UW in Your Community event cements strong ties to the university

Wyoming has been described as one big town with really long streets, signifying the close-knit relationships among Wyoming people and communities.
One of those long streets leads to Laramie, home of the University of Wyoming. Though I’m not a UW alum, I’ve always been a huge Wyoming Cowboys fan and a supporter of our lone university, and I’ve always appreciated the ties among UW and our communities.
There was a time when UW seemed somewhat isolated in Southeast Wyoming, with little outreach to the far-flung cities and towns of our large state other than athletics and Wyoming high school students enrolling in and graduating from the university. Even relationships with Wyoming community colleges seemed strained, with the difficulty of community college credits transferring to the university a topic of conversation.
That has clearly changed with programs like the UW in Your Community Day outreach event held Monday in Big Horn County, during which UW faculty members, officials and students traveled to our neck of the woods to present a welcoming and informative message to high school students and community members and connect alumni with their university.
The strong ties to our area were evident Monday. UW students Jacob Grant from Lovell and Taylor Despain from Cowley joined with Colton Farrow of Greybull to talk about their experience at UW during assemblies at Rocky Mountain, Greybull and Lovell high schools, then again at an evening event at the Lovell Community Center.
Among the faculty members who spoke Monday evening was research scientist Dr. Laura Vietti, the museum and collections manager for the university’s Geological Museum – a great place to visit on campus, by the way. Dr. Vietti spoke about her efforts to take fossils to the people of Wyoming through 3D printing of the artifacts.
Though born in Colorado, Dr Vietti considers Thermopolis to be her hometown, and she told me she got her first job as a mailing room stuffer for former Lovell Chronicle publisher Pat Schmidt during the years he published the Thermopolis Independent Record. She said she considers Pat to be a mentor, and he said she is like a daughter to him.
And by the way, Natural Trap Cave east of Lovell was a major topic of discussion from Dr. Vietti and geology professor Dr. Tom Minckley.
Many strong ties.
One of the leaders of the UW in Your Community events is Milton Ontiveroz, a Lovell native and 1975 LHS graduate who is a UW Institutional Communications media specialist. Milton has been with the university for 30 years. He, too, got his start with Pat Schmidt, but at the Lovell Chronicle.
Milton just recently lost his mother, the wonderful Inez Ontiveroz, who became nationally prominent with the Head Start Program and also happened to make the best homemade tortillas on Planet Earth. (Ask members of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church.)
As Wyoming’s only four-year school, the University of Wyoming is an important institution for binding our state together, from education and athletics to economic development and research in fields important to our state.
But the real binding force is our people, and those strong bonds were certainly evident during Monday’s UW in Your Community events. Hats off to UW for reaching out to communities across the Cowboy State.

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