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After discovering an envelope postmarked in Marquette in her family’s belongings, Carole Thurmond Wills knew members of the family had once lived there and wanted to learn more.

So in 1997 she took a trip to the area. She stayed in Buffalo Bill State Park just west of Cody, selecting a random campground because she liked how it backed up to Sheep Mountain. Not long after arriving she discovered the site had much more significance. 

“I was camping here, and I heard the ranger saying, 'Get the water started on the Thurmond ditch', and I went, ‘What?’”

It was then she discovered her father and his three siblings were born on that very land, owned by her grandfather Charles Thurmond in the early 1900s. 

“I was astounded,” Wills said. “I feel as if I was ‘guided’ here. I love it here. My soul feels as if it is back home when I am in the North Fork area.” 

That first trip has led to an annual pilgrimage for a few months each year. And as she’s learned more about her family’s history, Wills has shared it with others. Most recently she’s working on the Thurmond Family History Walk, featuring historical signs to be displayed around the North Fork Campground on land once owned by her grandfather.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Coming To The Cody Area"}]

The family’s time in Wyoming began in Sheridan, but in 1895 Elias Thurmond and his children Henry, Annie, Charles and John decided to move farther west in search of greater opportunities. Their first homestead claims were filed in the Marquette area, with one near the South Fork River and the other on Poverty Flat (also on the South Fork).

Charles and his brother John later purchased adjacent 160-acre homesteads on the North Fork near Trout Creek. Wills said John filed his homestead claim in 1902 and was building a home by 1904. Her grandpa purchased an existing homestead claim in 1907.

“Someone else had homesteaded it, but there wasn't much there,” she said. “So he built the house and the barn.”

Charles built a large barn and a two-story log home in 1907 near the future road up the North Fork to Yellowstone National Park. They hauled logs from nearby forests and purchased roof planks from the sawmill in Marquette. They also dug a ditch from Trout Creek to irrigate their fields – the current location of the North Fork Campground at Buffalo Bill State Park.

In 1920, her grandparents moved the family to Hamilton, in Montana's Bitterroot Valley. Her grandmother was a former teacher in Shell and education was important to the family. Children could only attend school in Cody, which meant an hour by wagon both ways.  

“My grandparents did not want to separate the family during the week, so they found a ranch in Hamilton that was near a middle school and a high school,” Wills said. “My dad and three siblings went to those schools.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Another Amazing Discovery"}]

It wasn’t until six years after discovering her family’s former homestead that she learned of another amazing piece of family history. Her family was in possession of more than 350 glass-plate negatives that had been taken by her grandfather between 1899-1912.

The images show ranch life around the turn of the 20th century, but also capture trips to Yellowstone and the construction of the Shoshone Dam. Charles developed them using water hauled from creeks and an improvised darkroom with a specialized Kodak kerosene tin lamp used during the photo developing process.

It was Rick Thurmond, great-grandson of Charles and Wills’ cousin, who determined a way to scan the negatives in 2013. 

“They’re glass negatives, so they don't fit on a scanner,” she said. “So he built something to be able to scan them, and we were shocked to even know about them.”

The original negatives later burned in a forest fire that also destroyed Rick’s home in the mountains near Santa Rosa, California, but he managed to save the digital files stored on an external hard drive.

The scanned images needed to be cleaned up after the negatives had been damaged by age and exposure to the elements, so Wills took a Photoshop class and began the painstaking process of restoring them.

“They had been neglected for a long time, so it's really been meaningful to me to clean them up, because now they look the way they were originally,” she said.

The Thurmond family eventually donated the photos to the Park County Archives, with some of their memorabilia going to the Cody Heritage Museum as well as. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"An Idea Is Born"}]

Wills lives in California but comes back in May and June each year to camp in Buffalo Bill State Park.

“I have an RV and it’s 37 years old,” she said. “I love it here but for health reasons, I need to be near my doctor most of the time, so this gives me the pleasure of spending time here. Cody feels like a second home.”

Since discovering and restoring the photos, Wills has done four projects using them.

One of her first was creating a sign that sits in the North Fork Campground featuring photos from the ranch. It was when that sign was installed that Wills met park Superintendent Dan Marty and the idea for the history walk began. 

“She started this process with a different sign before I got here as superintendent,” Marty said. “She worked with past administrators for a history sign at the North Fork Campground, and that's where I got to meet her.”

Wills showed Marty more of the historical photographs. The two decided it would be interesting to have signs featuring some of them at the North Fork Campground sharing what life was like in the early 1900s. 

“It's part of the history of this area, and it coordinates with the construction of the original Buffalo Bill Dam from 1905 to 1910, which was the tallest concrete dam in the world at that time," Marty said.

Needing money for the project, Wills wrote a grant to the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund and it was approved in 2024. 

“When I wrote the grant one of the things I talked about is how much Cody puts emphasis on Buffalo Bill, which he deserves, but I asked ‘Where's the history of the other local people?’” 

She and Park County archivist Brian Beauvais then began working on drafts for the signs. There will be 13 in all, featuring photos and information about various aspects of early homesteading life, from a building home, to life in winter, to taking care of a farm. 

“I think today a lot of the people don't have any clue how hard it was back then,” Wills said. “We tried to pick things that showed what life was like to help people of all ages understand things that we take for granted today.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"An Interactive Experience"}]

Each sign will include a QR code that will direct participants to an interactive website. There will be photos of different artifacts from the family's ranch, as well as letters and diary entries from the family that can be read, and a detailed map showing the homesteads and surrounding area.

It also has a then-and-now section, where people can see what was happening more than 100 years ago, and then look at a photo of the site in the current day.

“This is a feature that I really am excited about,” she said. “Here's the original photo, and then you have a bar that you can move, and it'll show the same today.”

There will be a section about collodion photography, the technique used by her grandpa in which photographers coated glass or metal plates with a syrupy chemical mixture, sensitized them in silver nitrate and developed them while the plate was still wet.

“I didn't really know the technique, but the woman working on the website for this project down at Wyoming State Parks in Cheyenne has checked it out and showed me how you put the silver coating on a piece of glass,” Wills said. “It's fairly complicated, and then at the very end you have to wash it off. They didn't have any water, so they had to haul it.”

For younger viewers, there is an object scavenger hunt and word match, as well as some fun facts.

“I was able to get (local historian) Bob Richard to clarify some things,” she said. “Things I wouldn't have thought of like, ‘Why did my grandpa have a one-legged stool when he was milking?’ He said, ‘Cows often kick, so you want something that you could just grab fast and get out of the way'.” 

When it is completed the walk will cover the entire loop of the campground, a distance of about a mile. While all involved are hopeful the signs will be approved and in place by next summer, Marty said an exact timeframe hasn’t been established.

“We're still waiting for the signs to get approval, and I’m still waiting for the cultural clearance from the Bureau of Reclamation,” he said. “All that has to be in place before the signs are even ordered. Once the signs are ordered, we’ll see how long until we get them. When they're in place, then the trail construction will begin. So we have two unknowns right now.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Wills is excited to see it complete. "}]

“I’m thrilled to be able to share their story with these signs,” she said.

Glass negatives inset P21 11 23 now 7 12 26

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

<title>Glass-Plate Family Photos Help Tell Story Of Buffalo Bill State Park In Early 1900s | Cowboy State Daily</title>

While camping at Buffalo Bill State Park in 1997, Carole Thurmond Wills was stunned to learn her family once owned that land. Wills now is creating an interactive walk using photos taken by her grandfather on glass-plate negatives from 1899-1912.

Glass-Plate Family Photos Help Tell Story Of Buffalo Bill State Park In Early 1900s

Coy Knobel

Don Day Weather

Sunny in Wyoming on Monday. Extreme heat warning or heat advisory for much of the state. Fire danger. Mostly clear skies overnight, breezy in some areas. Highs in the 90s and low 100s. Lows from the mid 50s to near 70.

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Extreme heat warning until Tuesday night. Sunny and hot today with a high near 100 and mostly clear overnight with a low near 65.

Extreme heat warning until Tuesday night. Sunny and hot today with a high near 98 and gradually becoming clear overnight with a low near 67.

 Extreme heat warning until Tuesday night. Sunny today with a high near 96 and mostly clear overnight with a low near 60 and wind gusts as high as 20 mph.

 Extreme heat warning until 9 p.m. tonight. Mostly sunny today with a high near 93 and partly cloudy overnight with a low near 55.

  Extreme heat warning until Tuesday night. Sunny and hot today with a high near 98 and partly cloudy overnight with a low near 61.

Extreme heat warning until 9 p.m. tonight. Increasing clouds today with a high near 97 and gradually becoming mostly clear overnight with a low near 58.

Extreme heat warning until 9 p.m. Tuesday night. Sunny today with a high near 95 and mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 57 and wind gusts as high as 21 mph.

 Extreme heat warning until 9 p.m. Tuesday night. Sunny today with a high near 96 and mostly clear overnight with a low near 56.

  Extreme heat warning until 9 p.m. Tuesday night. Sunny today with a high near 95 and gradually becoming clear overnight with a low near 58.

 Extreme heat warning until Tuesday night. Increasing clouds today with a high near 90 and wind gusts as high as 20 mph. Partly cloudy overnight with a low near 57.

  Extreme heat warning until Tuesday night. Sunny and hot today with a high near 98 and mostly clear overnight with a low near 58.

Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park

:  Sunny today with a high near 90 and mostly clear overnight a low near 51.

Extreme heat warning until Tuesday night. Sunny and hot today with a high near 102 and mostly clear overnight with a low near 70.

:  Extreme heat warning until Tuesday night. Sunny and breezy today with a high near 96 and wind gusts as high as 29 mph. Gradually becoming mostly clear overnight with a low near 69.

  Extreme heat warning until Tuesday night. Sunny and hot today with a high near 103 and mostly clear overnight with a low near 67.

  Extreme heat warning until Tuesday night. Sunny and breezy today with a high near 96 and wind gusts as high as 25 mph. Mostly clear overnight with a low near 71.

  Extreme heat warning through Wednesday night. Sunny and hot today with a high near 100 and wind from 11-16 mph. Mostly clear overnight with a low near 63.

:  Extreme heat warning through Wednesday night. Sunny and hot today with a high near 101 and wind from 9-17 mph. Mostly clear overnight with a low near 65.

Heat advisory through later in the week. Sunny and hot today with a high near 102 and wind gusts as high as 24 mph. Mostly clear overnight with a low near 68 and wind gusts as high as 20 mph.

  Heat advisory through later in the week. Sunny today with a high near 99 and wind gusts as high as 21 mph. Mostly clear overnight with a low near 71 and wind gusts as high as 22 mph.

:   Sunny today with a high near 97 and wind gusts as high as 22 mph. Mostly clear overnight with a low near 68 and wind gusts as high as 18 mph.

  Heat advisory through Tuesday night. Red flag fire warning until 8 p.m. tonight. Sunny, breezy and hot today with a high near 98 and wind gusts as high as 30 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 67 and wind gusts as high as 30 mph.

  Heat advisory through Tuesday night. Red flag fire warning until 8 p.m. tonight. Sunny, breezy and hot today with a high near 98 and wind from 10-20 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 65 and wind gusts as high as 30 mph.

  Heat advisory through Tuesday night. Red flag fire warning until 8 p.m. tonight. Sunny, breezy and hot today with a high near 99 and afternoon wind from 15-20 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 68 and wind gusts as high as 30 mph.

  Heat advisory through Tuesday night. Red flag fire warning until 8 p.m. tonight. Sunny, breezy and hot today with a high near 92 and wind from 10-20 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 60 and wind from 15-20 mph.

  Sunny and hot today with a high near 90 and mostly clear and breezy overnight a low near 57 and wind gusts as high as 30 mph.

  Heat advisory through Tuesday night. Red flag fire warning until 8 p.m. tonight. Sunny, breezy and hot today with a high near 93 and wind gusts as high as 30 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 63 and wind gusts as high as 30 mph.

  Sunny and hot today with a high near 93 and mostly clear overnight with a low near 60.

  Sunny and hot today with a high near 91 and mostly clear overnight with a low near 57.

  Red flag fire warning until 8 p.m. tonight. Sunny and hot today with a high near 97 and mostly clear overnight with a low near 54.

Daycap no play 7 13 26

<title>Don Day's Wyoming Weather Forecast: Monday, July 13, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Don Day's Wyoming Weather Forecast: Monday, July 13, 2026

Mac Watson

Daily Video News

It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Friday, July 10th.  I’m Mac Watson

This newscast is brought to you by the Wyoming State Fair. Wrap up your summer at the Wyoming State Fair, August 11th through the 15th in Douglas!

Rodeo, Demolition Derby, live music, entertainment and fair food await. Learn more at W-Y State Fair dot com. See you at the fair! This ad was paid for by Converse County Tourism.

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A tourist was seriously injured Friday evening after being thrown 8 feet into the air by a bull bison in Yellowstone National Park. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that professional photographer Mike Macleod filmed the incident and said the bison was “angry, agitated and charging anything and everything.”

“The victim did nothing wrong. The narrative that's been circulating across social media is that this was another quote-unquote Touron or idiot doing something wrong in the park, and that can and does happen. But looking at the video evidence, the victim did nothing to provoke the bison. They were a safe distance away, at least in theory. This bison had been causing trouble in the Bridge Bay campground for a while before he showed up.  The victim and his grandson tried to put something between themselves and the bison when it ran towards them, and that just wasn't enough. The bison in this case was the instigator.”

MacLeod was camping at the Bridge Bay Campground when his wife pointed out the bull bison entering the area. He grabbed his camera and started shooting from a safe distance.

Meanwhile, footage of the incident has become an international sensation with news organizations all over the U.S. and the world referencing Cowboy State Daily’s article. Reporter Andrew Rossi was the first to cover the story and to get an interview with the photographer. The video has been viewed millions of times.

A Mexican national who faces eight felonies is attempting to stay in the country after he allegedly tried to ram travelers off the road in Snake River Canyon in June of 2024. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that one victim says that 46-year-old Ramon Gabriel Chavez Cruz, “deliberately crossed the centerline and targeted our vehicle.”

“His Teton County case just concluded with what they call a split sentence. He spends 180 days in jail, tries probation for three years. If he fails probation, he goes to prison for like two and a half to four and a half years. But he already has enough time served that that initial 180-day stint is eclipsed. The trooper recounted that he was basically trying to head-on collide with multiple people. Most of that happened in Lincoln County, one of the alleged victims from Lincoln County, was flabbergasted at the 180-day sentence in Teton County, but it's just not over yet. And as for the visa, his defense attorney was describing it as if he's been the victim of a crime and is working to stay in the country in relation to that somehow.”

Chavez Cruz faces potentially much harsher consequences in Lincoln County, where County Attorney Spencer Allred has filed eight counts of aggravated assault against him – one for each person he allegedly charged with his truck. 

A Gillette woman's plans for one last summer road trip with her dying daughter have been derailed by a failed transmission in their 26-year-old SUV. But Cowboy State Daily’s Dale Killingbeck reports that London Tabor says she’s not giving up hope to take this trip with her daughter.

“Her daughter has Huntington's disease, and it's quickly sapping her life, and so they plan to go to the East Coast, plan to go rock hunting in Wyoming, and to a Huntington disease event that's in Utah, and all of that was on hold because she didn't have a vehicle. So, she's trying to rent a camper that would be able to facilitate taking her daughter, who now can't do anything except sit in a seat and watch. So she was hoping that she can get this trip accomplished, and have great memories with her this summer.”

Autumn was diagnosed with the disease in 2018 at age 12, which also is the same year that her father, Justin Fender, died from the same condition at age 36. 

Green River's Bradlee Skinner was homeless, delivering pizzas, and wondering how his life had unraveled. Cowboy State Daily’s Kate Meadows reports that now he performs before sold-out crowds with the Savannah Bananas, baseball's wildly popular entertainment phenomenon. And it all started with a selfie.

“In 2024, Bradley Skinner, he's a high school teacher at Green River, teaches theater in English, and he took a group of theater students to Salt Lake City to see the Savannah Bananas. And while they were all getting their pictures taken with the players in the parking lot before the game, Skinner heard a DJ. He knew there was a DJ nearby, and he himself is a DJ. So he went and sought out that guy and took a picture with him. And the guy noticed, and they started up a conversation about DJing. And so fast forward a year, and that DJ reached out and said, "Hey, I think you should try out. They're doing auditions because they're growing their teams. They're adding new teams, and they need a few more DJs in their back pocket. So that's really how it all got started with a selfie.”

The job has taken him from Wyoming classrooms to iconic ballparks such as Coors Field in Denver and soon Wrigley Field in Chicago, where he rubs shoulders with performers and entertainers he once showed his students as examples of creative excellence.

I’ll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.

Cowboy State Daily News continues now….

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So many dead trees are piling up on Wyoming’s remote wilderness trails, some outfitters say they should be allowed to use chainsaws to clear them rather than working for days with hand tools. Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports that chainsaws have been banned from those areas for 62 years.

“The Forest Service kind of created a little loophole and allowed some outfitters in this spring in Idaho, in the Frank Church wilderness, and so now some people are saying, "Hey, we need to start doing this kind of all over the West, just letting a few people get in, because we just, we can't keep ahead of this timber otherwise, because under the strict rules of wilderness, you have to go in there like the old-fashioned push-pull saws or an ax or whatever, and some people are saying that with the sheer volume, what we got there, which we're never going to get ahead of it, and of course, opponents are saying no.”

Pine beetle epidemics have torn through forests across the West, leaving dead trees everywhere. They frequently fall over on trails, or blow over in huge piles.

The Forest Service and volunteer trail associations across Wyoming 

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A trespasser trying illegally to make a copy of rare dinosaur footprints on the “Paleo Park” Zerbst Ranch near Newcastle ended up vandalizing the site. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that owner Kristen Stauffer says she was “shell-shocked.”

“Apparently, someone trespassed onto their property, poured blue silicone into one of the tracks in the attempt to make a copy of it, and then just abandoned the scene with the silicone still in the track, now they have been able to remove most of it. But setting aside the fact that there could be permanent damage from that, it's the fact that somebody violated their trust. That if this person had asked them if they could make a copy of their dinosaur footprint, they would have been all for it.”

Setting aside the enormous scientific value of the fossil, Stauffer was “heartbroken” by the blatant disregard for her family’s history. The Zerbst Trackway was found by her father, Leonard, and has enormous personal significance to her and her family.

Laramie 9-year-old elk caller Axl Anton is set to compete against teens nearly twice his age in the world elk calling championship this month. Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports that Axl’s already "in the top five best callers in the country, if not the best,” said a hunting industry insider.

“His dad said he took an interest in it when he was about two, called in his first bull when he was six, and he's been in several contests now. He's going to the world elk calling contest that's held at Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation's headquarters in Missoula, Montana. The kid is young enough to compete in the Peewee division, but he said he doesn't want to do that, he wants to step up and compete with the big kids, so he's going to be competing with kids that are about high school age. He already is almost considered world class at the ripe old age of nine, so just kind of a cool story”

Archery elk hunters use tube-shaped calls to imitate the grunts, screams and bugles of bull elk during the rut, or mating season. The idea is to sound as much like a bull elk as possible. So, the real bulls, thinking a challenger is in their territory, will move in to investigate.

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And that’s today’s news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on 

 - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our 

 channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I’m Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.

News image 7 13 26

<title>Cowboy State Daily Video Newscast: Monday, July 13, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Monday's headlines include:
* Tourist Injured By Bison
* Last Trip For Mom & Dying Daughter
* Mexican National Furious Canyon Rampage

Cowboy State Daily Video Newscast: Monday, July 13, 2026

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

Renée Jean

Larry Morgan was born in Superior, Wyoming, in the 1940s, the son of a coal miner. Eventually, he landed in Jackson Hole, well enough off that he could build his dream mountain home.

His friends call him “The Closer.” He’s a corporate dealmaker, high-stakes sales producer and, lately, a self-described best-selling author on Amazon with a book revealing how he made his fortune.  

Despite all that, Morgan doesn’t think of his story as a true rags-to-riches tale — though he’ll acknowledge it’s an arc that’s hard to ignore. 

“I never really saw myself as being poor, although my family was very poor,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “My father owned a tiny little cafe in Iowa, and we barely made a living. He always said, ‘We don’t make any money, but we eat good'.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Dusty Old Chevy"}]

Superior today is a semi-ghost town in Sweetwater County. His family didn’t stay there long.  

“My father was a coal miner during the war,” he said. “It was a strategic occupation.”

Two cave-ins later, though, and he was rethinking that strategy. The family packed up and moved to Charlton, Iowa, where he started a cafe. 

“I always liked to work,” Morgan said. “So, when I was probably 12,  he hired me to be the dishwasher. I had to stand on a pop crate to reach the sink and wash the dishes. But he paid me 35 cents an hour, which was the going wage for an adult.”

It didn’t take Morgan long to realize if he wanted to achieve his dream of owning a car when he turned 16, he needed a better-paying job. So, he kept washing dishes but also took a job at the nearby bowling alley. 

“I made real good money in the bowling alley,” he recalled with a chuckle. “I got paid for every line. This was back before automatic pinsetters, so you had to set each one by hand.”

At the end of the night, he could usually count on some fairly large tips, but it was a grueling schedule.

“I went to work at 5 in the morning in the cafe and worked until 8 a.m.,” he said. “Then I went to school and worked at the bowling alley until midnight.”

Before too long, Morgan had saved the $80 he needed to buy a dusty old Chevy — his first car.

Morgan loved living in Iowa. He was in a small rural town he describes as just a few blocks apart, stitched together with the wonderful smell of freshly mowed hay. 

It was a great place to grow up. It was a great place to “be from.” 

But, if he wanted to make the kind of living that would afford a life, he realized it was not a great place to “be.”

For that, he decided he needed to attend college. Which meant he needed an even better-paying job than dishwashing and tips from the bowling alley.

That led him to become what he says was probably the “world’s youngest” encyclopedia salesman.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"No, not Britannica, the top seller. "}]

It was a smaller, lesser-known company called World Book. 

“Most of the encyclopedia salesmen worked in cities,” Morgan said. “The doors are close together … but the trouble was most of those people didn’t have money or didn’t read books.”

Traditional salesman advice says that to get to a “yes” you have to listen to a lot of “nos.” But Morgan didn’t want to indiscriminately knock on doors. 

Every “no” felt too much like a bullet to his heart. He needed a better system. 

“The World Book was designed for children,” Morgan said. “So I started cruising around my little hometown, and if I saw a bunch of bicycles in the yard, I knew I had a buyer because they had kids.”

But, he realized, that wasn’t enough to ensure a yes. He also needed to make sure the family could afford an encyclopedia.

That started him looking for not just bikes but Buicks as well. A family with a Buick in the driveway had money. And a family with both a bike and a Buick had a child on which that money could be spent. 

Morgan also styled his approach so that he was practically closing the deal at the beginning of the sale rather than the end.

“I’d just walk up, knock on the door, and introduce myself,” he said. “And my opening line was, ‘Would you be interested in something that would help your children in school?’ Well, boom, what mother’s not interested in something that will help her children in school?”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Multiplier Effect"}]

Once the sale had been made, Morgan then did something else that ratcheted up his success. He would always ask the woman if she knew any other mothers who might also want their children to have the “World Book advantage.”

That usually produced a nice list of likely prospects, where he had a better than average shot at making more sales.

In no time, this thoughtfully targeted approach made him the company’s top salesman and he became, in his own words, the “richest kid in town.” 

This job didn’t just take him to college. It took him there in style. He had plenty of money to trade in his old Chevy for a shiny new Oldsmobile convertible.

He didn’t know it yet, but he’d learned everything he was ever going to need to succeed in sales beyond his wildest dreams. Later, he’d use those same principles to close multi-million-dollar deals.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"First, though, came a few wrong turns."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Learning The Wyoming Way"}]

Navigating past those wrong turns is something Wyoming helped Morgan with. 

“The most influential character in my life was my uncle, Ken Shelton,” Morgan said. “He lived in Rock Springs and was a real cowboy.”

When Morgan was 13, he ran away to Rock Springs to spend a summer and part of another year with his uncle. They’d go up to White Mountain to catch wild horses, fish and tell jokes.

Shelton was one of the best storytellers Morgan has ever known. 

“For Uncle Ken, his stories didn’t have to end up the way they actually did,” Morgan said. “But they always ended up the way they should have. And that’s the way he viewed life.”

Morgan’s favorite Uncle Ken yarn is about the time he was roping wild horses on White Mountain a bit too long. He caught a wild mustang just as the sun set, was bucked off in the dark, and ended up tangled in his own rope as a storm rolled in.

He saw a nearby cave for shelter, but what he couldn’t see inside that cave was the mountain lion living there.

“Before he manages to finally strangle the mountain lion to death it bites off three of his fingers,” Morgan said. “Now, even the casual observer is aware that my uncle has all of his fingers. But when I brought that up, he says, ‘Yes, and that’s another amazing story, but I’m trying to finish this one!’ ”

Morgan sums up the wonderful lessons he learned from his story-telling uncle in a chapter he called “Never Sell Your Saddle” in his bestselling Amazon book, “The Closer: An Inside Look at the World of High-Powered Sales, Big Money and Big Egos.” 

“The chapter ends up being a warning to people who are about to merge with a larger corporation and, for a few dollars, sell their life’s work,” he said. “They find themselves with nothing to do … In other words, don’t be quick to sell your saddle. Life’s a long, long ride.”

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A long ride is often filled with a few wrong turns. For Morgan, his first wrong turn took him to Northeast Missouri State University in Kirksville.

“I was really captivated by academia,” Morgan said. “And I’d always wanted to be a college professor. To do that, you pretty much had to have a Ph.D.”

Knowing that, he took an extra-heavy class load, determined to earn both a bachelor’s and a master’s at the same time. 

Born in a near ghost-town in Wyoming, Larry Morgan’s life is a rags to riches story that begins and ends in Wyoming. Yet he insists the real story isn’t about money so much as freedom — and he's got a best-selling book on Amazon that tells his tale.

Wyoming Obituaries For
June 23rd, 2026

June 23

Joseph Allen Godfrey, 48

Dale Eugene Barnett, 71

Steven Dale Hines, 66

David L. Gish, 79

Mark Daniel Baron, 65

Lillian Ann Wollman, 92

Raye Lynn Dobson, 49

James "Jim" A. Kolczak, 64

Edward Robert Reiber, Jr., 75

Elden Ewing Wooldridge, 38

Vera E. Williams, 83

Jesse Ellen Lopez, 44