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<title>Bonus Video: Thursday, May 30, 2024 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

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Jackie Dorothy

Around Wyoming

 in Hot Springs County that was becoming a ghost town by the time World War II broke out. 

Beginning in 1932, the once busy mines were being closed permanently and families were moving away, with only a few remaining to work in smaller private mines. Then World War II called away the young men of Gebo to serve as soldiers, many of them still teenagers.

and his friends formed the Junior Marines and

re just as dedicated as any who were serving abroad.

“We all tried to be good soldiers, and whenever any of us got out of line, you sure heard about it from the rest of the group,” Bolich, 93, told Cowboy State Daily. “I think the added discipline was good for all of us.”

Bolich said that whenever they heard of a soldier coming home on furlough, the Junior Marines would gather at the schoolhouse and march to the soldier's home to sing the Marines' Hymn.

“When the family would come outside to see what was going on, we would salute the soldier and then march back to the school,” Bolich said. “We never gave any thought to the fact that they might have been in the Army, Air Force or Navy.”

Bolich chuckled at his youthful ignorance and said that when he was older he learned the soldiers and their parents got a kick out of watching the Junior Marines perform, especially if the soldier being serenaded was not an actual Marine.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Teenage Soldiers"}]

The Junior Marines were inspired by two Gebo teenagers who had both enlisted on the same day. 

Stanley "Dutch" Wedlock, 18, had graduated from Thermopolis High School and volunteered in the Marines. His younger brother, Lee, also volunteered to the Marines although he was only 16.

“Lee lied about his age so he could volunteer,” Bolich wrote in his memoirs, “Gebo, Living in a Coal Camp”. “At that time, there was such a demand for manpower that the War Department did not take the time to examine everyone's birth certificate. In fact, many of the soldiers could not produce a birth certificate, so if you looked 18, you were accepted.”

After their boot camp, Dutch and Lee were assigned to different Marine divisions. They were not to see each other for the next three years.

A miraculous story about the two young soldiers was broadcast to the world by the Denver Radio Station KOA and picked up by The Associated Press in July 1944.

“A story of Gebo boys comes out of Saipan, Marianas Islands,” Staff Sgt. Hy Hurwitz, a Marine Corps staff correspondent, reported. “Two brothers from Gebo, Wyo., met here by accident today just as Marines were about to start a push over one of the heavily fortified Jap-held hills.”

Marine Cpl. Stanley Wedlock had run out of ammunition and turned for help from another ‘Leatherneck’ who was unloading supplies on the beach.

[{"type":"text","text":"“Got any ammunition?” Wedlock asked."}]

When the Marine unloading ammunition turned around, Wedlock discovered it was his younger brother, Pvt. Leland R. Wedlock, whom he had not seen since they enlisted together in August, 1941.

Hurwitz, one of the official correspondents for the 18th Marines

, wrote dozens of human-interest stories from Tarawa, Saipan, Tinian, and later campaigns. 

He was so impressed with this chance encounter that Hurwitz sent a press release and the story 

 the world, including as the first presented on a new Marine program airing on KOA radio in Denver the following Monday.

“It was a rare experience that two Marines from a little town in Wyoming should meet during a battle on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean,” Bolich said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Young Marines"}]

Their youngest brother, Bob Wedlock, 12, was instrumental in forming the Junior Marines, according to Bolich.

“As patriotic youngsters, we all decided that we would join this group,” Bolich said. “All of the boys in the camp wanted to join.”

Bolich was one of the youngest at age 10 and the other boys who joined he named as Jack Toth, Fritz Jurovich, Joe Bandich, Pete Cavalli, Kenny Halbert, Jack Bretthauer, Buddy Cammock, Jim Hughes, Ken Bolich and Jim Isbell.

“In order to be sworn in, you had to be able to sing the Marines' Hymn,” Bolich said. “Once you did your performance, they would allow you to be a Junior Marine.”

found Navy officer caps in a catalog for about a dollar. The boys all saved money so they would have their ‘uniform dress.’

“They weren’t Marine hats but were Navy officer hats, but we got them and wore them,” Bolich said. “Boy, we were something. We felt like we were helping because people we knew were in the war.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Rubber Gun Rifle"}]

Once accepted as a Junior Marine, the boys were required to build a rubber gun rifle they would hold against their shoulders as they marched.

The boys would draw the outline of a rifle on boards they salvaged from the houses being torn down in Gebo. Sig Nelson, the grocer in Kirby, was also recruited into their wartime efforts. He would bring them wooden boxes from his store specifically for their guns.

“We would take a small axe and chop away a lot of the wood,” Bolich said. “When that was done, we moved on to using a knife to make a nicer finish.”

When the rifle was smooth, the boys would nail a heavy piece of string to the end of the "barrel" of the rifle. Four notches 

carved on the top of part of the barrel. Their ammunitions was from old inner tubes from the inside of car tires. The Junior Marines would then cut pieces out of the rubber about an inch wide.

“One tube gave us enough ammunition for our whole squad,” Bolich said.

To fire their guns, they would place one end of the rubber across the front of the barrel, stretch it backward, and place the band into one of the notches over the string. They could pull up on the string, which released the stretched inner tube.

They used the rubber gun rifles when they played war, and if you were hit by the rubber tube piece, you were out of the fight.

“We drilled regularly in the flat area just north of the town, on the old football field, which was used by the high school before the high school was closed,” Bolich said.

They would pick teams, then head up into the hills behind Gebo Hill for their wars.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Scrap Metal Effort"}]

“Our job was to help the war situation,” Bolich said. “We were really busy.”

Aside from singing the Marines’ Hymn to returning soldiers, waging their own wars in the Gebo hills and playing basketball, the Junior Marines were salvaging iron.

“The county was directing a scrap iron drive for the war, so we, as Junior Marines, worked hard to do whatever we could to help,” Bolich said. “We always got together, and our job was to help the war effort. We went up to the mine in Gebo and started hauling stuff away.”

They got spikes out of the railroad, and would haul a rail over to the vacant lot where the old basketball gym used to be to pile up the scrap metal. Once a month, a big truck would come to Gebo to gather it all.

“Since Gebo was being dismantled as a coal mining town, there were lots of items left that people did not take with them,” Bolich said. “We went into abandoned houses, collected whatever metal was left there.”

[{"type":"text","text":"They also got the privilege of legally breaking windows."}]

“We were always aware of any house that was being torn down and obtained permission to get rocks and throw them to break windows,” Bolich said. “We would line up like baseball pitchers do and see who had the most accurate arm.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Bolich said Pete Cavalli had the best pitching arm of the Junior Marines."}]

“Since the mine was no longer working, we were very efficient in picking up pieces of metal there,” Bolich said.  

[{"type":"text","text":"They would all pitch in to carry a rail and made it a military endeavor."}]

“When we all were in position, someone would call out, ‘lift' and we would lift the rail altogether and then wait for the 'forward march, hut, hut, hut' orders,” Bolich said. “We would all march in step to take the rail to the metal stockpile. I often wonder if some Gebo people saw us and just laughed.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Proud To Be Junior Marine"}]

Bolich recalled trying to get the wheel off an ore car and being chased off by a worker who was on the tipple.

"You get the hell out of there — we use those wheels," the worker yelled. “Leave that alone!”

Bolich said he took his wagon and hurried home with what little scrap he was able to salvag

His time as a Junior Marine soon came to an end, despite the war still being fought. Bolich’s own family moved into Thermopolis when he was in the fifth grade. Despite no longer being in the Junior Marines, Bolich said their wartime efforts continued.

“When we left Gebo, my brother got a job because so many men were in the Army, Navy or Marines,” Bolich said. “Ken started washing dishes at the Manhattan Café and I shined shoes for Steve Ely because it was hard to buy shoes.

“Leather went to the military, so Steve would repair the shoes, and I would shine them up. I got a dollar a day.”

As Bolich looked back at his childhood war efforts, he said that he was proud to be a Junior Marine. He would still sing the Marines' Hymn, no matter which branch the soldier

Gebo and young marines inset 7 26 26

<title>Wyoming History: How Gebo’s Gung-Ho Junior Marines Served During World War II | Cowboy State Daily</title>

In the dying coal town of Gebo during World War II, the patriotic Junior Marines were gung-ho in their wartime efforts of gathering scrap iron, marching and singing. They were inspired by the Wedlock brothers, two teens who left Gebo to fight the war.

Wyoming History: How Gebo’s Gung-Ho Junior Marines Served During World War II

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

Renée Jean

LANDER — People who want to play the “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” trivia game have a surprising way they can boost their personal score to a mere two degrees. All it takes is a simple coffee run to the Lander Bake Shop anytime the owner happens to be taking orders or chatting with customers.

Brian Harms recently bought the Lander Bake Shop, a classic small-town hangout where locals trade gossip over lattes and hikers fuel up on croissants. 

It’s a town better known for trailheads than red carpets, but Harms’ resume reads like a Hollywood highlight reel. He spent decades in television and film, including stints as art director and production designer, with a front-row seat to making some of America’s most-watched shows. 

Now he’s pouring all that experience into coffee, croissants and building community back home in Lander.

That’s high-caliber, creative talent returning home to invest in Main Street, but you won’t see any sign of the Hollywood plot twist as Harms cheerfully takes your order or asks you how your food was. He is low-key about his Hollywood years. 

You’d have no clue he once worked directly with Kevin Bacon for three weeks on the television series “The Closer” while he was its art director. 

Or that he spent more than a decade shaping the entire look and set of “Grey’s Anatomy,” America’s longest-running primetime medical drama, which recently clinched its 23rd season.

Other movie credits Harms can claim during a 20-plus-year career include the independent film “Life of the Party,” television movie “Protect and Serve,” NBC drama “Las Vegas,” and TNT crime drama “Leverage.”

Harms is not a Hollywood transplant, however. He’s a native son, born and raised in Lander. 

He grew up doing music, football, basketball, and track when he was in school, and skied at Jackson Hole any chance he got.

“We would mow lawns all summer to afford the season pass in Jackson,” Harms told Cowboy State Daily. “And then we’d drive to Jackson to ski.”

Coming out of high school, Harms figured his best bet was to shoot for a job with Wyoming Game and Fish.

“I wanted to be outdoors,” he said. “I wanted to be active. So I majored in biology resource management.”

But he also happened to earn a music scholarship from Central Wyoming College in Riverton, which put his feet on an entirely different path.

“I was a biology major doing all these music classes and groups to fulfill the scholarship requirements,” he said with a chuckle. “I was in the concert band, the jazz band, and the jazz choir. And then working in the recording studio and doing sound for the theater.”

Once the theater program found out his dad was the woodworking teacher for shop classes in Lander, Harms was drafted for set building. 

That’s when he began to realize where his true interests might lay. 

“I had almost enough credits to graduate biology, but more than enough to graduate music,” Harms said “So I got my degree in whatever that was, general arts and sciences with the music concentration.”

That summer, he worked for the Idaho Repertory Theater and then went to Missoula, where he built a set for the Montana Repertory Theatre.

Still, it’s a long way from the Idaho or Montana Repertory Theater and television shows like "Grey’s Anatomy."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"More Grit Than Glamor"}]

There were no great leaps to fame or fortune for Harms. Instead, it was a series of small, incremental steps — more grit than glamor. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"It also took a huge leap of faith. "}]

After his first summer gigs went so well, Harms kept chasing opportunities to stretch his skills and widen his world.

He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Missoula with a focus on scenic design, then packed up his portfolio for a major job fair in Chicago.

It was run like a science fair. Harms set up a display of his work, then left the room. It was a cattle call where you only met anyone if they chose your table. 

Harms was nervous the entire time this was going on. But he ultimately got a call back for 13 different grad schools.

The one he picked, though, wasn’t the one who wooed him the strongest. It was the woman who made him explain all his decisions and talk about his process.

“It wasn’t like interrogative,” Harms said. “It was inquisitive. So it was a really great conversation.”

Finally she told Harms that she would allow him to come to her school only on one condition. He had to come visit it first.

That spring break, Harms did just that. He drove all the way to Pennsylvania from Montana — and broke down partway there.

“I had to rent a car in Kansas City to finish the trip,” he said with a chuckle. “So I went to Penn State, and it was fantastic, It was just the best program. I just won an alumni award last year where they flew me and my wife out for a big, big award.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Naive Leap Of Faith"}]

After grad school, Harms did regional theaters in Illinois and New York. Then he returned to Montana, where he met his wife. 

By now, the itch to try Hollywood was too strong to ignore. The couple saved $4,000 then loaded up their car and moved to California.

“It’s funny looking back just how naive and hopeful we were,” Harms said. “That $4,000 barely got us into an apartment there. By the time you paid the deposit — they want first month’s, last month’s rent and that was about all in just to get into the apartment.”

Hollywood, meanwhile, did not roll out any sort of red carpet for Harms. He started out with jobs that don’t make any headlines. He drafted for other designers, did some model building, and took as much non-union television work as he could get.

All of the jobs were long on hours and short on certainty. 

“I would do three days of drafting for this show,” he said. “They would do like two weeks of model building.”

His first big break was a show filming under the title “Glory Days,” as an independent film.

“I wasn’t in the union, so I wasn’t eligible to work on union shows,” he said. “But that small film started non-union and I was on it for more than 30 days before they flipped.”

It was a common industry tactic to start non-union to save money, Harms learned, then flip once filming began to avoid picketing. 

And it finally gave Harms his ticket into the union. All he had to do was pay six weeks of his salary for his initiation fee. That was a tough leap considering Harms’ work to date had been mostly odd jobs. 

“But all the guidance was when you get the opportunity, you better take it, even if it’s going to be a big financial hit, because it’s going to pay off,” he said. “And coincidentally, that movie starred Ellen Pompeo.”

The movie was one of the last things she did before taking a role with "Grey’s Anatomy."

“From that point on, I was eligible to apply for all of these jobs,” Harms said. “And my first union TV job was what we call blue-collar TV, like with Jeff Foxworthy.”

The Kevin Bacon connection came a little later on the set of the “The Closer.” Harms had been brought on as an art director in 2006, which stars Kyra Sedgwick, who is married to Kevin Bacon.

As a result of that, he met Bacon many times. But he also worked with him closely for three weeks when Bacon directed one of the episodes. 

“It was a fun one,” Harms said. “Because the episode had like a kind of car chase scene. It wasn’t like a high-speed car chase, but it was just one car cutting off the other car. So we were trying to work through all the logistics of the scene and the camera angles.”

Harms built out the entire set first using Matchbox-size cars, which had him calling it Matchbox Theater from that point on.

Being the art director meant Bacon wasn’t just a name in a party game. He was someone Harms worked with every day on the complex production puzzles they were trying to solve day by day. Sets had to be built, dressed, and redressed and locations transformed into believable backdrops for tense interrogations and high-stakes chases.

Working on the set of “The Closer” helped establish Harms in Hollywood, but has also created a fun piece of trivia that few people can match. He’s just one degree from Kevin Bacon. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Shot In The Dark"}]

The COVID-19 pandemic put Harms out of work — like a lot of others in the film industry. 

“I went back to my portfolio and put together a mailer — a little mini portfolio with a DVD of some of the stuff I’d done,” he said. “And I spent quite a bit of money to put all this together and to send them out to try and get some new introductions and get a job.”

Harms waited weeks and weeks, but nothing seemed to come of it at all. 

“Eventually, I got back to some work,” he said. “Then, one day, I get a phone call from this gentleman who said he’d been holding on to this thing for a while.”

Harms hadn’t sent the portfolio to this individual originally, but someone else had shared it with him. 

The man turned out to be with "Grey’s Anatomy," and he invited Harms to consider joining the production design team.

“They were replacing their art director,” Harms said. “And they had just finished season five, so I came in and had the interview and had a second interview with their producers and then got hired. So I started season six as the art director.”

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

As “Grey’s Anatomy” Art Director, Harms worked on roughly 150 episodes before stepping into a larger role heading up Production Design, where he did at least another 150 episodes before deciding it was time to return home to Lander to help care for his aging parents.

The schedule for the show was relentless. A typical episode was shot in about 10 days, but a new shoot started every eight days. 

“So you’d have a crossover of double days where you’d have two film crews and sometimes more,” he said. “So you might have one crew out on location, one crew on this stage, or this crew’s on this stage, and their next set’s being finalized here.”

With seven sound stages, that gave Harms just enough room to stay ahead of an ambitious shooting schedule set up like a series of dominos. Tip one over, and they’d all fall down.

“These were massive, massive spaces with  multiple sets on stage,” he said. “So the moving pieces — it’s enormous.”

Bacon’s not the only ultra famous star Harms worked with during his long-running Hollywood career. 

“You never knew who might walk onto the set,” Harms said. “So one day, I walk in and there’s Lenny Kravitz sitting in the director’s chair.”

Kravitz is a Grammy-award winning American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and actor.

Harms couldn’t resist saying, “Hey, you’re Lenny Kravitz!”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Kravitz said simply, “I know.”"}]

Another person he saw frequently was Debbie Allen’s sister, Phylicia Rashad, best known for her iconic role as Clair Huxtable on The Cosby Show.

“The only other person I’d say was as famous or more famous than Kevin Bacon was Denzel Washington,” Harms said. “He directed an episode of 'Grey’s,' so I got to spend weeks with Denzel.”

Working with Washington was an amazing experience, Harms said.

“He’s a storyteller to his core,” he said. “Like he would — because again, I spent like full days with just hours and hours with him — and we’d like walk through a set and we’d be waiting for Debbie to finish filming something. So we’d just be hanging out.”

While they were waiting, Washington would often tell stories to pass the time.

“He’d talk about an uncle of his, but you’d see, as he’s telling the story, he just transforms,” Harms said. “It’s just natural to him. So I would just be transfixed.”

Bacon, in contrast, was higher energy, “just a positive fun guy.”

“He played for our wrap party for ‘The Closer,’” Harms said. “So like at the end of the season, they had a talent show. So you could go and perform your talent, but you were up against Kevin Bacon and the Bacon Brothers.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Place In History"}]

Harms describes his Hollywood days as a mix of adrenaline and hyper-focus. 

Working with people like Washington or Bacon didn’t change the fundamentals of his job, but it still added something of an edge to everything, sharpening his focus.

As did the knowledge that he was working on a show like "Grey’s Anatomy," which is still a cultural touchstone in America.

“I think the nice part about it is, we knew it while we were in it,” Harms said. “And what was fun was we used to have a Thursday lunch screening every week and the crew, we’d cater lunch, and show the episode on a big screen. That way we could enjoy how it turned out with the team.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"It was a celebration each time. "}]

“From what you originally built and intended, it only gets enhanced at every level,” Harms said. “Like when the visual effects are applied, when you get all of these components coming together, it’s very rarely a disappointment. It’s like ‘Wow, that really came together.’ And you add the music, and it’s always that much more evocative.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Sometimes You Can Go Home"}]

Harms didn’t forget his roots in Hollywood, though. He came back home regularly, including every summer. 

It was while sitting with his dad on the back porch one summer night that he realized it was time for a change in his life.

Brian Harms 20260715 125938 7 26 26

<title>Wyoming Native, Now Small Business Owner, Spent 13 Years On TV’s ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Brian Harms is a Lander native who spent 13 years designing the look of TV's hugely popular "Grey's Anatomy." Harms, who recently bought the Lander Bake Shop, has dozens of other film and TV credits to his name in his 20-plus-year Hollywood career.

Wyoming Native, Now Small Business Owner, Spent 13 Years On TV’s ‘Grey’s Anatomy’

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

CASPER — By the time Rick Knigge died last September, he had spent decades turning 20 acres outside the city into a gearhead's paradise.

He had Camaros and Chevelles. Prewar Ford hot rods. Corvettes. A 426 Hemi-powered Plymouth GTX. Monster trucks. Speed boats. Race engines. Shipping containers packed with parts.

[{"type":"text","text":"If it was loud, fast or had the potential to be, Knigge wanted it."}]

The Casper-area oil field worker spent a lifetime hauling home muscle cars, hot rods, vintage trucks, race engines and enough performance parts to fill shelves, sea cans and storage units. 

Nearly every evening after work ended the same way: he'd settle into his chair and spend an hour combing through classifieds, searching for the next great find.

"He was obsessed with it," his wife, Stephanie Knigge, told Cowboy State Daily. "That was probably an hour process every night, just going through all the ads to see if there was anything he was missing out on." 

When Knigge died unexpectedly at 65 on Sept. 10, 2025, he left behind more than memories.

He left a sprawling automotive collection so large it drew bidders from across the country to a massive July 18 estate auction near Evansville for his "Go Fast" collection.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Born To Build"}]

Long before the rows of classic cars filled his property, Knigge was working.

He started driving trucks as a young teenager after his family launched an oilfield water service business. 

Eventually, he and his brother helped build Melco Inc., an oil tank cleaning company that took them across much of the United States. He later became vice president, a role his family said he took great pride in. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Those work trips often turned into treasure hunts."}]

"He got a lot of opportunity to drive around and see what was around and collect stuff," Stephanie said. "So that's how I think it all started." 

By the time she met him in 1989, the collecting bug had already taken hold.

"That's why he started working in the first place — because he wanted parts for cars" she said. 

As the years went on, the collection evolved with whatever captured his imagination.

Some years it was 1930s-era Ford hot rods. Other times it was vintage Jeeps, Broncos or speed boats. If it looked like a bargain, Knigge usually found room for it.

"He would kind of get on a kick every now and then," Stephanie said. "He was always looking." 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Twenty Acres "}]

Things really escalated after the family moved to 20 acres outside Casper.

"He really went crazy with it," Stephanie said with a laugh, "because he had the room to park all of it." 

[{"type":"text","text":"Before long, the collection had grown so large the county took notice."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Knigge's solution wasn't to stop buying cars."}]

It was to buy shipping containers, rent storage units and devise an organizational system only he truly understood.

"His brain was pretty intense," Stephanie said. "If I would have had all of that going on in my brain, my mind would explode." 

Eventually, the property held roughly 220 vehicles, along with countless engines, body panels, race parts and automotive memorabilia.

VanDerBrink Auctions dubbed it the "Go Fast" collection. The catalog ranged from 1932-1940 Ford, Dodge, Plymouth and Chevrolet hot rod bodies to Camaros, Chevelles, Corvettes, monster trucks, Humvees, speed boats, racing engines and shelves of vintage speed parts. 

By the time Rick Knigge died last September, he had spent decades turning 20 acres outside Casper into a gearhead's paradise. The oilfield worker spent a lifetime hauling home muscle cars, hot rods and vintage trucks. Now they are all finding new homes.

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