Forty strangers sat in a circle at the University of Wyoming that fall of 2018, wondering what they'd signed up for.
Nine months later, after coal pit tours and hospital visits, late night conversations and spontaneous songfests, one memorable night at Rock Springs' Wolf Den Bar, and countless miles across Wyoming highways, Leadership Wyoming's Class of 2019 had become the Wolfpack.
Those forty people now carry Wyoming's whole map in their heads when they make decisions.
Leadership Wyoming has spent twenty-five years inviting people into rooms like that one.
Every year, about forty participants commit to a nine-month journey that takes them across the state.
They walk coal pits and hospital corridors, tour main street businesses and community colleges, and meet the people who keep counties running.
Three days each month, jam-packed with visits, group activities, self-reflection, team building, laughter, learning, and sometimes tears.
Growth does not come without tearing down old perspectives and shedding protective shells.
The curriculum widens what each person sees. A sheriff from a small county hears directly from early childhood advocates. A nonprofit director spends time with mineral industry managers. Tribal leaders and ranchers share how policy choices land in their communities.
Little by little, those people become neighbors.
But here's what matters. From the outside, it can be easy to dismiss this kind of program as an exclusive club for people who already have connections. That reading misses the real work and the real stakes.
Leadership Wyoming asks people to learn in public, to listen when it would be easier to retreat into familiar talking points, and to sit with discomfort instead of reaching for quick applause.
That is not elite behavior.
That is what healthy self-government looks like.
What makes this transformation possible? The formal framework that holds this together is called gracious space. At its heart, it means choosing to create settings where people can tell the truth, stay curious, and invite in the stranger.
Wyoming has big arguments about energy, education, taxes, and who gets heard. In a state with fewer people than many cities, how we have those arguments matters at least as much as who wins any one of them.
When a rancher and a conservationist can sit across from each other and find common ground on water rights, that is gracious space at work.
Here's the thing about formation like this. The payoff does not show up in a single headline. It shows up in quieter ways, years later. Alumni sit on town councils and school boards, lead chambers and hospitals, run small businesses and local charities.
When a decision crosses their desks, they carry memories of coal dust, hospital waiting rooms, tribal offices, and rural main streets. They remember actual people with names and stories, not talking points and stereotypes.
Policy turns into something grounded in real places and real people.
That's what makes the question of access so urgent. Tuition, travel, and time away from work still keep some talented people from saying yes. A single parent working two jobs cannot easily commit to three days a month away.
A small business owner cannot afford to close the shop. A county employee in a two-person office has no coverage for extended absences.
Scholarships and employer support have opened doors, although more help is needed, especially for emerging leaders from smaller communities and modest budgets.
If Wyoming wants leaders who understand the whole map, then more people from every corner of that map need a real chance to be in the room.
So what should we do with a resource like this? Emerging leaders who care about Wyoming can step forward and apply. Employers can look around their teams and spot the people who ask good questions, then give them time and backing to participate.
Foundations, civic organizations, and individual donors can help fund scholarships so that a promising hospital clerk in Thermopolis or a town employee in Sundance has the same shot as a senior executive.
This past week, graduates from twenty-five classes gathered in Laramie to celebrate what this framework has built. They represent a leadership resource Wyoming cannot afford to waste.
Investing in this kind of learning is not charity. It is maintenance for the civic fabric that holds a small state together.
Gail Symons can be reached at: GailSymons@Mac.com
