A New Project Director at WyoHistory.org
By Kylie L. McCormick
Hello WyoHistory.org Readers! As many of you may already know, WyoHistory.org is now under new leadership. Since Oct. 1st, our founder Tom Rea has been easing into retirement and handing the reins over to me. As any good historian, when I think about the future of WyoHistory.org, I also want to give recognition to our past.
In 2008, Tom Rea set about writing a series of articles on Wyoming history aimed at high school students in the Natrona County school district. In the process of researching and writing, he realized how unreliable the internet was when it came to our state’s history. Tom knew that there were great stories that needed to be shared with a wider audience and began to envision our online encyclopedia.
Since its founding in 2010, WyoHistory.org has become a go-to source of online information about Wyoming history. Tom grew the website from a few dozen articles to hundreds covering a wide variety of topics. We are proud to publish original scholarship that is rigorously researched but still appeals to a popular audience. The website has also expanded beyond its original vision of an online encyclopedia—for instance, now we host oral histories. Check out our latest—a series of interviews on the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra. We have also become a reliable source for teachers by publishing lesson plans to accompany our articles. For the explorers of Wyoming, we have created curated travel itineraries and hundreds of field trip suggestions that encourage travelers to dig into Wyoming’s past. Over the course of 14 years, Tom has fulfilled WyoHistory.org’s vision of becoming the primary source of online information about Wyoming history for the public, including teachers, students, tourists, public officials, history buffs and scholars.
It was truly an honor when Tom asked me to take over this project.
Although I grew up in Wyoming, I didn’t begin to research our past until I returned home to Casper with my master’s degree in history. In 2019, I started a business as a public speaker—traveling the state and sharing my research on our past with topics like the Wyoming State Flag, woman suffrage, and marking our historic trails. It has been exciting to uncover new evidence of our past! The best part of my business (besides the fun research and visits to the archive!) has been getting to visit different communities around the state, meet our local history buffs and listen to stories about each town’s history.
After I left my part time position with the National Historic Trails Interpretive Center, Tom asked me to join the WyoHistory.org team in the fall of 2022. Since then, I have fallen even more in love with Wyoming and our history. Each article that we publish is an opportunity to learn something new about our past, and sometimes a chance to reflect on our future.
I hope that WyoHistory.org’s future is as successful as its past has been. I will strive to maintain the incredible work that Tom has done and expand on it. I want to build bridges between WyoHistory.org and different communities such as our educators and our young scholars at the university and our community colleges. Fortunately, Tom isn’t quite finished with WyoHistory.org yet. He is chairing our volunteer advisory committee and will help to shape our vision for the future. With deep gratitude for all who came before me, I am honored to carry on the torch of Wyoming’s history.
Of course, all of this wouldn’t be possible without your support. Thank you to our contributors who publish their scholarship with us, to our readers who keep the site active and to our individual donors whose funding makes all of this happen. I look forward to working with you all!