For about five years, Liam Foy has had a place he can go when he wants to spend some time with his dad.
Out on a two-track near the Evanston, Wyoming, airport, overlooking town and the mountains beyond it, Foy scattered some of his father’s ashes and built a small memorial around the spot.
He built up a small cairn of rocks around it and planted an American flag there.
Several times a year he drives out to the memorial and remember his dad: Father’s Day, his father's birthday, the anniversary of his death, and sometimes just because he wants to be there.
“It's quiet, and you can just kind of be with him,” Foy told Cowboy State Daily.
When he returned to the memorial last week, Foy was shocked and dismayed to find that someone had pulled rocks off the memorial and used them to build a fire pit.
Crushed beer cans had been left behind, and the American flag he’d placed there — along with a large wooden cross — was gone.
“I was pissed,” Foy said. “I was angry.”
There’s no mistaking the pile of rocks with a cross and flag is in remembrance of someone. Even so, this was the third time in recent years Foy said that someone has disturbed the area around the place he goes to remember his father.
Once, somebody left behind an entire couch, Foy said.
His Dad
Bill Foy spent roughly 25 years as a police officer in Grand Junction, Colorado.
His son remembers a career that started out humbly, with his dad riding a bicycle and writing parking tickets. Eventually, Bill served on the department's SWAT team.
In messages left after his death, fellow law enforcement officers remembered Bill as a “big brother” and mentor, while dispatchers and friends recalled his familiar voice on the radio, his jokes and his big smile.
Foy remembers going camping with his dad, exploring, and rock crawling in Bill's Jeep.
He was only about 12 when his father died.
Years later, he found the spot outside Evanston that felt right for a memorial.
It offers a sweeping view, but more importantly, some solitude. Foy scattered some of his father’s ashes there and began returning to the site a handful of times a year.
The memorial gives him somewhere tangible to go, and for years, he has tried to take care of it.
Other people haven’t always done the same.
Beer Cans And A Missing Flag
The latest mess wasn’t the first.
He said the area has been disturbed three times. On one occasion, he said someone dumped a couch near the memorial, leaving Foy to haul it away.
He has also seen what he describes as a broader dumping problem on open land around Evanston — televisions, furniture, plywood and other junk abandoned off two-tracks rather than properly disposed of.
The repeated disturbances have changed the way Foy thinks about his dad’s memorial.
There are things he might otherwise leave there — something personal, perhaps a necklace, a ring or another keepsake that connects him to his father — but he doesn't trust that it would stay there.
If somebody will steal an American flag, he figures, what would stop that person from taking anything else?
Foy hasn’t reported the latest incident to law enforcement. He doesn't know who was responsible and has no way of proving who did it.
Instead, he cleaned up.
Again.
Wyoming's Dumping Problem
The site is near the Evanston-Uinta County Airport, and airport manager Mike LaSalle initially believed the area was managed by the Bureau of Land Management.
Wherever Bill Foy’s memorial ultimately falls on a property map, the garbage Liam Foy says he has encountered around southwest Wyoming reflects a problem federal land managers know well.
“Illegal dumping remains an issue on BLM-administered lands throughout Wyoming,” a BLM spokesperson told Cowboy State Daily.
BLM has conducted cleanups on public lands adjacent to Green River, west of Kemmerer and around Flaming Gorge Reservoir.
The agency said the absence of reported cleanups immediately around Evanston shouldn't be taken to mean dumping isn't happening there.
Some sites simply may never be reported.
Cleaning them up can involve local volunteers, state agencies such as the Wyoming Game and Fish Department and outdoor nonprofits. Most illegal dumps on BLM land, however, are removed through contracts, the agency said.
Those cleanups generally are scheduled for late summer to accommodate wildlife-related restrictions.
Dumping also can get expensive for the person caught doing it.
BLM said fines can range from about $500 into the tens of thousands of dollars depending on what was dumped, with hazardous materials and oil-field waste potentially bringing steeper penalties.
People who discover an illegal dump on BLM property can report it to their local BLM field office or through the agency’s PROTECT online reporting system.
Just Leave It Alone
Foy’s concern is much smaller and much more personal.
He isn't asking for an elaborate monument.
He doesn’t want people to stay away — it is public land. He just wants some basic respect and decency.
He doesn't expect everyone who drives the two-tracks outside Evanston to know who Bill Foy was, that he spent decades as a police officer or that his son was only a kid when he lost him.
He'd just like people who stumble across the little place his family created to recognize it for what it is.
Somebody's dad is there.
His request of the next person who comes across it is pretty simple.
“Don’t mess with stuff that’s not yours,” he said.
Contact Kolby Fedore at kolby@cowboystatedaily.com
Kolby Fedore can be reached at kolby@cowboystatedaily.com.
