Good morning and welcome to Let's Talk Wyoming. I'm Mark Hamilton, your host, and today we'll be taking a look at weather, of course. We'll take a look at some Wyoming cowboy football. We'll talk a little bit about this and that. And in our history section, we'll talk about the state flag and how it came about. Hope you enjoyed the pod. Thanks for joining us. Well, we're flying right through October. A little bit of uh wind and a kind of a storm kind of blowing through, mainly just a lot of wind. We had a one of our best days in two weeks today. It got up to about 68 degrees this afternoon. Just gorgeous day. The whole entire day was, and we've had a lot of wind, and leading up to the last two weeks, we've had over three inches of rain. I was up at a volleyball game on Friday and talking to a farmer up there, talking about the amount of water. Not digging any beets right now. Beet harvest has been put on hold. He said they're getting ready just to float the beets to the surface as much rain as they have in the fields. So it takes a little bit more time to get those fields dried out this time of year. So we look like we have a pretty nice week ahead as far as no moisture warmer in the days. I can remember years ago when I was, this would be back in the 70s when I was in high school, we had kind of one of these real wet falls, and those farmers were out, would have to dig at night when the ground froze to get into the fields and get those beads pulled. So we haven't reached that point yet, but uh the weather has not been very cooperative for the beet harvest right now here in the Bighorn Basin. We'll hope for some better weather. But here again, we've had a lot of moisture. I wish we'd got this moisture about a month and a half ago, would have been pretty nice two months ago. But over three inches of rain. But I I guess we'll take it here. It really helps uh out in the hills and everywhere else get that subsoil moisture in the ground before winter sets in. Have not seen any type of snow yet. We did have a skiff a couple weeks ago on an overnight storm, but nothing of any major type of issue. Now I see parts of the mountain around the area have gotten some snow, and I know last week uh South Pass was closed for the morning due to winter conditions. But um, if you've been up to South Pass, it can change pretty quick, especially with the way the wind blows. So we're getting closer and closer. We're at that point in October where we're just sitting around waiting for it. The days are getting a little bit shorter. We'll be doing the our time change coming up on the 3rd of November. We'll fall back. I did see some reports that they were looking at maybe doing away with daylight savings time. I know my oldest daughter lives in Arizona, and they do not have daylight savings time there. So right now, here on where I'm at is in the mountain standard time. And so uh she's one hour, Arizona's one hour behind us. If we do fall back on the third, uh we are actually in the same time with that uh fallback. So that means it'll be getting dark even earlier at night, and those days start to still shorten up. But we're getting about dark at about 6:30 right now. Start to get dark about six, and by 6.30 it's pretty darn dark. Mornings, it's 7, 7, 7.30 before you really start getting much light. So the days are at that point. But right now, we're enjoying some pretty nice weather. I just love these afternoons like today. Uh 68 degrees, and it was just gorgeous out there. Of course, it's the afternoons. It takes quite a bit of time to get everything, you know, if it cools off pretty good at nighttime, and we start to warm up in the day. So got to take in all these days we can because they're gonna be behind us before we know. And we'll be saying what happened to fall, and we'll start looking forward to spring. And other news in the area, sports about our Wyoming Cowboys, they came out on the short end of a game after that crazy game that they won uh weekend before last. They beat San Jose State at the war. They went this last weekend on Saturday and went down to the Air Force Academy and took on Air Force in Colorado Springs. They came out on the short end of that. Air Force came in as the worst defensive team in the in college football, but they improved a lot against the Cowboys. Cowboys just couldn't buy a break and ended up losing that game. So, in other action across our state, we're winding down. This is the last week of pretty much everything before regional tournaments or playoffs start for football. The Bobcats came out, or Thermopolis Bobcats came out on the short end of their matchup at Mountain View down in the Bridger Valley in the southwestern part of Wyoming. Lost 28 to 21, got down by 28 to nothing at halftime, came back and just couldn't pull it out. But they have one game left, and then the following week will be the playoffs for all classifications. The volleyball has got one more week they'll be playing, and then the following week they'll start up with their regional volleyball. So it's getting to that point of the year, but some pretty exciting things, some great action going on in both volleyball and football, and looking forward to those next couple of weeks are gonna be rather interesting. Also, here in the state of Wyoming, there've been a lot of controversy. Company that was gonna make these microgenerators, they were gonna be a nuclear generators, and the company had looked at the Casper area to put in a plant, and ultimately they ended up gonna put the plant in in Tennessee. I suppose the issues were that the legislature had some pretty some guidelines they wanted to follow as far as nuclear waste and so forth and so on. So the company decided to go to Tennessee. I think there's a lot more than just those regulatory issues that were affecting this. I think probably Tennessee had a more diverse workforce, uh, more people located uh next to uh a lot more stuff that they would be used. So it was a little bit of a controversy. Everybody was worried about it. But I did see a post on Facebook from a person that they put on about sometimes when we bring in this stuff, we bring in a lot of other issues, maybe not beneficial. So I'm kind of one on uh the point is that we just don't want to take and sell everything out for a few jobs, and it creates a bigger problem. And I really I don't know if this is gonna take off these little micro generators, these nuclear little generators, how this is gonna take place and how this is gonna function. So it could be just another plant that comes in and closes up or doesn't materialize. So I was talking about the data centers, they're the other ones that I always have an issue with. Data centers, I think, are just not gonna be successful with where we are. But the nuclear plant had uh these little mini plants had a lot of hope, but didn't turn out for the state of Wyoming. Tennessee gained some uh more industry. So if you watch in the news in Tennessee, is where they had the plant that I think they built the shells for the uh 155 uh howitzers. That's the plant that blew up, and I think there were 15 people that were killed. And I did see an article where they were saying about the amount of of these munition plants around the world that are having accidents for some reason. But um, that's what makes Wyoming what we are. We just really aren't a hustle and bustle area. I just like to keep it the way it is. Sometimes if we get too much, uh we will change our whole state and then look back and wonder what happened to our state. So, of course, we had like everyone else across the country, no kings across the state. There's some rallies. I think Casper always has has them. I'm sure Cheyenne did. Most likely Laramie, land or Wyoming, and across the country, and made it through Saturday, and and people went back to whatever they were doing before they were even doing anything. So unfortunately, we do not have a king. I don't know where these people went to school at, and I guess they didn't uh pay attention much to history. Politics, that was what keeps us divided here in our country, and probably out throughout the world. Politics has been a big issue, and we can't seem to find a point that we can all get along with, and so it's a little bit troublesome to me. I just wonder where this is all gonna end. I don't know if we can ever get back together. We have such opposite views, and we just really can't find a middle ground to get back and get ourselves back together. So also I've got one other big one. I started on a remodeling project, take out a shower tub combination and one bathroom in the house, and got uh everything torn out. I did get a valve ordered. I tried to pick it up at Home Depot in Cheyenne, but they didn't have it, they were out, so ordered it, and I did get one off Amazon and I got the valve in, the shower valve, and such, and lo and behold, it was in a it had been opened before, and I got through the box, and three of the parts that I needed were not in the box. So most likely somebody probably ordered it and had ordered a valve and probably needed those three parts, ordered it and returned it without those parts. So now I have to send that back, and now I have to most likely I'm gonna have to make a trip to Casper or Billings to go pick up a valve because I can't proceed any further. I need to get figure out if I can where I can locate that valve, if I've got enough space to put it in to continue on with my project. So have to get that done by Christmas. So just another one of those projects out there with a lot of things going on. Got everything blown out here in Wyoming and all of our cold weather. We have to blow out our sprinkler systems, got all that done. Everything's winterized, just a matter of waiting. I gotta do uh a little bit of work on my one truck to be able to mount my snow plow on it, but I don't get going on that until we know that there's gonna be enough snow to actually push the snow around. Last year we didn't have a lot of snow, didn't have to do a lot of snow plowing like we have in previous years. So all those things here in the state of Wyoming that we have to worry about and take care of heading into winter months. In our history section today, we're going to talk about the Wyoming state flag and the woman who made it fly. This comes from wildhistory.org and it's by Kylie Luis McCormick. A few people in Wyoming know the secret behind their beloved state flag. They will give a knowing smile, perhaps a chuckle, and a nod yes. That bison wasn't always hitched to the staff. He used to look out over the mountains and prairie. The Wyoming State flag holds more secrets than a weave. The bison himself tells of the complicated relationship between the two women who made him fly Grace Raymond Habard and Ferna Keys Keys. Ferna Keys Verna Keys Keys. Around the first week of September nineteen sixteen, notices began appearing in newspapers across the state advertising a twenty dollar cash prize for the best design of the Wyoming State flag to be chosen by members of the Daughters of American Revolution. After twenty six years of statehood, Wyoming still did not have a flag, and serving as the state regent for the DAR, serving as the state regent for the Daughters of the American Revolution, Grace Raymond Hebart was determined to have one introduced during the nineteen seventeen legislative session. Hebart was a cartifart was a cartifer. Hebert was a cartographer during the Wyoming territory days and after statehood served as a deputy state engineer and held numerous positions at the University of Wyoming, from Secretary of the Board of Trustees to Professor of Political Economy. Hebart's work ethic along with her influential position enabled her to pursue her vision of Wyoming. Projects during her two year term as a state, the authors of the American Revolution Regent included serving public and private funding for the making of the historical trails and forts, and in her final year she set her sights on the state flag and the flower. The nineteen sixteen competition was clearly organized by Hubart, with all entries to be postmarked her address in Laramie no later than September thirtieth. The September call for flag designs caught the attention of Wilbur Billy Park Keys, a civic leader and entrepreneur in Buffalo, Wyoming, who knew that the perfect woman for the job, his young daughter, Verna, returning home to Buffalo on july eighth, nineteen sixteen, as Wyoming's first graduate of the Art Institute of Chicago, Verna was already a successful designer. Earlier that year, newspapers in her hometown celebrated her winning interior design of a Pullman dining car in the competition hosted by the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad. Billy was now eager to see his daughter win a prize closer to home. Recalling the summer of nineteen sixteen, Verna wrote about procrastinating. Verna later wrote about procrastinating with a school friend, Anne Wood, visiting from Cleveland, Ohio, who made an excellent excuse for me to do everything but draw. A gregarious and outgoing young woman, Verna often surrounded herself with friends or for excursions into the Bighorn Mountains or short jounts to Sheridan, Wyoming. Still the summer of nineteen sixteen wasn't just fun with friends. Verna displayed a civic spirit similar to her parents by advocating for art instruction in Wyoming schools at the nineteen sixteen Annual Teachers Institute. Verna argued to teachers from Johnson and Campbell County that art instruction was not a luxury but a necessity in the life of every pupil, while also teaching several basic art and design principles she learned while studying in Chicago. At the deadline for the competition as the deadline for the competition drew near and her father's persuasion increased, Verna knew she needed to put paint to paper. Still the perfect design eluded her until late one night she awoke from a sound sleep. For the rest of her life, Verna would recall this as the moment of divine inspiration, causing such an excitement she woke up her friend. The next morning Verna drew the design revealed to her in the night, a light silhouette of a bison looking out, branded with the great seal, and set on a field of blue and white, border striped inside another of red. On October 4th, 1916, at 4 PM, the biennial Daughters of the American Revolution Conference opened with a patriotic song before conducting regular business. During her report of her time as state regent, Hubert told of the motivation behind her wish to introduce a flag. She wanted to have a state flag the Wyoming National Guard could carry if they went off to battle. Tensions with Mexico and the anxiety of the United States being drawn into the Great War motivated Hubert along with many others across the US to push for their state to claim flags. Hebert hoped that the flag chosen by the Daughters of American Revolution would serve as a lasting memorial to their patriotic organization. Among the flags put forward in front of the Daughters of American Revolution was one designed by Hebart, featuring the Great Seal. It appeared that Hebert removed the names from each submission to ensure that the best design would win rather than one most well known or well liked designer. Instead, the Wyom State flag was chosen for its design alone, allowing for Verna Key's talent and divine inspiration to shine. Verna would later recall I was delighted, of course, when the late doctor Grace Raymond Hebert phoned to tell me that the design which I had entered had won. It was an honor, but how great I did not begin to realize until some years later. With her twenty dollar prize in her hand, Verna also likely did not realize that soon her communications with Hebert would grow to much more than a single congratulator phone call. In the following months, Hebert circulated Verna's design around the state, gaining approval from educators and legislators. She then prepared a description of Verna's design for the state senator William W. Daly of Carbon County, who sponsored the bill. Hebert's technical description would become the statue, a simple law giving the specific color and measurements for the borders, the Great Seal and the Buffalo, as Hebert unwaverly called the bison on the flag. Absent from Hebert's technical description and the statue today is a description of which direction the bison would face. Absent as well are specifications for which the version of the Great Seal is to be used, and more exactly it should be exactly positioned on the bison silhouette. Also unspecified is whether the bison should precisely match Berna's nineteen seventeen design. If the legislature of Wyoming saw an image of the state flag before their vote, it would have been Berna's original painting, which the bison facing out as though to look over the mountains and prairies of Wyoming symbolizing freedom. Twenty-six days before the state flag bill was signed into law, Governor John B. Kendrick at 127 PM on january thirty first, nineteen seventeen, Berna received exclusive manufacturing rights to her design from the George Lauter from the George Lauterer Company in Chicago. Confident that her flag would pass into law, Verna focused on securing the future of her design and her future as the designer. That winter, Buffalo newspaper advertised Verna's new business, distinctive designs, offering holiday and interior decorations, displaying an entrepreneurial spirit instilled in her from childhood. Verna designed some plates and decorations for many of the social events in Buffalo. The same year her design was signed into law as the official Wyoming state flag. Afterwards, Verna continued working independently on having the new flag manufactured. If the Lotterer Company delivered on time, Verna could have the flags first flags, Verna could have the first flags as early as February, just days after a design was signed into law. The size of these flags is not mentioned in any known correspondence between Verna and Grace and their correspondence now at the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming, but Vernus' earliest safe quote from the Lotterer Company suggests that she had purchased quantities of small felt or silk flags. These could not have been small. These could have been small as a postcard or large as a ledger and were priced by the hundred lot. Habert shared Vernus' eagerness to see Wyoming state flag produced and put into the and put before the people of the state as quickly as possible. Only a few years prior, the DAR of Colorado discovered that their nineteen ten design competition for a state flag did not give Colorado its first flag, but rather replaced a forgotten flag that had been signed into law but never mass produced. The power of a flag does not come from the piece of paper signed by a governor, but from the people who the flag is meant to represent. In May of nineteen seventeen, Hebert wrote to John Hawkes, principal of Buffalo High School. We should get the flag and the flowers before the people of the state in order to familiarize them with them and also defend them as I understand that some people are already criticizing the selection of the state flower. While Vernon Security Manufacturer in Chicago, Hebert and Edith K. O'Clark, the state school superintendent, struggle to find any suitable manufacturer for the new flag. Both members of the Daughters of American Revolution, they wish to have the two honorary flags made to be given to Senator Daly and Governor Kendrick. Hebert explained, We have had several companies submit us a flag, thinking they would follow the designs, but the buffalo head looked like a sack of flour and his body like that a sack of wheat. We absolutely rejected several flags because the design was not carried out and the colors were not properly exercised. Clark's diary from nineteen seventeen notes that on april seventeenth she ordered seventeen hundred and fifty postal cards of the state flag and flowers from a Cheyenne printer, but makes no other special mention of her difficulty in producing a suitable flag. By May of nineteen seventeen, the women had turned to Keys for help. While Hubert writing, with Hebert writing, I do not know that anyone is better qualified to make up this matter than Miss Keys, and she accepts no flags unless it's absolutely worthy of the designer. Despite their shared determination to produce flags as quickly as possible, when the United States entered World War I in early April of nineteen seventeen, the production on the full size flag stalled. Hebert dedicated her time and finances to the war cause, raising money for the Fourth Liberty loan as a four minute man and even requesting permission to let the daughters of American Revolution membership lapse. Berna likewise volunteered her time in the war effort through though production on the full size flag had slowed, though production on the full size flag had slowed, the flag did not become a portable piece of my home. The flag still became a portable piece of home to many of the men stationed at Fort Warren. Thanks to Major Edward Marsh Turner. Turner ensured that every member of the Wyoming National Guard Corps received a hand sized silk Wyoming flag before deploying to France. The fragile cut of silk carried to the front lines of war required a repint of Verna's winning design, including the decorative staff and the bison facing out. After Hebert's May nineteen seventeen letter, the two women apparently did not have any further correspondence until May of nineteen eighteen. The archive correspondence between Verna and Hebert hint at many more letters now lost. Somewhere in these lost letters, Hebert first introduced Verna to turn her bison nose into the wind. Hebert wrote her preference on a postcard that is now in Verna's collection at the American Heritage Center. Apparently the card was mailed with a letter that she did not save. It is easy to imagine Verna's reaction, not like this, head so wrong boy in Hebert's handwriting scribbled across her design. Verna's nineteen forty nine letter explained Hebert's design changed to state historian Ellen Crowley, showing Verna at the most candid. When the first flags were made, doctor Hebert insisted that the bison be turned toward the staff. It was doctor Hebert's wish and it was done, and a few questions or a few questioned or crossed her. In nineteen eighteen, Hebert was forced as powerful and unrelenting as the Wyoming wind. She profoundly shaped the state through the work she profoundly shaped the state through her work and earned a great deal of respect from her fellow Wyoming ice. She was a strong enough force to turn that bison. By december seventh of nineteen eighteen, Hebert purchased the first two full size Wyoming flags from Verna, who then manufactured who had them manufactured by the George Lauterer Company and apparently shipped directly to Hebert. Hebert opined to Verna. I wish you might have seen how beautiful the two Wyoming flags were. It would quite have delighted your artistic heart. Hebert so approved of the flag that she immediately ordered a third from Verna to give to the incoming governor. Ordering this flag, Hebert asked Verna to not feel discouraged about the marks in the enclosed card. Wish that they had more closely followed your artistic work. Still Hubert gave further notes on the design for the next flag. On february fifteenth, nineteen ten, Hebert presented this flag to Governor Robert D. Carey in a ceremony before a joint session of the legislature. In her short speech, she credited Verna for her design, then mentioned her own patriotic motivations and finally advocating for the soldiers returning home from war in need of work. Carey accepted the flag, giving thanks to the Daughters of American Revolution and, according to the Laramie Republican, added that the flag was a credit to Dr. Hebert, especially since the honor of the inspiration for it originally belonged to her. Werner then spoke on her understanding of the symbolism of the flag's design and colors. Next, Daly recounted the center's floor debate, and with each political party advocating a different animal emblem to replace the bison, but Werner's design emerged unscathed.

Thanks for joining us today, and we hope you enjoy our podcast. As per the Code of the West, we ride for the brand and we ride for Wyoming.