Volume XVI, Issue 2

A conversation with former Senator

Al Simpson

A Blog Report

UW Rodeo

Laramie’s Ruins A photo series

Fall04FrontiersMag_FINAL.indd 1 10/12/2004 4:13:50 PM

1989 was an important year for UW Student Publications. That spring, the Wyo Yearbook, a UW institution since 1909, rolled off the presses for the last time. In its place, Student Publications would put out a free general interest magazine once a semester, and in the fall of 1989, the first issue of Frontiers hit campus newsstands. That issue contained stories about Wyo-ming weekend getaways, ultimate Frisbee, a celebration of the Union’s 50th birthday and homecoming ’89. The only color pho-to was on the cover and the graphics all appeared to be clip art. Fifteen years on, Frontiers has improved with age. During that time, it has covered topics ranging from graffiti culture to the Laramie sex scene to Soviet exchange students to the mysteries of the Buckhorn bar. As with any publication run by a transient group of students, Frontiers has certainly had its ups and downs. Overall, though, it’s been a quality publication that’s kept students, faculty, staff and Laramie citizens informed and entertained for a decade and a half. I hope future editors do their best to continue that tradition so people are still reading this magazine in 2019. Who knows, perhaps by then Frontiers will come out twice a semester,

circulate state-wide and finally be online. In any case, I’d like to give a big shout-out to Michelle Fugere, the first editor of this magazine. Thanks to you, I’m not unemployed and my staff had something to do last semester.

-Patrick Ian Banks

Editor:Patrick Banks

Assistant Editor:Truen Pence

Writers:Patrick BanksRachel PetersonKarly McLeanDwain Streeter Graphic Artist:Truen Pence

Photographer: Shannon Valenti

Production:Truen Pence

Advertising:Barbara Thorpe

Copyright 2004 by Frontiers and Student Publica-tions. All rights reserved. The opinions expressed in this magazine are solely those of its contributors and editors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the administration or staff of the University of Wyoming.

The University of Wyoming student magazineVolume XVI, Issue 2SPRING 2004

frontiers.mag 01

con tentsClearing the Smoke:Rachel Peterson investi-gates the prospects for a smoke-free Laramie.Pg. 02

Through the Ruins:Shannon Valenti sheds light on some local ruins.Pg. 13

UW Rodeo:Karly McLean gives the low-down on the history of UW Rodeo.Pg. 18

Avoid the Clown: Who not to work forPg. 06 by Dwain Streeter

Interview with Al Simpson: Wyoming’s former Senator warns congress to be preparedPg. 09 by Patrick Banks

Flotsam and Jetsam: Leftovers from World War IPg. 10 by Patrick Banks

Blogging: Fad or Revolution?Pg. 16 by Patrick Banks

fall‘04

cover photo by Shannon Valenti

photobyShannonValenti

Fall04FrontiersMag_FINAL.indd 2-3 10/12/2004 4:13:55 PM

1989 was an important year for UW Student Publications. That spring, the Wyo Yearbook, a UW institution since 1909, rolled off the presses for the last time. In its place, Student Publications would put out a free general interest magazine once a semester, and in the fall of 1989, the first issue of Frontiers hit campus newsstands. That issue contained stories about Wyo-ming weekend getaways, ultimate Frisbee, a celebration of the Union’s 50th birthday and homecoming ’89. The only color pho-to was on the cover and the graphics all appeared to be clip art. Fifteen years on, Frontiers has improved with age. During that time, it has covered topics ranging from graffiti culture to the Laramie sex scene to Soviet exchange students to the mysteries of the Buckhorn bar. As with any publication run by a transient group of students, Frontiers has certainly had its ups and downs. Overall, though, it’s been a quality publication that’s kept students, faculty, staff and Laramie citizens informed and entertained for a decade and a half. I hope future editors do their best to continue that tradition so people are still reading this magazine in 2019. Who knows, perhaps by then Frontiers will come out twice a semester,

circulate state-wide and finally be online. In any case, I’d like to give a big shout-out to Michelle Fugere, the first editor of this magazine. Thanks to you, I’m not unemployed and my staff had something to do last semester.

-Patrick Ian Banks

Editor:Patrick Banks

Assistant Editor:Truen Pence

Writers:Patrick BanksRachel PetersonKarly McLeanDwain Streeter Graphic Artist:Truen Pence

Photographer: Shannon Valenti

Production:Truen Pence

Advertising:Barbara Thorpe

Copyright 2004 by Frontiers and Student Publica-tions. All rights reserved. The opinions expressed in this magazine are solely those of its contributors and editors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the administration or staff of the University of Wyoming.

The University of Wyoming student magazineVolume XVI, Issue 2SPRING 2004

frontiers.mag 01

con tentsClearing the Smoke:Rachel Peterson investi-gates the prospects for a smoke-free Laramie.Pg. 02

Through the Ruins:Shannon Valenti sheds light on some local ruins.Pg. 13

UW Rodeo:Karly McLean gives the low-down on the history of UW Rodeo.Pg. 18

Avoid the Clown: Who not to work forPg. 06 by Dwain Streeter

Interview with Al Simpson: Wyoming’s former Senator warns congress to be preparedPg. 09 by Patrick Banks

Flotsam and Jetsam: Leftovers from World War IPg. 10 by Patrick Banks

Blogging: Fad or Revolution?Pg. 16 by Patrick Banks

fall‘04

cover photo by Shannon Valenti

photobyShannonValenti

Fall04FrontiersMag_FINAL.indd 2-3 10/12/2004 4:13:55 PM

frontiers.mag 03

Editors Note: The Laramie City Coun-cil passed a city-wide smoking ban for restaurants, bars, performance halls and private clubs on Sept. 7, 2004. As this is-sue went to press, a group of citizens op-posed to the ban were attempting to collect enough signatures to bring the issue before voters on the November ballot.

The bar was dim and quiet ex-cept for four men chatting away the weekday afternoon. The bartender, Heather Cox, was reading at a lone table where she could make use of the bit of natural light that streamed in. Occasion-ally she’d hop up, pour another round for the group and then return to her novel.

Four months ago, the scene would have been much different. Cox would have been stand-ing in a smoky haze with a cigarette in her mouth, chatting with the crowd of regulars. But that crowd moved to a different bar and Cox quit smoking.

The change came about at the end of January when the Ranger Lounge initiated a smoke-free pol-icy, the fi rst of its kind in any Lara-mie bar.

“It was never packed in the day-time, but it defi nitely killed the crowd,” Cox said about the change. There used to be several customers who came in for morning coffee and would pop back during lunch or after work for a couple of beers, she said. “I don’t have that crowd anymore. Most of them are pretty heavy smokers.”

These smokers may fi nd it dif-fi cult to smoke in any Laramie es-tablishment if a new ordinance is passed to ban smoking in all work places, including bars and restau-rants, bowling alleys, truck stops and even private establishments like the Elks Lodge and the VFW. The push comes from the Smoke-free Laramie Coalition, a group that formed about a year ago to promote

advocacy for a smoke-free Laramie. The number one goal, said cam-paign manager Tamara Sniffi n, is to “protect the community and its workforce from the health hazards of secondhand smoke.”

“Is it okay for businesses to say, ‘I’m not going to bother washing dishes between customers’?” asked Sniffi n. “Secondhand smoke is just another health care issue.”

Secondhand smoke, or SHS, con-tains 4,000 chemicals of which 43

cause cancer and 200 others are poison, according to the American Lung Association. SHS also is a leading cause of lung cancer and heart disease in non-smokers and is re-sponsible for up to 300,000 lower respiratory tract infec-tions in infants and children each year, the association’s Web site states. These and other research fi ndings are the basis for the internation-al smoke-free movement,

but convincing people in Laramie to change their ways could be diffi -cult, Sniffi n said.

“The challenge is educating peo-ple to the hazards of smoking and the benefi ts of a smoke-free environ-ment,” she said. “They (opponents) aren’t making the connection that we have an environment that is un-safe.”

The coalition has gathered thou-sands of signatures in support of the potential ordinance from health-care workers, students, restaurant employees and other concerned citizens. “Our goal is to represent a good percentage of the community,” Sniffi n said.

On average, the group collected more than one signature per min-ute when it set out tables in Laramie businesses. On one Saturday in Feb-ruary, about 550 people signed dur-ing an eight-hour period at Hastings Books, Music and Video, she said.

“The response was very positive,” Sniffi n said. “We even are having smokers who are signing.”

They also have the support of the

“There used to be several customers

who came in for morning coffee and would pop

back during lunch or after work for a

couple of beers, she said. “I don’t have

that crowd anymore. Most of them

are pretty heavy smokers.”

The Ranger Lounge and Motel was one of the fi rst establishments to put up a smoking ban in the Laramie community. A move to ban smoking in bars and restaurants is currently underway.

Story by Rachel Peterson

Photos by Shannon Valenti

Fall04FrontiersMag_FINAL.indd 4-5 10/12/2004 4:13:58 PM

frontiers.mag 03

Editors Note: The Laramie City Coun-cil passed a city-wide smoking ban for restaurants, bars, performance halls and private clubs on Sept. 7, 2004. As this is-sue went to press, a group of citizens op-posed to the ban were attempting to collect enough signatures to bring the issue before voters on the November ballot.

The bar was dim and quiet ex-cept for four men chatting away the weekday afternoon. The bartender, Heather Cox, was reading at a lone table where she could make use of the bit of natural light that streamed in. Occasion-ally she’d hop up, pour another round for the group and then return to her novel.

Four months ago, the scene would have been much different. Cox would have been stand-ing in a smoky haze with a cigarette in her mouth, chatting with the crowd of regulars. But that crowd moved to a different bar and Cox quit smoking.

The change came about at the end of January when the Ranger Lounge initiated a smoke-free pol-icy, the fi rst of its kind in any Lara-mie bar.

“It was never packed in the day-time, but it defi nitely killed the crowd,” Cox said about the change. There used to be several customers who came in for morning coffee and would pop back during lunch or after work for a couple of beers, she said. “I don’t have that crowd anymore. Most of them are pretty heavy smokers.”

These smokers may fi nd it dif-fi cult to smoke in any Laramie es-tablishment if a new ordinance is passed to ban smoking in all work places, including bars and restau-rants, bowling alleys, truck stops and even private establishments like the Elks Lodge and the VFW. The push comes from the Smoke-free Laramie Coalition, a group that formed about a year ago to promote

advocacy for a smoke-free Laramie. The number one goal, said cam-paign manager Tamara Sniffi n, is to “protect the community and its workforce from the health hazards of secondhand smoke.”

“Is it okay for businesses to say, ‘I’m not going to bother washing dishes between customers’?” asked Sniffi n. “Secondhand smoke is just another health care issue.”

Secondhand smoke, or SHS, con-tains 4,000 chemicals of which 43

cause cancer and 200 others are poison, according to the American Lung Association. SHS also is a leading cause of lung cancer and heart disease in non-smokers and is re-sponsible for up to 300,000 lower respiratory tract infec-tions in infants and children each year, the association’s Web site states. These and other research fi ndings are the basis for the internation-al smoke-free movement,

but convincing people in Laramie to change their ways could be diffi -cult, Sniffi n said.

“The challenge is educating peo-ple to the hazards of smoking and the benefi ts of a smoke-free environ-ment,” she said. “They (opponents) aren’t making the connection that we have an environment that is un-safe.”

The coalition has gathered thou-sands of signatures in support of the potential ordinance from health-care workers, students, restaurant employees and other concerned citizens. “Our goal is to represent a good percentage of the community,” Sniffi n said.

On average, the group collected more than one signature per min-ute when it set out tables in Laramie businesses. On one Saturday in Feb-ruary, about 550 people signed dur-ing an eight-hour period at Hastings Books, Music and Video, she said.

“The response was very positive,” Sniffi n said. “We even are having smokers who are signing.”

They also have the support of the

“There used to be several customers

who came in for morning coffee and would pop

back during lunch or after work for a

couple of beers, she said. “I don’t have

that crowd anymore. Most of them

are pretty heavy smokers.”

The Ranger Lounge and Motel was one of the fi rst establishments to put up a smoking ban in the Laramie community. A move to ban smoking in bars and restaurants is currently underway.

Story by Rachel Peterson

Photos by Shannon Valenti

Fall04FrontiersMag_FINAL.indd 4-5 10/12/2004 4:13:58 PM

frontiers.mag 0504 frontiers.mag

“We’ve got a few extra people running around here because it is smoke-free.”

Albany County School Board, Ivin-son Memorial Hospital and Laramie Mayor Fred Homer.

“Most of the time I keep my mind ready to hear some answers on the other side,” Homer said. “On this is-sue, I’m pretty-well convinced.”

The City Council already regu-lates public health frequently and nobody questions these, he said, citing a policy passed in 1986 that required restaurants with more than 30 seats to establish separate smok-ing and non-smoking sections.

But Laramie restaurant and bar owners, along with their customers, also are rallying against the coali-tion. Their grassroots organization, Laramie Free Choice Movement, has more than 2,500 signatures op-posing the smoke-free policy. “Busi-ness owners are hesitant and I can’t blame them,” Sniffi n said.

This includes Debbie Hinkel, owner of the Ranger Lounge. “It should be the business owner’s choice,” Hinkel said. “I believe in free enterprise.”

Hinkel said she chose to con-vert the Ranger into a smoke-free business because her father died of lung cancer, and she was concerned about the health of herself and her employees.

Sniffi n said she “respects that she (Hinkel) doesn’t feel it should be an ordinance,” but added other bar owners in town need an extra push to be responsible employers.

“Employers should do every-thing they can to promote a healthy environment – to protect people at work,” Sniffi n said.

Cox said it was Hinkel’s concern for health and the bar’s change that helped her follow through with her decision to quit smoking.

“It’s a mean addiction,” the 26-year-old said of her ten-year nico-tine fi x. “It’s stinky and expensive and socially unacceptable. You see someone else smoking or smell it and you just want one.”

But working in a smoke-free en-vironment “helped a lot because

people weren’t blowing smoke in my face,” she said. It also would have been a “pain in the ass to be a smoker and to have to run outside every hour.”

Jade Miller, owner of Reed’s Package Liquors, expressed one ma-jor concern about the ordinance – smoking breaks. All of the bar’s employees and about 80 percent of its customers smoke, he said.

“I have only one person that works here at time,” Miller said about his employees’ inability to take cigarette breaks.

Sniffi n said Miller “enables peo-ple’s habits” when using cigarette breaks as a reason to allow smoking in his business.

“Health regulations aren’t always a choice,” she said. “City govern-ment is in place to protect the com-munity.”

Miller said this regulation, if en-acted, will only lead to more. “My biggest concern is, ‘Where does it stop’?” he said. “Sun tanning is un-healthy, so then let’s shut down all tanning salons.”

Decline in revenue also is a con-cern among business owners. But studies conducted by the Cardio-vascular Research Institute, a pa-tient-based research facility at the University of California in San Fran-cisco, found no decrease in restau-rant revenues and a slight increase in bar revenues following the 1998 implementation of smoke-free laws in California. Another study, con-ducted by the University of Wiscon-sin, reported a 24 percent increase of revenues in Madison, while Wis-consin cities without ordinances only saw a 19 percent increase dur-ing a fi ve-year period.

As the lone establishment to make the change, the Ranger did weather an economic slump during the fi rst six weeks, dropping 26.3 percent in bar sales and 10.6 percent in package liquor sales, compared with revenues during the same time period for 2003.

“I’m not attributing all of it to

“My biggest concern is, ‘Where does it stop’?” he said.

“Sun tanning is unhealthy, so then let’s shut down all tanning salons.”

the non-smoking environment. Everyone is down,” Hinkel said in March. “But it may also be infl u-enced by the fact that smokers are mad about it.”

Now, the bar caters to different clientele, said bar manager Brian Eicholtz. “We’ve got a few extra peo-ple running around here because it is smoke-free.”

That makes the slower day shifts a small consequence, Eicholtz said. “I get more compliments about it being a smoke-free bar than it not being, even from smokers,” he said. Many customers said they wouldn’t come back after the switch, Eicholtz added, but they did and “they ap-preciate that their clothes don’t smell at the end of the night.”

Kelly Wilson, a junior at UW, is one such customer. Wilson said she frequents the bar more because it is a smoke-free establishment.

“I hate smelling like an ashtray when I wake up,” Wilson, a non-smoker said.

Many smokers said they feel the same, though most contend it should be the bar owner’s choice.

“I can understand how others don’t want it around them,” said Chrystal Sholl, a UW junior, about SHS. “It doesn’t really make a differ-ence to me at all, so it should be the owner’s choice.”

Most staff members at the Ranger agree, including Cox. She said even while she was a smoker and would sometimes “just want to gag” from the smell, it’s important to have the option. The ban was a necessary at the Ranger because of its low ceil-ings, she said, but other venues “don’t seem near as smoky.”

Anthony Salvator, a Ranger bartender, agreed. “I love it, but it wasn’t my choice,” he said, noting the authority of the decision should be left to the owners.

Hinkel said the potential ordi-nance is not typical of Wyoming legislation.

“We’ve always been against big government,” she said.

Fall04FrontiersMag_FINAL.indd 6-7 10/12/2004 4:14:00 PM

frontiers.mag 0504 frontiers.mag

“We’ve got a few extra people running around here because it is smoke-free.”

Albany County School Board, Ivin-son Memorial Hospital and Laramie Mayor Fred Homer.

“Most of the time I keep my mind ready to hear some answers on the other side,” Homer said. “On this is-sue, I’m pretty-well convinced.”

The City Council already regu-lates public health frequently and nobody questions these, he said, citing a policy passed in 1986 that required restaurants with more than 30 seats to establish separate smok-ing and non-smoking sections.

But Laramie restaurant and bar owners, along with their customers, also are rallying against the coali-tion. Their grassroots organization, Laramie Free Choice Movement, has more than 2,500 signatures op-posing the smoke-free policy. “Busi-ness owners are hesitant and I can’t blame them,” Sniffi n said.

This includes Debbie Hinkel, owner of the Ranger Lounge. “It should be the business owner’s choice,” Hinkel said. “I believe in free enterprise.”

Hinkel said she chose to con-vert the Ranger into a smoke-free business because her father died of lung cancer, and she was concerned about the health of herself and her employees.

Sniffi n said she “respects that she (Hinkel) doesn’t feel it should be an ordinance,” but added other bar owners in town need an extra push to be responsible employers.

“Employers should do every-thing they can to promote a healthy environment – to protect people at work,” Sniffi n said.

Cox said it was Hinkel’s concern for health and the bar’s change that helped her follow through with her decision to quit smoking.

“It’s a mean addiction,” the 26-year-old said of her ten-year nico-tine fi x. “It’s stinky and expensive and socially unacceptable. You see someone else smoking or smell it and you just want one.”

But working in a smoke-free en-vironment “helped a lot because

people weren’t blowing smoke in my face,” she said. It also would have been a “pain in the ass to be a smoker and to have to run outside every hour.”

Jade Miller, owner of Reed’s Package Liquors, expressed one ma-jor concern about the ordinance – smoking breaks. All of the bar’s employees and about 80 percent of its customers smoke, he said.

“I have only one person that works here at time,” Miller said about his employees’ inability to take cigarette breaks.

Sniffi n said Miller “enables peo-ple’s habits” when using cigarette breaks as a reason to allow smoking in his business.

“Health regulations aren’t always a choice,” she said. “City govern-ment is in place to protect the com-munity.”

Miller said this regulation, if en-acted, will only lead to more. “My biggest concern is, ‘Where does it stop’?” he said. “Sun tanning is un-healthy, so then let’s shut down all tanning salons.”

Decline in revenue also is a con-cern among business owners. But studies conducted by the Cardio-vascular Research Institute, a pa-tient-based research facility at the University of California in San Fran-cisco, found no decrease in restau-rant revenues and a slight increase in bar revenues following the 1998 implementation of smoke-free laws in California. Another study, con-ducted by the University of Wiscon-sin, reported a 24 percent increase of revenues in Madison, while Wis-consin cities without ordinances only saw a 19 percent increase dur-ing a fi ve-year period.

As the lone establishment to make the change, the Ranger did weather an economic slump during the fi rst six weeks, dropping 26.3 percent in bar sales and 10.6 percent in package liquor sales, compared with revenues during the same time period for 2003.

“I’m not attributing all of it to

“My biggest concern is, ‘Where does it stop’?” he said.

“Sun tanning is unhealthy, so then let’s shut down all tanning salons.”

the non-smoking environment. Everyone is down,” Hinkel said in March. “But it may also be infl u-enced by the fact that smokers are mad about it.”

Now, the bar caters to different clientele, said bar manager Brian Eicholtz. “We’ve got a few extra peo-ple running around here because it is smoke-free.”

That makes the slower day shifts a small consequence, Eicholtz said. “I get more compliments about it being a smoke-free bar than it not being, even from smokers,” he said. Many customers said they wouldn’t come back after the switch, Eicholtz added, but they did and “they ap-preciate that their clothes don’t smell at the end of the night.”

Kelly Wilson, a junior at UW, is one such customer. Wilson said she frequents the bar more because it is a smoke-free establishment.

“I hate smelling like an ashtray when I wake up,” Wilson, a non-smoker said.

Many smokers said they feel the same, though most contend it should be the bar owner’s choice.

“I can understand how others don’t want it around them,” said Chrystal Sholl, a UW junior, about SHS. “It doesn’t really make a differ-ence to me at all, so it should be the owner’s choice.”

Most staff members at the Ranger agree, including Cox. She said even while she was a smoker and would sometimes “just want to gag” from the smell, it’s important to have the option. The ban was a necessary at the Ranger because of its low ceil-ings, she said, but other venues “don’t seem near as smoky.”

Anthony Salvator, a Ranger bartender, agreed. “I love it, but it wasn’t my choice,” he said, noting the authority of the decision should be left to the owners.

Hinkel said the potential ordi-nance is not typical of Wyoming legislation.

“We’ve always been against big government,” she said.

Fall04FrontiersMag_FINAL.indd 6-7 10/12/2004 4:14:00 PM

frontiers.mag 0706 frontiers.mag

The Clown is as fluent in

doublespeak as a career politician

caught in a lie. He promises

competitive pay, benefits and flexible

hours without explaining that

whoever works for him will be expected

to earn their pay and benefits by

turning themselves into another piece

of equipment to be used at the

Clown’s whim.

Story By Dwain Streeter

very person in the world should add “I will never work for a Clown” to their personal mantra, code of ethics or lifestyle choice. It should be engraved on a silver plaque on their birthday and pre-sented to them by a loved one along with a mission statement on how to avoid falling into the Clown’s trap. For most people the reason that they are stuck in the grasp of the evil, leering, diabolical Clown is lack of education. The effect of not receiving a degree, either a technical degree or a degree from some other in-stitution of higher learning, is to fall into the clutches of the Clown.

In order to fulfill staffing require-ments and serve his customers the Clown has to rely on uneducated and unskilled workers, because those with skills or an education already have a good job. The Clown is as fluent in doublespeak as a career politician caught in a lie. He promises competitive pay, benefits and flexible hours without explaining that whoever works for him will be expected to earn their pay and benefits by turning themselves into another piece of equip-ment to be used at the Clown’s whim. Absolute control and micromanage-ment are the Clown’s strongest weapons; he uses them to demoralize his workers and destroy their independent thought process.

The Clown begins by recruiting, with help wanted signs and advertise-ments in the local paper, which seem to offer a real job to those who don’t have any job skills learned in college or tech-nical school. The ads are filled with the promises of competitive pay, benefits and flexible hours to lure in desperate people who just need a job.

People who are lured by the compet-itive pay section of the ad soon realize that it means they will earn slightly more than minimum wage. The Clown’s great-est concern is the profit margin so he must keep labor costs down; this means not paying anymore than others who are also in the Clown’s business. The prom-ised benefits are things like paying for items the Clown sells at a discount rate or being given the required workplace uniform for free. Items like health insur-ance or paid vacation are almost impos-

sible to attain until years of servitude have been paid to the Clown. The health insurance offered to entry level employ-ees costs more than they can afford, and vacation time requires a minimum num-ber of hours worked over a year’s time; which automatically excludes most em-ployees. With no competition for un-skilled employees the Clown knows that he doesn’t have to offer much in the way of job benefits.

The final pitch of the advertisement, flexible hours, is to attract the attention of the people the Clown wants working for him the most. They are college and tech-nical students or parents who need a job while the kids are in school. All of these people have skills that the Clown needs to drive his business in the direction that he wants. They tend to be motivated and ambitious people who can follow direc-tions; the perfect people to develop into managers who can ride herd over the rest of the Clown’s employees. These workers will receive a lot of the Clown’s attention to stay and become career workers for the Clown. The Clown uses a lot of guile and bribery to try and keep them tied to his apron strings. For those who succumb to the Clown’s advances their life becomes more tragic by the day.

The unfortunates who advance on to become managers for the Clown have little idea of what they have gotten them-selves into. During the honeymoon pe-riod the Clown lavishes praise and affec-tion on them much in the same way that a pimp does when recruiting unknow-ing women to work for him. The seduc-tion process begins by programming the manager to believe that they work for a company who values its employees as its greatest asset. Items like people skills and self development become all impor-tant, catch phrases such as “sharpen your saw” and “putting people first” make the Clown sound as if balance between per-sonal and professional life are very im-portant. The Clown’s managers are led to believe that they are just like any other mid level executive in any other large corporation, and that they should be proud to work for the Clown. The lack of education among the Clown’s employees leaves them trapped in a horrible profes-sion because the only job skills they have are in the “service industry.”

Fall04FrontiersMag_FINAL.indd 8-9 10/12/2004 4:14:00 PM

frontiers.mag 0706 frontiers.mag

The Clown is as fluent in

doublespeak as a career politician

caught in a lie. He promises

competitive pay, benefits and flexible

hours without explaining that

whoever works for him will be expected

to earn their pay and benefits by

turning themselves into another piece

of equipment to be used at the

Clown’s whim.

Story By Dwain Streeter

very person in the world should add “I will never work for a Clown” to their personal mantra, code of ethics or lifestyle choice. It should be engraved on a silver plaque on their birthday and pre-sented to them by a loved one along with a mission statement on how to avoid falling into the Clown’s trap. For most people the reason that they are stuck in the grasp of the evil, leering, diabolical Clown is lack of education. The effect of not receiving a degree, either a technical degree or a degree from some other in-stitution of higher learning, is to fall into the clutches of the Clown.

In order to fulfill staffing require-ments and serve his customers the Clown has to rely on uneducated and unskilled workers, because those with skills or an education already have a good job. The Clown is as fluent in doublespeak as a career politician caught in a lie. He promises competitive pay, benefits and flexible hours without explaining that whoever works for him will be expected to earn their pay and benefits by turning themselves into another piece of equip-ment to be used at the Clown’s whim. Absolute control and micromanage-ment are the Clown’s strongest weapons; he uses them to demoralize his workers and destroy their independent thought process.

The Clown begins by recruiting, with help wanted signs and advertise-ments in the local paper, which seem to offer a real job to those who don’t have any job skills learned in college or tech-nical school. The ads are filled with the promises of competitive pay, benefits and flexible hours to lure in desperate people who just need a job.

People who are lured by the compet-itive pay section of the ad soon realize that it means they will earn slightly more than minimum wage. The Clown’s great-est concern is the profit margin so he must keep labor costs down; this means not paying anymore than others who are also in the Clown’s business. The prom-ised benefits are things like paying for items the Clown sells at a discount rate or being given the required workplace uniform for free. Items like health insur-ance or paid vacation are almost impos-

sible to attain until years of servitude have been paid to the Clown. The health insurance offered to entry level employ-ees costs more than they can afford, and vacation time requires a minimum num-ber of hours worked over a year’s time; which automatically excludes most em-ployees. With no competition for un-skilled employees the Clown knows that he doesn’t have to offer much in the way of job benefits.

The final pitch of the advertisement, flexible hours, is to attract the attention of the people the Clown wants working for him the most. They are college and tech-nical students or parents who need a job while the kids are in school. All of these people have skills that the Clown needs to drive his business in the direction that he wants. They tend to be motivated and ambitious people who can follow direc-tions; the perfect people to develop into managers who can ride herd over the rest of the Clown’s employees. These workers will receive a lot of the Clown’s attention to stay and become career workers for the Clown. The Clown uses a lot of guile and bribery to try and keep them tied to his apron strings. For those who succumb to the Clown’s advances their life becomes more tragic by the day.

The unfortunates who advance on to become managers for the Clown have little idea of what they have gotten them-selves into. During the honeymoon pe-riod the Clown lavishes praise and affec-tion on them much in the same way that a pimp does when recruiting unknow-ing women to work for him. The seduc-tion process begins by programming the manager to believe that they work for a company who values its employees as its greatest asset. Items like people skills and self development become all impor-tant, catch phrases such as “sharpen your saw” and “putting people first” make the Clown sound as if balance between per-sonal and professional life are very im-portant. The Clown’s managers are led to believe that they are just like any other mid level executive in any other large corporation, and that they should be proud to work for the Clown. The lack of education among the Clown’s employees leaves them trapped in a horrible profes-sion because the only job skills they have are in the “service industry.”

Fall04FrontiersMag_FINAL.indd 8-9 10/12/2004 4:14:00 PM

frontiers.mag 0908 frontiers.mag

Section 1. Prior to taking the oath of

offi ce, and individual who is elected to serve as

a member of the House of Representatives for

Congress shall present to the chief executive of

the State from which the individual is elected a

list of nominees to take the individual’s place in the event the individual

dies or becomes incapacitated prior to

the expiration of the individual’s term of offi ce.

For those caught there the feeling of despair is only outweighed by the despair of unemployment. Only a Clown company that relies on unskilled employees is able to treat their workers this badly.

Once an employee has been made into a manger the Clown will begin more intensive training on the different programs needed to run the business. Managers learn everything from staffi ng to inventory and are a key part of the Clown’s profi t strategy. As a manager ad-vances beyond shift management to sal-aried employment they are given more money and receive actual benefi ts such as health insurance and paid vacation; but they come at a high price.

After working hard for years and reaching what they have been taught is the road to success, the Clown begins to reveal himself to his managers as a jealous, intolerant and evil deity who will not tolerate outside interference’s. Things like balance between home and work are no longer important. Major events in the manager’s life such as wed-dings and child birth are interfered with by the Clown; if an outside interest is in any way perceived to be a threat or ob-stacle to the Clown’s control over the manager it is dealt with in the harshest way possible.

Managers must be able to respond to the Clown immediately. Fifty to sixty hour work weeks are the normal operat-ing procedure, never being able to see a child’s baseball game or school play are expected; not having time for a spouse is just part of the job. Any manager who disdains to play along with the Clown will be demoted, lose benefi ts or be fi red outright. By this point most of the Clown’s employees, who have been pro-moted to a salaried position, have been working for him too long. Now they feel too old to risk leaving the paycheck of a horrible job to get an education and are trapped in their current job.

This is also when the managers re-alize that they aren’t really managers at all because the only thing they are in charge of is accepting blame from the Clown. Their main job now is to enforce brainless and pointless edicts issued by the Clown while striving to make them seem like reasonable requests to the staff. When this scenario fails the circular ar-gument is brought to bear. For example; the Clown decides that the parking lot is a mess; his answer is to remove the gar-bage cans. When customers then throw trash on the ground because there are no

garbage cans it becomes the managers fault because they didn’t provide an em-ployee to pickup the lot. If the manager asks to replace the garbage cans they are told “no” because the parking lot is still a mess.

This style of micromanagement and circular argument is called “coach-ing.” The actual effects of “coaching” are to hold the manager down and to teach them not to use their independent thought process. The Clown recognizes that independent thinking will eventu-ally lead the manager into the light and away from the clown in an effort to learn a new job or further their education. In an effort to block this the Clown will be-little and intimidate his employees at ev-ery opportunity, or in the Clown’s words “coach” them.

The Clown has a diffi cult time main-taining his smiling, friendly façade. All employees who work for him for an extended length of time are subjected to an incredible amount of harassment and stress. The Clown has pumped him-self and his ego up to such a high degree of narcissism that even minor mistakes become a huge issue, it’s as if somehow a procedure that isn’t followed it will make the Clown a personal target of Osama Bin Laden. The reaction to not following trivial and pointless policies would be laughable if it weren’t so tragic for the people caught under the Clown’s thumb. For those caught there the feel-ing of despair is only outweighed by the despair of unemployment. Only a Clown company that relies on unskilled employees is able to treat their workers this badly.

The way to avoid the Clown and at-tain a good job is to get a degree that will bestow attractive job skills to any prospective employer besides the Clown. That degree offers freedom from hope-less, frustrating jobs; it gives an employee the ability to market themselves to more than one type of employer. The degree also allows for negotiation of wages and benefi ts rather than having to deal with the “take it or leave it” method offered to unskilled workers. No one should have to work for the Clown; the way to avoid it is better education. The effects of not having an education are to work for the Clown.

HOUSE INSURANCE: GUARANTEEING THE CONTINUITY OF CONGRESS IN CATASTROPHIC TIMES

By Patrick Banks

September 11, 2001 was a terrible day. Al Qaeda terrorists armed with box cutters hijacked ordinary airliners and turned them into weapons of mass destruction. They de-stroyed the World Trade Center, badly dam-aged the Pentagon and killed more than 3000 people. As horrifi c as the carnage was that day, it could have been a lot worse. The terrorists that hijacked Flight 93 had no intention of crashing into an empty fi eld outside of Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Their target was the United States Capitol build-ing. Had they achieved their goal, hundreds of members of Congress would have been killed or incapacitated, severely hampering the country’s ability to govern itself in time of great crisis. This close call prompted sev-eral of our leaders and opinion makers to consider how the country would function if large numbers of congressmen and wom-en were killed or otherwise incapacitated. The Brookings Institution and the Ameri-can Enterprise Institute put together the Continuity of Government Commission to come up with a solution. Lloyd Cutler, for-mer President Jimmy Carter’s Chief of Staff and former Wyoming Senator Alan Simp-son were selected as the commission’s co-chairs. Frontiers sat down with Simpson in April to discuss the commission’s work.

Frontiers: Why is the Continuity of Government commission focusing on succession for the legislative branch?

Alan Simpson: We knew that we had to fi nd out what to do about the issue fi rst so we had hearings and we had advisors from the Brookings Institute and the American Enterprise institute – a thoughtful conserva-tive think tank and a thoughtfully progres-

sive think tank. None of us wanted to a constitutional amendment when we started yet we knew after the hearings in what we were looking for that we’re going to have to do something like that. The legislative response won’t quite get the job done because of succession re-quirements in constitu-tion. Senators can be replaced in 48 hours by the executive of the state – the governor. And then every one of the 435 congressional districts has a differ-ent way of replacing its members. None of them have a require-ment for temporary appointment and we fi gured that we had to have something that allowed a temporary appointment … then have your election. The problem is that the house chairman of the judiciary committee (Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis.) feels very strongly that the house is the peoples house and furthermore that the old charm and history and substance of the house is that is that it is directly elected by the peo-ple. There’s nothing wrong with that at all but if 218 of them are lying around in the street you’re not going to get much action. You could end up where a senior member of the delegation from California would be president of the United States and that’s what we’re trying to avoid. It’s complex, it’s tough, always emotional as everything I’ve ever touched.

Excerpts from Rep. Brian Baird’s (D-Wash.) proposed constitutional amendment listed in sidebars.

cont. on pg. 12

Fall04FrontiersMag_FINAL.indd 10-11 10/12/2004 4:14:03 PM

frontiers.mag 0908 frontiers.mag

Section 1. Prior to taking the oath of

offi ce, and individual who is elected to serve as

a member of the House of Representatives for

Congress shall present to the chief executive of

the State from which the individual is elected a

list of nominees to take the individual’s place in the event the individual

dies or becomes incapacitated prior to

the expiration of the individual’s term of offi ce.

For those caught there the feeling of despair is only outweighed by the despair of unemployment. Only a Clown company that relies on unskilled employees is able to treat their workers this badly.

Once an employee has been made into a manger the Clown will begin more intensive training on the different programs needed to run the business. Managers learn everything from staffi ng to inventory and are a key part of the Clown’s profi t strategy. As a manager ad-vances beyond shift management to sal-aried employment they are given more money and receive actual benefi ts such as health insurance and paid vacation; but they come at a high price.

After working hard for years and reaching what they have been taught is the road to success, the Clown begins to reveal himself to his managers as a jealous, intolerant and evil deity who will not tolerate outside interference’s. Things like balance between home and work are no longer important. Major events in the manager’s life such as wed-dings and child birth are interfered with by the Clown; if an outside interest is in any way perceived to be a threat or ob-stacle to the Clown’s control over the manager it is dealt with in the harshest way possible.

Managers must be able to respond to the Clown immediately. Fifty to sixty hour work weeks are the normal operat-ing procedure, never being able to see a child’s baseball game or school play are expected; not having time for a spouse is just part of the job. Any manager who disdains to play along with the Clown will be demoted, lose benefi ts or be fi red outright. By this point most of the Clown’s employees, who have been pro-moted to a salaried position, have been working for him too long. Now they feel too old to risk leaving the paycheck of a horrible job to get an education and are trapped in their current job.

This is also when the managers re-alize that they aren’t really managers at all because the only thing they are in charge of is accepting blame from the Clown. Their main job now is to enforce brainless and pointless edicts issued by the Clown while striving to make them seem like reasonable requests to the staff. When this scenario fails the circular ar-gument is brought to bear. For example; the Clown decides that the parking lot is a mess; his answer is to remove the gar-bage cans. When customers then throw trash on the ground because there are no

garbage cans it becomes the managers fault because they didn’t provide an em-ployee to pickup the lot. If the manager asks to replace the garbage cans they are told “no” because the parking lot is still a mess.

This style of micromanagement and circular argument is called “coach-ing.” The actual effects of “coaching” are to hold the manager down and to teach them not to use their independent thought process. The Clown recognizes that independent thinking will eventu-ally lead the manager into the light and away from the clown in an effort to learn a new job or further their education. In an effort to block this the Clown will be-little and intimidate his employees at ev-ery opportunity, or in the Clown’s words “coach” them.

The Clown has a diffi cult time main-taining his smiling, friendly façade. All employees who work for him for an extended length of time are subjected to an incredible amount of harassment and stress. The Clown has pumped him-self and his ego up to such a high degree of narcissism that even minor mistakes become a huge issue, it’s as if somehow a procedure that isn’t followed it will make the Clown a personal target of Osama Bin Laden. The reaction to not following trivial and pointless policies would be laughable if it weren’t so tragic for the people caught under the Clown’s thumb. For those caught there the feel-ing of despair is only outweighed by the despair of unemployment. Only a Clown company that relies on unskilled employees is able to treat their workers this badly.

The way to avoid the Clown and at-tain a good job is to get a degree that will bestow attractive job skills to any prospective employer besides the Clown. That degree offers freedom from hope-less, frustrating jobs; it gives an employee the ability to market themselves to more than one type of employer. The degree also allows for negotiation of wages and benefi ts rather than having to deal with the “take it or leave it” method offered to unskilled workers. No one should have to work for the Clown; the way to avoid it is better education. The effects of not having an education are to work for the Clown.

HOUSE INSURANCE: GUARANTEEING THE CONTINUITY OF CONGRESS IN CATASTROPHIC TIMES

By Patrick Banks

September 11, 2001 was a terrible day. Al Qaeda terrorists armed with box cutters hijacked ordinary airliners and turned them into weapons of mass destruction. They de-stroyed the World Trade Center, badly dam-aged the Pentagon and killed more than 3000 people. As horrifi c as the carnage was that day, it could have been a lot worse. The terrorists that hijacked Flight 93 had no intention of crashing into an empty fi eld outside of Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Their target was the United States Capitol build-ing. Had they achieved their goal, hundreds of members of Congress would have been killed or incapacitated, severely hampering the country’s ability to govern itself in time of great crisis. This close call prompted sev-eral of our leaders and opinion makers to consider how the country would function if large numbers of congressmen and wom-en were killed or otherwise incapacitated. The Brookings Institution and the Ameri-can Enterprise Institute put together the Continuity of Government Commission to come up with a solution. Lloyd Cutler, for-mer President Jimmy Carter’s Chief of Staff and former Wyoming Senator Alan Simp-son were selected as the commission’s co-chairs. Frontiers sat down with Simpson in April to discuss the commission’s work.

Frontiers: Why is the Continuity of Government commission focusing on succession for the legislative branch?

Alan Simpson: We knew that we had to fi nd out what to do about the issue fi rst so we had hearings and we had advisors from the Brookings Institute and the American Enterprise institute – a thoughtful conserva-tive think tank and a thoughtfully progres-

sive think tank. None of us wanted to a constitutional amendment when we started yet we knew after the hearings in what we were looking for that we’re going to have to do something like that. The legislative response won’t quite get the job done because of succession re-quirements in constitu-tion. Senators can be replaced in 48 hours by the executive of the state – the governor. And then every one of the 435 congressional districts has a differ-ent way of replacing its members. None of them have a require-ment for temporary appointment and we fi gured that we had to have something that allowed a temporary appointment … then have your election. The problem is that the house chairman of the judiciary committee (Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis.) feels very strongly that the house is the peoples house and furthermore that the old charm and history and substance of the house is that is that it is directly elected by the peo-ple. There’s nothing wrong with that at all but if 218 of them are lying around in the street you’re not going to get much action. You could end up where a senior member of the delegation from California would be president of the United States and that’s what we’re trying to avoid. It’s complex, it’s tough, always emotional as everything I’ve ever touched.

Excerpts from Rep. Brian Baird’s (D-Wash.) proposed constitutional amendment listed in sidebars.

cont. on pg. 12

Fall04FrontiersMag_FINAL.indd 10-11 10/12/2004 4:14:03 PM

frontiers.mag 11

“stuff.”

Fall04FrontiersMag_FINAL.indd 12-13 10/12/2004 4:14:25 PM

frontiers.mag 11

“stuff.”

Fall04FrontiersMag_FINAL.indd 12-13 10/12/2004 4:14:25 PM

frontiers.mag 1312 frontiers.mag

Section 2. If at any time a majority of the whole membership of the House of Representatives are unable to carry out their duties because of death or incapacity, or if at any time the House adopts a resolution declaring that extraordinary circumstances exist which threaten the ability of the House to represent the interests of the people of the United States, the chief executive of any State represented by any member who is dead or incapacitated at that time shall appoint, from the most recent list of nominees presented by the member under section 1, an individual to take the place of the member.

Section 3. If an individual appointed under section 2 is unable to carry out the duties of a Member during such period because of death or incapacity, the chief executive of the State involved shall appoint another individual from the same list of nominees presented under section 1 from which the individual was appointed under section 2.

F: Why didn’t Congress passed a suc-cession amendment for the legislative branch in the past?

AS: The issue has come up many times during the Cold War, there were amend-ments passed in the senate that never got passed the house. It’s like writing your own will. You don’t like to write your will and that’s where we are. What I’m us-ing on those who oppose this, I just said (who would have believed) that 19 peo-ple would drive fully fueled aircraft into a glorious symbol of America and kill 3000 innocents? Nobody. Well, who believes that fl ight 93 wasn’t headed for the Capi-tol when they were in session? With pretty good intelligence we know that that fl ight was headed for the Capitol. If it had hit the capitol there’s no telling what kind of carnage would have taken place – not just by those who were dead but burn victims, incapacitated people. There’s nothing in the statutes that provide temporary ap-pointments for incapacitated, it talks about death. But a person in a burn clinic who hasn’t lost any of his or her mental facilities is incapacitated? Well, yes and no. I mean they could vote if you could wheel them to the chamber but they’re, quote, incapaci-tated. All those things could be solved by a very simple constitutional amendment and then let the legislature craft the legislation to make it work.

F: Is there any sense of urgency to get an amendment passed soon?

AS: The one thing that a politician can’t handle or does not like to handle, that makes them goosey and defensive is ridicule. I’ve said publicly if something happened to the congress and we had this absurd and horrible situation with a cata-strophic and regeneration after the catas-trophe … (the people) are going to say “you knew this was a tough situation. Why didn’t you do something, you boob?” And that’s what’s out there – ridicule, like, “How could you let this happen? You knew about 9/11, you knew about fl ight 93, you knew what you had to do and you wouldn’t even have hearings on it?” It’s interesting tying it back to Laramie, Wyoming. Congressman

(Brian) Baird (D-Wash.), who received an honorary degree (from UW), is leading the way to put in the legislation with regard to a constitutional amendment by going around the speaker with what is called a discharge petition. In other words if you get 218 votes you can pull something out onto the fl oor even if the speaker doesn’t want to hear it.

F: Has the commission turned over its recommendations to Congress?

AS: Every one of them. We’ve made per-sonal visits with the Vice President of the United States, personal visits with (House Minority Leader ) Nancy Pelosi and Speak-er of the House Dennis Hastert, personal visits with (Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle and (Senate Majority Leader) Bill Frist who have done their work and had hearings before the senate with Senator John Cornyn of Texas.

F: How receptive does the congress seem to passing some sort of amendment like this? I know Chairman Sensenbrenner is not necessarily happy about it but how about other members of congress?

AS: Oh, we’ll have to fi nd out. The best way to fi nd out is get a vote. Smoke ‘em out, that’s my view. I always said I don’t mind if I loose, I’m not going to go suck my thumb and sit in the corner. Vote, for god sakes, Get off your butt and vote. Let them vote. And so, they will vote. If it goes down, well then move on.

F: I remember you saying something the last time I talked to you about allow-ing congressional candidates to have a successor listed on the ballot with them.

AS: Well, there was one proposal – and this is for the legislature to decide, they can come up with whatever they want – but one of the proposals was that when you run for offi ce you have right on the ballot, it says’ “in the event of my death or incapacitation during my elected term so and so will tem-porarily take my place and will have a tem-porary appointment to carry out my duties and responsibilities.”

cont. from pg. 09

photo series by Shannon Valenti

Fall04FrontiersMag_FINAL.indd 14-15 10/12/2004 4:14:34 PM

frontiers.mag 1312 frontiers.mag

Section 2. If at any time a majority of the whole membership of the House of Representatives are unable to carry out their duties because of death or incapacity, or if at any time the House adopts a resolution declaring that extraordinary circumstances exist which threaten the ability of the House to represent the interests of the people of the United States, the chief executive of any State represented by any member who is dead or incapacitated at that time shall appoint, from the most recent list of nominees presented by the member under section 1, an individual to take the place of the member.

Section 3. If an individual appointed under section 2 is unable to carry out the duties of a Member during such period because of death or incapacity, the chief executive of the State involved shall appoint another individual from the same list of nominees presented under section 1 from which the individual was appointed under section 2.

F: Why didn’t Congress passed a suc-cession amendment for the legislative branch in the past?

AS: The issue has come up many times during the Cold War, there were amend-ments passed in the senate that never got passed the house. It’s like writing your own will. You don’t like to write your will and that’s where we are. What I’m us-ing on those who oppose this, I just said (who would have believed) that 19 peo-ple would drive fully fueled aircraft into a glorious symbol of America and kill 3000 innocents? Nobody. Well, who believes that fl ight 93 wasn’t headed for the Capi-tol when they were in session? With pretty good intelligence we know that that fl ight was headed for the Capitol. If it had hit the capitol there’s no telling what kind of carnage would have taken place – not just by those who were dead but burn victims, incapacitated people. There’s nothing in the statutes that provide temporary ap-pointments for incapacitated, it talks about death. But a person in a burn clinic who hasn’t lost any of his or her mental facilities is incapacitated? Well, yes and no. I mean they could vote if you could wheel them to the chamber but they’re, quote, incapaci-tated. All those things could be solved by a very simple constitutional amendment and then let the legislature craft the legislation to make it work.

F: Is there any sense of urgency to get an amendment passed soon?

AS: The one thing that a politician can’t handle or does not like to handle, that makes them goosey and defensive is ridicule. I’ve said publicly if something happened to the congress and we had this absurd and horrible situation with a cata-strophic and regeneration after the catas-trophe … (the people) are going to say “you knew this was a tough situation. Why didn’t you do something, you boob?” And that’s what’s out there – ridicule, like, “How could you let this happen? You knew about 9/11, you knew about fl ight 93, you knew what you had to do and you wouldn’t even have hearings on it?” It’s interesting tying it back to Laramie, Wyoming. Congressman

(Brian) Baird (D-Wash.), who received an honorary degree (from UW), is leading the way to put in the legislation with regard to a constitutional amendment by going around the speaker with what is called a discharge petition. In other words if you get 218 votes you can pull something out onto the fl oor even if the speaker doesn’t want to hear it.

F: Has the commission turned over its recommendations to Congress?

AS: Every one of them. We’ve made per-sonal visits with the Vice President of the United States, personal visits with (House Minority Leader ) Nancy Pelosi and Speak-er of the House Dennis Hastert, personal visits with (Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle and (Senate Majority Leader) Bill Frist who have done their work and had hearings before the senate with Senator John Cornyn of Texas.

F: How receptive does the congress seem to passing some sort of amendment like this? I know Chairman Sensenbrenner is not necessarily happy about it but how about other members of congress?

AS: Oh, we’ll have to fi nd out. The best way to fi nd out is get a vote. Smoke ‘em out, that’s my view. I always said I don’t mind if I loose, I’m not going to go suck my thumb and sit in the corner. Vote, for god sakes, Get off your butt and vote. Let them vote. And so, they will vote. If it goes down, well then move on.

F: I remember you saying something the last time I talked to you about allow-ing congressional candidates to have a successor listed on the ballot with them.

AS: Well, there was one proposal – and this is for the legislature to decide, they can come up with whatever they want – but one of the proposals was that when you run for offi ce you have right on the ballot, it says’ “in the event of my death or incapacitation during my elected term so and so will tem-porarily take my place and will have a tem-porary appointment to carry out my duties and responsibilities.”

cont. from pg. 09

photo series by Shannon Valenti

Fall04FrontiersMag_FINAL.indd 14-15 10/12/2004 4:14:34 PM

frontiers.mag 1514 frontiers.magfrontiers.mag

Fall04FrontiersMag_FINAL.indd 16-17 10/12/2004 4:15:05 PM

frontiers.mag 1514 frontiers.magfrontiers.mag

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frontiers.mag 1716 frontiers.mag

[a.k.a. blogger -or- blogrolling -or- weblog -or- Web log -or- blogosphere] A blog is basically a journal that is available on the web. The activity of updating a blog is “blogging” and someone who keeps a blog is a “blogger.” Blogs are typically updated daily using software that allows people with little or no technical background to update and main-tain the blog. Postings on a blog are almost always arranged in chronological order with the most recent additions featured most prominently.

By Patrick Banks

Last year I decided it was time for me to start my own blog. I fi gured since millions of other people blogging, I might as well jump on the bandwagon. I signed up with TypePad, a blog hosting service and within minutes, my very own blog, martiansermon.typepad.com, was born. I was quite pleased with myself. “At last!” I thought, “I have joined the greatest revolu-tion in publishing since Gutenberg invented the printing press!”

My initial enthusiasm was a bit overwrought, at least as far as blogging software being a technology as important as moveable type is concerned. Nor, alas, have I made myself part of any revolutionary vanguard. Between September 2003 and May 2004, I updated my blog roughly 30 times – not exactly a prolifi c output.

Having said that, I don’t think blogs are just a fad. Though I doubt they’ll replace news-papers anytime soon, blogs will certainly change the media. Blogger and Reason magazine contributing editor Matt Welch agrees.

“It’ll just be another thing. Blogs will have enriched established media and established media will have pretty well all adopted blogs by then. Hopefully, conservative institutions will have discovered that this is a cheaper and more viable source for a certain kind of talent than six years at dullard higher-education institutions.”

If blogs do become an important talent pool newspapers use to fi nd quality journalists, as Welch hopes, that will be a major development. That is because most bloggers are not, quote/unquote, professional journalists. True, there are important bloggers out there who have exten-sive media backgrounds. Welch, for instance, has been in the business since his ex-pat days in the Czech Republic. Andrew Sullivan, whose blog Andrewsullivan.com sometimes receives more than 100,000 visitors a day, used to be the editor of The New Republic. Jeff Jarvis of buzzmachine.com, a major cheerleader for blogs, is the old hack who founded Entertainment Weekly. Many more bloggers, however, are rank amateurs whose only previous journalistic experience might have been writing letters to the editor of their local paper. Glenn Reynolds, better known in the blogosphere as Instapundit, is probably the most infl uential blogger out there. Yet he’s a law professor at the University of Tennessee, not an old media hand.

Blogs also seem to be popular in countries without a tradition of a free press, such as Iran. If anyone can be said to be responsible for the proliferation of Iranian blogs, it would be Hossein Derakhshan, aka Hoder, an Iranian living in Toronto. Hoder started his blog, hoder.com/weblog, in 2002. Not long after that, Hoder fi gured out how to format blogging software to support Persian language characters. Before long the number of Iranian bloggers jumped exponentially. The election-rigging Mullahcracy that rules Iran was apparently uncom-fortable with this development because they arrested one of those new bloggers, Sina Motal-lebi, in the spring of 2003. However, when other Iranian bloggers rallied to Motallebi’s cause, the Mullah’s blinked and let him go free – a sign, perhaps, that their regime is a bit closer to the dust bin of history.

“Newspapers are fan-tastically conservative in nature, and I’m not talking about politics.”

Meanwhile, Iraq saw its blogging population multiply after the American invasion. Lead-ing up to and during the invasion, an anonymous Iraqi calling himself Salam Pax became semi-famous with his blog “Where is Raed?” (http://dear_raed.blogspot.com/). He would soon be joined by the likes of Zeyad’s Healing Iraq, Omar’s Iraq the Model and Alaa the Mesopotamian.

So it would appear that bloggers will continue to be a headache for repressive regimes and a godsend for shattered societies rebuilding themselves. The question is, will the estab-lished media see this as a resource? Maybe not yet. In the spring of 2004, mainstream media outlets like the BBC and the New York Times spilled much ink on the damage the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal was doing to the coalition’s reputation among Iraqi’s. While it was certainly true those photos of American soldiers abusing prisoners caused out-rage among large numbers of Iraqi’s, it wasn’t necessarily the whole story. Iraqi bloggers such as Omar, for instance, noted in his blog that the prisoner abuse story didn’t always result in anger at the Americans, as in this account of an exchange he said he had with an old doctor friend of his:

When I asked him about his opinion on GWB’s response to the prisoners’ abuse issue, I was surprised to see him show anger and disgust as he said:

This whole thing makes me sick.

Why is that?! I asked.

These thugs are treated much better than what they really deserve!

What are you saying!? You can’t possibly think that this didn’t happen! And they’re still human beings, and there could be some innocents among them.

Of course it happened, and I’m not talking about all the prisoners nor do I support these actions, and there could be some innocents among them, but I doubt it.

This isn’t to say that bloggers like Omar are necessarily more reliable than the BBC or the New York Times. However, these news outlets are missing out on an important resource. Omar, Zeyad, Alaa and others spend more time on the ground than most reporters do. They’re better versed in local customs and language and they have a different perspective than some stringer for Reuters who spends her days at the Palestine Hotel bar. There is a tenancy among many bloggers to assume mainstream media outlets ignore the likes of Omar so they can push their own anti-war agenda. I don’t know how true this is but my guess is that is has more to do with institutional habit than anything else. Welch makes much the same point.

“Newspapers are fantastically conservative in nature, and I’m not talking about politics. There are 40 years of professionalism vested in elaborate copy desks, hiring systems, blab-bity blo fuck-all and so the idea that some jackass could jabber into the keyboard and have it published immediately is a bit unnerving.”

Maybe in the next war the business will have changed enough so that major media outlets will partner up with the best local bloggers that pop up. Magazine’s like National Review and Reason already have their own in-house blogs. The New York Times recently hire a public editor, Dan Okrent, who has set up a blog-like forum on the Times website where he promises to engage his readers. I won’t predict to what extent blogs will penetrate the established media, but I would advise editors and news directors to make their peace with them, because they aren’t going away any time soon.

Fall04FrontiersMag_FINAL.indd 18-19 10/12/2004 4:15:06 PM

frontiers.mag 1716 frontiers.mag

[a.k.a. blogger -or- blogrolling -or- weblog -or- Web log -or- blogosphere] A blog is basically a journal that is available on the web. The activity of updating a blog is “blogging” and someone who keeps a blog is a “blogger.” Blogs are typically updated daily using software that allows people with little or no technical background to update and main-tain the blog. Postings on a blog are almost always arranged in chronological order with the most recent additions featured most prominently.

By Patrick Banks

Last year I decided it was time for me to start my own blog. I fi gured since millions of other people blogging, I might as well jump on the bandwagon. I signed up with TypePad, a blog hosting service and within minutes, my very own blog, martiansermon.typepad.com, was born. I was quite pleased with myself. “At last!” I thought, “I have joined the greatest revolu-tion in publishing since Gutenberg invented the printing press!”

My initial enthusiasm was a bit overwrought, at least as far as blogging software being a technology as important as moveable type is concerned. Nor, alas, have I made myself part of any revolutionary vanguard. Between September 2003 and May 2004, I updated my blog roughly 30 times – not exactly a prolifi c output.

Having said that, I don’t think blogs are just a fad. Though I doubt they’ll replace news-papers anytime soon, blogs will certainly change the media. Blogger and Reason magazine contributing editor Matt Welch agrees.

“It’ll just be another thing. Blogs will have enriched established media and established media will have pretty well all adopted blogs by then. Hopefully, conservative institutions will have discovered that this is a cheaper and more viable source for a certain kind of talent than six years at dullard higher-education institutions.”

If blogs do become an important talent pool newspapers use to fi nd quality journalists, as Welch hopes, that will be a major development. That is because most bloggers are not, quote/unquote, professional journalists. True, there are important bloggers out there who have exten-sive media backgrounds. Welch, for instance, has been in the business since his ex-pat days in the Czech Republic. Andrew Sullivan, whose blog Andrewsullivan.com sometimes receives more than 100,000 visitors a day, used to be the editor of The New Republic. Jeff Jarvis of buzzmachine.com, a major cheerleader for blogs, is the old hack who founded Entertainment Weekly. Many more bloggers, however, are rank amateurs whose only previous journalistic experience might have been writing letters to the editor of their local paper. Glenn Reynolds, better known in the blogosphere as Instapundit, is probably the most infl uential blogger out there. Yet he’s a law professor at the University of Tennessee, not an old media hand.

Blogs also seem to be popular in countries without a tradition of a free press, such as Iran. If anyone can be said to be responsible for the proliferation of Iranian blogs, it would be Hossein Derakhshan, aka Hoder, an Iranian living in Toronto. Hoder started his blog, hoder.com/weblog, in 2002. Not long after that, Hoder fi gured out how to format blogging software to support Persian language characters. Before long the number of Iranian bloggers jumped exponentially. The election-rigging Mullahcracy that rules Iran was apparently uncom-fortable with this development because they arrested one of those new bloggers, Sina Motal-lebi, in the spring of 2003. However, when other Iranian bloggers rallied to Motallebi’s cause, the Mullah’s blinked and let him go free – a sign, perhaps, that their regime is a bit closer to the dust bin of history.

“Newspapers are fan-tastically conservative in nature, and I’m not talking about politics.”

Meanwhile, Iraq saw its blogging population multiply after the American invasion. Lead-ing up to and during the invasion, an anonymous Iraqi calling himself Salam Pax became semi-famous with his blog “Where is Raed?” (http://dear_raed.blogspot.com/). He would soon be joined by the likes of Zeyad’s Healing Iraq, Omar’s Iraq the Model and Alaa the Mesopotamian.

So it would appear that bloggers will continue to be a headache for repressive regimes and a godsend for shattered societies rebuilding themselves. The question is, will the estab-lished media see this as a resource? Maybe not yet. In the spring of 2004, mainstream media outlets like the BBC and the New York Times spilled much ink on the damage the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal was doing to the coalition’s reputation among Iraqi’s. While it was certainly true those photos of American soldiers abusing prisoners caused out-rage among large numbers of Iraqi’s, it wasn’t necessarily the whole story. Iraqi bloggers such as Omar, for instance, noted in his blog that the prisoner abuse story didn’t always result in anger at the Americans, as in this account of an exchange he said he had with an old doctor friend of his:

When I asked him about his opinion on GWB’s response to the prisoners’ abuse issue, I was surprised to see him show anger and disgust as he said:

This whole thing makes me sick.

Why is that?! I asked.

These thugs are treated much better than what they really deserve!

What are you saying!? You can’t possibly think that this didn’t happen! And they’re still human beings, and there could be some innocents among them.

Of course it happened, and I’m not talking about all the prisoners nor do I support these actions, and there could be some innocents among them, but I doubt it.

This isn’t to say that bloggers like Omar are necessarily more reliable than the BBC or the New York Times. However, these news outlets are missing out on an important resource. Omar, Zeyad, Alaa and others spend more time on the ground than most reporters do. They’re better versed in local customs and language and they have a different perspective than some stringer for Reuters who spends her days at the Palestine Hotel bar. There is a tenancy among many bloggers to assume mainstream media outlets ignore the likes of Omar so they can push their own anti-war agenda. I don’t know how true this is but my guess is that is has more to do with institutional habit than anything else. Welch makes much the same point.

“Newspapers are fantastically conservative in nature, and I’m not talking about politics. There are 40 years of professionalism vested in elaborate copy desks, hiring systems, blab-bity blo fuck-all and so the idea that some jackass could jabber into the keyboard and have it published immediately is a bit unnerving.”

Maybe in the next war the business will have changed enough so that major media outlets will partner up with the best local bloggers that pop up. Magazine’s like National Review and Reason already have their own in-house blogs. The New York Times recently hire a public editor, Dan Okrent, who has set up a blog-like forum on the Times website where he promises to engage his readers. I won’t predict to what extent blogs will penetrate the established media, but I would advise editors and news directors to make their peace with them, because they aren’t going away any time soon.

Fall04FrontiersMag_FINAL.indd 18-19 10/12/2004 4:15:06 PM

frontiers.mag 1918 frontiers.mag

A short history of

By Karly McLean

College rodeo has come a long way since its origins as a loosely organized event in the 1920s. Today the National In-tercollegiate Rodeo Association (NIRA) consists of 141 colleg-es. The University of Wyoming is part of the Central Rocky Mountain Region, which con-sists of 12 colleges.

The UW rodeo team was founded in 1940 when Col-orado A&M in Fort Collins, CO, invited the University of

Wyoming and Colorado State Teachers School to compete in the first intercollegiate rodeo. This rodeo continued annually for the next 20 years. In 1941, UW produced its first intercol-legiate rodeo after Hyde Mer-ritt, a past member of the first UW rodeo team, helped orga-nize the UW rodeo club. The first rodeo held at the Univer-sity of Wyoming took place at a temporary arena, unlike today’s permanent indoor arena.

The events in Intercollegiate rodeo included bull riding, bareback riding, saddle bronc riding, calf roping, wild cow milking, and steer wrestling. In 1949 the first National Champion-ships Rodeo was held in San Francis-co, CA, at the Cow Palace where 14 schools from nine states participated. The contestants from the UW rodeo team included Dale Stiles, Bill Whitney, John Gammon, and Pete Dalzell. Dale Stiles came home as the saddle bronc champion and also placed third in the bareback riding. Before 1981 there was no rodeo coach and the students had to organize all of the rodeo events on their own.

The National Intercollegiate Rodeo (NIRA) was founded in 1949. The first meeting took place in Dallas, TX. Four of the founders were from UW: Bill Grey of Douglas, WY; Bill Brown from Sheridan, WY and Pete Clay and Pete Burns, both from Laramie, WY. The first National Championships were associ-ated with NIRA, but NIRA was not an official association at this time, there-fore it was not called the College Na-tional Finals Rodeo (CNFR). In 1950 another meeting was held in Denver, where NIRA was founded. UW was an official charter member. According to Pete Burns, the school year was di-vided into quarters in the early 1950s. The students would attend school in four semesters, which enabled them to travel to the southern intercollegiate rodeos once the NIRA was established.

One UW rodeo story that will nev-er be forgotten is when Les Gore won the bareback riding and placed in the saddle bronc and bull riding, which gave him the all around title at the col-lege finals. He was then named the first blacklisted member, due to academic grade point average. Gore was put on non-contesting blacklist, which dis-abled him from entering any college rodeos until his probation had ex-pired, which consisted of 6 months of enrolled school time.

In 1949, optional events were introduced for the women of college rodeo. If a committee chose to have a roping event for the women it could be breakaway roping or tie down calf roping. Soon, many more events were

incorporated. Barrel racing, goat tying, and breakaway roping became regu-lar ladies events in intercollegiate ro-deo. Trick riding and steer riding were events of the past, in which women participated. In 1951, women were truly recognized; the first women’s all around champion was crowned and this started a long line of champion-ships.

In 1959, the NIRA became less stable when the northern states split from the southern states. At this time the south was dominating the north, and not enabling it to have any say in any decisions made regarding NIRA. The north started a new association, ACRA (American College Rodeo As-sociation). Soon after this separation, the NIRA fixed this problem and re-united with the members of ACRA in 1960, thus discontinuing ACRA. Once NIRA was re-established, the north and south were treated equally. The NIRA started to incorporate regions into this association and today there are 12 re-gions across North America.

Pete Burns, founder of the NIRA and past member of UW rodeo team in 1949 and the early part of the 1950s, was named the first UW rodeo head coach in 1981. Along with Burns, Dan-ny Dunleavy, also a past member of the UW rodeo team, was named the first co-head coach. The rodeo teams had many outstanding accomplishments under these two coaches and they reigned as head coaches until 1996, when Burns and Dunleavy retired and George Howard took their places.

Howard remains UW’s rodeo coach to this day and has had great success with his rodeo teams. The past cham-pions under Howard’s reign at the Col-lege National Finals Rodeo include: 1996, Todd Suhn, Steer Wrestling; 1996, Brenda White, Breakaway Rop-ing; 2000, Amy Sheperson, Breakaway Roping; 2001, Sunny Fish, Reserve All-Around; 2003, Levi Wisness, Steer Wrestling; 2003, Sam Nordick, Reserve Bareback Riding; 2003, Reserve Men’s All-Around.

The UW rodeo team has truly made a name for itself through past champi-ons in intercollegiate rodeo. The gold and brown vests that all competitors

The UW rodeo team has truly made a name for itself through past champions in intercollegiate rodeo. The gold and brown vests that all competitors wear during each rodeo event are well known.

“Rodeo is my life, and will continue to be in the future,” says Ellerman. “My father and mother have been great role models, and I would not be where I am today without them.”

Fall04FrontiersMag_FINAL.indd 20-21 10/12/2004 4:15:10 PM

frontiers.mag 1918 frontiers.mag

A short history of

By Karly McLean

College rodeo has come a long way since its origins as a loosely organized event in the 1920s. Today the National In-tercollegiate Rodeo Association (NIRA) consists of 141 colleg-es. The University of Wyoming is part of the Central Rocky Mountain Region, which con-sists of 12 colleges.

The UW rodeo team was founded in 1940 when Col-orado A&M in Fort Collins, CO, invited the University of

Wyoming and Colorado State Teachers School to compete in the first intercollegiate rodeo. This rodeo continued annually for the next 20 years. In 1941, UW produced its first intercol-legiate rodeo after Hyde Mer-ritt, a past member of the first UW rodeo team, helped orga-nize the UW rodeo club. The first rodeo held at the Univer-sity of Wyoming took place at a temporary arena, unlike today’s permanent indoor arena.

The events in Intercollegiate rodeo included bull riding, bareback riding, saddle bronc riding, calf roping, wild cow milking, and steer wrestling. In 1949 the first National Champion-ships Rodeo was held in San Francis-co, CA, at the Cow Palace where 14 schools from nine states participated. The contestants from the UW rodeo team included Dale Stiles, Bill Whitney, John Gammon, and Pete Dalzell. Dale Stiles came home as the saddle bronc champion and also placed third in the bareback riding. Before 1981 there was no rodeo coach and the students had to organize all of the rodeo events on their own.

The National Intercollegiate Rodeo (NIRA) was founded in 1949. The first meeting took place in Dallas, TX. Four of the founders were from UW: Bill Grey of Douglas, WY; Bill Brown from Sheridan, WY and Pete Clay and Pete Burns, both from Laramie, WY. The first National Championships were associ-ated with NIRA, but NIRA was not an official association at this time, there-fore it was not called the College Na-tional Finals Rodeo (CNFR). In 1950 another meeting was held in Denver, where NIRA was founded. UW was an official charter member. According to Pete Burns, the school year was di-vided into quarters in the early 1950s. The students would attend school in four semesters, which enabled them to travel to the southern intercollegiate rodeos once the NIRA was established.

One UW rodeo story that will nev-er be forgotten is when Les Gore won the bareback riding and placed in the saddle bronc and bull riding, which gave him the all around title at the col-lege finals. He was then named the first blacklisted member, due to academic grade point average. Gore was put on non-contesting blacklist, which dis-abled him from entering any college rodeos until his probation had ex-pired, which consisted of 6 months of enrolled school time.

In 1949, optional events were introduced for the women of college rodeo. If a committee chose to have a roping event for the women it could be breakaway roping or tie down calf roping. Soon, many more events were

incorporated. Barrel racing, goat tying, and breakaway roping became regu-lar ladies events in intercollegiate ro-deo. Trick riding and steer riding were events of the past, in which women participated. In 1951, women were truly recognized; the first women’s all around champion was crowned and this started a long line of champion-ships.

In 1959, the NIRA became less stable when the northern states split from the southern states. At this time the south was dominating the north, and not enabling it to have any say in any decisions made regarding NIRA. The north started a new association, ACRA (American College Rodeo As-sociation). Soon after this separation, the NIRA fixed this problem and re-united with the members of ACRA in 1960, thus discontinuing ACRA. Once NIRA was re-established, the north and south were treated equally. The NIRA started to incorporate regions into this association and today there are 12 re-gions across North America.

Pete Burns, founder of the NIRA and past member of UW rodeo team in 1949 and the early part of the 1950s, was named the first UW rodeo head coach in 1981. Along with Burns, Dan-ny Dunleavy, also a past member of the UW rodeo team, was named the first co-head coach. The rodeo teams had many outstanding accomplishments under these two coaches and they reigned as head coaches until 1996, when Burns and Dunleavy retired and George Howard took their places.

Howard remains UW’s rodeo coach to this day and has had great success with his rodeo teams. The past cham-pions under Howard’s reign at the Col-lege National Finals Rodeo include: 1996, Todd Suhn, Steer Wrestling; 1996, Brenda White, Breakaway Rop-ing; 2000, Amy Sheperson, Breakaway Roping; 2001, Sunny Fish, Reserve All-Around; 2003, Levi Wisness, Steer Wrestling; 2003, Sam Nordick, Reserve Bareback Riding; 2003, Reserve Men’s All-Around.

The UW rodeo team has truly made a name for itself through past champi-ons in intercollegiate rodeo. The gold and brown vests that all competitors

The UW rodeo team has truly made a name for itself through past champions in intercollegiate rodeo. The gold and brown vests that all competitors wear during each rodeo event are well known.

“Rodeo is my life, and will continue to be in the future,” says Ellerman. “My father and mother have been great role models, and I would not be where I am today without them.”

Fall04FrontiersMag_FINAL.indd 20-21 10/12/2004 4:15:10 PM

more points in the calf roping, and then I will be in contention for the all-around,” stated Sutton, a very competi-tive cowboy from South Dakota, who competes in four out of the six men’s events.

Bareback riding is a close run be-tween a student from Central Wyoming College and Sam Nordic from the Uni-versity of Wyoming, who is originally from Minnesota. In the top six posi-tions in the steer wrestling there are four University of Wyoming Cowboys. Clay Dahl is currently first with Levi Wisness, the past CNFR champion, in second. Not far behind are Colter Floy and Darius Mandel in fifth and sixth positions. Calf Roping has two Cow-boys in the top six, which include Zane Marty, an all around cowboy from Newcastle, WY. in fourth, and Treston Vermandel, originally from Billings, MT, in sixth position. Zane Marty is also leading the all around and is the third placed header in the team rop-ing, followed by Miles Kobold who is fourth in the heading. The heeling also has many contenders with Justin Ham-merich, Chad Wahlert and Justin Viles in the fifth through seventh positions. Chad Wahlert is a freshman at the Uni-versity and is currently roping with his cousin Taya Ellerman and Chase Fran-cis from Colorado.

“This year started out slow but is starting to pick up,” says Wahlert. “[Ell-erman] and I have started to pick up lots of points at the last few rodeos and with luck, like we have had in the past, maybe the CNFR is a possibility.”

The University of Wyoming Rodeo Team has a rich history, which will con-tinue for many years to come.

“Without the University of Wyo-ming rodeo team, many students would have attended another univer-sity for the opportunity to participate in college rodeo,” said Jessica Boler-jack. “The University is a great place to receive an education and to pursue an athletic career, too.”

20 frontiers.mag

wear during each rodeo event are well known. Over the last 20 years college rodeo has risen to a new level and the competition keeps increasing.

Currently, the UW women’s team is leading the standings and is expected to stay on top if they keep performing like they have. The men’s team is in a close second to Central Wyoming Col-lege (CWC) in Riverton and trails by less than 200 points, a lead that could easily change after one rodeo. The com-petitors have a chance to obtain a total of 120 points at one rodeo if they win the first round, short round and the av-erage; which would make the 200 point lead by the men’s team at CWC easy to catch if two cowboys have a good week-end. In the breakaway roping, Taya Ell-erman and Jessica Bolerjack are second and third, and are on their way to the College National Finals Rodeo (CNFR) held in Casper, WY.

Ellerman, a junior at UW, is the daughter of Jay Ellerman, a National Finals Rodeo qualifier.

“Rodeo is my life, and will continue to be in the future,” says Ellerman. “My father and mother have been great role models, and I would not be where I am today without them.”

Jessica Bolerjack is a resident of Gillette, WY. and is currently a senior at UW. Bolerjack has made quite the name for herself and has been to the CNFR in previous years.

“Rodeo has been a part of my life for many years and in the future I will continue to pursue rodeo even after graduating from UW,” said Bolerjack.

In the barrel racing Sara Mankin and Erica Johnson are currently third and forth. Teka Brock is the number one lady in the goat tying and has it almost wrapped up with a 150-point lead, which is a great lead by a talented cowgirl from Sheridan. WY.

The men’s team at UW also has phenomenal members, who are try-ing to make it to the CNFR. Chancey Williams and Billie Sutton are in close second and third positions in the sad-dle bronc; they both competed at the CNFR in 2003.

“I am just trying to keep chalking up more points. I only need about 50

The events in Intercollegiate rodeo included bull riding, bareback riding, saddle bronc riding, calf roping, wild cow milking, and steer wrestling.

frontiers.mag 21

Fall04FrontiersMag_FINAL.indd 22-23 10/12/2004 4:15:16 PM

more points in the calf roping, and then I will be in contention for the all-around,” stated Sutton, a very competi-tive cowboy from South Dakota, who competes in four out of the six men’s events.

Bareback riding is a close run be-tween a student from Central Wyoming College and Sam Nordic from the Uni-versity of Wyoming, who is originally from Minnesota. In the top six posi-tions in the steer wrestling there are four University of Wyoming Cowboys. Clay Dahl is currently first with Levi Wisness, the past CNFR champion, in second. Not far behind are Colter Floy and Darius Mandel in fifth and sixth positions. Calf Roping has two Cow-boys in the top six, which include Zane Marty, an all around cowboy from Newcastle, WY. in fourth, and Treston Vermandel, originally from Billings, MT, in sixth position. Zane Marty is also leading the all around and is the third placed header in the team rop-ing, followed by Miles Kobold who is fourth in the heading. The heeling also has many contenders with Justin Ham-merich, Chad Wahlert and Justin Viles in the fifth through seventh positions. Chad Wahlert is a freshman at the Uni-versity and is currently roping with his cousin Taya Ellerman and Chase Fran-cis from Colorado.

“This year started out slow but is starting to pick up,” says Wahlert. “[Ell-erman] and I have started to pick up lots of points at the last few rodeos and with luck, like we have had in the past, maybe the CNFR is a possibility.”

The University of Wyoming Rodeo Team has a rich history, which will con-tinue for many years to come.

“Without the University of Wyo-ming rodeo team, many students would have attended another univer-sity for the opportunity to participate in college rodeo,” said Jessica Boler-jack. “The University is a great place to receive an education and to pursue an athletic career, too.”

20 frontiers.mag

wear during each rodeo event are well known. Over the last 20 years college rodeo has risen to a new level and the competition keeps increasing.

Currently, the UW women’s team is leading the standings and is expected to stay on top if they keep performing like they have. The men’s team is in a close second to Central Wyoming Col-lege (CWC) in Riverton and trails by less than 200 points, a lead that could easily change after one rodeo. The com-petitors have a chance to obtain a total of 120 points at one rodeo if they win the first round, short round and the av-erage; which would make the 200 point lead by the men’s team at CWC easy to catch if two cowboys have a good week-end. In the breakaway roping, Taya Ell-erman and Jessica Bolerjack are second and third, and are on their way to the College National Finals Rodeo (CNFR) held in Casper, WY.

Ellerman, a junior at UW, is the daughter of Jay Ellerman, a National Finals Rodeo qualifier.

“Rodeo is my life, and will continue to be in the future,” says Ellerman. “My father and mother have been great role models, and I would not be where I am today without them.”

Jessica Bolerjack is a resident of Gillette, WY. and is currently a senior at UW. Bolerjack has made quite the name for herself and has been to the CNFR in previous years.

“Rodeo has been a part of my life for many years and in the future I will continue to pursue rodeo even after graduating from UW,” said Bolerjack.

In the barrel racing Sara Mankin and Erica Johnson are currently third and forth. Teka Brock is the number one lady in the goat tying and has it almost wrapped up with a 150-point lead, which is a great lead by a talented cowgirl from Sheridan. WY.

The men’s team at UW also has phenomenal members, who are try-ing to make it to the CNFR. Chancey Williams and Billie Sutton are in close second and third positions in the sad-dle bronc; they both competed at the CNFR in 2003.

“I am just trying to keep chalking up more points. I only need about 50

The events in Intercollegiate rodeo included bull riding, bareback riding, saddle bronc riding, calf roping, wild cow milking, and steer wrestling.

frontiers.mag 21

Fall04FrontiersMag_FINAL.indd 22-23 10/12/2004 4:15:16 PM

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