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

<title>Today In Politics: Tuesday, June 24, 2025 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Today In Politics: Tuesday, June 24, 2025

 And to think Gary Busey had the answer to the Middle East figured out 20+ years ago.....

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

Andrew Rossi

Wyoming Life

Around Wyoming

[{"type":"text","text":"American artist Edward T. Grigware is renowned for his murals. "}]

By the time he died in Cody in 1960, his work was featured in banks, hospitals, and Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) chapels from Chicago to Los Angeles and as far as Hawaii.

Grigware’s most celebrated Wyoming mural depicting the history of the LDS church is on display in the Historic Cody Mural and Museum. 

It’s an excellent example of the painter’s commitment to realism in an age when the trendiest art was increasingly abstract.

However, there’s one painting in Grigware’s portfolio that’s full of realism — but a lot cheekier than anything else he ever did.

“Bottoms Up,” his 1940s painting of four curvaceous cowgirls wearing nothing by chaps from the waist down showing their bare bottoms, is Grigware’s only nude.

“It certainly made going into the lounge at the Holiday Inn worthwhile,” said Mack Frost, digital technician at the McCracken Research Library at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West. “It was quite the topic of conversation.”

The painting is no longer hanging in the Holiday Inn and hasn’t been seen in years, which now has turned the conversation to whatever happened to “Bottoms Up?"

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Accomplished Artist"}]

Grigware was already an accomplished artist when he moved to Cody in 1936. 

He got his education at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, and his work had been exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago when he was wooed out to Wyoming by Mary Allen Jester, one of the founders of the Buffalo Bill Museum, now the Buffalo Bill Center of the West.

Initially skeptical of living in Wyoming, Grigware quickly came to love the state's landscapes and lived the rest of his life in Cody. 

During that time, he was commissioned to do several murals in Cody and elsewhere.

“He did murals at the Cody Masonic Temple, the old Cody hospital, and the Cody Mural Chapel,” Frost said. “He wasn't a combat artist, but he replicated many of the naval battles that occurred during World War II.”

Grigware spent most of the 1940s working on commissions from the U.S. Navy, which were used for posters and other promotional material. 

In the late 1940s, the LDS Church commissioned him to paint a 360-degree mural depicting the church’s history in the 36-foot-wide, 18-foot-tall rotunda of its then-new Cody chapel. The finished mural was unveiled in 1951. 

, Grigware spent a year researching the church’s history, as he was not a member, and painted the mural on pure Irish linen, “the choicest of artists’ canvas,” which was hard to come by at the time.

[{"type":"text","text":"“It's pretty fantastic,” Frost said."}]

It was around this time as well in the mid-to-late 1940s that Grigware finished an entirely different kind of commission.

[{"type":"text","text":"His work went from sacred to what some would consider sacrilegious."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Getting To The Bottom Of It"}]

The story of how “Bottoms Up” came to be is tricky to piece together. There are several accounts of dubious origin sharing those details.

, “Bottoms Up” was commissioned by “a wealthy Denver-area oilman.” He wanted Grigware to create an alluring painting of a Cody woman who was allegedly his mistress.

Cody historian Bob Richard could verify some of that information, while acknowledging there’s more fiction than fact in most accounts.

[{"type":"text","text":"“Several stories about that painting abound,” he said."}]

One thing he could confirm was that the model for “Bottoms Up” was, indeed, a Cody woman.

Dorothy “Dot” Morris managed the Lazy Bar H Ranch, now the Bill Cody Ranch, between Cody and Yellowstone National Park with her husband, Leonard.

“She was very beautiful and partied a lot with Leonard and other Cody families,” Richard said. “When Leonard took guests to fish for mackinaw, Dot was always there.”

Richard said Morris probably connected with Grigware through the Frontier School of Western Art, a short-lived complex of log cabin studios that drew Grigware and other artists to Cody between 1936 and 1941.

Technically, there’s only one cowgirl in “Bottoms Up.” All four women were modeled by Morris, posed and painted by Grigware four different times.

The final painting is of four cowgirls on a wooden fence, fully clothed in Western attire except for their bare derrieres.

The cowgirls are basking in the warm sun with the familiar silhouette of Heart Mountain in the distance.

The original painting had a pine pole frame made by another legendary Cody artist, Thomas Molesworth. It was delivered to its patron, who hung it in his home in Denver.

“I think the painting was done in the mid-1940s, after the end of the war,” Richard said. “But, to the best of my knowledge, I don’t think Dot was anyone’s mistress.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Bottoms Back"}]

“Bottoms Up” was eventually acquired by Quintin Blair, a renowned Cody businessman who brought the painting back to where it was created.

Blair served with the U.S. Navy in the Pacific Theatre of World War II, so it’s possible some of the battles Blair fought were painted by Grigware.

Blair went on to own several drug stores in Cody, managed the Pahaska Tepee Resort and Buffalo Bill Village, and established Quin Blair Enterprises, now Blair Hotels, which built the Holiday Inns in Cody, Laramie, and Riverton.

Blair was also a patron of the arts. There was no better example of that than his family home.

The Quintin Blair House, Wyoming’s only building by Frank Lloyd Wright, was built for the Blair family. 

Before his death in 2013, Blair was the only living person to have continuously resided in a home designed and built by the famous architect.

Blair was also friends with Grigware and the Denver patron who commissioned “Bottoms Up.” When the patron died, his wife sold the painting to Blair.

According to legend, Blair acquired the painting for $1, with some caveats. The patron's wife wanted the painting publicly displayed in Cody as a slight to “the model,” meaning Morris.

In that story, Morris and her husband moved to San Diego, California, in the 1960s, out of embarrassment that Morris’s bare bottom had returned to Cody.

[{"type":"text","text":"Richard has a much simpler explanation for the move."}]

“Dot and Leonard moved away for no other reason than Leonard retired and sold the ranch,” he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Fact And Fiction"}]

Since the history of “Bottoms Up” is so intertwined with the Blair family, it's the best source of factual information on the painting.

Ted Blair is the CEO of Blair Hotels and Quintin Blair’s son. Like Richard, he’s amazed by the number of stories circulating around “Bottoms Up.”

“Most of what people have heard about it is made-up,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “The number of rumors, stories, and lies about that painting is unbelievable.”

Blair confirmed the core history. “Bottoms Up” was painted by Grigware in the 1940s, with Morris modeling, for a Denver patron whose wife hated it.

“It hung behind red velvet curtains in the bar of their home,” he said. “When he'd have friends over, he'd open the curtains up. When there was nobody there, the curtains were closed, because his wife hated the painting.”

Quintin Blair bought the painting from the man’s widow, but there were no caveats with the purchase.

“Thomas Molesworth's son called my father and said, ‘Remember that nude of Grigware’s? It's for sale.’ My father got a hold of it, and that's how it ended up in Cody again,” he said.

Blair confirmed that his father didn’t acquire and display the painting out of obligation or spite.

“He knew Grigware, he knew the painting, and thought it was fun,” he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Hanging Out"}]

When Blair opened Cody’s Holiday Inn in 1972, “Bottoms Up” was prominently placed in the hotel’s bar, the Daisy Bell Saloon. 

It would later be known as the Bottoms Up Lounge, where the painting was the centerpiece for decades.

Thousands of people dropped by to appreciate the painting, for various reasons. Even Holiday Inn capitalized on it.

[{"type":"text","text":"“They were selling posters of it at one point,” Richard said."}]

The painting made its way onto T-shirts, coffee mugs, postcards, and posters, eagerly acquired by fans of Grigware’s unique piece.

Frost was one of many Cody residents who regularly saw “Bottoms Up” when it hung in the Bottoms Up Lounge. He likened it to the famous pinup girls painted by Alberto Vargas.

[{"type":"text","text":"“It was very Vargasesque,” he said."}]

It’s a notable departure in Grigware’s extensive body of work. According to a blog post about the history of “Bottoms Up” from August 2009, Grigware accepted the commission as his one and only “tasteful nude.”

“It’s the only nude he ever did, as far as I’m aware,” Blair said.

However, tasteful or not, “Bottoms Up” was eventually deemed too distasteful for the public.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Too Much On Display"}]

When Cody’s Holiday Inn completed its most recent renovation, “Bottoms Up” was gone.

“It was in the lounge until a couple of years ago,” Frost said. “I don't know why they took it down. Maybe the Blairs decided that it was no longer relevant, maybe somebody complained about it.”

Richard thought the unique painting was removed at the request of Holiday Inn. Most chain-branded hotels have specific guidelines regarding what artwork can be displayed. 

Quintin Blair was, allegedly, granted a dispensation to display “Bottoms Up” because of its provenance and association with Grigware.

“I think their management decided it was unacceptable, so it was taken down,” he said.

Ted Blair was happy to set the record straight. The painting was taken down because it would have been too visible.

“When we turned the lounge into an open area of the dining room, children would have been able to see it,” he said. “That’s when and why we pulled it down. That’s the decision I made.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Heirloom Or Museum Piece?"}]

As for its current whereabouts, Ted Blair confirmed that “Bottoms Up” still exists.

“I have it where nobody will know where it's at,” he said. “There’s a lot more to it than people realize."

Blair also has photos of Morris, who seemed to be even more free-spirited than her painted bottom in quadruplicate would suggest.

“There was a photography club in Cody that did nude photos of women (around that time), so I have photos, including nude photos, of the lady,” he said.

Many people, then and now, would say such a unique painting should be in a museum, such as the Whitney Western Art Museum at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West. 

While he admittedly hadn’t considered the option, Blair doesn’t think “Bottoms Up” would have a home among the Whitneys’ collection.

[{"type":"text","text":"“I don't see any nudes or Grigwares in there,” he said."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Art Actualized?"}]

Many of Grigware’s murals and other paintings can be seen in buildings, chapels, and museum collections today. Several, but not all, of his Cody murals are intact.

“Bottoms Up” has largely disappeared from public discussion. Even if its story contains more fact than fiction, the quirky painting is a notable work by one of the great American masters.

There’s one other story that abounds around the story of “Bottoms Up.” Morris was the only cowgirl depicted in the painting, but several people claim they’ve seen a mark-for-mark photograph recreating the painting with four bare-bottomed cowgirls.

“I saw a photographic rendition of that picture once, and I'm not sure who did it,” Frost said. “We certainly do not have that picture in the museum’s collection.”

Someone who called themself “Tippy” claimed to be one of those cowgirls. 

, she claimed the photo was taken by a Cody photographer in the summer of 1976.

“I had the privilege of working for Quin Blair as an entertainer at the famous Chuckwagon and Sarsaparilla Saloon,” she wrote. “After a great performance one night … the female members of the group made arrangements with an Old West photographer to oblige them out in the pasture (and) leaned over the fence overlooking the cowherd to take their picture in a remake of the original oil painting.”

Tippy said the women “mustered up the courage to slap that leather over their bare bottoms” with the assistance of several cocktails.

“They were shot at sunrise with a belly full of Tequila sunrises,” she wrote.

[{"type":"text","text":"Bottoms up, if you will."}]

Could this be a factual or fictional account? It seems the only consistent thing in the history of “Bottoms Up” is the way mystery and fantasy have become part of its legacy.

The reality of “Bottoms Up” is a “tasteful nude” painting from the 1940s by a renowned American artist best known for his murals in church chapels. 

It’s become hard to see, but even harder to forget for those who encountered it.

That's what happens when a realism artist doesn't leave enough to the imagination. It as intriguing in 2026 as it was in 1946.

Holiday Inn Cody inset censored 6 13 26

<title>What Happened To Racy ‘Bottoms Up’ Painting That Hung For Decades In Cody Hotel? | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Whatever happened to the racy painting titled “Bottoms Up" that hung for decades in the Cody Holiday Inn hotel? "The number of rumors, stories, and lies about that painting is unbelievable,” said its owner, adding it’s “where nobody will know where it's at.”

What Happened To Racy ‘Bottoms Up’ Painting That Hung For Decades In Cody Hotel?

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

Renée Jean

Business

CHEYENNE — Two years ago, Ranch Eats food truck owner Troy Strand thought he’d finally solved his hiring problems. He decided to offer his food-service workers not just health insurance, but a 401(k) retirement benefit with a 4% match on top of that.

Wages at Ranch Eats start around $18 an hour and can climb to $40, plus gratuities and tips. 

“For the health insurance, we cover the costs for the employee 100%, and then they have the option to add on their family,” he said. “And if they want dental and vision, they have the option to add that on as well.”

Strand has been layering on more perks to keep workers, recently starting an employee of the quarter program, which includes a special outing with a limo ride and a $250 bonus.

Those measures have helped Strand with retention, but haven’t solved his hiring crunch.

“I keep banging my head against the wall,” he said. “I think we’re at about 24 employees right now, but we could easily hire another six full-time, and they’re just not there.”

Jobs range from cashiers to caterers with cooks and prep cooks in between. Experience isn’t required.

“We have a really good management team to teach everyone what they need to know,” he said. “We tell everyone we live by three principles, and we can teach the rest. 

"Like, we don’t expect people to have cooking experience or know how to drive a food truck or any of that. We tell them if you can be honest, if you can be on time, and a person of your word, and don’t lie or steal, if you can just do that, we’ll teach you everything else.”

Even that isn’t enough. In the last month, Strand hired roughly a dozen people. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Just one is still there. "}]

Strand isn’t alone. Across Wyoming, windows and billboards are sending out the same message — “We’re hiring” — for everything from cafés on up to medical clinics. 

With too few workers to go around, businesses have been quietly curtailing their hours on what seem like odd days — Tuesday and Wednesday — and billing that as “new summer hours.”

That structure lets them focus on high-traffic days while trying to avoid burning out the limited staff they do have.

In downtown Laramie, 2nd Street Deli co-owner Chrissy Matthews has watched the hiring crunch hollow out her schedule board.

Her deli needs about 15 people to comfortably cover roughly 20 shifts. But the applicants she’s been able to hire, who are mostly young, college-age workers, want to keep their shifts on one or two very specific days.

“We’ll have four people on vacation at once,” she said. “And then I’m scrambling, because everyone only wants two shifts, at best.”

That’s forced her to cut back hours. The deli used to stay open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., but now it adjusts hours to match what her patchwork staff can handle.

Back-of-the-house applications, meanwhile, have been even more difficult to fill. She hasn’t seen an application for that in more than a year, even though that’s really where 2nd Street Deli has the biggest need.

The staffing crunch turned personal a couple of months ago when her father died. There was no one she could rely upon to pick up the slack while she was trying to manage arrangements and take the time to grieve.

“We were only able to take two days off,” she said. “It was very heartbreaking.”

If restaurants and food trucks struggle to hire people at $18 an hour, it might be tempting to think the solution is just a matter of paying people more.

But Wyoming’s hiring crunch doesn’t disappear at higher income levels. 

Kyle Brost, chief executive officer for Gottsche Rehabilitation and Wellness, leads eight clinics across rural Wyoming. He would hire 10 people yesterday if he could, positions that range from paying $60,000 to $120,000 per year.

“We could have mental and behavioral health in every single one of our clinics,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “We have it in one clinic. Speech and language, we can have in every clinic. 

"Right now we have no speech and language therapists, and we’re understaffed in really three clinics in terms of occupational therapy, physical therapy.”

Despite offering above-median pay, hiring medical professionals to Wyoming has been challenging for the past 20 years, Brost added, but the pandemic seemed to make things significantly worse.

“A lot of people in the industry switched over to being travelers,” he said, referencing transient contract workers. “Travelers, while I appreciate them, they’re not joining the community. They’re not getting infused into our towns and contributing to where the town is going and what the lifestyle and the community engagement is.”

Brost hopes that will soon turn a corner, but said other challenges remain.

“Spending six to eight years to get a degree in physical or occupational therapy is expensive,” he said. “And then the Department of Education reclassified quite a few professions as not professional degrees, which limits the amount of student loans people can get.

"There’s just a lot of more broad macro-level things, like people leaving rural communities and not coming back.”

One of the hidden barriers to hiring and recruiting comes down to housing, Brost said. 

In places like Thermopolis, for example, it’s easy to sell prospective employees on the job. Thermopolis has a lot going for it in terms of quality of life with Hot Springs State Park in its back yard, as well as world-class fishing and plenty of outdoor adventures in the Wind River Range. 

But when those applicants start looking for housing, they have trouble finding something suitable.

“There’s just not enough inventory on the market for people to have,” he said. “We’ve got a new hire starting July 1 who is married, starting a family. 

"A two-bedroom, one-bathroom place probably isn’t going to be the right fit for them, but there’s not a lot on the market that is a three-bedroom or above.”

Most of what is available, meanwhile, is older.

“If you’re not interested in rehabbing it a bit yourself, it’s probably not going to feel like a great home for you,” he said. “I was just talking to somebody yesterday about this. One of the resident doctors who is just coming in this fall for the hospital said, ‘You’re buying a house that needs a lot of work to it, and you’re also paying a lot for the house in order to do the work yourself.'”

When other areas are offering better housing stock for more affordable prices, that makes Brost’s pitch for Wyoming tougher. Even when he offers sign-on bonuses and help with moving expenses, those incentives can’t create housing that doesn’t exist. 

“Your home is where you spend a lot of time outside of work,” Brost said. “So, if you can’t find a place that you love and appreciate and value, it’s an easy decision point to be like, ‘Well then, I’m going to choose this other spot.’”

Economically, Wyoming Business Council Chief Strategy Officer Sarah Fitz-Gerald sees the labor crunch as part of a bigger economic squeeze. 

The cost of living is rising faster than household incomes, which is pushing many working-age people to leave Wyoming at one of the highest rates in the nation.

“(It’s) just killing our economy,” she said. “We really think that Wyoming should be a place where, when people work hard, they should be able to get ahead.”

It was true for a long time, she added, but inflation has dramatically changed the dynamic. 

“Right now, we’re seeing costs rise immensely, whether it’s groceries or gas or housing,” she said. “Those things have grown over 50% in the last five years, whereas our median household income has only grown about 6%. We’re just not keeping up.”

The struggle to close the hiring gap makes it harder for existing businesses to expand in ways that would create the better jobs that could attract young people to stay in Wyoming.

“If you’re one of those people who’s trying to work hard and get ahead and trying to make ends meet, a lot of time you’re going to move somewhere else,” she said. “By the time people are in their 30s, 70% of people who were born in Wyoming have left because of this kind of squeeze. 

"So yeah, it is having a big effect on the economy.”

Housing isn’t the only challenge, she added. Families of working age are struggling to find essential services, too, such as childcare.

“People are coming together and trying to figure out how to solve those big problems,” she said. “I really see that there’s a path forward by kind of solving these problems one by one when we talk about housing, when we talk about childcare, which will make it easier for Wyoming employers to compete in this really tight labor market.”

The numbers are worrisome, Wyoming Chamber of Commerce CEO Dale Steenbergen told Cowboy State Daily.

He has been tracking workforce trends statewide and points to studies showing that Wyoming has lost more jobs per capita over the past five years than any other state, even as its unemployment rate continues to remain low.

“We can’t afford to export any of our kids, and we’re exporting a bunch of them,” he said. “And we’re trading them for political refugees who are retired. When you’re running an economy, that’s not very good math.”

Meanwhile, those retirees will need more services — but the current workforce has little slack left to provide them. 

Eventually, Steenbergen expects wages to increase, which may entice some retirees to return to the workforce, helping the situation at least some. 

But the retirement cliff that’s adding to this dynamic is just getting started. 

Wave after wave of Baby Boomers are exiting the workforce. An estimated 11,200 Americans will turn 65 every day through at least 2027. 

By 2030, every Boomer will be 65 or older, and they’re all leaving both a labor and knowledge gap behind them as they exit the workforce.

“This is not just a Wyoming problem,” Steenbergen said. “It’s a nationwide problem. I see that Chipotle in Missouri, they’ll pay just as much as a Chipotle in Cheyenne. 

"So that’s really the problem we have … there’s hardly a state in the union that doesn’t say, ‘We have workforce problems, and we have to be able to find workforce.’”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Money Left On The Table"}]

Back at Ranch Eats, Strand’s struggles to turn a dozen new hires into a handful of long-term employees has a similar bottom line as the medical clinics struggling to hire. 

They’re both leaving money and opportunity on the table simply because they can’t hire enough people to serve the existing demand. 

For Ranch Eats, that’s meant taking fewer catering jobs than the business otherwise might, while at 2nd Street Deli it’s meant reduced hours and unexpected closures. For Gotsch clinics, it’s fewer services, even as demand for health care is rising.

All of which to say, those “We’re hiring” signs aren’t going anywhere any time soon in Wyoming. 

Making them disappear is a lot more complicated than simply raising wages. It’s a complicated puzzle that includes unwieldy puzzle pieces like inflation, housing, and child care. 

Solutions for all three have to fit together to reverse the ever-dwindling workforce trend.

Labor crunch Elvis mural IMG 5904 4 2 copy 6 13 26

<title>From Cafés To Clinics, Wyoming’s Labor Crunch Is Holding The Economy Back | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Wyoming business owners say they are leaving a lot of money on the table because they can’t fill open jobs, forcing them to turn away customers and reduce hours. “I keep banging my head against the wall,” said one owner.

From Cafés To Clinics, Wyoming’s Labor Crunch Is Holding The Economy Back

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Dale Killingbeck

Dale Killingbeck

Outdoors

Public Lands

Finding treasure and beauty underwater does not require a trip to one of the nation’s coasts.

Divers in the Mountain West may not get to see sharks, colorful fish and coral reefs, but they pull out antique six-shooters or older Coors cans with no pop tops out of the Colorado River.

They also get views of the rock layers below the surface at Flaming Gorge Reservoir that few every see.

For Las Vegas’ Ken Wige, diving a stretch of the Colorado River below the Hoover Dam has become an ongoing treasure hunt involving recovering lost cellphones for people, wallets, a wedding ring, and even a couple of weapons.

One of those weapons he pulled from the river he can’t talk about except to say that it belonged to someone involved in “national defense,” but the other found about three years ago appeared to be a Western-style six-shooter in a holster that was covered in rust.

“If I were to guess, it probably was down there a good 10-plus years to be able to be stuck in the holster,” Wige said. “It was just an old Western revolver, it looked like. I was dying to get it out of there, but it would not come out.”

Fellow diver Tony “Gunner” Pierce of Provo, Utah — aka Tony “Nitrox” on social media dive pages — plans to join Wige this weekend on the river. 

Like Wige, he is an advocate for diving in the West and enjoys rallying people to different spots from Wyoming to Utah and Idaho year-round to explore what is going on underneath the surface of reservoirs, rivers, and lakes.

Both men have enjoyed more traditional diving hotspots such as Florida or the Mexico coast, but they have stories to tell about the adventures much closer to home and cheaper for those who have the gear and want to enjoy a weekend under the water.

Pierce, a dive instructor, said he became interested in scuba nine years ago after taking his daughter Carly to a dive shop just to do a “discover” dive in a pool to see if they liked the sport. 

Divers who plunge the depths of the Colorado River and Flaming Gorge Reservoir find all kinds of treasure, from antique six-shooters to cellphones. One woman burst into tears when given her phone back that had her grandchild’s birth video on it.

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