Daily Smile

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

<title>Daily Smile: Sunday, November 10, 2024 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

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Daily Smile: Sunday, November 10, 2024

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

Renée Jean

Business

The cornerstone of a western fashion empire rising in Saratoga wasn’t a bright idea. It was a problem — a whole series of them, in fact, starting with a beautiful belt that wouldn’t fit.

From a 150-square-foot spare bedroom to two warehouses and a patented D-ring system, Dixie and Kirby Berger have built their company, Pure Dixie, into an international western fashion brand and a favorite at some of the largest rodeos in the nation, from Cheyenne Frontier Days to the National Finals Rodeo.

They did it not by avoiding mistakes but by stubbornly working through them, one bad belt and one busted box of inventory at a time. 

The bad belt was a beaded strip that caught Dixie’s eye during Cheyenne Frontier Days a decade ago.

It took her hours and hours to make the belt once she got it home, sewing each little bead into place one by one.  

When she was finished, though, it was too long for a traditional belt buckle. It wasn’t going to fit.

“I gave it to my husband and I said, ‘I made this and I can’t take it apart. It’s all beaded,’” she told Cowboy State Daily. “You need to make this fit me because if I put a traditional buckle on, it just doesn’t fit.’”

Her husband, an expert leatherworker, had been helping his wife make embroidered leather belts they were selling in little totes at local rodeos. So he took her project back to his workshop to see what he could figure out. 

The system he came up with was to place a metal ring on one end of the belt that he could fit into slots along the other end. That made the belt not only shorter, but more adjustable. 

That was the birth of the couple’s patented D-ring system, which has made their business, Pure Dixie, an international best-seller, as well as frequent vendors at choosy venues like the National Finals Rodeo and Cheyenne Frontier Days.

“That system completely changed how we thought of our products,” Berger said. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"The problems didn’t end there, though. "}]

Berger’s mom was always losing her cell phone, so one day she asked Dixie if she could make a purse for her.

“That’s how the crossbody minis came to attach to the front of the bag,” Berger said. “And so, through like a process of things that have happened in our life, the ideas kind of came full circle, almost in a moment.” 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Belt Everyone Wanted"}]

Long before any of that, though, the whole operation fit inside a single 150-square-foot bedroom. That solved a different problem for Dixie.

“I was a stay-at-home mom with three kids,” she said. “And I was not willing to give that up. So I set up my spare bedroom with an embroidery business, and then my husband had leather stuff upstairs with all the sewing machines.”

By day, Dixie watched her children and squeezed in embroidery orders whenever time allowed while her husband worked saddles and tack and chaps on his family’s ranch. 

At night, after their kids went to bed, the two combined their skills to make pieces, first just for each other and then for a growing list of customers. One of those first pieces was an embroidered leather belt with Wyoming’s bucking horse logo on it — a Christmas present for Dixie. 

Dixie was proud of that belt, so it went with her to lots of places — including ranch rodeos where other girls wanted to know where she’d gotten such a cool belt. 

When they learned she and her husband made it, Dixie found herself taking orders for more belts. Lots of them.

That led to the couple bringing some of their belts to ranch rodeos in totes and selling them on the spot. 

“So it wasn’t really on purpose,” Berger said with a chuckle. “It was definitely something that just came to us, and definitely something we’ve enjoyed pursuing.”

One day not long after Kirby came up with the D-ring system, the couple was showing off their belts to someone named Diana.

As Diana picked up each belt to inspect, she would sling the one she’d just looked at over one shoulder to look at another. 

The belts looked so nice draped over her shoulder it gave Dixie instant inspiration. 

She realized the belts could double as purse straps, creating a more customizable purse using the D-ring system her husband designed.

She feels those moments — the too-long belt,  her mom’s missing phone, and even a customer casually slinging belts over her shoulder — all stacked together into the core of Pure Dixie’s patented mix-and-match system. 

“That belt has become a pretty iconic piece for the business,” Dixie said. 

Over time Berger has continued to add mix-and-match ideas, including patches that snap on and off. Cowboy hats, ball caps, and crossbody-minis all have a set of four snaps for patches. Feel like a bucking horse one day, and a bow the next? No problem, there’s a patch for every mood and every occasion.

“I love the aspect where every girl kind of gets to design her piece, and so girls aren’t walking out of our booth looking the same,” Berger said.  “We have so many options that everybody gets to pick their unique style.” 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Two Warehouses Later"}]

Today, the business no longer fits in a tiny bedroom. The couple has built two warehouses and hired four to five full-time employees to help them scale up the business.

“We have a custom tannery that tans all of our leather,” Dixie said. “And we do have manufacturing now in Mexico that helps us, and then we do all the finish work in Saratoga.”

Learning to navigate mass manufacturing with a company in Mexico, though, was its own steep learning curve.

“So my very first box ... I spent all of my money on this box of inventory from Mexico to have my designs produced by someone just to test it and see,” she said. “So I spent all my money and every single piece came back incorrect.”

This wasn’t just a bad order. It was literally every dollar she had, tied up in a box of unusable bags. 

“I was pretty sad about it and just frustrated and pretty deflated,” she said. “And my husband said to me, ‘This is the moment where someone else gave up.’ He’s like, ‘If you can figure it out and push through it, you just went past someone who would have given up.’”

Instead of sending back the box or walking away, they hauled out every bag and fixed them one by one, leaning on the leather-working skills they’d honed since the spare-bedroom days. 

“That was probably 2016, 2017 that that happened,” she said. “So we took every single bag out. We fixed them all, since we know how to do leather work and we can fix about whatever.”

That box has rewired how Dixie thinks about every problem in her business. If she can get through it, she’s always stepping past the point where someone else would have quit.

“It’s like, if I can get through this issue, through this tariff issue, through this leather-production issue, through this logistics issue, you know, that’s where someone else gave up,” she said. “And I just don’t want to, we’ve decided we don’t want to give up. We just want to do the very best we can and keep pursuing the dream.”

For this couple, that dream looks like a world where they are building an international business together and the children are part of that effort in a tiny Wyoming town where they can remain close to family.

“We failed a lot and we did some things right,” Dixie said. “And we just kept at it. It was a step-by-step process.”

Pure Dixie 20260724 161901 8 1 26

<title>How A Saratoga Woman Built An International Western Fashion Brand From Her Bedroom | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A Saratoga woman was determined to remain a stay-at-home mom, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t build an international Western fashion brand. Her business Pure Dixie started in a 150-square-foot bedroom, now takes up two warehouses and continues to grow.

How A Saratoga Woman Built An International Western Fashion Brand From Her Bedroom

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

Andrew Rossi

Wyoming Life

Business & Tourism

Anyone curious enough to explore the North Fork of the Shoshone River, leading to the East Entrance of Yellowstone National Park, might encounter a clearing in the woods with wooden benches and a simple stone altar.

Every Sunday during the summer, people from around the world find a spot on those benches to enjoy a simple moment of faith and contemplation in nature, while hoping a grizzly doesn’t join the congregation.

 of Christ Episcopal Church in Cody is a sacred spot of worship situated on the Shoshone National Forest. It’s also one of the only chapels where your Sunday Best should be supplemented with a bear spray holster.

“We had a grizzly bear stroll through during our Father’s Day service about 25 years ago,” said Reverend Douglas Sunderland, the priest in charge at Christ Episcopal Church. “He didn't pay any attention to us and walked on by. That was rather exciting.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Cody’s Chapel"}]

There are many wayfarer’s chapels in the world, including a handful in the mountains of Wyoming. They’re often situated on national forests or more secluded spots where the grandeur of stained glass, marble and incense is substituted for sunlight, warm breezes, and the smell of spruce.

“They're outdoor spaces for worship,” Sunderland said. “Christ Church has a lease on the land. We own the benches and the altar, but there’s pretty much nothing else there.”

The chapel is surrounded by pine trees. One, growing behind the altar, is called “The Trinity” because it has three separate shoots.

The Cody Wayfarer’s Chapel has been a fixture along the North Fork since 1964. Christ Episcopal Church has been holding 10 a.m. Sunday services there every summer since then.

They are non-denominational services,” Sunderland said. “They follow an Episcopal liturgy, but anyone is welcome.”

People of all faiths and creeds can stop by, and many do. Many who attend the Sunday services are Yellowstone visitors intrigued enough to stop and see why people are sitting in the middle of the forest.

Regular attendees tend to be those who live along the North Fork, permanently or temporarily, who find the chapel more accessible than an hour’s drive into Cody.

“We get a lot of people who are staying or working at the lodges up there,” Sunderland said. “Some people stop when they see the sign or come back later after seeing the sign earlier.”

Considering how much it costs to maintain a large church, keeping up the Cody Wayfarer’s Chapel is extremely economical.

“We have somebody who goes up in early June to cut the grass that's grown up under the benches and moves any debris that's fallen on the path,” Sunderland said. “We sand the benches every few years, but that’s really about it.”

The downside is the Wayfarer’s Chapel is only open for as long as the weather’s warm. That means strictly summer services.

[{"type":"text","text":"Unless you want a particularly rustic wedding ..."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"In Good Times And In Bad"}]

Christ Episcopal Church only holds Sunday services at the chapel during the summer, but it’s open to weddings any day of the week, whenever the blushing bride and groom would like.

“Anyone can be married there,” Sunderland said. “They just need to register the date and time that they would like to use the space. We don't charge anything, but they need to let us know that they'll be there.”

Cody resident Anne Young is one of many people who’ve tied the knot at the Wayfarer’s Chapel. She married her late husband, Jim, there in 1994.

“Jim was a very outdoorsy person, and so was I,” Young told Cowboy State Daily. “We used to take pack trips into the mountains just by ourselves for a week with our horses. We wanted an informal wedding in a natural environment because that’s where we had our best times.”

Young described her wedding as “a lovely wedding in the woods,” free of any pomp or circumstance. That’s the allure of the chapel as a wedding venue and a place of worship, she said.

“It’s a simple service with a short sermon and no music,” she said. “In my opinion, the Episcopal Church often has a way of winging it, even though it's very traditional. Every service is different, but it doesn't go on and on. There are no long announcements or golden crosses. Donald Trump would hate it." 

Weddings have been booked throughout the year, even when there’s snow covering the ground. The couples who are married there see that as a plus rather than a minus.

“Our wedding was on October 22,” Young said. “The night before, it snowed, but we were so determined to have it at the chapel that we scurried up there to get the snow off all the benches. We prevailed, and it was a lovely service.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Heyday And Mayday"}]

The current Wayfarer’s Chapel isn’t the original Wayfarer’s Chapel. There was a moment when it disappeared, and almost didn’t reappear.

When the original chapel opened in 1964, it quickly became a destination vacation for leaders in the Episcopal Church.

“When clergy from other churches had a month’s vacation in the summer, they’d come out west,” Sunderland said. “They'd stay at one of the lodges on the North Fork and serve on Sundays at the chapel. All they had to do during their vacation was one Sunday service.”

That practice has since fallen off for reasons Sunderland didn’t know. Today’s services are led by local clergy and faith leaders.

Then, in the 1990s, the Wyoming Department of Transportation wanted to widen U.S. Highway 14-16-20 to accommodate more traffic to Yellowstone. The original chapel was situated in a spot that would be leveled for the project.

[{"type":"text","text":"That raised questions about its future."}]

“The U.S. Forest Service didn’t want to give us a new permit,” Young said. “They told us that they only allow recreational sites, like zip lines or lodges, so being stubborn Episcopalians, he said, ‘Oh no, you're not going to take that away from us.’”

The Forest Service was concerned about disruptions to the landscape and wildlife habitat. Christ Episcopal Church argued that a non-denominational place of worship qualified as recreational.

Young joined the effort to get a recreational permit for a new chapel. It was led by Brad Smith, a member of the Cody congregation and a lawyer for the Environmental Protection Agency, who drafted all the legal arguments.

“I can't remember all the legal arguments that Brad had, but we were finally granted permission to pick out a new site,” Young said. “A group of us went up into the woods and finally found a terrific new site. That was the fun part after all the arguing.”

That site is where the Wayfarer’s Chapel remains today. Young and Sunderland hope that’s where it will always be found.

“I haven’t heard anything to suggest it’s going anywhere,” Sunderland said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Quiet Moments"}]

As long as there’s a Wayfarer’s Chapel between Cody and Yellowstone, there will be rustic weddings and summer Sunday services.

The chapel isn’t as accessible as many would like. The pathway from the gravel parking lot is steep and rugged and often gets the worst of any wet weather.

“It's a little hard for older people to get up the hill,” Sunderland said. “It’s uphill and a little rocky.”

As for weddings, Sunderland recommended that interested couples book two venues. Just in case.

“In case the weather is inclement and they can't be up there, they should book a reservation at the Poker Chapel on our property in Cody,” she said. “We do charge for that, but it gives you a place for their wedding.”

Cody’s Wayfarer’s Chapel is remote, rugged, and usually not in any shade. That’s what makes it so special to the thousands of people who have been there, whether for a simple Sunday sermon or one of the most poignant moments of their lives.

“The best aspect of the chapel is a worship service out in the wilderness, in the forest, in nature, and experiencing the beauty of creation and God's creation,” Sunderland said.

Young agreed. She attends the summer services whenever she can because it’s a sacred spot in a natural setting where one can find peace and calm in one of the most beautifully situated spots in Wyoming.

“Even when there’s not a service, a lot of people just like stopping there, taking a minute to appreciate the outstanding and unique beauty of our whole Yellowstone ecosystem,” she said. “Most tourists go roaring through. They don't spend enough time just sitting and enjoying it all. It restores the heart and the soul.”

Wayfarers Chapel Facebook 8 1 26

<title>Cody's Wayfarer's Chapel: A Peaceful Place To Worship, But Bring Your Bear Spray | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The Wayfarer’s Chapel is a sacred spot to worship on the Shoshone National Forest between Cody and Yellowstone. It’s also one of the only chapels where you should bring bear spray. “We had a grizzly stroll through a Father’s Day service," the reverend said.

Cody's Wayfarer's Chapel: A Peaceful Place To Worship, But Bring Your Bear Spray

Another of Wyoming’s legacy ranches is hitting the market after nearly a century of stewardship. The T Diamond Ranch comes with a front-row seat to the Black Hills, as well as history to match.

It’s tucked into Crook County just a few miles from the South Dakota border on a 433-acre spread where trout streams, 

red bluffs and Wyoming tax laws all come together for a $5 million asking price.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Deep Historic Roots"}]

Aerial photos of the property show Lower Redwater Creek meandering through, with pine-studded hills and red-rock cliffs in the background. The ranch is part of an operation that was founded by the Matthews family, who trailed into Wyoming from Texas, first settling near Gillette in 1888 then expanding outward to Sundance and Spearfish. 

In Spearfish, the family is known for the Matthews Block, which includes the Matthews Opera House, a vibrant community arts center.

T Diamond Ranch is one-fourth of a larger ranch the Matthews family owned. It includes the 1930s farmstead and dairy, along with other working ranch structures. These are not relics. They are part of what is already a working cattle ranch rated for about 50 head. 

With an existing lease in place, there’s an immediate income stream.

But it’s not just the original farmhouse and ranch structures that come with this property. There’s a 7,500-square-foot mansion as well, built In 2001.

“They spared no expense when they built it,” Hayden Outdoors listing agent Kerry Englemann told Cowboy State Daily. “It’s just a beautiful, beautiful place.” 

The home was built with entertaining in mind, so has expansive gathering spaces in addition to three bedrooms and seven full bathrooms. Large windows frame a sweeping view of the scenery, including creek bottoms below. 

The interior is finished with warm wood, high-quality appliances, and multiple fireplaces. The price competitive compared to other areas with the kind of outdoor recreation the Black Hills offer.

“This would probably be $20 million in Jackson Hole,” Englemann said. “We sold a ranch down the road there last year for $2.5 million, and it had no improvements to the property, so no residence and no working ranch headquarters.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Where The Trout Live"}]

With few neighbors nearby, and easements that protect the character of all four of the original ranches that were part of this cluster, the new owner will feel as though they’ve found a private sanctuary, he said. 

“It’s rough country, it’s Wyoming country,” Englemann said. “But when you get down to the running water, it’s just beautiful. You have those rugged red bluffs and the contrast with the green riparian area, with all the things you want to see as a country boy.”

Water is a highlight on this turnkey ranch, with substantial, long-standing water rights that support about 125 acres of riparian and irrigated hay bottom along Lower Redwater Creek. That supports one to two cuttings of grass and grass legume hay every season, he said. 

Two registered wells serve the headquarters, providing water to both residences, as well as for domestic stock use. There’s a permanent stock water pipeline easement delivering year-round stock water to the southern grazing units. 

“The highlight is the running water,” Englemann said. “The Redwater Creek — in South Dakota they call it Redwater River — is just beautiful. Those riparian areas are just lush, and there’s trout swimming.”

It’s the kind of fishing many people travel hundreds of miles to find, Englemann said. Lower Redwater Creek runs the length of the property, offering cold, clear trout water starting about 100 yards from the mansion’s backdoor. 

Hay bottoms and timbered draws create wildlife habitat too, attracting whitetail deer, mule deer, turkeys, and elk, who roam freely from the nearby Black Hills National Forest and creek corridor, as well as plenty of upland birds that work the field edges and frequent the creek, Englemann said.

The ranch is also situated to access the Black Hills in both Wyoming and South Dakota, but it comes with a much lower tax bill than its neighboring state. 

“I don’t know what the exact percentages are, but when I look at properties that are similar to my property in South Dakota, my tax bill for that property is somewhere around $7,000 to $8,000 a year,” he said. “And if you go across the border to Wyoming those taxes might be around $1,200 a year. So it’s a huge discrepancy in terms of property taxes.”

The range of outdoor recreation opportunities includes horseback riding, hiking, mountain biking and backcountry skiing. The historic mining town of Deadwood, Devils Tower, Spearfish Canyon, Black Hills National Forest — all are within a half-hour or so drive. 

Rapid City, a regional hub with medical specialists, an airport with flights to Denver and Dallas as well as seasonal routes to Chicago, Las Vegas and Orlando, is 63 miles away. 

Noncommercial recreation on the ranch is protected in perpetuity by a conservation partnership, ensuring the property’s open-space character and ranching heritage remain intact.

T Diamond Ranch 35 Aerial primary residence and grounds from above adjusted 1784821086 scaled 8 1 26

<title>T Diamond Ranch, Legacy Black Hills Spread, Hits Wyoming Market For $5 Million | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Another of Wyoming’s legacy ranches is hitting the market after nearly a century of stewardship. The T Diamond Ranch in Crook County comes with a 7,500-square-foot mansion, trout streams, scenic red bluffs, and a front-row seat to the Black Hills.

T Diamond Ranch, Legacy Black Hills Spread, Hits Wyoming Market For $5 Million

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Around Wyoming

For nearly 60 years, Vern Palmer has been obsessed with Wyoming license plates.

The 90-year-old Big Piney man has spent decades roaming old ranches, forgotten dumping grounds and dusty corners of Sublette County looking for pieces of Wyoming history most people would walk right past.

[{"type":"text","text":"It all started with his oldest son, Jim."}]

Together, the two spent weekends crisscrossing ranches, hunting for rusted treasures hidden beneath the sagebrush. Along the way they uncovered old bottles, antique tools, barbed wire, weathered signs and hundreds of Wyoming license plates.

Today, Palmer's collection includes every Wyoming license plate from 1914 to the present, along with every Sublette County plate issued since county numbers were added in the early 1930s. He's also just four states shy of collecting one plate from all 50.

[{"type":"text","text":"But after six decades of searching, there's one he hasn't yet found."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"The elusive 1913 Wyoming license plate."}]

"I do think that it's around Big Piney somewhere," Palmer said. "I found the 1914 plate pretty close to my home, but I have not found the 1913."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Family Tradition"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Jim likes to remind people that, technically, he started the collection."}]

As a boy in the late ‘60s, he began picking up old license plates in remote places of the Upper Green River Valley. Before long, his dad was just as hooked.

Summer weekends often meant disappearing into the middle of nowhere with no guarantee they'd find a thing. Palmer rarely bought license plates. Nearly every one in his collection came off the ground.

"He just liked going through old dump grounds looking for old treasures," Jim said. "Old glass ... old artifacts ... tools that you wouldn't find anymore. He just had a passion to find those things."

[{"type":"text","text":"That passion eventually spread to a third generation."}]

His grandson, Joel Florquist, remembers countless summer days wandering through the country with his grandfather.

"A lot of times we didn't find any," Florquist said. "But a lot of times we did."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Before Modern Conveniences"}]

Long before he became Wyoming's unofficial license plate historian, Palmer grew up on a Colorado farm where life looked different.

The family raised cattle, horses, hogs and chickens. They grew vegetables and fruit. His father worked as a carpenter.

[{"type":"text","text":"There was no television, no refrigerator and no indoor plumbing."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"His mother washed clothes in an irrigation ditch using a washboard."}]

When electricity finally reached the farm, the power company installed a single light bulb in the middle of the house and one electrical outlet.

"We didn't have anything to plug into it," Palmer recalled with a laugh. "But it was kind of nice to sit under the globe and do our schoolwork because it was a lot better than the lamp we'd been using."

Florquist said he believes those early years explain why his grandfather never looked at the world quite like everyone else.

"He grew up with not having a lot," Florquist said. "So you took care of what you had so it lasted longer."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"He Valued People"}]

Neighbors knew who to call when a pickup wouldn't start or a car broke down.

After serving in the military and transferring to Big Piney with El Paso Natural Gas in 1960, Palmer built a career as a mechanic before supervising the company's garage.

[{"type":"text","text":"Then he'd go home and fix somebody else's vehicle."}]

"He went out of his way to help people," Jim Palmer said. "He never wanted to do it for credit or recognition. He loved people, and he wanted to make sure they were taken care of."

[{"type":"text","text":"Palmer didn't just see value in old things."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"He saw value in people, too."}]

To him, almost everything deserved another chance — an old license plate, a broken-down car or a neighbor who needed a hand.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"He got joy out of life by being able to help others,\" Jim said."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Every Plate Has A Story"}]

Ask Palmer about license plates and you'll quickly discover they're much more than stamped pieces of metal.

[{"type":"text","text":"They're tiny time capsules."}]

He can explain why Wyoming's 1944 plate was made from fiber instead of steel because of wartime shortages, why early Wyoming plates stretched nearly 16 inches long before they were standardized in 1958, and why every county still carries the same number it was assigned nearly a century ago.

[{"type":"text","text":"He'll also tell you why Sublette County wears the number 23."}]

When Wyoming assigned county numbers in the early 1930s, they weren't random. Counties were ranked by their assessed property valuation at the time, and Sublette landed at No. 23. The rankings stuck, and so did the numbers on the license plates.

[{"type":"text","text":"His collection includes roughly 650 license plates."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"When I hold one,\" Palmer said, \"I see the history.\""}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Curious About Everything"}]

Long before Neil Armstrong ever stepped onto the moon, a young Vern Palmer told his teacher that one day people would walk there.

[{"type":"text","text":"In 1969, Armstrong did just that."}]

"He always thought God's creation was amazing," Florquist said. "He wanted to know more."

[{"type":"text","text":"That curiosity never faded."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Jim said his father didn't become an avid reader until he was about 65."}]

Now he reads two or three nonfiction books a week simply because he still wants to learn something new.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'Throw That Telephone Away'"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"Dad hates the dot-com era,\" his daughter, Tammy, said with a laugh."}]

For Palmer, that means more than smartphones or computers. It's the gradual disappearance of face-to-face conversations, handwritten letters and the chance to simply talk to another person.

For nearly 60 years, Vern Palmer has searched Wyoming ranches and forgotten dumps for old Wyoming license plates. At 90, the Big Piney mechanic has a Wyoming license plate from every year, except one. Palmer says he's not giving up his search.

Daily Smile: Sunday, November 10, 2024

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