My Wyoming cottonwood saga began in the late 1990s in Casper, where I was nurturing all flavors of flowers in various pots scattered about the yard. Gardening is in my genes, thanks to Slovenian grandparents who grew vegetables and planted …
Opinion
by 6 Comments History tells us we will get through this
Opinion
by 6 Comments In the context of historical trials like the ones his family faced as immigrants in Wyoming 100 years ago, Paul Krza writes, the pandemic looks more like a crisis we can overcome.
Surreal Wyoming art and reality politics
Unsettling images in a 30-year-old Wyoming painting become relevant again.
A Modest Propsal: Gitmo to Wyo
Former Wyoming journalist Paul Krza has an idea to boost revenue: taking on a new facility for Guantanamo prisoners.
Sunset in Sweetwater: In Memory of Activist Attorney Ford Bussart
It was one of our less stellar college moments, that Friday night on Flint Street in Laramie back in the 1960s -- for me, and certainly for somebody who was to become a high-powered lawyer, self-described “social engineer,” legislator, judicial nominee and upstanding community member.
Outside in the yard of the house shared by college friends at the University of Wyoming, in full-on party mode and fueled with plenty of alcohol, Ford and I were exchanging inflammatory expletives that I now can’t exactly remember, fists raised, onlookers gathering, and the cops on the way.
It all ended well enough, with no actual blows landed, no arrests, and, most importantly, no lingering animosity.
I recalled the Flint dustup when I heard the other day that Ford Bussart, high-profile Wyoming attorney and public official, died at age 65. My old college roommate accomplished a lot since those wild UW days and that night when his quick mind and fast words collided with my smart-ass demeanor. It was fittingly feisty, I thought, for a guy who later in life would emerge as a hardcore, fearless and frank advocate for change and civic improvement.
The Vietnam War was still going strong after our UW graduation in 1967 and Ford and I went our separate ways, me drafted into the army and Ford, after finishing law school, enlisted in the U.S. Navy, where he worked in the military Judge Advocate General Corps.
A few years later our paths crossed again, this time in our home towns in Sweetwater County. Ford had just returned to Green River, where he was born, and I was back in my birthplace, Rock Springs, beginning my career in journalism. That was in 1973, just as the energy-fueled boom in the two cities was beginning.
Boomtown Syndrome