Why Wyoming became my home

“I didn’t move here to change Wyoming. Wyoming changed me.”

That sentence has been rattling around in my head over the past year as I’ve seen friends wearing T-shirts that read “Don’t California My Wyoming” or sharing memes online about keeping California “radicals” out. I know most of it is meant to be humorous. I don’t believe it comes from a place of cruelty.

But intent and impact aren’t always the same.

One question we don’t ask often enough is how we keep Wyoming’s graduates here. Cutting education funding won’t do it. If we want Wyoming to stay strong, we have to give young people real reasons to build their lives here, and fewer reasons to exclude others who want to do the same.

I grew up in California. So did a surprising number of people who now live in Cowley, Lovell and across the Big Horn Basin. I can think of at least 10 neighbors whose lives crossed through the Golden State and now call Wyoming home. They coach teams, serve on boards, volunteer at schools, plow snow and show up when someone needs help.

Like me, they didn’t move here to change Wyoming.

They moved here to find work, raise families and build a life. Here.

Wyoming doesn’t need fixing. It needs commitment. And it has a way of reshaping people who give it that. Wyoming slows you down. It teaches patience. It reminds you that neighbors matter more than opinions, and that showing up counts more than sounding right.

That’s why I call Wyoming my home.

In our current political moment, we’ve started reducing entire states to how they voted in the last election. Red states. Blue states. Good ones. Bad ones. It’s a lazy shorthand that flattens millions of people into caricatures and lets us feel informed without actually understanding anyone.

If you want to label California as some kind of left-wing monolith, you have to ignore the nearly six million Californians who voted Republican in 2024. That’s roughly 24 times as many people as voted that way in Wyoming. Those aren’t abstractions. They’re real people with families, values and stories that don’t fit neatly into a meme.

When we stereotype states, we end up stereotyping people. And when we do that, we miss the truth of places like Wyoming.

Wyoming has always been shaped by people who arrived from somewhere else -- ranchers, railroad workers, teachers, engineers, doctors and families looking for a place that felt honest and livable. Belonging here has never been about where you started. It has always been about whether you stay, contribute and care.

People who move to Wyoming don’t bring an agenda so much as they bring themselves. They bring work ethic, volunteer hours, PTA meetings, fire department shifts, tax payments and kids enrolled in local schools. They bring a willingness to endure long winters and short summers, and to build something that lasts longer than a job title.

Most aren’t trying to turn Wyoming into anything else. They’re trying to become something themselves.

Wyoming isn’t fragile. It doesn’t need protection from people who show up in good faith. It has a way of absorbing newcomers and making them better. It certainly did that to me.

So maybe the question isn’t where someone came from, or what state they grew up in, or how that state voted last November. Maybe the better question is simpler than that.

Are they willing to put their shoulder into the same work that drives us in this state, the quiet, daily work of becoming better and watching out for each other?

That’s why I call Wyoming my home.