Lovell recognizes several local Guardsmen in community send-off

On Saturday, Nov. 23, six area soldiers were recognized by their community ahead of their upcoming deployments.

The event, which brought the community together at the Bair family’s MJ Court, celebrated the service and sacrifice of the military personnel and their families. 

Those honored at the Deployment Farewell were First Sergeant Derek Leonhardt of Lovell, Staff Sergeant Brett Tillery of Cody, Specialist Nicole Hall of Lovell, Warrant Officer Stuart Harmon of Powell, Staff Sergeant William Anderson of Lovell and Specialist Dylan Langston of Lovell. Colonel Cole Kelly of the Wyoming National Guard and several fellow Guardsmen also attended the event. Kelly will deploy overseas with the group.

Stacy Bair and her niece, Levae Leonhardt, were the primary architects of the event with assistance from their husbands, Devin Bair and Derek.

“My niece, Levae, helped me to organize this,” explained Stacy Bair. “Her husband, Derek, who is my nephew, this is his third deployment. Each time he’s deployed, we’ve been waiting for a ceremony or some recognition, and for whatever reason, it hasn’t come. This year we decided to do something ourselves.”

Leonhardt elaborated, “At first, we were just going to do a family party, and after finding out that there were so many soldiers from this area that were going, we were like, ‘You know what? This is a time for the town to be involved.’

“It’s something that we knew the community would love to do and support.”

To get the ball moving, Bair reached out to county commissioner Bruce Jolley, a former career Guardsman, for additional information on the soldiers in the area. Through Jolley’s office, she was able to connect with the National Guard and Col. Kelly, who then helped her reach out to other soldiers’ families.

“Bruce double-checked and reached out to Col. Kelly,” Bair recalled. “He then gave us the info on the Big Horn Basin personnel who were deploying and got their contact information for me.

“Now that we’re connected with Col. Kelly, I’m hoping to start a campaign to get groups — church groups, business groups or school groups, maybe — to put packages together for all of our Wyoming soldiers,” she continued. “This experience inspired that, and I think a lot of groups would want to help if the information (about what soldiers need) was available to them.”