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Major Artists Make Creative Breakthroughs At Remote Ucross, Wyoming, Retreat

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Major Artists Make Creative Breakthroughs At Remote Ucross, Wyoming, Retreat


The creative paradise of Ucross, Wyoming, just got a little more spring in its step. In partnership with the Houston Ballet, the Ucross Foundation has made choreographer Jack Wolff the inaugural recipient of its Lauren Anderson Dance Residency.

Wolff is set to work in the state-of-the-art Lauren Anderson Dance Studio in the Koehler Performing Arts Center on Ucross’s 20,000-acre ranch in Sheridan County. The studio, named for the Houston Ballet’s first Black principal ballerina, opened in December 2022 as part of Ucross’s 40th anniversary.

Ucross Foundation Director of External Relations Caitlin Addlesperger said Wolff will spend a full month in Wyoming. During that time, his creative process will be “completely undisturbed and uninhibited.”

“The way our residencies work, what makes them so special and renowned across the world is that when we say uninterrupted time, we mean that,” she told Cowboy State Daily. “There are signs on all the studios that say, ‘Do Not Interrupt.’ We don’t want artists to have any distractions, and we take that seriously.”

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Creative Freedom

Ucross offers residencies to “mature and emerging” visual artists, writers, composers, choreographers, interdisciplinary artists, performance artists and collaborative teams. The Lauren Anderson Dance Residency is a monthlong window open to performers and choreographers working with the Houston Ballet.

A Ucross residency is more than a state-of-the-art space with a gorgeous view of the Cowboy State. Addlesperger said every artist at Ucross, a maximum of 10 people at a time for two to six weeks, has their every need covered so they can focus on exploring their creativity.

“Somebody said that they feel like there are 40 hours in a day when you’re out at Ucross,” she said. “We’ll deliver sack lunches to their studio door. All of the housekeeping, individual living accommodations and dinners together in our beautiful dining room — all of that, all of that time.”

A professional chef cooks meals, each artist has personal attendants, and there’s unlimited access to the ranch’s studios. With all distractions removed, the artists have all the time and resources they need to explore their creative instincts.

Since its founding in 1983, Ucross’s goal has been to create the most conducive environment for the creative process to flourish — and the results speak for themselves, Addlesperger said.

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“Dancers complete these beautiful pieces,” she said. “Writers will finish the first or final drafts of their novels. Symphonies and Broadway musicals have been written here.”

For a recent testament, filmmaker Damien Chazelle’s residency led to the script for the 2016 film “La La Land.” The film was nominated for 14 Oscars and won six, including Best Director for Chazelle.

Addlesperger also said that much of the script and music for the 2017 film “The Greatest Showman” were developed during a Ucross residency.

“It’s really special how much of the nation’s arts and culture has been impacted by work that started here,” she said. “All we do is support the artists and give them what they need to bring out their inner creativity and creative genius.”

Choreographic Project

The Houston Ballet is the fifth-largest company in the United States. In 2022, it partnered with the Ucross Foundation to create the studio.

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Jack Wolff, who’s been working with the Houston Ballet since 2018, made his professional debut in Bulgaria and received training and accolades in New York City and elsewhere. Lauren Anderson and Ucross President William Belcher praised him highly.

“Excited doesn’t begin to describe it. I am thrilled to announce Jack Wolff as the first fellow in residence at Ucross,” Anderson said. “His creativity and commitment to having art reflect life promises an inspiring fusion of movement and emotion. This residency marks a significant milestone in fostering artistic expression and collaboration between Ucross and Houston Ballet, and I am honored to have my name on this residency.”

During his two-week residency, Wolff plans to develop the choreographic project he submitted to Ucross.

He said he hopes to “create and explore movement inspired by events from my own life: modern-day issues within family dynamics, such as infidelity and divorce.

“I will be using Rachmaninoff Piano Suites, which have such drama and have augmented my inspiration for the work. I will be working with one male dancer and one female dancer, who will be asked to explore classical ballet language, gritty contemporary movement and more.”

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Artists are welcome and encouraged to bring any collaborators they’d like to work with. Houston Ballet dancers Aoi Fujiwara and Eric Best will work with Wolff during his time in Wyoming.

“I’m excited to find the relationship between the dancers, the music and ideas of familial issues,” Wolff said. “These modern conflicts have become more common in society, and I find it important to bring representation of such events to the ballet stage.”

The Special Recipe

A Ucross residency might sound like paradise for artists, but it’s highly competitive. Applicants “must exhibit professional standing in their field,” so applications from students are not accepted.

But even mature and emerging artists have to stand out in their field. Amid hundreds of applications, Addlesperger said that only 6% are offered a Ucross residency.

“It’s a very competitive application process,” she said. “Most of our artists come through this open application process twice a year. We wish we could have more, but we only want 10 artists in residence at once.”

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And getting a residency isn’t a vacation. These artists do nothing but work at their craft while at the center.

That’s one of many reasons Addlesperger said artists across the globe are clamoring for a few weeks on a ranch in Sheridan County. During their brief stay at Ucross, artists have everything they need to reach their highest potential and share it with the world.

“There is just some special recipe at Ucross,” she said. “Our guiding principle is offering this excellent experience to artists, and we all care about artists, their work, and their creative process.”

Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.



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Casper veteran David Giralt joins race for Wyoming U.S. House seat

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Casper veteran David Giralt joins race for Wyoming U.S. House seat


CASPER, Wyo. — David Giralt, a Casper-raised military veteran and conservative Republican, has announced his candidacy for Wyoming’s lone seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. The congressional seat is being vacated by Republican Rep. Harriet Hageman, who launched a campaign in December for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by retiring Sen. Cynthia Lummis. […]



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Rivalries and Playoff Positioning Highlight Week 11 Wyoming Girls Basketball Slate

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Rivalries and Playoff Positioning Highlight Week 11 Wyoming Girls Basketball Slate


It’s Week 11 in the 2026 Wyoming prep girls’ basketball season. That means it’s the end of the regular season. 3A and 4A schools have their final game or games to determine seeding before the regional tournament, or if a team is locked into a position, one last chance to fine-tune before the postseason. Games are spread across four days.

WYOPREPS WEEK 11 GIRLS BASKETBALL SCHEDULE 2026

Every game on the slate is a conference matchup. Several rivalry contests are part of this week’s schedule, such as East against Central, Cody at Powell, Lyman hosting Mountain View, and Rock Springs at Green River, just to name a few. Here is the Week 11 schedule of varsity games WyoPreps has. All schedules are subject to change. If you see a game missing, please email david@wyopreps.com.

CLASS 4A

Final Score: Laramie 68 Cheyenne South 27 (conference game)

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CLASS 3A

Final Score: Lyman 40 Mountain View 26 (conference game)

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CLASS 4A

Final Score: Evanston 41 Riverton 39 (conference game)

Final Score: Natrona County 42 Kelly Walsh 38 (conference game) – Peach Basket Classic

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Final Score: #4 Thunder Basin 64 Campbell County 32 (conference game)

CLASS 3A

Final Score: #1 Cody 77 Worland 33 (conference game) – 5 different Fillies with a 3, and Hays led the way with 34 points.

Final Score: #2 Lander 49 Lyman 34 (conference game)

Final Score: #4 Wheatland 51 Douglas 40 (conference game)

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Final Score: #5 Powell 48 Lovell 42 (conference game)

Final Score: Burns 56 Torrington 43 (conference game)

Final Score: Glenrock 78 Newcastle 30 (conference game)

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WyoPreps Girls Basketball Week 1 Scores 2025-26

 

CLASS 4A

Rock Springs at #2 Green River, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)

#4 Thunder Basin at #5 Sheridan, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)

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#1 Cheyenne East at #3 Cheyenne Central, 6 p.m. (conference game)

Jackson at Star Valley, 6 p.m. (conference game)

CLASS 3A

#3 Pinedale at Mountain View, 4 p.m. (conference game)

#1 Cody at #5 Powell, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)

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Buffalo at Glenrock, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)

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CLASS 3A

Newcastle at Buffalo, 12:30 p.m. (conference game)

Glenrock at Rawlins, 3 p.m. (conference game)

Torrington at #4 Wheatland, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)

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Submit a Score to WyoPreps

 

Wyoming Boys 4A Swimming & Diving State Championships 2026

4A Boys State Swim Meet for 2026 in Cheyenne

Gallery Credit: David Settle, WyoPreps.com





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Political storm in Wyoming as far-right activist caught handing checks to lawmakers

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Political storm in Wyoming as far-right activist caught handing checks to lawmakers


Controversy has engulfed Wyoming’s state legislature after a conservative activist was photographed handing checks to Republican lawmakers on the state house floor, in an incident that has highlighted intra-conservative divisions and the role of money in the Cowboy state’s politics.

The political storm started on 9 February, when Karlee Provenza, a Democratic lawmaker, took a photo showing Rebecca Bextel, a conservative activist and committeewoman for the Teton county Republican party, handing a check to Darin McCann, a Republican representative, on the legislative floor. Marlene Brady, another Republican representative, stands in the photo’s background, a similar piece of paper pinched between her fingers.

“You have a person from the richest county in the country coming down to Cheyenne to hand out checks on the house floor,” Provenza said. “I have never seen something so egregious.”

Questions around the checks were soon swirling, and answers weren’t forthcoming. When asked what Bextel gave to her, Brady told a reporter for local outlet WyoFile: “I can’t remember.”

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Then Bextel herself addressed the incident. “I raised $400,000 in the last election cycle for conservative candidates, and I will be doubling that amount this year,” Bextel wrote on Facebook on 11 February. “There’s nothing wrong with delivering lawful campaign checks from Teton county donors when I am in Cheyenne.”

Since then, it has emerged that the checks came from Don Grasso, a wealthy Teton county donor, who told the Jackson Hole News and Guide that he wrote the checks for Bextel to deliver to 10 Freedom caucus-aligned politicians. Grasso said the checks were intended as campaign contributions, and were not tied to specific legislation. It is unclear how many checks were ultimately delivered, but two of four confirmed recipients include the speaker of the house, Chip Neiman, and John Bear, the former head of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus.

The Wyoming house has formed a legislative investigative committee, and the Laramie county sheriff’s office said they’d open a criminal investigation.

Bextel declined to answer questions from the Guardian. Brady, McCann and Bear did not respond to requests for comment.

Neiman said he considered the criticism a “wraparound smear campaign”. He said: “It never once crossed my mind that this was bribery.

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“These legislators, myself included, are now guilty until we can prove that we’re innocent. How is that right in this country? Isn’t that a little bit backwards?”

The scandal has highlighted long-standing divisions in Wyoming’s Republican party, which in recent years has seen a growing divide between old school, more moderate conservatives and a harder-right Freedom Caucus.

Several former Republican lawmakers forcefully condemned their colleagues for accepting the checks, and a local Republican party branch called for the lawmakers’ resignations.

Ogden Driskill, a Wyoming Republican senator, told the Guardian he does not consider Bextel’s actions to be illegal, but that “just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should”.

Bextel has spent years pushing against housing mitigation fees in Wyoming, and Driskill noted that she distributed the house floor checks just days before a bill she had publicly supported was set to be heard. Bextel was registered as a member of the press, not as a lobbyist when she delivered the checks.

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“Ethically and morally, it’s bankrupt to a massive degree,” Driskill said.

Neiman said that he and other legislators who received checks have supported similar bills in the past: “Bribery is paying somebody to do something they would not otherwise do.”

Nationally, the 2024 election cycle saw record-spending from the mega-wealthy, as well as dark money groups. Wyoming followed the trend, in a tense red-on-red primary season.

For those gearing up to campaign this year, Teton county, the richest in the US, and Bextel’s picturesque home turf, is an essential stop. Its extreme wealth gives it a foothold on the national level as well. Palantir chief executive Alex Karp and Donald Trump attended an annual Republican leadership fundraiser at Jackson Hole in 2024, and JD Vance attended the same one in 2025.

Bextel pulls dollars from Teton county into the Freedom Caucus side of Wyoming’s conservative split. She hosted no-press-allowed meet and greets earlier this year benefitting leading candidates for Wyoming’s governor and open US House seat.

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In an interview with the Open Range Record, a media network she co-founded, Bextel said controversy around the checks was solely because she was making “even playing field” in Wyoming against the state’s more moderate Republicans, who she calls “George Soros” candidates. She said that she will be sure to keep raising money – just away from the legislative floor.

“I guess I’m gonna ask all the gentlemen and gentleladies to step outside the Capitol while I hand them a check,” Bextel said. “Let me be clear: I’m doubling down.”

But it’s not just wealthy local donors putting their weight behind the factions. Last election cycle, out of state groups spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on anonymous and often inaccurate mailers.

“These actors, especially from the far right, they like to push the bounds of the norms,” said Rosa Reyna Pugh, an organizing and advocacy consultant at Western States Center, an Oregon-based non-profit focused on democracy in the western United States. “They like to see what policies they can kind of push, and see where they can play a piece,” Reyna Pugh said.

While Neiman and Driskill fight politically, they do agree on one thing: summer will bring an expensive and brutal campaign season.

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“You’re going to see more dark money than you’ve ever seen. We’ve done absolutely nothing to enforce it. Our secretary of state has not even made a slight attempt to deal with it,” Driskill said. “You’re going to see lots and lots of outside money and I think you’re seeing it on both sides.”

As national questions swirl around pay-to-play politics and profiteering in the Trump administration, Provenza wants better for the Cowboy State.

“We should not be aligning ourselves with how the federal government is conducting itself or how federal elections conduct themselves,” Provenza said. “We owe something far better and more honest to the people of Wyoming than that.”



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