The NWC course Women in the West taught by Amy McKinney will be hosting the second in a series of talks focusing on Wyoming women. Wyoming is celebrating its 150th anniversary of suffrage and the Wyoming Office of Tourism has declared 2019 the “Year of Wyoming Women.” McKinney received a grant from the American Heritage Center in Laramie to use their archival collections in her Women in the West and is including a special focus on Wyoming women and suffrage this semester.
As part of the grant, the class will be hosting a series of public presentations featuring Wyoming women. The second in this series will be Thursday, October 24 at 6:30 p.m. in the Yellowstone Conference Center at 皇家华人. This presentation will focus on Wyoming women in agriculture. We will have two local Wyoming women presenting on their experiences in agriculture. Beryl Churchill, author of Dams, Ditches and Water: A History of the Shoshone Reclamation Project, will focus on women’s involvement in agriculture during the homesteading days. Shelly Neff, a fifth generation woman rancher in Wyoming, will talk about her grandmother’s and mother’s experiences on ranches. Both women are actively working in agriculture today, Churchill with Churchill Farms and Neff with Heart Mountain Valley Ranch, and will talk about the multiple roles of women in agriculture today.
The next presentation will be on Wyoming women in the military (November, date to be announced). The culminating event will be on December 10 at 7:00 p.m. in the Yellowstone Conference Center. This is the exact date suffrage was signed in to law in Wyoming. The December 10 presentations will feature the students in the Women in the West class who will be utilizing the archival collections from the American Heritage Center. Audience members will vote on their favorite presentation and that student will win $150. All events are free and open to the public. Please help celebrate Wyoming’s rich history of suffrage. For more information contact Amy McKinney at amy.mckinney@nwc.edu or call 307-754-6008.