CASPER — Two high school senior hockey players who were members of a traveling Team Wyoming national championship squad have stepped up their game off the ice to help classmates in Natrona County kick hopelessness and despair Wyoming style.
Brothers Braxton and Daxton Thomas are championing an initiative that involves cowboy boots, three foundations and the legacy of a Pinedale, Wyoming, man who killed himself.
“We are really just trying to be ambassadors and try and help out anyway we can so the Jae Foundation message gets to the community and through the community,” Braxton Thomas said.
The Natrona County effort will gift cowboy boots to 500 school staff and 1,100 seniors at four high schools in coming weeks. The boot project follows Jae Foundation efforts for seniors at Burns High School in Cheyenne earlier this week, as well as seniors from Pine Bluffs High School.
Seniors at schools in Idaho have also received the boots, and the program is set for Sublette County schools later this year.
Senior students are chosen because of their transition to adulthood, and it is “one of the most crucial times in our youths’ lives to know how much they are loved and valued,” the Jae Foundation website states.
Jae Foundation Wyoming Coordinator Julie Mackey visited Casper’s Boot Barn store Wednesday to do a presentation on the Jae Boot program for about a dozen Natrona County school officials and community members, as well as to gift them with Jae Boots of their own.
Who Was Jae?
The foundation based in Twin Falls, Idaho, honors the legacy of Jae Bob Bing, an adopted Korean boy who grew up in Pinedale
He loved to fish, dance to country swing music and wear cowboy boots. His parents Bob and Carolyn Bing own the Cowboy Shop in Pinedale.
“If you saw Jae, he was always in his cowboy boots,” Mackey said.
She grew up in Pinedale knowing Jae Bing and Jae’s best friend Jason Vickrey, who started the Jae Foundation.
She remembers Jae Bing as someone who was an extrovert. He graduated from the University of Wyoming and started his career in Vancouver, Washington.
Meanwhile, Vickrey attended the College of Southern Idaho in Twin Falls, where he is now the president of a title and escrow company.
Jae Bing was in Vickrey’s wedding, who spoke with Jae Bing a couple of times the week before he died with no idea about Bing’s state of mind.
When Jae Bing took his life at age 27 in March 2016, Vickrey after the funeral went to the gravesite, sat there and prayed, then started talking to his friend.
“Jason made a commitment to Jae that something good would come from this tragedy, he just didn’t know what it would be,” she said.
Jae Foundation Wyoming Coordinator Julie Mackey, right, shares the story about Jae Bing and how the Jae Foundation started at the Boot Barn in Casper. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
Natrona County Board of Education Trustee Thomas Myler looks for the right pair of “Jae Boots.” He said he was hesitant to get a pair, not wanting to take then until the message hit home that they are meant to promote conversations and “boot checks” with others about their mental health. He plans to use them as a reminder for conversations. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
Natrona County Schools Director of Student Support Christopher Dresang believes the Jae Foundation program will make a difference in the schools and county in terms of suicide awareness and having open conversations about it. “I think the Jae Foundation helps us realize that the more you talk about it the more you can get in front of it and prevent it,” he said. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
School officials and community members put their recently gifted “Jae Boots” in a circle at the Casper Boot Barn. Those gifted with the boots committed to doing regular mental health “boot checks” on themselves and others. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily)
‘Boot Check’
After forming a foundation, Mackey said it took of series of events for Vickrey to understand the foundation’s theme around the cowboy boots Jae Bing loved wearing.
Vickrey had led a retreat with business leaders and stopped at the Cowboy Shop in Pinedale. Guys on the retreat were introduced to the Bings. Stories were shared about his love for boots and the family’s loss.
Some of the men opened up about their own lives. Before they left the store, cowboy boots were bought for horseback riding.
One night during the retreat, Vickrey kept sensing the words in his mind around “boot check.”
“The next day when they were in a work session, Jason said, ‘Guys, when I call out a boot check, what I want you to do is, I want you to check in with someone on your heart,’” Mackey said.
The men came back 45 minutes later, some of them visibly moved.
The Revelation
More than a month after that, one of the leaders on the retreat called Vickrey and told him he had put the cowboy boots on for a father-daughter dance, Mackey said.
He had not worn them since the retreat.
His daughter challenged him about the boots, and the dad told her about Jae Bing, the boots and his loss.
The daughter started crying and confessed to her father she had written two suicide notes and was contemplating killing herself.
“So, for this dad, he told Jason, ‘You may have well helped saved my daughter’s life,’” Mackey said. “I don’t know if she would have opened up if we had not had this conversation. So right then and there, Jason knew what the foundation was going to be around.”
Mackey said the boots are a physical reminder of how much “we’re loved, we’re valued, we’re meant to be here, and we have people that love us and absolutely care about us.”
They also are meant to be a platform for conversation and a reminder to check on others “who are on your heart,” Mackey said.
Mackey challenges those with their new Jae Boots to use them to trigger at least weekly conversations with people that are put on their heart as a means to prevent suicide.
Foundations Buy In
McMurry Foundation spokeswoman Glenda Thomas said the organization initially approached Natrona County Schools with the idea of giving boots.
She is helping coordinate boot purchases for the gifting as well as training events with students and staff.
With help from $100,000 gifts each from the McMurry Foundation and Natrona Collective Health Trust, the Jae Foundation will provide Jae Boots to every senior student and staff who teach seniors at Kelly Walsh High School, Midwest High School, Natrona County High School and Roosevelt High School.
Among those at Mackey’s Boot Barn presentation was Natrona County Schools Director of Student Support Christopher Dresang. He and others were charged by Mackey with picking out their Jae Boots at the store.
He believes the Jae Foundation’s concept will help the schools and county turn the corner and mitigate the suicide statistics plaguing the county and state.
“I think that Natrona County is poised to really shift how we look at, how we talk about suicide, and how we intervene in kids’ lives to prevent these kind of things from happening,” he said. “I think the Jae Foundation helps us realize that the more you talk about it the more you can get in front of it and prevent it.”
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Wyoming also has made a $100,000 grant for the statewide launch of Jae Boots for high school Seniors.
The boot-check moments they represent and inspire “are particularly important for high school seniors during a transitional time in life,” Blue Cross Blue Shield says in a press release.
“Our long-term goal is to get Jae Boots on every senior, every year, in every county in Wyoming,” said Vickrey during an event at the University of Wyoming.
“It’s an incredible start to the school year and highlights literal boots on the ground efforts to support suicide prevention,” added Diane Gore, president and CEO of BCBSWY, in the press release. “In Wyoming, we pride ourselves on finding unique solutions and we’re proud to support Jae Boots for high school seniors.”
Daxton Thomas, a senior at Kelly Walsh High School in Casper, addressed the Natrona County Board of Education about the Jae Foundation. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
A poster from the Jae Foundation depicts photos from the life Jae Bob Bing and offers a glimpse into his love for Wyoming and cowboy boots. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
Daxton Thomas, a senior at Kelly Walsh High School in Casper, addressed the Natrona County Board of Education about the Jae Foundation. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily)
Young Ambassadors
Both Thomas brothers were at the store to help people choose their boots. They attended a three-day Jae Foundation camp in Pinedale in July. They’re serious about their mission and believers in its cause.
“My mom and some members of the McMurry Foundation approached me and said, ‘Hey, we would like you to go to Pinedale for a retreat,’” Daxton Thomas said. “At first I was a little nervous and I wasn’t thrilled to be going to Pinedale.”
Once there, when he heard stories about Jae Bing and those whose lives have been changed by the boot-check concept, he was sold.
“Those stories are very interesting,” he said. “I’ve gotten a lot of suicide talks in my life going through high school, but nothing has stuck like this has. It was truly a great experience.”
Braxton Thomas said during the camp training he learned to do his self-boot check, which focuses on areas such as sleep, nutrition, relationships and social media usage.
“You’ll learn a lot about those things and how you need to balance your life and make all of those work and then you’ll also learn how to do boot checks on other people which is the main source of why the boots are important,” he said. “And you’ll learn how to talk and maybe save other people.”
Braxton Thomas said Natrona County has a lot of Wyoming’s “cowboy up” mentality where people do not talk about their feelings and “may not want to have tough talks about mental health in Natrona County, especially seniors.”
Natrona County Board of Education Trustee Thomas Myler was also at the Boot Barn picking out his boots and thinking the whole concept is a “great idea.”
“It’s a simple solution to bring about great change,” he said. “It’s so simple, so easy, everyone can do it. I think it’s time we all do it.”
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
