The Volunteer Vaquero  

From the President's Pen Beverly Goodman , President, Museum Volunteers June 2012 

 

Greetings to you all once again. I'm watching the early arrival of the hummingbirds as I write 

this, and I'm listening to the frogs and watching the geese in our newly formed pond in the 

meadow below.  I hope you all can enjoy them come our  picnic time on Sept. 16.  

44 of us attended our Annual Meeting on May 7 at the Bunk House Bar and Grill.  The 44 

included 3 staff members: Helen Louise, Chris Hanson, and Heyward Schrock, and 2 of their 

spouses, LaDonna Schrock, and Mike Wyne.  We presented Linda Rogers our Volunteer of the 

Year award, elected officers for the coming year, and awarded Sarah Ligocki an Honorary 

Membership.  Your officers are: myself as President, Emma Fosdick as Vice‐President, Tracy 

Stefanik‐Berg as Secretary, (we can hold office for 2 years), and Kim Stevens as our new 

Treasurer.  Linda is retiring to catch up on home duties and other obligations.  Dick Hart will 

serve the appointed position of Advisor, and Carolyn Turbiville will continue her position of 

Editor of the Vaquero.  If you ever have something to share with all of us, send your message 

to Carolyn.  She always welcomes our input.  Heyward entertained us after dinner with a slide 

presentation of photographs of Cheyenne buildings torn down during the 1960s and 70s; 

photos taken by an amateur photographer named Kirby Olds.  What a trip down Memory Lane 

for some of us.  Thanks, Heyward, for your time and efforts.  

I hope you participated in the Historic Homes Walk on May 19.  Since I'm writing this before 

the 19th, I can't say much except thanks to Carolyn T., Connie Skoetch, and Peggy Staley for 

the organization and to those who manned the Welcome Table, and for those who joined me 

in walking and enjoying some of Cheyenne's homes still standing and looking good.  

Until next time, Beverly G.

 

 

 

HAPPENINGS AT THE WYOMING STATE MUSEUM: 

A HORSE, OF COURSE Opening Reception 5‐7 p.m. May 24 

 

 

                                           June 20       1 p.m.         Board Meeting       

 

August 11, 2012  Arts and Crafts Show and Sale                   l                      

 

September 16  Picnic at Beverly Goodmans 

September 22, 2012  Repeat of Historic Homes Walk 

 

 

Volunteer of the Year Announced at Annual Meeting 

SUSPENSE!  Who is selected as Volunteer of the Year? 

Nominated were Emma Fosdick, Harriett Loose, 

 Janet Norrod and Linda Rogers.                                                

And the winner is‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐Linda Rogers 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wyoming State Museum Historic Trivia 

Provided by Jim Allison, supervisor of Collections

Suffrage, the right of voting in political matters, is a significant topic in Wyoming history. Today Wyoming calls itself the Equality State because, as a Territory, it granted women the right to vote in 1869. (Women nationwide did not achieve suffrage until 1920 with the adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.) But one group of people, Native Americans, could not vote alongside their male and female neighbors in Wyoming until they became citizens of the United States.

In What year were all Native Americans granted U.S. citizenship?

(This month’s answer will be found on page 8)

Meet a new member of WSMV 

Sandy Goodman, from Denver, CO., is President Beverly Goodman's daughter. She is in charge of registration for the Arts and Crafts Show and Sale. It was Sandy's idea to do the Historic Homes Walk (originally Wag'n Walk).

This and That from the Editor 

Common sense is the least common of all senses.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS  

President: Beverly Goodman

Vice President: Emma Fosdick

Secretary: Tracy Stefanik-Berg

Treasurer: Kim Stevens

Vaquero Editor: Carolyn Turbiville

Ex Officio: Chris Hanson

Advisor: Dick Hart 

The Volunteer Vaquero. . .

is published monthly for members of the Wyoming State Museum Volunteers, Wyoming State Museum, Barrett Building, 2301 Central Avenue, Cheyenne, WY 82002. Newsletter deadline is the 20th of each month.

June Birthdays 

               

      18 – Frances Hardy  28 – Pat Becker 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

About the Organization

From the inception in 1974, the WY State Museum Volunteers have been instrumental in assisting the art and education programs of the Wyoming State Museum. Their tie to these programming sections of the museum remains strong today. Volunteers at the Wyoming State Museum are an important link between the museum’s professional services and the public it serves. In human terms, they represent the museum’s mission to the public.

                     

WYOMING STATE MUSEUM VOLUNTEERS MAY ANNUAL MEETING TREASURER’S REPORT

May 7, 2012 (October 1, 2011-May1, 2012)

Wyoming State Museum Volunteers have funded the following since October 01, 2011

Travelling Trunks: Replacement and new purchases (Buffalo Box) $ 592.60

Text for Native American travelling exhibit $1000.00

Transportation from Arizona of Schwartz donation $1000.00

Creative Suites Graphic Design Software $ 170.00

Scavenger Hunt flyers-printing $ 580.36

Hands on History clothing (new and replacements) $ 479.90

History Day Awards (2) $ 200.00

Refreshments, treats, gifts

A Night at the Museum-Dressed to the NInes-lecture series $ 574.97

Organizational Costs

Vaquero-printing and postage

Historic Homes Walk-Arts and Crafts Show printing and postage

Member events-Pie Social $ 359.03

Total Amount spent 10/01/2011-5/01/2012 $4957.69

Total Financial Resources available 4/01/2012 $25,949.23

Note: Penny Press has earned nearly $2500.00 over purchase price

We extend our sympathy to Beverly Goodman and her family in the lose of her brother.

Congratulations to the following Wyoming State Museum Volunteers who have paid their dues for 2012-2013!

Cara Baber Pamela Basile

Judy Binger Sharon Collier

Emma Fosdick Priscilla Golden

Beverly Goodman Sandy Goodman

Dick Hart Helen Hart

James Hart Anita Lucas

Mitty Nation Barbara Nelson

Janet Norrod Estelle Summers

Kay Thomas Carolyn Turbiville

Wanda Wade Bill Yannaccone

Alice K.

WSMV Dues Were Due May 1!!!! Have you paid your dues?

Please pay ASAP as your membership will be delinquent after July 1, 2012

Dues are $12 per person

Enjoying the Historic

Homes and Park Walk

James and Dick Hart travel to Shiloh Battlefield Tennessee

 

Submitted  by  Dick Hart 

The  luminaries were in front of  park headquarters, just as it was getting  dark.  The log 

structure is a replica of the original Shiloh Church; the South called the battle Shiloh, the North called it Pittsburg 

Landing. 

Dick and James Hart, Museum Volunteers, traveled to Shiloh battlefield in Tennessee for the 

150th anniversary of the battle.  Dick’s great‐grandfather, also James Hart, fought there on 

April 6 and 7, 1862, in the 46th Illinois Infantry Regiment.  Dick and James took a couple of 

guided battlefield tours, found the monument of Granddad’s regiment, and tracked the 

outfit’s movements on the battlefield.  

Out of an initial regimental strength of  710, the 46th lost 159 killed or wounded, but only 1 

missing.  This was the inspiration for Dick’s poem “Nobody Ran.” 

Wiley Sword (isn’t that a great name for a military historian?) in his book Shiloh, Bloody April, 

describes Lt. Col. Jones, CO of the 46th Illinois, who; “…thought his men hungry, tired, and low 

on cartridges, and finding himself within a half‐mile of camp, marched his men there and got 

dinner.”  This was an astonishing break in discipline, but even more astonishing, after dinner 

the men willingly marched back into that hellacious fight. 

More than 23,000 men were killed or wounded in the battle, equivalent to forty percent of the 

population of Cheyenne.  To commemorate their sacrifices, a luminary for each one was 

placed along the roads and in the fields, and lighted on Saturday night.  Park rangers guided 

cars along the roads past all the luminaries. 

Dick and James ordered replica Union uniforms, and wore them for the tours.  Before one 

tour, they stopped in a Waffle House for breakfast, and the grill cook saluted them. Later, 

James overheard two ladies talking.  One complained, “We were going to the Waffle House for 

breakfast, but it was full of Yankees!” 

Dick and James also visited the Tennessee River Museum in Savannah, Tennessee, and the Civil 

War Interpretive Center in Corinth, Mississippi. 

Wyoming State Museum Historic Trivia Answer: 

The Indian Citizenship Act, signed by President Calvin Coolidge on June 2, 1924, granted full citizenship to all Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States who were not previously citizens. Citizenship meant the right and privilege of voting (suffrage) and the right to be elected to public office, among other things. The act made citizens of about 125,000 persons. Previously, about 250,000 Native Americans had become citizens by various means. Since 1888, Native American women, for example, had become U.S. citizens by marrying one. And, citizenship had already been granted to all members of the Five Civilized Nations (Cherokees, Choctaws, Creeks, Chickasaws, and Seminoles) in Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) in 1901.

The issue of citizenship for Native Americans is as old as the United States itself, having been questioned since the U.S. Constitution was adopted. The issue was debated even more vigorously after the Fourteenth Amendment extended citizenship to African Americans in 1868. Arguments between politicians and groups both for and against Indian citizenship continued for more than fifty years. World War I was the turning point in the campaign for nationwide Indian citizenship. Approximately 17,000 Native Americans had served as soldiers in the uniform of the United States. Their families had bought millions of dollars worth of Liberty bonds to finance the war effort. And, thousands of Native Americans had joined the American Red Cross to support the troops. Indian citizenship advocates pointed out that Indian soldiers fought in integrated regiments, "side by side with the white man, not as Indians, but as Americans." A month after a peace treaty ended the war, a journal asked, "If the red man can fight, why can't he vote?" In 1919, the U.S. Congress responded by granting citizenship to all Native American veterans who had received honorable discharges. Finally, in 1924, U.S. citizenship was conferred upon all Native Americans. At this time, national citizenship had been established for more than 130 years, and African Americans had been U.S. citizens for more than 50 years.

For many Native Americans, U.S. citizenship meant political equality on paper only. There still existed many legal and political complications in the political status of Native Americans, due to the fact that the old regulatory statutes inconsistent with the newly-conferred citizenship were not abolished in 1924.

 

History on the Wall

The Cheyenne-to-Deadwood Stage by J.K. Ralston, A-1965.67.1 Images of a lone stagecoach thundering across the dusty prairie with a band of gun‐wielding 

robbers in hot pursuit have long been immortalized in popular art and fiction, films and 

western lore. A Horse, Of Course, the new exhibit at the Wyoming State Museum, includes the 

monumental oil painting The Cheyenne‐to‐Deadwood Stage, capturing a similar scene, though 

lacking the inherent high drama of the road agents.  

 

Montana artist and muralist, J.K. Ralston created the painting in 1946. Western Airlines then 

presented the action scene to the State of Wyoming in 1965 to commemorate the 75th 

anniversary of statehood. It originally hung in the House Chamber of the State Capitol until 

one of its supporting hooks gave way and the painting landed on a leather‐upholstered bench. 

It was transferred to the Wyoming State Museum in the mid 1990s and has resided in the 

permanent art collection ever since. 

The Cheyenne and Black Hills Stage and Express Line operated between Cheyenne and 

Deadwood, Dakota Territory from 1876 to 1887. The route angled northward to Fort Laramie 

and Lusk before heading out across the Dakota Territory. And while the painting lacks the 

requisite highwaymen, the line was robbed repeatedly. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The stage line used a combination 

of large open mud wagons and 

smaller enclosed Concord coaches 

imported from California. The 

painting included in A Horse, Of 

Course portrays a Concord coach. 

The line also owned one ironclad 

wagon dubbed “The Monitor” 

used to haul gold from the 

diggings in the Black Hills. The mud 

wagons used teams of six to eight 

horses and the lighter Concord 

coaches utilized four to six‐horse 

teams. Horses were changed and refreshed regularly at way stations along the route. 

 

Governor Clifford Hansen accepting The Cheyenne‐to‐Deadwood Stage on behalf of the State 

of Wyoming 

Inspired by the somewhat infamous safety record of the stage line, western impresario Buffalo 

Bill Cody immortalized the Hold‐up of the Deadwood Stage as part of his Wild West show. In 

the early1900s he restored one of the original coaches to tour with his show. Following 

humble beginnings in the American West, the coach provided thrills for European royals and 

nobles invited to participate in the stage performance. That same 1863 coach is now displayed 

at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming.   

Born in 1896, James K. Ralston was raised on his family’s ranch near the Fort Peck Indian 

Reservation in northeastern Montana. An experienced artist/cowboy much like Wyoming’s 

own E.W. Gollings, Ralston briefly attended the Chicago Art Institute, both prior to and 

immediately following service in World War I. His early professional career was spent on the 

West Coast working as an illustrator. He returned to run the family ranch in Culbertson, 

Montana during the Great Depression. Then in 1935 he moved his own family to Billings, again 

becoming a full‐time artist. Ralston specialized in western genre scenes. His 1946 log studio is 

now part of the Western Heritage Center in Billings. He died in 1987. 

 

 

 

 

J.K. Ralston is a member of the third generation of noted western painters. He was born when 

Frederic Remington and Charlie Russell were the dominant figures and in an age when 

illustrated novels and periodicals were extremely popular. His work is very much in an 

illustrative vein, yet, like Charlie Russell, he must have been a natural talent, as his formal art 

training was rather short‐lived. 

 

The painting is most notable for its scale, the strong horizontal composition and the energy it 

conveys. All action is freeze‐framed with the blur of the wheels and dust providing the main 

indicators of forward motion. The lead horses are leaning into a sharp right turn as the 

stagecoach descends an incline to a river valley beyond. One would think the driver might be 

applying the brakes and pulling back on the reins to ease the coach into the turn, but instead 

he is captured at mid whip crack as the scene hurdles forward at a full gallop. Ralston does an 

excellent job portraying the detail and mass of the coach and the horses, yet his human figures 

are very much secondary caricatures. If you look closely you will see that all the male figures 

share the same large hooked nose and profile. I am particularly fond of Ralston’s treatment of 

the sky and clouds, and the hazy vista of buttes in the background. 

 

Along with the large Pegasus sign on the opposite wall, The Cheyenne‐to Deadwood Stage was 

one of my main inspirations for organizing A Horse, Of Course. It was a pleasant surprise when 

I discovered it tucked behind the rolling racks in Art Storage. The wall space the painting 

requires has limited its previous use, but a special niche was created in the exhibition just to 

accommodate it – and its story. 

 

A Horse, Of Course is on view through March 30, 2013. 

                            David L. Newell        Curator of Art        Wyoming State Museum 

May 7, 2012  WSMV Dinner at Bunkhouse Bar and Restaurant 

 

 

 

Beauty on the way to the Bunkhouse for the Annual Meeting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 President Beverly conducting the Annual            Family Affair‐  the Harts: James, Dick  and Helen 

Meeting 

 

 

 

 

 

      Attentive listeners during the meeting 

      Beth Staley      Estelle Summers 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The program presented by Heyward Schrock‐"Kirby Olds, Eye Witness to Change" 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Regulars:  Mel and Harriett Loose                    Mitty Nation and Janet Norrod 

        Welcome "New comer" spouses 

 

 

 

 

 

    Joe and Pris Golden               Frank and Deb Mellblom 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                           Victor and Peggy Staley          Loraine and Pete Hutchinson 

Night for Grandchildren‐GREAT! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Emma Fosdick.s Grandchildren Kelsey & Keeton Marsh                KariAnna and Grandmother Cara Baber 

 

Something new and exciting at the Museum!

What Am I? 

What am I? is a new game being featured in the gallery. It is on the “Wanted” poster on the left side of the doors as you enter the gallery. There is a close up image of some object that can be found in the museum, along with a clue as to what that object is. If the visitor guesses the correct object they will receive a Taco John’s coupon. It is the same coupon we give the kids for doing the scavenger hunt. Each object will be up for one month and then a new object and clue will be featured.

The correct answer to the question will be left at the volunteer desk as well as with Beth. The instructions on the game state to give the correct answer to the volunteer at the desk, so when someone gives you the correct answer please give them a Taco John’s coupon. If they cannot find the answer you can also let them know what and where the object is.

I hope this will be a fun game for our visitors to play. Thanks for your help.

Mandy Langfeld

Another Successful Historic Homes Walk May 19, 2012

Submitted by Carolyn Turbiville

The 8th Annual Historic Homes spring walk is now history.  There were 120 walkers and quite a 

few dogs.  It is always good to see families doing the walk.  This was the biggest walk so far and 

took in the most donations.  The weather didn't start out very good that morning with wind 

and a hard rain that brought us  1/4 inch of much needed moisture.  In spite of the weather, 

walkers started coming and they enjoyed the information provided.   

 

 

 

A SPECIAL Thank You to Connie Skoetsch and Peggy Staley for all the great research they did, 

what a wonderful team to work with.  Chris Hanson, Curator of Education, and Priscilla Golden 

added much to the committee by editing the guide.  Workers at walk included Estelle 

Summers and Tracy Berg.  Gil Gianetti was a gracious host in allowing us to use his garage as a 

start point and he provided coffee for the workers.   

Marking the trail‐Lucky, Connie Skoetsch, 

Peggy Staley, Kacey Warner (Connie's 

granddaughter)and Carolyn Turbiville 

  WSMV members Estelle Summers, Mitty Nation, Curator of Education, Chris Hanson and potential member Carmene Martin. Carolyn Waldow also did the walk

 

 

 

A "Rare" visit 

Thanks to Mike Kassell, Curator of Collections at the Old West Museum, opened the Happy 

Jack School House (beside the Artist Guild)  for the Historic Homes Walk.  Carolyn Turbiville, 

retired teacher, visited the school.   

 

          Family Affair 

Watch this family grow‐Nicole, Kelsey and 3 month old Kaden Kenn 

‐Nicole walks dog as a single person 

 ‐Nicole walks with future husband 

‐Nicole and her family 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ramirez family (missing Grandpa and Mom)  Jose, Gabby , Mary and dog 

Buddy‐  Gabby did her first "walk" in a stroller 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Walker # 100  Robert Hinton and Volunteer Priscilla 

Golden 

`              Volunteer Estelle Summers playing with the money (Really  

              she is having fun counting the donations for the walk.  Pris  

              is supervising.