PARK COUNTY, WYO. — The Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation hosted its first educator workshop through the National Park Service’s Japanese American Confinement Sites Education Program, bringing teachers, scholars, and site leaders together to deepen understanding of the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.

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Educators learn lessons of justice and memory at Heart Mountain workshop in Wyoming

More than 14,000 Japanese Americans were imprisoned at the Heart Mountain War Relocation Center, located between Cody and Powell, from 1942 to 1945 during World War II. Now, educators are working to make sure that history is no longer forgotten.

For Shirley Ann Higuchi, chair of the foundation and a lawyer from Washington, D.C., that history is deeply personal. Higuchi said she did not learn about her family’s connection to Heart Mountain until her mother revealed it on her deathbed, after years of silence.

“On her deathbed, she said she wanted her memorial money to go to Heart Mountain, and that was the first we heard of it,” said Higuchi. “We later found out that she was secretly sending money back to Heart Mountain to dream of something being built here.”

Her parents met while incarcerated at the camp and later married after reuniting at the University of California, Berkeley.

“I wouldn’t be standing here because my parents would have never met each other unless they had their rights and liberties taken away from them,” said Higuchi.

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Their time at Heart Mountain was an experience, Higuchi said, that shaped generations of families who rarely spoke about what happened.

“I think the incarceration itself was incredibly traumatic, and the only way they could move forward is to put the whole history behind them,” she said.

That silence extended beyond families and into classrooms, she said, where the history was often omitted entirely.

“With the Japanese American story, it’s been hard to tell this because part of the government’s plan was to suppress the information, and to be quite frank, it worked very well,” said Higuchi. “Where this is one of the worst constitutional violations ever, it wasn’t even taught in law school.”

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The foundation has made significant progress in educating the public about what happened at the site, and Saturday’s workshop at the Heart Mountain Interpretive Center aimed to continue this effort.

Funded in part by a $750,000 federal grant matched by the foundation, the three-year initiative will expand education efforts nationwide. Plans include training K-12 teachers, hosting seminars for graduate students, and launching a digital platform to share stories and research.

The event also brought together representatives from other former incarceration sites across the region, including locations in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, and Utah, to collaborate on how to tell the story more effectively.

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill law professor Eric Muller was one of the participants. He has studied Japanese American incarceration at the site for decades, and said the history remains widely misunderstood.

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“This is one of the major historical injustices in this country’s history, and I don’t think that it is well understood enough,” said Muller. “It’s not focused on sufficiently, I think, in educational curricula.”

For educators like brothers Allen and Jason Doty, both Wyoming social studies teachers, the workshop offered a rare opportunity to engage directly with a local historical site.

Allen Doty, who teaches in Meeteetse, said textbooks often present a limited view of the topic.

“I’m a big advocate of place-based education. This is a great local example of me being 60 miles away,” said Allen Doty. “This was more for me to get a better understanding from it from a more multi-person perspective so that when I’m presenting it to students, I’m able to use primary sources and secondary sources that are effective. Basically for me, this is a good refresh for best practices of a local resource.”

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For Jason Doty, a teacher from Moorcroft, it’s a place that has had a profound impact on his life growing up in the Powell area. He said the proximity of Heart Mountain makes the history especially powerful for students, even though it is several hours away.

“For us as teachers in our discipline in social studies, we can go, ‘Here’s what happens when things break down, and people make decisions during wartime without giving people consideration of their rights and protecting their constitutional rights specifically,’” said Jason Doty. “This happened here … There were 10,000 people plus that were interned here against their will. They weren’t convicted of anything. They were just forced into that situation.”

Both educators said the workshop provided tools to help students connect with the human stories behind the history, which is something they believe is essential to teaching it effectively.

“Kids connect on a personal level with this kind of stuff, and you can provide them, like, hey, actual people experience this. Here’s their story,” said Jason Doty. “There’s always more to learn. There’s always more personal stories.”

That personal connection drives Muller’s work as well. As a professor, he has brought law students from across the country to the site, believing that standing on the ground where history unfolded creates an understanding no classroom can replicate.

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“The students, when they come here, they recognize the enormity of what happened to Japanese Americans. They can feel that Wyoming wind blowing on their own faces that would have blown through the barracks that Japanese Americans lived in,” said Muller. “There is a depth of feeling and thought that happens at this place that just can’t be replicated in a classroom anywhere else.”

Organizers said that impact is exactly the point. By equipping teachers with knowledge and resources, the foundation hopes to reach thousands of students and ensure the lessons of Heart Mountain endure.

“This seems like it was long ago and far away, but it really wasn’t that long ago, and it certainly wasn’t far away. It was right here,” said Muller. “I think that this history reminds us of the speed with which society can transform and the speed with which things, government programs, and policies that would have been unthinkable can become thinkable and actually can come to life in ways that ultimately society will come to regret.”

For Higuchi, preserving this painful chapter of American history is not just a mission, but a responsibility she carries forward with resilience, determined to ensure future generations never forget.

“As an independent museum, we are able to tell the truth, tell the history accurately, and to have objectivity,” said Higuchi. “We want to have a global impact on what happened here because of the significance that this experience has for this country in terms of not doing something like this again.”

The Unpacking Future Packers Countdown is a countdown of 100 prospects who the Green Bay Packers could select in the 2026 NFL draft.

Brian Gutekunst has consistently invested in the offensive line. Since taking over as general manager of the Green Bay Packers in 2018, Gutekunst has drafted 17 offensive linemen. Out of those 17 picks, 12 of them were on Day 3.

With the Packers needing to bolster the depth of their offensive line, Gutekunst could once again target an offensive lineman on Day 3 of the 2026 NFL Draft, with a potential target being Caden Barnett. The Wyoming offensive linemen checks in at No. 23 in the Unpacking Future Packers Countdown.

A native of Texas and a high school offensive tackle, Barnett redshirted during his first season at Wyoming. In 2022, he started one game at right tackle. The following season, Barnett started 10 games at right tackle. In 2024, Barnett started 12 games at right tackle. During his final season at Wyoming, Barnett started 12 games at right guard.

ROCK SPRINGS — Retired Marine Corps Col. Brent Bien brought his second campaign for Wyoming governor to Sweetwater County April 1 and 2. He outlined a sweeping conservative platform that calls for eliminating residential property taxes, abandoning electronic voting machines, halting wind energy expansion and overhauling public education.

Bien, a University of Wyoming engineering graduate and combat veteran, told the crowd he first entered the race after Gov. Mark Gordon shut down the state during the COVID-19 pandemic and the legislature failed to act during a subsequent special election.

“This was never a bucket list thing for me,” Bien said. “But I do understand the value and worth of our freedom, an I am willing to go to the mat for it.”

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Taxes and Spending

Bien argued Wyoming has a spending problem, not a revenue problem, and called for the states first full budget audit since 1989. He proposed eliminating the residential property tax, cutting fuel tax, and reducing the sales tax by 1%. He estimated the total combined reduction at roughly $1.1 billion annually.

He said Wyoming’s approximately $34 billion in reserves generate nearly $1.9 billion in interest annually. Bien said that the interest alone is enough to cover essential services without touching the principal.

“Everybody in here deserves to know the final resting place of every tax dollar.” he said.

Energy

Bien is sharply critical of what he described as production restrictions under the current administration, saying Wyoming oil output has fallen between 65% and 70% and mining activity has dropped 18% under Gordon. He pledged to streamline permitting for oil, gas and coal development and said he would oppose all new wind energy projects in the state.

“My answer is unequivocally no,” he said of new wind proposals.”I’ll do everything to stop all that.”

He also called for eliminating carbon capture subsides and said he wants to reorient Wyoming’s energy policy back toward the industries he said build the state, coal, oil, gas and trona mining.

Elections

Bien said he would not vote to certify a Wyoming election so long as the state uses electronic tabulation machines. He said the official vote should be determined exclusively by hand tabulation of all cast paper ballots.

“It’s the government’s job to gain the trust of the citizenry, not the other way around,” he said.

Public Lands and Agriculture

Bien raised concerns over what he called the rewilding of Wyoming, describing biodiversity conservation contracts that pay ranchers to take land out of agricultural production under nondisclosure agreements. He identified Fremont County as a focal point of those efforts.

He said he would defend Wyoming’s water rights, oppose surrendering additional allocations under an expected renegotiation of the Colorado River Compact and push for wolves to be delisted so Wyoming hunters can manage predator populations without outside intervention.

Education

Bien said Wyoming spends roughly $22,000 per student annually, about twice neighboring Idaho, yet produces test scores he called unacceptable. He called for a full audit of education spending, reinstatement of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools by executive order and elimination of diversity, equity and inclusion curricula. He also said he wants daily physical education required through the senior year of high school.

“Until we’re number one in this nation, we should never accept anything less,” he said.