The mountains, the myths and the legends of the Mountain West are ingredients in a recipe of strength unique to Wyoming’s inhabitants. The variety of ways Wyoming’s residents embody this strength gives rise to an ideal, an encompassing cultural strength known as, “Cowboy Strong,” but the buzz words fail to encompass all our strengths.
“Wyoming Strong” should be the inclusive and overriding banner flying over the wide variety of stalwart people defining the strength of our state, not an objectifying and specific adjective that designates occupation, ability or gender.
“So often people describe strength as an individual characteristic but it’s not,” University of Wyoming bachelor of fine art senior Garrett Cruzan said. “There can be a very negative connotation with overcoming in an ablest way because if you have any kind of disability it can be a mechanism of exclusion.”
Women, girls and gender non-conformists have an equal stake in how this state came to be. We are Wyoming, The Equality State. Our state still requires every hand on deck in all occupations to keep the ship afloat but the myth of men and an agricultural tightrope of livestock production still rises to the top.
“I grew up ranching and bulldogging so I’ve seen and felt first hand the depth of strength it takes to survive in Wyoming,” junior visual arts major Kade Greer said. “Growing up in Rozet, Wyoming, meant working, understanding physical strength and pain, mental strength and resiliency, simple persistence and the strength that nature gives us through animals and our environment.”
Agriculture is a rich and strong part of Wyoming’s past and its future. Cowboys are real and most are tougher than hell but there are also legends that transcend the cookie-cutter, packaged and prepared image of Wyoming that sells in travel agencies.
The term, “Cowboy,” does not fit individuals like rancher and businesswoman, Temple Grandin, nor does it literally designate former Chief Justice of the Wyoming Supreme Court Marilyn Kite or Esther Hobart Morris, the Nation’s first woman justice of the peace.
“Independence is foundational to our culture and the idea of strength, something about being self-reliant before you ask someone for help but also knowing that you’re going to need your neighbor’s help and they’ll need yours eventually,” Former Chief Justice of the Wyoming Supreme Court, Marilyn S. Kite said. “Women in Wyoming, my grandmother, there’s no one stronger I can think of after her husband and father both died in the Hanna mines, she sold pies to the community, ran the Hanna Boarding House and made it work somehow.”
“We are a community as much as we are individuals,” Kite said.
“Cowboy” elicits a specific image and meaning that surely includes bravery, controlled recklessness and a dream of better things to come but the gender and occupational specifications drive many titans of resilience away or marginalize strength when it doesn’t fit the cookie cutter mold.
“It’s tough to see the disconnect between the people that have access to networks that give them strength compared to those that don’t,” Kite said. “It’s important to remember that sometimes persistence and resilience don’t allow us to empathize like we should or could with those who need it the most because the truth is that the myth of strength cannot be what colors reality.”
Wyoming’s residents are the strongest no matter their occupation or gender. To be Cowboy Strong is to be able to make new meaning, we are explorers. Cowboy Strong is having the courage to rewrite and rebrand ourselves as a whole, Wyoming Strong.
Wyoming Strong is an eternal well of primal persistence, no drilling necessary. We are survivalists who thrive on being tested and tempered by external and internal forces. Cowboy, Wyoming Strong, is the connection of pure neighborly care that weaves our strength together.
The mountains, the myths and the legends may change slowly but the change is persistent. “Cowboy Strong” might be the banner waving above our heads on all the company stationary but the ranch takes a whole family to run and we all add to its value. Wyoming is greater than the sum of its myths or its extracted resources. True strength is in our care, sensitivity and love for those around us and the natural wonder of our environment.
All of Wyoming’s residents are necessary fibers in our understanding of “Cowboy” or truly, “WYOMING Strong.”
