Privatize the Cheyenne Civic Center

The city of Casper is enjoying huge successes after turning over the running of the Casper Events Center last fall over to Spectra Venue Management. Why shouldn't Cheyenne's mayor and City Council do the same?

By D. Reed Eckhardt

Cheyenne's new mayor, Marian Orr, has made a big deal out of trying to identify new sources of revenue for the city. She needs it, given the state of Wyoming's economy. The days of the Legislature rushing in to fill empty holes in municipalities' budgets around the

Sinclair Oil now sponsors the box office at the Casper Events Center.

state are over -- perhaps for good. Coal is not coming back, and efforts to diversify the economy, while wise, will take years before they bear any real fruit.

One answer to Orr's quest lies about 180 miles to the north. There, the Casper City Council has entered into a five-year contract with Spectra Venue Management from Philadephia to run the Events Center there. A recent article in the Casper Star-Tribune (the attached photo is also from the CST) outlines the successes so far -- in just eight months. Among them are:

-- Increased corporate sponsorships. Companies have paid to have their names on the box office, concession stands, and first aid station. A banner flies from the Events Center rafter, advertising JIM Group Hotels, which also owns the local Denny's restaurant.

-- Advertising revenue is at $285,000, 75 percent of which is new money.

-- Ticket sales are up 10 percent; Spectra hopes to double that increase.

-- The venue is seeing greater use, and there is more diversity in programming. Spectra's ties, for example, will bring in the Foo Fighters this winter since that band will also be going to the management group's venue in Idaho. Other top names brought in since last fall include Elton John, Snoop Dog, and Eric Church. Rapper Lil Wayne was booked, though he had to cancel.

The main goal of all of this -- besides improving the quality of life in Casper, -- is to ease Casper's budget problems. It currently is subsidizing the Events Center at the rate of nearly $1 million a year. The city's contract with Spectra encourages it to succeed: The management group gets 20 percent of all savings. Of course, it also is paid for its work -- $130,000 a year.

Cheyenne's Civic Center faces similar challenges. It is subsidized to the tune of $200,000 a year; it is underutilized; and its offerings couldn't be more stale. Yes, there is an occasional surprise event, but for the most part, the schedule is dominated by its symphony concerts and its boring annual series. If there is a less innovative manager than Dru Rhola -- you'd be hard pressed to find him or her.

One way that Cheyenne can be made more attractive to the young professionals it says it seeks would be to hold more events that appeal to this group. That obviously is what is happening in Casper, but it won't here under current Civic Center leadership. Bringing in guitarist Joe Bonamassa -- again -- and singer Bonnie Ryatt, two events currently scheduled for this fall, will not get the job done.

If the happenings in Casper are any indicator, the hiring of a management group to run the Cheyenne Events Center would be a winner for all -- for the quality of life here and the city's budget. (One idea: How about selling naming rights to the Civic Center?) And maybe that management group could handle the Ice and Events Center as well -- it gets a $120,000 subsidy from the city's budget as well.

Mayor Orr claims to want fresh ideas for Cheyenne's city government. It is time for her to put the privatization of the Civic Center on her agenda.

D. Reed Eckhardt is the former editor of the Wyoming Tribune Eagle.

The local music scene in the '60s: Those were the days

A previous column on Cheyenne's rock 'n' roll days spurs memories from readers. And then there were Leon Russell's memories of the Capital City.

By Rodger McDaniel 

Much of the email this column generates is rather critical. Recently, a reader told me electronically, “Your (sic) one sick liberal. You are the enemy of Wyoming people.”

Last week’s column about the music of the ’60s, however,

Leon Russell once played before fighting fans in Cheyenne.

spurred another reader to write, “Never thought I would enjoy a Rodger McDaniel column. Thank you, those definitely were the good old days.”

I knew then I needed to write a “Part 2.” So, I reached out via Facebook to ask what others recalled about the Cheyenne rock scene of those days. So many shared such great memories, there had to be a sequel.

Many recalled the Byrds, Cyrkle, Beau Brummels and Sugar Loaf playing at the Frontier Pavilion. For those so young you never had to walk across the living room to change the TV station, be assured these bands were big deals around the country.

Remember the Kingsmen? Their hit “Louie, Louie” was a collection of such indecipherable words that we were able to shock our parents by repeating the smutty lyrics we were certain it contained. It took Snopes half a century to investigate. “Louie, Louie,” says the fact-finding website, was simply an “innocuous 1956 song about a lovesick sailor’s lament to a bartender.” Because we still thought it was about sex, when the Kingsmen came to Cheyenne, they packed the house.

One Facebook writer remembered, “We were called to the auditorium at East. Finally, all the Kingsmen, in like blazers, stood up and went to the stage. They were the guests.” Another recalled the day the great band Chicago showed up at Sloans Lake in Lions Park. Apparently, they were passing through town and stopped there for a break.

One of the best stories came from the memory of Alan O’Hashi. He referred me to a 1970 Rolling Stone magazine interview where I learned that Leon Russell and Jerry Lee Lewis played the Pavilion. Russell was the great songwriter and musician who played with everybody from the Rolling Stones to Tina Turner and Bob Dylan, wrote Joe Cocker’s “Delta Lady” and was called a “mentor” by Elton John before being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

When asked about gigs he played as he toured the country, Russell told the Rolling Stone about a night he and Jerry Lee played Cheyenne’s Pavilion. Russell said it was the “Blackboard Jungle” era.

“I remember Jerry Lee in Cheyenne, Wyoming,” Russell said. “The band was really playing, and he was standing up on the piano bench singing and watching 75 people fight in the audience, just chasing around and running all over the audience. Pretty soon, they all advanced on the stage, when they got tired of fighting with each other, and the curtains were pulled, and we made a mad scramble out to the cars and packed up as many instruments as we could and got out of town.”

Sorry I missed that.

Others fondly recalled how “the horsey” kids gathered with their parents for teen dances at the Saddle Tramps club. Others remember summer nights dancing to local groups like Jason and the Argonauts and Charlie Brice and the Kansas City Soul Association at the bandstand in Lions Park. The KCSA actually finished second at KIMN’s Denver battle of the bands one year.

Bobby Giles and the Lebas can’t be left off the list. Bobby was a talented Cheyenne blues and rock musician who also played bass guitar for Jimmy Valdez and the Blues Revolution.

Rick Spencer urged we not forget how many local groups practiced their hearts out in garages around Cheyenne. Using borrowed or cheap guitars, they “knew we’d all become famous if someone in the group could just remember the fourth verse to ‘House of the Rising Sun.’” Those bands existed, Rick said, from 3:30-5:15 p.m., “when the old man got home from work and wanted to park his car in the garage.”

Mary Hopkin was right, “Those were the days, my friend. We thought they’d never end.”

Rodger McDaniel is the pastor at Highlands Presbyterian Church in Cheyenne. He resides in Laramie.

It was 40 years ago today

Anniversary of the Beatles' classic album "Sgt. Pepper" sparks warm memories of the Cheyenne rock 'n' roll scene in the 1960s. Many well-known bands played at Storey Gym and at the Pavilion.

By Rodger McDaniel
“It was 20 years ago today, Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play.”

The anniversary of this Beatles classic resurrected some great memories.

It was 1965, the summer before my senior year in high school. Tom Jones’ “What’s New Pussycat” was on the Top 40 charts. Cheyenne’s rock station, KCHY, had a

Paul Revere and the Raiders performed in Cheyenne in the '60s.

contest. I don’t remember the prize, but the winner was whoever could teach their parakeet to say, “What’s New Pussycat.”

Like, who could do that? Right? So, I took an old set of z-patterned seat covers off my 1949 Ford, crafted a parakeet suit, added cardboard wings and headed for KCHY. The station was across the street from the old 18th Street Post Office. A large window allowed pedestrians to watch DJs work. I stood in front of the window, flapping my wings and chirping, “What’ new pussycat.”

I didn’t win the contest, but the station owner asked me if I’d like to do some deejaying for him. Just like that, I was part of Cheyenne’s 1960s rock ’n’ roll scene.

When I started, the Beatles’ “Help” was new, the McCoys were singing “Hang on Sloopy,” and the Stones were about to release “Get Off My Cloud.”

The years 1965 through ’68 were the best of times. The British Invasion

brought the Dave Clark Five, Peter and Gordon, Chad and Jeremy, the Kinks, the Yardbirds and Dusty Springfield, among others. They challenged U.S. rockers like the Supremes, the Righteous Brothers, Elvis and The Beach Boys. There were protest singers like Dylan, Barry McGuire, and Peter, Paul and Mary, animated by the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement and heightened interest in environmental matters.

Between ’65 and ’69, I worked back and forth between KCHY and KRAE; and moved to New Mexico, spinning records at a country-western station, K-Happy Radio. But my heart was in rock. For a summer, I did a stint at KDZA, a classic rock station in Pueblo, Colorado, before heading back to Cheyenne.

Back at KCHY briefly, I was hired again at KRAE, working with people who had a big impact on my life. Tom Bauman, KRAE’s longtime owner, was someone who taught me a lot about not just radio, but the import of good public service.

Cheyenne, small as it was, proved a surprisingly profitable venue for nationally known rock acts. Many put on wonderful shows at Storey Gym and the Pavilion, now the Old West Museum in Lions Park. We booked acts like Paul Revere and the Raiders, Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, the Strawberry Alarm Clock and others, including Ian Whitcomb, a high-pitched Englishman who had one hit that made it to the top, “You Turn Me On.”

Especially popular were the Moonrakers, a Denver group that made a name for itself first in the Rocky Mountain region and then around the country.

There were a number of terrific local bands performing often at places like the Surrey Shack in Holliday Park, the Community House at Lions Park, and for homecoming, turnabout and proms.

I fear I’ll leave some good ones out. But I recall high-schoolers Bruce Crow, Rodney Zwonitzer, Marc Anderson and Charlie Furman formed a group they called The Avantis. Boyd Moon, Dick Hill, Jimmy French and Roger Bonnette were The Spirits. Each was popular among Cheyenne’s young people and played often throughout the community.

One of my favorites was Jimmy Valdez and the Blues Evolution. Yep, the one-time Cheyenne city councilman, Jimmy Valdez, was the leader of the band in those days before his public service. It’s where I first met Jimmy. His band was practicing in a garage just off a 12th Street alley in Cheyenne. As a DJ, I booked the band into venues throughout southeast Wyoming, northern Colorado and southwest Nebraska. They made a record of an oldie, “Daddy’s Home.”

Hopefully readers will add the names of their favorites to these lists. Wonderful music makes great memories. There’s a reason that even today radio stations can make money playing nothing but the music of the ’60s.

Rodger McDaniel is the pastor at Highlands Presbyterian Church in Cheyenne. He lives in Laramie.

Seven steps toward a progressive Wyoming

Cowboy State leaders must stop acting like the victims of the boom-and-bust cycle and turn toward creating a place that truly meets the needs of its people.

By Rodger McDaniel

Wyoming’s budget cuts are taking a toll.

My granddaughter’s excellent, but untenured, teacher has been told she’ll not be teaching next fall. Because the Legislature had no vision beyond cutting budgets, her University of Wyoming education degree has been devalued.

She’s not alone. Many of our neighbors are suffering the impact not of an

Wyoming should make college tuition free for its young people.

economic downturn, as politicians claim, but of a state that views itself as the helpless victim of another boom-and-bust cycle.

Doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different outcome is Wyoming’s strategy. We passively await another boom while some lose everything. The pattern will continue until policymakers think differently or voters choose different policymakers.

What follows are suggestions for turning Wyoming into a place for thinkers and doers who are now thinking and doing in more progressive environments.

The current political imbalance may serve the interests of the Republican Party, but not Wyoming’s future. The state’s political system needs to be reinvigorated. Currently party label, not competence, matters, trumping the ability of thoughtful candidates to bring new ideas. Remove party labels from the ballot. Force voters to decide between candidates, rather than parties.

Wyoming must alter its method of apportioning legislative districts, giving primacy to county lines. Gerrymandering precludes healthy decision-making. Reform may add to the numbers of legislators serving, but that would make the process more democratic, less beholden to lobbyists.

Second, let’s elevate the significance of higher education. Those wanting college educations should be rewarded. Tuition should be free, as the framers of the Wyoming Constitution envisioned. Along with an accessible college diploma or certificate, Wyoming grads should be given priority for jobs.

Third, honor and respect hardworking Wyomingites. Eliminate “at will” discharges as a matter of fundamental fairness. Upon completing one year of probation, the livelihood of public employees cannot be deprived without good cause. Private sector workers deserve the same.

Attack the gender wage gap. Require wage transparency and force employers to demonstrate their rationale for wage differentials. Raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. These reforms would boost the spending power of the state’s middle class, stabilize their jobs and pour millions of dollars into local economies.

Fourth, focus not only on the “right to life,” but on a child’s right to quality of life. Support parents with health care, affordable housing and child care. The most effective economic development program states can adopt is the establishment of affordable early childhood education.

An important aspect of children’s lives is stable housing. Address the problems families have in finding affordable housing. Prohibit landlords from profiting by renting inadequate and unsafe dwellings.

Fifth, prioritize public health. Policymakers should behave as though they believe the science. Higher tobacco taxes and bans on public smoking reduce deadly tobacco use. Likewise, translate the knowledge we have about why seatbelts matter into law. Simply saying “no” to Medicaid expansion is not a policy.

Sixth, join a majority of states and legalize marijuana. End the use of expensive prison cells for non-violent drug crimes. Require courts handling drug and alcohol cases to adopt “drug court” models.

Seventh, recognize the economic power of diversity. Wyoming suffers from perpetuating an image that the LGBTQ community is unwelcome and unsafe. The state must take affirmative actions to alter this perception if it wants to attract the best and the brightest.

Transition from fossil fuels. Even Gary Cohn, President Trump’s top economic adviser, admitted coal doesn’t “make much sense” and that renewables could make America “a manufacturing powerhouse.” The same is true for Wyoming.

In 1890, as statehood teetered, one congressman assured colleagues that Wyoming would become “a strong, prosperous, and progressive state.” (Congressional Record, June 25, 1890). The first two descriptors depend on Wyoming becoming the latter.

Rodger McDaniel is the pastor at Highlands Presbyterian Church in Cheyenne. He resides in Laramie. 

Bible-believing and liberal politically? You bet

Don't buy into the fundamentalist argument that you can't lean to the left and still be a "Christian." Believing in the Bible is more than what some pastor tells you. Find out for yourself.

By Rodger McDaniel 

After the Wyoming Tribune Eagle published news that Highlands Presbyterian Church was certified as an “Earth Care Congregation,” I received an email warning that I was leading my flock into a “Lake of Fire.”

The story mentioned Highlands is a More-Light church, meaning it welcomes the LGBTQ community. It’s uncertain

whether the "Lake of Fire" destination is located at the end of one or both of those paths.

Then there’s Rev. Bob Norris’ columns asserting Cheyenne’s faith community is divided between what he says is a large number of “Bible-believing” churches and a small number of liberal churches. His proposition is Christians cannot be both liberal and “Bible-believing.”

To paraphrase Satchel Paige, “Hey, liberals, don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.” That “something” is a growing number of evangelical churches who are coming to believe that welcoming gays, lesbians, bisexual, transgender and gender-questioning folks is quite biblical as is working to protect God’s creation. Don’t take my word for it. Ask these evangelicals what happens when judging is replaced with curiosity.

Highlands was inspired to join the green movement by conservative Christians. Mitch Hescox and Paul Douglas both grew up in coal country, joined the Republican Party, and are devoted evangelicals. Douglas is a meteorologist, and Hescox, after pastoring a church, heads the Evangelical Environmental Network.

The two are also writers. If you doubt Bible-believing can inspire you to become an environmentalist, read their book “Caring for Creation: The Evangelical’s Guide to Climate Change and a Healthy Environment.”

These two conservative Christians may be the vanguard, but they are not alone. A PBS documentary on the subject opened, “In the rising Eco-Right movement, you could say these are the Eco-Righteous.” Listeners were introduced to a few of the more than 10,000 members of Young Evangelicals for Climate Action.

They weren’t sitting in the pews. They were marching in the streets, chanting, “Hey, hey! ho, ho! Fossil fuels have got to go.” One young evangelical connected his pro-creation stand to his anti-abortion sentiments. “To be pro-life,” he said, “means that you care about human life, you care about humans flourishing free from the impacts of a changing climate on people’s ability to grow their food and provide for their families.”

These conservative Bible-believing Christians share the respect that liberals exhibit for the data and the science telling us what the Apostle Paul said is true: “The whole of creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth.” Paul Douglas erases the lines some draw between liberal and conservative Christians. “Being open to data, facts and science doesn’t make you a liberal,” he writes. “It makes you literate.”

Even more surprising to the fellow who issued the “Lake of Fire” warning is that a growing number of conservative Christians are finding that Bible-believing leads to welcoming the LGBTQ community into the life of the church.

A recent story on the Religious News Service reported, “over the last eight years, a number of evangelical scholars have argued for alternate readings of key biblical texts that would make space for LGBT relationships.”

The Rev. Michael Hidalgo, pastor at Denver Community Church, said change came after members “committed to pray together and to study scripture, not just about the verses that speak to same-sex behavior, but also about the history of biblical interpretation.”

The RNS story calls Hidalgo “the latest in a string of evangelical leaders who have studied the Bible, committed to a period of discernment, and then publicly changed their minds on same-sex issues.”

Being a “Bible believer” demands more than having some preacher tell you what it means. Before laying claim to that title while asserting that others are not Bible believers, work at taking the Bible seriously, though perhaps not literally. It won’t lead to a “Lake of Fire,” but it can lead to other surprising places.

We liberal Christians are pleased to see some of our conservative brethren gaining on us.

Rodger McDaniel is the pastor at Highlands Presbyterian Church in Cheyenne. He resides in Laramie.