It’s a cultural phenomenon that most people have experienced: the idea of “six degrees of separation,” in which every person on the planet is connected to any other person by just six people.
But that separation is cut down to a fraction of that if you’ve ever lived in the Cowboy State.
That’s why the annual gathering of Wyoming snowbirds in Mesquite, Nevada, is such fun, according to the chair of the Wyoming Snowbird Rendezvous, Kathy Larson.
“People will come up to me and say, I saw my old friend from high school 40 years ago,” Larson told Cowboy State Daily. “So it’s just a fun way to connect, it's just part of our Wyoming culture.”
Annual Party
Larson said she and her husband began wintering in Mesquite 12 years ago, partly because of the number of people from their hometown of Pinedale who had begun wintering there.
“We actually just rented a place the first year, and then we bought the next year, and have been here for 12 years now,” she said.
The first Wyoming Rendezvous in 2014 was organized by Bev Nelson of Jackson, who told Larson that she thought it would be great if more of the Wyoming residents who winter in Mesquite could connect. Larson, a retired teacher, was one of three organizers for that first breakfast at Falcon Ridge Golf Course.
“Bev just said, ‘You know, Kathy, I really think this will be fun if we can get people together,’” Larson said.
After that first successful event, more volunteers were recruited, and organizers upped their game.
“In 2015 we started advertising more, we put an ad in the local newspaper,” said Larson, who added that the committee grew from three to 6 that year, with 120 attendees gathering for brunch at the Oasis Golf Course Country Club. The next year, the event outgrew the Oasis, with 150 people in attendance.
“We started having raffles, silent auctions, a 50/50 that included NFR tickets in Las Vegas,” she said.
By 2020, over 250 people were showing up at the Eureka Casino Banquet room. “We had to turn people away,” said Larson. But then the pandemic hit, and the Wyoming Snowbird Rendezvous was canceled.
“When we regrouped and started up again in 2023, we only had about 160 in attendance, and went back to the smaller venue,” she said. “But in 2024, they came back! We had 300 in attendance that year.”
Fun For All
Because the point of the event is to connect with people from their home state, Larson said name tags identifying them with their hometown are essential. Also important is acknowledging the veterans in their midst, according to Larson.
“Usually around 3:30 we have all the veterans come up and stand in front, and then we play that Lee Greenwood song, ‘I'm Proud To Be An American,’” she said. “So we play his song, and everybody cries, because you look back at the seats, it's unbelievable how many vets we have in our state.”
The announcer will then start going through the counties by number, and attendees stand when their county is called out.
“We give them a minute to look around and go, ‘Oh, look at those people over there, they're from Lander,’ or whatever,” said Larson. “Those people that come don't know how many are coming from their county or their city, so we have them stand up and kind of acknowledge one another.”
A live band sets the tone for the evening, playing while attendees visit with each other and check out the raffles and silent auctions.
“We wander and meander and visit while we're standing in line at the buffet or standing in line, they have a couple bars there,” said Larson. “You know, Wyoming people like to have their beer.”
The celebration ends, though, with a familiar tune for Wyomingites.
“We end with everyone singing Ragtime Cowboy Joe,” she said.
Connections
Maxine Chisholm has been coming to the Wyoming Rendezvous for five years. She and her husband, Rod, were Laramie residents for 50 years before moving to Mesquite in 2020, partly because other friends and acquaintances had made this Nevada town their winter home.
What makes the annual Rendezvous so meaningful, according to Chisholm, is the camaraderie that is built over years.
“Rod died in 2023, so when Rod and I went together, that was better, of course,” she said. “And then after he died, I went by myself, and there were people that I hadn't seen for a long time who would come and ask me about how I was since Rod died.”
Larson points out that because Wyoming is a state with such a low population, the chances are high that, if you meet someone else from Wyoming, you’ll likely know people in common.
“You know, we see each other's license plates in the parking lots of Walmart and the grocery store, and think, ‘Huh? I wonder where they're from,’” she said. “We're just a lot closer, I think, personally, than a lot of other states that I know.”
Chisholm recalled one year’s event where she and her husband ran into one of his old girlfriends.
“She and Rod knew each other, and she was there with her husband,” Chisholm said. “And then we spent the following day with them, remembering.”
Volunteers
Larson said the event would not be possible without the committee of around 25 volunteers, themselves snowbirds from towns from all over Wyoming who have “flown south” to escape the generally cold winters in the Cowboy State.
“Ironically enough, I have about five teachers on my committee, so we're all pretty organized,” said Larson. “We’ve got 10 different committees, from name tags to decorating to entertainment.”
Although the event is advertised on social media, the local newspaper, and through email, Larson said most new attendees will find out about the Rendezvous from someone who has attended in years past.
“We print flyers and put them all over town,” she said. “They’re left on cars, at stores and businesses, in subdivisions — but word of mouth is still often how they find out about us.”
There is a charge to attend, $40 this year, but Larson said once the costs of the event are covered, the committee chooses a Mesquite charity to benefit from the rest of the funds.
“Some areas we have given to are the local Veterans, the food bank, and school programs,” she said. “We’ve given to a young child diagnosed with cancer, to a local cancer organization that helps people in the community, and to hospice (they have some patients that have no insurance and accept them anyway).”
This Year’s Event
This year’s Wyoming Rendezvous will be at the Holiday Inn in Mesquite at 3 p.m. on Feb. 19. Larson expects to hear more stories from people who have made connections with Wyoming friends and acquaintances that they lost touch with long ago.
“You know, ‘There’s the doc who operated on me back in 1994,’ or ‘I became acquainted with people from my town that I never knew before,’” she said. “We have a motto, I believe it was one of our governors who said this a long time ago, ‘Wyoming is a small town with very long streets.’ We’re all connected, even though the distances between places are vast.”
Wendy Corr can be reached at wendy@cowboystatedaily.com.
