There is an old joke about small towns. It refers to the service clubs. It claims the Rotary Club thinks it owns the town, the Kiwanis thinks it runs the town, and the Lions Club KNOWS that it enjoys the town.
Another old saw is that each small town is run by 9 old men.
I have spent a career in small towns and cities. You gotta love small cities and towns like Lander, Riverton, Thermopolis, Wheatland, Newcastle, Rawlins, Evanston, Kemmerer, Douglas, Buffalo, Cody, Powell, Lovell, Afton, and lots of others.
As a small-town newspaper owner and publisher, it was my good fortune to wander around these towns and locate the local coffee klatches. This is where all the good news stories bubble up from.
I was taught at an early age that if what was being discussed by the boys down at the coffee shop or the gals at the beauty shops, was not in your newspaper pages, you were not doing your job.
Coffee Groups Across Wyoming
Years ago, in Casper, Dallas Laird told me you go to the Cheese Barrel and you can find out what is going on. I have eavesdropped on some informative discussions at the Wind City Books, where former Gov. Mike Sullivan holds court occasionally.
Former Legislator Roy Cohee talks about his group which meets in Casper. “Our group typically meets at 8 a.m. each Tuesday at Blue Ridge Coffee, 4601 Wyoming Blvd SW. Attendance varies, but usual suspects include: Bob Tarantola, Bruce Hinchey, Rick Tempest, Jim Anderson, Pat Thomas, Bill Hawks, Tim Stubson, and Johnnie Burton”
In Saratoga, Joe Glode says they meet every day at the Hugus Restaurant He says: “We are the smartest people in town.”
In Cheyenne for years, you could find out what was happening during a cigar smoking session at the old Airport Cafe led by Steve Freudenthal.
The long-time president of Wyoming’s unique “One and Done Club,” the late Gus Fleischli, used to hold forth at a coffee group at a downtown Mexican Restaurant in Cheyenne, I have been told.
The One and Done Club, by the way, is full of people who have run for statewide office just once and then never again. Gus was president and now I have ascended to that lofty position. We do not meet often enough to qualify as a coffee klatch, though.
In Rock Springs, former County Commissioner Wally Johnson was always the ringleader of one of the longest-serving coffee groups of 9 Old Men, according to former Wyoming House Speaker the late Fred Parady.
In Wheatland, their 9 Old Men used to meet at a place called the Tasty Treats Donut Shop. I personally love that town of Wheatland. Whatever they are doing, they are doing it right.
In Douglas, the Whistle Stop Book Store had an interesting group meeting there.
In my travels, I am always looking for these coffee groups. They can be a true fountain of information and misinformation. They provide better news leads than the local beauty shops
Pat Schmidt says in Thermopolis from the end of World War II well into the 1990s it was the South Side Coffee Club meeting at the Sideboard including contractor/legislator Lefty Graham, publisher Bill Black, irrigation project wizard and implement dealer Alden Ingraham, oilfield pump expert Bill Flinn, Lorne Fogelsonger, business developer Guy Bjorklund, and several others he regrettably can’t recall right off.
They often proudly pointed out they had outlasted the North Side businessmen who had coffee at the Manhattan Cafe on the north side of the Broadway, Thermop’s Main Street.
In Buffalo, Jim Hicks always talks about the Benchsitters in his column Sagebrush Sven, which has been running for about 60 years.
Our 9 Old Men
Back in the 1930s and 1940s, our little town of Lander had a group of crusty old fellows known as “the 9 old men” who pretty much ran things.
Now keep in mind, in those days Lander was a big town in Wyoming. It was bigger than Gillette, Douglas, Cody, Riverton, Green River, Evanston, Rawlins, Worland, Jackson, Powell, and Buffalo. Today, most of those towns are bigger than Lander or about the same size.
Our nine old men included Pharmacist George Case, Hotelier Harold Del Monte, Banker Harold Parks, Publisher Ernest Newton. Dentist (and future governor) Lester Hunt and four others.
This morning and just about every day for the last 54 years, I have been part of a Lander coffee group that meets six days a week. These days, it is affectionately known as “the Fox News All-Stars,” which tells you a little bit about their political persuasion.
We were reflecting on what those “9 old men” meant to our town recently and we cheerfully (and with our tongues in our cheeks) decided we were the heirs of that old-time august group of city leaders.
In our dreams.
Like most Wyoming cities and towns, modern day Lander is such a mish-mash of different personalities and civic directions, it would be impossible to put the town’s destiny in the hands of any one group.
Today, our group consists of a retired pharmacist Tony McRae, a retired rocket scientist Tom Cox, a retired insurance guy Ben Freedman, a drop-in from Cheyenne attorney Scott Meier, attorney Stan Cannon, former mayor and legislator Del McOmie, Legislators Cale Case and Lloyd Larsen, retired bankers Charlie Krebs and Bryan Neely, retired accountant Dean McKee, County Commissioner Mike Jones, retired hospital boss Andy Gramlich, retired radio czar Joe Kenney, IT expert John Brown, our resident Texan Alan Lockyer, and other drop-in’s.
Because the Lander One Shot Antelope Hunt used to attract famous people, we also had drop-ins like cowboy actor Roy Rogers, most of Wyoming’s governors and senators, former Vice-President, Dick Cheney, Gen. Norman Schwarzkoph, pilot Gen. Chuck Yeager, race car drivers Parnelli Jones and Johnny Rutherford plus singer Roy Clark, actors Robert Stack and Wilfred Brimley, plus many astronauts including Jim Lovell and Jack Swigert.
Do Women Run Things?
Today, you are just as likely to see four or five powerful women, many of whom run non-profits, who are setting the tone for their towns.
I owned and ran the newspaper in Lander for 30 years and always thought it was the most fun media job in the state because of the town’s diversity. We had tree huggers and tree cutters and everything in-between.
For years, Fremont County was home to the biggest mining companies in the state like U. S. Steel, U. S. Energy and Western Nuclear, and also was home to a large union local for the United Mine Workers of America. Try getting yourself between those two groups if you want to hear differing opinions between the operators and the workers.
We always had our share of unique individuals with vivid imaginations about what was secretly happening in our mountains and canyons and remote desert locations.
When former U. S. Sen. Al Simpson would visit Lander he would always leave scratching his head. “Where do all these crazies come from?” One of the most persistent questions he would get was people’s concern about black helicopters buzzing the mountain valleys.
Maybe it was in the water.
