Your future, our focus
In celebration of the 150th anniversary of women’s suffrage, the Northwest College Women in the West course, taught by Amy McKinney, is hosting the second event in their “Women in the West” speaker series Thursday, Oct. 24, at 6:30 p.m. in the Yellowstone Building Conference Center.
This presentation will focus on Wyoming women in agriculture. Two local Wyoming women will present on their experiences in agriculture. Beryl Churchill, author of “Dams, Ditches and Water: A History of the Shoshone Reclamation Project,” will focus on women’s involvement in agriculture during the homesteading days. Shelly Neff, a fifth generation woman rancher in Wyoming, will talk about her grandmother’s and mother’s experiences on ranches.
Both women are actively working in agriculture today—Churchill with Churchill Farms and Neff with Heart Mountain Valley Ranch—and will talk about the multiple roles of women in agriculture today.
The next presentation will be on Wyoming women in the military (November, date to be announced). The culminating event will be Dec. 10 at 7 p.m. in the Yellowstone Building Conference Center.
This is the exact date suffrage was signed in to law in Wyoming. The Dec. 10 presentations will feature the students in the Women in the West class who will be using the archival collections from the American Heritage Center. Audience members will vote on their favorite presentation and that student will win $150.
Wyoming is celebrating its 150th anniversary of suffrage and the Wyoming Office of Tourism has declared 2019 the “Year of Wyoming Women.” McKinney received a grant from the American Heritage Center in Laramie to use their archival collections in her Women in the West and is including a special focus on Wyoming women and suffrage this semester.
All events are free and open to the public. Area residents are encouraged to help celebrate Wyoming’s rich history of suffrage.
For more information contact McKinney at amy.mckinney@nwc.edu or call 307-754-6008.
For more Northwest College events, visit https://nwc.edu/events/.