Dear editor,
There’s something beautifully stubborn about Wyoming. You can throw anything at it — economic downturns, weather that changes by the hour, or an unexpected elk wandering into the post office — and it keeps showing up.
Resilient. Unbothered. Ready to fix a problem with duct tape and a story.
I’ve worked with many of Lander’s long-standing local businesses, helped build projects from the ground up, and served in community economic development efforts.
Over the years, I’ve learned this: Wyoming is a place of contradictions that work. We’re conservative, but we were also the first state to give women the right to vote — in 1869.
We elected the country’s first female governor, Nellie Tayloe Ross, in 1924. That’s not just history — that’s grit.
We’ve always been a little ahead and behind at the same time.
But progress isn’t about fast fixes. It’s about doing the unglamorous things: streets, sewers, and water systems.
Things that no one wants to talk about at dinner but are critical for bringing in families, entrepreneurs, and long-term sustainability.
We don’t have a big-city budget here in Lander — but we’ve got a big-hearted community. So we tackle what we can, one manageable bite at a time.
Right now, our biggest bear is housing. COVID sent our market into the stratosphere, and folks can sell for a good price — but only if they’re willing to move away.
That’s not the dream. The dream is staying, investing, building the next generation of community here.
And that’s where my favorite saying comes in:
“Old men plant trees of which the shade they will never lay in.” 🌳
That’s our charge in Lander.
We need to plant the ideas, projects, and infrastructure that may not pay off tomorrow — but will make life better in ten, twenty, or fifty years.
We need to think about housing that young families can afford. Streets that don’t need constant patchwork. Water lines that won’t fail during a cold snap.
We’re not flashy, and that’s fine. Our brand of progress wears Carhartt, drives a Subaru caked in trail dust, and drinks coffee that’s been on the burner since dawn. But it’s real. It’s steady. And it matters.
As Wallace Stegner said:
“The West is a last chance. A last hope. A last hurrah.”
Lander still has a chance. And it’s worth every ounce of imagination and elbow grease we’ve got.
So here’s to the planters, the patchers, and the visionaries — the ones thinking not just about this season, but the next hundred rings of the tree.
Sincerely,
John Applegate
