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Cowboy State Daily is Wyoming’s largest newspaper with Wyoming’s most experienced journalists. 

<title>One More For The Road: Thursday, October 19, 2023 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

One More For The Road: Thursday, October 19, 2023

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Employee kate meadows cropped

Kate Meadows

Wyoming Life

Sports

When Montana State University rodeo coach Kyle Whitaker recruited steer wrestler Jaden Whitman to compete for the college, he never imagined the young cowboy would one day help his family through one of the darkest chapters of their lives.

 and suffered a broken jaw after being thrown from a horse and dragged into a gate at the Montana State University rodeo practice arena last month.

She spent 24 days hospitalized in Salt Lake City before returning home May 29 to begin a long recovery after essentially having her hand ripped off by the accident.

Just days later, Whitaker got a text message from Whitman. Whitman was just days away from graduating at MSU and had —  largely thanks to Whitaker’s coaching — secured a spot at the College National Finals Rodeo.

"Would it be OK if we did a bulldogging benefit for your wife?" the message read.

Bulldogging is the common rodeo term for steer wrestling — a fast-paced rodeo event in which a mounted cowboy chases a steer, leaps from his horse and wrestles the steer to the ground by its horns.

[{"type":"text","text":"Whitaker was stunned."}]

“It’s pretty neat that a college kid could organize something like that,” he told Cowboy State Daily.

The Presley Whitaker Benefit Steer Wrestling Jackpot happened last weekend in Whitehall, Montana, raising nearly $40,000, most to help cover Presley’s mounting medical bills.

"I got a little choked up," Whitaker said about the effort where winners chose to give portions of their earnings back to the family. "I rodeoed. I know how hard it is to make money in this industry and get ahead."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"‘I Got Choked Up'"}]

Whitman and his older brother, Jaret — another former MSU rodeo competitor coached by Whitaker — had been driving home from a rodeo in Washington when they began discussing how they could help their rodeo coach’s wife.

They knew stock contractor Jhet Murphy was looking for an opportunity to season some young steers. From that conversation came an idea that seemed perfectly suited to the rodeo world: organize a steer wrestling jackpot that would both break in Murphy's cattle and raise money for the Whitaker family.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"Everybody jumped at the chance,\" Whitman said."}]

Members of the Chute Boss Club, a private organization that supports the MSU rodeo program, along with other supporters, donated money to create a $20,000 added jackpot. 

Thirty-five competitors paid $500 each to enter the event, which nearly doubled the purse to $37,500.

[{"type":"text","text":"Then something remarkable happened."}]

Many of the contestants who won money donated part of their winnings back to the Whitakers.

"They basically just made a $500 donation and then shared some of their earnings," Whitaker said. "I got choked up."

By the end of the event, all but about $5,000 of the purse had been directed back to the Whitaker family.

"That's a big deal," said Mark Norem of the Chute Boss Club. "Cowboys didn't only show up for the event, but they left the money in the pot."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Serendipity Strikes Twice"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"The fundraiser carried another twist of fate."}]

The jackpot winner was reigning world champion steer wrestler JD Struxness, who happened to be stranded in Montana because of horse quarantine restrictions tied to a 

Struxness also happened to know Presley Whitaker. The two attended the same small high school in Minnesota.

After winning the jackpot, Struxness donated a portion of his winnings back to the Whitakers as well.

[{"type":"text","text":"For Whitaker, however, the most meaningful sight wasn't who won."}]

"It meant a lot to me to see kids — students, current and past, that I've coached — up there competing," he said.

According to Norem, the fundraiser reflected the close-knit culture that exists within steer wrestling circles and throughout rodeo.

Of all the events that could have rallied around Whitaker's family, it was fitting that it happened through steer wrestling — the event that defined much of Whitaker’s own rodeo career and one that has become a signature strength of the MSU rodeo program.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"These are really, really good people,\" Norem said of the Whitakers."}]

As Presley continues occupational therapy and follow-up appointments, Whitaker said she remains remarkably positive despite losing a hand and suffering serious injuries.

"Any one of those things would be a devastation," Norem said. "And here she is walking around with a smile on her face and a brightness in her eyes."

For Whitman, the fundraiser ultimately became a chance to repay a coach who had invested in him years earlier.

"Kyle showed me the ropes of pro rodeo," he said. "This was a way to give back."

Presley Whitaker takes a stroll weeks after being thrown off a horse and losing her right hand

<title>Steer Wrestlers Rally To Raise $40,000 For Woman Who Lost Hand In Rodeo Accident | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Steer wrestlers raised nearly $40,000 last week for the Montana woman who lost her hand in a rodeo accident. “It’s pretty neat that a college kid could organize something like that,” said the woman's husband, who is the Montana State rodeo coach.

Steer Wrestlers Rally To Raise $40,000 For Woman Who Lost Hand In Rodeo Accident

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Dale Killingbeck

Dale Killingbeck

Around Wyoming

The snowmelt from a long, strong winter 50 years ago seemed to mean a new eastern Idaho dam and reservoir on the Teton River to supply private canals and enhance the region’s agricultural base would be filled more quickly than anticipated.

By June 3, 1976, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s Teton Dam project was considered completed, but contractors still needed to apply an anti-corrosion coating to its “water conveyance features in the outlet tunnel,” said Erika Lopez, a Bureau of Reclamation spokesperson.

The reservoir contained 234,259 acre-feet of water when the dam failed, sending a deluge downriver.

Those who lived through that flood a half-century ago still remember it as “one of the scariest days” of their lives.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"It Broke Fast"}]

A 1996 Bureau of Reclamation report on the project 20 years after the historic flood caused by that failure states that on June 3, 1976, two small springs were discovered below the 305-foot-high dam. 

One was 600 feet and the other 900 feet away. They were considered “normal” for an embankment dam, an engineer reported.

Two days later, a construction worker inspecting the dam around 7:30 a.m. found muddy water flowing out of the dam’s right abutment, 15 feet above the stream bed. 

The flow increased, and then another leak was discovered. 

A whirlpool developed in the reservoir indicating water quickly escaping through the dam, the report states.

Warnings were issued downstream telling people to evacuate.

Heroic efforts by bulldozer operators on top of the dam failed to plug the leak and by 11:57 a.m., the potential disaster became a real one.

“Unfinished Teton Dam Collapses,” The Idaho Statesman reported on June 6, 1976. “Floods Sweep East Idaho Towns.”

The surging water hit Wilford, Sugar City, and Rexburg. 

Before the day was over, 11 people were dead, 112,000 acres of farmland under water, 20,000 livestock lost, 32 miles of railroad track destroyed, 4,000 homes flooded, 250 businesses impacted, 3,500 farm and ranch buildings damaged, and 65 canal systems for irrigation disrupted.

Those who were in the water’s path that day remember it well.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Scary Day"}]

Barbara Smith, 70, of Archer, Idaho, was a 19-year-old newlywed of three weeks and living in Rexburg. 

She had gone to a construction site to pick up her husband at noon. The day before, he had enlisted in the U.S. Army.

“It was one of scariest days of my entire life,” she said. “Certainly the people who lived through it, it is the turning point of their life. 

"Even my little sisters, who thought it was such an adventure, have stated that they did not know that their lives would change irreversibly that day.”

Smith said when she picked up her husband, he told her about the dam collapse and the evacuation orders.

The couple then drove to her parents home in Rexburg. 

They also had heard the news, but while her mother advocated for moving their vehicles to the top of a hill and taking stuff out of the basement, her dad thought there would only be a few inches of water.

He also shrugged off the various orders coming from law enforcement about evacuation.

“When we’d say, ‘Dad, dad are we going to leave?’ He’d say, ‘They cannot make us evacuate, but they can keep us from coming back — and we’re not leaving,’” she said. “He had a business on his property with a lot of machinery and equipment.”

Within two hours, Smith and the others watched the waters coming down the street where her parents lived, covering the gutters and then taking down a fence that surrounded the property. 

By the time it reached into their home they had witnessed logs, cows, machinery and tires floating past the house.

Smith said her parents’ home stood on a stone foundation while waters rose to be about 2.5 feet deep inside and about 5 feet deep on the outside, she said. 

They lost their vehicles. Her dad lost some of the equipment he rented as part of his business.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Canoe Ride"}]

Smith and her husband later that day took a canoe ride to the basement apartment in town where they were living. 

The water reached to the shelf in their closet a couple of feet from the ceiling. Everything had to be washed and cleaned repeatedly as they tried to salvage what they could.

“Here it is 50 years later and I have a bookcase that still has flood mud on the back of it even though it has been washed and scrubbed,” she said. “It was really fine and silty and it is just a reminder.”

Smith said the empty lots created after the flood washed away homes are fewer now in Rexburg, but some remain.

Jacob Haeberle, dean of General and Transfer Education at the College of Eastern Idaho in Idaho Falls, said he was a 4-year-old with his family trying to get back to their home in Rexburg when they were stopped by state police at a roadblock.

“We were coming back from a wedding in California, and we’d heard some stuff on the radio as we were coming into Idaho but nothing concrete,” he said. “We got stopped in Idaho Falls by the state police at a roadblock and the officer asked us where we were going and we told him we were going to Rexburg. 

"And he said, ‘It’s not there anymore.’”

Haeberle said the officer was mistaken, but they learned two other towns were destroyed. Rexburg was hit hard, but because some of the town was up on a hill it “wasn’t fully wiped off the map,” he said.

Haeberle said when his family got into town, they found their home that stood on a little hill was untouched, though floodwaters claimed their garage. A car the family owned and had at a repair facility in town also became a casualty.

“It was found two days later underneath two pickups,” he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Commemoration"}]

Lopez said for the 50th anniversary of the flood, the Bureau of Reclamation’s Columbia-Pacific Northwest Region Snake Field Office on June 5 sponsored a commemoration ceremony in collaboration with Teton Recreation Coalition partners.

“The overlook site got a brand new look,” she said. “It’s really beautiful.”

Interpretive panels placed by the Bureau of Reclamation now tell the story of the dam collapse and the cost to the communities below. 

The site also includes a new vault toilet, picnic area, and designated vehicle turnaround.

Fifty years after the disaster, Haeberle agrees that the impact and stories of the flood remain alive in the local region.

“The closer you are to Fremont County and Madison County in Idaho the bigger a deal it is,” he said. “But even in Idaho Falls there will be ‘before the flood’ and ‘after the flood’ dates in a person's life.”

Haeberle said the flood gets referenced often, and “every once in a while” there is talk about rebuilding the dam, but that “gets shouted down pretty quickly from people who remember what it was like.”

In some of older buildings and homes in Rexburg, the smell of the flood still remains and it “takes you right back to that time,” he said.

Smith said that while growing up, her parents often would mention “when they move back to Wyoming” because they had roots in Casper and had come to Idaho “by a turn of events.”  

The flood for them became the trigger to make the move, and her father sold his business and other properties. With her mom and younger sisters, they bought a ranch in the Cody area.

“My mom said that my dad never worked a day in his life after that because farming and ranching was such a joy,” she said. “He was a happy man and it was all because of the flood.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Another Dam"}]

Smith agrees that any talk about rebuilding a dam in that area remains a sensitive topic, though it has come up occasionally over the years. 

She said the volcanic rock that contributed to the dam failure in the Teton River gorge is still there and that any new ideas for a dam site are not going to work in any second attempt.

Lopez said the dam collapse led to the Bureau of Reclamation pushing for “The Safety of Dams Act” that became law on Nov. 2, 1978. 

The law authorized the Secretary of the Interior to “construct, restore, operate and maintain new or modified features” at federal dams to “protect lives and property and to ensure the physical integrity of Reclamation dams.”

She said any “future consideration of rebuilding Teton Dam” would require technical and environmental studies as well as “congressional involvement.”

The bureau’s 1996 report on the dam and its collapse stated that federal lawyers in 1976 concluded the government was not liable for damages. 

However, President Gerald Ford believed the government had a “moral responsibility” to pay restitution and asked Congress for money.

In the end, the government paid $322 million for the 7,563 claims it ruled valid.

California’s Rep. Leo Ryan, who would be assassinated in Guyana two years later, led a congressional investigation during the summer of 1976 into the dam’s collapse and was widely quoted in the nation’s newspapers — including the Turlock, California, Daily Journal — about its failure.

“The exact cause of the dam’s collapse is (still) not known, but it certainly was not an act of God,” he said in a UPI article published in the Journal’s Sept. 28, 1976 edition. “It was a man-made disaster that should be prevented from ever happening again at any other place in the future.”

Teton Dam 90 6 13 26

<title>‘Scariest Day Of My Entire Life': 50 Years After Living Through Teton River Flood | Cowboy State Daily</title>

It was June 5, 1976, whe a dam on the Teton River collapsed, sending a torrent of water into the Idaho towns below. “It was one of scariest days of my entire life,” said a survivor, adding that 50 years later, the memories of the disaster are still vivid.

‘Scariest Day Of My Entire Life': 50 Years After Living Through Teton River Flood

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's Feature Reporter, Andrew Rossi.

Andrew Rossi

[{"type":"text","text":"American artist Edward T. Grigware is renowned for his murals. "}]

By the time he died in Cody in 1960, his work was featured in banks, hospitals, and Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) chapels from Chicago to Los Angeles and as far as Hawaii.

Grigware’s most celebrated Wyoming mural depicting the history of the LDS church is on display in the Historic Cody Mural and Museum. 

It’s an excellent example of the painter’s commitment to realism in an age when the trendiest art was increasingly abstract.

However, there’s one painting in Grigware’s portfolio that’s full of realism — but a lot cheekier than anything else he ever did.

“Bottoms Up,” his 1940s painting of four curvaceous cowgirls wearing nothing by chaps from the waist down showing their bare bottoms, is Grigware’s only nude.

“It certainly made going into the lounge at the Holiday Inn worthwhile,” said Mack Frost, digital technician at the McCracken Research Library at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West. “It was quite the topic of conversation.”

The painting is no longer hanging in the Holiday Inn and hasn’t been seen in years, which now has turned the conversation to whatever happened to “Bottoms Up?"

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Accomplished Artist"}]

Grigware was already an accomplished artist when he moved to Cody in 1936. 

He got his education at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, and his work had been exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago when he was wooed out to Wyoming by Mary Allen Jester, one of the founders of the Buffalo Bill Museum, now the Buffalo Bill Center of the West.

Initially skeptical of living in Wyoming, Grigware quickly came to love the state's landscapes and lived the rest of his life in Cody. 

During that time, he was commissioned to do several murals in Cody and elsewhere.

“He did murals at the Cody Masonic Temple, the old Cody hospital, and the Cody Mural Chapel,” Frost said. “He wasn't a combat artist, but he replicated many of the naval battles that occurred during World War II.”

Grigware spent most of the 1940s working on commissions from the U.S. Navy, which were used for posters and other promotional material. 

In the late 1940s, the LDS Church commissioned him to paint a 360-degree mural depicting the church’s history in the 36-foot-wide, 18-foot-tall rotunda of its then-new Cody chapel. The finished mural was unveiled in 1951. 

, Grigware spent a year researching the church’s history, as he was not a member, and painted the mural on pure Irish linen, “the choicest of artists’ canvas,” which was hard to come by at the time.

[{"type":"text","text":"“It's pretty fantastic,” Frost said."}]

It was around this time as well in the mid-to-late 1940s that Grigware finished an entirely different kind of commission.

[{"type":"text","text":"His work went from sacred to what some would consider sacrilegious."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Getting To The Bottom Of It"}]

The story of how “Bottoms Up” came to be is tricky to piece together. There are several accounts of dubious origin sharing those details.

, “Bottoms Up” was commissioned by “a wealthy Denver-area oilman.” He wanted Grigware to create an alluring painting of a Cody woman who was allegedly his mistress.

Cody historian Bob Richard could verify some of that information, while acknowledging there’s more fiction than fact in most accounts.

[{"type":"text","text":"“Several stories about that painting abound,” he said."}]

One thing he could confirm was that the model for “Bottoms Up” was, indeed, a Cody woman.

Dorothy “Dot” Morris managed the Lazy Bar H Ranch, now the Bill Cody Ranch, between Cody and Yellowstone National Park with her husband, Leonard.

“She was very beautiful and partied a lot with Leonard and other Cody families,” Richard said. “When Leonard took guests to fish for mackinaw, Dot was always there.”

Richard said Morris probably connected with Grigware through the Frontier School of Western Art, a short-lived complex of log cabin studios that drew Grigware and other artists to Cody between 1936 and 1941.

Technically, there’s only one cowgirl in “Bottoms Up.” All four women were modeled by Morris, posed and painted by Grigware four different times.

The final painting is of four cowgirls on a wooden fence, fully clothed in Western attire except for their bare derrieres.

The cowgirls are basking in the warm sun with the familiar silhouette of Heart Mountain in the distance.

The original painting had a pine pole frame made by another legendary Cody artist, Thomas Molesworth. It was delivered to its patron, who hung it in his home in Denver.

“I think the painting was done in the mid-1940s, after the end of the war,” Richard said. “But, to the best of my knowledge, I don’t think Dot was anyone’s mistress.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Bottoms Back"}]

“Bottoms Up” was eventually acquired by Quintin Blair, a renowned Cody businessman who brought the painting back to where it was created.

Blair served with the U.S. Navy in the Pacific Theatre of World War II, so it’s possible some of the battles Blair fought were painted by Grigware.

Blair went on to own several drug stores in Cody, managed the Pahaska Tepee Resort and Buffalo Bill Village, and established Quin Blair Enterprises, now Blair Hotels, which built the Holiday Inns in Cody, Laramie, and Riverton.

Blair was also a patron of the arts. There was no better example of that than his family home.

The Quintin Blair House, Wyoming’s only building by Frank Lloyd Wright, was built for the Blair family. 

Before his death in 2013, Blair was the only living person to have continuously resided in a home designed and built by the famous architect.

Blair was also friends with Grigware and the Denver patron who commissioned “Bottoms Up.” When the patron died, his wife sold the painting to Blair.

According to legend, Blair acquired the painting for $1, with some caveats. The patron's wife wanted the painting publicly displayed in Cody as a slight to “the model,” meaning Morris.

In that story, Morris and her husband moved to San Diego, California, in the 1960s, out of embarrassment that Morris’s bare bottom had returned to Cody.

[{"type":"text","text":"Richard has a much simpler explanation for the move."}]

“Dot and Leonard moved away for no other reason than Leonard retired and sold the ranch,” he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Fact And Fiction"}]

Since the history of “Bottoms Up” is so intertwined with the Blair family, it's the best source of factual information on the painting.

Ted Blair is the CEO of Blair Hotels and Quintin Blair’s son. Like Richard, he’s amazed by the number of stories circulating around “Bottoms Up.”

“Most of what people have heard about it is made-up,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “The number of rumors, stories, and lies about that painting is unbelievable.”

Blair confirmed the core history. “Bottoms Up” was painted by Grigware in the 1940s, with Morris modeling, for a Denver patron whose wife hated it.

“It hung behind red velvet curtains in the bar of their home,” he said. “When he'd have friends over, he'd open the curtains up. When there was nobody there, the curtains were closed, because his wife hated the painting.”

Quintin Blair bought the painting from the man’s widow, but there were no caveats with the purchase.

“Thomas Molesworth's son called my father and said, ‘Remember that nude of Grigware’s? It's for sale.’ My father got a hold of it, and that's how it ended up in Cody again,” he said.

Blair confirmed that his father didn’t acquire and display the painting out of obligation or spite.

“He knew Grigware, he knew the painting, and thought it was fun,” he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Hanging Out"}]

When Blair opened Cody’s Holiday Inn in 1972, “Bottoms Up” was prominently placed in the hotel’s bar, the Daisy Bell Saloon. 

It would later be known as the Bottoms Up Lounge, where the painting was the centerpiece for decades.

Thousands of people dropped by to appreciate the painting, for various reasons. Even Holiday Inn capitalized on it.

[{"type":"text","text":"“They were selling posters of it at one point,” Richard said."}]

The painting made its way onto T-shirts, coffee mugs, postcards, and posters, eagerly acquired by fans of Grigware’s unique piece.

Frost was one of many Cody residents who regularly saw “Bottoms Up” when it hung in the Bottoms Up Lounge. He likened it to the famous pinup girls painted by Alberto Vargas.

[{"type":"text","text":"“It was very Vargasesque,” he said."}]

It’s a notable departure in Grigware’s extensive body of work. According to a blog post about the history of “Bottoms Up” from August 2009, Grigware accepted the commission as his one and only “tasteful nude.”

“It’s the only nude he ever did, as far as I’m aware,” Blair said.

However, tasteful or not, “Bottoms Up” was eventually deemed too distasteful for the public.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Too Much On Display"}]

When Cody’s Holiday Inn completed its most recent renovation, “Bottoms Up” was gone.

“It was in the lounge until a couple of years ago,” Frost said. “I don't know why they took it down. Maybe the Blairs decided that it was no longer relevant, maybe somebody complained about it.”

Richard thought the unique painting was removed at the request of Holiday Inn. Most chain-branded hotels have specific guidelines regarding what artwork can be displayed. 

Quintin Blair was, allegedly, granted a dispensation to display “Bottoms Up” because of its provenance and association with Grigware.

“I think their management decided it was unacceptable, so it was taken down,” he said.

Ted Blair was happy to set the record straight. The painting was taken down because it would have been too visible.

“When we turned the lounge into an open area of the dining room, children would have been able to see it,” he said. “That’s when and why we pulled it down. That’s the decision I made.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Heirloom Or Museum Piece?"}]

As for its current whereabouts, Ted Blair confirmed that “Bottoms Up” still exists.

Whatever happened to the racy painting titled “Bottoms Up" that hung for decades in the Cody Holiday Inn hotel? "The number of rumors, stories, and lies about that painting is unbelievable,” said its owner, adding it’s “where nobody will know where it's at.”

One More For The Road: Thursday, October 19, 2023

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