What’s so special about Dubois? One Saturday in the Park tells it all.
Here’s the start of a great day in Dubois. I came home at the end of it, full of good feelings, and then read the news about today’s violence at the white-supremacy rally in Charlottesville VA. “This is not what I fought for,” wrote someone on Twitter, “and not what America stands for.” I had been thinking how blessed we are to be far away from so many troubles. We have fires and floods and landslides, but we are spared this kind of hate. Quite the opposite, in fact.Here, runners set off toward the grueling 5-mile obstacle course, up the steep and dusty road to the Scenic Overlook, climbing barriers and tromping through muddy ditches. It’s the annual Run4Chance competition sponsored by the Chance Phelps Foundation, in honor of a 19-year-old Marine who gave the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq in 2004.There were so many themes I was going to write about today! For starters, how strong we are. Here are some friends, Mary and Larry, smiling after they finished the 5K run/walk race. They didn’t win; they were just glad to have run. My neighbors toss hay bales and ride bucking broncos. They hike for many miles to see wildflowers in the mountains. “Pain is weakness leaving the body,” read the message on the back of one T-shirt. If it’s tough, painful, or sad, they say, cowboy up. Turn out for the race to honor the memory of Chance Phelps.Or I was going to talk about our culture of service. We wear ourselves out, week after week, creating fun events like this, and always for a cause. It seems like nothing entertaining happens in Dubois that isn’t being done for a very good reason. Here are Jeda and Callie, who work tirelessly to make a good life for the children in Dubois, as they wait for competitors to return. The Run4Chance races fund getaway weekends for veterans.Gradually, the obstacle course runners began to return–exhausted and muddy, but hardly defeated–to mount the last few challenges before the finish line.Here’s my friend Sara, crossing the last obstacle but one, smiling as always (but you can’t see that). She won the women’s division in the obstacle race.Cleaned up and now quiet, we regrouped this afternoon only a few yards from that finish line to honor Chance Phelps and all the veterans from town. Chance was only one of them, but he has come to represent a culture of public service that is woven into the fabric of the community. These dignitaries (US Senator Mike Enzi, Mayor Twila Blakeman, our Wyoming Representative Tim Salazar, and Randy Lahr, head of the Chamber of Commerce) spoke at today’s dedication of the new Veterans Memorial in our Town Park.Culminating the 15-year effort to create the Memorial was the project of our newest three Eagle Scouts. Their names will certainly appear soon on this older memorial, not far from the new one they have created. Funded by local charities including the VFW and the Volunteer Fire Department, the Veterans Memorial was “completely constructed by the effort and generosity of our incredible town,” said Lahr at the dedication.A bagpiper played “Amazing Grace,” while some men in the crowd took off their hats. When have we ever heard this haunting sound in Dubois?There was a rifle salute, and a poignant rendition of Taps by two trumpeters, echoing each other from opposite sides of the Memorial.Finally, the US flag was raised. The piper started up again, and walked slowly off toward the river, the sound of his dirge gradually dying away as he moved off.“They say this town of a thousand people can do anything a town of 10,000 people can do,” the Mayor had said as she opened the ceremony. I wonder how many towns of 10,000 would even have thought to do this. Senator Enzi took up the point: “I wonder if there are any towns of 100,000 that have a Memorial as good as this, created without any Federal dollars.”Then we lined up only a few feet farther west for the annual Buffalo Barbecue, a not-to-be-missed event always held this weekend in August in the Town Park. It’s the annual fund-raiser for those others who serve by putting themselves in harm’s way on our behalf: the volunteer firefighters.It’s a most serious commitment in Dubois. These volunteers not only protect our homes, they are first into the forest, protecting our precious part of paradise.Today they served us in a different way.As we were leaving, I recognized the dark-skinned man sitting on the ground at left. I spoke with him at the Post Office yesterday, where he was mailing some packages to himself. “I’m guessing you’re a hiker,” I said, and asked where he was from. He said he really doesn’t have any fixed address right now. I asked where he was heading, and again he didn’t exactly say. “I hope you’ve been having a good time here,” I said this evening, and he smiled and nodded, pointing at his buffalo burger. He seems to want to be alone, and nobody here would want to hassle him as he sat quietly minding his own business. As the NAACP tweeted today, fear doesn’t live here.
I am a retired science journalist, devoted to enjoying and recording the many pleasures of life in the Wyoming's Upper Wind River Valley.
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One thought on “Ordeals, Ideals, and What We Stand For”
It was another day in paradise Lois. Thanks for writing about it.
It was another day in paradise Lois. Thanks for writing about it.