82801 June/July 2019

JUNE / JULY 2019

FREQUENT FLIERS FAMILY Tradition

SPIRIT OF THE WEST

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LUXURY FOR THE WAY YOU LIVE

82801 Contents 18 WILD & WOOLY

What started as a hobby now keeps the Buffalo wool industry spinning.

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FREQUENT FLIERS We join Patti Tobi’s Big Horn backyard adventures at 4,092’.

24 DRIVING LUXURY

Infinity Builders at The Powder Horn. Sheridan’s new hole in one.

13 AG FAMILY TRADITION

Big Horn’s family-owned farm-to-table meat market is more than just meat.

Getting Wild in the West

R

isking everything, braving the unknown and leaving home for a better life is what the West was founded on. And in many ways, still is.

From the homesteaders, who literally loaded their lives into a wagon for the promise of a 320-parcel of land, to the miners, oil roustabouts and cowboys who headed out looking to live a dream.

But the West is more than just geography; it’s a culture based on values, pride in place, family and communities, and an appreciation for the hardworking ranchers and agricultural industry that form the backbone of this great state. And most of all, it’s about taking risks and reinventing yourself as you search out new horizons.

In this issue, we take the time to highlight some of the stories that encapsulate this spirit. From the doctor, who learned to soar outside her dreams by bringing the circus to her yard, the couple who moved back home to Wyoming after a life sailing around the world to open a market in the spirit of their ancestors who helped found the town of Big Horn, to the woman who turned a hobby into the biggest wool mill in the West.

We hope you find these stories as inspiring as we do and invite you to sit back, do a little reading and dream big.

By: Jen C. Kocher

Readers, we want to hear from you! Please write to share your thoughts on stories, people or places that you’d like to see featured, or what you think of the magazine in general. Write to Jen at jckocher@mcllc.net JUNE / JULY 2019

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Editorial CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Erika C. Christensen MARKETING DIRECTOR Stephanie L. Scarcliff CHIEF OF STAFF Lisa A. Shrefler SALES Jessica L. Pierce Jason N. Kasperik CONTRIBUTORS Jennifer C. Kocher ART DIRECTOR Richard W. Massman DESIGNER Candice E. Schlautmann PHOTOGRAPHER Adam D. Ritterbush

Inquiries & Customer Service Outliers Creative, LLC P.O. Box 3825 • Gillette, WY 307.461.4319 • 82801@mcllc.net 82801 is a publication of Outliers Creative, LLC © 2019, all rights reserved. Reproduction in any form, in whole or part, without written permission is prohibited.

This magazine accepts freelance contributions. 82801 is not responsible for loss, damage, or any other injury to unsolicited manuscript, unsolicited artwork (including but not limited to drawings, photographs, or transparencies) or any other unsolicited materials.

Outliers Creative, LLC is a wholly-owned subsidiary of The MC Family of Companies, LLC.

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LIFE

FrequentFliers

T

here are two kinds of people in the world. Those who dream of flying and those who don’t. Patty Tobi is the flying kind.

Standing in her backyard in Big Horn, she shaded her eyes as she looked up at Mindy Peterson standing on the edge of a platform about 30 feet up in the air. With a harness around her waist, Peterson looked down for a good minute before letting go, swooping into the air on the trapeze bar with a whoop of delight. It was her first time flying, and Patty knows just how she feels.

When they first built the trapeze rig in their backyard, Patty and Steven Tobi initially felt intimidated out there by themselves in the shadows of the Bighorns – then they started inviting others to join and the WyFly Flying Trapeze Club was born. BY JEN KOCHER

After setting up her own rig, Patty has been slowly recruiting members to join her new WyFly Flying Trapeze Club. Word has started to spread through local gymnastics’ circles in Sheridan County, and Peterson and others are coming out to give it a try, both out of curiosity and for the thrill of trying something new and exotic.

Peterson, who is just about to turn 40, hasn’t tumbled in about 25 years, but said it sounded fun and she didn’t want anything holding her back – including her fear of heights. On the ground, “coach” Dave, an instructor out of Canada who is also a full-time professional trapeze artist, has

been here for the weekend to help the newbies take flight. On cue, Peterson heaved her knees up on the bar, swinging with both arms in the air.

When Dave yelled “hup,” trapeze lingo for letting go, she dropped the bar and did a back somersault into the net. She pulled it off nearly perfectly to a round of applause from the half dozen others gathered on the ground waiting their turn.

Patty smiled as Peterson, who appeared a bit breathless and tongue-tied, as she crab walked across the net and tried to find the words to describe the experience.

“You feel so light,” Peterson said, with a JUNE / JULY 2019

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LIFE

faraway smile, “like you are really flying.”

As Patty knows, it’s easy to get hooked. It’s also not something you can just readily go do, like a climbing wall or gym. When her husband suggested they build one in their backyard, she thought he was a little crazy and it took them months to set up and learn how to run. Knowing this, she’s eager to make it accessible to others who might want to give it a try, which is why she

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and her husband Steven hosted an open house for anyone interested in flying.

So far, in the time that she’s been recruiting, their once small underground trapeze club is growing. Newbie Michaela Trumbull tried it for the first time three days ago and is already back for more. Like several of the other club members, the 26-year-old comes from the gymnastic world and is still very active. Adding trapeze to her repertoire

is one more way to use her skills and fulfill a lifelong desire to try it. Like the others, who knew it was something you can just go up and do on a random Sunday afternoon?

“I’d always wanted to try trapeze, but short of joining the circus, I had no idea how one goes about actually doing it,” she said. And though she’d heard rumblings about the rig at Patty’s, until now it had seemed something of an underground cult or just a rumor. Now that she’s tried it, she can’t get enough.

PATTY GETS IT. She started flying in her late 40s after, in fact, signing up for a trapeze circus school. At that point, she’d never even done a somersault and has no idea what prompted her to sign up for the week-long class in upstate New York. She’d literally been dreaming about flying for most of her life, soaring off cliffs and over rooftops with her eyes closed from the safety and comfort of her bed. Over the years, she’d actually gotten braver and had been willing to try more difficult endeavors. She wanted to know what else she could get her body to do. Why flying trapeze? It was a mystery even to her but now seems to be fated.

An anesthesiologist by trade, she tends to

be booky, and before heading off to trapeze camp, she spent months learning all she could about trapeze acts, famous flyers and flying families.

Tony Steele’s name came up a lot as one who revolutionized the art by being the first to pull off a triple-and-a-half flip in 1962, a Guinness World Record. Steele held that honor for two decades before being out-mastered by a 17-yearold member of the Flying Vazquez Circus family’s quadruple, which in the circus world is as close as one gets to royalty. Steele’s story, too, is the stuff of legends, having left home at age 15 to join the circus, where as an outsider he had to work his way up from Gazoonie status (the equivalent of a carnie) to becoming one of the best trapeze artists the circus world has ever known.

Once in New York, Patty, therefore, nearly fell over when one of the instructors introduced himself as Tony Steele. The class was a mix of experienced flyers and other athletes – including a professional figure skater – and newbies like herself.

When Steele asked each of them what they hoped to accomplish during the week, some spoke of mastering double tucks and other tricks while Patty had no idea what to say. She wanted to fly into a net. He paused. She had a week. What

else would like to do? She shrugged. Fly and be caught? She had no idea what was out there waiting for her.

She struggled to find the words to explain what that first dive off the platform felt like.

EXHILERATING, INTENSE, AMAZING. The gut-churning fear of climbing the enormous ladder to get to the platform. The trust in allowing someone to

hold you by the belt as you stared down 30 feet to the ground, the skin-crawling fear as you took that first step into the abyss, which immediately was replaced with an intoxicating feeling of lightness as gravity did its thing. The words fall short of the experience, which for her was much like it felt in her dreams, when time and time again she fell forward and soared over mountains with the birds.

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Photo: Kevin M. Knapp

Trapeze Lingo: Listo/Lista/Pret - Ready:

Used by the flyer and/or catcher to signify that they are holding the fly bar (for a flyer) or have built enough height in their swing for a catch (for a catcher) and ready to go.

Ready: Used by the catcher to tell the flyer that they should leave the board momentarily. The flyer bends their knees and if executing a onehanded take-off, dips the bar so they can raise it higher when they jump off the board.

Hup: Signal to leave the board and/ or the fly bar. Sometimes used by the catcher to tell the flyer to let go after a catch when landing in the net.

Catch Bar: The trapeze that the catcher swings on.

It was even better than she’d imagined, and she wanted to tap in to Steele’s vast knowledge.

“I started stalking him,” she laughed. “I’d be there waiting when he came out of the bathroom with questions.”

By the end of the first day, she was hooked, albeit sore. The weightlessness of flying felt effortless, Patty explained. By the third day, however, she couldn’t even lift her arms high enough over her head to wash her hair. Not that it stopped her.

“I went home obsessed and absorbed,” she said.

The only problem for a person in Wyoming who inadvertently gets hooked on the trapeze is that you have to go real far to find a rig set up for flying. Short of a Club Med vacation, where in recent years the exclusive vacation company has partnered with Cirque du Soleil to offer “creactive” programs like trapeze lessons, it’s really not accessible.

On a trip to Denver in 2012, Patty was told about the Imperial Flyers, a trapeze club in Westminster that was founded in 1928, and according to the group’s webpage, is “probably the oldest continuously-operating flying trapeze club in the world.” She gave them a call, and they

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invited her out to practice with them on their rig.

On another trip to the West Coast, she found her way to Emerald City Trapeze Arts, a circus school in Seattle. She continued to fly back and forth from Sheridan to Seattle three to four times a year just to practice with them until it dawned on her that traversing across the country several times a year to get her flying fix was starting to become a bit ridiculous.

She told her husband Steven that it was getting out of hand and she needed to just let it go.

Why? Steven wondered. Her birthday was coming up, and maybe getting a rig for the backyard wasn’t entirely out of the question.

“We can’t do that,” she’d told him. “That’s impossible.”

But it wasn’t, as Steven pointed out, and with the help of many people in the flying trapeze world, they bought the equipment and went about setting up the safety lines, nets and custombuilding a 130 x 60-foot rig. It took a lot of handson training, instruction and workshops for she and Steven to get up to speed, just figuring out how to work the safety harnesses and ropes, let alone do any flying.

For the first two weeks, the couple felt intimidated out there by themselves in the

Fly Bar: The bar the flyer uses.

Apron: The net in front of the catch bar. (The back apron is the net in back of the board.)

Return: When the flyer, after a successful catch, manages to return to the fly bar, and often all the way back to the board. In professional shows, the flyers rarely come down from the board.

Force Out: Kicking the legs out at the peak of the flyer's swing to gain height.

Seven: The last part of a force-out swing. Flyer brings legs in front of them so they will not hit the board.

Cut (as in Cut Catch): The flyer is caught in a legs catch and swings out into the apron. On the next swing into the apron, the flyer thrusts their body up, and the catcher lets go of the flyer's legs and grabs their hands.

Source: The Trapeze Net

shadows of the Bighorns and the pain in their joints and muscles was a bit discouraging. She told Steven she feared they’d made a huge mistake, but he remained undeterred. The trick was bringing in more people to join them, so slowly word got out and some local people, primarily from the gymnastics world, came out to join, and about two years ago, the WyFly Flying Trapeze club was born.

Today, the club has around two dozen active members and is growing, which to Patty and Steven, just makes it more fun.

That day, in the steely gray, unseasonably cool morning, Steven swung upside down with knees locked into cradle position, arms ready to catch the next flyer. After doing a few practice swings to get the hang of things, the handful of newbies were already itching for fly across to the catcher.

On the platform, with toes on the edge and harness tied safely around her waist, Gillette gymnastic coach Megan Wiard was counting down the seconds until she grabbed the trapeze bar ready to fly.

On the opposite side, Steven matched his pendulum swings in preparation of catching Megan. The catcher on the flying trapeze doesn’t

always get the glory, but the job comes with a lot of responsibility and is more methodical than one might think. As he swung upside down with arms in the air, he was adjusting the time of his swing in an attempt to match Megan’s pace and get her lined up in a position to grab her hands. Every person is different, and as catcher, Steven has to know their pace.

This mindfulness is what he likes so much about the sport, as does Patty.

“It takes so much focus,” Patty said. “It might only take six seconds to do a trick, but in that time, there are so many different steps that require your full attention.”

For her, too, it’s ultimately that feeling of weightlessness that has her hooked. You feel so strong, she said, and it’s just super fun, even for non-adrenaline junkies like herself. It’s not about the thrill as it is about the experience.

“You just have to try it,” she said with a smile.

By: Jen C. Kocher Photos: Yale M. Preston dba iaintjack Productions

If you are in the minority who dream about flying, check out the WyFly Facebook page and message the club for details about how you might give it a try.

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AGRICULTURE

Family Tradition The Sackett name has deep roots in the Big Horn community. In the late 1880s, John Henry Sackett toured the area during his stint as a hunter and guide for the Buffalo Bill Wild West show. He fell in love with the Bighorns, and when he grew tired of traveling, he moved his family from Nebraska to Big Horn, where he partnered with Charles Skinner to open the town’s first market. At first, the pair would bring provisions back from the trains in Cheyenne and sell the goods out of their wagons. Eventually, they opened a storefront, Big Horn Mercantile, that now serves brick oven pizza and is still owned by the Skinner family today.

As the great-great-grandson of John Henry Sackett, Paul Sackett Haworth and his wife Christina are following in the footsteps of their ancestors, right down to a Wyoming kid marrying a Nebraska girl and returning to the area to raise their family and carry on the proud roots of a small, local market with a focus on community, quality goods and service. It’s a business model that seems out of fashion in the modern age of big box stores and imported products, but this is what the Haworths like best – filling a niche in the center of a town where local is their biggest asset.

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A CENTURY LATER

S

tanding behind the glass deli case at Sackett’s Market filled with neat rows of ribeyes and porterhouses, Paul Haworth sampled a piece of roast beef, slathered in his homemade rub, fresh from the oven.

“Now that’s good,” he said, waving his hands in the air for emphasis, eyes widening behind his glasses. “There’s nothing better than a roast fresh out of the oven.

This is what goes into their roast beef sandwiches, he added. Not something fresh off a truck wrapped in plastic, but beef that is locally sourced and free of chemicals, additives, preservatives and all that other garbage.

Meanwhile, Christina busily shuffled behind the counter making sandwiches to order for the half-dozen customers waiting among the cluster of tables in the front half of the store.

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Paul continued to talk meat and food in general. Being in the middle of things, talking to customers about the different smoke flavors in his bacon and variety of spices in his sausages and brats fires him up, as he offered samples and talked about the crawfish feed he was planning to serve at his son’s upcoming graduation barbecue.

What can he say? He’s a guy who loves food, and whose life has always been governed by his taste buds. Now that he runs his own show, he is picky about what he stocks in his cases and on his shelves.

“I’m not going to serve anything I wouldn’t eat myself,” he said. “Period.”

He also believes in supporting local ranchers and growers and sources his meat products and produce locally. All of his meat, produce and dairy products are grass-fed or non-GMO and hormone-free. Quality is the biggest requirement.

And he’s picky. Right down to the packaged bags of organic pork rinds and specialty breads that he and the staff try out before carrying. That means sending employees home with a product and then discussing it with a vote the next day.

As Paul points out, food is too important, and he’s not messing around. He’s been like this his entire life, even when globe-trotting the world by sea in his former life as a boat builder who traveled the world.

His wife Christina jokes that while some people bar hop or go sightseeing when they travel, Paul sniffs out the restaurants and grocery stores, particularly the small, mom-and-pop shops that for him have their own unique sub-culture. The pair met decades ago in Florida where they both worked on the docks. Paul built power boats, and Christina, an interior designer, did the decorating.

Like his great-great-grandfather, he treats the market as an integral part of the community Eventually, they taught themselves to sail with a copy of Sailing for Dummies, and hit the ocean.

They toured all over the world, where Paul was able to refine his palette with any number of culturaly unique and different cuisines.

Eventually, with two young children, the couple gave up their nomadic life at sea and, in 2004, bought Clark’s Meat Market in Riverton and moved back to Paul’s home state of Wyoming. Neither knew anything about meat or butchering, but Clark showed him the ropes, and more importantly, an appreciation for providing good food.

“He would eat hamburger right out of the grinder,” Paul said. “He was this tough, old Marine, and believed that if you can’t eat it raw, then you shouldn’t bother selling it.”

It was a short learning curve, and within a couple years, the couple had doubled the business and were spending too much time on the road making deliveries. As their kids got older, they sold out to Paul’s older brother and moved to the Sheridan area nearly a decade ago, and opened Sackett’s Market, where Paul continues to carry on the rich legacy of his family’s history. Like his great-greatgrandfather, he treats the market as an integral part of the community, and he and Christina make it a habit to talk to their customers and create a laid-back and welcoming environment where people feel at home, comfortable coming to just hang out and know that they’re going to walk away with hands or stomachs full of good food made with heart and trust.

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AGRICULTURE

A Cut Above the Rest

Along with buying all their produce and other goods locally, they also believe in hiring and training from the college down the street.

Like culinary graduate and Crow Heart native Eddie Collins, who at 26 is learning the ropes from Paul, as the pair hand carve steaks, grind hamburger, link sausage and custom cut to order. Collins, who grew up ranching and took ag classes in college, has the right skills for the job he loves doing.

Eddie is a natural, according to Paul, who watched him meticulously carve out a cullotte, the teardrop curve or “baseball” on the top of a sirloin, which both agree is one of their best cuts, and in most cases, can’t find anywhere else.

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Farm-to-Table

The Haworths are big on the farm-to-table philosophy, which entails both teaching people where their food comes from, being responsible stewards of the land and animals, and sourcing locally.

To this end, they enjoy working with local 4-H and FFA kids to create home-cooked dinners, like the recent one they did this past spring with students in the Cotton Wood kitchen, serving the meat from animals bought in the live auction with everyone having a hand in the cooking and serving.

“This community has been good to us, and we like to pay back the favor,” he said.

A Model That Works

And not one you can find just anywhere. Like the big chain stores that don’t feel obligated to source locally for a lower price point. Customers will pay more at Sackett’s, Paul noted, where it’s about quality and community, and that just costs more.

He’s also added seafood into the mix, like wild caught shrimp, walleye, lobster and other delicacies, with some of it packaged on the boat and shipped directly to them.

It’s a model that works, according to Paul, who initially had a hard time selling it to the local lenders, who told them that the farm-to-table model just wouldn’t work in the age of big box stores that drive down cost and prices.

At Sacketts, all of their meats are either ground, cut or made into sausage in the back room. Their hamburger is all beef and their steaks are hand cut to precision or customer order, and more than anything else as far as Paul is concerned, they genuinely enjoy doing it, which might be the award-ingredient.

“It’s a pride thing,” Paul said, as he watched over Eddie’s shoulder as he trimmed off the fat that will later be turned into a butter. And don’t get Paul started on how good mushrooms taste sautéed in that butter, or you'll be there for a while.

By: Jen C. Kocher Photos: Adam D. Ritterbush JUNE / JULY 2019

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Wild + Wooly Northeastern Wyoming has a rich history when it comes to sheep and wool growers. More than a century ago, Basque sheepherders from Spain and France settled the region and created a thriving industry that still continues locally today, thanks to the big dreams of two women who revived a once-declining industry by sourcing locally and making quality wool products and threads that kept Wyoming on the map as one of the premier wool-producing regions. Nearly two decades later, in the shadows of the Bighorn Mountains, the Mountain Meadow Wool Mill continues to grow, supporting local ranchers and raising awareness about the agricultural industry that forms the backbone of the West.

By: Jen Kocher

K T

aren Hostetler doesn’t look like your average CEO, nor would she ever consider giving herself that title. Petite and soft spoken in a casual linen top and black pants, Karen maneuvered across the factory floor, stopping to check out operations and chat with the half-dozen or so workers manning the industrial machines that wash, process, and spin the raw wool into yarn.

That she owns and oversees the largest full-service spinning mill in the West is, as far as she’s concerned, just a footnote. For her, it’s more about helping to keep the sheep on the rocky, craggy mountains in Wyoming where they belong, supporting local ranchers, and delivering quality woolen goods to customers that are distinctly Wyoming.

This part of the country produces some of the best wool in the world, Karen pointed out, and offers the perfect environment for some of softest wool breeds like the Rambouillet, Cormo, Targhee, Merino and Columbia. Unlike people, those breeds thrive in the long harsh, dry winters. Part of the impetus for starting the company in the first place was to source from local ranchers to help revive the wool market after seeing one too many local ranchers go belly up in the ensuing decades since the wool price peaked in the late 1960s.

Currently, Meadow Mountain Wool sources from 16 local ranches.

Along with offering customers a little piece of the Cowboy State, Karen is also committed to running an eco-friendly operation. Along with using natural, biodegradable soaps and non-petroleum spinning oil to wash and

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render the wool into yarn, they also recycle 50 percent of the water used in their scouring process. The natural processing helps the wool retain its natural lanolin, which makes for more luxurious, softer yarns.

The spinning process itself is fascinating to watch, and in front of Karen, a large antiquated machine that looks a lot like the inside of a grand piano, was feeding large streamers of pale wool underneath little rubber rollers and mallets that transformed it into thin, shiny tendrils that will go on to be spun into skeins of yarn. Most of the machines date back to the 60s and were imported from Spain and other European countries and have the Baroque quality of classical instruments. Like a symphony, they hum, tick and rumble in a mechanical rhythm as they process the wool through its various stages.

Not surprisingly, touring the factory has become popular with the tourists, some who describe it as going back in time to an earlier era when pride was inherently sewn into the mix.

Unlike many commercial wool operations, all of the yarn at the mill is hand-dyed. In an alcove off the factory floor in the dyeing kitchen, the resident dyer was in the process of mixing a pastel pine green from a jacquard acid dye taken from a recipe in the company cookbook. Most of the dye recipes came from experimentation, coupled with ideas they learned in various workshops and classes. Once the dye was mixed, she poured it onto the yarn out of little plastic container and blotted the color in slowly, like mixing sauce onto a pile of spaghetti. Once she gets it thoroughly saturated,

she’ll pop it in the oven where it will cook at 230 degrees for a couple hours until the color is baked in.

It’s a far cry from larger operations that do all their dyeing in large vats, churning out about 500 pounds of colored yarn a day as opposed to her 10 pounds, if she’s lucky. Today, she’s lucky but other days she might get called off to help on other machines or elsewhere to help keep the process moving. There are a lot of cogs in this wheel, as Karen pointed out, and everybody is trained to step in where needed.

These are happy employees. Despite the repetitive, often physical work, her staff of 17 full- and part-time workers act like they want to be there. They do, according to Karen, who doesn’t see a lot of turnover. Most are knitters themselves or interested in textiles or just people who love to be part of the full-circle, local operation directly tied to the ranching community.

“They take a lot of pride in what they’re doing,” Karen said. “We all do.”

HAPPY ACCIDENT

Twelve years later, it’s hard for Karen to believe the mill started as a hobby.

In 2002, she and friend Valerie Spanos thought it would be fun to make their own wool. Though she’s not from the agricultural world, Karen liked the idea of raw textiles and fabrics, along with helping out the local producers by buying their product. They started with about a 100 pounds of raw Wyoming wool that they sent to be processed at a mill in Canada, and later worked into their various crafts they sold at local trade shows.

Karen laughed when she thought about how the two of them must have looked showing up at their first show with about 20 skeins of yarn. Five years later, it had grown into much more than just a little craft shop. With the help of a $386,000 Small Business Innovation Research grant through JUNE / JULY 2019

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the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the duo began meticulously touring mills and research institutions to learn everything they could about wool.

At the time, wool prices were down, and the industry was pretty iffy, and against the advice of a few people already in the industry, they took a leap of faith, and in 2007, opened the mill.

Today, they process more than 15,000 pounds of wool a year and have sold over 70,000 skeins, with 23 different types of hand-dyed yarn and other products like hats, scarves, booties and sweaters across at least 42 states and three foreign countries. Valerie has since left the company, and now Karen’s son Ben helps oversee operations as it continues to grow.

LINKING, NOT SINKING

Along with the skeins of yarn and products sold on their website and in their store, they have since divested in other arms of the business that has helped them continue to grow. Karen estimates about 25 percent of business is yarn and another 25 percent goes into processing wool for other customers. Another surprising growing arm of the business has been loaning their wool products for in-house research and development for companies around the country and world, some of which have been pretty surprising.

Like the marimba covers sponsored by Yale University, a project for a bio-tech company in Silicon Valley and a company wanting to test the wool linings inside their golf clubs.

“Who knew golf clubs had wool inside them?” Karen said with a grin.

This spring, they’ve also just added equipment to do their own machine knitting in-house instead of sourcing it out to shops on the West Coast or New York City. The addition of the new industrial knitting machines and

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linking stations will allow them to not only grow their product line with the addition of hoodies, sweaters, blankets and other products, but will now allow them to make a 100 percent Wyoming product. Bringing this work back to the native soil is a big deal to the company as it allows them to deliver a product that is directly tied to the local ranching community, and as such, offers customers a distinct token of the West. It’s a selling point with their customers, according to Karen, who hears all the time how many people like knowing that their wool is coming from local ranches.

Plus, there’s the quality of Wyoming wool, Karen added, that is really top notch.

She has a point. Until you actually pick up one of their wool blankets or sweaters and feel the quality craftsmanship, the weight and texture in your own two hands, you can’t appreciate how much you’re getting ripped off by buying cheap wool products from China and elsewhere.

That said, it’s not going to be as easy as it looks to launch the new operation, and right now, Karen and her crew are still ironing out the kinks.

For starters, one does not just go out and by the machinery just anywhere.

They bought theirs out of Burma, and after about a year of negotiations and procuring “export licenses,” the machines finally turned up on a flatbed truck in the thick of winter. Once inside, they realized the machines been damaged in transit with wires chewed through by mice among other mechanical problems. With limited diagrams written in German, they brought in a Burmese former wool mill owner, who had been working in the industry since he was 13, to help fix it and train them.

Now, the trick is finding employees who can actually do the work, which has been a lot harder than they’d imagined. Linking involves sewing the various seams together and it takes a certain skill set not germane to this

part of the country. Of the 12 new hires Karen was able to find locally, less than a month later only three remain. And they are all part-timers due to the meticulous nature of the work.

Ben tried placing ads in refugee settlements and foreign newspapers with no return. Now, Karen’s considering bringing over Burmese workers on work Visas.

Like anything else, she is undeterred. It’s just part of taking risks in order to grow a business, which at this point, she’s taken several. Worse for her would be remaining stagnant and settling for status quo.

“We want to thrive, not survive,” she said, “Now, we can say it’s a 100 percent made in Wyoming.”

A BIG COMMUNITY

In contrast to the shrewd dealings on Wall Street, Karen makes sure that her producers are paid either the commodity rate or higher. She’s all about the little guy, and small companies helping other small companies.

That circular, independent artisans and growers supporting one another is at the crux of Karen’s business philosophy, which she sees as all entities working together for the greater good of preserving the Western wool industry.

She has a personal relationship with all the ranches she works with and even regularly attends the seasonal shearings and lambings.

“It’s a big community,” she said, “and we’re helping to keep a much revered, Western industry thriving.”

By: Jen C. Kocher

Karen's Tips for Washing Wool

Let it soak in your washer in warm water with a mild detergent for about 10 minutes, avoiding any extreme temperatures. Spin it out and rinse it, then hang to dry.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 24 2pm to 7pm, Whitney Commons Park 326 W. Alger, Sheridan, WY

SPECIAL LODGING, TRANSPORTATION & EVENT PACKAGES AVAILABLE!

70+ BREWS TO SAMPLE! LIVE MUSIC FOOD VENDORS

For more information and tickets, visit www.sheridanwyomingchamber.org or call (307) 672-2485.

All proceeds for the event support the Sheridan County Chamber of Commerce.

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June / July

Community Calendar June 15 Bighorn Wild & Scenic Trail Run

Join hundreds of runners from across the US, Australia, and Europe to compete in the 100-mile, 52-mile, 32-mile, and 18-mile races in the Bighorn Mountains west of Sheridan. For more information, see www. bighorntrailrun.com, call (307)-673-7500, or email racedirector@bighorntrailrun.com.

June 15 Veteran Golf Tournament Calling all veterans for the 18-hole scramble Saturday, June 15, at the Kendrick Municipal Golf Course. For a $60 entry fee, that includes 18 holes of golf, light lunch, cart and opportunity to win prizes, veterans can compete for prizes and bragging rights. Shot gun start at 9 a.m. and the driving range will be open and free that day as well. For more information, call (307) 675-7028.

June 18 Bluegrass Old Timey Jam It’s bluegrass time from 7-9 p.m. at Luminous Brewhouse on Broadway! Local musicians playing some of the oldies and all of your favorites including old fiddle tunes and a bit of country, too. Free and open to the public, with $2 burgers available. For more information, call Bill Bradshaw at (307) 751-

1852 or contact the Senior Center at (307) 672-2240.

June 19 Conservation Brown Bag Series Spend your lunch hour Wednesday, June 19, with the Wyoming Nature Conservancy to hear about all the exciting work conservation organizations are doing to benefit nature and people in the community. The meetings will take place through the month of June at noon at the Sheridan County Library. Each session is free and open to the public. For more information call (303) 673-0992.

June 20 3rd Thursdays

Every 3rd Thursday of the month for four consecutive months starting June 20 through September, from 5-9 p.m., enjoy street festivals

filled with fun, food, music, street vendors and shopping in the historic Main Street District of Downtown Sheridan. Family-friendly entertainment, car and motorcycle shows shut down the street to vehicle traffic for safe, good times outdoors. For more information, visit downtownsheridan. org/events or (307) 672-8881.

June 21 Forever West PBR The 2nd annual Forever West PBR is an elite, sanctioned bull riding event that draws the best cowboys in the world to compete with the best bulls in the region for one energyfilled night. Event organizers boast amazing VIP-level experiences for everyone.

June 22 Parkman Daze An annual one-day summer event featuring a parade, chuck-wagon feed, live music and a poker-style horse race in Parkman, Wyo., just south of the Montana border in Sheridan County. The Shriners Horse Patrol is often present to participate in the parade along with classic cars and local folks. At 5 p.m., enjoy meat from Mark Williams’ homemade cooker for supper. For more information, call the town hall in Ranchester, Wyo. at (307) 655-2283.

June 27 Cover Crops Field Workshop Travel Sheridan County to learn about how cover crops can benefit your ranch. Topics include cover crops, managing soil health and challenges with cover crops, benefits of cover crops and how to design a cover crops system.

Free to attend. Includes three speakers and two ranch tours. Lunch and transportation …

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provided. RSVP required. Capped at 40 participants. Register at eventbrite.com or on Facebook @SheridanCLT. Contact SCLT at (307) 673-4702.

June 27 Dark Horse Consort Free and open to the public Thursday, June 27 from 7 p.m. to midnight, enjoy the early music ensemble. Dark Horse Consort is dedicated to unearthing the majestic late renaissance and early baroque repertoire for brass and string instruments. Inspired by the bronze horse statues in Venice’s famed St. Mark’s Basilica, the ensemble attempts to recreate the glorious sounds of composers such as Giovanni Gabrieli, Claudio Monteverdi and Heinrich Schütz. For more information, visit WhitneyArts.org.

July 8-14 Sheridan WYO Rodeo Since 1931, the Sheridan WYO Rodeo has been celebrating life out West. Located at the Sheridan County Fairgrounds, just north of the Bighorns, the PRCA-sanctioned event is a major stop on the rodeo trail for top cowboys and cowgirls. Four nights of high-octane, PRCA action and World Championship Indian Relay Races from July 10-13. WYO Rodeo week also features the annual Boot Kick Off at Whitney Commons on July 9, Carnival at the Fairgrounds each night, plus Main Street Bed Races, Sneakers & Spurs 5K, Saddle Up for the WYO Rodeo Main Street Parade, Native American Powwow, Duck Races and Boy Scout’s Pancake Breakfast on Friday, July 12. Cowboy Polo rounds out Rodeo Week at the Equestrian Center on Sunday.

Learn more at SheridanWyoRodeo.com.

July 15 SAGE KIDS Summer Art Camp

Join SAGE for five days of art and fun!

Students will explore a variety of artistic mediums and projects taught by professional artist and local art teacher, Rebecca Rousseau!

Morning classes from, 9 a.m. to noon for ages 6-9 and afternoon classes from 1-4 p.m. for 10-13-year-olds. Is your kiddo "in the middle?" Ages 9 -10 can take either session (or both)! Maximum class size is 20 kids per session. Registration is $60, with some scholarships available. Register by calling (307) 674-1970, or visit 21 West Brundage Street.

More events

www.82801Life.com

Photos: Sheridan Travel & Tourism

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