You Still Here

Hopefully it's not too late to add this competition to the next Winter Olympics....

You still here no play 1 21 24

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

<title>You Still Here? Sunday, January 21, 2024 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

You Still Here? Sunday, January 21, 2024

 Hopefully it's not too late to add this competition to the next Winter Olympics....

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's business and tourism reporter, Renée Jean

Renée Jean

Wyoming Life

It’s often said that a picture is worth a thousand words, but it’s worth more than that at the Bone Daddy Outlaw Bar and Grill in Dubois, which has undergone a dramatic transformation since it was purchased last year by Ben Barto and his wife, Sherry.

Hanging in one corner of the bar is a picture that says it all, even if few might guess at all the layers of meaning it holds for its owner.

It is a photo of motorcycle handlebars looking out at a scenic vista. The words say simply, “Life Behind Bars.”

“I was in junior high when I had my first motorcycle,” Barto told Cowboy State Daily. “And I had a neighbor with a faster motorcycle. He always used to brag about how he would outrun the cops when he was speeding.”

The brag turned out to be just that — as Barto soon discovered.

“We were riding together one time and we decided we were going to take off and see who was faster,” he said. “No sooner did we get started than there was a highway patrolman coming at us.”

The patrolman flipped his lights on, and the neighbor who loved to brag about outrunning the law meekly pulled over to the side. 

Barto, who’d never made such a claim, kept right on going.

“So the cop chased me for a while, and I couldn’t take a corner very well,” he recalled. “I had to lay the bike over and he caught up to me.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"'He Was A Friend Of Mine'"}]

Barto knew this was bad in every possible way, but he didn’t know just how bad until he got a look at the officer’s face.

“He was a friend of mine,” Barto admitted.

It was a friend who was shocked to see just who he’d been chasing.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"It grew worse as the night went on."}]

“My uncle, who also happened to be a policeman and lived right across the street from me, was at the jailhouse that night,” Barto said. “And my folks were on vacation.”

While his uncle was disappointed in Barto, he decided not to throw the youth in jail, saying he knew his dad too well. He knew what would happen to Barto when his father found out his son had been arrested.

“He did issue me a ticket,” Barto said.

When Barto’s dad did come home, it didn’t take him long to hear through the grapevine what his son had been up to while he was away. 

“He took me to the jail and had my uncle take me downstairs to the jail,” Barto said. “He had me put in the jail and shut the door.”

For a moment, all was silent but for the echoing clang of the heavy door closing.

Then his uncle said words Barto has never forgotten.

“The way you’re going, you’re going to spend a lot of time behind bars,” he told him. 

And then he left Barto there to think it over for a while.

Barto decided then the only bars he ever wanted to live behind were the right kind — his motorcycle bars or, in this case, the bar he’s purchased in Dubois and is restoring. 

The photo is his reminder every day that he chooses the life he wants to live. That includes staying away from the wrong kinds of bars. 

“I haven’t outrun any cops since then,” Barto said with a chuckle.

Decades after that lesson in “life behind bars,” Barto has traded the threat of steel jail doors for steel blades married to custom-carved antler bone handles — a business he calls Bone Daddy Knives. 

The business has quietly been putting Dubois on the map for almost three decades, starting with a contract he picked up after a Montana gift rep died, leaving a shopkeeper with a demand and no knives.

Today, 2 miles inside the Wind River Indian Reservation, Barto buys about 25,000 pounds of antlers a year from local “shed heads,” or antler hunters. The best of the pieces become Bone Daddy knife handles, while the rest become part of the booming antler dog-chew trade.

He and his small crew turn out a couple thousand knives a year, each one a custom job, which sell well across the West.

Barto also at one time carved ornaments from bone antlers, as well as hat pins and figurines, which were sold at gift shops in Yellowstone National Park, Gardiner, West Yellowstone, Sturgis, as well as to larger chains such as Cabela’s, Sportsman’s Warehouse and Bass Pro Shops.

Barto jokes, like a lot of craftsmen, that making knives was something he once liked — back when it was still a hobby.

“Now it’s a business,” he said with a chuckle. “But when you’ve got a business that provides you the funds necessary to keep going in whatever adventure you want to go off into, I guess you still have to keep doing it.”

It’s all about the kind of bars Barto wants to live behind.

The knife business is bankrolling his transformation of the Outlaw Bar from a dive — where 

 in Cowboy State Daily noted people might be concerned for their safety — to an establishment where the opposite is true.

When he and Sherry bought the bar it was, to say the least, not exactly turnkey.

“This was just a dump when we bought it,” Barto said. “But they made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

Barto could immediately see the potential. His wife took a little more sweet-talking.

“She was going crazy,” Barto admitted. “She’s like, ‘At your age, you want to start another project?!’”

Barto took it slow. He’d take his wife to the bar now and again for drinks. And just about every time the occasion presented just the right moment to say something like, “Oh look dear, you know what we could do with this part of the building?” Or, “Could you imagine if we did this in this room?”

Barto held up the mirror often enough that his wife finally gave in and said, “Yeah, let’s go ahead and do it.”

The bar’s biggest potential, he realized, wasn’t just what he could do with an artist’s eye and aesthetic inside. It was its position on a main highway to Yellowstone and the Tetons, a high-traffic strip where lots of tourists, sportsmen and bikers are roaring through town looking for their next adventure.

Its other big advantage is a deep lot, stretching far enough behind the bar to create a parking lot. 

“There is no parking anywhere else in town,” Barto said. “All of the Outlaw’s customers have been complaining about it for years.”

So Barto started his work in the back of the bar, carving out what he hopes will become a signature beer garden and games yard, with expanded parking, turf, fencing and, eventually, a raised stage for large outdoor events.

“We still have room to go back another 100 feet and still have a space for a possible stage up on top for a big venue,” he said. 

Inside, the transformation is further along, and personal. 

He’s hung up some of his and his wife’s work, tracing the arc of their lives from the early Bartolo Collectibles days to the present Bone Daddy Knife days, as well as wildlife mounts from hunting trips and, of course, the poster that captures his life’s motto to live his life behind only the bars he chooses.

There is still much dirt yet to move and asphalt to pour, but Barto is already thinking big for this bar, five to 10 years down the road.

“We want to be the best cowboy biker sportsman bar in Wyoming,” he said. “And from what we’ve been hearing from all of the locals lately, this new makeover has created a vibe all its own. That’s what they’re calling it. They say this place has vibe now.”

The “vibe” was on full display during the Fourth of July weekend, Barto added, when the bar hosted the band Second Ride. 

“I have never seen the bar that busy in my entire life,” he said. “It was standing-room-only Friday night.”

During Dubois’ famous tank parade, announcers even gave Barto a shoutout for cleaning up and reinventing the bar.

Barto is clear that, aside from aesthetics, he’s also made it a priority to clear out questionable clientele.

On his first night as an owner, he spotted a drug dealer working the room and said he “86’d” her on the spot. 

“My main focus, other than cleaning that bar up, was cleaning up the reputation,” he said. “If there was somebody in there who was always raising hell, we 86’d them.”

Signs at every entrance now warn potential troublemakers that a new sheriff owns the bar. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Bone Daddy Needed A Bar"}]

If Bone Daddy Knives is the financial engine behind the bar, the Bone Daddy persona is its soul.

It was developed over a 20-some year period, when Barto served as mascot for the Beartooth Rally’s Iron Horse Rodeo in Red Lodge, Montana.

At first, his costume was simple: The widest brim black cowboy hat he could find and a mask. The next year he added an air-brushed skeleton T-shirt and pants. 

Of course, then, cool costume and all, Bone Daddy needed a more appropriate ride.

The $65,000 custom bike he built includes his own screaming Bone Daddy moon logo as well as other artwork. 

“That was quite the undertaking,” he admitted. “But it is a masterpiece of artwork.”

When Barto retired from the Ironhorse Circuit after a couple of decades, he brought his Bone Daddy logo with him. The rearing motorcycle with its cowboy skeletal rider happened to be an almost-perfect match for the rearing horse logo at the Outlaw, a similarity that wasn’t lost on Barto.

“So I just added Bone Daddy to the back of the horse,” he said. “That’s all I did to change their logo.”

Barto, in addition to all the other hats he wears, is also president of the Professional Biker Rodeo Association, which he plans to start revving up next year as he’s completing renovations.

“Bone Daddy had to have a bar,” he said with a chuckle. “Now the trick is to make it the kind of place people remember for the right reasons.”

Bone Daddy Outlaw Saloon 7 12 26

<title>Longtime Knifemaker Transforming Dubois' Outlaw Bar From Dive Into Destination | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Dubois craftsman Ben Barto owns Bone Daddy Knives, a hobby turned big business that’s now bankrolling a transformation of Dubois' Outlaw Bar and giving the once-seedy watering hole a new vibe. “This was just a dump when we bought it,” Barto said.

Longtime Knifemaker Transforming Dubois' Outlaw Bar From Dive Into Destination

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

Andrew Rossi

Entertainment

Howard Winchel “Hawk” Koch is a Hollywood legend. His credits include everything from “Chinatown” and “Marathon Man” to both of the “Wayne’s World" films.

Koch was the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Producers Guild of America, and 

 Robert Redford and Edward Norton among his close friends.

Those were among the stories and self-reflections he shared, for one night only, at the Shell Bar.

Koch was invited to entertain Shell residents with an evening presentation on what he’s learned after decades working behind the scenes in the film industry. The small but engaged crowd hung onto every word of wisdom and anecdote, many of which he included in his 2019 memoir: “Magic Time: My Life in Hollywood.”

[{"type":"text","text":"“I can’t get you an Oscar, but I can get you my book,” he said."}]

Koch had been to Wyoming several times, but it was his first visit to Shell. He said he was amazed by the scenery and immediately felt at home among the ranchers and strangers in the audience.

“The people have been so lovely, and I can’t get enough of the views,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “I’ve made so many movies (in California), but also in New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado. To me, we’re all cowboys.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"First Time In The Saddle"}]

Koch started his Shell presentation by sharing his first experience on a movie set. It was in Durango, Colorado, when he was 

“My dad was making a movie up there,” he said. “I was a shy little kid who used to take my mother's dress and put it around my face so nobody would see me. After a 20-minute drive, I saw teepees. I saw cowboys and Indians, and this shy kid started running through the set.”

He didn’t know he was on the set of “Across the Wide Missouri,” released in 1951. 

A “Native American” approached the young Koch, put him on his lap, and told him “stories of many moons.” He was actually being entertained by Ricardo Montalbán.

Then, a cowboy rode up and asked Koch if he’d ever been on a horse. He hadn’t, so the cowboy set Koch in front of him and took him for a ride around the movie set.

Later that night, Koch’s father, Howard Winchel Koch, got to tell his wife their son had gotten his first horse ride with Clark Gable.

From that day, Koch loved the movies. As a result, he’s never worked a day in his life.

“It’s magical,” he said. “I love movies, and hopefully some of you do, too. I loved being on any movie set and in any movie theater. It’s magical for me.”

That was the partial inspiration for the title of Koch’s memoir, “Magic Time.” The other source was a direct quote from the legendary Jack Lemmon.

“I got to work with Jack Lemmon a couple of times, including ‘The Odd Couple,’” he said. “What I learned is that Jack could be talking to you, and if he heard ‘Roll camera,’ he would say, ‘Magic time,’ out loud, and would totally get into character. He could be talking about anything, and he’d get right back into character.”

Now, whenever Koch needs to concentrate, he repeats Lemmon’s line in his head.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'The Primal Scream'"}]

The first movie Koch worked on was 1966’s “This Property Is Condemned,” starring Natalie Wood and Redford, in one of his earliest films.

Koch, then 19, quickly made a big impression by quickly getting Wood out of her trailer.

“One of the first things I had to do was go get Natalie Wood from basecamp,” he said. “I knocked on her door and said, ‘We’re ready for you.’ She said, ‘Oh, I'll be out in a little while.’”

In an unexpected wave of inspiration, Koch told Wood that the cinematographer James Wong Howe had said to him, “The light is perfect.” That promptly got Wood out of her trailer and onto the set.

Since Wood “never got out of her trailer on the first ask,” Koch impressed his peers by doing just that. He had a comically cynical explanation.

“(Actors) are narcissistic and they like the way they look on camera,” he said. “I used that line on every actor for over 60 years.”

That film started Koch’s lifelong friendship with Redford. He recalled a road trip he took with the young actor, driving from Los Angeles to land the actor had “just bought” in Utah.

“I’m driving on a good road with no moon and a few stars when Redford says, “Pull off the main road.’ I asked why, and he said, ‘Just pull off the main road.’”

Koch obliged and drove down a dirt road until Redford grabbed the gear shift, put the car in park, and grabbed the keys.

“I am scared,” Koch said. “I'm looking for a knife. I'm looking for a gun. I don't know what's going on. He gets out of his side (of the car), and I get out of my side. We're both looking at each other over the hood of the car.”

Then, Redford started yelling at the top of his lungs. Koch called it “the primal scream.”

When he was done, Redford smiled, laughed, and threw the keys back to Koch.

[{"type":"text","text":"“Try it,” he said. “It'll de-stress you.”"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Koch said that was “the night Robert Redford almost slit my throat.”"}]

Decades later, when Koch was president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, he was preparing to appear before thousands of people on stage at the Oscars. When he got a 15-minute warning, Koch followed his friend’s advice.

“I went outside the Dolby Theater and what did I do? I did a primal scream, and I came back in,” he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Have Fun"}]

Koch infused his anecdotes with wisdom that he hoped everyone in the Shell Bar, especially the younger folk, could take to heart.

“After 80 years of living, I've got a few ideas of maybe the things we all ought to do, and I'm sure most of you probably do the same things,” he said.

His experiences with Wood and Redford epitomized the idea to “have fun.” He was reminded of that during the production of “Wayne’s World.”

Koch brought his son, Robbie, to the set on the day they filmed the scene in which Mike Myers encounters Robert Patrick, making a cameo as the T-1000 from “Terminator 2.”

“It was a rehearsal,” Koch said “(Patrick) walks up to the car and says, ‘You were speeding.’ And Robbie, in front of the crews, the writer, the director, and Mike Myers goes, ‘Well, that’s not funny.’”

Myers, “to his credit,” asked Robbie why it wasn’t funny. Robbie pointed out that the T-1000 always carried a photo of John Conner, asking if anyone had seen him.

In the finished film, the T-1000 approaches Wayne with a Polaroid photo and asks Myers, “Have you seen this boy?” Wayne screams and speeds away.

[{"type":"text","text":"The boy in the Polaroid is Robbie, on set the same day as the shoot."}]

“Every time we’d go to a theater, it got a big laugh,” Koch said. “If you're not having fun in your life, find something else to do, because it goes by way too quickly. Way too quickly.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Have Courage"}]

To emphasize the point “have courage,” Koch told the story about how firing Robert De Niro and losing his marriage led to a moment that defined his life and career on the set of “Marathon Man.”

In September 1975, Koch was working on his first film as a full producer, the ill-fated film “Bogart Slept Here.” It was slated to star De Niro in his third film, right after his Oscar-nominated performance in “Taxi Driver,” but there was a problem.

“De Niro didn't know how to do comedy, especially at that time,” he said. “It was directed by Mike Nichols, and if anybody’s funny, it’s Mike Nichols. But after two weeks of rehearsal, De Niro wasn’t funny.”

At one point, De Niro did such an intense Bela Lugosi impression, telling the young actress playing his daughter that he “wanted to suck the chocolate syrup from your veins,” that she ran off the set, terrified and yelling, “That man’s not my daddy.”

Nichols eventually pulled Koch aside to say he would not work with De Niro.

“I won't tell you what he actually said about De Niro,” he said. “I could see the steam coming out of his ears.”

After two weeks of trying to recast the role, nobody wanted to replace De Niro. The studio killed the film, which was eventually resurrected and released as 1977’s “The Goodbye Girl.”

When Koch told his wife what happened, fearing his career was over, she kicked him out of their home and immediately sought a divorce.

Koch was despondent, crashing on a friend’s couch, when he got a call from Robert Evans at Paramount, best known for his work on “The Godfather.” Things weren’t going well on the set of “Marathon Man.”

“Evans said they’d been shooting for 10 days and they were 10 days behind,” Koch said. “I asked what the problem was, and he said, ‘How the hell do I know? Why do you think I'm calling you?’ So, I got on a plane and flew to New York.”

[{"type":"text","text":"The problem was apparent to Koch after one day on set."}]

Director John Schlesinger couldn’t decide how to shoot the first shot on the day's schedule. Cinematographer Conrad Hall kept adding his own input, constantly derailing Schesinger’s decisions.

Then, actor Dustin Hoffman announced he couldn’t do the scene because “the dialogue sucks.”

Screwing his courage to the sticking place, Koch immediately called a meeting with Schlesinger, Hall, and Hoffman. He was professional but didn’t hold back.

“I said, ‘John, you're the director. You have to know what you want to shoot, for every shot and every moment. Connie, you have every right to make a suggestion, but John makes that decision, and that's the way we're going to work from now on,” Koch said.

Hoffman, from the other side of the trailer, asked, “What does this have to do with me?”

“Dustin, you have every right to have a problem with the scene – a week ahead of time,” Koch said. “You have no right on the day of shooting to say now you can't do the scene.”

Koch got an assistant director credit for “Marathon Man” when it was released in 1976. It was a financial and critical success that lost only one additional day to its 75-day shooting schedule.

“It changed my career because I had the courage without fear of knowing what I know,” he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Show Up"}]

One of Koch’s final points was the importance of “showing up,” just as he did in Shell.

“I can't tell you how many times I've shown up, and I've met somebody that was important in my life, or I learned something,” he said.

Shell resident Rosa Brooks became acquainted with Koch and his wife, Molly, through conferences they attended in Jackson Hole. She invited him to spend a few days in Shell and share his story.

“I grew up in a house with no TV, (so) I didn’t know anybody and nobody let me out much,” she said. “To the extent that I knew anything about the world of Hollywood, I thought it was all scary, intimidating, beautiful people. Hawk and Molly are incredibly warm, kind, curious people. They blew me away.”

Rancher Nolan O’Neal attended that evening because of the impact Koch's work had on his life.

“The movies he’s associated with were the most impactful movies you could imagine as a teenager at the time,” he said. “You need to go home and watch ‘Marathon Man’ and ‘Wayne’s World’ to grasp the work he did and how they comment on the value of society.”

Koch knows many people shrug off the cultural value of movies like “Wayne’s World,” but he doesn’t have the energy for cynicism.

“I've always tried to make a difference in my life,” he said. “I'm doing a lot of things that I'm hoping make a difference. The fact that some people will laugh or cry or scream because of things that I've had a part of is thrilling for me.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Tell A Story"}]

Koch had many more anecdotes to share, including how he overcame being a rare “Jewish junior” and adopted his new name at his much-delayed bar mitzvah.

“I realized that I’d had my father’s name for 50 years, and I wanted my own,” he said. “I had three kids and a career in the motion picture business and got a Hebrew name for my 50th birthday.”

Koch shared one more important piece of wisdom he picked up from decades in Hollywood. It’s something he knows everyone can do and hopes more people find the courage and enjoyment within themselves to do it.

“Learn how to tell a story,” he said. “If you learn how to tell a story, you can be a director, a producer, a writer, a production designer, a cinematographer, a salesman, an engineer. I don't care what business you're in or what you want to do in your life. Learn how to tell a story, because that’s where it all started.”

Hawk Koch IMG 0749 7 12 26

<title>Legendary Hollywood Producer Goes To Wyoming Bar And Talks Redford, Gable, De Niro | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Hawk Koch, a Hollywood producer and former president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, stopped by the Shell Bar last week to talk about his work on movies such as "Chinatown," "Marathon Man," and "Wayne's World" and his encounters with legendary actors.

Legendary Hollywood Producer Goes To Wyoming Bar And Talks Redford, Gable, De Niro

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Jackie Dorothy.

Jackie Dorothy

Historian Clay Gibbons of Worland was given three to four months to live by his doctor 

. A routine scan revealed Gibbons had pancreatic cancer even though Gibbons' had no symptoms of the tumor.

Gibbons said it was tough walking into the doctor’s office healthy and walking out with the news he was dying. 

“I've got a very firm, solid belief in God and a strong faith and know that He will do His will, not ours be done,” Gibbons said. “Once you get into that period of acceptance, it doesn't mean you're giving up and not fighting, but it does mean whatever does happen, it's God's plan and I'm going to deal with it.”

Gibbons was given his cancer diagnosis on Feb. 4 and has outlived the prognosis. He is grateful and is enjoying time with his family. 

[{"type":"text","text":"He also continues to share his love for history and all things Wyoming."}]

 missing hair and a backache that keeps him up at night. He is moving forward, weighing his options for treatment. 

 is sure to enjoy every moment, including giving his annual Memorial Day tour of the Hole-in-the-Wall, 

 with each of his eight kids, numerous grandkids and close friends.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Historian of the Lesser Knowns"}]

 years old, Gibbons has been pursuing answers to history, 

his dad told him about the Sand Creek Raid that happened practically in their own backyard.

The raid occurred April 2, 1909, and was a violent conflict between cattlemen and sheepherders near present-day Ten Sleep. Seven masked cattlemen attacked a sheep camp, resulting in the deaths of three men and significant property destruction, marking it as the deadliest sheep raid in Wyoming's history.

Gibbons’ dad, Terrill, was unable to tell his son where the raid had exactly taken place. That led to a quest that would span Gibbons’ lifetime. 

Gibbons succeeded in his mission and discovered other stories along the way. Over his years of pursuing history, he became known for giving voice to those who have been ignored and uncovering obscure stories.

Gibbons' oldest son, Damon, said he grew up listening to these old stories and learned to honor the memories of those who had come before them, especially in the Bighorn Basin.

“He's done so much to bring forth stories that would have been lost and that ought not to be lost,” Damon said. “This was a very rugged place that was hard on men, women and horses.”

According to Damon, part of the legacy his dad built is the admiration of Wyoming that he instilled in his eight children.

“He would encourage you to appreciate things out of a sense of wonder,” Damon said. “Growing up with him meant that we were constantly swept out into the mountains or into the badlands where there was always something to behold.”

When Gibbons was researching the Spring Creek Raid with his own father, he brought his children along to immerse them in the art of discovering history.

“We were looking for a horseshoe bend in the creek with tall sagebrush,” 

 said. “That’s when Damon found some old, crushed tin stuff and some glass and hollered at us that he had found some artifacts.”

 pinpoint the location where a wagon had been during the Spring Creek Raid. These types of moments sum up 

“When you grew up as Clay Gibbons' kid, you learned that not only were there more than just a couple of stories worth telling, but the best stories never got told, and the best stories were yet to be found,” Damon said.

about sharing too much. When Gibbons first presented his discoveries about the Spring Creek Raid, Terrill was concerned about him naming people because many 

 would be listening were descendants of the raid.

“Some of our customers had grandparents that were involved and my dad was concerned that it might upset them if I named names,” Clay said. “It was 80 years ago, so of course I named names.”

Wyoming Historian Clay Gibbons has not only outlived the pancreatic cancer prognosis he received but it hasn’t stopped his quest for digging up Wyoming history or advocating for ranching. Gibbons says faith, family and friends are everything.

You Still Here? Sunday, January 21, 2024

In case you missed it

More in You Still Here

Today In Marriage: Sunday, July 12, 2026

Bonus Video 2: Sunday, July 12, 2026

Today In Parenting: Sunday, July 12, 2026

Today In Golf: Sunday, July 12, 2026

Most read