I believe in youth baseball... by Lisa Martin

Lisa MartinBaseball requires players to use their unique talents and abilities in positions suited to them, while constantly communicating with eight other players in positions reflecting their gifts. A pitcher can throw a ball that is hard to hit. A catcher can catch and hold on to a ball while being slid into by a runner. Third base is the “hot box” allowing the shortest reaction time from a ball leaving a bat until the ball needs to be stopped. Short and second need to tirelessly cover the infield and mid-outfield quickly enough to rack some double plays. The outfielders need speed, depth perception and a strong arm. It’s handy to have a first baseman that can jump, is flexible and is left-handed. 

Each member of the defensive field has to stop the ball that comes to them and try to get an out or two, both to help the team win and to help their pitcher get out of the inning with the fewest possible pitches (saving his arm). Add to this the offensive challenge, often cited as the hardest act required in any sport: hitting a ball with a bat.

Each player must take his or her turn, alone at the plate; with all eyes on them and a parent on the sidelines shouting last minute advice. Base hits win ball games, but batters sure love their home runs! Good base running is one of my favorite parts of the game. How far do you lead off? Make sure your fingers can beat the ball back to the bag, but be out there far enough that you can out run the catcher’s throw to second on the steal. Slide under the throw at second, but be ready to pop up and run to third if the throw is bad. And then there are the games that leave it all up to a batter: down one point, bottom of the last inning, bases loaded, two outs, the count is full. I hold my breath and hate the game while loving every minute. A good team (family, workplace, church) is made up of uniquely gifted individuals communicating effectively with one ultimate goal at the end of each personal vision…so goes baseball. Granted people have different likes, dislikes, talents and interests; yet still…

I believe that if there comes a day when boys lack the courage and fortitude to stake their egos on being able to connect a bat with a 90 mph fast ball or a 45 mph curve ball, then that day will be a bleak witness to the caliber of youth being sent out into the adult world.
An unknown author wrote, “Lots of people never lose that never play the game”. Everybody has to grow up and work, almost everybody will have to work as a member of a team; but can youth develop the ability to work well as part of a team if they haven’t played the game?

Lisa Martin practices her belief that baseball is an expression of America throughout the summer, volunteering for youth baseball and the Worland Indians. She says that she gets much of her inspiration from her sons who ask, “If it wasn’t for baseball, what would we do all summer?”

I believe that home is where the heart is ... by Shandi Quintana

Shandi QuintanaI moved away from my home town of Worland out west to Washington in pursuit of my future. Getting here was about half the battle, the other half was settling in. I have now been out here for about 10 months and I love it. However nothing brings me more comfort than to get snail mail with letters and pictures of family and friends doing their best to keep in touch.
Working out in Washington has opened my eyes up to a whole new world, one in which you wouldn’t find in Worland, or Wyoming for that matter. Washington is not a place to wave at someone as they go by or honk to get someone’s attention.  It’s not a place where going to the park is a social event on Saturday afternoons. It is also not a place to be careless of your belongings.
When someone from Wyoming comes across my path I can pick up on it almost immediately. I don’t know what it is about people from Wyoming but we all have a little something in common. Generally I feel it’s because we all know the simpleness of life — such as the greater outdoors and the wildlife. We know what it is to have friends walk in the unlocked back door without knocking and the barbecues held on back porches where the neighbor is always invited. It’s also the peacefulness of Sunday mornings where most families try to spend time together and the only thing open on a Sunday is the gas stations and a few restaurants.
No matter what Wyoming holds, in this case it’s the one place in the world that when I cross that state line I know I’m home! I know that family and friends are just a few miles away. I know that waving at the car passing me is a way of saying happy travels. I know there is no reason to call ahead of time, just stopping by a friend’s house to chat is as simple as making the time to do it.  I know no matter where I go or who I run into, my heart is at home in Worland, Wyoming.

Shandi is a 2005 graduate of Worland High School, is currently working in Burlington, Wash as she waits for the fall semester at Skagit Valley College where she will work towards a degree in Business Management. But most of us will know her from her times wandering the Worland bowling lanes, a hobby she still partakes in now that she’s in Washington.

I believe in family...by Mike Karr

It was at my grandmother’s funeral recently that I realized how fortunate I am to have such a loving and caring family. Attending the services were my uncles, aunts, cousins, sisters and other relatives. I was one of the casket bearers and carried my grandmother to her final resting place.
After six of us had carried the casket, the entire family huddled beneath a canopy while the snow fell from the sky. The air was cold and my feet and hands were numb, tingling for warmth. As the service began and the opening remarks were made, I looked around at all of the faces of my blood. I could see the tears and the sadness that was painted on all of their faces. I turned to my left and saw my mother crying. I turned to the right and saw one of my sisters crying.
Looking around at my family, I noticed the arms around shoulders and the hugging of bodies, consoling one another. I looked to my sister and put my arm around her.
A funeral is a sad moment and it was this one in particular that tugged on my heart strings. But a funeral is also a celebration of life and remembering the times shared with that special person.
It was under that canopy, with water dripping on my black shirt and with my arm around my sister, that I came to understand the importance of my family. I finally grasped the meaning of love and the meaning of togetherness. I realized that without my family I would probably be dead, and instead of standing next to them under that canopy, it would be my body in that coffin.
The service ended and the family gathered at the reception, mostly eating food, drinking coffee, and catching up on our lives that seem to be moving way too fast. We all hugged and parted our different ways, continuing on to the next chapter in our busy lives.
Life is short and we could go at any minute. We need to take time out of our lives and spend it with our families. We need to create memories that not even death could erase. I believe in family and believe we should celebrate our loved ones everyday.

Mike Karr is a staff writer and contributing editorial cartoonist for the Northern Wyoming Daily News. He is also an artist, writer, poet, bowler, brother, son and grandson.

I believe in hope...by Sandra Garza

Sandra GarzaYou can hardly get through a day without hearing of or seeing tragedies on the news. In today’s society, it’s an everyday occurrence, but when it happens to someone close it’s more shocking. Why would God let something like this happen?
I really can’t say why these things happen, but we live in a time where people have turned away from God. He didn’t say we would have peace and happiness always. This goes back to the Garden of Eden when sin entered into the world for the first time.
It’s a tragedy when you lose someone dear to you. I believe that followers of Christ have hope. I have experienced pain and loss just like everyone has. It makes me wonder why, bit I have put my hope in Jesus Christ. For believers, this means we will be reunited again in Heaven when Jesus returns to take those who have put their trust in Him.
The year 1995 was heart breaking. My father-in-law was diagnosed with cancer, which shocked the whole family. I don’t think we could have made it through this trying time without the hope that Jesus Christ brings in my life.
I was pregnant with my second child, Jacob. This should’ve been a joyous time, but my father-in-law was dying. Over nine months we saw him fade away. He never lost hope, that one day soon he would be face to face with his Savior. The hope that I have in Jesus made the loss, grief and pain more bearable.
A week before he passed away, we were visiting in his hospital room. He called Jeff and me to his bedside. He wanted to pray for this unborn baby that he would never see, hold or know. He placed his hand on my belly and started praying. I wanted to cry out in protest. Nobody should have to go through such pain, but God doesn’t promise that life will be what we consider fair. We cannot even fathom the infinite mind of God. God’s will doesn’t always correspond with our selfish one.
God gave my father-in-law the ultimate healing: to be with his Father in Heaven. This is the hope I have in Christ, that one day I will be reunited with my family of Christian believers. Its God’s will that none should die apart from knowing Him. He desires all to know Him and be followers of Him. He gives everyone that choice. He will not force us to follow Him, but there will be consequences if we don’t.
It’s my hope in Jesus Christ that I lean on in times of happiness and tragedy that keep me going day to day. Tragedy and death are part of life, but believers can face these things knowing that we never say goodbye for the last time. Jesus is willing to meet you wherever you are, no matter what you are going through. He is the greatest hope anyone can have.

I believe in Zonkey stripes, Donkey kisses and free spirits ... by Le Ann Baker

Le Ann BakerWhen the world is almost silent, just before the sun lights a sky tinted with fuchsia and salmon hues in the east, the crystalline winter scene at my house comes alive with the free spirit of my quarter horse mare. Her morning ritual includes a frisky frolic in anticipation of a little grain and a taste of the summer grasses past. Some would liken her antics to those coming out of chute number one at a rodeo. I am in awe of her athleticism and know she is happy to see me and our spirits connect in a completely personal way. She looks up with her big brown eyes seeing directly into my soul and at that priceless moment we both find comfort.

One pen over the silence is broken by a thunderous winded bray. It’s a miniature donkey name Dalton, wanting his piece of the attention and a taste of the morning meal. As he comes to the bunk he sticks his nose through the fence as if to offer a donkey kiss. That velvety soft spot on the end of his nose makes cotton candy feel like sand paper.

Not to be left out, Wyoming’s only zonkey, is silent, yet I can see that anticipation in her eyes. Her large ears perk ever mindful of the least flutter in the breeze or crackle of a dried leaf underfoot, while her stripes always make me smile.

I was raised on milking cows, morning and evening chores and summer vacations consisting of multiple livestock shows. As with any young person I am certain there were mornings I was less than excited to get out in the cold, evening I would have rather went to town with friends and livestock sales I would have rather missed than to sell my summertime companions.

Today, much older and wiser, I realize those experiences are responsible for the person I have become. I owe my folks, countless 4-H leaders and a couple of FFA advisors, a huge thanks. Learning to be a good steward of livestock taught me so much from responsibility/work ethic, finances and husbandry to teamwork, leadership, service, sportsmanship and compassion.

In the evenings, at the close of some less than fantastic days, I can count on the fact that three happy souls will be waiting, heads hung over the fence to welcome me home. They depend on me and trust that I won’t let them down. Their simple, constant, unconditional love offers me great joy. They always listen and never criticize.

I know the corrals will never stand empty at my place. Some of my smartest and best friends have had four legs or were the people associated with them. I no longer refer to caring for animals as chores, I just truly appreciate my two-a-day, natural therapy session.

I (f)elieve in the river...By Dr. Steve Tharp

On the River we became Yahoos, four brothers, butt naked, rolling in the black silt of the river’s edge. We spent our informative years returning almost daily to our river playground, smoking driftwood, gathering clams in the laughing shallows and tentatively exploring the depth of the river’s numerous, murky dark pools.

How time flied away, slips away and all these years later those adolescent memories serve as the matrix and metaphor for what I “Felieve”, drawn from this river of laughing fast water and silent deep.

I had always assumed belief was final, fixed and absolute, once proclaimed inviolate, set in stone. Belief is not fixed and final, it is fleeting. A scoop of wet river sand in a sieve left to dry sees the sand sift through the sieve till none remains and so it is with belief, a train of two tracks, the train we ride North today may be the same we ride South tomorrow. There must be something more.

We have two brains, a primitive “gut” brain of feeling, submerged in the still deep pools and a “conscious” brain of believing seated atop our shoulders, preoccupied with the multitudes of noise of the river’s fast water.

Thus the conundrum of humanity, two disjointed brains, one drawn to the frenetic pace and traffic of fast water, the other immersed in the quiet deep of the contemplative, one feeling the other believing, one the yearning hand the other the lonely glove, a disjointed, deep vexing, that has been with us since and throughout the “crealution” of mankind.

Life for all is in the merging waters. At the interface of fast and deep there exists a magical, mysterious union of the primitive and conscious, of feeling and believing, where the hand once and finally merges with it’s glove, a communion of the contemplative and conscious, a magical synaptic spark whose creation is “Felief” -- profound, life changing and everlasting. It is my “Felief” the river waits for all.

I “Felieve” in the parable of the river, I live in the fast water. Everyday I return to dig for clams. I need clams for sustenance. I’m always hungry for clams and it seems I can never find enough to satisfy me. I worry about becoming too full of clams, losing by balance and being swept away, I spend my quality time by the deep pool under the canopy of old cottonwoods where the fast water merges with the deep. There I muse, smoking a driftwood, basking in the abundance of my butt naked freedom. I’m glad you cannot see me. I’m a portly 52.

Dr. Tharp has been practicing his form of “felief” on the critters of the Big Horn Basin for many years as a veterinarian. Dr. Tharp is also well-known in the area for the programs he volunteers for including Special Olympics, Young Authors, high school athletics and many, many, many other “fings”.

I believe in Dr. Suess...by Steve Staab

We live in a world where spin-doctors are what we used to call con artists, where the lines of ethics, morality and faith are blurred, where religion is used as an excuse to kill our fellow man. I yearn for a simpler credo of beliefs; those simple, but elegant morals espoused by a writer named Theodore Geisel, known to millions as Dr. Seuss.

Dr. Seuss reduced human behavior to elementary terms; honesty, integrity, loyalty, redemption, determination, conflict resolution, tolerance, etc. The fables he spun took place in an alien world with weird creatures, strange settings and the most unlikely host of characters ever assembled; yet there was never a doubt who he was speaking to. His homespun poetry and clever play on words and their meanings proved humorous and entertaining, but all the time we were laughing, there was a subtle message embedded to hopefully influence our treatment of others.

In Horton Hatches The Egg, we learn about trust, honor and loyalty through the following words: “I meant what I said, and I said what I meant..An elephant’s faithful one hundred percent. In How The Grinch Stole Christmas!, we explored spirituality, tolerance and redemption. In Green Eggs and Ham, we discovered determination, conflict resolution and openness to new ideas. In The Cat in The Hat we experienced the sometimes negative results of not living our beliefs. Dr. Seuss’ 44 books all contain similar themes and variations on living the “Golden Rule.” There is something for everyone in the Dr. Seuss series and every story can mean something new to every reader.

When the world begins to appear overwhelming and my life feels out of control, I take solace in these words from the eminent doctor: “It’s a troublesome world. All the people who’re in it are troubled with troubles almost every minute. Just tell yourself, Duckie, you’re really quite lucky! Some people are much more…oh, ever so much more…oh, muchly much-much more unlucky than you.” — Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?
My wife always says she believes in the world according to Disney, I believe in the world according to Dr. Seuss.

Steve Staab is a counselor at Worland High School and volunteers as a member of Kiwanis Club. As a matter of fact, he could be found today at the Festival of Trees reading some of his favorite Christmas books to any child (young and old) who would like to listen. He may even bring out “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.”

I believe in a life lived one day at at time...by Val Busch

Val BuschI recently picked up my son’s 2007 Worland High School annual from the school office. There they were, the graduating class, in full color, with a cute little baby picture insert and along each picture was printed a favorite quote or a personal life credo. As I perused through them, I had to smile, so many of the quotes reminded me of my class motto (Green River High School Class of 1970), “Live today…for tomorrow may never come.”

I can still remember, vividly, the rolling eyes, sighs, and half-hearted attempts of the long-suffering high school staff to override, in their opinion, our melodramatic, fatalistic choice (we were one of those classes).

To tell you the truth, if memory serves, it wasn’t that well thought out. More the dredges of a too long meeting in which too much had to be decided by too many, and the will of a few long-haired, mini-skirted (dare I say “flower children”), who forced on to the apathetic majority. “Live for today for tomorrow may never come” somewhat cynical…and yet perhaps an understandable, lament from the generation of draftable kids at the end of the Vietnam era.

Flash forward to 2007, all these years later, echoes the same sentiment in all it’s many guises. Less cynical, “Life is short, time is short, roses fade and shadows shift,” more eloquently stated in John Lennon’s plaintive voice, “Life is what happens when your making other plans.” More poetic, “Cherish yesterday, dream tomorrow, live today.” More to the point, “live one day at a time.” Different and yet…the same.

I find it reassuring and inspiring, that as fledgling as the attempts to voice a life credo at the tender age of 18, out of the mouths of babes, both then and now, rings a truth that after all these years of living, learning, and experiencing life, I believe, stand by and live by today (so there, GHS teachers circa 1966-1970).

No matter how you dress it up, pretty it up, reword it to make it seem more contemporary, the sentiment is the same. Live today, love today…experience today. And as a prime time lady (never old!) I think one of life’s greatest compensations for the passing of time is, in addition to living in the moment, I have been given the lovely gift of appreciation. In recent days I have been truly appreciative of a good friend who listened with love in her heart, a truly amazing rose, a vote of confidence from colleagues, committed, tireless veterinarians who made Sunny dog feel better, a silly phone cal from my son from college in the middle of a really trying day, and a gorgeous autumn walk on our farm. The small gifts of an ordinary day, a life lived one day at a time, is what I believe what makes life wonderful.

Val Busch is still a 'flower child' as the owner of The Flower Exchange in Worland. She is also the President of the Worland/Ten Sleep Chamber of Commerce and a very proud mother to boot.

I believe in hope...by Varina Workman

Some of you may know me in one of the various hats I have worn: parent, teacher, leader, volunteer, author, artist, etc…Others know me not at all.

Many times in my life I have faced what were and are considered poor, if not unbeatable odds. I have surprised even myself. I had good teachers and examples around me, and people willing to encourage and believe in me when I did not fully believe in myself.

One such person was my grandmother, Lillian Despain. Memories of her are flooded with the smell of fresh baked bread, and the flavor of honey. Most of my life she was in a wheelchair.

She was loving, patient, kind, full of good advice, and taught me many things. The primary thing she taught me was that a physical handicap is only as limiting as you allow it to be. Even when she lost her sight completely she continued to teach me, love needs no eyes. She volunteered and helped others regardless of her own challenges. I learned much from her.

I learned more lessons from my brother. Tharan Talbot who was born a “blue baby”. My parents were gone for long periods of time simply trying to keep him alive. The odds were never in his favor. He was 7 when the second rounds of open heart surgery began. A tiny frail near skeleton boy, with a shock of white blonde hair, clinging to a stuffed monkey as the car was packed, skin blue, rasping with every breath. He came home with scars.

Outsiders wanted him held back in school. My mother home schooled him and worked to help him catch up. He loved football, but could never play. One hit could kill him. Tharan played sports anyway, t-ball, baseball, and soccer.

He was 9 when thrown in a creek after teasing a girl at camp. I carried him back to camp in my arms, cold, shivering, blue, and fighting for air. I wrapped him in a blanket, and started treating him for hyperventilation. His heart stopped just as the nurses arrived.

Tharan went on to be an Eagle Scout, to graduate Worland High School, to graduate U.W., to get a job, and marry. Jobs were hard to get, employers would not look past the disability. He found his niche finally helping others. All odds were stacked continually against every step of his life and yet he made goals, reached them and went beyond.

I look at these two examples. I think of the many others I have known. They are the motivation of my life. They are what help me to reach out to help others. I know people can succeed, even when they do not. I have seen it happen for myself and other so many times. The only real limits in life are the ones you set for yourself. All that is truly needed is hope and opportunity.

I believe in belief, love and a touch of humor...by Mike Willard

I believe that belief, combined with love and a touch of humor let us conquer anything.Mike Willard

My oldest daughter was born ten weeks premature, at two pounds, three and three quarter ounces, at that time the smallest child ever born in the Washakie County Memorial Hospital. Living in Idaho at the time, we just happened to be “home” on vacation. Carol’s water broke about four in the morning, by six we were at the hospital starting an incredible journey that would start us on a roller coaster ride of emotions.

They told us she might not survive, that she was too small and they called the Billings hospital. Our families gathered filling the hospital with love for this small little person we could not fix. When the air flight ambulance crew arrived they felt that the hospital in Billings could not handle a child this small either, she wouldn’t be able to survive. I remember reaching through the walls of her incubator pushing all the love I could through the plastic glove into her small, hardly breathing body, one lung already collapsed.

They called Denver, no room at the Inn; the University of Utah told them the same story. We prayed, we hoped, and we cried. The final call was to Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake, “We will build a room if we have to,” was their answer and they came to get her.

As the two families, barely joined together the year before, sat together the worry, the stress and the love for one another was a shield protecting us from the evil waiting outside. We were being interviewed about our family histories; they asked if either side had a history of premature births. My father-in-law spoke “My grandfather weighed a pound and a half when he was born and they kept him in the bread warming oven of their cook stove.”
My mother-in-law looked at him and exclaimed, “Did he live??”

It started small, but suddenly we were all laughing and somehow I knew she would be fine.

Missy was named for my grandmother, who was the toughest woman I ever met. She was named right, for she is the toughest little girl I know. In the last 25-plus years she has had many more doctors pronounce that she would not survive. We just laugh and love and believe she’ll live.

It drives them nuts.

Most know Worland native Mike Willard as the Executive Director of the Worland/Ten Sleep Chamber of Commerce where he also practices his core values of belief in the big picture, optimism toward the future, and a touch of humor in most everything he does.

I Believe in Potential - By Dr. Shaun Matako

Dr. Shaun MatakoI love the underdog. That slightly underrated and underestimated individual that rarely gets a sniff from society. They’re too short, too tall, too light, too heavy, too simple, too complicated, too this, that and the other. Yet inside the underdog is an individual with explosive ability to change the world they live in. They have a hidden potential to become champion that perhaps they themselves are unaware of. Let me share an example.

An underdog shepherd named David was overlooked as having potential. His father didn’t think that he had leadership potential and didn’t even call him in from the fields when he was told one of his sons would be the next king. His brothers didn’t think he had soldier potential and told him to leave the battlefield and go back home to the farm. The King didn’t think he had champion potential and tried to dress him up in someone else’s armor. Finally, Goliath didn’t think he had opponent potential and threatened to scatter his flesh to the birds. David was an underdog, but God saw the potential in his heart, and raised a Champion who would become King.

Growing up I was the short kid. I was the one that got picked last and got sat out first. I loved to play. Whether baseball, basketball or football, I carried a ball with me at all times and watched and learned and studied the “big kids”. In seventh grade I played football but never got in. My parents thought it was a waste of time. In fact, they wouldn’t even buy me spikes. I had to wear my brother’s which were so big that I stuffed them with newspaper to keep them on my feet. But all I needed was a chance. All I wanted was to try. If I failed, they’d all be right, but somebody please give me the chance. Against one of our biggest rivals, our starting defensive back got hurt. Then Coach Lapps looked my way and said, “Don’t let me down.”

It was first and goal on the 8-yard line. The quarterback surprisingly dropped back for a pass. Somehow, I instinctively saw it coming. I stepped in front of the receiver at the 4-yard line, intercepted the pass and headed for the endzone. I had lost my shoes around the 40-yard line and ran the last sixty yards with my socks flapping behind me. I never sat the bench again.

I believe that their lives a champion in every person. I further believe that my purpose and calling in life and ministry is to look into the hearts of individuals and see them not only for who they are, but for who they can become. Though they’re often too this, that or the other, I want to challenge the heart of the underdog, tap into that hidden potential and raise the champion in a person, a family and even a community.

I believe in freedom... by Tanya M. Kolsen

I believe in freedom of our people in our country.

Four years ago my belief system changed, I think for the better. I had always kind of ignored or was lazy about watching the news and keeping up with world events. My husband has been in the National Guard for all of the 18 years we have been married, but I had always kind of looked at it as a weekend of fun, that I couldn’t participate in. I used to tease him when he said he was working 2 weeks straight because he had drill. Then the call came, it was his turn to go to Iraq.

Suddenly it didn’t seem like a "vacation", it seemed like I was losing him forever. All I saw everywhere was the news. People seemed to glorify in telling me what was happening over there. For months I had problems eating, and almost every night I dreamed about getting that call. You know the one where he’s not coming back home. My world revolved around checking the computer at 7 pm to see if he could get online to talk to me. Fortunately for me most nights he was there.

I learned from this experience that in order for me or anyone to think that being in the guard is a vacation, I had to be free to really not know. My husband, father, and now my son went into the military to do what they could and can do to help us be free. They do what they do so that we have the right to choose to pray or not, attend a church of our choice, or not. The freedom to vote on the person we trust with our country into government, the freedom to decide if we want to fight for our country and be free, or not. The freedom to pass on our country to our children so that hopefully they will grow up free too, or not. It’s our choice is what I believe.

I Believe in the Power of the Imagination… Jesse Busch

Jesse BuschI believe in the power of the imagination. Spending a summer working at the Boys and Girls club has really reminded me of how strong that part of mind can be. When completely unleashed, a few kids can completely forget about their surroundings. They simply know that they are Jedi fighting on a distant planet, or pirates working aboard the infamous Black Pearl. The furniture of their house becomes mountains, the floor lava and the pillows the only places where it’s safe to step.

I have enjoyed such adventures, many in the comfort of my own home. I would have my best friend over, and we would spend hours playing with my plastic building set. Putting the pieces together, making strange devises and quickly explaining what they did. It was a competition of inventors, of mad scientists really, trying to out-invent the other and create the single device that could not be topped. If I remember correctly, we never did find that ultimate, unstoppable weapon. The curse of only having one afternoon to play.

With age, however, it seems that society forces us to close that door in our mind. With each passing year a great chain is laid across the doorway, slowly forcing it shut. A snake tightening its hold on our body, a noose closing about our neck. We are expected to act more mature, to leave our worlds of fantasy behind and focus on what’s going on around us. To leave our light sabers on the floor and go skateboarding, or lower the pirate flag and spend endless hours chatting or blogging on Myspace. Even I have drifted away from my mad scientist days, forced to bend my attention to homework, part-time jobs, and a thousand other trivial matters.

Still, I have personally experienced that an imagination never goes quietly into the night. It will adapt, shape shift and take on a new form. For an aspiring author like me, it becomes the ability to weave a story of magic and mystery. For artists, it’s to take what they see in their eyes or mind and place it on a canvas. Even for scientists, their imagination gives them the ability to invent, to see a possibility and turn it into a reality.

Adaptive, inventive, invisible, vigilant, visionary, and untamable, that is the nature of an imagination. It is something that society tried to stifle, tires to kill. Like a weed in the garden, we are taught to try and pull it from the ground. Still, weeds are hard to kill, and like them I believe that my imagination is a plant that is best left to grow wild.

Jesse Busch is a 2007 graduate of Worland High School. He is currently attending the University of Southern California and is a member of the USC Trojan Marching Band. In his spare time he still lets his imagination run wild when he's writing fantasy novels and organizing haunted houses.

I Believe in the Power of the Wyoming Landscape - By Sherrie Glade

Sherrie GladeAlthough I grew up in Minnesota, Wyoming is home. It’s where I want to be buried. After being away, crossing the state line always brings a lump to my throat. I believe in the power of the Wyoming landscape.

The badlands – austere, desolate, thorny, sharp, I am so alone – they goad me into self reflection, into confronting my deepest anxieties. Death and destruction surround me in deceptively beautiful layers of volcanic ash. I have walked in these badlands and screamed at God, but resurrection is no more evident to me than in these same transfigured badlands in spring.

Though “plagues” (kasha weed, Russian thistle, scorpions, black widow spiders, rattlesnakes, bull snakes, mice, pack rats, kangaroo rats, raccoons, cotton tail rabbits, gnats, mosquitoes, flies, crickets and flying red ants) test my patience and composure, they teach me the great cycles of life.

There are few things that depress me, frighten me and force me to seek companionship more than the wind. And then there are the dancing, playful breezes that soothe and brush away the bugs.

Yellowstone, a family vacation destination since I was little, evokes the magical world of being a child again. I am enchanted by geysers, mountain goats clinging to sheer cliffs, thermal life forms, bawling bison calves and the possibility of seeing bears and wolves. I find myself skipping down the boardwalks.

Endless grasslands speak to me of bounty and adventure. They beckon me. I am back in the saddle again.

The majestic mountains compel my reverent silence. Endless vistas bring start perspective to my brooding. The forests wrap me in a green velvet comforter. The high country takes my hyperventilating breath away. As I float down a slope on skis in deep snow, I am one with the earth. Bubbling streams invite a chuckle from my heart.

And then there are the heavens. Oh, the November skies! Nothing else has so completely convinced me of the existence of God. I cannot look up at a Wyoming star-filled sky and not be at peace. I believe in the power of the Wyoming landscape to heal.