in 1947 and spent one year at the University of Texas at Austin.

In 1948-1949, Roripaugh’s family bought a small ranch near Lander, Wyo. Life in the Wind River country for the next several years left a lasting influence on Roripaugh and his writing. In 1950, he transferred to the University of Wyoming, where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English in 1952 and a master’s in 1953. Also in those years, he published his first poems and short stories in the campus literary magazine.

After completing his master’s degree, Roripaugh was drafted into the U.S. Army. During his service from 1953-1955, he spent a year in Japan, where his experiences made strong impressions on him and his work. While there, he met Yoshiko Horikoshi, whom he married in August 1956.

After his term in the military, Roripaugh returned to the University of Wyoming as a fellowship recipient in American Studies. In 1956, he moved to the University of New Mexico, where he undertook doctoral study, but after two years he returned to Wyoming to work in the English department. From 1958 until his retirement in 1993, he moved through the ranks, becoming assistant, associate, and finally full professor of English.

In his years as a faculty member, Roripaugh was a versatile and prolific writer, publishing numerous short stories, poems, reviews, articles and two novels. His novel A Fever for Living (1961) is drawn from his experiences in Japan, and his novel Honor Thy Father (1963) is set in Wyoming ranch country. After these works came a poetry collection, Learn to Love the Haze (1976), which contains a range of poems both personal and regional.

In 1995, two years after his Roripaugh’s retirement from the University of Wyoming, Gov. Jim Geringer appointed Roripaugh poet laureate of Wyoming for a term lasting until Dec. 31, 2002. During that time, Roripaugh took his position seriously and made himself available to the people of Wyoming by giving public talks and attending large and small gatherings of writers.

Roripaugh continued to work in poetry and short fiction. He brought together a poetry collection, The Ranch (2001), which focuses on his experiences in the Wind River country, and he rounded out a short story collection, The Legend of Billy Jenks and Other Wyoming Stories, which contains stories published from 1953 to 2003.

In addition to his impressive publishing record, Roripaugh has received many national awards. On the national level, his short story “The Peach Boy” was published as a “first” in TheAtlantic Monthly in 1958, in the era when that magazine showcased first major publications by promising authors; his novel Honor Thy Father won the Western Heritage Award from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame as the Outstanding Western Novel of 1963; his short story “Winter Days Are Long” earned Pushcart prize recognition for 1980-1981; his scholarly article on Melville received an award from the Western Literature Association for 1982; and his poetry collection The Ranch was a finalist for the Western Writers of America Spur Award for Poetry in 2002.

Throughout his career, Roripaugh has been a steady and multifaceted writer. His work is distinguished by finely tuned voice and viewpoint, careful use of language, a reverence for landscape and natural detail and a commitment to equality and justice. He writes about everyday people and experiences, just as in his work as a professor and then as poet laureate he found satisfaction in encouraging students and writers.

Resources

Primary Sources

  • Roripaugh, Robert. A Fever for Living. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1961.
  • -----. Honor Thy Father. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1963.
  • -----. Learn to Love the Haze. Vermillion, S. D.: Spirit Mound Press, 1976.
  • -----. The Ranch: Wyoming Poetry. Laramie: University of Wyoming, 2001.
  • -----. The Legend of Billy Jenks and Other Wyoming Stories. Glendo, Wyo.: High Plains Press, 2007.

Secondary Sources

  • Nesbitt, John D. “Robert Roripaugh,” in Twentieth-Century Western Writers, 2d ed., ed. Geoff Sadler (Chicago and London: St. James Press, 1991), 594-95.
  • ----------. Robert Roripaugh. Boise, Idaho: Boise State University Western Writers Series, no. 161, 2004.
  • ----------. “Real Wyoming Stories,” Foreword to The Legend of Billy Jenks and Other Wyoming Stories, by Robert Roripaugh. Glendo, Wyo.: High Plains Press, 2007, pp. ix-xvii.
  • Roripaugh, Lee Ann. “Between Lariat and Laureate: An Interview with Robert Roripaugh,” South Dakota Review (Summer 2001): 94-102.

Illustrations

The photo is by Margaret Johnson. Used with thanks.

The Black 14: Race, Politics, Religion and Wyoming Football

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During the second period of the season-opening football game against Arizona on Sept. 20, 1969, a packed house at the University of Wyoming's War Memorial Stadium watched as Cowboys' split end Ron Hill, a sophomore from Denver, caught a pass and took it 24 yards into the end zone. It was Wyoming's first touchdown in the 100th anniversary year of college football.

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In the third quarter, Jay Berry—then called Jerry Berry—a sophomore safety from Tulsa, Okla., intercepted an Arizona pass on his own 12-yard line and returned it 88 yards for another touchdown.

But these football triumphs faded quickly from public memory when a controversy that fall linking sports, race, religion and protest politics swung the nation’s news spotlights to Laramie, Wyoming at a time when Americans were already deeply divided over civil rights and the Vietnam War. Controversy erupted over the expulsion of 14 African-American football players from the Cowboys’ varsity. They came to be known as the Black 14.

A Winning Team

The Cowboys opened the season by defeating Arizona, the Air Force Academy, Colorado State University and the University of Texas at El Paso, and were ranked 12th in the nation in the United Press International coaches poll as the players prepared for their next game against Brigham Young University. The UW team led the nation in rushing defense.

black142.jpgblack143.jpgUnder Head Coach Lloyd Eaton, Wyoming had won three consecutive Western Athletic Conference championships in the three previous years; had won 31 of the previous 36 games; defeated Florida State in the Sun Bowl and very nearly upset Louisiana State University in the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1, 1968, after going undefeated during the 1967 regular season.

The 51-year-old Eaton, a native of Belle Fourche, S.D. was at the peak of his career. On Oct. 11, 1969, the Madison, Capital Times reported that Wisconsin Athletic Director Elroy Hirsch was considering Eaton as a candidate for the Big Ten team's next coach.

But on Friday morning, Oct. 17, 1969, the day before the BYU game, Eaton summarily dismissed Hill, Berry and the 12 other African-American players on the UW team when they appeared at his office as a group wearing black armbands on their civilian clothes. BYU is owned and operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, better known as the Mormons. By wearing the armbands, the players were protesting the LDS policy then in force, which barred black men from the priesthood.

The coach's action deeply affected the players’ lives, and soon caused the demise of his own coaching career. The university, too, was profoundly affected.

A turbulent time

The controversy came at the end of the turbulent 1960s. The decade profoundly changed the nation but had apparently had less of an effect, so far, on conservative Wyoming. In 1968, the Tet Offensive had shown Americans no quick end was likely for the Vietnam War, a politically damaged Lyndon Johnson had declined to run for re-election, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated and protest spread wider and wider across campuses and capitals.

In October of that year, U.S. sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos indelibly linked sports to racial politics when, standing on the medalists’ platform at the Summer Olympics in Mexico City, they raised black-gloved fists as the Star-Spangled Banner played over the loudspeakers.

In the western United States, some college athletes learned of the Mormon Church’s policy of barring black men from the church’s lay priesthood and thus from leadership in the church. The students felt they could bring attention to what they saw as an injustice by protesting when their teams played Brigham Young University. BYU, located in Provo, Utah, is wholly owned and operated by the Mormon Church.

In November 1968, at San Jose State in California, black football players boycotted a home game against BYU, and only 2,800 fans “braved threats of disruption and demonstration” to come to the game, BYU’s football media guide noted the following year. In April, 1969, black track athletes at the University of Texas at El Paso were ejected from the team when they refused to participate in a meet at Provo. On Oct. 6, an Associated Press story in Wyoming newspapers reported that an Arizona State black student group had asked black students to boycott the Sun Devils' Western Athletic Conference game against BYU that week because of alleged discrimination against blacks at BYU.

Protest comes to Laramie

About a week before the UW-BYU game, slated to be played on UW home turf in Laramie, Willie Black, a 32-year-old math doctoral student with a wife and four children living in student housing, had learned of the Mormon policy. Black was chancellor of UW’s Black Students Alliance. On the Monday before the game, he informed alliance members, including the black football players, of what he had discovered. On Wednesday, he delivered a statement entitled "Why We Must Protest" to the UW president and athletic director. The document announced plans for a demonstration at the stadium before the BYU game.

black144.jpg"Our Humanity Demands: . . . That all people of good will--whatever their color--athletes included" protest this policy, the document noted. Further, it called on UW and all WAC schools to stop using "student monies and university facilities to play host to [BYU and] thereby, in part, sanction those inhuman and racist policies. . . ."

Also on Wednesday, Laramie townspeople and students took part in the Vietnam Moratorium, a nationally coordinated series of demonstrations and teach-ins. It was the largest set of antiwar protests the nation—and Laramie—had seen so far.

After practice on Thursday afternoon, Oct. 16, Coach Eaton warned Wyoming's tri-captain Joe Williams about the coach’s rule prohibiting participation by athletes in demonstrations. Williams conveyed this information to his fellow black players that night, and they decided to meet with Eaton to discuss the issue.

About 9:15 a.m. on Friday, the 14 black players gathered at Washakie Center in the dormitory complex. They donned black armbands and walked to Memorial Fieldhouse where Eaton had his office, hoping to persuade the coach to allow them to show some solidarity with the BSA call for a protest.

Seeing them together, wearing armbands, Eaton led them into the upper seating area of the fieldhouse and, according to the players, immediately told them that they were all off the team. After that, according to the wife of a faculty member who was walking on the fieldhouse floor below, the coach insulted the players in an angry manner, which further polarized the situation.

"It was pretty belligerent talk," Ann Marie Walthall recalled more than 20 years later in a documentary on the Black 14 produced by University of Wyoming Television. "I felt embarrassed for the young men hearing this tirade."

Eaton would later testify in federal court that he "told them that if the program at Wyoming was not satisfactory then perhaps they had better think about going to Morgan State or Grambling”—both traditional black colleges.

The players emptied their lockers and walked to the student union. They asked UW President William Carlson to arrange a meeting with Eaton at Old Main. In the afternoon, the players met with Carlson, Athletic Director Red Jacoby and student leaders, but Eaton did not appear.

That evening, the coaches and players met separately with the UW Board of Trustees and Wyoming GovernorStanley K. Hathaway during a special meeting lasting from 8 p.m. to 3:15 a.m. Saturday. At that late hour, the university issued a press release saying the trustees confirmed the dismissal of the 14 players. The players "will not play in today's game or any during the balance of the season,” the press release noted, and added: "The dismissals result from a violation of a football coaching rule Friday morning."

black145.jpgblack146.jpgAthletic Director Jacoby further noted in the release that "(a)mple notice was given to all members of the football team regarding rules and regulations of the squad, some of which cover a ban on participation in student demonstrations of any kind. Our football coaching staff has made it perfectly clear to all members of the team that groups, or factions, will not be tolerated and that team members will be treated as individuals.”

According to Jacoby, the staff had “no recourse” when the 14 players appeared as a group at the coach's office. “We had no choice but to drop them from the squad. It is unfortunate this happened, but an open defiance of a coaching staff regulation cannot be tolerated."

On Saturday, the Cowboys, suddenly an all-white team, defeated all-white BYU 40-7 while the 14 dismissed black players watched from the student section of the stands. Fans on both sides of the stadium chanted, "We love Eaton." After the game, Eaton said, "The victory was the most satisfying one I've ever had in coaching."

The players

Statistics published in the program for the game showed that the 14 African-American players had contributed substantially that year to the team's unbeaten status through the first four games. John Griffin, a junior college transfer from San Fernando, Calif., was the leading receiver; Ron Hill of Denver led in kickoff returns; and Joe Williams of Lufkin, Texas, and Tony Gibson were third and fourth, respectively, in rushing. Ted Williams, another transfer from Port Hueneme, Calif., relieved the injured Joe Williams (no relation) in the CSU game and rushed for 87 years to lead the Cowboys' ground attack.

Mel Hamilton, a junior and a former mayor of Boys Town, Neb., had moved into a starting position in the offensive line, and Gibson, a junior from Pittsfield, Mass., started at fullback in the UTEP game. Ivie Moore, a Pine Bluff, Ark., defensive back who transferred from a Kansas junior college, was listed as a starter for the BYU game.

Defensive end Tony McGee, a junior from Battle Creek, Mich., had keyed the Cowboys' thrilling come-from-behind win at the Air Force Academy by tackling the AFA quarterback for losses seven times.

Only one of the 14 was a senior at the time of their dismissal. Two—Mel Hamilton and Earl Lee—had already served in the U.S. Army. Half of them were under 21 years old.

The national spotlight

The dismissal of the 14 brought camera crews from the three big TV networks to Laramie, and articles appeared in newspapers and magazines throughout the nation. The Nov. 3, 1969, issue of Sports Illustrated carried an article whose photographs included one showing 10 of the dismissed players sitting on the south steps of the Wyoming Union. The Casper, Wyo. Quarterback Club, the Rock Springs Wyo. City Council and the University of Wyoming Alumni Association supported the coach.

Aside from some of the students, the Denver Post and the student newspaper at UW, one of the few expressions of concern for the dismissed players, ironically enough, was an unnamed source close to the BYU Board of Trustees quoted in the Oct. 24, 1969, issue of the Denver Post.

"It's most disturbing,” said the source, “to think that the Negro athletes at Wyoming could lose their education."

Aftermath

Early in 1969, the Wyoming Legislature had adopted a law allowing the UW student body president to sit as an ex-officio member of the Board of Trustees. This allowed ASUW President Hoke MacMillan to sit in on all of the board’s sessions that Friday night and early Saturday morning.

black147.jpgblack148.jpgIn response to the dismissals, the UW Student Senate, with MacMillan fully involved, adopted a resolution by a 15-3 vote alleging that “coach Eaton refused to grant a rational forum for discussion, choosing instead to degrade and arbitrarily dismiss each player....” The resolution said the ASUW Senate "expresses its shock at the callous, insensitive treatment afforded 14 Black athletes. . . .[T]he actions of coach Eaton and the Board of Trustees were not only uncompromising, but unjust and totally wrong."

On the Wednesday after the game, Eaton and Carlson appeared at an on-campus news conference to announce that the coach's rule prohibiting student athletes from participating in demonstrations was being amended to apply only while on the playing field. When Eaton was asked if the dismissal of the 14 would have happened if the now-modified rule had been in effect the previous week, he left the press conference, the Associated Press reported the next day. The UW student newspaper, the Branding Iron, published an editorial advocating reinstatement of the players because the no-demonstrating rule had now been withdrawn.

English professor Ken Craven stated at the October 19 faculty meeting that he would resign if the players were not reinstated. Some of the other UW faculty members supported the coach, however.

During the week after the BYU game, four black trackmen—Huey Johnson and Grady Manning of Chicago, Mike Frazier of Pueblo, Colo., and Jerry Miller of Battle Creek, Mich.—quit the team and left UW in protest of the football players’ dismissals. Two of them had been conference champions in their main events the previous year.

The Cowboys finished their home slate with a victory over San Jose State a week after the BYU game. A plane pulling a banner proclaiming, "Yea Eaton," flew over the stadium, and the crowd responded with a roar and a standing ovation. Many wore "Eaton" armbands. All of the SJS players wore either black or multi-colored armbands.

A Casper Star-Tribune article on October 21 reported that Casper businessman Dode Gerdom "has started a fund drive to provide moving expenses for Ken Craven or any other faculty member" who opposed Eaton's action. "We don't care if Wyoming wins another game--we stand behind the coach," Gerdom said.

Eaton and numerous others at UW claimed that the athletes were pawns of outside agitators. But on October 24, the Associated Press reported that UW President William Carlson said those charges were unfounded. "I'm convinced their decision was on an individual basis,” Carlson said. “The BSA has acted in a most responsible manner."

On Oct. 30, 1969, the faculty of the UW College of, Arts and Sciences—the university’s largest—voted 114-38 to pass a resolution charging that "fourteen black athletes have been given deep human injury and have been dismissed without a trace of due process by Coach Lloyd Eaton. . . .[T]his faculty believes that the action. . .was unjust, unconstitutional, and unwise, bringing the entire University into disrepute."

On Nov. 12, 1969, Stanford University President Kenneth Pitzer, acting on recommendations from the campus Human Relations Committee, declared he "today barred any new commitments to intercollegiate competition with institutions sponsored by the Mormon Church." The statement said church officials had confirmed that black men could not become priests. Pitzer’s statement also quoted a New York Times article saying that BYU had only three black students among an enrollment of 25,000.

On Nov. 25, the Cheyenne Quarterback Club held "Cowboy Night" at the Little America hotel, and a large crowd was on hand to honor Lloyd Eaton, his staff and his seniors. One of the “special guests” – according to an article in a Cheyenne newspaper -- was U.S. District Judge Ewing T. Kerr who was at that point presiding over a civil rights lawsuit brought by the 14 players against the state and the university.

Sorting it out in federal court

The week after the athletes’ dismissal, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People sent a Detroit attorney, William Waterman, to Wyoming to file the federal lawsuit seeking an injunction ordering the reinstatement of the players and asking for damages for violation of their civil rights.

Judge Kerr in Cheyenne denied the injunction, and five months later threw the case out of court after a hearing, but without a trial. The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision on May 14, 1971, but, after a trial this time, Kerr again ruled for the state on Oct. 18, 1971. The appeals court eventually affirmed him.

Kerr had been admitted to the Wyoming bar in 1927, and served as a federal prosecutor and state attorney general before being appointed to the federal bench in 1955. During the hearing before his first dismissal, Kerr rejected the assertion by Weston Reeves, a Cheyenne attorney representing the Black 14, that the issue of race ran through the case.

"From my observation of almost half a century in Wyoming,” Kerr said at the hearing, “I have never known of any prejudice against any race in the state of Wyoming and I think the fact that the coach went out and solicited and gave scholarships to a large number of colored people is strong evidence that he was not prejudiced against any race." This prompted the NAACP in Cheyenne to point out that Cheyenne newspapers very recently had printed an article saying that the Wyoming Labor Commission had ruled that a black teacher had been discriminated against by the Rock River, Wyo. School Board.

The athletes’ accounts

When the case came before Kerr a second time, there was a trial in federal court in Cheyenne on Sept. 27, 1971.

Mel Hamilton, one of the 14, testified that he never told trustees he would not play against BYU without an armband. "Eaton agreed to speak with them [the players] at their request,” Hamilton said, “but then told them: 'Gentlemen, you can save time and breath. As of now you're off the football team.'"

Tony Gibson, another of the 14, told Ryan Thorburn, author of Black 14:The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of Wyoming Football, in a 2009 interview, "Students on the campus were planning a demonstration against the Mormon policies and we voted that we would take part in that demonstration. And our part was wearing black armbands, if coach Eaton would let us. If Eaton didn't let us, we would just play the game. That's the part that was never brought out enough after the fact."

In interviews the week after the BYU game, Eaton claimed he had given the players ten minutes to speak. But in interviews in national magazines the following November, Joe Williams denied it. "Like hell he gave us ten minutes” Williams told Sports Illustrated. “He came in, sneered at us and yelled that we were off the squad." In Jet, Williams was similarly quoted saying Eaton booted the players "before we had a chance to talk."

In an interview reported in the Laramie Boomerang on Sunday October 19th, Joe Williams stated: “We just wanted to discuss this in an intelligent manner. We wanted to play this game no matter what. We hadn't even decided to ask permission to wear the armbands during the game. … If only he had listened.”

Player Jay Berry said he joined the group not because of Mormon beliefs and policies, but because he had heard that Wyoming's black players had been mistreated at Provo the previous season. "We wanted to play BYU in the worst kind of way," he said, and he saw the visit to Eaton as "a starting point for negotiations." But Eaton, Berry said, "opened his statements to us by saying ‘were it not for him we would all be on Negro relief.’"

Eaton acknowledged at the Cheyenne hearing in 1971 that there was no discussion. He said, "They had already violated our coaching rule. There was no purpose in talking."

Reversal of fortunes

The events had a devastating effect on Wyoming football. After six games, UW was still unbeaten and still rated among the top 15 in the national polls. Many fans were convinced the Cowboys could continue their winning ways without any African-American players.

But protests against Eaton’s actions followed the Cowboys on the road, and they lost the last four games of the 1969 season by lopsided scores.

The 1970 team lost all of its home games and all but the CSU game on the road, finishing with one win and nine losses--the worst record since the no-wins one-tie season in 1939, and the first time UW lost all its home games since 1931. It was the Cowboys' first losing season since 1948. And future prospects looked dim because the 1970 freshman team had a winless season. Support for Eaton evaporated.

During the first week after the 1970 season ended, Wyoming sports pages included columns quoting Eaton on his plans to step up recruiting across the country, particularly from the junior college ranks. But on Dec. 6, 1970, Lloyd Eaton's coaching career came to an abrupt end.

In a press conference after their meeting, the UW Board of Trustees announced that Eaton was "retiring" from active coaching and would become an assistant athletic director whose duties were still undetermined. Eaton said the decision to retire had been made two years earlier, after the Sugar Bowl game. Defensive line coach Leonard F. (Fritz) Shurmur, 38, was appointed to replace Eaton. In 1971 Eaton left UW and held administrative and scouting positions in pro football, including a stint as Director of Player Personnel for the Green Bay Packers.

But the negative publicity affected Wyoming’s football program for years. Following the dismissal of the 14, the Cowboys lost 26 of their next 38 games through 1972. They had only one winning season during the 1970s. Paul Roach, one of Eaton's assistant coaches in 1969 returned to Wyoming as athletic director in the mid-1980s, and in 1987 also took on the head football coaching duties. His 1987 and 1988 teams went 21-5 and played in the Holiday Bowl both years.

Eaton died in Idaho in 2007.

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The players in later life

Tony McGee became a dominant player in the NFL, starting in a Super Bowl for the Redskins. For many years McGee has hosted a sports television talk show in Washington D.C. Joe Williams also earned a Super Bowl ring with the Dallas Cowboys and then developed his own investment consulting business.

Several of the Black 14 managed to obtain college degrees. Mel Hamilton graduated from UW and has had a long career as a public school teacher and administrator in Casper. Guillermo Hysaw, originally from Bakersfield, Calif., and Lionel Grimes from Alliance, Ohio, became employment diversity executives with Ford and Toyota. Jay Berry—“Jerry Berry”--became a sports anchor for television stations in Tulsa, Chicago and Detroit and was named by Associated Press as the top sports broadcaster in Texas in 1977

black1410.jpgTony Gibson retired in 2011 after working nearly 38 years as a lineman for a Massachusetts power company during which time he responded to mass outages in Puerto Rico, Canada, Florida and several other states. Ted Williams has worked that long as a foreman at a specialized paint manufacturing company in Illinois. Ron Hill became a physical education teacher in Colorado. John Griffin has worked for the YMCA in Denver, for a hazardous waste abatement firm and as a manager for Sports Authority in Denver. Ivie Moore has worked as a floor subcontractor in his native Arkansas.

James Isaac died in San Bernardino, Calif. in 1976 after a dispute with his wife; Don Meadows died in 2009 and Earl Lee in 2013. Lee had a distinguished career as a teacher, coach and principal in the Baltimore area. Isaac, an all-sports star for Hanna-Elk Mountain High School in Wyoming, played football and ran track for, and graduated from, Dakota Wesleyan University in South Dakota. Don Meadows had a restaurant business in Denver.

In the records section of the 2013 University of Wyoming Cowboys' Football Media Guide, the name Jerry Berry appears with two other players who are tied for most interceptions returned for touchdowns in a season, and with three others for most returns for touchdowns in a career.

Berry's entire career at UW consisted of the first four games of the 1969 season. After his 88-yard return against Arizona he carried another interception 24 yards for a touchdown in the CSU game two weeks later.

Epilogue

A Salt Lake Tribune article published Nov. 6, 2009, relates that the Black 14 incident quickly provoked changes at BYU, according to Tom Hudspeth, BYU head coach in 1969. Hudspeth was quoted as saying that he “cannot remember the exact date or how he was 'made aware' that LDS Church leadership wanted him to add African-Americans to his team, and fast. The following year, BYU's team included Ronnie Knight, a black defensive back from Sand Springs, Okla."

On June 9, 1978, the First Presidency of the Mormon Church, composed of President and Prophet Spencer Kimball and Counselors N. Eldon Tanner and Marion G. Romney, announced that a divine revelation had been received to open the Mormon priesthood to African-Americans, ending the longstanding tenet.

An AP article datelined Salt Lake City said the change came after many hours of "supplicating the Lord for divine guidance." According to the article, this was the most significant change in church doctrine since polygamy was discontinued in 1890. Church spokesman Jerry Cahill was quoted in the article as saying, "It's a momentous day, a great day we've lived through today."

Earlier that year, the LDS church had announced plans to build a new temple in Sao Paolo, Brazil—a very mixed-race place.

On May 9, 1982, the Denver Post published an extensive retrospective about the Black 14 incident, including the only interview Eaton gave after he left UW. "Divorced, Lloyd Eaton now lives a bachelor's life in a small home in Kuna, Idaho, where he refuses to have a phone," the article said. Eaton declared that he had never regretted what happened and that he would do the same thing again if given a second chance.

In an interview in 2009, Tony McGee said, "When it was over, I had more hurt feelings from how the Wyoming people reacted and the way I was treated than the whole thing with BYU."

Since the turn of the 21st century the University of Wyoming football team has had upwards of 25 African-Americans on its roster nearly every season. The 2016 roster includes about 40 African-Americans.

Resources

Primary Sources

  • Ashworth, William. "Inside Story of Fired Black Athletes", Jet (magazine), 37 no. 6, (Nov. 11, 1969), 62-69.
  • Associated Press. "BYU's Racial Policy Is Under Fire Again,"Riverton Ranger. Oct. 6, 1969.
  • Associated Press. "Demonstration Rule is Relaxed,"Riverton Ranger, Oct. 23, 1969, 1.
  • Associated Press. "Mormons Will Welcome Blacks,"Paris (Texas) News, June 11, 1978, 26.
  • Berry, Jay. Personal interview with author, Sept. 27, 2010.
  • "Brigham Young versus Wyoming," Oct. 18, 1969 game program, University of Wyoming Athletic Department Files.
  • Black Fourteen Collection, 1969-70, University of Wyoming American Heritage Center.
  • Branding Iron, (UW student newspaper) Oct. 17 1969; Oct. 23, 1969; Oct. 31, 1969.
  • Casper Star-Tribune, Oct. 21, 1969, 7.
  • Denver Post Empire Magazine, Nov. 2, 1969, 31.
  • Drew, Jay. "BYU Football: Remembering the Black 14 Protest,"Salt Lake Tribune, Nov. 6, 2009.
  • Fetsco, Pete. "Negro Athletes Out for Failure to Abide by Athletic Department Rules,"Laramie Daily Boomerang, Oct. 19, 1969, 1.
  • Madison (Wis.) Capital Times, Oct. 11, 1969.
  • Putnam, Pat. "No Defeats, Loads of Trouble."Sports Illustrated, Nov. 3, 1969, 26.
  • Racine (Wis.) Journal Times, Oct. 12, 1969.
  • Reilly, Rick, “Eaton Has No Regrets, Says He'd Do It Again”, Denver Post, May 9, 1982, 6E.
  • Riverton Ranger, Oct. 24, 1969.
  • United Press International. "'Revelation' Lets Blacks into Mormon Priesthood,"Salina (Kan.) Journal, June 9, 1978, 22.
  • University of Wyoming Press Release, Oct. 18, 1969, University of Wyoming, American Heritage Center, Irene L. Kuttunen Schubert Black 14 Collection, Accession Number 10405, Box 2, Folder 8.
  • "Eaton Here to Testify At 'Black 14' Hearing,"Wyoming State Tribune, Sept. 28, 1971, 1,11.
  • “Which Comes First in Wyoming,” editorial, Denver Post, October 21, 1969, p. 4.
  • Williams v. Eaton, 310 F.Supp. 1342 (D. Wyo. 1970), rev'd, 443 F.2d 422 (10th Cir. 1971), on remand, 333 F.Supp. 107 (D. Wyo. 1971), aff'd 468 F.2d 1079 (10th Cir. 1972).
  • 2013 Wyoming Football Media Guide, accessed Sept. 11, 2013 at http://www.gowyo.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/2013-14-media-guide.html.

Secondary Sources

  • Bullock, Clifford A., "Fired by Conscience." In Readings in Wyoming History. Laramie, Wyo.: Skyline West Press, 2000.
  • Demas, Lane. Integrating the Gridiron: Black Civil Rights and American College Football. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2010, 102-174.
  • McElreath, Michael. The Black 14. Laramie, Wyo.: University of Wyoming Television, 1997. DVD.
  • Olsen, Jack. The Black Athlete: A Shameful Story. New York: Time-Life Books, 1968, 109.
  • Thorburn, Ryan. Black 14: The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of Wyoming Football. Boulder, Colo.: Burning Daylight, Pearn and Associates, 2009.

For Further Reading and Research

Keeler, Susan. “’We were villains:’ how Wyoming’s Black 14 blazed the way for Missouri protests.” The Guardian, Nov. 11, 2015. Accessed July 13, 2016 at https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/nov/11/we-were-villains-how-wyomings-black-14-blazed-the-trail-for-missouri-protests

Illustrations

  • The 1969 team photo of the Wyoming Cowboys football team is from the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming. Used with thanks.
  • The photo of 10 of the Black 14 players on the steps of the Wyoming Union was originally published in Sports Illustrated. Used with thanks.
  • The photo of Coach Lloyd Eaton is from the University of Wyoming photo service. Used with permission and thanks.
  • The two photos of protesters are from the Branding Iron Collection at the American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming. Used with permission and thanks.
  • The images of the Eaton bumper sticker and the Black Student Alliance’s call for protest are from the Irene Schubert Collection, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming. Used with permission and thanks.
  • The 2009 image of John Griffin tying an armband on Mel Hamilton is from the Laramie Boomerang, photo by Andy Carpanean. Used with permission and thanks.
  • The image of the trustees’ late-night press release in the Irene Schubert collection at the American Heritage Center is from a scan by the author. Used with permission and thanks.
  • The photo of the bronze Black 14 memorial statue is by Tom Rea.

Former University of Wyoming Football Player Mel Hamilton on his life and the Black 14

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Oral History Conducted Aug. 27, 2013

Interviewed by Phil White

At the Casper College Western History Center

Casper, Wyo.

In October 1969, University of Wyoming Head Coach Lloyd Eaton dismissed 14 black football players from his team when they donned black armbands to protest certain policies of Brigham Young University and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormons. The incident stirred controversy in Wyoming and throughout the nation, and the players became known as the Black 14. Here, player Mel Hamilton shares his recollections with interviewer Phil White, who was a UW student in 1969 and editor of the student newspaper, The Branding Iron.

Transcription notes: Some reference footnotes have been added to this transcript where appropriate. In most cases, redundant ands, ers, uhs, buts, false starts, etc., have been deleted. If an entire phrase was deleted, ellipses were inserted . . . Where you find brackets [] words were added for explanation or to complete an awkward sentence. Parentheses ( ) are used for  incidental non-verbal sounds, like laughter. Words emphasized by the speaker are italicized.
~Transcribed by CCWHC and further edited by WyoHistory.org September 2013

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Phil White: Ok, there it says record. Ok. They both say record.

Mel Hamilton: K.

Phil: I am Phil White from Laramie [Wyo.]. P-H-I-L W-H-I-T-E. And I’m here with Mel Hamilton, M-E-L H-A-M-I-L-T-O-N at the Western History Center at Casper College. It’s August 27th, 2013, Mel, do we have your permission to record this and put it on the web?

Mel: Yes, you do.

Phil: We’re being helped here by Vince Crolla of Casper College and Tom Rea of Wyohistory.org. Today is the--or tomorrow is--the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington. So we’re here talking with Mel Hamilton about one of the most important events in University of Wyoming history, and perhaps Wyoming history, the Black 14 in 1969. Mel, Mel has a unique perception of this because he originally came to UW to play football in the fall of ‘65, he was then on the starting lineup in 1966 of a team that went nine and one and defeated Florida State in the Sun Bowl. After that, he had a disagreement with the coach and he joined the [U.S.] Army, even though this was the primary period for the Vietnam War.

Mel: Right, yeah.

Phil: He then, when he completed his service in the Army, he returned to the University of Wyoming and again became a starter on the football team for four games when the coach, Coach Eaton, threw the black players off the team. So we wanted to get an oral history from Mel about his life and interactions in Wyoming. I wondered Mel, umm, at the time of Martin Luther King’s march on Washington, you were 16 years old and what do you call about that at the time?

Mel: Well I was in Boys Town, Nebraska [the famous orphanage, founded by Father Edward Flanagan in 1917], at 16. I remember, in our history classes, the priest talking about the Civil Rights Movement. I ever, I was in a period of my life, I was taken away from the black community by going to Boys Town, so I--I didn’t have--I had missed two years of that indoctrination, so I--I didn’t have anything to compare the march to because I was in Boys Town learning a whole new different way of life. And so, it wasn’t that important to me at that time, but as I grew up, obviously it became a very important part of black history and I took more interest in it when I grew up. As a kid, I had no--no interest in the march.

Phil: Now you were born in ’47, in South Carolina, Charleston.

Mel: Charleston, South Carolina.

Phil: What was your dad doing at the time there?

Mel: My father worked for the naval yard, and we--there’s some discrepancy in the family history what he was doing at the Navy yard. Someone said that he was a rigger, and I didn’t know what that was, so I looked it up. And it--it was a person who organized the docks and told people where to go and how to do and so forth. And--and then my dad, I always remember him saying, when I was a child, that he was a machinist. He said, “I’m a highly skilled machinist.” I’ll never forget the way he said it. And--then I heard that he got in a fight with the commander and, in his eyes, was forced to resign. And so he resigned from the shipyard and took the family to what he thought was Wilmington, Delaware, and then woke up and found himself in Wilmington, North Carolina. So instead of growing up a Yankee, I grew up a Southerner in North Carolina, in Wilmington and I remember as a child, we lived in a place called Tank Town when we got to North Carolina, a place called Tank Town. And Tank Town was an abandoned oil-120-years" class="alinks-link" title="wyoming oil refinery">oil refinery, and my dad was successful in getting a storefront building. Used to be a grocery store I think, and we moved in. And that was my beginning in North Carolina.

Phil: What about your schooling there at--the… .

Mel: My mom--well my dad was always a [Roman] Catholic, he came from Mississippi, Natchez, Mississippi. And my mom was a Methodist, and when she married my dad, she converted to Catholicism. And so, being a very devout Catholic, I mean extremely devout, she made sure we were brought up in a religious manner. Made sure that we carried ourselves in a Christian manner and she would drag us to church with her, she went every morning, including Sundays obviously. But, every morning, and drag us with her sometimes. We grew up--I grew up going to Catholic schools. I went from kindergarten through 8th at St. Thomas in Wilmington. St. Thomas was an all-black church; however the priests were white, and I always thought that was kind of different as a child. But I was an altar boy growing up. I at one time thought about, and I think many Catholic boys who are altar boys grow up thinking, that they would someday be a priest. And I thought that someday, I would be a priest. And I say that just to give a groundwork on my demeanor growing up. Very passive, very high achiever, overachiever in most cases. Just trying to do the Lord’s work. I did that until about the age of 13, and at that time, puberty sets in, my mind starts to wonder, I started hanging around with guys drinking wine, smoking, shoplifting and that kind of stuff. And so, my mom said, “No way that’s gonna happen.” And she and my priest, who is--who was Father Swift, S-W-I-F-T, and umm--they worked behind my back to get me accepted into Boys Town. And surely enough the day--the day before I was supposed to go, I was told I was going to Boys Town. And my mom hid it from me ’cause she knew I’d probably try to do something stupid, to run away or something. But it was a gut-wrenching experience at that age, 14, being stolen away, ripped away, from your family. So I went--I went to Boys Town.

Phil: What was the composition in there and how many students?

Mel: There was a thousand students, 500 on the elementary side and 500 on the high school side. There were boys from all over the world--Germany, France, Brazil. All over the world, and very--I think the racial composition was about 80-85 percent white, 10 percent black, and then a mixture of many races--Chinese, I don’t know if we had any Vietnamese, but Chinese, Japanese and so forth. So that was quite an experience for me, because you’re coming from segregated South, where I couldn’t go to the school that was situated literally a block from my house, and then went to Boys Town, where brotherly love, you are your brother’s keeper, all that was taught. I mean taught very earnestly and we lived it every day, we lived it, we took care of each other, we disciplined each other. Boys Town really was ran by the boys at that time. The commissioners and councilmen and so forth. And so we lived that philosophy that we would take care of one another.

I ended up leaving Boys Town with that belief, that--that indeed I’m here to take care of Phil White, to take care of Tom Rea, to take anyone who needs my help. So that’s the demeanor that I left Boys Town with. And it was a blessing, and then it was a curse at the same time, because once I got back into the world, I left Boys Town and went to Laramie [Wyo.]. Once I got to Laramie, I saw that I wasn’t a--I wasn’t received quite good enough, I wasn’t received properly. And I mean by that is, I was stared upon, I was uh--I was

double-guessed all the time as whether I was going to steal something or whether I was going to be just a great-good patron. So yeah, it created a lot of stress in me, a lot of questioning--doubt as whether or not Boys Town taught me the right thing because people weren’t treating me like I was treating them. And uh--it was a tough situation.

Phil: What about your sports at Boys Town and your participation in that government convention?

Mel: It’s a funny story, um, when I was at--North Carolina, going to school, there was no sports. So I had not played sports at all--not organized sports. Of course, we’d have pick-up baseball games in the field and so forth. But there was no organized sport at--when I grew up. So I went to Boys Town and everybody is expected to do something during the summers. You just couldn’t wait around the house and do nothing. Well, I was going to lay around the house and do nothing because I was a loner and didn’t mind being around people, but I preferred to do things on my own. So that’s the approach that I took when I went to Boys Town. Consequently, I got in a lot of fights because a lot of people thought I was stuck up. So I just hung around myself, go and do some adventures and look around Boys Town.

And finally, one of the counselors came to me and said, “Mel, in Boys Town, you gotta do something. You know, you either have to work on farm, or go out for sports, or do something.” And I said, “Well, I don’t want to do that.” And Coach Spencer was freshman football coach at that time and he had heard about me, and someone must have told him that they thought I’d make a fairly decent football player. And he came to the ca--the cottage--we called them cottages--and um--he said, “I would like for you to come try out for the football team.” I said, “I don’t want to do it.” I said, “I’m content doing what I’m doing.” And he finally left and said, “Well, I don’t think you’re tough enough.” And what did he say that for? What did he say that for? He knew exactly what he was doing. I said, “I could beat anybody you got up there.” I said, “I haven’t seen them, but I could beat anybody you got up there.”

Sure enough, I sort of took my time and walked up to where they were practicing, practicing football and just watching from the sideline. Coach Spencer came over and said, “Oh, I see that you want to give it a try?” And I said, “Ah, yeah, I’ll give it a try.” And that’s how I got into sports. Didn’t want to. Didn’t know I could play football. I didn’t know anything that I could do as-you know-organized-wise.

Turned out that I played the game pretty well. And the rest is history there. But there was a governmental system in Boys Town. When I said that Boys Town was ran by the boys, it truly was in those days. We started out with the councilmen, and the councilmen took care of the house and 25 boys. Each house had 25 boys. He would represent those boys to the commissioners, and commissioners would take it to the mayor. I became the councilman of cottage 32, no excuse me, cottage 35. Then became commissioner of the whole choir section and ran for mayor on my senior year and became mayor. So that was my beginning of my political participation. Up to that point, I was very laid back, stayed to myself. If someone was in trouble, I would help them, but I didn’t--I didn’t put myself out front.

Phil: And you also went out for other sports?

Mel: Yeah, went out for wrestling and track and went to state on my wrestling ability. I’ve got real short arms, so the takedown was very easy for me--for them on me. And so, once I got on the bottom, my short arms, they--they had me. But I did pretty well, I can’t--I can’t knock my wrestling, I did pretty well, I did go to state. Didn’t win, matter of fact, I don’t think I even placed at state. But then I went out for track and threw the shot put and the disk and went to state tournament on my shot put, my best was 56 and 3 and 4 quarters, I mean 3 and 3 quarters. And that--that was pretty good in those days. My son beat it when he was in high school. He threw 60, and so that was his mark, all his track career, was to beat Dad. And those were--well I majored in--I lettered in all three, three years in a row, so yeah.

Phil: And how did you, how did it come about that you came further west?

Mel: Well, in those days, and I don’t know if now it’s the same procedure, but the councilmen and the counselors, adults and the director received all your mail. When you go to Boys Town, your parents have to sign their rights to Boys Town in order to make decisions on your behalf. So I was in the custody of Boys Town, they read my letters to see which ones I should receive and which one I should not receive.

They gave me letters from Cornell, Northwestern and Eastern Michigan and so those are the only three scholarships I knew I was being offered. Other people said that they had a scholarship that they never received. So I don’t know if I received more than--than those or not. But those three I did receive and was considering going to Cornell, and was going to go to Cornell, until my best friend, Ken Gilchrist, he got a scholarship from Wyoming. And that was the only scholarship he got, even though he was an All-American center. All-American in the country. And he didn’t get as many as I got.

So he said—well, he didn’t say, Father Wagner said that, and Father Wagner was the director of Boys Town at that time, said that, “You know, Kenny won’t go unless you go,” because we were so close. Wherever I went, you could bet that Kenny was around or vice versa. We just--matter of fact, one of the Omaha Heralds I think, one of the Omaha papers [possibly Omaha World-Herald]said that we were the “Gold Dust Twins” on the football diamond--football field. And truly we were twins, we did everything together.

And so Father Wagner told me, he said, “You know, it’s sometimes better to be”--in reference of me going to Cornell or Wyoming, even though Wyoming didn’t offer me a scholarship--he said, “You know, sometimes it’s best to be a big fish in a small pond,” thinking Wyoming was much smaller than Cornell. So I said, “I’ll give it a try.” Again, you know, this altar boy will do anything that authority told him to do, and so I took that advice and went with--came to Wyoming with Ken.

Phil: And Boys Town helped with your… .

Mel: Yes, Boys Town. I walked on and Boys Town paid my tuition and upkeep for that first semester and then I won a scholarship, and they let me go after that, and I was on my own after that.

Phil: And then, what do you recall about the players that you came in contact with at Laramie and that one year on the varsity, ’66. How was that experience?

Mel: The black players or all players?

Phil: All, whoever you want to.

Mel: Yeah, I, you know, I came with close with [athlete] Byra [Kite], I--and that’s because Byra and I were competing for the same spot. He was just as good as I was. And we just battled and battled and nobody would move anybody, and finally Coach Baker said, “I’m gonna move Byra, I’m gonna move you to the other side.” And that’s how that was solved. And then Dave Rupp was a junior—no, he was a sophomore--when I was a freshman, and Dave Rupp, matter of fact I just emailed him last night. We--we stay close on the Internet, and he’s a good friend of mine. He left Wyoming, graduated from Wyoming, went to Sheridan [Wyo.] and worked in a coal mine as a supervisor. And now he’s in Florida and so we stay very close together. And basically, Gene Huey--who gave me my nickname by the way--and I became friends. And I--I’m the type of person, I can be friends with anyone, and I think I was friends with most of the Black 14.

However, I did not socialize with anyone, black or white. Allen, umm, probably the closest person I socialized with was Allen Gardzelewski, and he’s a lawyer in your town [Laramie]. And he came back from the Army and maybe that was the connection. We were both veterans. He, without a doubt, was my closest friend. And he majored in philosophy, got his law degree from the University of Wyoming.

But I’ve always been a low-key, never wanted to be out front, but as fate would have it, I was always, after the 14, I was always pushed into the front to do something. And I think that’s why a lot of people today think that I was the leader of the Black 14--is because I was always put in a position where I had to step up, and I wasn’t gonna not step up. You know, I was--I told the superintendent [of schools in Natrona County, Wyo.] that I was having difficulty with--in my career. I said, “You know, I just got finished talking to uh…” who was the guy that ran for governor? Bebout. [Wyoming State Senator Eli Bebout, Fremont County, Republican gubernatorial nominee in 2002]

I said, I just got finished talking to Bebout and he and I was talking about me having to fight wherever I go and I said, “I told him what I’m gonna tell you,” you know I’m talking to the superintendent, “I’m gonna tell you, Mr. Superintendent, what I told Mr. Bebout, “I do not ever start a fight. I do not ever start a fight. But I will finish a fight.” And I tried to get that message saying, “Please leave me alone. You know, if you want a fight, I’ll give you a fight. But if you don’t, just leave me alone, and I won’t--I won’t cause any trouble.” And that’s the way I live my life, and unfortunately, there are things that happen that you have to step up.

Phil: Now what happened to Ken Gilchrist?

Mel: Gilchrist! Everybody called him Cookie Gilchrist because of the Gilchrist that played for Buffalo, was it? I think he--yeah, he was an All-American high school, All-American center. He was a shot put- and discus-thrower in track, and he also was a wrestler. He wrestled one weight lower than myself. I’m trying to get the sequence because when I went as a freshman to Wyoming, he was supposed to go. He stayed in Omaha. I went on to Wyoming. I was very distraught because this was the first time this guy and I had been away from each other for four years, the prior four years. So I went to Wyoming on my own.

Later on in the season, he came--I heard a knock on my dorm door, and it was Coach Baker and Gilchrist standing at the door. So we were back together again that first year. Then, Ken stayed about six months, and he had been in the Boys Town since 1956 to 1965, a long time to be at Boys Town and being away from society.…So he was a wreck, a mess. I think that’s why he took to me, because I was someone who--who showed him some interest and stayed with him. To this day, he calls me almost twice a month. But he did not stay in Laramie because of the atmosphere in Laramie and the atmosphere on campus towards blacks. And then he saw also that everybody was against blacks dating whites, and he didn’t like that. And I think he just--his mentality wouldn’t allow him to fight those kind of discriminations without striking back. I mean physically striking back, so he left. He left.

Phil: He played one year on the freshman…

Mel: He played on year on the freshman team.

Phil: He was pretty good?

Mel: Yeah, and he and I were so good on the freshman team that the coaches—varsity coaches--would call us up to help spar against their varsity team. And we did and…we were going through those guys as freshmen; we were just tearing their offense up. That’s how I won my scholarship, I’m sure. And that’s how we got notarized, and it’s too bad that Ken couldn’t put up with the atmosphere and the discrimination. You know, yeah, I saw it as well. But I said, “You know, I’m just gonna do the best I can and hang in there.” Because if it wasn’t for my mom, I don’t know if I would have hung in there, ‘cause she always wanted me to graduate. And if it wasn’t for that, I think I would have left with Ken. And he went to Vietnam, and got all shot up.

Phil: Oh, he did?

Mel: Yeah, and came back, and I don’t think he returned to Wyoming after that. The last--next time I saw him was about 20 years later. He found me in Casper; he was in San Francisco. He gave me a call and said, “Man, I’ve got to make a change.” He was on dope and alcoholic, but yeah, he was on San Mateo police department. He said, “I need a change,” and I said, “Come on down” or “come on up.” He brought his wife with him, and he lived with us for a while ’til they got their own place. He later became a parole agent for the state of Wyoming and retired after 20 years, and now he is in Akron, Ohio. Retired.

Phil: And he--so his career was in Casper?

Mel: His--yes, his career was in Casper. Yeah. So yeah, Kenny was a big part of my life, and really, still is. But he was the only person I associated with. And I--and I don’t mean I didn’t associate with other people, that’s not a bad thing, it’s not in a bad way. It’s just that when I was around him, we got along, we laughed, we told jokes, we were friendly, but after practice, I went my way and they went their way. So, you know, I never, I never ran with them, I guess is the correct way to say it. Yeah.

Phil: Now, something happened after the ’66 season that caused you to… leave Laramie.

Mel: I think… I’m gonna be honest, I think, I think that incident before I went into the military was actually the beginning of the Black 14. I really do. So I guess what I’m saying is: That incident formed my opinion about Coach Eaton that I took with me to the Army and came back two years later in 1969 with--that tainted picture of who he was--and I didn’t like. And at the BSA [Black Students Alliance] meeting where we formed the Black 14, not intentionally, I let that anger out at that meeting and said, “Here is what he did to me.”

So in 1966, the pre-14, if you call it that, when I wanted to marry Kathy Kinne because she was pregnant with my child and I went [to] Red Jacoby, [Glenn “Red” Jacoby, UW athletic director 1946-1973] who was the athletic director--keep in mind the athletic director’s in charge of all coaches--and he told me--I went to him and said I wanted to get okay for married student housing, because I was going to marry this girl. He knew she was white. He said “Mel, that’d be fine, fine, why don’t you go tell Lloyd [Coach Lloyd Eaton] to write the papers up.”

And as I was going into the Field House and Coach Eaton was coming down, we met on the steps and I said, “Just the man I’m looking for, here’s what Mr. Jacoby said, I need for you to write up the papers.” [He said,] “No way, Mel. That’s not gonna happen.” I said, “What do you mean?” [And he said,] “I can’t let you marry this girl on Wyoming’s money. The people of Wyoming’s money.” He said, “Especially the people of Casper, they won’t allow me to let you do this.”

I didn’t know where Casper was; I didn’t know why he mentioned Casper until 30 years later. My wife works for First--well worked for--Hilltop National Bank. The owner of Hilltop National Bank is Dave True. The big oilman. I happened to look on my diploma and whose name is on the diploma, as chairman of the Board of Charities for the University of Wyoming, Dave True. That was the only connection. And I thought about the years, why did he say Casper. I thought, man, that gave me the picture that Casper was the most racist place in the world and why would I want to live in Casper? And 20 years later I found out that Dave True was chairman and he signed--his signature was on my degree.

So what Lloyd was telling me in ’66 was that the chairman would be very upset if I allowed that to happen. And anyway, it didn’t happen. My girl, at the time right after that, before I went in the Army, we were staying together, in Laramie, off-campus, and she gets a call. I’m mad and I’m fuming, pouting and carrying on. And she gets this call that her mom and dad were both killed at the same time. Her parents owned the Elephant Head Lodge in--is there a place called Wapiti? Is there a place called Wapiti?

Phil: There is, a Wapiti, Wyoming.

Mel: Wapiti, Wyoming. And he was--they were riding the horses and trying to cross some river. She got into trouble, the wife got into trouble, he turned back around in mid-stream and they both were killed. He was trying to save his wife and they both were killed. So you can imagine what that was would do [to] a twenty-two/twenty-three year-old person’s mind. So we-we--she went her way, and I went my way. And the rest of the story, she had my oldest child, my first child. Her name was Kimberly. And I went into the Army, of course.

Phil: What were your experiences there?

Mel: In the Army? I was a radio communications specialist. I went from E1 to sergeant. Actually, equivalent is sergeant, but they don’t call specialists sergeant. They just call [it] a specialist 5. I was specialist 5. I made that in 18 months. I was proud of that. I went from--I went from private 1 to Sergeant in 18 months and I was fortunate enough to go to Turkey instead of Vietnam. And I remember the last guy, they went right down the alphabet, and they were sending people all over the world, and they came to Vietnam, and they went down the ages and the guy before me was Hamm, H-A-M-M, and Hamm was the last person in the alphabet that went to Vietnam. Then they started Turkey, and Hamilton was next and I went to Turkey. It was the luck of the draw. I mean, who would have thought? Just one person ahead of me and he went to ’Nam and I went to Turkey. I don’t know what happened to David Hamm, but I hope he made it through. But that doesn’t mean that I would not have gone to Vietnam, I really didn’t have any--any perception about not going to ’Nam or going to ’Nam, I would have gone anyplace they sent me, and willingly. I just got lucky and didn’t go.

Phil: You--were you at all thinking about coming back to Wyoming after the Army?

Mel: No! No, no.

Phil: You thought you were off onto whole new adventures. Toward the end of your time then in Turkey, you did communicate with the university?

Mel: Umm, well, I got a communication from Lloyd Eaton, telling me that--asked me how I was doing in the military and of course, I knew he had also been in the military, and telling me that once I was through, stop by the office and we would talk about things. And I knew what that meant, even though he didn’t come out and say it. I knew what that meant. And so I did, I said I thought I had time to think about it, and I said, “Where else do you want to go?” Right after the 14, you called San Jose, you called those other schools in the WAC [Western Athletic Conference] and they wouldn’t touch you. So where are you gonna go? And so, swallowing my pride, I--I came back to Wyoming.

Phil: But that was bef--you came back in ‘60--fall of ’69.

Mel: Right, fall of ’69.

Phil: After your--were you in the Army two years--two…?

Mel: About 18 months.

Phil: 18 months.

Mel: Mmm-hmm. About 18 months.

Phil: Umm, and so then you had four games, you made your way back into the starting lineup.

Mel: Mmm-hmm.

Phil: And you had four games, you won all four games. At that time, a week before the BYU [Brigham Young University] game, you were--UW was ranked number 12 in the UPI Coaches Poll.

Mel: Right.

Phil: You were undefeated.

Mel: Right.

Phil: And what happened that week then?

Mel: Well, you know, we, everybody was high spirits. The blacks and whites were talking, getting along. And we just knew we were gonna be undefeated, we just knew that. At least, that’s what we were striving for. And the mood was great and high and fun. So we didn’t have--there was very little argument among the white and black players at that time. ’Course you had a few, you know. But, on all in all, it was a good team to be on. So we didn’t have any reason to think that we--that anything was gonna be different.

Now, once we went to Eaton and got kicked off the team, we were highly disillusioned. Highly disillusioned, that the white players would [not] come to our aid. Think, think now. Fourteen blacks, starters in most cases, was kicked off the team. There’s got to be eight starters that are white to comprise the rest of the team, on both sides of the ball. What if they would have said, “Coach, we support the blacks.” What if anybody had protest[ed] on that team that was white? Would that have made a difference? You know, sometimes you think that Lloyd was crazy enough to have said, “The hell with ya, I’ll cancel the season.” And I think he would have cancelled the season.

But nobody tried. I think that’s what hurt. Nobody tried. When I came out to Wyoming in ’66, I drove out with Frank Pescatore. He just gotten a brand new mustang I think, some fancy car, and he lived in Passaic, New Jersey, I think. And my sister lived in Patterson, New Jersey. So I was visiting her and Frank and I bumped into each other working out one day in Patterson in high school. And he said, “Why don’t you drive back with me?” And we drove back from New Jersey to Wyoming. You know, we were, having a great rapport. I would think--he would have said something.

Phil: Was he still there though in ’69?

Mel: Yeah, he--matter of fact, he started an insurance company there when--after the ’69, in Laramie. It was on Grand Street in that hotel? So I don’t know if Frank is still there or not, I hadn’t heard any more about it.

Phil: I don’t think so.

Mel: But if they would have said something, maybe they could have--we could avoid this whole experience, but they didn’t. And so, that was the extent of the white players helping us. As far as I know, nobody did anything. Not even my good friend Dave Rupp, and I love Dave Rupp. And I’ll tell you right now, even to this day, I love Dave Rupp But, even he didn’t do anything. Well, the only [thing] Dave would say is, “Man, you know he’s crazy. Why did you guys do it? You know he was crazy.” You know.

They had--Dave told me stories about Lloyd Eaton having a blackjack in his--in his drawer, and that’s that thing that cops have with a weight into--a weight sewn into a leather pouch--they call it a blackjack. It’s like a baton really, except leather and steel. He kept that in his desk just in case we got out of line. Any of the players got out of line. He said, “You guys know he was crazy, why did you do it?” And I was disappointed in Dave for saying that, but he--he still remains one of my dearest friends. So.

Phil: Umm, well tell what--what happened on that Thursday, Thursday night, and then the Friday morning, as best you recall.

Mel: Thursday night, when we decided to wear the black armbands?

Phil: Yeah.

Mel: Uh, after the meeting, well at the meeting, and that’s why I say the ’66 incident with me and Eaton was the pre-Black 14, cause during that meeting [with the other players], I said, “Look, here’s what happened to me in 1966. Here’s why I went into the military. I know what the man can do. And if you don’t do anything to--to support this--to fight against this Mormon policy,” I said, “They will continue to do these kinds of things to me, to you, to all black Mormons. They will continue to try to run you over.” I mean I was vocal. And where did that come from? I don’t know. I don’t know where that came from. But I’ve always been thrown--at least I think--I’ve always been thrown into doing something.

Phil: Uh-huh.

Mel: So all that came out. And we decided to go to [Black 14 member] Joe Williams’s room, talk about what we’re gonna do. We gave the--the guys that had wives and kids an opportunity to back out and nobody backed out. Everybody said they wanted to do it, and we had to do it. We were caught up in a moment of history with a social revolution happening outside of Wyoming. Outside of Wyoming. So we--everybody’s out there doing their part. [Olympic sprinter John] Carlos and [Tommie Smith] were doing their part at the Olympics, and--I personally, I personally couldn’t have stand not doing anything.

This opportunity came before us, we had to grab it, it was our turn. We had to grab it. And that was me. And like I said, I don’t know where that came from, it was--it was bottled up for two years and it all came out that night. And so, we went to the room, and we talked it over and everybody said, “Let’s go.” And I was talking to Tom Rea over lunch today, and I said to Tom …so we decided to wear the armbands. Now, think about this. And I only thought about it over lunch.

We were under the impression that Eaton said, “Don’t wear your armbands, you will not be allowed to wear your armbands in the game.” That was our impression. We did not think by wearing our armbands to the office that he would be offended. We wore the armbands to the office because we wanted to show solidarity. So if Eaton had given us an opportunity to speak, he would have said, probably, “Oh no, you want to wear it during the game? Oh hell no, you’re not gonna wear it to the game.” We would have said, “Ok, what can we do?” And then we would have had a dialogue. We would have came up, hopefully, we would have come up with something we both would agree on. Whether that was getting together in the middle of the field before the game, saying a prayer before the game, something to make a statement, but he didn’t allow that to happen. So.

Phil: Wha--what did happen?

Mil: Well, uh, he took us to the bleachers in the Field House and sat us down, and the first word out of his mouth was, “Gentlemen, you are no longer on the football team.” And then he started ranting and raving about taking us away from welfare, taking us off the streets, putting food in our mouths. If we want to do what we want to do, we could [go] to the Grambling [College] and the Bishop [College], which are primarily black schools, historically black schools.

And so he--he just berated us. Tore us down from top to bottom in a racial manner. I remember looking at him right in the eyes and the whole time I’m thinking about 1966 and looking at him right in his eyes, smiling. I did not let that smile break, because I wanted him to know that he wasn’t--I wasn’t a little kid anymore. I’m not frightened of you. And you’re not gonna stop me from doing what I think I should do. And I know then that he was—he was constitutionally wrong, even though we weren’t prove—we didn’t prove that that was right, but I wanted him at least to know that I thought he was constitutionally wrong and was going the wrong way, and it wasn’t gonna frighten me.

Phil: So, you left there, and later that day, they called a meeting of the trustees and after that meeting, did any of the Black 14 actually have a direct interaction with Eaton that day--the rest of that day?

Mel: The rest of that day? If they did, it was not to my knowledge.

Phil: I think then, what I’ve always heard is that the trustees and the governor were there, they met with the players, and they’d meet with the coaches separately.

Mel: Well, the trustees with--yeah, I was at that, that meeting. And you’re talking about the midnight meeting?

Phil: Yeah, yeah, went ’til 3 a.m.

Mel: Yeah, yeah and Governor Hathaway, I was sorely disappointed in him. Uh, he had the ability, of course politically, it wouldn’t have been a good decision, but he had the ability to stop it, right there and then. And I think that when someone asks, would we play for Eaton without wearing the black armbands, one of us said no, and I don’t know which one of us said no. I think once we said that, the governor said, “Well, that’s it. You know, basically, our hands are tied. And we’re gonna support Eaton.” I think they were, of course, supporting Eaton way before that statement was made. But yeah, we did meet, and I remember walking out and saying to the reporters when they asked, “How was it?” And I said, “It was all-white. We didn’t have a say at all, it was all-white.”

Phil: So then what was the reaction the next--the next week?

Mel: Uh, boy, you can imagine, we had--we had national coverage. We had media from all over the area--all over the country. I remember a group of umm, these things just pop into my head, I remember a group of ministers from all walks of life, and even Darius Gray, the black Mormon, they sent down and tried to talk to me. And I, I was gonna talk to them. And a black media, had to be from Washington D. C., in that area, looked at me and shook his head. And I said, “You don’t think so?” And he said “No.” So I didn’t talk to the ministers that came to talk.

Phil: Uh-huh.

Mel: And so, I had--I don’t have any knowledge what they were gonna talk about. But, umm, yeah, there were people all over wanted us to make quotes. I got a call from--well, actually [BSA member] Dwight James got a call from Berkeley, a radio station on [the University of California at] Berkeley campus, about what was happening in Wyoming, and “Would you [tell] our audience what was happening?” Dwight came to me, I was in the Union, [UW student union building] and said, “The people in Berkeley want to talk to you.” I don’t know whether they did or not. I think Dwight, you know, he was gonna be doctor and was gonna be in the FBI and probably didn’t want to get involved that way, and he said, “I do know somebody who will talk to you,” and obviously, he picked me and I talked to them. So everybody all over the country was calling and sending their people and it was very hectic, very hectic.

Phil: You stayed and got your degree.

Mel: Yeah.

Phil: From UW.

Mel: Yep, physical education. I remember, I graduated in ’72 and by that time, I had been married to Tearether Cherry and everybody called her Chi-Chi, that was her nickname. And she had a semester to go, to finish up, and so I stayed in Laramie. Finally I said, “I need to make some money.” So I found my ex-Boys Town boy, living in Denver, who was a bigwig with Shell Oil Company and asked if he had a job for me until my wife graduated, and he gave me a job and I stayed there for a month--I mean a semester--and when my wife finished up, went back to Laramie, picked her up, packed her up and took her back to North Carolina.

And then she, of course, being a Casper girl all her life, had a very difficult time adapting to the southern ways. She didn’t like the people, she didn’t like the climate, she didn’t like the roaches and she was constantly complaining. Wherever we moved, there were roaches. I said, “Babe, there’s gonna be roaches down here.” And I said, “I’ll tell you what, they built some new condos over here, we’ll get one of them and see what that does.” And of course I knew. You know, you can’t find all the eggs of a roach. When you move, you gotta make sure you do not bring an egg. Not one egg. And obviously, we got in that new condo, and sure enough, six months later, there they were. And it didn’t matter whether you had no eggs or not, the person next door to you could have eggs and they would get into your apartment. And so, she came back to Casper, like I said, she had my first boy born, and I didn’t want anybody raising my kids but me. And so, a couple months later, I told Corning Glassware, who was I was working for as a mid-management supervisor, that I was going back to my wife. And so, a good job too, that was the best--one of the best jobs I ever had.

Phil: And she was a graduate of Natrona County [High School in Casper].

Mel: Yes, graduated from Natrona County.

Phil: And what did her parents do?

Mel: I think they were just… Dorothy Bourough B-O-U-R-O-U-G-H worked at the library. I think she was just a cleaning lady, I’m not sure. Didn’t have a dad. So she came down and ah, I remember when she came down, the--my second semester or my first semester. My second semester. I was standing at the line [at UW] at Old Main.

Phil: This is uh, in like 1970, spring semester of ‘70?

Mel: No, she was there for the 14, so she must have been the same 1960--no it wasn’t ’69. Had to be the first time I was here. Wait a minute. Uh, it had to be after I came back from the Army, and before the 14. We were standing, registering, in front of Old Main. I was with, I’ll never forget it, I was with uh, Father ????? in Hudson. [Wyo.]

Phil: Svilar?

Mel: No, uh.

Phil: Oh, Vinich.

Mel: Vinich! I was in line with Vinich, the son. I said, “Man, who was that you were talking to?” He said, “Oh, that’s Chi-Chi, you want to meet her?” And that’s how I met my first wife. John introduced me to her and ah--and then we started going together immediately, and we got married after the Black 14 happened. Oh, I would say, that next August. That’s how--that’s all that happened, John Vinich [later a longtime state senator from Fremont County]. I sometimes curse him for that.

Phil: So, your wife and the bed bug--or the roaches brought you back to Wyoming.

Mel: Yeah, and uh… .

Phil: What did you do here?

Mel: I came back uh and I worked for--I went up to the Natrona County headquarters [Natrona County High School] and applied for the teaching job. They didn’t have any positions, so I worked as an assistant manager for Kmart in their appliance department and worked at night at the Star-Tribune as a baler. And…then, uh, a coach from Kelly Walsh [High School in Casper] retired--not retired, he quit…They called me. And I started out just as a replacement for him, and of course, they couldn’t promise me whether I’d have the job the next year or not, but as it worked out, that was my foot in the door, and I did get the job.

Phil: And what were you doing there?

Mel: And I was a P.E. [physical education] coach and coach. Yep, in football and wrestling and track. I remember I was trying to make $12,000, and I just barely made $12,000 teaching and coaching three sports. And to me, that was the barometer of being a success, getting to that $12,000 mark. My first salary--I mean contract was for $8,645. I look back on that and say, “I don’t know how we made it on that.” But we did.

Then in the meanwhile, my wife and I were not getting along, so we ended up divorcing and I--in ’77--and I quit teaching. I got--couldn’t handle it, the divorce. Keep in mind, I’m a Catholic, altar boy, I mean Catholics had--did a real good job on me, and divorce was, it was the last thing you wanna do. And…it tore me apart. And so I quit teaching, I couldn’t concentrate at all. And went into the oil field and--turned out that was a pretty good move. I had a good time, I made a lot of money, bought my first house, umm, it gave me another possibility on what I could do. And …my self-esteem.

And so when the bottom of that oil field fell out in ’86, I went back to teaching, started it over again at Roosevelt High School [in Casper]. Dr. Carl Madzey had--had heard about me and followed my career and asked me to come over. And that was in 1986, and then I went to Kelly Walsh as a P. E. instructor, see I didn’t say that the first time. As a P. E. instructor in ’88 and coached football, wrestling and track over there.

Got my masters in ’92. Dr. Madzey said, “Now you’ve got to work with me. You got your masters, exactly what I need. And I need an assistant principal, now you can do that for me.” So I go back to Roosevelt in ‘92, got my masters, I’m working with at-risk kids again, I’m enjoying it. I became the vice principal of Roosevelt, the first time they’ve ever had a vice principal. Over the years, worked myself into administration, in 1996, became a principal at East Junior High School [in Casper] and that was a terrible time in my life. ’96 and ’97 had to be the worst years in my career. Even over the Black 14 incident. That was because I was not given the chance to run a school the way I thought a school could be run.

And I wasn’t given the chance because when I applied for the job, two of the principals--vice principals at the time--currently in the vice principal role, were vying for the same position. They did not get it. I knew immediately, when I found out the two had ran for the principalship, I knew immediately I was in trouble. And I took them out to lunch, and I said, “Look, I know you guys tried out for the position and didn’t get [it]. I know how that feels, you were in a building, you build up trust and they didn’t give you the opportunity to work as a principal.” I said, “But, however, we can’t let that stop us from being a successful school.” I said, “I need your promise that you will--you will work with me.” Well, one of them did. That was Stutheit, Brad Stutheit, did not hold any animosity. If he did, he didn’t show it with me. He was very respectful. Did his job, didn’t show anything.

But the other guy was the snake--was a timber rattlesnake. He was just working behind my back, having special meetings at lunchtime with disgruntled employees, other teachers that didn’t want me. And I thought, I think they didn’t want me because I was black, I was being called the head nigger in charge. Someone stopped by my house when I wasn’t there, snow on the ground, and there was a big “666” written in the snow in front of my house. They were passing around jokes about E-Ebonics, trying to play at my manner of speech.

One of the counselors there said that it was a concerted effort to get me out of there. Concerted effort. And then, I didn’t know of course, all these things were happening, until about eight teachers came to me one day and said, “We need a meeting with you,” and told me what was happening. And as I stated many times before, the worst part of all of that was that when it came time for me to sit down to evaluate my performance, I couldn’t because every time I tried, I would always interject, but if this racism didn’t exist, that would have happened, this would have happened.

So I never could--could fully evaluate myself as to my progress. And I--and I truly wanted to be able to do that, because I think I would have had the ability to say, “Mel, you should do something different here,” or “You’re doing something wrong here.” I have that ability to do that. I couldn’t in this because the racism kept popping up. So that’s what they took away from me. So, did I do a good job? I think I did, but I don’t know.

Phil: So how long were you the principal then?

Mel: Umm, ’96 to ’99, and then there was so much heat, they moved me from—they caved in to the politics of it--and moved move to a new program with at-risk kids, cause that was my forte. And they said….

Phil: And how--so how long was your career in public schools?

Mel: 28 years.

Phil: 28 years.

Mel: Yeah.

Phil: Retired when then?

Mel: I retired in--in 2011.

Phil: So tell me about your family and your wife--your current wife--and kids in…

Mel: Yeah, I got--matter of fact, Carey C-A-R-E-Y, is my current wife of 33 years. She is a Wyoming girl from Osage.

Phil: Oh really.

Mel: Yes. Of course her friends and my friends both, because we were so different, didn’t think it would last a year, and 32 years later, here we are. She is a--is a very understanding, very loving person, and I think that’s what attracted to me, she didn’t--my race wasn’t an issue. My race was not an issue. When I went out with her, she was concerned about other people--the people that came up to say “hello,” which were many. I was impressed by that, and that further told me she was a good person.

We got together and had two kids, Malik and Zella. And then of course, I have my oldest daughter in California by Kathy Kinne--the Wyoming incident young lady--and she had Kimberly, my oldest child. And then Carey and I had two, and Chi-Chi and I had two, Malik and Amber. Carey and I had Derek and Zella, and then Kathy Kinne and I had Kim. We been together ever since.

Phil: And they’re all doing… pretty….

Mel: All doing well, yeah. Kim, uh, as I once said, she is—ah, was in an all-girl fire unit in San Francisco. I’ve got a picture of her—well, she’s got a picture that I want, of climbing the San Francisco Bay Bridge. Man, what a beautiful picture that was. Malik, my oldest boy, is in Provo, Utah. He became a Mormon after much, much consternation. He thought that I would be very angry, and I don’t know why he thought that, because I was fighting for the right of blacks in the church to do something, to be able to do something. So he’s a Mormon chef, working at University Valley, Utah Valley University, in Provo, Utah. And then I have Amber, who is a director of Home Shopping Network down in Florida and a buyer. She buys a lot of their stuff. And she’s in Florida somewhere now. I can’t remember if she was in… Disney World, where is that there?

Phil: Orlando?

Mel: Orlando, she was there at one time. But I don’t know if she’s still there, but she’s in Florida. Um, uh…

Phil: Derek.

Mel: Derek is working for Weatherflick, no. Weatherford. An oil patch, and he really enjoys it. Matter of fact, he’s sort of jokingly asked why I didn’t tell him about the oil patch before he got into it because he really enjoys it and didn’t know it would be that much fun. Umm, Weatherford got him under a five-year contract to be management, to be in their management program. Just got a raise, he said the other day, and he’s really having a great time. They’ve sent him to Houston for many schools, to certify him in all things he needs to be certified in. And then Zella, we just found out unfortunately, found out that she has the M.S. [multiple sclerosis] and she’s back home with us. And the way we found out, that she came home one day and the whole left side of her face had drooped. And I thought she had a stroke and her doctor thought she had a stroke too, and that’s how we began to find out that she had M.S.

Phil: Oh, dear.

Mel: And so she’s back home with us, and her baby girl, Maya, she is my heart these days. She keeps me going, and I love her dearly. And so, that’s my family.

Phil: And they have--and you have five kids, and they have, uh eight….

Mel: Eight grandchildren.

Phil: Grandkids.

Mel: And Derik has one on the way. But thank God, no, no great-grands yet.

Phil: Ah. Hope that happens.

Mel: Hope that happens in it, in its time.

Phil: But uh… .

Mel: In its time.

Phil: But you’re facing some challenges in the health department. . . .

Mel: Yeah, I’ve ah--my, my whole retired family, my side of the family, had problems with diabetes. And most were sorta heavyweight, but even the ones that aren’t heavyweight has diabetes. My mother lost her--a foot because of diabetes. My sister lost both legs because of diabetes. It’s just a vicious, a vicious disease. Umm, and I’m having problems with it, I’ve gotten gastroparesis, which happens to a lot of diabetics and that’s basically saying that my stomach does not empty its food in a timely manner. Takes too long, the food or the fluids, to exit my stomach. And it causes many different symptoms.

I can’t literally lift five pounds or walk a half a block because of it, and that’s causing problems ’cause I gotta exercise to lose the weight, and I can’t exercise. Ah so, as I’m trying to get the lap band to help me lose weight, and the doctor said they usually can’t do that on people with paresis. Because you can imagine, if you shut down half of the stomach with the band, then that paresis is working on--only on half the stomach and it’s gonna be just as bad. It’s gonna be doubly as harmful to me as it is now.

So we’re trying to figure out what’s wrong with me. I--uh having a tough time walking, I don’t know what that is. I had back surgery thinking that it was spinal stenosis, and I got a second opinion that said it was spinal stenosis. And it turns out that it wasn’t spinal stenosis, because I got the same problem. I can’t walk more than half a block or three quarters of a block without stopping. My muscles feel like they’re atrophied, and I don’t know--you know, I remember five years ago, walking all over Atlantic-Baltimore and Savannah, Georgia, and all of a sudden, I started having a problem walking. Now if it was then that I’m thinking, “If my daughter’s got M.S., maybe I got M.S.” So, I’m going to have that looked at. ’Cause that’s the only thing I can think of.

Yep, so I’m not doing too good these days. I know I gotta lose weight, but the insulin puts weight on ya, and umm, you know, and I can understand how people feel when they gotta disease that stops them from losing weight. Then people--other people think that they’re lazy and just won’t do it. I can understand those people now. It’s--it’s a vicious circle. If I don’t take my insulin, my sugar goes up. If I take my insulin, it puts weight on me. So what do you do? You take your insulin, and you get bigger and bigger and bigger and so, especially when I can’t exercise. That’s the problem. Exercise, not being able to, is the problem. It’s not the insulin, it’s not the eating, it’s not being able to exercise.

Phil: Well, I hope that works out better for you.

Mel: Well, I’m gonna, I’m gonna get, I’m not gonna stop with the doctors. Somebody knows how to--how to help me, and I just have to find that person.

Phil: Sure, yeah. Well, Mel, it’s certainly been a pleasure talking with you.

Mel: Well, I hope we covered everything. ’Cause--that we covered the first time.

Phil: All right. I wish you the best, and we’ll keep in touch.

Mel: I will, umm, and when you gonna write that book?

Phil: Well, I’m still thinking about it.

Mel: Well, you should, I was telling Tom Rea over lunch, I said, “If anyone,” I said, “you’re like the pivotal point of this whole story, and if anyone should write a book, you--you would know the ins-and-outs of this 14 thing.” And I really mean that. Even if I write a book, it’s gonna be about my growing up in--in and how I got into this 14 thing in the first place.

Phil: Uh-huh.

Mel: But I wouldn’t be able to write it from your perspective. You know, so.

Phil: Well, see what we can do.

Mel: Yeah, k.

Phil: K.

Mel: All right man, is your wife out there prob-

Illustrations

The 2009 image of John Griffin tying an armband on Mel Hamilton is from the Laramie Boomerang, photo by Andy Carpanean. Used with permission and thanks.

Grace Raymond Hebard: Shaping Wyoming’s Past

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The talented and ambitious Grace Raymond Hebard remained well known and respected as a historian throughout Wyoming during her lifetime. Though her books, articles and pamphlets contained the racism and stereotypes common in her era and were also criticized for historical inaccuracy and poor writing when they were published, Hebard soldiered on unfazed.

She also exerted a powerful influence at the University of Wyoming, where she was employed for more than 40 years, first as a paid secretary to and voting member on the board of trustees, and later as a professor of politics and history. Several of her books remain in print today, continuing Hebard’s influence on the history of Wyoming and the West—and continuing the controversy over the value of her work.

Not long after her death, a campus-wide memorial service was held Dec. 7, 1936 to honor her. Speakers heaped praise on Hebard. University President A.G. Crane described her as a prolific writer who “was a pioneer in discovering and preserving the early history of this region.” U.S. Senator Robert Carey told the audience that Hebard’s historical work was well done and “would remain as monument to her.”

Former GovernorB.B. Brooks saw her as a “most accomplished author” and her literary work as “Wyoming’s best.” Her co-author of The Bozeman Trail, journalist, cowboy poet and Indian Wars historian E.A. Brininstool, said the late professor was “a most painstaking historian . . . never satisfied with anything but the truth and actual facts” in her historical research and writing. Others went on to describe Hebard as an “astute historian,” a “renowned scholar,” an “eminent authority” on Wyoming history.

Author Agnes Wright Spring—Wyoming state historian, director of the Federal Writers Project in Wyoming and, later, Colorado state historian—told those gathered in the auditorium that in her book on Sacajawea, Hebard “built an impregnable fortress of truths which will, I feel sure, withstand attack.”

Since that time, however, many scholars have come to believe that Hebard too often brought predrawn conclusions to her work, and then found so-called “facts” to fit them. Too often, the facts turn out to be more like fables when compared with stronger, contradictory source material, some of which was available to Hebard, and which she apparently ignored.

But she probably did not act out of any deliberate intention to deceive. Hebard was a strong-willed woman who gained significant power at a new institution—the University of Wyoming—that was run by men. She was a strong supporter of women’s rights at the turn of the last century and politically active as a suffragette. These views seem to have led her to place certain women in central roles in Wyoming’s past that they did not in fact play. She portrayed them as strong-willed women who made things happen—women like herself.

Early life and education

Grace Raymond Hebard was the third child of George and Margaret Hebard. Following their marriage, George and Margaret moved to New York City where he studied at Union Theological Seminary, graduating in 1857. George preached at a Presbyterian church in Clayton, N.Y., for a year before moving his wife and their first son, Frederic, to Clinton, Iowa, in March 1858. In Iowa Margaret gave birth to the couple’s daughters, Alice Marven on Feb. 21, 1859, and Grace Raymond on July 2, 1861.

Following the birth of their last child, George Lockwood, the family moved to Oskaloosa, Iowa, in 1869. But within a year George Hebard contracted pneumonia and died on Dec. 14, 1870. Margaret wanted all of her children to have college educations so she moved the family to Iowa City, home of the State University of Iowa, where she purchased a large house and rented out half of it as a source of income.

Grace’s education was very different from that of her siblings. As a result of almost continual ill health, she attended public schools for only two years. For the most part she was homeschooled by her mother. As she grew up, Grace saw her parents as pioneers, moving from New York to what was, in her mind, the western frontier. Watching her mother struggle to hold the family together while ensuring that all the children received a college education, Grace was determined to carry on the family’s pioneering spirit and acquire a degree in engineering at the university.

Being the only woman in her engineering courses, focusing primarily on surveying and mechanical drawing, Hebard received a good deal of criticism from her classmates, however. She graduated in 1882.

Drafting for the surveyor general’s office

Upon graduation Grace Hebard was offered a job working for the United States Surveyor General’s office in Cheyenne, Wyo., at the time in the process of surveying and mapping Wyoming Territory. With her mother Margaret’s asthma problems and the doctor’s suggestion that she would fare better at a higher altitude in a drier climate, the entire family moved to Cheyenne. Grace worked in the surveyor general’s office at the rate of $100 per month, a very generous salary for a 20-year-old woman in 1882. Her sister, Alice, found employment with the school district in south Cheyenne where she would work for more than 30 years.

Frederic opened a law office but still lived at home with the family to help with expenses. Lockwood became the organist at the Episcopal church, which the entire family, with the exception of Grace, attended. Grace did not attend church at all.

When she began working in the surveyor general’s office, Grace was one of 46 draftsmen employed there. She knew the work would not last indefinitely, however, so she began taking correspondence courses from the State University of Iowa to earn her master’s degree. Even though State University did not have a graduate school until 1900, its records did indicate that a Master of Arts degree was awarded to Hebard in 1885. She later claimed not to remember her thesis topic.

By 1889, there were only two individuals still working in the Surveyor General’s Office, and Grace’s job ended later that year when mapping work was completed. Upon leaving that position she received an appointment to work in what would become the state engineer’s office. Although she served as deputy engineer, Hebard did not like the work and received only $40 per month, a significant reduction in pay.

Making a place at the University of Wyoming

During her time at the surveyor general’s office, Grace cultivated a relationship with Edward C. David, the man who ran the office. David was also related by marriage to Territorial Representative Joseph M. Carey. Both men carried significant political influence.

In 1886, as construction began on the brand-new University of Wyoming, Hebard kept her eye on developments at the new school. Through her connections to the David and Carey families and with her brother Frederic’s election to the territorial assembly in 1888, she received an appointment to the University of Wyoming Board of Trustees in January 1891. In the spring of that year, Grace became the first member of her family to leave home. She boarded a train for Laramie, 49 miles away, and would work at the University of Wyoming until her death 45 years later.

Throughout her life, Hebard saw herself as a pioneer, but she was not the first woman appointed to the university’s board of trustees. Augustine Kendall of Rock Springs and Mattie Quinn of Evanston also served on the board. Hebard wasted little time moving to secure a position of power among the trustees, however. She was made the board’s paid secretary, and as such, produced all of the meeting minutes. With six of the nine trustees scattered across the state, Hebard and the other two board members living in Laramie made up the executive committee and had oversight of day-to-day operations at the school.

The following year the executive committee took over the responsibility of filling all faculty vacancies. During that period, Grace completed correspondence courses and received a Ph.D. in political economy from Illinois Wesleyan University. In 1894, with her Ph.D. in hand, Hebard was appointed librarian for the University of Wyoming. At the same time, she kept her position on the board of trustees. During the 1893-1894 academic year, she taught a correspondence course on constitutional history and took on the additional jobs of secretary for the correspondence school and the agricultural extension school.

When Frank Graves resigned as president of the university in 1898, the trustees considered hiring Hebard for the position, but she declined. She already held most of the power and influence at the university, and she was continuing with pioneering work in other areas. In 1898, Grace took and passed the Wyoming State Bar exam. Though she never practiced law, Hebard was the first woman in Wyoming admitted to the bar. In addition, she would become the Wyoming women’s tennis and golf champion.

These accomplishments would have been substantial for anyone; for a woman at the turn of the last century they were extraordinary. At the same time they seemed to instill in Grace a sense of infallibility. Soon, she and her ally, Board President Otto Gramm, became the targets of Wyoming journalists who said that no university employee or professor could hold a job at the school without Hebard’s approval.

Teaching political economy

In 1906, Hebard was appointed associate professor of political economy. Herbert Quaintance, already serving as a professor of political economy, opposed her appointment and insinuated that her Ph.D. degree was a fake from a disreputable school. With her influence at the university, Quaintance was forced out and his job given to Hebard, who was then named to head the Department of Political Economy and Sociology.

Grace claimed that she never sought the position, but only accepted the job to help the school. As a result of that shake-up, Hebard’s longtime roommate and History Department head, Agnes M. Wergeland, convinced Grace that she should begin studying the history of Wyoming and the West. Wergeland informed her friend that studying history would be a much “better hobby than trying to show everyone who was boss.”

Shaping history

Hebard took her friend’s advice and began researching the history of the West with a focus on Wyoming. A lifelong suffragette, Grace had a particular interest in women and their contributions to the discovery and settlement of Wyoming and the West. Even though she published books on Shoshone Chief Washakie, pioneers in the West, the Bozeman Trail and several editions of a book on the government of Wyoming, she became obsessed with two women—Sacajawea and Esther Hobart Morris.

In her writings Hebard insisted, in spite of documentation to the contrary that she was aware of, that Sacajawea—the young Shoshone interpreter for Lewis and Clark—lived to about 100 years of age and was buried on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming in 1884. Most scholars today agree there is much stronger documentation to show that Sacagawea, as the name is now more often spelled, died in 1812 at Fort Manuel Lisa on the Missouri River in what’s now North Dakota.

Hebard is probably best known in Wyoming for popularizing the Esther Hobart Morris story. Early in 1870, soon after the Wyoming Territorial Legislature had given women the right to vote and hold office, Morris was appointed justice of the peace in the gold-mining town of South Pass City.

Two generations later, Hebard and a surviving resident of early South Pass City, H. G. Nickerson, began telling the story that two candidates for the territorial legislature, Nickerson and William Bright, met with Esther Morris and others at Morris’s home—a story that Nickerson himself seems to have originated in 1916. According to this story, Morris extracted a promise from both men that whichever of them was elected to the legislature would introduce a bill supporting suffrage for women in Wyoming. Bright introduced the bill and it passed, giving women in Wyoming the right to vote and hold office.

Hebard described Morris as “The Mother of Woman Suffrage.” As with many of her other romanticized stories, Hebard found an individual—Nickerson—to corroborate everything she claimed as fact.

Hebard claimed that some of her information had been received in a letter from Bright’s wife, but the letter Grace wrote to Julia Bright was returned marked “addressee deceased.” By contrast, in a letter to the suffrage paper The Revolution, Robert Morris, Esther’s husband indicated that the first meeting between William Bright and Esther Morris did not take place until after the suffrage bill had been signed into law.

At no time during her life did Esther Morris ever claim to have had anything to do with the introduction or passage of the suffrage bill in Wyoming. And yet the story has shown remarkable staying power because people often seem to prefer the romanticized version to the facts.

Hebard was a dogged researcher who hunted for every bit of information she could find on her subjects. Problems arose, however, when the facts did not mesh with her often predetermined outcomes. Hebard’s papers in the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming are filled with documents—like the unread letter to Julia Bright—that contradict her often romanticized versions of events. That is, she knew what she was doing. She knew her work contradicted the work of distinguished historians and often times was not supported by the documents she herself located.

And though she won high praise for her work from all kinds of influential Wyomingites at her memorial service, peers more closely connected to her work seem not to have thought highly of it. The American Historical Review described her book on the Bozeman Trail as “commonplace history” adding “the most striking shortcoming is the deplorable English.”

The manuscript for Grace’s Sacajawea book was so poorly written that her publisher, Arthur H. Clark, hired Robert Cleland of Occidental College to ghostwrite it. Outside reviews of her manuscript of a book on the Pony Express, which was never published, described it as “poor grammatically,” “disjointed” and “decidedly poor, rambling, and pointless.”

Over the years, Grace Hebard involved herself in a number of other projects that were important to her. She spent a good deal of time traveling across Wyoming to mark the location of the Oregon Trail, work that was generally accurate. She took the leadership role in a project dealing with the Americanization of foreign-born immigrants. Working to organize a statewide Americanization program, she sent outlines of subjects she believed should be taught and tested to schools, courts, and individuals teaching citizenship courses. The subjects included the U.S. Constitution and early U.S. history

She also pushed for the adoption of child labor laws aimed at keeping youngsters in school and preventing businesses and individuals from taking advantage of children in the workplace. Hebard maintained involvement in the child labor and Americanization programs until her influence waned and recognition for her work decreased. She then moved on to other projects, usually associated with research and writing.

With her books on Washakie, Sacajawea, the Bozeman Trail and the Oglala Sioux war leader Red Cloud still in print almost 80 years after her death, and the ongoing popularity of the Esther Morris story, Grace Raymond Hebard still has an influence on the history of Wyoming and the West.

Resources

Primary Sources

  • Cora M. Beach Collection, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyo.
  • Grace Raymond Hebard Collection, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, box numbers 1, 2, 3, 16, 32, 42, 46, 55, 62, 63 and myriad folder numbers from each box.

Secondary Sources

  • Beach, Cora M. Women of Wyoming. Casper, Wyo.: S. E. Boyer & Company, 1927.
  • Clough, Wilson, O. A History of the University of Wyoming 1887-1937. Laramie, Wyo.: University of Wyoming, 1937.
  • Hardy, Deborah. Wyoming University: The First 100 Years 1886-1986. Laramie, Wyo.: University of Wyoming, 1986.
  • Hebard, Grace Raymond. Sacajawea: A Guide and Interpreter of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, with an Account of the Travels of Toussaint Charbonneau, and of Jean Baptiste, the Expedition Papoose. 1932. Reprint, New York: Dover Publications Inc., 2002.
  • _________. “How Woman Suffrage Came to Wyoming.” Pamphlet, printer unknown, 1920.
  • _________. Washakie: An Account of Indian Resistance of the Covered Wagon and Union Pacific Railroad Invasions of Their Territory. 1930. Reprint, Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska Press, 1995.
  • Mackey, Mike. Inventing History in the American West: The Romance and Myths of Grace Raymond Hebard. Powell, Wyo.: Western History Publications, 2005.
  • Pearson, Lorene. “A Path-Breaker in Woman’s Activities.” The Relief Society Magazine, February 1934.
  • Van Nuys, Frank. Americanizing the West: Race, Immigrants, and Citizenship, 1890-1930. Lawrence, Kan.: University Press of Kansas, 2002.
  • Wentzel, Janell M. “Dr. Grace Raymond Hebard as Western Historian.” Master’s thesis, University of Wyoming, 1960.

Editors’ suggestions for further reading and research

  • Ewig, Rick. “Did She Do That?: Examining Esther Morris’ Role in the Passage of the Suffrage Act.” Annals of Wyoming 78, no. 1 (winter 2006): 28-34. The story that Esther Hobart Morris gave a tea party in South Pass City before the 1869 election to extract a promise from Bright and his Republican opponent, H.G. Nickerson, that whichever was elected would introduce a woman suffrage bill, was invented by Nickerson in 1916. Ewig examines the story’s roots and its remarkable staying power.
  • Massie, Michael A. “Reform is Where You Find It: The Roots of Woman Suffrage in Wyoming.” Annals of Wyoming 62, no. 1 (spring 1990), 2-22. Accessed Sept. 27, 2013, at http://archive.org/details/annalsofwyom621231990wyom. The article contains especially good information about William Bright, South Pass City, the roots of the Esther Morris tea-party story and the personalities and politics leading to the bill’s passage.
  • Scharff, Virginia. “Marking Wyoming: The West as Women’s Place,” her chapter on Grace Raymond Hebard in Twenty Thousand Roads: Women, Movement and the West. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002, 93-114.
  • Directions to the grave where the woman Hebard believed to be Sacajawea is buried are given in the Wind River Reservation field trip suggestion, below.

Illustrations

  • All photos are from the Hebard Collection at the American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming. Used with permission and thanks. Thanks too to Randy Brown of the Wyoming chapter of the Oregon-California Trails Association for locating the marker in the 1915 photo. It still stands on a dirt road paralleling the trail and the North Platte River south of Lingle, Wyo.

The Fountain and the Mural: Remembering a Tragic Cowboy Welcome

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Halfway from Old Main to University Avenue on the University of Wyoming campus, a seldom-noticed stone drinking fountain blocks the long, straight sidewalk. Almost hidden among the summer flowers at the base, carved words note that it was built in memory of Lowell O’Bryan, who died Oct. 10, 1922. Above the stone inscription and the now inoperable fountain is a brass plaque: “He gave himself . . .”

Ironically, the fountain shares a historical connection with the more familiar work of art, the painted mural hanging on the west wall of the student union ballroom. Both the fountain and the mural recall aspects of the same event in the university’s history. The mural recalls the “cowboy welcome” given to newly arriving UW President Dr. Arthur G. Crane. The fountain memorializes the tragic death of a student involved in organizing the welcoming ceremony.

In August 1922, the board of trustees announced that Crane, then serving as president of a college in Edinboro, Pa., had accepted the UW presidency. He would come to Laramie in October to begin his new job. Consequently, a group of students decided to greet the new “prexy” in traditional western style. With the help of faculty advisors Dr. Samuel Knight and Coach John Corbett, they planned an elaborate ambush: They would dress as cowboys and, on horses, meet the new president’s automobile as it was coming down through Telephone Canyon into Laramie from the summit of Sherman Hill to the east of the city.

On that sunny October morning, nine masked men on horses, later joined by about 50 “cowboys bedecked in regalia,” according to UW historian Deborah Hardy, ordered Crane out of his car and into a stagecoach where he was joined by outgoing President Aven Nelson and Board of Trustees Chairman W.C. Deming. Crane’s family continued on to town in his family automobile.

Did Crane enjoy the unique welcome? Probably not. Hardy describes a photograph taken at the time: “Out from the window he peers like a prisoner; he is neither smiling nor waving nor eagerly surveying the sagebrush around him. If anything, the camera catches a tone of disapproval for this youthful, high-spirited prank.”

The riders escorted the coach to the east edge of Laramie where the three occupants were transferred into a new Marmon automobile for the ride to the grandstand of the nearby fairgrounds, near today’s Washington Park. There, students, faculty and townspeople welcomed Crane and his family, Student President Fred Parks presented Crane with a ten-gallon hat and the crowd watched two cowboys ride bucking horses. Later, after a few speeches, the assemblage adjourned to the university commons for a special dinner.

But the festive ceremonies were dampened by an accident that had occurred earlier in the morning as the cowboys were preparing for the ambush. One of the best horsemen on campus, Lowell O’Bryan, a 23-year-old junior, helped ride out the mounts for the Crane reception—that is, ride them until they calmed down and stopped bucking. O’Bryan was “topping off each horse as it was saddled in order to ensure that no amateur should accidentally get on an unsafe horse and be thrown,” Hardy reports.

O’Bryan intentionally made his mount buck; then, suddenly, the horse broke toward a wire fence. Fearing the horse would break through and into a group of students, “O’Bryan started to dismount, a feat no different than he has often accomplished in the course of his everyday work,” according to the report of the UW student newspaper, “but the saddle slipped and he was thrown underneath the horse, badly kicked and dragged about thirty yards before being rescued by his comrades.”

The Wyoming Student reported that he was “taken to the hospital unconscious. Dr. Robinson and Dr. Turner were called to attend him and at this hour O’Bryan’s condition is extremely critical …” Dr. Willard A. Robinson was the young man’s stepfather, with whom he lived while attending UW.

A week after the mishap, President Crane announced at the morning student assembly that O’Bryan had died. He never regained consciousness from the accident. The student newspaper published a special memorial edition, noting that O’Bryan’s death cast a “pall of sadness over the University.”

Accounts emphasized that every effort had been made to save his life. “A nurse and a physician have been constantly at his side and several other surgeons have been called into consultation. Several students have taken turns in sitting up with him,” the student newspaper reported. O’Bryan, a native of Santa Rosa, Calif., died at his stepfather’s home. He was 23.

“Lowell has been popular among faculty and fellow students,” the Wyoming Student obituary read. “He was studying agriculture and was active in the Agricultural Club and other college activities.”

Later in the decade, friends and classmates of O’Bryan raised funds to construct the memorial fountain. In 1939, to commemorate the first anniversary of the construction of the student union building, the university and the Federal Art Project hired Utah artist Lynn Fausett to paint a mural depicting Crane’s arrival. Originally hung in the student lounge and later in the grand staircase of the union, the mural was moved to its present location in the west ballroom in 2003, following restoration funded by the class of 1958.

Five individuals significant to the university’s history are depicted in the mural—Crane, front and center; Nelson, next to him in black hat and suit; longtime university board secretary, faculty member and historian Dr. Grace Raymond Hebard on the left in a green skirt; longtime psychology Professor and Department Chair Dr. June Etta Downey in a red dress; and next to her longtime Greek and Latin Professor and Dean of Liberal Arts Dr. Justus Soule, in gray suit and red tie.

But did the artist include Lowell O’Bryan in the mural? No reference is made to the fact, either in the commemorative label below the mural or in the Branding Iron article published the week of its dedication on March 3, 1940.

Might he be the hatless cowboy on the rearing horse behind the main group at the center of the painting? Is he the distant, red-shirted cowboy on a bucking horse, right of center? One art historian contends he is the man in chaps, just left of center, the sole male figure facing away from the picture, only the back of his head visible.

Whether O’Bryan appears at all, the mural recalls the celebration of Crane’s arrival while the fountain west of Old Main memorializes the young man accidentally killed while preparing for the Old West welcome depicted in the painting.

Resources

  • Branding Iron (UW student newspaper), fall term, 1939; March 3, 1940.
  • Crane, Arthur. Biographical file, American Heritage Center, UW.
  • Hardy, Deborah. Wyoming University: The First 100 Years, 1886-1986. Laramie, Wyo.: University of Wyoming, 1986, p. 115.
  • Young Rider Was Thrown from Horse and Badly Injured.” Laramie Republican, (daily edition), Oct. 2, 1922, 8. Accessed Oct. 5, 2015, at http://newspapers.wyo.gov. Later issues contained articles about Lowell O’Bryan’s family and his obituary.
  • O’Bryan, Lowell. Biographical file, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyo.
  • Wyoming State Tribune, October 1922.
  • Wyoming Student (UW student newspaper), October 1922.

Illustrations

  • The photos of the fountain are by the author. The photos of the mural are by Greg Nickerson. Used with permission and thanks.

Wyoming’s Long-lived Bucking Horse

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Wyoming’s well-known bucking-horse-and-rider logo has changed many times since soldiers first used it on airplanes, arms and equipment in World War I France. Nor were all its versions modeled on the same real-life originals. At least three real-life horses and riders were associated with the logo as it evolved from its first appearance in 1918 until 1936, when the state appropriated the image for license plates and, as time went on, for other purposes as well.

Evolution of the idea

World War I veteran George N. Ostrom is credited with originating the emblem as a symbol of Wyoming when he was stationed in Bordeaux, France, in 1918. Ostrom admired his horse, Redwing, so much that he smuggled it from Sheridan, Wyo., all the way to France. When his commanding officers announced a contest for an emblem to represent individual regiments, Ostrom painted a picture on a drumhead of Redwing bucking with a cowboy on his back. The design won the contest and was painted on various types of gear and equipment, including Renault tractors for hauling guns, White brand trucks, road signs and even lapel buttons.

In about 1921, the University of Wyoming athletic department developed a bucking horse and rider insignia for its uniforms. This image was apparently not connected to Ostrom’s. Instead, its inspiration was Steamboat, a black gelding with three white stockings. He was named for the whistling sound of his breath, caused by a broken nose.

Steamboat had a reputation for wicked, violent bucking, swapping ends and twisting by kicking his fore and hind legs in two different directions. He was also known for “sunfishing,” in which a horse launches himself swiveling on a horizontal axis, aiming his belly away from the ground. Apparently, he always bucked when mounted, often landed stiff-legged and had unusual stamina. More than one cowboy called him a true outlaw. Very few rode him to a standstill.

The familiar logo that now appears everywhere in Wyoming began with Secretary of State Lester Hunt in 1935, when automobile license plates were standardized and the legislature directed Hunt to develop a unique design. Hunt selected a drawing by Allen True, of Denver, who had painted the murals in the Wyoming House and Senate chambers nearly two decades earlier. In 1936 the logo was stamped on all license plates. It has been used ever since.

Controversy, contradictions, and complications

In 1918, were there two bucking-horse designs—and designers—or one? Wyoming resident Dewey H. Jones served in the U.S. Army’s air force in World War I and claimed “full credit for the Bucking Broncho” stenciled onto an airplane. Jones’s logo is so different from Ostrom’s that nobody could mistake one for the other: Although both show four legs, Jones’s horse is kicking his hind legs high into the air, while Ostrom’s horse is hunching his back, and all four feet are close together under his body. In addition, all the known World War I uses and spin-offs are modeled on Ostrom’s design except one airplane in an undated photo showing the logo Jones claimed was his.

After Allen True’s design became the official license plate logo, “it started quite a controversy among the returned soldiers,” Ostrom told Robert Helvey in a May 21, 1958, interview in Big Horn, Wyo. This interview is on file at the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming. “I began to get big mail,” Ostrom continued, “stating that the state had stolen our bucking bronco.”

Ostrom asked Hunt sometime later to “give that bronco to the state of Wyoming in title and dedicate it in the shape of a memorial, through the legislature in memory of the [Wyoming] troops that had served in WWI. … This he said he definitely would not do; he had a copyright on my bronco; it was his and he could do what he pleased with it.”

Since True’s and Ostrom’s designs differ, Ostrom could only have meant that Hunt took the idea, not the literal image. True’s design, unlike Ostrom’s, shows only three of the horse’s legs; in addition, the back of True’s horse is not hunched. Both cowboys are waving their hats, but their arms are at different angles.

In a 1953 letter to Lola M. Homsher, Wyoming state archivist, Hunt wrote that his idea was “entirely original.” Hunt personally held the copyright for the license plate logo; in 1942, near the end of his second term as secretary of state, just before he became governor, he transferred it to the state of Wyoming, he wrote.

Ostrom’s account, however, implies that Hunt held the copyright longer than this , and that Hunt relinquished it to the state under pressure from Ostrom “as he approached his second term as governor.”

Horses and riders

Apparently, nobody has ever contested Redwing as the model or inspiration for Ostrom’s design. The rider is likely anonymous.

Equally, Steamboat has always been associated with the University of Wyoming insignia, especially the earliest versions. More than one cowboy has been mentioned as the rider, but most sources agree that both horse and rider were first modeled after a well-known photo of Guy Holt riding Steamboat at the Albany County Fair in 1903.

The identities of the license-plate horse and rider are less clear, but not because the historical record is ambiguous. Hunt stated that the horse was “no particular horse,” but that the rider was inspired by Lander cowboy and rodeo stunt rider Albert “Stub” Farlow.

Hunt, also from Lander, knew Farlow and admired his ability. Because Farlow’s name is connected with the license-plate logo, Deadman, a bucking horse he rode at least once, is sometimes also associated with the logo, but there is no other basis for this.

Steamboat, more than either Redwing or Deadman, seems to have captured the imagination of many Wyoming residents. Because he was stubborn, contrary and energetic, many feel that he represents the spirit of Wyoming.

Therefore, although the historical record shows that only the past and present University of Wyoming bucking-horse icon was inspired by Steamboat, many people associate the license plate logo with him as well. In turn, that logo, having superseded Ostrom’s and other early designs, is used almost exclusively to represent and advertise Wyoming. Therefore, by force of public perception, Steamboat has become the bucking horse symbol of Wyoming.

Military uses

Possibly during World War I, but more likely after, unofficial shoulder-sleeve insignias appeared, with Ostrom’s design. It was also stenciled onto helmets, but perhaps not during the war. In 1941, the Wyoming Army National Guard 41st Military Police Company at Fort Lewis in Washington state used this same image, or a close approximation of it, on a sign.

Ten years later, the 300th Armored Field Artillery Battalion (“Cowboy Cannoneers,” Wyoming Army National Guard) took a Wyoming Highway Department “Entering Wyoming” road sign with them to Korea. This sign has the license plate logo on it, and since then, Wyoming National Guard units have carried a similar sign when deployed to many major military operations.

Deirdre M. Forster, State Public Affairs Officer for the Wyoming Military Department, notes that “[e]very Wyoming Army National Guard unit that has deployed since Sept. 11, 2001, has taken an ‘Entering Wyoming’ highway sign with them. … The signs are created in house to replicate the one … from Korea.”

In addition, this logo has been stenciled onto National Guard buildings, restored airplanes and other equipment. Retired Col. Larry D. Barttelbort, military historian and expert on the military uses of the logo, reports two episodes in which True’s design was depicted with four legs. In 1953, when acting Gov. Clifford Joy “Doc” Rogers found the logo being stenciled onto a Wyoming Air National Guard F-80 fighter plane, he objected. So the graphic artist added another leg, thus creating an unofficial logo not owned by the state. In a 1986 painting, “Cowboy Artillery At Soyang,” artist Mort Kunstler depicted a famous battle in the Korean War, mistakenly showing a four-legged horse on a sign, a helmet and an M-7 105 mm self-propelled Howitzer. It is unknown whether the artist was responsible for the mistake, or was wrongly advised.

More surprising and potentially confusing yet, in the 1970s, George Ostrom used a horse and rider logo that resembles the modern version much more than it does his own. Ostrom was guest speaker at a graduation ceremony for non-commissioned officers at the Wyoming National Guard’s Camp Guernsey Joint Training Center in Platte County, Wyoming.

Commercial and other uses

Right after World War I, German manufacturers began producing humidors (cigar containers) and beer steins with Ostrom’s design on them. According to Barttelbort, this was “the first commercial use of a Wyoming bucking horse and rider logo.”

Lester Hunt discovered that many people outside of Wyoming wanted the license plate logo. When the plates were first issued, highway patrolmen in California reported a high incidence of plates stolen from Wyoming cars. Residents of Montana wrote to Hunt, asking to purchase a set of plates. That familiar version took over and has become a souvenir as well as an official, state-owned image, indelibly associated with Wyoming. The secretary of state still administers the logo.

Some chamber of commerce web pages display the logo; the University of Wyoming uses it on letterhead, envelopes, web pages and athletic equipment; the Wyoming State Quarter has it; and the Wyoming Centennial Commission chose it as its official logo. In the spirit of “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” the Tate Geological Museum at Casper College displays a bucking Allosaurus on its newsletter, complete with a rider waving a cowboy hat.

At least four bucking-horse-and-rider sculptures are currently on public display in Wyoming. On the university campus in Laramie, Chris Navarro’s “Wyoming Cowboy” is at the entrance to the Marian H. Rochelle Gateway Center; also by Navarro, “Cowboy Tough,” (two full-size originals, one in the Rochelle Athletics Center and the other in the War Memorial Stadium); and Peter Fillerup’s “Fanning a Twister,” featuring Steamboat, north of the War Memorial Stadium. In Cheyenne, the “Spirit of Wyoming” by Edward J. Fraughton is on the Capitol grounds.

Hathaway’s commendation

On June 1, 1973, Gov. Stanley Hathaway issued a commendation to George Ostrom, crediting him with “the first known use of the Bucking Horse as an insignia.” The governor’s commendation concludes, “The Wyoming Bucking Horse is dedicated to all veterans of the state.”

So, after 37 years, Ostrom achieved his goal to be officially recognized and for the logo to be associated with the Wyoming serviceman.

Still, public imagination has proven stronger. Ostrom’s logo appears only in old photos and on World War I memorabilia, while the license plate logo has become the best known. And, due at least in part to nostalgia for Wyoming’s early history, most people feel that this logo glorifies the spirit of the cowboy and the grit it took him to ride that memorable bucker, Steamboat.

The author and editors offer special thanks to the staff and volunteers of the Wyoming National Guard Museum and the staff of the Wyoming Military Department’s public affairs office.

Resources

Primary Sources

  • Barttelbort, Col. Larry D., director, Wyoming Veterans Commission. Personal emails to the author, Feb. 27-March 7, March 14, 27, 2017. Telephone conversations with the author, March 14, 28, 2017.
  • Forster, Deirdre, State Public Affairs Officer, Wyoming Military Department. Personal email to the author, Feb. 28, 2017.
  • Gillespie, A.S. “Bud,” and R.H. “Bob” Burns. Steamboat: Symbol of Wyoming Spirit. Laramie, Wyo.: University of Wyoming, 1952, 2-5.
  • Goss, John, director, Wyoming Military Department Museums. Personal email to the author, March 7, 2017.
  • Harkins, Timothy Jay, Associate Athletics Director for Media Relations, Public Relations and Broadcasting, University of Wyoming Athletics. Personal email to the author, March 24, 2017.
  • Hathaway, Gov. Stanley K. “Commendation.” June 1, 1973. License Plates, Vertical File, Wyoming State Archives, Cheyenne, Wyo.
  • Jones, Dewey H. Letter to Vincent P. Foley, Oct. 15, 1979. License Plates, Vertical File, Wyoming State Archives, Cheyenne, Wyo.
  • Ostrom, George. Interview with Robert Helvey, May 21, 1958, Big Horn, Wyo. George Ostrom Interview, Robert Helvey Collection, Box 2, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyo. Cited in Slack, Judy. George Nicholas Ostrom. (See full cite below.) Chapter 7, pp. 3-16.
  • Wyoming National Guard Museum staff and volunteers. Personal emails to the author, Feb. 27-March 7, 2017.

Secondary Sources

Illustrations

  • The photos of the soldier with the biplane, the postcard of Steamboat and the photo of Hunt and his license plate are from the Wyoming State Archives. Used with permission and thanks.
  • The photo of Stub Farlow is from the Pioneer Museum in Lander. Used with permission and thanks.
  • The image of George Ostrom’s design is from the Ostrom collection, Big Horn City Historical Society, Big Horn, Wyo. Used with permission and thanks.
  • The photo of the Wyoming highway department sign in Korea is courtesy of Col. Larry Barttelbort of the Wyoming Military Department. Used with permission and thanks.
  • The original of Mort Kunstler’s Cowboy Artillery at Soyang is owned by the National Guard Bureau Heritage Painting Collection. The copyright is owned by Mort Kunstler, Inc. Used with permission and thanks. 

Carrie Burton Overton, First African-American Female Student at UW

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Carrie Burton (1888-1975) prospered despite the odds stacked against her as a young African-American woman growing up in Laramie, Wyo. She entered the University of Wyoming in 1903 at the age of 15.

Carrie’s mother, Katie, was from Missouri where she had been born into slavery and married a man named Carroll. Together they had a son, Benny. Carroll died about 1887; Katie and son moved to Laramie and took in laundry for a living.

Katie then married John R. Burton and soon Carrie was born. Burton, however, was arrested and convicted for burglary and attempted rape in 1890. He was sent to the federal penitentiary in Illinois.

Later in life, Carrie said that she never really knew her father. Instead, she recalled that her stepfather, Katie’s third husband, Thomas Price, had a major influence on her musical career.

Young Carrie suffered through several very painful experiences. A “fortune teller” molested her at the age of 12. He was subsequently arrested and convicted of his crime. In summer of that same year her half-brother Benny drowned in the Laramie River.

Later an older girl who had stolen money to pay for train tickets talked her into running away to Cheyenne. The pair was arrested and returned to Laramie. Carrie was released without charges being filed.

The family was also subjected to indignities because of their race. (Beginning in 1869, Wyoming Territory outlawed interracial marriages. That law was repealed in 1882 but returned later in state law and lasted into the 1960s. Discrimination in housing was not outlawed until 1960.)

The Laramie papers were full of degrading comments about African Americans the entire time Carrie lived there and for many years afterwards. In August 1904, the people of Laramie lynched a black man just two blocks from Carrie’s house, and shot the body when it was hanging from a lamppost. U.S. Census records for Laramie in 1900 show there were no professional African-Americans in town; with the exception of a blacksmith, all were confined to menial jobs. Her mother worked only as a domestic, her stepfather as an unskilled worker. Between the two they did not even make enough money to pay for Benny’s burial.

When Carrie was a child, she was frequently taunted with racial epithets by other children.

“They just called me 'black,'" she told an oral-history interviewer in 1969. "They'd call me ‘nigger’—some of those kids—and I'd call them any name that I could find to call them and we'd be friends.” In the same interview, Carrie noted that when she played the piano for Jane Ivinson, the housekeeper would wipe off the keys when Carrie was finished.

The local newspaper noted that Carrie succeeded in life despite the “prejudice against her race.” And, remarkably, Carrie did not hold a grudge against the Laramie community. In fact, one of her best friends was Miriam Corthell, daughter of wealthy local attorney Nellis Corthell. In the 1969 interview, Carrie said, “I have found there is no place like Laramie for good people. Everybody helped. Everybody in town felt we were family.” (Emphasis in original transcript.)

Carrie was a very good student and an excellent pianist, often called on to perform for community events. Her talents opened a world of opportunities for her. At age 15, having completed eight grades in the public schools, she entered UW, which at that time still offered high school as well as college-level courses.

In the UW Preparatory School, Carrie finished her high school requirements. In the School of Commerce, she obtained a certificate in stenography and in the School of Music she took college-level classes and honed her piano skills.

After four years at UW, Carrie was accepted at Howard University in Washington D.C. To help cover the cost of moving, local ladies, with Jane Ivinson, wife of Laramie banker and philanthropist Edward Ivinson, in the lead, sponsored a 1908 fundraising concert for Carrie. Her successful performance received high praise.

Dr. Aven Nelson, a well-known botanist and later president of the university, and others at UW encouraged Carrie to attend Howard. They wrote glowing letters of recommendation and corresponded with both the music department head and the president of Howard University.

At first, her experience in Washington D.C. was trying. Her stepfather died around this time, and Carrie’s mother joined her in the city; for a time the two were barely able to make ends meet. Carrie corresponded with Laramie through a letter published in the Laramie paper, mentioning illness and hard work in her new environment. “I … worried myself sick and was under the doctor’s care for three weeks,” she wrote.

Eventually she found her footing and was very happy with life in Washington. She received a music diploma from Howard in 1913 and, soon after, married George Overton, principal of the “colored schools” in Cumberland, Maryland. The couple, who had no children, moved to New York City in the early 1920s. Working a series of stenography jobs all along—for the NAACP, the Democratic National Committee and the Community Church of New York City—she also continued her musical education. From 1932 to 1941 she studied at the prestigious Juilliard School of Music, winning a diploma in piano and a certificate in music theory during that time.

As a crowning achievement, Carrie composed an original musical work—unfortunately now lost--based on African folk songs that was performed at Juilliard in May 1940 and hailed as a success.

She continued her academic studies by entering Columbia University. There she was awarded both bachelor and master’s degrees.

Despite working and studying full time in New York, Carrie never forgot her Laramie roots. She returned for a visit in 1921. In 1960, she and her school administrator spouse came back to Laramie for that year’s homecoming festivities.

Carrie Burton Overton also played a role in the fundraising efforts of the Laramie Plains Museum. In January 1972 she was encouraged by UW Professor Robert Burns to write the story of her work for the Ivinson family as part of efforts to publicize the mansion that the museum hoped to purchase.

The story was expanded upon by museum fundraiser and supporter Alice Hardie Stevens and carried in the Laramie Boomerang on March 1, 1972. It recapped Carrie’s employment as a stenographer and musician for Jane Ivinson and noted Carrie’s fondness for the “Lady in the Mansion.”

Over the next few months, Prof. Burns also tried unsuccessfully to secure an honorary UW degree for Carrie Burton Overton. Despite polite answers from UW President William Carlson and Dave True of the board of trustees, no action was taken.

Carrie Burton Overton died in New York City in December 1975 after a long illness. She persevered in the face of early poverty and discrimination. She tied her accomplishments to her upbringing in Laramie. In a 1942 letter to the Laramie paper, she put it this way, “In all these things I have tried to repay the good people of Laramie for the faith they had in me.”

Editor’s note: We are grateful to the Albany County Historical Society, which first published this article Jan. 6, 2018, at https://www.wyoachs.com/new-blog/2018/1/6/carrie-burton-overton-first-african-american-girl-to-attend-uw, and to the editors of Annals of Wyoming, which published a longer version in its Autumn 2017 issue, Vol. 89 No. 4.

Resources

Primary Sources

  • Buffum, Burt C. Papers. Collection 400055. American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.
  • Burns, Robert Homer. Papers. Collection 400002. Box 3, Folder 13. American Heritage Center. University of Wyoming.
  • McWhinnie, Ralph Edwin. Papers. Collection 400054. American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.
  • Overton,  Carrie Burton. Collection UP000340. Walter Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Mich.
  • Overton , Carrie Burton. Oral History, LOH002299.  Walter Reuther Library, Wayne State University. Detroit, Mich.
  • Tuason, Lee Anne, Juilliard School. Email to author, Oct. 28, 2015.
  • Viner, Kim. “Carrie Burton Overton,” Annals of Wyoming, 89:4 (Autumn 2017), 2-17.
  • Wilk, Jocelyn, Columbia University. Email to Jonel Wilmot, Laramie Plains Museum Curator, Nov. 19, 2001.
  • Letter Carrie Burton Overton to Alan Lomax 22 November 1940. Letter Alan Lomax to Carrie Burton Overton 2 December 1940. Email from Todd Harvey, Library of Congress, to Betsy Bress, Curator Laramie Plains Museum, 21 October 2015.

Secondary Sources

  • Clough, W.O. A History of the University of Wyoming 1887-1937. Laramie, Wyo.: Laramie Printing Co., 1937.
  • Dale, Harrison Clifford. A Sketch of the History of Education in Wyoming. Cheyenne, Wyo: State of Wyoming, Dept. of Public Instruction, 1917.
  • Guenther, Todd. “'The List of Good Negroes': African American Lynchings in the Equality State.” Annals of Wyoming 81 (Spring 2009): 2–33.
  • Hardy, Deborah. Wyoming University: The First 100 Years, 1886-1986. Laramie, Wyo.: University of Wyoming, 1986.
  • “Juilliard School.” Wikipedia. Accessed Jan. 23, 2018, at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juilliard_School.
  • Lee, F. W. “Laramie Public Schools,” Wyoming School Journal 2, No. 9 (May 1906).
  • Noble, Robert F. The College of Education: 72 Years of Teacher Preparation for Wyoming's Schools. Laramie, Wyo: University of Wyoming, 1986
  • University of Wyoming. The Wyoming Student. Laramie, Wyo: Students of the University of Wyoming, March 1907.

Illustrations

  • The photo of Carrie Burton and other UW music students is from the Buffum Collection at the American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming. Used with permission and thanks.
  • The photo of the Ivinson Mansion is from the Laramie Plains Museum. Used with permission and thanks.

June Downey: Scientist, Scholar and Poet

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June Etta Downey, longtime professor of psychology at the University of Wyoming in the early 20th century, loved science, scholarship and creative pursuits with equal fervor. She was the first woman ever to head a psychology department at a state university, and her work won acclaim both nationally and internationally.

Near the end of her life, poking gentle fun at her own profession, she wrote,″Those who read extensively in the literature of mental hygiene [psychology] often sigh because they suspect that much of the charm of life comes from the irrelevant, the irresponsible, the not wholly sane. … They are glad that the mental hygienist never got his fingers on [the poets] Shelley, nor Byron.″

Background and education

Downey’s father, Stephen W. Downey, fought in the Civil War in the Union Army and moved to Laramie, Wyo., in 1869 where he practiced law. In 1871, he served his first of seven terms in the Wyoming Legislature. The following year, he married Eva Owen, sister of Wyoming surveyor William O. Owen.

June Downey, the second of their 10 children, was born July 13, 1875, in Laramie. After attending public school and the University of Wyoming Preparatory School in Laramie, she went on to the University of Wyoming, graduating in 1895 with degrees in Greek and Latin. During the following school year, 1895-1896, Downey taught in the Laramie public schools.

She studied psychology at the University of Chicago from 1896-1898, earning her Master of Arts degree.  During this time, her first professional article, ″A Musical Experiment,″ was published in The American Journal of Psychology.

When she returned to Laramie, she taught English and philosophy at the University of Wyoming. At that time, science was considered a branch of philosophy. In 1905, Downey was promoted to professor of philosophy. Between 1898 and 1906, she published two more professional articles—in The Psychological Review and The Psychological Bulletin, plus seven essays, poems and stories in popular journals and a book of poetry, The Heavenly Dykes. Dedicated to her late father, the book was titled for its first poem, a rhapsody to the springtime sky that compares trees to dikes holding back the “azure floods of the air.”

In 1906, she returned to the University of Chicago’s department of psychology to pursue her doctorate in philosophy, completing her dissertation and graduating magna cum laude the next year. Downey then returned again to the University of Wyoming and taught there for the rest of her life. She eventually became professor of philosophy and psychology and in 1915 was appointed head of the department of philosophy and psychology. She was the only woman in the country to head a psychology department at a state university. She never married.

Colleagues and former students unanimously described her as modest, hardworking and almost painfully shy except in front of a class when she inspired her students with her curiosity and drive to explore. Reportedly she allowed students great latitude in their own research.

Studies in graphology

Downey’s doctoral dissertation, ″Control Processes in Modified Handwriting,″ centered on handwriting and what the study of someone’s handwriting could reveal about personality. Graphology, in 1906, meant two different things: a branch of psychology, and also what Downey and her colleagues termed a pseudoscience, ″on a level with other pseudo-sciences which look for a facile interpretation of one’s mental make-up from a reading of the lines in the palm of the hand or the bumps on the head,″ Downey wrote in a subsequent book on her handwriting studies.

Downey and other psychologists were interested in handwriting as an automatic motor activity that could be impaired or disturbed in various ways with its results quantified. Impairments included writing blindfolded, in mirror image, with the non-dominant hand and with the dominant hand ″in a strained position.″ Distractions included counting aloud, reading silently or aloud and counting the recurrences of a given word in a passage the experimenters read aloud. The subjects’ handwriting changed in size, slant and legibility, as well as rate of execution.

For the next 12 years, Downey continued her handwriting studies, publishing the results in her book, Graphology and the Psychology of Handwriting. She dedicated the book to her uncle, ″William O. Owen, in recognition of his devotion to Truth as an Ideal.″ Cautious in her conclusions, Downey wrote, ″[T]here is reason to believe that … extreme variability [in size, slant, alignment and other graphic elements] is evidence of the possession of specific mental traits.″

Personality tests

By 1916, Downey was already a nationally recognized expert in personality testing. In April of that year, James Howell, a prisoner in the Carbon County jail in Rawlins, Wyo., assaulted the jailer and tried to escape. When the jailer subsequently died of his injuries, Howell was tried for murder. His attorney entered a plea of insanity because Howell appeared unable to answer even simple questions. Many believed he was faking.

In the Jan. 13, 1917, Survey, a national journal on social problems and charities, Downey reported on her role in this case. In the presence of the judge and jury, she administered to Howell the new Binet Intelligence Test, developed in 1906 by French psychologist Alfred Binet and later adapted by Stanford University. At the suggestion of Howell’s attorney, Downey provided the judge and all members of the jury with blank score sheets so they could follow the progress of the test and do their own scoring. By this means, she convinced the jury that Howell, about 25, had a mental age of between 6 and 7 years. Howell was subsequently sent to the Wyoming State Hospital.

″Apart from the intrinsic interest in the case itself, and one’s sense of justice that revolts at any brutality of method that might lead to hanging a brain-sick man,” Downey wrote, “the case is worthy of remark for two other reasons. In the first place, we must welcome every innovation in the direction of bringing into court not only the expert witness only, but the scientific evidence upon which he bases a positive opinion. Secondly, any enlightenment of the public as to the need of intimate investigation of the life and mind of the so-called criminal should be welcomed. More and more we realize that there are criminal acts but no criminals, and that society, if properly alive to the problem, could protect itself and the unfortunate man who may become a so-called criminal, by discovering him before he commits a crime.″

Eventually Downey became internationally known for her work in personality testing. Believing that the new field of intelligence testing should not be limited to measuring the intelligence quotient (IQ), Downey was among the first to develop a test for non-intellectual traits and believed that personality should be studied as an integrated whole.

Her book, The Will-Temperament and its Testing, published in 1923, reviewed the current research and thinking on personality testing and included a description of her own methods plus the results of others’ use of her tests. Downey tested for traits such as speed and fluidity of reaction, aggressive or inhibited tendencies, gender factors, resistance to opposition, finality of judgment and carefulness and persistence of reaction.

In Chapter 11, “Testing the Will-Temperament Test,” Downey cited several criticisms of her test, among them that “it is a mistake to label the … [12 subtests] with the name of specific personality traits.” For example, a test of an individual’s ability to disguise his or her handwriting should be labeled as such rather than as a test of flexibility, as Downey had it labeled.

With a remarkable absence of defensiveness, Downey wrote, ″A new departure such as that of temperamental testing rightfully calls down a fire of criticism directed both at the general project and at the way in which the project has been carried out. Specific criticisms, especially those based upon experimental work, are bound to be of the greatest value.″

Creativity studies

Downey’s study, ″The Imaginal Reaction to Poetry,″ was published in 1911. She presented 12 subjects with about 100 fragments of different styles of poetry and cataloged their responses, including visual imagery, emotional stimulation and sensory images.

Downey herself wrote poetry, plays, essays and short stories, some of which were published in popular journals. She also composed both the words and music for ″Alma Mater,″ still the University of Wyoming college song.

She published many other articles on creativity as well as two books on the subject: Plots and Personalities in 1922, co-authored with Edwin E. Slosson, former professor of chemistry at the University of Wyoming; and in 1929, Creative Imagination.

Publications, honors and awards

During her long-lived career, Downey published seven books, including The Kingdom of the Mind, an informal book to educate children about psychology. She also published 74 professional articles and 23 reviews. Two of her articles were published in the Encyclopedia Britannica. She was also editor or contributing editor for three professional journals, and a member of many professional organizations. She served on the council of the American Psychological Association, a distinctive position for a woman in that era.

She was listed in prominent notable achiever lists, such as The Psychological Register, Leaders in Education, Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Education and American Men of Science. In the 1927 edition of the latter, Downey’s name was starred as an exceptional scientist, one of only 100 starred names out of the 13,500 listed. (In a 1941 edition of Men of Science, fewer than 3 percent of the scientists listed were women; it seems likely that in 1927 the percentage was considerably smaller than that.)

For much of her adult life, Downey suffered from a ″nearly debilitating″ illness, which sources do not identify. However, all sources contain remarks about her outstanding dedication to teaching and research in the face of this problem.

In August 1932, while Downey was in New York to address the American Psychological Association and to attend the Third International Congress of Eugenics, she became ill and was diagnosed with stomach cancer. She died at her sister’s home in Trenton, N.J., on Oct. 11, 1932. She was buried in Laramie’s Green Hill Cemetery. On Sept. 28, 1933, university officials dedicated a bronze plaque in memory of her life and services to the university and installed it in Old Main, a building on the university campus.

Resources

Primary Sources

  • Downey, June E. ″Automatic Phenomena of Muscle-Reading.″ The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods 5, no. 24 (Nov. 19, 1908): 650-658. Accessed Dec. 1, 2017, via JSTOR at http://www.jstor.org/stable/i308894.
  • ———. ″Control Processes in Modified Handwriting: An Experimental Study.″ The Psychological Review 9, no. 1 (April 1908): 1-148.  Accessed Dec. 15, 2017, at www.search.ebscohost.com. Database at the University of Wyoming Coe Library. Available to faculty, staff and currently enrolled students. Also available at the Casper College Goodstein Foundation Library, Casper, Wyo., to any patron presenting a library card from any Wyoming library, or a Wyoming driver’s license, or a Wyoming ID.
  • ———. Creative Imagination: Studies in the Psychology of Literature. International Library of Psychology, Philosophy and Scientific Method. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1929.
  • ———. ″An Experiment on Getting an After-Image from a Mental Image.″ The Psychological Review 8 (1901): 42-55. Accessed Nov. 30, 2017, via www.search.ebscohost.com.
  • ———. Graphology and the Psychology of Handwriting. Baltimore: Warwick & York, Inc., 1919.
  • ———. The Heavenly Dykes. Boston: The Gorham Press, 1904.
  • ———. ″The Imaginal Reaction to Poetry: The Affective and the Aesthetic Judgment.″ University of Wyoming Department of Psychology, Bulletin No. 2. Laramie, Wyo.: The Laramie Republican Company, 1911.
  • ———. The Kingdom of the Mind. New York: The MacMillan Company, 1927.
  • ———. ″A Mental Examination in Open Court.″ The Survey, Jan. 13, 1917, 427-428. Accessed Dec. 1, 2017, at https://archive.org/details/surveyoctmar1917surv.
  • ———. ″A Musical Experiment.″ The American Journal of Psychology, 9, no. 1 (Oct. 1897): 63-69. Accessed Nov. 29, 2017, at www.jstor.org. Database at the University of Wyoming Coe Library. Available to faculty, staff and currently enrolled students. Also available at the Casper College Goodstein Foundation Library, Casper, Wyo., to any patron presenting a library card from any Wyoming library, or a Wyoming driver’s license, or a Wyoming ID.
  • ———. ″Normal Variations in the Sense of Reality.″ The Psychological Bulletin 2, no. 9 (Sept. 15, 1905): 297-299. Accessed Nov. 30, 2017, at www.ebscohost.com.
  • ———. ″Psyclones: Some Comments on the Winds of Doctrine.″ Journal of the American Association of University Women. 27, no. 2 (1934): 88-91.
  • ———. ″The Variational Factor in Handwriting.″ Popular Science Monthly 75 (Aug. 1909): 147-156. Wikisource. Accessed Dec. 1, 2017, at https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Popular_Science_Monthly/Volume_75/August_1909/The_Variational_Factor_in_Handwriting.
  • ———. The Will-Temperament and its Testing. Yonkers-on-Hudson, N.Y.: World Book Company, 1923.
  • Slosson, Edwin E. and June E. Downey. Plots and Personalities: A New Method of Testing and Training the Creative Imagination. New York: The Century Co., 1922.
  • University of Wyoming Faculty. In Memoriam: June Etta Downey, 1875-1932. Laramie, Wyo.: 1934.

Secondary Sources

  • Bazar, Jennifer. “Profile of June Etta Downey,” 2010. In Psychology’s Feminist Voices Multimedia Internet Archive, A. Rutherford, ed. Retrieved Nov. 2, 2017, from http://www.feministvoices.com/june-etta-downey/.
  • Eastman, Tyler. ″Stephen Downey.″ WyoHistory.org. Accessed Dec. 5, 2017, at www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/stephen-downey.
  • Hardy, Deborah. Wyoming University: The First 100 Years, 1886-1986. Laramie, Wyo.: University of Wyoming, 1986, 18, 50-51, 80, 142, 232.
  • Keen, Ernest. A History of Ideas in American Psychology. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2001.
  • Nelson, Elmer ″Kim.″ ″Aunt Norn and Uncle Will: Memories of the Downey Family of Laramie.″ Annals of Wyoming 69, no. 1 (Winter 1997): 35-42. Accessed Nov. 20, 2017, at www.archive.org/details/annalsofwyom69141997wyom.
  • Van Horn, Christina. ″June Etta Downey: She Reached Far Into the Scientific and Creative Beyond.″ Annals of Wyoming 88, no. 2 (Spring 2016): 2-18.
  • Viner, Kim. West to Wyoming: The Extraordinary Life and Legacy of Stephen Wheeler Downey. Laramie, Wyo.: Laramie Plains Museum Association, 2017.
  • Wupperman, Alice. “Women in "American Men of Science". A tabular study from the sixth edition.” Journal of Chemical Education, 18:3 (March 1941), p. 120. Accessed Jan. 24, 2018 at http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ed018p120?journalCode=jceda8&.

Field Trip

  • For more on June Etta Downey and the Downey family—scrapbooks, photographs, business records and more—browse the American Heritage Center’s collection of Downey Family Papers online or visit the center at the University of Wyoming:

Illustrations

  • All three photographs are from the Downey Family Papers at American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming; the postcard of Old Main is also from the AHC. Used with permission and thanks. The  copy of The Heavenly Dykes shown here is from the Natrona County Public Library.

The W on Laramie’s W Hill

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“Go out in the back steps of the University or any other convenient place about town and take a look at the red hills northeast of Laramie,” the Wyoming Student, predecessor to today’s student newspaper, the Branding Iron, urged on Sept. 30, 1913. “You will there see a large ‘W’ that was never there before.”

The article referred to the “W” on the hill in the north part of Laramie. Known for years as “W Hill,” the marker lent its name to a Laramie road that still exists. The name has confused newcomers for a century who, reasonably enough, often think the official name is actually “West Hill Road”.

The idea for the letter on the hill, then in a distant, unpopulated part of what is now residential Laramie, came from the freshman class in 1913—the class known then as the class of 1917.

The Wyoming Student told how “the 17’ers”—the freshmen—had secretly planned the construction for more than a week.

“On Saturday morning, with pick and shovel and lunch baskets, both young men and young women to the number of about fifty hied [sic] themselves for the hill, without delay and before long, a great change was wrought in the scenery.”

The group worked the entire day, taking a lunch break. “The girls served a delicious luncheon to the tired boys,” the Student reporter wrote the following week.

The W was 50 feet high by 80 feet wide and “consists of a layer of six inches of broken white limestone laid in a trench.” Later, the class planned to whitewash the rocks. According to the article, “passengers on incoming and outgoing trains from both directions can see the ‘W.’”

At the end of the article, the suggestion was made that one part of the “construction” should be made a permanent tradition—the whitewashing. The report explained, “… it would be a nice thing to make the whitewashing an annual celebration, held in the fall of each year, allowing the incoming Freshman class to do the work.”

By a few years later, it is clear, the tradition had stuck. The Wyoming Student on Sept. 24, 1920, observed that one fairly new and rather pointless tradition—freshmen wearing yellow and brown caps on campus until Thanksgiving—was being observed. “Another tradition that is important for the Freshmen to carry out,” the Student reported, “is the whitewashing of the W. This must be done within two weeks after registration, or take the consequences from the rest of the college.” The nature of the “consequences” was not stated.

As years passed, the tradition of “whitewashing the W” continued, though it has now died out. The stones have not been whitewashed in many years. But even if “incoming and outgoing” passenger trains were to be passing through Laramie today, it would be hard for passengers to see the W amidst the growth of trees and housing that has taken place since the “W” was installed by 50 freshmen on that fall day in 1913.

Resources

  • Wyoming Student, Sept. 30, 1913; Sept. 24, 1920.

Illustrations

  • Both black and white photos are from the collections of the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming. Used with permission and thanks. The bird’s-eye view is from Google Earth.

The 1918 Flu: A Worldwide Epidemic Sweeps Wyoming

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Though disease epidemics were common throughout America and the West in earlier times, the worst epidemic in terms of loss of human life came to Wyoming early in the 20th century, in the fall of 1918. 

From October of that year through January 1919, 780 people died statewide, victims of the flu epidemic.[1]Of those, 169 died directly from the flu while the rest were taken by a combination of flu and pneumonia.[2]

The sickness came just as World War I was drawing to a close. The war had begun in 1914 and the United States had entered it in April 1917. Beginning early in 1918, in the space of 15 months the disease killed somewhere between 50 million and 100 million people worldwide—far more than the 20 million civilian and military deaths attributed directly to the war. In Wyoming, too, the flu was deadlier than the war: Around 11,000 Wyoming men served in the war; about 500 of them died.[3]

Strong evidence now appears to show the epidemic began in the United States, though some scholars argue for France, China or Vietnam. In the U.S., this flu was first reported in Haskell County, Kan., spread from there with army recruits to Camp Funston, Kan., a huge training base, from there through military posts across the country and finally, with American soldiers, to the theatres of war in France.[4]

U.S. Army flu victims fill an emergency hosptial near Fort Riley, Kansas, 1918. National Museum of Health.

Though at the time it was called the Spanish Influenza or more often Spanish flu, the epidemic did not begin in Spain.King Alfonso XIII of Spain fell gravely ill after the flu was widely reported in Madrid in May 1918.Spain was not a combatant in the war, however, and, therefore, news of the epidemic was not censored there as it was in France, England, Germany and the United States. The king recovered, but the name "Spanish influenza," stuck.[5]

The epidemic came in three waves worldwide. The first, in the spring and early summer of 1918, was relatively mild. The second, beginning in summer and gaining vast momentum in the fall, was far deadlier. A third wave, in the winter and spring of 1919, was less lethal than the second but still dangerous.

The U.S. Army Surgeon General reported on Oct. 1, 1918, that all but 13 military installations in the continental United States were experiencing record numbers of soldiers ill with the flu. "Sick rates for [these forts], as a whole, are nearly double those of last week, due to the high incidence of epidemic influenza at Camp Devens, 8,653; Dix, 1,569; Upton, 920; Lee, 900; Gordon, 879; and Jackson, 561. The number of new cases in each are up."[6]

In that same month, October 1918, Wyoming newspapers reported dozens of deaths from the disease. The number of cases in Wyoming peaked prior to Armistice Day, Nov. 11, 1918, when the war ended and by which time some soldiers were beginning to return to their home towns. Many may have carried the germs home, accelerating the flu’s spread.[7]

Young and old die—but healthy adults also succumb

Young children and elderly died, but what made the epidemic unusual were the many deaths of healthy young adults.[8]The number of deaths in Wyoming stayed high in November. During the first week of the month, news statewide listed dozens of victims.[9]

Local and state public health officials drastically curtailed public activities—shopping was limited, schools closed and public and private gatherings were canceled, so fearful was everyone of the spread of the disease. 

Many people got sick in late September and October. Just as schools were opening in September, officials noticed significant attendance decreases and, by mid-month, schools had closed in most counties. According to reports submitted to the Wyoming superintendent of public instruction the following May, these closures occurred statewide.[10]  Reading them confirms the pervasive role the flu had on the state's schools, particularly during the fall term of 1918. 

Volunteer war work slows

Volunteer war work dominated school life at the time. Schools had been expected to help with the war effort by assisting with Red Cross drives, but that work slowed or stopped. 

Reports on these volunteer projects from county school officials to the state superintendent the following year provide a sense of how widespread flu had become.

"Owing to the influenza epidemic and the resulting quarantine,” wrote A.S. Jessup, city superintendent of Cheyenne schools, “little work has been done [on Red Cross war projects] since schools opened in September 1918, as the schools have been closed longer periods than they have been in session."[11]

"I know very little about the Big Piney schools since the epidemic of influenza kept me from seeing them this fall, " Margaret F. Nicholson, Lincoln County superintendent, wrote in her report of work by the Junior Red Cross.[12]

In Natrona County, war work in the schools stopped entirely in October.[13]Nellie L. Underwood, superintendent in Park County, noted that Red Cross work had gone well in the spring. In the fall, though, "The schools were quarantined so shortly after they had begun, that reports are not available for this year."[14]

Similar mentions were made in reports from superintendents in Platte; Sheridan; Sweetwater; and Uinta county: "Our schools were in session but one month when we closed on account of influenza. We have not opened yet."

A high school reporter for the NewcastleNews-Journalwrote, "On account of the Spanish Influenza epidemic we are going to postpone our war advertising fair for another week."[15]The Cokeville Register also carried the news, stating, "The schools in Afton have been closed, pending an investigation of sickness which has broken out there."[16]

Wyoming deaths occur during a four-month period

Many died during the last two weeks of October and the first week of November, by which timer, according to some national news accounts, the epidemic was declining. That appeared not to be the case in Wyoming, however. Reports of disease and flu deaths continued unabated at least until January 1919. A few newspaper editors noted that schools, closed for the semester, were about to reopen in December, but most did not begin sessions until after the Christmas holidays.

University of Wyoming suspends classes 

The University of Wyoming suspended classes and shut down in early October with a formal notice reported in the Wyoming Student. "The culmination of the growing epidemic of Spanish influenza throughout the city came on the afternoon of Tuesday a week ago,” the article noted, “when the health authorities ordered all places of amusement, all public gatherings, and all schools closed until further notice.” 

According to the report, Dr. Aven Nelson, president of the university, “suggested that the enforced vacation would offer excellent opportunity for reading and outdoor exercise, and that if used to catch up on the things for which the ordinary routine does not give time, it would not prove too irksome."[17]Pointing out that officials discouraged students from spending time downtown, the editor observed, "... since the soda fountains and picture shows are also closed, there is not a great deal of inducement to loiter on the street." 

Statewide, of the stores that remained open, many limited the number of customers. Some Cheyenne stores allowed only five customers at any one time for each 25 feet of store front.[18]

Obituaries fill newspapers

Throughout the fall, reports of deaths filled local newspapers. In mid-October, the Wyoming Student noted the flu death of recent UW graduate, Lt. Ben Appleby at Camp Dodge in Iowa while in training to leave for the war. The 25-year-old soldier had been student union president, editor of the annual, a champion debater and major in the university's ROTC Cadet Corps.[19]

The Newcastle newspaper reported October 24 the deaths of Carroll Jefferis, a 28-year-old druggist, who died only a few days after contracting the disease and Frank Davis, 32, a rancher southeast of Newcastle, who died in Edgemont, S.D., earlier in the week. Like other weekly community papers, the Newcastle News Journal also printed the names of many people who were ill with the disease.[20]

Across the state in what’s now Sublette County, a previously healthy 32-year-old cowboy became ill out on the range on an October Friday and died three days later.[21]In northern Wyoming, a Sheridan paper reported in November that in a 24-hour period "Five Deaths Occur as Result of Flu." Two victims were middle-aged women; one was a 20-year-old woman; two were children.[22]In south central Wyoming, prominent Saratoga businessman Charles Pennock, after ten days with the flu, died in early November at the age of 37. He was reportedly unconscious for 48 hours before his death.[23]

The epidemic swept the Big Horn Basin, too. On Nov, 8, The Thermopolis Independent reported five deaths from flu over the previous week. One woman was just 21 and recently married. The other four victims included two miners from the coal mining town of Gebo; the mother of four children in Thermopolis; and a 20-year-old Ohio man working in the same town. A sixth man was reported to have died just before press-time.[24]A sheepherder, Michigan-born Charles E. English, died in Basin. The Basin Republican reported the flu death of a 16-year-old high school student, Robert Steele. Both had been in good health prior to contracting the disease in late October.[25]

Rock Springs papers reported on Nov. 8 that a 34-year-old miner in Winton died from flu as well as two Mexican herders. "Paulo Esquibal, a Mexican, died at the emergency hospital on Saturday evening from influenza. Another Mexican, Mareos Sanchez, also died at the emergency hospital on Monday, from the same disease. Both men had been employed on the Gottsche ranch for the past three years. ..."[26] Northern Wyoming experienced deaths as well. The Gillette newspaper noted that two men, both in their early 20s, died of flu in Gillette that week.[27]

Two towns were particularly hard hit with flu in late October. In Hudson, Wyo., in Fremont County, "over a third of the coal miners are off either as the result of having the flu themselves or in their immediate family,” the Wyoming Labor Journalreported. Union local President Adam Rodgers died from the disease.[28]

The second hard-hit town hard that week was Cokeville. "The public schools were closed Friday afternoon and will not re-open until all danger is past,” the Cokeville Register reported on Oct. 12, adding: "Commencing today, all public gathering will be under ban until further notice." The Kemmerer newspaper reported that up to 125 people had contracted the disease the Wyman Hotel was temporarily a Red Cross hospital. Two Cokeville residents died from flu.[29]

Statewide, some suggestions to alleviate the spread of the disease seem far-fetched. "In the belief that smoke might carry the disease," Wyoming historian T.A. Larson later wrote, "leaf burning was forbidden."[30]

By late fall, some Wyoming places thought they had escaped the flu epidemic. A stringer for the Lusk newspaper reported that nearby Van Tassell, Wyo., “found herself in the grip of the 'Flu' just as we began to think that that germ was going to overlook us. So far there have been three victims, and we are praying and working, each in their own way, that we may be spared any farther fatalities."[31]

Some towns resort to quarantines

Because reports from other area towns told of the dire consequences of the disease, some towns managed to escape widespread influenza by imposing quarantines and cancelling public events before the disease made its appearance.

In October, the town council of Kemmerer quickly imposed a quarantine. "There can be little doubt that our good fortune is due to the prompt and wise action taken by the Town officials and the local health officers when the epidemic first became prevalent in Evanston," a Kemmerer editor noted, but added that it was not without economic consequences. Local businesses suffered, many “ being entirely closed on account of the restrictions," the editor concluded.[32]This pattern was repeated in towns throughout the state.

Cokeville authorities imposed a quarantine in late October, and warned visitors from other towns to stay away. As the Cokeville Registerreported on Nov. 2: City Health Officer Madera requested that other towns make sure no tickets to Cokeville be sold. Richard Roberts, the newspaper reported, was appointed a special officer, to impose a three-day quarantine on anyone arriving from outside the town. Some residents began wearing gauze masks when moving around the town.[33]

 The Cokeville quarantine finally ended in November. "[L]ast Wednesday saw smiles on the faces of all,” the Registerreported, with no new cases for a full week. “During the quarantine, business has practically been at a standstill, several of the establishments suffering a total loss of customers during the time they were closed. The merchants are to be thanked for the generous manner which they have observed the regulations." The editor also thanked the local population: "The men have done their part freely, and the ladies have spent long hours nursing and caring for the invalids.”[34]

Flu strikes some as late as December 1918

The epidemic was slow in coming to some places. During the first week of December 1918, the disease caused 14 deaths in Washakie County, previously relatively immune from the disease. “Conditions in Worland look considerable brighter today than they have for the past ten days, scarcely any new cases are reported the last three days and it looks as though the epidemic is now under control," the editor of the Worland Gritwrote Dec. 12, listing the names of the 14 people who died.[35]

Work slows and stalls 

Workplaces statewide were disrupted. The Wyoming Labor Journal noted, "There has been no part of the state that has been immune nor has any particular class of people been favored. There have been a number of deaths, but in the majority of instances where proper care has been taken the worst result has been from the incapacitating of the victims."[36]

The labor publication further noted, "Union activities have been practically at a stand still during the epidemic, owing to the suspension of meetings, but, except in the case of the newer unions of the railway shop crafts organized by the Federation officers and which have had no opportunity to become familiar with their procedure, little inconvenience has resulted." The labor publication, distributed statewide, concluded: "The locals particularly affected in this manner have been those of the Maintenance of Way Employees at Green River, Sheridan and Greybull, the Carmen at Greybull; the Federal Union of Railway Laborers and Helpers at Cheyenne. The older locals have their affairs so well in hand that they can transact their ordinary business for any ordinary period without the necessity of stated meetings."[37]

Typically, victims in work places were previously healthy younger men. For example, William Addison Burke, 24, a conductor for the Union Pacific Railroad, died of the flu on Oct. 22.  According to his obituary in a Laramie newspaper, he had been operating trains between Laramie and Rawlins up until the week before his death. As the paper reported, the source of Burke's disease may have come from family members serving in the military and posted where flu was especially prevalent: "As a railroad conductor, he was exempted from the draft just two weeks before his death. Three of his brothers were in military service."[38]

State health authorities support longer quarantines

By mid-December, state health authorities were still urging that quarantines continue because "Spanish influenza is beginning to spread again in many locations ..."[39]In a detailed letter to county public health officials in Wyoming's then 21 counties, C.Y. Beard, secretary of the Wyoming State Board of Health, wrote of the dangers of lifting quarantines too soon: 

"Many inquiries are being made by teachers of the different counties as to the probable day of the opening of the schools. The County Health Officers are instructed to give no encouragement regarding this as indications do not point to an early opening of the schools and when the order is issued it will probably not be one applying to all schools in the state." Beard urged that patients be isolated and warned "against negligence in reporting new cases toward the end of the epidemic." He said that each physician "in your district be supplied with a number of placards to tack up himself on running across cases in an isolated district, that the public may have knowledge of the existence of the disease m their neighborhood." 

The Beard letter continued: "Public sales have been a great menace to the proper control of the disease and you are urged to stop all public sales in your district until after the schools and other public places are opened. Some sections of the state insist upon continuing card parties and social gatherings which is also condemned and the ruling must be enforced." Beard reminded health officers of fundamental public health principles, including sterilization of utensils used in serving food and drink to the public."[40]

Meanwhile, a few newspapers published articles about the possibility of a vaccine, "but we feel that most people are still doubtful about its value," the Dwyer Heraldreported.[41]The CasperRecordprinted an article stating that eating lemons would keep people from contracting the disease.[42]

Deaths continue 

As late as Jan. 8, 1919, reports continued on the deaths caused by influenza. A Thermopolis paper noted: "Entering the home of a neighbor a few days ago J. B. Baer, of Ismay, found the farmer and his wife with two children lying dead in their beds, a third child dying on the floor. All were victims of influenza. The last child died shortly after he had been taken to another ranch for treatment. Indications showed that the entire family had been stricken together and had died partly from starvation, being unable to help each other."[43]

Officials were still concerned about the epidemic after the New Year. When theatres and churches were allowed to reopen in January 1919, people occupied only alternate seats.[44] The last Wyoming cases were reported in the early winter of 1919, although precautions were still in place in most Wyoming schools and towns until the following summer. By spring, no more cases were reported. Still, the following fall, many people were wondering if the flu would return.[45]

It didn't, at least in Wyoming. However, the state continued to experience lesser epidemics of other diseases. Polio, for example, struck many victims in Wyoming in the early 1950s. Newly discovered vaccines put an end to its presence about 1957.[46]

Questions remain

The death toll from the flu epidemic of 1918 has been measured for many states.[47]Inexplicably, Wyoming is not included in the government listing. The Wyoming Board of Health claimed some 700 people died from the flu or its effects; historian T.A. Larson placed the figure at 780. Random samples of cemetery records and newspaper obituaries from the period confirm a number in that range.  

A century later, the question about how such an epidemic might affect Wyoming continues to be raised. Historian John M. Barry predicted the impact of such an epidemic nationally. "If a new influenza virus does emerge, given modern travel patterns, it will likely spread even more quickly than it did in 1918,” Barry writes.[48]

Improvements in modern medicine and innovations in treatment and prevention will likely make a difference in that event. But preventive measures such as vaccinations, in order to be effective, must be practiced by the entire population if epidemics are to be controlled. Much medical research has been made during the century after flu swept across the world and Wyoming the fall of 1918, but to avoid disease, individuals and communities must continue to take precautions. 

Here is a poem that appeared on the front page of the Guernsey Gazetteon Jan. 3, 1919, after the flu epidemic had alleviated somewhat:

"According to 
THE FLU 
When your back is broke and your eyes are blurred 
When your shin bones knock and your tongue is furred 
And your tonsils squeak and your hair gets dry.
And you're doggone sure that you're going to die 
But you're skeered you won't and you're afraid you will 
Just drag to bed and have your chill 
And pray the Lord to pull you thru 
For you've got the Flu boy. You've got the Flu.
When your toes curl up and your belt goes thin;
And you're twice as mean as a Thomas cat, 
And life is a long, long dismal curse, 
And your food all tastes like a hard boiled hearse; 
When your lettice aches and your head's abuzz, 
And nothing is as it ever was, 
Here are my sad regrets to you 
For you've got the Flu, boy. You've got the Flu. 
What is it like? This Spanish Flu? 
Ask me, brother, for I've been thru. 
It is by misery out of Despair 
It pulls your teeth and curls your hair; 
It thins your blood and brays your bones
 and fills your craw with moans and groans 
And sometimes maybe you get well  
Some call it flu, I call it hell." 

Resources

  • Newspapers: The following Wyoming newspapers—referenced with dates in the footnotes for this article—are also available online at http://newspapers.wyo.gov.:
    • Basin Republican 
    • Big Piney Examiner
    • Casper Daily Press
    • Casper Record
    • Cokeville Register
    • Douglas Budget
    • Dwyer Herald
    • Gillette News
    • Guernsey Gazette
    • Jackson Hole Courier
    • Kemmerer Camera
    • Kemmerer Republican
    • Laramie Boomerang
    • Laramie Semi-Weekly Republican
    • Lost Spring Times
    • Lusk Herald
    • Manville News
    • Newcastle News-Journal
    • Powell Tribune 
    • Rawlins Republican
    • Rock Springs Miner
    • Saratoga Sun
    • Sheridan Enterprise
    • Thermopolis Independent
    • Wind River Mountaineer
    • Worland Grit
    • Wyoming Labor Journal
    • Wyoming Student
    • Wyoming Times
  • Barry, John M. The Great Influenza.  New York: Viking, 2004.
  •  ­­­­­­­­­___________. “How the Horrific 1918 Flu Spread Across America.” Smithsonian Magazine, November 2017. Accessed Sept. 19, 2018 at https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/journal-plague-year-180965222/.
  • Crosby, Alfred W.  America's Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918. Cambridge University Press, 1989.
  • Gould, Gertrude. History of Health and Hospitals in Albany County, Wyoming. Privately printed, 1973.
  • Hayes, Shaun. Former University of Wyoming American Heritage Center archivist, currently University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee archivist, Wyoming Humanities Council presentations 2011-2012.
  • Hunt, Rebecca A. Wyoming Medical Center: A Centennial History. Virginia Beach, Va.: Donning Co. Publishers, 2011.
  • Larson, T.A. History of Wyoming, 2d ed., rev. Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska Press, 1977, 404.  
  • Linford, Ernest H. "Flu Epidemic of '18 Recalled," Casper Star-Tribune, April 9, 1974.

Illustrations

  • The photo of Red Cross nurses with stretchers is from the Library of Congress. Used with thanks.

  • The photo of the nurse checking a pulse is likewise from theLibrary of Congress. Used with thanks.
  • The photo of flu victims on cots is from the National Museum of Health via the Atlantic. Used with thanks.
  • The newspaper images are all from the Wyoming Newspaperswebsite. Used with thanks.

[1]T.A. Larson, History of Wyoming, 2nd ed., rev. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1978), 404.

[2]Numbers are from T.A. Larson, History of Wyoming, 2nd ed., rev. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1978), 404. Wyoming’s population at the time was around 181,000. Flu and flu-related deaths, therefore, would have killed around four-tenths of 1 percent of the state’s people, a far smaller proportion than died over two decades of travel on the emigrant trails across the West—the great majority of them from cholera and other diseases.

[3]Larson, 395-396. 

[4]Barry, John, “How the Horrific 1918 Flu Spread Across America,” Smithsonian Magazine, November 2017.

[5]Many other European countries experienced flu epidemics earlier, but all were under wartime censorship, according to some historians. King Alfonso XIII of Spain was made gravely ill by it soon after it was reported in Madrid in May 1918.Spain was outside the main war zones and, therefore, news of the epidemic was not censored there. The king recovered, but the name "Spanish influenza," stuck.

[6]"Influenza Sweep Doubles Rate of Deaths in Camps," Laramie Boomerang, Oct 1, 1918, 1. 

[7]This assessment was made by many contemporary sources and noted by later historians. Shaun Hayes, former archivist at the American Heritage Center and now archivist at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, referred to this theory of the spread of the disease in public lectures sponsored by the Wyoming Council for the Humanities in 2011.

[8]Crosby describes deaths concentrated among those 21-45 years old, chap. 2. Barry notes that in Louisville, Ky., 40 percent of the victims were aged 20-35, see Barry, 173.

[9]"Biennial Report," State Superintendent of Public Instruction (Cheyenne: State of Wyoming, 1917-18), 25, 27, 28, 29.

[10]"Biennial Report," State Superintendent of Public Instruction (Cheyenne: State of Wyoming, 1917-18). The main theme that year for the biennial reports was for county superintendents to report on how schools had proceeded with projects for the war effort, including Red Cross programs, but all reports indicated the pervasive problem of flu.

[11]"Biennial Report," 21.

[12]"Biennial Report," 22.

[13]"Biennial Report," 22-23.

[14]"Biennial Report," 25.

[15]  "High School Notes," Newcastle News-Journal, Oct. 10, 1918, 1.

[16]Cokeville Register, Oct. 12, 1918, 1.

[17]  "Work Suspended to Halt Disease," Wyoming Student(UW), Oct. 17, 1918, 1.

[18]Ernest H. Linford, "Flu Epidemic of '18 Recalled," Casper Star-Tribune, April 9, 1974.

[19]  "Lt. Ben Appleby (under portrait)" Wyoming Student(UW), Oct. 17, 1918, 1.

[20]Newcastle News Journal, Oct. 24, 1918, 1.

[21]Big Piney Examiner, Oct. 31, 1918.

[22]Sheridan Enterprise, Nov. 7, 1918, 1.

[23]Saratoga Sun, Nov. 7, 1918, p. 1. 

[24]"Young Woman Dies After Brief Illness," Thermopolis Independent, Nov. 8, 1918, 1.

[25]Basin Republican, Nov. 8, 1918, p. 1.

[26]"Two Mexican Herders Die from Influenza," Rock Springs Miner, Nov. 8, 1918, 1.

[27]Gillette News, Nov. 8, 1918, p. 1.

[28]"Flu in Hudson Cuts Down Force," Wyoming Labor Journal, Nov. 8, 1918, 1.

[29]"Flu Epidemic in Cokeville Very Serious," Kemmerer Republican, Nov. 8, 1918, 1.

[30]Larson, 404.

[31]Lusk Herald, Nov. 7, 1918, p. 1.

[32]"Kemmerer Council Continues Quarantine," Kemmerer Camera, Nov. 27, 1918, 1.

[33]Cokeville Register,Nov. 2, 1918, 1.

[34]Cokeville Register, Nov. 23, 1918, 1.

[35]"Influenza Epidemic Take Toll in This Community," Worland Grit, Dec. 12, 1918, 1. Those listed as victims were: Don Romero, "a Mexican aged 31 years"; Donald Mitchell, 18; Joe I. Vokoto, "a Japanese boy 22 years of age"; Edward Maisch, 23; Ray Cogdill, 24, "he was ill only a short time"; Jules Bernard, 33, "sheepman from Ten Sleep ... died in Worland"; Fred Noble, "head of Noble and Bragg outfit on Nowood ... died in Elko, Nevada"; Harry Sands, owner of merchandise store in Chatham; Mrs. Thomas Mills, 50, Tensleep; Mirl V. West, 21; Edward E. West, 2, "3rd to die out of one family"; Donald Cogdill, 2; Bertie Brown, 19; Mary Mein, mother of two young children; Mason A. Hess, 51, Durkee rancher; Pauline Morland, 32, "leaves a husband and six children"; Torrey Packer, 24, "lived on the west side of the river from town." 

[36]Wyoming Labor Journal, Nov. 8, 1918, 1.

[37]Wyoming Labor Journal, Nov. 8, 1918, 1.

[38]Laramie Semi-Weekly Republican, Oct. 26, 1918, 3.

[39]"Quarantine for Flu," Worland Grit, Dec. 12, 1918, 6.

[40]This account is from the Douglas Budget, Nov. 7, 1918, with Dr. J.P. Keller reporting on the letter he received from C.Y. Beard, secretary of the Wyoming State Board of Health, relative to the lifting of the ban.

[41]"Vaccine for the Influenza," Dwyer Herald, Nov. 29, 1918, 1.

[42]"Hand the Flu a Lemon," Casper Record, Oct. 9, 1918, 1.

[43]"Entire Family Succumbs To Spanish Influenza," Thermopolis Independent, Jan. 10, 1919, 8.

[44]Larson, 404.

[45]Powell Tribune, Sept. 26, 1919, 9.

[46]For a brief list of epidemics in Wyoming, see Wyoming Almanac, 5th ed. (Laramie, 2013), 309-10. For impact of specific epidemics on local health, see Gertrude Gould, History of Health and Hospitals in Albany County, Wyoming(privately printed, 1973); Rebecca A. Hunt, Wyoming Medical Center: A Centennial History(Virginia Beach, Va.: Donning Co. Publishers, 2011).

[47]U.S. Bureau of the Census, Mortality Statistics, 1919. (Washington: GPO, 1921), 28-31.

[48]Barry, The Great Influenza, 450.

Aven Nelson, Botanist and President of the University of Wyoming

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When 28-year-old Aven Nelson arrived in Laramie, Wyo., on July 28, 1887, the University of Wyoming consisted of just one building, still under construction, on an arid plain dotted with sagebrush and a few cows—a landscape that was far different from the Iowa of his birth and the part of Missouri where Nelson had lived most recently.

But the look of the new campus may not have been as surprising as the job news he received soon after he and his wife, Celia Alice, stepped off the train with their baby Neva.

He planned to be the English professor. However, the UW trustees had goofed, inadvertently hiring two English instructors. The other man had a master’s from Dartmouth. Nelson had a bachelor’s in arts and didactics from the Missouri State Normal School. After university President John Hoyt discussed the matter with him, and because he had taught biology at Drury College in Springfield, Mo., Nelson, one of the university’s six first faculty members, was appointed biology professor and librarian.

University of Wyoming botanist Aven Nelson shows books of plant specimens in Yellowstone Park, 1899. He was happiest when working in the field. American Heritage Center.Members of Aven Nelson’s plant-gathering expedition to Yellowstone in 1899. Most likely these people are, left to right, Nelson’s wife Celia Alice 'Allie' Nelson, daughters Helen and Neva, and student Leslie Goodding, who later became a botanist as well. American Heritage Center.

For a $1,500 a year, Nelson’s duties also included serving as calisthenics instructor and teaching physical geography, economic botany, zoology and animal physiology. Not until 1891 and the creation of programs in agriculture and horticulture did Nelson discover the profession he loved the most, a position that eventually brought him international and long-lasting respect. He became the professor of botany and horticulture, and in time earned the nickname “the botanist.”

By 1891, the university boasted a new experiment station, where faculty and students could try out new agricultural methods on crops and livestock. That year, Nelson published the first botanical report, a short list of the plants he’d found growing locally and on unirrigated parts of the university’s experiment farm. He included fifteen plants and added 8 plants and shrubs that grew in the hills near Laramie.

An herbarium is like an archive of plants. Here, Rocky Mountain Herbarium Curator Ernie Nelson (no relation to Aven) displays specimens of the genus Leontopodium, from Russia.  Lori Van Pelt.In 1892, Nelson was granted a leave of absence and earned his master’s degree from Harvard, where he did course work on the morphology and physiology of plants and animals. By this time, he and his wife had two daughters—Neva, born in 1886, and Helen, born in 1891.

Beginning the herbarium

Meanwhile, university horticulturalist Burt Buffum had prepared plant specimens from throughout Wyoming for the state’s exhibit at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. Nelson, when he returned to Laramie, was assigned the task of identifying the plants. This became the beginning of the herbarium—a sideline to Nelson’s full-time teaching load.

Having no formal botanical training, he relied upon the respected manuals of the day, including John Coulter’s Manual of the Botany of the Rocky Mountain Region. Nelson and the university’s Edwin Slosson, the chemistry professor, displayed in Chicago the collection of grasses that Buffum had collected. They earned a medal for the University of Wyoming.

Because Nelson was eager to learn more, he set aside extra sets of specimens so he could exchange or sell the sets and receive more plants in return. He began collecting and preserving plants himself in and around Laramie in 1893. He often worked nights, after teaching during the day. Through these plant exchanges, he learned from other more experienced botanists—ones from Harvard, Berkeley and the National Herbarium in Washington, D.C., for example—how plants were named and proper preservation methods. But Nelson realized he would need more formal training as well.

Grace Raymond Hebard, who the UW board of trustees hired as its secretary in 1891, had received her Ph.D. from Illinois Wesleyan University, where residency—unusual for such an advanced degree—had not been a requirement. At a time when the great majority of the Wyoming faculty did not possess the degree, “her acquisition [of it] was as worrisome to them as it was dubious,” Roger Williams writes in his biography of Nelson.

Hebard was already a powerful force on the campus. In her position as secretary to the board, she also signed the reappointment letters for faculty members. Nelson’s salary, which was supposed to have been increased to $1,800 after he earned his master’s degree, actually decreased to $1,600. He began looking elsewhere for positions but found he’d need a Ph.D. to pursue university botany jobs elsewhere.

Botanizing in the Red Desert and Yellowstone

Nelson, therefore, stayed on in Wyoming, learning botany as he worked. By 1895, he had begun to earn respect from botanists throughout the nation for his collections. His “First Report on the Flora of Wyoming,” published in May 1896 in the Wyoming Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin, listed 1,176 species found in Wyoming.

He began selling specimen sets to fund field work. In the summer of 1897, he worked on commission for the Division of Agrostology of the U.S. Department of Agriculture to collect grasses and forage plants in the Red Desert of south central Wyoming at a salary of $150 per month. He was the first botanist to study the Red Desert systematically.

In 1899, he traveled to Yellowstone National Park to collect specimens. He funded the trip by selling subscriptions for duplicate sets at a price of $8 per 100 species and $100 for a full set, no matter the number of species that were included. He did not make as much as he hoped, but this did not thwart the trip. “Whatever else the Yellowstone expedition did for Aven Nelson and Wyoming,” Williams writes, “it made him a Wyomingite for the remainder of his life.”

The party included Nelson, his wife and young daughters, graduate student Elias E. Nelson (no relation) of Douglas, Wyo., who worked as his assistant, and Leslie Goodding, a high school student in the university preparatory school who did camp chores. In mid-June 1899, they traveled by train courtesy of the Union Pacific Railroad from Laramie to Monida, Mont., on the Montana-Idaho border west of Yellowstone Park.

They explored the park by horse-drawn wagon, camping along the way in a 12-by-14 tent. They collected about 1,400 specimens during the trip, but there were mishaps. A grizzly bear frightened the horses away from the camp; they turned up later about five miles off. More seriously, Elias Nelson stepped into hot mud and suffered a severe burn on his ankle. He returned home early.

That fall, Nelson hired Goodding as an assistant for $500 for the academic year, and the university’s board of trustees approved the instructor’s request that the herbarium be named the Rocky Mountain Herbarium. He was named curator as well. Elias Nelson of the burned ankle went on to earn the first graduate degree awarded by the university, but he did not become a botanist.

Left to right, Neva, Helen and Celia Alice 'Allie' Nelson at the family home on 9th Street in Laramie, perhaps around 1902. American Heritage Center.The University of Wyoming campus, 1903, by which time Aven Nelson’s reputation as a botanist was well established. For years he acted also as the university’s unofficial gardener and landscaper, planting trees, shrubs and grasses and enlisting students to help him turn UW into a greener, shadier place. American Heritage Center.

Earning well-deserved acclaim

In 1904, Aven Nelson earned his Ph.D. from the University of Denver, awarded in part because of his previously published botany articles, and also, Williams notes, because that university’s officials “were eager to honor him as the preeminent botanist of the Rocky Mountain region, and thus, bring honor to themselves.”

Burrell “Ernie” Nelson, present-day curator of the Rocky Mountain Herbarium—no relation to Aven Nelson—notes that Aven Nelson made the herbarium “the center of botany for the region.” Aven Nelson was the first botanist to actually live in the region and ended up rewriting the Coulter Manual of Rocky Mountain Botany with which he’d begun his own education in botany years before. The book remained “a key reference for the region for years,” Ernie Nelson says.

Enduring academic disputes

That task, completed in 1908, earned Aven Nelson wide respect as a taxonomist. But there had been serious difficulties at the University of Wyoming beginning the previous year that had again caused Nelson to look elsewhere for employment.

The controversy began with an exchange of a 5,000-acre tract of university-owned land in Big Horn County for a tract of similar size in Park County. The swap was approved by the state land board, but without first consulting the university trustees. Since the new tract was likely to provide more revenue than the old one, the trustees had no objection, but UW President Frederick Tisdel felt strongly that the exchange was improper and set “a most unfortunate precedent,” Williams writes.

Since the trustees were largely Republican and the Wyoming government was led by a Republican administration, some trustees—including Hebard and Laramie businessman Otto Gramm—interpreted Tisdel’s concern as a political criticism. He resigned, offering an effective date in June, but the board dismissed him on March 28, 1908.

Hebard’s authority came into question that year as well, but she emerged unscathed. She became an associate professor in the political economy department in 1906-1907 without consulting the department head. She did not teach a class, and her superior questioned the credibility of her Ph.D. In addition, with her position as secretary to the board of trustees, her salary as professor and librarian topped his by $200. When he requested her removal, he lost his job, and Hebard became head of the department. Deborah Hardy, who in the 1980s wrote a history of the university’s first 100 years, notes that while Hebard’s intentions were probably noble, “her position as faculty overseer and financial dragon had caused her to become heartily disliked.”

By this time, Nelson had worked for the university for 20 years and invested much of his time and talents in the Rocky Mountain Herbarium. He had earned wide respect in his field, but he did not find anything that suited him better. The university, Williams notes, had “come close to losing its best and on the eve of his greatest scholarly achievement. It also had Miss Hebard, who brought trouble but no distinction, for life.”

Serving as president

In 1917, the University of Wyoming trustees appointed Aven Nelson to serve as temporary president following Clyde Duniway’s move to Colorado College. Nelson had served as vice president for the three years previous. He accepted the new position in part because the trustees promised to continue searching for someone to fill the post permanently—an uncertain task, given that the nation had just entered World War I. Nelson continued to teach freshman botany. His salary was $5,000 per year, the same that Duniway had earned.

In 1917, the university hired a professional campus gardener. Before that, Nelson had taken care of the campus by planting trees and shrubs and grass to replace sagebrush. He had enlisted students to help him with pruning, trimming and mowing and general upkeep in an annual event called “Nelson Day.”

Nelson continued as president until 1922. During his term, wartime inflation and the receipt of oil royalties from state lands helped the university prosper. Nelson worked to increase faculty salaries and create a pension system and workmen’s compensation packages. But he always wanted to return to botany. According to Hardy, one student called him “part poet” and referred to him as a “great teacher,” but an “indifferent administrator.”

Hardy lists the three presidents who followed Tisdel—Merica, Duniway and Nelson—as having “worked well with faculty and earned the respect of their colleagues on campus.” But in 1922, after making some controversial decisions, including reconsidering the position of the popular football coach, Nelson submitted his resignation and the board granted him a leave of absence.

He was 63; he and his wife took the opportunity to travel the West and do field work. In the summer of 1923, Aven also taught students attending the University of Wyoming summer science camp in the Medicine Bow National Forest about 40 miles west of Laramie in the Snowy Range. The camp was the brainchild of geologist Samuel Knight and attracted students from across the nation. 

Aven Nelson was already married to Celia Alice Nelson—Allie, she was called—when he first took a job at the University of Wyoming in 1887. This picture is probably from the 1920s; she died in 1929. American Heritage Center.In 1925, he began to revise the Coulter-Nelson manual, a project he called the “Dual Purpose Manual,” referring to his efforts to make it serve both professional botanists and amateurs. In 1926, the University of Colorado awarded him an honorary doctorate. In 1927, he became a founder of the Colorado-Wyoming Academy of Science.

Remaining vibrant in later years

Beginning in the 1920s, Nelson’s wife, Celia Alice, known also as Allie, suffered from an intestinal ailment for several years. She died on Aug. 9, 1929.

The next year, Nelson took a four-month European tour, visiting Norway, the country of his ancestral heritage. When he returned to the U.S., he visited various campuses, including Colorado Agricultural College in Fort Collins, Colo. While there, according to Williams, he spoke with a graduate student, Ruth Ashton, who had worked summers for the National Park Service and planned to write her thesis on the plants of Rocky Mountain National Park.

Nelson had met her at a meeting of the Colorado-Wyoming Academy of Science and invited her to conduct research for her thesis at the Rocky Mountain Herbarium. When a $500 assistantship became available at the RMH, Nelson awarded the position to Ashton. “Her interests,” according to biographer Williams, “… squared well with his own ambitions for a dual-purpose manual.”

The two fell in love, despite the vast difference in their ages: Nelson was 71; Ashton, 34—younger than both of his daughters. Nelson conducted field work for the state of New Mexico in 1931. Aven and Ruth married in Santa Fe on Ruth’s birthday, Nov. 29, 1931.

Aven Nelson married his second wife, Ruth Ashton, a young botanist who had worked in Rocky Mountain National Park for the National Park Service, in 1931. She was 34; he was 71 at the time. American Heritage Center.Although Nelson’s daughter Neva knew her father hoped to remarry, he had not shared definite plans with her. Nelson wrote a letter to his daughters the next day, but the news appeared in newspapers before they heard from their father. While this caused a short-term rift, the family made peace with each other eventually. 

“This astonishing man,” writes Harvey, “found happiness in a second marriage to a sympathetic and loving woman, also a botanist.”

Nelson remained active during his later years. Although his publisher rejected the dual purpose manual, he lectured throughout the world; was elected as president of the Botanical Society of America in late 1934, and in December 1935 became the first president of the American Society of Plant Taxonomists. In 1937, the University of Wyoming awarded him an honorary Doctor of Laws. The same honor was bestowed posthumously that year on Grace Raymond Hebard.

Aven Nelson continued teaching at the UW summer science camp until 1938. During the summer of 1939, Aven and Ruth Nelson collected plants in Alaska in Mount McKinley National Park. He continued to do field work until 1945. In 1945, he fell from a chair while attempting to retrieve a book from a high shelf. He hit his head on the concrete floor and never completely recovered. By 1947, he was experiencing cognitive challenges, and it became increasingly difficult for Ruth to care for him in Laramie. He died March 31, 1952—just a few days after turning 93—at Brady Sanitarium in Colorado Springs. He was buried in Greenhill Cemetery in Laramie. Ruth Ashton Nelson died on July 4, 1987.

Aven Nelson in Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, 1931. His Rocky Mountain Herbarium on the UW campus by then was the center of botany for the entire region. American Heritage Center.Aven Nelson and a few of his students, 1937. One student described him as 'part poet,' a 'great teacher' but an 'indifferent administrator.' Nelson is holding a vasculum, a container for carrying plant specimens from the field back to camp or the herbarium for pressing. American Heritage Center.

A continuing family legacy

Aven Nelson’s students often felt close to him, according to Williams. “Botany students were never just students to Professor Nelson,” Williams explains. “Let any student evince an interest in his field, and he or she gained instant entry to a charmed circle.”

A photograph of Aven Nelson hangs at the Rocky Mountain Herbarium, which he founded in the early days of the university.  Lori Van Pelt.His legacy proved to be a lasting one. Charlotte Reeder, who Aven Nelson considered like a granddaughter, was the daughter of Leslie Goodding, the young man who went to Yellowstone with the Nelsons in 1899. Goodding eventually chose a career in botany and had looked upon Nelson as a father figure. Reeder, likewise a botanist, became current RMH curator Ernie Nelson’s mentor in graduate school. The affiliation with Reeder allowed Ernie Nelson to become, in effect, a latter-day student of Aven Nelson.

“So much of what I learned was indirectly from him,” Ernie Nelson says. Aven Nelson’s work in botany and at the University of Wyoming further influences the current curator because, he says, of “the work he had done to increase the knowledge of what plants occur in Wyoming, a great foundation, which I could help build on.”

Today, visitors to the University of Wyoming campus--especially those who pass through Prexy’s Pasture--stroll past large spruce trees that Aven Nelson planted. He may also have planted some of the older cottonwoods, according to Ernie Nelson. Located at the far west side of Prexy’s Pasture, the herbarium, perhaps Aven Nelson’s greatest contribution to botany, takes up the entire third floor of the Aven Nelson Building. The collections total approximately 1.3 million specimens. The building was constructed in 1922 and first served as a library. After a new library was built, the herbarium and the botany department were located for a time in the UW Engineering Building and were moved to their current location in 1960.  The building also houses the U.S. Forest Service National Herbarium and the W.G. Solheim Mycological Herbarium. Efforts are underway to digitize the collection, with 850,000 specimens currently available to be searched online.

The plant Anelsonia eurycarpa, a daggerpod from the mustard family, was named in honor of Aven Nelson.

Resources

  • “Anelsonia.” Wikipedia. Accessed Sept. 20, 2018, at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anelsonia.
  • Ewig, Rick and Tamsen Hert. University of Wyoming. The Campus History Series. Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia Publishing, 2012, 28-29.
  • Fertig, Walter. “Aven Nelson’s 1899 Yellowstone Expedition” Vol. 18, no. 4, Dec. 1999, Castilleja (The Newsletter of the Wyoming Native Plant Society).
  • Hardy, Deborah. Wyoming University: The First 100 Years, 1886-1986. Laramie, Wyo.: University of Wyoming, 1986, 45, 73-75, 79, 88. Hardy’s book also provides additional details about the operations of the university and Aven Nelson’s role at UW.
  • Knobloch, Frieda E. Botanical Companions: A Memoir of Plants and Place. Iowa City, Iowa: University of Iowa Press, 2005, 29, 39, 83. In this book, Knobloch, associate professor of American Studies at the University of Wyoming, relied upon previous research conducted by Aven Nelson biographer Roger Williams but refers in greater detail to Ruth Ashton Nelson's life and work, also attempting to better understand her personal relationship with her husband through the work they performed together. As part of her research, Knobloch, who is not a botanist, traveled to Wyoming's Red Desert and to Alaska and collected specimens in the same areas as the Nelsons had many decades before. 
  • Larson, T.A. History of Wyoming. 2d ed., rev. Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska Press, 1978, 343, 364, 399, 430.
  • Nelson, Burrell “Ernie.” Email interview with author, Aug. 26, 2018.
  • Nelson, Aven. Title unreadable [regarding state flowers], Laramie Republican, April 2, 1917, p. 6. Accessed Sept. 6, 2018, at http://newspapers.wyo.gov.
  • Williams, Roger L. Aven Nelson of Wyoming. Boulder, Colo.: Colorado Associated University Press, 1984. Considered the definitive biography of Aven Nelson and highly recommended by botanists. This book contains much detailed information about Aven Nelson’s professional and personal life, including examples of taxonomy, Nelson’s “Proposed New Genera, Species, and Varieties,” and a detailed listing of his publications. I relied heavily upon this source in writing this article. See especially 26, 28, 40, 59, 61, 67, 70-78, 124-126, 151-153, 200, 238-239, 256, 263, 271, 276-296, 288-289.
  • “Aven Nelson.” Find a Grave.com. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/52105750/aven-nelson
  • “Aven Nelson, UW Professor and President.” UW Profiles, University of Wyoming. Accessed July 13, 2018, at http://www.uwyo.edu/profiles/distinguished-leaders/aven-nelson.html
  • “Aven Nelson.” Office of the President. University of Wyoming. Accessed July 13, 2018, at http://www.uwyo.edu/president/past-presidents/aven-nelson.html
  • “Aven Nelson.” Wikipedia. Accessed Sept. 19, 2018, at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aven_Nelson
  • “Rocky Mountain Herbarium.” University of Wyoming. Accessed Sept. 18, 2018, at https://www.uwyo.edu/botany/rocky-mountain-herbarium/.
  • Ruth Ashton Nelson, 1896-1987. WorldCat. Accessed Sept. 19, 2018, at http://worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n89644161/.

Illustrations

  • The black and white photos are all from the digital collections at the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming. Used with permission and thanks. Special thanks to botanist George Jones of the university's Wyoming Natural Diversity Database for identifying Nelson's vasculum.
  • The color photos are by the author. Used with permission and thanks.
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