To say things are hectic for the Sublette County Hospital District is an understatement. 

The district is just months out from opening a brand-new hospital in Pinedale, and the list of tasks is daunting, district board chair Tonia Hoffman said. For starters: ensure construction is complete, onboard doctors, move long-term-care residents, set up payment and billing systems, install furniture, hire nurses.

“We’re kind of deep in the throes of trying to get everything ready to go,” Hoffman said. 

Amid the myriad tasks involved in opening the county’s first hospital by July 1, it wasn’t exactly welcome news to discover a new state law will impose a significant cut in property taxes, she said. The district earns revenue from a mill levy, which pulls from those taxes. The mill levy equated to $12.4 million in 2022-2023 for the hospital district.

Senate File 69, “Homeowner property tax exemption,” will apply a 25% exemption on the first $1 million of a single-family home’s fair market value, which will translate into a smaller pool of funds for the Sublette County Hospital District to draw from. The district is far from alone. 

“It will have an unfortunate effect, I think, on every small rural hospital in the state,” Hoffman said. 

Wyoming’s 15 hospital districts, along with hundreds of other special districts and local governments that get revenue from a portion of property taxes, are now confronting funding cuts. These districts include services for cemeteries, housing authorities, irrigation, recreation, fire protection and rural health. 

Though exact numbers won’t be clear until properties are reassessed — an annual task typically finalized in June — districts expect some hard choices as they determine how to stretch shrinking funds. With rural health care providers already facing steep challenges, some say, the cuts could topple a precarious fiscal balancing act.

In Pinedale, Hoffman said, the hospital district is relatively insulated by its mix of funding sources. But in combination with other recent and potential changes aimed at taxes, she said, the overall effects are concerning.

“We’ve [already] been preparing for months on where we can cut, and where we can save,” she said. 

Taxpayer relief squeezes districts 

In response to sharply rising home values in several counties and correlated spikes in tax bills, Wyoming lawmakers passed five homeowner relief bills in 2024. Gov. Mark Gordon approved all but one. 

In 2025, lawmakers brought another round of property-tax relief measures to the Legislature, with many noting that property tax burden was the loudest voter concern they heard. Bills included Senate File 69, which originally proposed to apply a 50% exemption on the first $1 million of assessed value for single-family homes for the next two years.

Dozens of special district representatives, including first responders, urged lawmakers to reconsider given the drastic service cuts the measure would require due to millions of dollars in lost revenue. They argued that many taxpayers don’t realize property taxes don’t fund state government, but instead pay for local services like senior centers and law enforcement. 

Special districts do this through voter-approved mill levies, which are tax rates applied to the assessed value of a property. One mill is equal to one dollar per $1,000 of assessed value. Depending on the district, the aggregate of an assessment of 1 or 2 mills could generate enough funds to help support annual operations. 

Legislators tussled over Senate File 69 at great length, debating the level of cuts and whether the state should offer relief to communities by backfilling the lost revenues. In the end, they agreed to the 25% cut with no backfill. Gordon signed that bill into law March 4. 

“This act, coupled with the bills I signed last year, responds to the call for property tax relief,” Gordon said in a news release. “Now the practical impacts of this legislation will need to be navigated by our cities, counties, special districts and citizens.”

Rural health care fragility

Wyoming hospitals are already in precarious positions, Wyoming Hospital Association Vice President Josh Hannes said, due to the challenges of operating rural health care facilities. Low patient volumes, administrative burdens from insurance companies, high rates of uninsured patients, rising labor costs and increasing prescription drug prices create a difficult landscape for financial sustainability, he said. 

Senate File 69 further jeopardizes the state’s health care network, said Hannes, who lobbied against the bill during the session. While the measure may seem like a win for property owners, Hannes wrote in a February op-ed, “the reality is such an exemption would have devastating consequences for Wyoming communities.”

Mill levies fund critical services and facility upgrades for the state’s 15 special hospital districts, supporting not just hospitals but also senior living facilities, he noted. 

Cutting property taxes “could force many of these already vulnerable institutions to make painful cuts, potentially reducing essential healthcare services in rural areas where access is already limited,” Hannes wrote.

Wyoming has eight hospitals “at risk of closing,” according to a recent Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform report. 

Hannes was not sure how the report qualified “at risk” but said every one of Wyoming’s 19 “Critical Access Hospitals” — small, rural hospitals with 25 or fewer beds located at least 35 miles from another hospital — operated at a loss in 2023. 

“I think it’s fair to say all of our hospitals are at risk,” he told WyoFile. 

Of Wyoming’s 15 hospital districts, Hannes said, 12 districts operate those “Critical Access Hospitals.”

“When you take 25% of the residential tax revenue away from those, that’s going to be an issue,” he said. The challenge will be widespread. 

“Every other governmental entity that receives that revenue is going to have to make some pretty tough decisions about what portions of their services could they maintain,” Hannes said. 

Austerity planning? 

Reserves and other financial streams will factor into how hospital districts will deal with cuts.

The Teton County Hospital District was established in 1976 to oversee St. John’s Health in Jackson. The district is authorized to levy up to 6 mills annually but has levied 3 since the district’s creation. That equated to roughly $12.3 million in 2024, according to county records. 

Like Hoffman, St. John’s Chief Communications Officer Karen Connelly noted the convergence of national, local and state headwinds “challenging the sustainability” of Wyoming medical centers like St. John’s. 

“Senate File 69 is one,” Connelly told WyoFile in an email. Others, she said, include pressure on workforce wages due to the high cost of living in Teton County and the shift in payer mix toward Medicare due to an aging population, which affects reimbursement rates. 

“For context, the annual mill levy support has roughly equaled the cost of unreimbursed care we provided our patients,” Connelly continued. “A reduction in that support, along with the other challenges I’ve noted, will require us to reduce costs where we can and evaluate our services and programs in order to remain sustainable.” 

The hospital district is just beginning to develop its budget for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1. “The budget we develop … will account for an expected reduction in mill levy funds as well as the other challenges I described,” Connelly wrote. 

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Albany County Hospital District operates Ivinson Memorial Hospital in Laramie, which has served the community for nearly a century. The district levies 3 mills on county voters, which amounted to $2.2 million during the last fiscal year, Ivinson Memorial Hospital CEO Doug Faus said. The amount has been growing steadily for about a decade, he added. Because the hospital has produced a profit in recent years and has employed careful fiscal management, he said, “we’ve been able to put money in the bank and save it, you know, for things like this.”

The hospital uses the mill levy funds for charity care, he added. “So any citizen in our county who doesn’t have the ability to pay, that’s what that money is used for.”

And while Faus doesn’t see the property tax cuts forcing any major service cuts at Ivinson, he is also keeping a close eye on the swirl of health care changes on the horizon, including federal efforts to cut Medicaid and Medicare. 

“We save money for a rainy day because we know the rainy day is coming — and it looks like the clouds are forming,” Faus said. 

Budgeting surprises

In Pinedale, where the hospital district has worked for years to reach the construction stage, the path has already been littered with challenges.

The Sublette County Hospital District operates clinics in Pinedale and the Big Piney/Marbleton area, but the county is the only one in Wyoming without a hospital. The district in 2020 asked voters to increase the mill levy with the express intent to create a new district to build a hospital, and the measure passed by a large margin. That levy was $4.8 million in 2021/22, and jumped more than 150% to over $12 million the following year, according to the district’s annual report. 

The vision is a 10-bed, 40,000-square-foot hospital, with a similarly sized attached long-term care facility. It’s an ambitious project, however, and has relied on the levy along with private donations and other county contributions. 

Hoffman, too, cited other recent changes, such as a 2022 deferred repayment plan that allows mineral companies more time to repay taxes. That means the district based early feasibility studies on funds that aren’t immediately available.

“I think that across the entire state, all of the hospitals are in the same situation, and we’re all going, ‘OK, how do we pivot and figure out how to work against this, or how to maintain our revenues when this is going to be a really challenging time,” she said.

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Less than four months after Evanston Regional Hospital discontinued its labor and delivery services, a Utah medical network has stepped in to patch the maternity care gap in southwestern Wyoming. 

Intermountain Health is now offering pre-pregnancy, prenatal and postpartum maternal health services in Evanston through a program called Maternal Health Connections. 

The program offers a combination of in-person, virtual and home visits, as well as remote patient monitoring, for pregnant people and new mothers. The program can help Evanston-area patients get prenatal and postpartum care without having to risk traveling long distances on Wyoming highways, particularly in dangerous weather conditions. 

“Pregnancy can be a difficult time in a woman’s life, and current economic and geographic challenges do not make it simpler,” Ibrahim Hammad, MD, a maternal fetal medicine physician at Intermountain Health, said in a press release. Hammad oversees the new program. “It’s part of our responsibility as healthcare professionals, to not only provide care and treatment in clinics and hospitals, but also to reach out to our patients in an effort to ease their burden. This program is designed to bring maternal care to the patient.”

The news is a bright spot in a health landscape that has seen services erode in recent history. Along with facility closures, hospitals have struggled to attract and retain sufficient staff and diminishing care puts pregnant people and their babies at risk as they travel longer distances to find services. The trend also poses existential threats to communities, as adequate health care is crucial to attracting young families to rural towns, state leaders say. 

When Evanston’s maternity ward closed in late 2024, it marked the fourth Wyoming facility since 2014 to shutter its labor and delivery unit and expanded a service gap in the southwestern corner of the state. The hospital cited declining demand.  

How it works 

Maternal Health Connections provides access to virtual visits from Intermountain OB-GYN physicians and other providers based in Utah, according to Intermountain Health. For in-person care and assistance, an Intermountain Health registered nurse will staff a Maternal Health Connections clinic in the Uinta Medical Building in Evanston. Clinic appointments are available two days per week.

Video conference equipment in the clinic will allow an OB-GYN physician or midwife based in Utah to consult with a Wyoming patient through telehealth, assisted by the on-site nurse. The program also offers remote patient monitoring devices for participating pregnant moms to take home beginning at 28 weeks. 

“Our mission is to improve maternal and neonatal outcomes in Uinta County and surrounding communities.” Krystal Richards, the grants project director for Maternal Health Connections at Intermountain Health, said in release. “We’re excited to bring a local maternity care option to these Wyoming families.”

Program patients can deliver babies at Intermountain Health hospitals in Park City or Ogden, Utah, and receive postpartum care through the Evanston-based nurse, including home visits.  

A federal Health Resources and Services Administration grant of $3.9 million helped launch the program, according to Intermountain Health. 

Interim work

Wyoming’s maternal care gaps have grown drastic enough to capture the attention of lawmakers, the governor and healthcare representatives.  

Solutions have been elusive. Complicating the issue are provider challenges like low birth volume in rural areas, high costs of medical malpractice insurance, financial viability struggles for hospitals, the impact of new abortion laws on doctors, liability concerns and regulatory barriers to midwives delivering in hospitals.  

Health care advocates have called on the state to expand Medicaid, promote midwifery and build partnerships that could expand care. 

The Legislature’s Joint Labor Committee made Wyoming’s maternity care and child care shortages its No. 1 priority between the 2024 and 2025 legislative session. No bill explicitly aimed at alleviating the care gaps emerged from the committee, however. Attempts to increase funding for maternity care programs failed in budget talks, meanwhile. 

The OB Subcommittee of Gov. Mark Gordon’s Health Task Force also worked to explore solutions. That group narrowed its focus last summer to three areas: how to better use midwives, doulas and family physicians alongside obstetricians in delivery care; exploring creating OB medical fellowships to bolster care in Wyoming and regionalizing the state’s maternity care.

The Legislature’s Management Council voted last week to give committee chairs the discretion to choose off-season priority topics for their panels. The Joint Labor Committee had again proposed maternity care as a No. 1 topic for 2025.

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Protesters by the hundreds took to the streets of Wyoming towns on April 5 during “Hands Off!” protests. Among those protesting President Donald Trump’s recent actions were veterans and young mothers, adolescents and grandparents. 

And dogs. Judging by their presence, many Wyoming canines also have their hackles up over the federal tumult. 

Beamish, a 9-year-old Westie terrier, perched on a bench alongside protesters displaying a sign of his own. “Don’t DOGE on me!” it read. Meanwhile, the human protesters nearby held signs expressing dismay at everything from the treatment of Ukraine to large cuts to the federal workforce and threats to Social Security. 

Organizers estimate that nearly 500 people showed up to the Lander event, one of many such protests that took place across the state and country. There was a jubilant air to the Lander gathering, and passing vehicles showed ample support with honks — as well as occasional dissent with black exhaust burps. 

Aaron Hjelt, a Lander resident who organized the event, attributed the high turnout to the spirit of the protest, which he said strove to welcome all with concerns, regardless of their party affiliation. 

“We all have concerns about what’s happening at the federal level and with the chaos and the dismantling of our public institutions,” Hjelt said as the event wrapped up. “So I think part of it is just that general solidarity and knowing that we can accomplish things if we don’t have to live under a brand of being a Democrat or Republican or liberal or a conservative, if we can talk about the concerns that we have and how to accomplish those things as neighbors, rather than as a party or organization.”

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History jobs aren’t easy to come by. So when a position for a digital archivist opened at the University of Wyoming in 2020, Rachael Laing uprooted their life near Chicago for small-town Laramie. 

Laing, who has a master’s degree in history, has spent the last five years undertaking a project to digitize hundreds of thousands of historic Wyoming newspaper microfilm pages and make them free to the public. 

The project is part of National Digital Newspaper Program, a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress to create a searchable online database of newspapers. Laing and other archivists contributed files to Chronicling America, which is now home to millions of pages of American newspapers published between 1789-1963. Laing’s position was seeded by a $209,000 grant from the Humanities Endowment. 

The UW Libraries grant has been renewed in the five years since, paying for Laing to facilitate the total addition of nearly 300,000 pages of Wyoming newspapers to the database. 

Last week, however, the grant was terminated as part of significant cuts made to the National Endowment for the Humanities by President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. 

And Laing was abruptly out of a job. 

Though Laing’s own life and career have been disrupted by the sudden firing, the archivist is more concerned about the fate of the project. 

“I liked that the work seemed important,” said Laing, who uses they/them pronouns. “It felt like we were creating something that was going to be very helpful to a lot of people.”

The project is among the latest Wyoming casualties of DOGE, which Trump champions as a voter-backed effort to reduce federal bureaucracy and expenditures. DOGE cuts have resulted in an array of Wyoming impacts — from U.S. Forest Service employees losing their jobs in Jackson to federal office closures in Cheyenne and sudden funding cuts for organizations like Wyoming Humanities. 

For Laing, it all happened incredibly fast, and they are still reeling. They are also saddened to think about the scope of programming nationwide that was axed without preamble. 

“I’m just really disappointed that suddenly this federal agency that was dispersing grants to really amazing projects was just … washed away,” Laing said. 

Frozen, aborted

Last week’s cuts targeted two federal agencies, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute for Museum and Library Studies. Actions included placing staff on administrative leave and cancelling grants, according to reports. 

The National Endowment for the Humanities was founded in 1965, under the same legislation that enacted the more well-known National Endowment for the Arts. The Humanities Endowment has awarded more than $6 billion in grants to museums, historical sites, universities, libraries and other organizations, according to its website.

A significant piece of the Humanities Endowment’s overall funding, 40%, goes to state humanities councils like Wyoming’s. Those councils act as umbrellas, partnering with other organizations to support cultural events or awarding grants to projects. Humanities councils in all 50 states received notice last week that their grants were being terminated, according to reports. 

“Your grant no longer effectuates the agency’s needs and priorities and conditions of the Grant Agreement and is subject to termination due to several reasonable causes,” read the letter that Wyoming Humanities received, adding “the NEH is repurposing its funding allocations in a new direction in furtherance of the President’s agenda.” 

NEH funding makes up 80% of Wyoming Humanities’ budget, covering staff expenses, travel, marketing and other operational costs for the nonprofit. Staff is reconsidering the group’s future in the wake of the change. 

Along with state councils, the Humanities Endowment funds individual projects in Wyoming. These include a recent grant to Meeteetse Museums to replace its roof and install solar panels and another grant to the Jim Gatchell Memorial Museum to update Indigenous interpretation. Both were terminated, according to museum directors.

The federal agency also funded the UW Libraries grant. Laing’s first indication of trouble happened early Thursday, they said, when a person connected to a similar project in Florida contacted them asking if they knew what was going on. All that day, Laing heard grim updates from across the country from people who had been notified of cancelled grants. 

“So it was kind of like watching the dominoes fall, and I was just sort of waiting to get the news,” Laing said. Their supervisor delivered that news on Friday. “My job had just been dissolved.”

Keeping history alive  

Laing has spent much of the past five years in a windowless basement office, painstakingly digitizing microfilm newspapers for the project. It’s quiet work, and it suits them.  

Laing gathered microfilmed newspapers from the Wyoming State Archive and worked with vendors to digitize and format the files. The result is that issues of newspapers such as the Platte Valley Lyre, Cody Enterprise and Cheyenne Daily Leader are now on the database. They reach back to 1873, when in a June issue the Daily Leader announced Byer’s Hotel and French Restaurant in Cheyenne was back open following a remodel, and that in Chicago, railroad executive Horace Clark had fallen ill. 

With interest in genealogical research growing, Chronicling America eases access for amateur historians who no longer have to visit these libraries in person to scan microfilm records, Laing said.  

During each two-year grant cycle, Laing endeavored to digitize 100,000 pages. The project was nearing the end of its third grant cycle, with about 10,000 pages remaining to satisfy the goal, they said. 

Laing was actually planning to move on from the job at the end of the year. That fact may take some of the sting out of the loss, but still, they said, “there’s never a good time to lose your job.”

Since the termination notice arrived, Laing’s supervisors have been trying to come up with a plan and have been very supportive, they said. Laing and others are worried about the integrity of the collective work in the long run.

“For a long time, we thought that we were building something that was going to last,” Laing said, “and now for the last couple of days, we’ve been accounting for all of that data, just in case all of that work is lost.” 

Other impacts 

It has been less clear how cuts to the second federal agency, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, will affect Wyoming. WyoFile requested an interview with State Librarian Abby Beaver and had not heard back by publication time. But in an open letter on its website, the Wyoming Library Association said IMLS funds are granted to the Wyoming State Library and pay for a statewide database, staff development and training opportunities. 

Last year, 633 nationwide grant recipients entered into legally binding agreements with IMLS, according to library advocacy group Every Library. “The sudden termination of these grants not only breaches these agreements but also undermines the essential services that libraries and museums provide to communities across the nation,” the organization said in a statement accompanying a petition. The petition oppose the “unlawful” actions. 

The National Humanities Alliance, meanwhile, rallied against the Humanities Endowment cuts. 

“We condemn these actions in the strongest possible terms,” the coalition of cultural advocacy groups said in a statement. “Cutting NEH funding directly harms communities in every state and contributes to the destruction of our shared cultural heritage.”

For Laing, the prevailing feeling is disappointment. They brought up a recent talk they gave to a Wyoming historical society, where members kept Laing and their supervisor late with questions. 

“They seemed really excited about the potential of the project,” Laing said, “and to know that that’s just something that might completely go away seems like a lot of wasted time and effort.”

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The six-person staff of Wyoming Humanities got word early this week that President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s DOGE was examining the National Endowment for the Humanities — the 60-year-old federal organization that funds a network of humanities councils in every state.  

Then a strange email arrived in the inbox of Wyoming Humanities Executive Director and CEO Shawn Reese. His email service even flagged it as dangerous spam and “quarantined” the missive as a phishing attempt. 

On Friday morning, he retrieved the email out of its quarantine hold and read it. “Basically it says our federal funding is cancelled as of April 2,” Reese said.  

“NEH has reasonable cause to terminate your grant in light of the fact that the NEH is repurposing its funding allocations in a new direction in furtherance of the President’s agenda,” the letter reads.

NEH funding makes up some 80% of Wyoming Humanities budget, Reese said, and pays for operating expenses at the nonprofit, which promotes and supports humanities programs across Wyoming. These include grants for traveling theater performances, community conversations with authors on Wyoming topics or celebrations like the Teton Powwow and Native American Showcase in Jackson. 

The cut may mark the end of a five-decade affiliation Wyoming Humanities has enjoyed with the National Endowment for the Humanities. And while Reese says his organization will be able to continue awarding grants through at least June 2026, other financial headwinds related to state support are combining with this one to force the nonprofit to rethink its future.

“It’s a scenario that we’ve been thinking about even before any of these federal changes,” he said. “We’re trying to imagine, how do we as an organization continue to move forward and advance a very important mission and support this network of community organizations that are doing important work for the state of Wyoming?”

It’s still too early for all the specifics, but Reese expects Wyoming communities to feel impacts. A popular traveling exhibit program affiliated with the Smithsonian will end, he said. The cuts also will affect direct federal grants to other initiatives unrelated to Wyoming Humanities — such as a grant the Meeteetse Museums secured to install a solar array that was also just terminated. 

Reese hopes the challenge will galvanize creatives to find innovative ways to keep the arts alive. 

“We all know that arts and culture are important in our communities,” Reese said. “They’re intrinsically important. So we can’t wallow in despair. We have to harness our creativity, and that’s what this sector is about.”

Humanities organizations

The National Endowment for the Humanities was founded in 1965, under the same legislation as the more well-known National Endowment for the Arts. The Humanities Endowment is the only federal agency dedicated to funding the humanities and has awarded more than $6 billion in grants to museums, historical sites, universities, libraries and other organizations, according to its website.

A significant piece of its overall funding, 40%, goes to state humanities councils like Wyoming’s. Those councils act as umbrellas, partnering with other organizations to support cultural events or awarding grants to projects. 

Those federal funds cover the staff expenses, travel, marketing and other operational costs for Wyoming Humanities. Since 2012, the nonprofit also has secured about 10% of its funding from the state. 

That source is how Wyoming Humanities funds grants. These include the “Community Culture” grant, which awards up to $10,000 for oral histories, publications and community initiatives aimed at shedding light on histories or ideas that bring a community together. 

Wyoming Humanities also awards smaller “Spark Grants” of up to $2,000 for short-term cultural projects such a storytelling circle at the Big Horn Folk Festival or a panel discussion with tribal members and Wyoming lawyers to discuss the Apsaalooke religious connection to Heart Mountain near Cody. 

Grants won’t be impacted in the short term, Reese said, because the organization has secured state funding through June 2026, and it has socked away enough reserve funds and has enough additional revenue from other supporters to be able to pay for administration and staffing for now. 

What will be affected by federal funding changes, Reese said, are events that Wyoming Humanities co-sponsors and things like a partnership with the Smithsonian Institute to bring traveling exhibits through the state. “We’re going to have to discontinue that,” Reese said.

When Wyoming Humanities received the notification, Reese said, he quickly submitted a drawdown for March expenses, though he isn’t sure it will be honored. 

“I’m not sure who is left at NEH to process those requests,” he said. Agency staff were notified late Thursday that they were being placed on paid administrative leave effective immediately, NPR reported.

In addition, Reese isn’t confident Wyoming lawmakers will continue state support. Had the 2025 supplemental budget been approved, Wyoming Humanities would have become part of the regular state budget, he said. But it didn’t pass, meaning the group will need to ask the Legislature for future support.

“Based on the budget discussions during this general session, I don’t expect that funding would continue in future,” he said. 

With all the uncertainties, it’s time to huddle together with other humanities organizations, he said. “How do we reimagine the collaboration and the vision for Wyoming’s cultural sector? More than 14,000 people are employed in the sector. It’s significant, and it serves an important purpose for Wyoming. So yeah, we have [a] lot of soul searching going on.”

Direct impacts 

Meeteetse Museums, which runs three museums in a historic building in the small town of 314 people, is among the organizations that lost direct NEH funds this week. 

The Meeteetse Museum District received a $101,000 grant from NEH in 2024 to replace its roof and install solar panels. The museum raised a match to the NEH funds to replace its leaking roof and save its collections, according to the museum. But the solar installation part has yet to happen, said Executive Director Alexandra Deselms.

“We are currently in the middle of arranging to install solar panels to cut our utility costs so that we can have more financial resources to do other things,” she said Friday. She found out in a Wednesday email that the grant has been terminated. 

The museum had planned to spend about $9,000 on the final payment for the solar installation, she said, and had already submitted a downpayment and signed the contracts. Now staff is mulling a plan B.

“We do have a little bit of time to get a little more funding and approach a few donors to help save the project,” Deselms said. “But we’re kind of in limbo at the moment trying to figure out how all this is going to work.”

There’s a lot of uncertainty in the humanities sphere right now, Deselms said.

“I think we’re all really nervous,” she said. The NEH along with the Institute of Museum and Library Services  — one of the federal agencies slated to be dismantled under a Trump executive order — are the primary federal funding agencies for a number of museums and libraries across the country, including in Wyoming.

The two agencies “support arts and culture and humanities and just our communities in general,” Deselms said. “So it’s really scary to think about how that’s going to continue to impact us.”

CORRECTION: This story has been updated to reflect the correct grand amount for Meeteetse Museums. -Ed.

The post Wyoming Humanities hit with DOGE funding freeze appeared first on WyoFile .

Four Wyoming birthing facilities have closed over the last dozen years — ending options for mothers to deliver babies in Riverton, Kemmerer, Rawlins and Evanston. With 11 of the state’s 23 counties lacking a practicing OB-GYN as of last year, even accessing prenatal care can be difficult. 

The state’s maternal care gaps have grown impossible to ignore. Yet, a year after lawmakers identified the issue as a matter of top concern, little has been done to address policy or funding concerns.

To be clear, experts say the challenges facing rural maternal care are numerous and complicated — and not something that can be solved with a single solution. Still, attempts to tackle the problem through raising Medicaid reimbursement rates or creating grants to support labor and delivery programs failed in the recent Wyoming Legislature. 

Now, lawmakers appear likely to take the issue up anew. The Joint Labor, Health and Social Services Committee proposed as its top interim study topic “Maternal Medical Care in Wyoming and Maternity Care Deserts.” 

Wyoming Women’s Action Network founder Jen Simon, an advocate for better maternal health services, hopes a second round of lawmaker study will yield action. Legislative debate on the topic, particularly in the Wyoming Senate, illustrated that lawmakers are concerned and thoughtful about the issue, she said. 

“I’m hopeful that that is the tenor and the energy that comes into the interim around this topic, because it’s immensely important in every conceivable way for the future of our state,” Simon said. 

The Legislature’s Management Council meets April 8 to finalize interim topics. 

Where we are 

WyoFile’s 2023 Delivery Desert series revealed significant gaps in maternal care, with families going to extraordinary lengths to deliver babies, doctors spread thin or on the brink of burnout and hospitals juggling the complicated cost formulas in thinking about maintaining labor wards. 

Places like Fremont County have seen annual births plunge following facility closures, while anecdotes of families temporarily relocating to towns like Billings and Salt Lake City at great cost and inconvenience to deliver their babies have increased. A Wyoming Health Department assessment found that nearly half of the state’s counties lacked a practicing OB-GYN in 2024. The State Scorecard on Women’s Health and Reproductive Care ranked Wyoming 42nd that same year. The state placed behind all of its neighbors. 

Solutions have been elusive. Complicating the issue are provider challenges like low birth volume in rural areas, high costs of medical malpractice insurance, financial viability struggles for hospitals, abortion legislation’s impacts on doctors, liability concerns and barriers for midwives to deliver in hospitals.  

However, health care advocates have called on the state to expand Medicaid, promote midwifery and build partnerships that could expand care. 

The Joint Labor Committee made Wyoming’s maternity care shortage its No. 1 interim priority in 2024, along with childcare. However, no bill explicitly aimed at alleviating the care gaps emerged from the committee.

The OB Subcommittee of Gov. Mark Gordon’s Health Task Force also worked to explore solutions. That group narrowed its focus last summer to three areas: how to better utilize midwives, doulas and family physicians alongside obstetricians in delivery care; the possibility of creating OB medical fellowships to bolster care in Wyoming and regionalizing the state’s maternity care.

Meanwhile, care has eroded further. Evanston Regional Hospital discontinued labor and delivery services on Dec. 30, citing declining demand.

Debates and attempts

Maternity care did come up during this year’s legislative session budget talks. 

Gordon included a raise to the Medicaid reimbursement rate for maternity care in his supplemental budget. 

“This is a complicated issue that we continue to evaluate and develop recommendations to address,” Gordon wrote in his budget recommendation. “One thing that we can do today is increase Medicaid rates for our providers to ensure we can help retain the services in Wyoming, as Medicaid births account for approximately one-third of the deliveries in Wyoming.”

As such, Gordon requested about $2.4 million to be added to the Department of Health’s budget — split evenly between state and federal dollars. 

The House Appropriations Committee stripped those funds, the Senate Appropriations Committee restored them, but the supplemental budget wasn’t passed, rendering those actions moot. 

The Senate also debated allocating $18 million to the Health Department to provide grants to support delivery and maternity care.

The current gaps are “unacceptable,” Sen. Chris Rothfuss, D-Laramie, said when introducing his funding amendment. “We don’t have any solutions on the horizon. I was personally hoping there’d be some good opportunities and options through this legislative session, but we just haven’t seen it.”

Given that, Rothfuss said, the grant program would be “effectively a stopgap measure” to prop up the fragile maternity care system until better solutions are reached. 

Sen. Charlie Scott, R-Casper, said that while not in favor of large expenditures, he supported this one.

“You want to destroy a community’s ability to attract new businesses and keep existing businesses that might be mobile?” Scott asked. “Take away their delivery care. Take away their obstetric care. It really puts them behind the eight ball.”

Sen. Gary Crum, R-Laramie, also supported the amendment, pointing out that without a facility in Rawlins, many Carbon County women have to drive 100 miles to Laramie and over Elk Mountain, a notoriously dangerous stretch of Interstate 80. 

“Let me remind you, some of us in this body have given birth,” Cheyenne Republican Sen. Evie Brennan said. “I can tell you 100 miles on one of those [deliveries], I may not have made it to the hospital.”

Brennan noted that while $18 million is significant, “we’re talking about access

for women who are carrying our most valuable resource: our children … Let’s not fight on this one. Let’s put our money where our mouth is and let’s say, ‘these are our most valuable resources.’”

Critics, however, balked at the program’s expense and vagueness. 

“It’s a real issue out there, but it takes a little more contemplation to stand up a program and just throw one-time money at it,” Sen Larry Hicks, R-Baggs, said. “I appreciate the sentiment … but without more details, I can’t support an $18 million appropriation when I don’t know what it does.”

Evanston’s closure is a cautionary tale, Rothfuss said, of the dominoes that can continue to fall while Wyoming lawmakers continue to study the issue. 

He failed to sway the body’s majority, however. The Senate voted it down 11-20.

Political newcomers

The Wyoming Legislature was filled with freshman lawmakers in 2025, noted Micah Richardson, associate director of policy at the Wyoming Women’s Foundation. Getting up to speed on the legislative process is difficult, she said, and could have created a drag on the conversation about maternal health care. 

She lamented the failure of a couple of smaller bills that could have helped move the needle on the issue. House Bill 231, “Medical education funding,” for example, would have expanded medical training and education at the University of Wyoming through a partnership with the University of Utah — potentially boosting provider numbers.  

Richardson also believes that to enact change, Wyoming will likely have to expend funds. 

“There can be some creative solutions or pieces of the puzzle to kind of get us there, but it is also going to take an investment,” Richardson said. “Not just, you know, ‘we say this is important,’ but it’s going to take some money to make sure that these things are given the support they need to be successful.”

Simon of Wyoming Women’s Action Network is encouraged by the Senate debate, hoping it will carry momentum into future lawmaker work.

“At least the senators can say, ‘It’s a priority from our perspective, for our hospitals, our residents, our families, our economy and our future,’” she said.

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Since former U.S. Sen. Alan Simpson died on March 14 at 93, admiration and remembrances have poured in from politicians, dignitaries and prominent figures around the country.

On Monday morning in the small sanctuary of Christ Episcopal Church in Cody, it was time for the people closest to Simpson — his children, grandchildren and brother — to recount their own fondness for the towering Wyoming politician. 

“He was authentic, genuine,” his son Colin Simpson said. “He changed lives. He was full of grace for his fellow humans … Dad’s good works will live on in all of us, in his thousands of good deeds and his thousands of friends and his thousands of letters. He will be well and long remembered.”

Those gathered for Simpson’s memorial service recounted a man of enormous wit and kindness whose hilarious observations helped ease life’s troubles. 

“Al found the balance between making people laugh and unrelenting candor,” grandson Nick Simpson said. “He knew exactly who he was and what he stood for. But he also loved the absurdity of life. As he would put it: ‘If life was logical, men would ride side-saddle.’”

Though he is best known as a storied politician who served three terms as a U.S. senator, Simpson was also a husband, father, lawyer, brother, athlete and hooligan. He grew up in Cody and returned there after his time in D.C. to live out his life; the town’s history is inextricably linked to the Simpson family.

It was only appropriate that his final goodbye was held in the church where he and his family had worshipped. There, to a standing-room-only crowd, the people who knew him most intimately shared anecdotes of a remarkable life honed with a dagger-sharp humor. All agreed that Wyoming residents are better for having known Simpson.

“He is gone now, but not really. Because he lives in all of us,” daughter Sue Simpson Gallagher said. “I will carry [his] spirit, love and kindness into every day for the rest of my life. I encourage all of you to do the same.”

The kid from Cody

Alan Kooi Simpson was born on Sept. 2, 1931 to Milward and Lorna Kooi Simpson. He grew up in Cody with his older brother, Pete, who would be his dearest friend in life. The brothers got into plenty of trouble during their time, though Pete Simpson joked Monday that as the eldest, he was mostly just the getaway driver. 

Simpson didn’t speak until he was 3 years old, Pete Simpson said, after which he never stopped. 

Both sons attended the University of Wyoming. It was there that Simpson met Ann Schroll, who Pete Simpson described as the biggest catch on campus. When his little brother told him he intended to marry her, Pete was incredulous. Simpson was a little stung.

“I felt that he had lucked out,” Pete Simpson said. “And look here. Look at this family. Look at this result, this legacy. Yeah, he lucked out, certainly we all did.”

This was one of many tributes to Ann, who was credited with stabilizing her husband and for being an unerring matriarch.

Simpson’s political career began in 1964 when he was elected to the Wyoming Legislature as a representative of Park County. He spent 13 years as a state lawmaker.

In 1978, Simpson won a U.S. Senate seat. He was re-elected twice, serving for 18 years. His role as whip — combined with powerful positions held by cohorts like fellow Wyomingites Dick Cheney and Malcolm Wallop — represented an unprecedented level of prominence for the Equality State that has since waned.

Much has been made of Simpson’s across-the-aisle work in Washington and his policy and professorial roles, but Monday’s service was more about the personal Al Simpson touches. The way he read “Wind in the Willows” to his children before bedtime, the Frankenstein costume he often donned for Halloween, his love of fine art and his devotion to sustaining his 70-year marriage with Ann. The way he encouraged those around him to take risks, be quick to forgive and love generously. 

As a politician, Simpson’s currency was people and his expertise was communication, family members said, and he was perfectly suited for that vocation. 

“He had uncommon, unconditional generosity,” Pete Simpson said. “And the love he felt underpinned everything that he did.”

Al and Ann Simpson championed Wyoming in every far-flung venue they found themselves, Pete Simpson said. 

“When they went back to Washington, when he went into all of those grand parties, when they went into those halls of the powerful and the elite … they carried Wyoming with them,” Pete said.

When the Simpsons returned to Cody, Al and Ann poured their energy into bolstering Wyoming with contributions to institutions such as the Buffalo Bill Center of the West and the University of Wyoming. In the wake of his death, it feels to many in Cody that a landmark as large as Heart Mountain has fallen, said Rev. David Fox. 

“He lightened our weary, weighted and worried souls,” Fox said. “He was a joy to be with.”

“Al is the kind of man that took nothing that he didn’t give back in spades,” Pete Simpson said, before closing with an excerpt from an Edwin Harkham poem about Abe Lincoln’s death. “He went down, as when a lordly cedar goes down, with a great shout upon the hill, and leaves a lonesome place in the sky.”

“Goodbye Al,” Pete said, to a standing ovation.

Chuckles and belly laughs

Monday’s service capped off a week of remembrances and rites that passed in true Simpson fashion — with a whirlwind tour through the state. 

The one-time statehouse legislator lay in state in Wyoming’s Capitol for roughly 30 hours last week in Cheyenne, where family, friends and admirers paid their respects to his flag-draped coffin. 

Events then moved to the University of Wyoming, Simpson’s beloved alma mater, where on Saturday a who’s who of dignitaries shared anecdotes and laughs over the lanky senator. Emcee and former UW Foundation president Ben Blalock introduced congress members, tech CEOs, former senate staffers and governors. He read a letter from Simpson’s old Senate colleague, Joe Biden, who called Simpson “a man of enormous decency and integrity.” 

Speakers emphasized Simpson’s character, his mischief, his family and his stalwart love of the University of Wyoming, which he and Ann endowed with high-profile visitors and fundraising help. Speakers returned again and again to his humor and his proclivity to tell the same joke ad nauseam. 

Former UW president Philip Dubois recalled returning to Laramie for the 2024 dedication of the Alan K. Simpson Center for Clinical and Experiential Learning in the College of Law, where Simpson spoke. 

“He was so typically Al on that occasion,” Dubois said. “He reminded us that the Simpson Center was the only building on this campus named after a C student. That he ranked 18th in his class, out of 18. And, how many times have you heard that ‘he didn’t graduate cum laude, but thank the laude.’” 

Former aide Mike Tongour shared a rare unheard Simpson witticism.

“Just when you all thought you hadn’t heard any fresh Simpson material lately, let me channel a bit from a memo I just found that hasn’t seen the light of day for 35 years,” he said before reading: 

“An administrative note of intimate detail. The bum fodder, also known as toilet paper, in my Capitol office is industrial strength. Fine-grained sandpaper. Is there anyone in the government that uses Charmin or other soft, delightful tissues? If not, then please buy me some. I’ll pay cash money out of my pocket.”

Tongour went on to speculate about all the rich conversations the insatiably curious Simpson will enjoy in heaven — with figures like Mark Twain and Milward Simpson, Norm Mineta and George Bush. 

“God bless you, lovable, curious, hilarious Al,” he concluded. 

Speakers also struck earnest notes in recalling a remarkable lifetime of achievement. 

Rev. Allen Doyle of Laramie noted that Simpson “taught not politics, but morals.” 

“He was the Cowboy Code before we had a Cowboy Code,” U.S. Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming said. “He was our native sun, he was our north star, he was our rock star.” 

“We all know Al’s humor and his warmth and his love,” Former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney said. “But he was a huge intellectual.” 

Even Cheney, however, couldn’t help but drop one funny anecdote when she recalled a sage pearl of wisdom he gave her. “‘The thing you have to know, Liz, about the seniority system of the United States Senate, is that it’s just like a cesspool. And the biggest turds rise to the top.’”

She chuckled and apologized before composing herself. 

“What a man, what a life,” Cheney concluded.

CORRECTION: A cutline in this story previously misidentified a church acolyte. -Ed.

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Wyoming will appeal the February court decision that found the state unconstitutionally underfunded public schools, according to a Wednesday filing. 

The notice of appeal filed in Laramie District Court asks the Wyoming Supreme Court to review the case anew. 

The appeal comes a month after Laramie County District Court Judge Peter Froelicher ruled the Wyoming Legislature has been failing to meet constitutional duties in the way it funds public schools. The failures ranged from improperly adjusting for inflation and not funding school resource officers to providing salaries insufficient to recruit and retain the personnel needed to deliver the quality of education guaranteed in the Wyoming Constitution.

The case has major implications for the public school landscape in Wyoming. Superintendents and plaintiffs celebrated Froelicher’s decision, telling WyoFile they hope it enables them to hire mental health counselors, fund better nutrition programs, pay for safer buildings and offer better salaries to return Wyoming to a state that attracts and retains the highest-quality teachers.

Plaintiffs oppose the state’s request to halt the ruling while an appeal unfolds, according to court documents. Granting the state’s request “would have the effect of perpetuating the violation of a fundamental constitutional right,” plaintiffs argued.

“This is not an ordinary case where delay might merely cause inconvenience, and the court can easily postpone implementation without harm to anyone,” they argued. “It is a case of delaying the enforcement of right that affects children now and throughout their lives.”

The basket of goods

The Wyoming Education Association, an educator advocacy group with 6,000 members, sued Wyoming in August 2022. Eight school districts joined the lawsuit as intervenors to challenge the state.

The suit claimed the state violated its constitution by failing to adequately fund public schools and has withheld appropriate funding at the expense of educational excellence, safety and security. That has left districts to fend for themselves and divert funds from other crucial educational activities, which causes further systemic erosion, the suit contended. 

Article 7 of the Wyoming Constitution states that the Legislature “shall provide for the establishment and maintenance of a complete and uniform system of public instruction.” Landmark court cases further delineated the state’s obligations in the ‘80s and ‘90s.

The more recent of those, the Campbell cases, set the stage for Wyoming’s current school funding obligations. Those cases culminated in 1995 when the Wyoming Supreme Court ordered the state to determine the cost of a high-quality education, fund public schools, adjust funding at least every two years for inflation and review the components of the school funding model every five years to ensure resources are keeping pace with needs and costs. That review process is known as recalibration.

Wyoming hasn’t met those mandates, the WEA suit alleged.

A six-week bench trial took place this summer in a Cheyenne courtroom to deliberate the issue, with plaintiffs bringing a parade of school staffers and education experts who testified on topics ranging from major maintenance projects to school lunches, campus security and staffing.

In his 186-page ruling released in February, Froelicher wrote the Legislature has violated the state constitution on several accounts. 

“The State’s failures have affected Wyoming children’s right to a proper education,” the judge wrote. He ordered the state to modify its funding model in a manner consistent with his order “to assure the school financing system for operations and for school facilities are constitutional.”

Froelicher’s ruling could signal that the state must pump more money into public education at a time when lawmakers have been more interested in cutting spending and promoting private alternatives.

It seems to have had an immediate influence; Senators voted two days after the decision came down to restore the full $66.3 million external cost adjustment — a temporary amount designed to reflect rising costs of living — for teacher and other school staff salaries.

That amount had been recommended and supported by Gov. Mark Gordon but whittled down by lawmakers. 

Recalibration process

Wyoming also filed a motion for a stay pending an appeal — basically asking to freeze the judge’s ruling until an appeal decision is handed down. 

“It is in the interest of justice and will avoid waste of judicial resources to maintain the status quo and stay any further proceedings in this Court pending the outcome of the high court’s review,” that filing argued.

Many of the constitutional deficiencies the ruling identified will be considered and addressed through recalibration of the school funding model, the state’s filing continued, which the Legislature has already authorized.  

In a response, plaintiffs alleged that argument to be disingenuous. “The Legislature was already required to conduct a recalibration and had already planned to conduct the 2025 recalibration without regard to the court decision,” they said. 

Judge Froelicher on Thursday denied the state’s request for a stay. 

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For two years in a row, Wyoming elected officials have chosen not to participate in a federal program that helps feed income-qualified children during the summer months when they can’t get school meals.

First Lady Jennie Gordon hopes to break that streak. 

“Here’s the reality,” Gordon told members of the Legislature’s Joint Education Committee earlier this month. “Thirty-five thousand of our kids who face food insecurity will do so in the summer … It’s not their fault, their families are struggling and can’t pay bills, and we can debate why that is or how we can get those families back on track, but in the meantime, those children should not be left [hungry].”

Gordon was making a pitch for the committee to take it up as an interim topic — which increases the chance for successful legislation on a subject. And this time, Gordon brought more weight. That’s because Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder — who railed against the federal assistance in the past as a welfare program in disguise — also supported lawmakers taking up the topic of childhood food insecurity during the interim session, or legislative off-season.

Degenfelder did not express specific support for the federal program, known as SUN Bucks. But, she said, childhood hunger is worth addressing.

“This is real,” Degenfelder told the lawmaker panel. “Our children are not able to learn properly, and we’re dealing with behavioral issues, because of hunger.” 

The topic will be considered this summer, but not by the Education Committee. Instead, the Select Committee on School Finance Recalibration will wrap childhood nutrition into its work. 

Every five years, that committee of lawmakers is tasked with “recalibrating” Wyoming’s funding model. The job entails a comprehensive review of how Wyoming funds education and what it offers students in its so-called “basket of goods,” or what is being taught. The process also determines how to best distribute that “basket of goods” to Wyoming schools.

It made more sense for the recalibration group to consider childhood nutrition to avoid redundancies, said Joint Education Committee Co-chair Sen. Wendy Schuler, R-Evanston, who also sits on the Recalibration Committee. 

Time is of the essence, said Gordon, who has put a major emphasis on fighting food insecurity with her Wyoming Hunger Initiative. More than 35,000 children statewide are on free or reduced lunches, she said, and there’s another 5,000 without access to the National School Lunch Program because their schools don’t offer it. 

“Please don’t let it go away,” she told the Education Committee at the meeting. “Summer is coming.”

Support and skepticism  

The Biden administration launched the USDA Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer program, commonly known as SUN Bucks, in 2024. 

The program, which aims at supplementing food needs during the months when kids don’t have access to school lunches, furnishes income-qualified families with a debit card loaded with $120 per student — or $40 per month. It can purchase fruits, vegetables, meat, dairy products, breads, cereals, snack foods and non-alcoholic drinks.

Though federal money pays for the program, participating states are tasked with costs and duties associated with administering it.

Summer electronic benefit transfers reduce child hunger and improve diet quality, according to evaluations of a multi-year demonstration project cited by the USDA. The project decreased the number of kids with very low food security by about one-third and supported healthier diets, USDA said.

Nationally, 37 states have signed on to SUN Bucks, including Montana, Utah, Colorado and Nebraska. Wyoming leaders, however, have been skeptical. 

The first time Wyoming declined, Degenfelder blasted it as a welfare program mis-marketed as assistance for kids. 

“I will not let the Biden administration weaponize summer school lunch programs to justify a new welfare program,” Degenfelder told WyoFile. “Thanks, but no thanks. We will continue to combat childhood hunger the Wyoming way.”

The second time, in February, lawmakers defeated House Bill 341, “Summer nutrition assistance for children,” which would have opted Wyoming into the program. Concerns included welfare fraud as well as the types of foods eligible families can buy; they include sugary sodas and highly processed snacks. 

The bill would bring $3.8 million of federal benefit directly to local communities, Department of Family Services Director Korin Schmidt testified. It died in a 25-34 vote.

Renewed effort

In the wake of House Bill 341’s defeat, advocates and lawmakers hoped to bring the issue back to the table. 

About 42% of Wyoming’s students are enrolled in free or reduced meals, a fact that Gordon said demonstrates a significant need. Hunger also has major implications for education.

“Like every mother and grandmother in Wyoming, I know what a hungry child is like,” Gordon told the Joint Education Committee. “They can’t think, and they certainly can’t learn.”

So what programs currently exist for hungry kids? Along with participating in the National School Lunch Program, Wyoming also participates in the federally assisted Summer Food Service program. 

The summer program feeds kids by opening sites — hosted by sponsors like schools or camps — where children can get a meal. Meal sites are located in areas where the local school or census block has greater than 50% eligibility for free and reduced lunches. Wyoming had 92 sites in 2024, in cities like Cheyenne and Laramie to burgs like Hanna, Cowley and Ethete.

SUN Bucks advocates, however, say not all kids can access them — especially in rural areas. 

Filling out the state’s food assistance landscape are community food pantries, charities and backpack programs, which send students home with food to help feed them on weekends. The Food Bank of Wyoming alone supplies items to more than 160 partners across the state, for example. 

But the network has shown precarity; mobile food pantries have recently shuttered or are scheduled to end in Rawlins, Guernsey, Marbleton, Moorcroft and Lusk, Gordon said. Pantries also have closed in Natrona and Converse counties in recent years. 

“There are significant and consequential gaps, especially when it comes to our kids,” Gordon said.

Shame sandwich

When SUN Bucks started, Degenfelder said, she viewed it as a welfare program and opposed how the funding comes only on the debit-like cards rather than in the form of direct meals to students. SUN Bucks also required the state to pay half of the administrative costs.  

“And so I stand by that decision to not look to implement that program,” Degenfelder said. “But we also have an issue here.”

She has heard too many concerning stories like this one: A child goes through the line for a hot lunch only to realize at checkout that his or her debt is too high. The child has to turn back that meal, which is thrown away, “and all of this unfolding in front of their peers,” she said. 

Gordon has similar tales. School districts have racked up debt to pay for some students that aren’t getting enough food through existing programs, she said, and those debts are growing unsustainable. 

“Some districts can only offer children an alternate meal, which is a sandwich and milk or sometimes the juice from fruit cocktail,” Gordon said. “For those children, that’s either the best or the only meal of their day, and they pay for it, because other kids call that ‘the sandwich of shame.’”

Degenfelder’s office has created a stakeholder cabinet to examine ways to improve or increase Wyoming’s summer feeding sites. And there is more work to be done, she said. 

“I think that this committee could be a great opportunity for us to come together to discuss these federal programs, state funding,” and other aspects of the issue, Degenfelder said at the meeting. Ultimately, it was determined that the Recalibration Committee would take it up. 

Lawmakers like Rep. Martha Lawley, R-Worland and Rep. McKay Erickson, R-Afton, were in support of keeping the discussion alive. 

“It’s an important topic,” Lawley said. “I was sad to see the summer program not pass, to be honest with you, and I feel like we can’t continue to ignore the issue, that these children should not suffer.”

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The 2.2-million-acre Wind River Indian Reservation encompasses frothy rivers and wild mountains, alpine lakes, buffalo herds and rich cultural heritage. The kind of outdoor attractions, in other words, that many western communities leverage to fuel tourism. 

Just look at  Lander, Thermopolis, Jackson and Dubois, said Paul Huberty, executive director of the Wind River Development Fund. 

“Everybody around us has capitalized on the natural resources here, and of course, all of those areas used to be part of the reservation,” Huberty said. “So we know it works.”

The Wind River Development Fund and others on the reservation are planning to undertake several projects aimed at making outdoor recreation more robust and accessible — both for tribal residents and for tourists who flock to nearby destinations to experience iconic landscapes and wildlife. This year, the state is chipping in to help make that happen.

The lion’s share of 2025 Wyoming Outdoor Recreation Program grants will go to projects on the Wind River Reservation. Of 15 projects receiving a total of $17.8 million in funding, seven are on the reservation and earmarked for $4.4 million. The Wind River Development Fund and its partners were awarded six of those. 

The state grants dovetail with a major reservation redevelopment project already under way. Last August, the Development Fund was one of six awardees of the federal “Recompete” pilot grant program, which targets areas where prime-age (25-54) employment significantly trails the national average. That hefty award comes with $36 million for eight job-creating projects. 

“This is part of a bigger vision for the reservation,” Huberty said of the outdoor-recreation projects. That broader vision encompasses workforce training initiatives to a local farm project and the construction of an ecotourism complex — all aimed at nurturing economic vitality in a place where economic markers place it well behind the rest of the state. The 2022 per capita income in Fort Washakie, for example, was $17,814, according to Huberty — significantly below the statewide per capita income of $76,440 and in a different world entirely from Teton County’s $418,669.

Development Fund Chief Operating Officer Director Erika Yarber, who is Northern Arapaho, considers generations — both past and future — when thinking about the work ahead. 

“Our ancestors didn’t go through what they went through for us just to settle for mediocrity like we are,” she said. “We are meant to thrive in our environment and not just survive any longer.”

Projects 

Even though the reservation is vast, Huberty said, it’s been carved up over the years, and much of it is held in trust by the federal government. “So it’s not like you can do whatever you want with it.”

Despite those constraints, there is a lot of low-hanging fruit when it comes to developing outdoor recreation, he said. The state grants awarded to the Wind River Development Fund are as follows:

• $791,000 for trailheads at Mosquito Park, Washakie Park and St. Lawrence Basin in the Wind River Range. The project will install signage and tribal permit kiosks and construct or upgrade picnic areas, parking, existing buildings and vault restrooms. Right now, a lack of signs makes it hard for users to even find these spots, Yarber said. “A lot of the trails are completely grown over,” she said. “It’s pretty rugged terrain.” 
• $1.2 million for improvements at Bull Lake, Dinwoody Lake, Moccasin Lake and Ray Lake. This project will construct or upgrade kiosks, restrooms, boat ramps, picnic areas and pavilion-type structures. 
• $508,000 for the Fort Washakie powwow grounds to enhance the powwow arbor — the circular structure used to hold cultural events. 
• $1.1 million for three Eastern Shoshone playgrounds, which are key elements of a larger outdoor sports project. The project will include an ADA playground, an elder playground with equipment meant to help older people move and a children’s playground. Restrooms and tables also are included.
• $78,000 for outdoor sports to rehabilitate a baseball field in Fort Washakie that has fallen into disrepair. 
• $333,000 for the Tribal Buffalo Initiative. This project will construct a pavilion-type outdoor education center with a concrete base, picnic tables, signage and a public restroom at the Wind River Tribal Buffalo Initiative — a tribal buffalo restoration project. The goal is to enable the initiative, which is located on Highway 26 on the way to Yellowstone, to be able to host tribal ceremonies, celebrations, visitors and school groups. 

The final state outdoor recreation grant awarded for a reservation project earmarks $410,000 for the Northern Arapaho Tribe for improvements to its Ethete powwow arbor. 

Complementary 

The state grants are meant to invest in outdoor-based tourism in a way that helps spread out visitor impacts across the state. The growing industry generated $2.2 billion and supported 15,798 jobs in Wyoming in 2023, according to federal data. 

The bulk of that tourism is in northwestern Wyoming. In 2024, Yellowstone National Park tallied its second-highest annual visitation at 4.7 million. The Wind River Indian Reservation sits just southeast of the park. Creating nicer visitor amenities could help siphon off some of those visitors and others who come through Fremont County by giving them a reason to stop. 

“We know that $167 million comes to Fremont County during tourist season,” said Yarber, who also sits on the Wind River Visitors Council. “And we sit here in our windows and just watch campers and people come and want to have an experience. And there’s just nowhere [on the reservation] for them to spend their money.”

The state grants aim to complement and support the larger work of the federal Recompete Grant. That federal package includes $9.75 million to build a 14,000-square-foot buffalo center for the Tribal Buffalo Initiative. Another component is $6.5 million to construct a wildlife museum and new ecotourism center for the Tribal Fish and Game office in Fort Washakie. A workforce development component will assist community members with attaining certifications that include trail building, while a wellness component aims to incentivize healthier communities. 

Outdoor recreation ties into all of those, Yarber and Huberty said. 

While the Development Fund was the lead applicant for the grants, Yarber and Huberty stressed that community organizations are co-applicants for individual projects. Partners include the Tribal Buffalo Initiative, Eastern Shoshone Tribe, Wind River Food Sovereignty Project and Central Wyoming College.

“This is not just us, this is the community coming together,” Huberty said. “There’s no way we could do this all on our own, and we wouldn’t want to.”

Federal uncertainties?

The vision is ambitious, and the parties have a lot of work to do. Wind River Development Fund and partners will be hiring soon for the outdoor recreation projects, though crews won’t be able to get into mountainous areas for trail work until summer. Those state grants are supposed to be finished by the end of 2026.

The reservation will never be as popular as a national park, and nobody wants that. But the initiatives can help not only create but sustain economic activity, Huberty and Yarber said. 

While there’s uncertainty with federal grants amid funding freezes and job cuts propelled by President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s DOGE efforts, Huberty said, his organization hasn’t seen any indication of funding decreases. Still, they are proceeding with caution. 

“We were just about to take off running,” Huberty said. “And instead what we’re going to do is just, walk.”

CORRECTION: This story has been updated to correct the name of Wyoming’s 2025 outdoor recreation grant program. -Ed.

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