I really think this is a mistake.
This is something I've written about before in terms of Wyoming's economy, but like it or not Wyoming's economy is dependant upon four things and is pretty much limited to four things; those being 1) the extractive industries, 2) tourism, 3) agriculture and 4) government. Right now all of those things are hurting.
Education can be viewed as a species of governmental employment in that it is public employment. Beyond that, its been the claim in Wyoming for years and years that the state needed to "diversify" the economy. The extent to which that can really be done, it might be noted, in the current American economy is debatable, although there are things that definitely could be done and won't be. Be that as it may, a really strong educational system with a really strong university is one of those things. Without that, we won't be diversifying our economy.
Of course, what we could do is make really targeted cuts. Athletics could be one and the university could opt out of Division 1 athletics. What that would do I frankly don't know, but it could be looked at. And it might be time to look at the universities degree programs, which might emphasize some over others. UW lacks, we might note, graduate programs which would be of value to the state but which has one graduate program at least which is now of questionable utility to the state. The time has come to ponder these things.
One group of people who won't be gathering to ponder, apparently, are legislators, who decided this past week not to go back into a third session this year. Or at least so far.
People who will not be required to ponder more are travelers, who may need to now do more planning about intended "stops". On Monday ten of the state's rest stops are going to be closed.
This causes me to recall that years and years ago, when the kids were small, I thought about publishing a book just dedicated to the state's rest stops. This followed the idea of doing a book on the state's roadside historical markers, which it turns out had already been done, but which lead to our Today In Wyoming's History website, which itself turned into a book. The book on rest stops was putatively titled I'm Just Here For The Potty, which riffed on Gretchen Wilson's then popular song, I'm Just Here For The Party. In thinking on it, it's a good title for a blog, and now it is one, with no posts, just yet. If travel ever opens up again in the state, I'll start working on it.
