OUR MISSION

Wyoming People, Places and Policy

WyoFile is an independent, non-profit news service focused on the people, places and policy of Wyoming. Recognizing the rapid decline in resources among traditional news outlets, WyoFile offers supplemental in-depth coverage of complicated subjects and issues ranging from tax policy to trends in Wyoming culture.  Designed as a one-stop venue for Wyoming news, WyoFile produces regular commentary and analysis as well as daily summaries and links to important Wyoming-related stories in the state and national press.

Written and edited by leading Wyoming journalists and educators, WyoFile is a non-partisan public interest site for people who care deeply about the civic and cultural health of our state. The site provides news and information that enables the residents of Wyoming to become informed and engaged contributors to important public issues.

As a public service, all WyoFile stories and columns are available free of charge to Wyoming and regional media, providing appropriate credit is given. WyoFile editors and reporters also collaborate with local newspapers on specific investigative reporting projects.

OUR NAME

Our name is a play on words that reflects our journalistic purpose and our love for our uniquely beautiful mountain state.

OUR SPONSORS

WyoFile is supported by grants and donations from the John S. and James Knight Foundation, The George B. Storer Foundation, Christopher Findlater, Marcia Kunstel,  Joe Albright, Anne Pendergast and the estate of the late Tom Stroock.

For the Knight Foundation Community Information Challenge grant awarded this year, WyoFile was sponsored by the Lander Community Foundation.  The Lander foundation encourages, supports and rewards excellence in the performance of non-profits

But we also need your help. If you support our in-depth reporting on Wyoming’s people, places and policy,  please donate what you can.

OUR BOARD

Anne MacKinnon, Board Chair, is former editor-in-chief of the Casper Star-Tribune, Anne researches and writes about Wyoming water history, but also occasionally teaches and puts on conferences on natural resource policy for the University of Wyoming, where she is an adjunct professor for the School of Environment and Natural Resources. Anne lives in Casper.

RT (Randall) Cox is an attorney and author, WyoFile board member and columnist, bird-watcher, dragonfly collector, hunter and fisherman, non-profit tax fixer, political independent who lives in Gillette, travels in Belize, Bhutan, Sumatra, Tibet, and Dull Center.

Christopher Findlater, WyoFile’s founder is an Internet entrepreneur whose interests include online journalism, progressive politics and energy recycling. Before founding WyoFile in 2008, Findlater was the CEO and co-founder of NetQuote, the country’s leading online insurance marketplace. After selling NetQuote in 2005, Findlater created Cheyenne Exploration and began his efforts in building clean energy technologies in America as a proponent of the green recycling of used motor oil.

Katie Hogarty works as the Director of External Relations at her alma mater, the University of Wyoming College of Law. Previously, she worked on health and human service policy issues in Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal’s administration. A longtime rugby player and aficionada, Katie lives in Laramie where she hikes, fishes and rides her bike.

Jonathan Weber is editor in chief of the BayCitizen, a new non-profit news organization based in San Francisco that will launch later this spring. Until earlier this year, Jonathan was founder and editor of the Montana-based regional news website NewWest.net. A former Los Angeles Times reporter and editor, Jonathan was the co-founder and editor in chief of The Industry Standard, a weekly business news magazine and online service prominent in the late 1990s during the dot-com boom. He divides his time between San Francisco and Missoula, Mt.

OUR STAFF

Rone Tempest, Editor. A former national and foreign correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, Rone covered wars, natural disasters, politics and culture on six continents. In 2004 he was part of a team of reporters to win the Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the massive wildfires in Southern California. From 2000-2007 he was a lecturer at the Graduate School of Journalism of the University of California, Berkeley. Rone lives in Lander. Contact: rone@wyofile.com

Heather Scureman, Marketing & Development Director.  Before joining WyoFile in March 2010, Heather worked for Lander-based National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) for 12 years, most recently as a development officer.  An outdoors professional, Heather led expeditions on three continents and for two years managed the NOLS hiking program in Mexico’s Baja California.   Heather graduated from Northland College in Ashland, Wisconsin, with a degree in Outdoor Adventure Education.  heather@wyofile.com

Brad Christensen, Webmaster and Photographer. brad@wyofile.com

OUR CONTRIBUTORS

Steve Bechtel, A well-known climber, Steve has pioneered over 250 new climbs on six continents. He is considered one of the world’s foremost experts in performance coaching for climbers, runners, and other athletes. Steve holds a degree in Exercise Physiology and multiple coaching certifications. He is the author of several guidebooks, including Lander Sport Climbs and Cirque of the Towers. He owns Elemental Training Center, a performance fitness center, in Lander, Wyoming.

Ben Gose is a Lander journalist who writes frequently for The Chronicle of Philanthropy and The Chronicle of Higher Education, and contributes to programs on Wyoming Public Television. He also coaches the sprinters on the Lander Valley High School track team.

Susan Gray Gose is a freelance writer who lives in Lander with her husband and two children. She has been managing editor of the Lander Journal, a correspondent for People magazine, an assistant editor for The Chronicle of Philanthropy, and a reporter for The News & Observer (N.C.) She also writes fiction.

Jim King is a professor of political science at the University of Wyoming, where he teaches classes on American government and politics.  He is a co-author of The Equality State: Government and Politics in Wyoming and has conducted studies of the factors influencing gubernatorial popularity and the effects a governor’s popularity has on electoral politics

Laton McCartney was born in Denver, Colorado and grew up on cattle ranches in Colorado and Wyoming. He is the author of the national bestseller, Friends in High Places: The Bechtel Story—The Most Secret Corporation and How It Engineered the World; and Beyond the Great Divide: Robert Stuart and the Discovery of the Oregon Trail. His most recent book, The Teapot Dome Scandal: How Big Oil Bought the Harding White House and Tried to Steal the Country, published by Random House, is currently in development as a four-hour miniseries for AMC.     McCartney has appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Today Show and numerous other television and radio programs. He and his wife Nancy divide their time between Dubois and Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

Greg Nickerson, agraduate student in history at the University of  Wyoming, is writing a thesis about the effects of the agricultural revolution on Sheridan County farming and subdivisions.  A native of Big Horn, he helped establish the Sheridan County Museum, researched the historical relationship between the Crow Nation and the community of Sheridan, and consulted for the Wyoming PBS documentary “Drawn to Yellowstone.”  He is a speaker on the Wyoming humanities forum, and has worked as a hunting guide for the Darwin Ranch in the Gros Ventre Mountains.

Geoffrey O’Gara is one of Wyoming’s most accomplished journalists and writers. Geoff is a Wyoming Public Television producer and host of the influential Capitol Outlook and Wyoming Chronicle programs.  He is the author of What You See in Clear Water: Indians, Whites, and a Battle Over Water in the American West (2002) and A Long Road Home, Journeys Through America’s Present in Search of America’s Past (1989) and several other books. An avid cyclist, basketballer and fly fisherman, he lives in Lander.

Emilene Ostlind is a graduate student at the University of Wyoming, finishing her degree in creative nonfiction writing and environment and natural resources.  Her thesis project is a book documenting the migration of pronghorn antelope from Grand Teton National Park to their winter range in the Green River Basin.  Emilene grew up in Big Horn.

Tom Rea lives in Casper. He worked as an editor and reporter for the Casper Star-Tribune for 11 years, covering education and politics. Since leaving the paper he has written two prize-winning books, Bone Wars: The Excavation and Celebrity of Andrew Carnegie’s Dinosaur and Devil’s Gate: Owning the Land, Owning the Story. Most recently he finished a third book, about a historic ranch near Hole in the Wall for the Wold family of Casper.

Bill Sniffin is a longtime Lander-based Wyoming reporter, columnist, editor, author and publisher. As editor and owner of the Wyoming State Journal Sniffin won numerous state and national honors and was nominated for a Pulitzer prize in 1991 by former US Alan Simpson for a series of articles about the treatment of aging uranium workers. He is the author the books The Best Part of America and High Altitudes, Low Multitudes. Bill lives in Lander with his wife Nancy.

Tory & Meredith Taylor

Tory Taylor came to Wyoming on horseback from his native Colorado in 1971 and hired on as a ranch-hand in the upper Wind River Valley. Later he cut timber and worked as a pumper, roughneck and roustabout in Wyoming’s oilfields.

Meredith Dodd Taylor grew up in the Adirondacks of upstate New York and New England before she came to the Dubois area in 1975 to do a bighorn sheep study for the National Audubon Society. A couple of years later they married and, in 1980, started up Taylor Outfitters. Initially, they made their living guiding sheep and moose hunters into the Greater Yellowstone Wilderness. Gradually their business turned to eco-tourism and scientific research expeditions. In 2002, Taylor Outfitters stopped offering commercial guided hunting trips. By then, the Taylors had built a statewide reputation as environmentalists.

Samuel Western of Sheridan is a university lecturer,  poet and U.S. regional correspondent for The Economist. Author: Pushed Off the Mountain Sold Down the River: Wyoming’s Search for Its Soul (2003) and A Random Census of Souls (2009)

OUR CONTACTS

Wyofile is non-profit news site based in Lander, Wyoming with contributors scattered across the state. WyoFile editors can be reached at editor@wyofile.com. If you are interested in writing for WyoFile, please submit a paragraph detailing your proposed story, suggested length and proposed delivery date to editor@wyofile.com