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

Andrew Rossi

Around Wyoming

Hundreds of people gathered at the Christ Episcopal Church in Cody on Friday to mourn and celebrate Ann Simpson, who died on July 31.

Simpson, 94, was married to the late U.S. Sen. Al Simpson for 72 years. They had three children and a growing number of grandchildren and great-grandchildren, in addition to a tight-knit extended family and a vast community of friends. 

The service was filled with love, humor, tears, and lots of clothing from The Bargain Box in Cody. Ann Simpson was known for keeping an eye out for any garments that might make her family and friends look their best.

“Mom loved thrift stores, estate sales, and bargains,” her daughter Sue Simpson Gallagher said during the service. “Could I have a show of hands of everyone here in both rooms who has purchased a piece of clothing from Encore or the Bargain Box that Ann Simpson convinced you to buy?”

[{"type":"text","text":"Dozens of hands shot up, amid echoes of laughter."}]

The nave of the church was filled to capacity. Many people sat or stood in an adjacent room, so Simpson Gallagher made a point of thanking everyone for honoring her mother in that way.

“Thank you for standing and bearing witness to this celebration of our mother's life,” she said. “This was Ann Simpson. Open to all. Inclusive. It wasn't about the details, and the enormity of projects didn't overwhelm her. It inspired her.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'A Head-Turning Event'"}]

After the traditional Episcopal funeral services, members of the Simpson family came to the front of the church to share their memories of Ann. The first to speak was Pete Simpson, Al’s brother.

“You people have filled this house with love and caring and wonderful presence in the faith you have in the Lord himself and in the love you had for Ann,” he said.

Pete Simpson set a precedent that all the speakers followed: emotions of loss mixed with witticism.

“I was asked to speak first,” he said. “It is because of my sterling qualities or my gift at telling long-than-ordinary stories. No, it’s because I’m the oldest.”

Pete went on to say he had known Ann longer than Al. They met 75 years ago at the Student Union at the University of Wyoming. He recalled college-aged Ann Fogel as “the tall, dignified, and absolutely gorgeous girl from Greybull.”

When she and her twin sister, Nan, appeared, “it was a head-turning event” for every man on campus, according to Pete, who likened Ann to the actress Hedy Lamarr.

Pete shared the moment when Al told him that he’d proposed to Ann, and she’d accepted.

“Al never really forgave me for my response (when he told me), which was ‘What?” But, boy, did he luck out. And so did the whole family,” he said. “One thing Ann fought for was everybody she loved (and) everybody who loved her. She put up the fight for them and for all of their friends.”

Pete concluded by paraphrasing the last line of an Irish folk song by Mary Delaney.

“It said, ‘Ah, sweet Annie, whatever shall we do without you?’” he said. “Well, I want to simply say we will carry on, because Ann will insist. God, how we loved her, and God, how grateful we are that she said ‘Yes.’”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"“That Vitality”"}]

After Pete, Al and Ann’s son Bill Simpson spoke. He somewhat lamented the speaking order.

“I said I want to speak at mom’s service, but I don’t want to go after Pete, because no one can beat Pete,” he said.

Bill said his mother had “an idyllic life” in the Bighorn Basin. She was born and raised in Greybull, married in Basin, and lived the rest of her life in Cody except for Al's 18 years in Washington, D.C., as a senator.

“She was strong, and she was resilient,” he said. “She was fearless, and she was brave. She would never back down, and as Dad would say, you’d always want her in your corner. You’d always want Ann Simpson fighting for you.”

Bill praised his mother’s penchant for giving advice on everything from fashion and personal relationships to gum-chewing, as well as her humor, empathy, warmth, and compassion.

[{"type":"text","text":"He also lauded the bond Ann shared with Al."}]

“Their bond was so strong and definitive,” he said. “I can only hope and pray all of us, with our life’s partner, have that kind of relationship.”

Ann also loved art, which is why she frequented museums whenever they traveled. Bill said she also had a penchant for “touching” the paintings.

“When she walked in a museum, there were signs everywhere,” he said. “Invariably, I would hear, ‘Ma’am, do not touch the painting.’ She said, ‘Bill, I didn’t touch it. I brushed up against it with my hand.’ That was not synonymous with touching. It was that fun side of Mom. That vitality.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Bill ended by encouraging people to remember the Friday service."}]

“I hope and pray you’ll remember this day and remember Ann Simpson,” he said. “If you do, she’ll always be part of our lives. Wherever she is, I know she is active and vibrant.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"“Grace Personified”"}]

Sue Simpson Gallager thanked everyone for attending the service, and all the community members and organizations that cared for Ann.

“I am so grateful to our mother for so many things,” she said. “One of those things is the gift of spontaneity. And in that spontaneity, she helped us be present (and) appreciate the moment. She really knew the power of now.”

She said her mother was “really good at living in this world fully,” recognizing opportunity, acknowledging good fortune, and “savored the joy of it all.”

“I know you would all agree that Mom was one of the most beautiful people you have ever known, inside and out,” she said. “She, like Dad, made us feel seen by her recognition, and not just because she remembered your name, but because she really paid attention. She was really interested in you. She was a marvelous friend. She was grace personified. She was just so real (and) unadulterated.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Sue concluded by saying her mom was “her hero.”"}]

“She was my best friend,” she said. “She was the most extraordinary woman I have ever known and will ever know. I will miss her every day for the rest of my life. Yet I will feel her presence everywhere, forever and always. Thank you, Mom, for everything. I couldn't love you any more than I do.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"“A Harmonizer”"}]

Colin Simpson, Al and Ann’s second son, praised his siblings for supporting their mother and bringing her love and joy until her last moments. He called Ann “a grace giver.”

“She could be a tough critic and brutally honest,” he said. “She understood that we’re all full of flaws, and that grace and forgiveness allow us to look beyond the trivial and small things, and grant grace as we would want grace granted to ourselves.”

Colin described Ann’s life as “substantial and meaningful,” rarely burdened by guilt, anger, hurt, or remorse.

“She was comfortable with who she was, and that allowed others around her to be comfortable too,” she said. “Mom had great compassion and was very nurturing, but she never suffered self-pity, in herself or others.”

According to Colin, the road of self-pity in the Simpson home was “very short.”

“She simply wouldn’t allow it, and she told you so,” he said. “If you didn’t like it, you could go to your room and come out when you can be nice.”

Ann also loved dancing. Colin said she and his sister “grew up dancing in Greybull.”

“She taught Dad how to dance, and they loved to dance and did it a lot,” he said. “Dad called her ‘The Greybull Flash,’ and boy was she.”

As Colin concluded, he described Ann as “a harmonizer” who could bring people together during difficult discussions “just by being their (with) a smile.”

“Mom devoted her life to her husband, children, grandchildren, family, and friends, and she deserved great love and attention,” he said. “Where do we go from here? That’s easy. We carry on the traditions, values, character, and love of a great mother, grandmother, aunt, friend, and fellow traveler. We must remain bonded as a family and honor her deepest wishes for us all."

Ann simpson church 8 14 26

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

<title>'Grace Personified': Hundreds Celebrate 'Idyllic Life' Of Ann Simpson In Cody | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Ann Simpson was remembered by family members Friday as a "grace giver" who lived a "an idyllic life" in the Bighorn Basin. Hundreds gathered at the Christ Episcopal Church in Cody to celebrate Simpson, wife of the late Sen. Al Simpson for 72 years.

'Grace Personified': Hundreds Celebrate 'Idyllic Life' Of Ann Simpson In Cody

Employee kate meadows cropped

Kate Meadows

Outdoors

A shrinking Great Salt Lake is exposing hundreds of square miles of lakebed to the wind, raising concerns among Utah scientists that dust carrying potentially harmful materials could spread into neighboring states, including southwestern Wyoming.

A map showing where the harmful dust could potentially impact people puts Evanston within reach.

But so far, Wyoming officials say there is no evidence yet that Great Salt Lake dust is affecting Wyoming's air quality.

That leaves an important question largely unanswered: How much of the harmful dust is reaching Wyoming, and what exactly is in it?

“We’re worried that the dust has started to become more frequent, more severe,” said atmospheric scientist Kevin Perry of the University of Utah.

Dust storms – such as one that kicked up from the Great Salt Lake on July 8 – cause spikes in airborne particulate matter, potentially leading to respiratory issues, especially among people with asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

Perry said strong winds from the south and southwest can carry dust from the exposed lakebed north and east, sometimes reaching southwestern Wyoming.

[{"type":"text","text":"“People should be aware of it,” he told Cowboy State Daily."}]

Donald Trump’s 2027 budget proposal includes a $1 billion request to fund a federal program that includes addressing the toxic dust and stabilizing the shrinking Great Salt Lake.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"An Exposed Lakebed"}]

The Great Salt Lake has been shrinking for roughly four decades, exposing more than 800 square miles of lakebed, according to Perry.

Ben Abbott, an ecologist at the University of Utah, said the decline – more than half of the lake – is largely the result of water being diverted for communities and agriculture throughout the lake's watershed.

“We’ve been using more water than is sustainably available in the Great Salt Lake watershed,” Abbott said.

Abbott said the lake has been shrinking since the federal government built dams and allowed communities to consume more water.

“We started doing things like having lawns and growing commodity crops like alfalafa,” he said.

When strong winds move across the newly exposed lakebed, they pick up fine particles and carry them into surrounding communities.

[{"type":"text","text":"“That toxic soup becomes airborne,” Abbott said."}]

Researchers have found minerals and metals in the dust, including aluminum, iron, silicon, titanium and salt. Some studies have also raised concerns about metals that could pose health risks with prolonged exposure.

Abbott said larger particles generally do not travel as far, but smaller particles can remain airborne much longer and travel significant distances.

Evanston is roughly 70 miles from the eastern edge of the Great Salt Lake as the crow flies.

“You can imagine, you expose an area that big and a lot of unexpected things happen,” Abbott said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Differing Viewpoints"}]

Abbott said the lake's decline cannot be viewed solely as a Utah issue, because water usage in neighboring Wyoming and Idaho have contributed to the lake’s depletion.

The Bear River, which winds through Utah, Idaho and Wyoming, is the Great Salt Lake’s largest tributary, providing more than half of its water. All three states have water rights to the river.

Abbott estimated that roughly 80% of the lake's decline is attributable to upstream water use and said communities throughout the Bear River watershed, including those in Idaho and Wyoming, play a role.

“This is a national water policy and ag policy issue,” Abbott said. “We need to figure out how to change our relationship with water.”

But Perry puts more of the responsibility on Utah, saying that Utah uses its water rights the most and needs to cut its water consumption by 30%.

“I really view this as a Utah problem,” he said. “We use too much darn water.”

He added, however, that Utah's environmental problem does not necessarily stop at the state line.

[{"type":"text","text":"“We’re causing the problem, but it could impact you,” Perry said."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"What Wyoming Knows"}]

For now, Wyoming's environmental regulators say they have not documented a problem.

The Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality monitors air quality throughout the state for various pollutants.

Jillian Scott, a spokesperson for the DEQ, told Cowboy State Daily the agency is aware of Utah research showing dust from the exposed Great Salt Lake lakebed can contain elevated levels of certain metals.

But Wyoming is not specifically monitoring Great Salt Lake dust as an air-quality issue.

“At this time we have not observed information indicating impacts in Wyoming related to Great Salt Lake dust,” she shared in an email. “We do not currently have data that would allow us to characterize or confirm those claims for Wyoming.”

Instead, the most common air-quality issues in Wyoming are particulate matter from construction, unpaved roads and industrial activity and wildfire smoke. The agency also monitors winter ozone in the Upper Green River Basin.

Routine air-quality monitoring alone would not establish whether toxic elements came specifically from the Great Salt Lake.

“It’s very hard to source (where a pollutant comes from) unless it’s in the general vicinity,” Scott said.

Scott said confirming such a connection would require collecting air filters during a dust event, analyzing them for trace metals and comparing Wyoming samples with known Great Salt Lake dust profiles. Atmospheric modeling also could help determine whether the particles originated at the lakebed.

That type of specialized analysis is not part of Wyoming's standard monitoring program, she added.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Wyoming Residents Unaware"}]

In Uinta County, where Evanston sits within range of dust transported from the Great Salt Lake, the issue has generated little apparent concern.

Kathy Payne, who works at Rocky Mountain Care, a skilled nursing and rehabilitation center in Evanston, said she had not heard about the issue.

Kerri Sabey, district manager with the Uinta County Conservation District, also said she was unaware of research indicating Great Salt Lake dust was affecting the county.

Adrian Hunolt, who ranches in southwestern Wyoming about 90 miles from the shrinking lake's shores, lives along the Bear River.

Hunolt said dust storms are not unusual in the region, although he could not say how much of that dust comes from the Great Salt Lake.

“When the wind blows down there we definitely get dust storms up here, and it covers us in dust,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “How much of it comes off the west desert down there and how much of it comes off the Great Salt Lake dry lakebed, I don’t know.”

Hunolt said he sees dust on his property several times a year. Weather conditions sometimes leave a layer of white dust across the area.

Abbott said he is not aware of research from Wyoming or Idaho examining whether Great Salt Lake dust is affecting water, crops or soils in those states.

[{"type":"text","text":"Repeated calls to Uinta County Public Health were not returned."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Measuring the Dust"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Utah is beginning to gather more information."}]

The state has been establishing a network of dust monitors designed to measure airborne particles and determine what metals and minerals they contain – and how much.

Some of the monitors are already operating, Perry said, with the network expected to be completed by early spring 2027.

The additional data could help researchers determine not only how frequently dust is being generated, but also how far it travels and what contaminants it carries.

[{"type":"text","text":"Abbott said the first step is recognizing the scale of the problem."}]

“I think people are starting to wake up to the potential loss of the lake,” he said.

He also cautioned that restoring a shrinking inland lake becomes increasingly difficult as water levels fall and exposed lakebed expands.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Warning From Lake Aral"}]

Abbott points to the history of the Aral Sea in Central Asia as a warning of what can happen when a large inland lake is allowed to shrink dramatically.

Once the world's fourth-largest inland body of water, the Aral Sea began disappearing after the then Soviet Union diverted massive amounts of water from its tributary rivers for agriculture.

As the lake receded, large expanses of contaminated lakebed were exposed. Dust from the former lakebed was carried by the wind into surrounding communities and agricultural areas.

As the lake declined, Abbott said, cancer rates increased by 60%, and cardiovascular diseases spiked.

Abbott said the resulting environmental and public health problems illustrate the risks that can accompany the collapse of an inland water body.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A ‘Big Open Question’"}]

For Perry, the solution remains relatively straightforward: Put more water back into the Great Salt Lake by reducing human consumption.

[{"type":"text","text":"For Wyoming, however, another question remains."}]

Until the dust is specifically measured during storms in southwestern Wyoming, it may be impossible to know whether the particles settling on Wyoming soil and blowing through Wyoming communities are coming from the Great Salt Lake, nearby drylands or somewhere else entirely.

“This is a big open question,” Abbott said. “Can we do something new? Can we blaze a path to wise stewardship of the environment rather than ignorance and depletion?”

Abbott said the contaminated dust caused by the shrinking of the lake could be one of the biggest public health crises to impact the state.

[{"type":"text","text":"“A lot depends on getting this right,” he said."}]

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<title>Could 'Toxic Soup' From Great Salt Lake Lakebed Dust Impact Southwest Wyoming? | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Researchers warn that a "toxic soup" of dust from a shrinking Great Salt Lake could be reaching Wyoming, which is not specifically monitoring lake particles. “We’re causing the problem, but it could impact you,” a University of Utah scientist says.

Could 'Toxic Soup' From Great Salt Lake Lakebed Dust Impact Southwest Wyoming?

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Business & Tourism

Business

Sam Husted and Sam Rollins have spent five years working together at the Buffalo Chip during the Sturgis Rally, where they are known simply as "The Sams."

[{"type":"text","text":"They come from Wyoming for 14 days and work the entire 10 days."}]

The night YUNGBLUD played the Buffalo Chip, the line in front of them seemed like it would never end.

Drinks flew across the bar as quickly as Husted and Rollins could make them, and after a few days they were out of body glitter.

Beneath the Engine Bar, bikers gathered under an enormous canopy while motorcycles rumbled in and out, making it difficult to hear.

[{"type":"text","text":"For the Sams, all that noise meant business."}]

On a good night, Husted said, the goal was to walk away with $1,500 or more.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"It's exhausting, but so much fun,\" Husted said."}]

They bought a camper, friends came along and the two-week money-making marathon doubled as a strange sort of working vacation.

For the Sams, that's part of what makes the arrangement work. They can make in a night what might otherwise take days or weeks, then step outside into one of the biggest parties in the world.

"It's a good time. It goes by quickly," Rollins said. "And then you have a lot of money to show for it."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Money Grows Everywhere"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"For most of the year, Sturgis is impossibly wholesome. Charming, even."}]

The little South Dakota town is tucked against the Black Hills, where old houses sit behind tidy yards and white picket fences, hollyhocks grow along the sidewalks and church steeples poke above old trees.

[{"type":"text","text":"In the dead of winter, it's a quiet place."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Then August comes."}]

Trucks and trailers begin appearing in driveways. Hand-painted parking signs sprout in front yards. Tents and temporary bars go up. Main Street disappears beneath motorcycles parked wheel to wheel, and the low rumble of engines becomes the background noise of daily life.

[{"type":"text","text":"While the bikers come to play, an army goes to work."}]

For 10 days, bartenders like Husted and Rollins sling drinks until their arms ache. Hotel owners turn rooms as fast as people can leave them. Shuttle drivers prowl the darkness looking for fares.

[{"type":"text","text":"August in Sturgis is harvest season."}]

This is the fifth year Sam Husted and Sam Rollins have gone to Sturgis to work at The Buffalo Chip. The Casper bartenders are known as 'The Sams' and they can make $1,500 per night. August is harvest season. And money is growing everywhere.