Marchers filled downtown streets in a colorful procession that followed a weekend of rallies and events celebrating Utah’s LGBTQ+ community.

Much of Western Washington University’s queer community gathered on campus Thursday, June 4 to celebrate the institution’s third annual Lavender Graduation.

The 2025 ceremony was canceled due to a strike by the university’s operational student employees following more than a year of failed negotiations with WWU. This year, though, about 60 graduates walked the stage inside Viking Union

. Multiple keynote and student speakers took to the podium to congratulate the university’s outgoing students on reaching an academic milestone, and touted the importance of community building during a time when shifts in the country’s social and political fabric have negatively affected minority communities.

Still, the ceremony was filled with joy as those same speakers recounted how the friends and family they’d fostered on campus changed their lives for the better. During the event, four Western Washington University graduates took the time to speak with Cascadia Daily News and reflect on their growth while in school.

Their responses have been edited for brevity and clarity.

Juleyana Cabrera

What did you learn outside of the classroom during your time at WWU?

I think it’s more like another thing I just kind of survived. I’ve lived a really rough life, and I’m the first generation in my family to graduate from any college. So there’s a lot of pressure, but there is also the knowledge within myself that I’ll probably be okay no matter what happens after this. I learned a lot on campus about myself and how I adapt to things.

What does queerness mean to you?

Queerness means to me, it means community, it means family, it means the thing that saved my life. I’m just kind of more grateful than anything. My first ex-girlfriend is the whole reason I moved to town. Rest in peace, she’s not with us anymore, but I don’t know where I’d be without my queer fam.

Did you find WWU to be a welcoming space for you?

There are certain pockets that are OK but there are certain teachers that were straight-up transphobic that I absolutely hate.

Do you have any words of advice for queer students who are about to start the next step of their education at WWU?

Remember to get full sleep. Don’t forget to stay hydrated. Avoid the drama if you can avoid it. Figure out what works best for you and keeps you safe and sane, because keeping yourself safe and sane while navigating all of this is the most important thing.

Joshua Riley

What did you learn outside of the classroom during your time at WWU?

Even as you build community with people, you have to put yourself first. I think that’s the biggest step in building community. When you put yourself first, you can be your most authentic form, and I think that that’s really helped me accept who I am and be happy with who I am.

Do you have any words of advice for queer students who are about to start the next step of their education at WWU?

Go to all of the events you can, talk to all the people you can. Showing up really is the best thing you can do. It helped me get integrated and find my people a lot faster. The events are great and they’re there for you. You should attend them.

Did you find WWU to be a welcoming space for you?

Yes, Western was very welcoming. They talked a little bit about intersectionality (during Lavender Graduation), and my experience as a queer person has been really great. My experience as a person of color has been less great. So that comes together in ways that are sometimes not great and then sometimes really great because you get spaces like Black LGBTQ+ Thriving as well.

I would say ultimately yes, especially as a queer person. Even as I talk about the struggles of being a person of color in these predominantly white spaces, I have been more accepted here than a lot of the white spaces I have been in prior.

What does queerness mean to you?

It means accepting alternate truths and realities, I suppose. There is a heteronormative standard set in place, and when you break that, you accept queerness. To me, that means having pride and joy in the person that you are, no matter who you are and what you bring to the table. Like I said, you kind of put yourself first and learn yourself and love yourself.

Casper Suter

What did you learn outside of the classroom during your time at WWU?

I learned a lot about community. I spent the three-and-a-half years that I was here as a part of the drag campus club on campus. I was a part of it from the day it started. Prior to that, I didn’t have a whole lot of friends or even people within the queer community that I knew at home, so I learned a lot about other people and how they fit into the community and how we all interact together.

What does queerness mean to you?

Being yourself, even through adversity. When I first came to Western, I presented myself very differently than I do now because I felt like it was how I had to be in order to be valid in my identity, and now I feel a lot more comfortable in both my identity and also how I present, regardless of how they overlap.

Do you have any words of advice for queer students who are about to start the next step of their education at WWU?

Find your people. One of my best friends is someone I met the day I moved into the dorms and we’ve stuck together ever since. I know people who went through all of college without really knowing anyone in their community. It took me until my third year to meet other people in my major, so just like finding your people and having people around you so you’re not alone.

Gabriel Diaz-Kelly

What did you learn outside of the classroom during your time at WWU?

I think Western really taught me to listen to people. I came in thinking that I was the only person with my experience. When I came into college, I thought that I knew the most about everything and that no one else could relate to me, and this made me special in a lot of ways. I learned that uniqueness doesn’t really come necessarily from the identities that I hold, but the experiences that I get to share with people.

I was really lucky to be able to find such wonderful queer friendships here. Queer professors, queer mentors and even just in general, college has really forced me to take uncomfortability and turn it into lessons and education.

Did you find WWU to be a welcoming space for you?

I came out as trans super, super young, when I was 13, which is younger than most people my age. One of the main reasons I picked Western is because of their gender-neutral housing. I remember very specifically a call that we gave to Western when I was going through universities calling and asking, “Hey, what is it like to find a dorm when you’re trans,” and they had all of these systems already in place, and I remember me and my mom in the car together becuase she was so worried that her kid wasn’t going to be safe in college.

But I did find a lot of gaps. It wasn’t necessarily because people weren’t working hard enough; it’s just that there weren’t enough people or positions. So it was very easy for me to find a community and support network when it came to my personal life, but when it came to the broader structures of Western, there was kind of a gap that I was lucky enough to fill when I was working as the advocacy and education co-coordinator (for LGBTQ+ Western).

I am leaving this with the full knowledge that my co-coordinator, my other employees, my supervisors have my back 100% of the way, and they’re going to have the next person’s back.

Do you have any words of advice for queer students who are about to start the next step of their education at WWU?

Shut up and listen. I love to talk, I love to get to know people, but you really have to just be on the sidelines to get to know people. Be the dumb person in class, ask the questions, don’t wait for someone to tell you what you’re supposed to know.

Take every opportunity, look up every resource. We have 1,001 resources here at Western. Most students don’t know that we have free audio editing and sewing machines, and we take students out to Mount Baker and we have gender-affirming resources. Say hi to everyone you can say hi to and talk to the people that you don’t think you’d like, because chances are you’re probably going to like them at least a little bit.

What does queerness mean to you?

I think queerness is a way for me to show other people that I want to love them in a very kind way. If I’m alone, I don’t think of myself as queer and trans; those are labels I give to the outside world so that they get some glimpse into what I am.

I don’t need anyone to tell me that I’m valid, I don’t need anyone to tell me that I’m enough because I know that, I’m very secure in that. So what I have in the label “queer” is a billboard to everyone else that says, “I want to love you back. I want to talk to you, I want to get to know you.”

Santiago Ochoa is a CDN visual journalist; reach him at santiagoochoa@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 105.

Rodeo champion Rusty Wright’s big comeback didn’t start with a wild bronc or record-setting ride. It began between rides, in the dust and noise of Cheyenne Frontier Days when a stranger asked him to do a quick interview for a documentary about barrel racing legend Angela Ganter. 

They wanted him to talk about something he feels strongly about — the importance of women in the rodeo world.

“I’ve got a pretty strong opinion about it, so I figured I’d go ahead and do it,” said the saddle bronc champ. “I didn’t expect it to be as big of a deal as it turned out being. I was passionate about it, and they loved that, so I think the interview went a little longer than it was supposed to.”

His off-the-cuff, passionate interview would become what Wyoming filmmaker Raen LeVell describes as the “beating heart” of his “Outriding the Devil,” a film he believes is well on its way to becoming a grassroots rodeo blockbuster.

It’s enjoyed a multi-week run as the No. 1-ranked Western documentary on IMDb and earned major praise from national outlets like Sports Illustrated. 

It’s also gained elite backing from professional rodeo leaders, who have given it prime screenings at some of the sport’s biggest venues, including the National Finals Rodeo.

Women Behind Rodeo’s Biggest Champions

Ask Wright who the real heroes of rodeo are, and he’ll point first to the women — those who compete in the arena and the ones who never step inside of it.

In his Cheyenne interview, he poured his heart out about his own mother, ShaRee Wright, and all of the other rodeo moms and wives who help keep riders like himself going. 

“They asked me what my mom meant to me, and the things she’s done for me in my career,” he said. “Everybody hears how our dad helped us along. He gets lots of recognition, which he should. 

“But I don’t feel like my mom or the wives behind the scenes ever really get the recognition they deserve. Honestly, I think it should be just as much as what my dad would get.”

If there were gold buckles for “backbone of the family,” Rusty said he’s convinced his mom would have several of those.

The deep respect for women behind the chutes is exactly the kind of authenticity LeVell was hoping to capture in his film, from Ganter’s story to the moms and wives behind the scenes.

Ganter’s ‘Red Devil’ Comeback

“Outriding the Devil” focuses on the little-told comeback story of Ganter, a barrel racer whose stunning career slammed into a stage-four breast cancer diagnosis so advanced doctors told her she was unlikely to live.

But Ganter had always been a fighter and refused to give up. 

The chemotherapy that ultimately saved her has a telling nickname, though. It’s called the “red devil,” and it wreaks havoc on the human body in its quest to ultimately save it.

There were days Ganter couldn’t walk from her bedroom to the living room. After chemo like that, almost no one believed Ganter would even be able to ride a horse again, much less fight her way back to compete at an elite level. 

“That red devil chemo had road-graded her nervous system,” LeVell said. “She had lost her balance. She didn’t really know left from right. So the idea that she would get on a horse and be able to just kind of like work on a horse was a little fanciful, and the thought that she would come back to rodeo was kind of like Disney-line stuff.”

And yet, Ganter not only survived, but she returned to rodeo at the highest levels, finding a special horse named Bugs and clawing her way back to champion-caliber barrel racing. 

Lighting A Fire Under Rusty Wright’s Comeback

For Wright, who hadn’t known the full depth of Ganter’s ordeal until that Cheyenne interview, her resilience ended up lighting a fire right when he needed it most.

“When I did that interview, honestly, I was kind of right in the middle of my own personal issues and stuff,” he said. “I went from, you know, top of the world — I was reserve world champion in 2018 — and then I had a bunch of personal struggles. I wasn’t even making finals one year. I wasn’t even top 50.”

Learning what Ganter had overcome helped him push the reset button.

“You start playing the ‘poor me’ game, and if you open your eyes and look around, everyone’s got something,” he said. “You sitting there crying about your problems, that isn’t going to help you get out of them. 

“A lot of people have it a lot worse off than I do, and they made it. They conquered it. So that kind of lit that fire under me to get my stuff together, and you know, set my goals, realign my priorities, and away we went.”

From NFR To Wyoming

After its premiere at the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas — the Super Bowl of Western sports — “Outriding the Devil” has hit the rodeo trail. That’s included premiering at major Texas events like RodeoHouston and the San Angelo Stock Show & Rodeo.

Now after making waves on a national stage, the film is circling back to where Rusty’s turning point began — Wyoming. The film will have an especially long runway in the Cowboy State with several free premieres ahead.

It will open the College National Finals Rodeo in Casper on June 13, making it one of the rare films to both premiere as an official event of the NFR and later open the college finals as well. 

From there, it heads to Sheridan for the WYO Rodeo kickoff on July 5 and then to Cheyenne Frontier Days, where it will premiere July 16. 

All of these shows will be free to the public thanks to Visit Casper, the Wyoming Foundation for Cancer Care, the WYO Rodeo, and the Gold Buckle Club. 

These Wyoming events will also be the last chances to see “Outriding the Devil” on the big screen, and they’ll include opportunities to quiz the director and rodeo figures after the show.

Streaming deals are being negotiated for a wider, national release, but premiere-style events will end once those begin.

True Meaning Of Grit

The Wright family is considered rodeo royalty by many, and has been an integral part of “Outriding the Devil,” LeVell said. 

During the Las Vegas premiere, the Wrights were there in force alongside country music stars and “Yellowstone” actors, including Mo Brings Plenty. 

One of those stars was Ned LeDoux, who plays a young Ganter’s uncle in the movie opposite Lily Wright, who is Stetson Wright’s sister.

In the film, Rusty’s brother, Stetson Wright, takes viewers inside the chute as he walks through his mental processes before a ride. 

Rusty, meanwhile, talks about the importance of family sticking together and why he sees rodeo as “one big family.”

Rodeo is one of America’s most dangerous and physically demanding sports. It takes a certain mindset to keep going, one that’s hard to sustain without family and friends backing it up.

“Everybody always sees our highlights and our wins on social media,” he said. “Everyone talks about our wins and yeah, that’s inspiring and everything. But to me the real inspiration, what gets me fired up, is seeing people’s struggles and what they had to go through to get there.”

Rusty said it took 50-some horses before he could stay on a bronc at all, and probably 300 horses before it finally started to click.

“I remember that moment when it finally clicked for me and I thought, ‘Oh, that’s how it’s supposed to feel,’” he said. “If people could watch how many dirt naps and how many wrecks I got in getting to where I’m at, I guarantee you, most people would be like, ‘I can’t believe he’s still riding.’”

By showing those struggles, Rusty hopes his own kids will realize that whatever they want to do in life, they can do it.

“It doesn’t matter what you’ve been through, or what you go through,” he said. “If you work at it, buckle down, if you stay hooked, you can get your way to the top.”

That’s the larger message he sees in Ganter’s story, too, and it’s one he absorbed thanks to a random interview request at Cheyenne Frontier Days in Wyoming.

“I don’t really believe in coincidences,” he said. “I believe in faith. I was just walking by, and they’re like, ‘Hey, you want to come do this interview?’ God knew I needed that. He knew I needed to hear something, to give me that little push I needed.”

Now that push is on a much bigger stage, playing out in rodeo arenas and theaters across Wyoming and the West — an audience full of cowboys and cowgirls who know exactly what it means to get bucked off hard, dust off, and stand back up again in the arena. 

It’s no surprise that such a film would have a Wyoming director behind it, or that it would find its biggest runway in the Cowboy State, where grit has become part of the local DNA.

Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.