For a state with the smallest population in the country, Wyoming has been getting plenty of national publicity lately. 

         Our people, places and issues seem to have an outsized effect on the rest of the country at times. Perhaps not during any time since Vice President Dick Cheney was in and out of Wyoming have we noticed so much news about our state:

         • The lead editorial recently in the Wall Street Journal, the largest newspaper in the country, focused on the pollution of water wells in Pavillion, a rural hamlet north of Riverton.

         Titled: “The EPA’s Fracking Scare,” it offers a thorough discussion of how natural gas well development may have polluted peoples’ wells.

         The editorial opines: “The safety of America’s drinking water needs to be protected, as the fracking industry itself well knows. Nothing would shut down drilling faster and destroy billions of dollars of investment, then media interviews with mothers afraid to let their kids brush their teeth with polluted water.”

         An HBO documentary aired earlier in 2011 also featured the Pavillion people who could actually set water coming out of their taps on fire.

         Scary, indeed.

         • Former U. S. Senator Al Simpson of Cody continues to be in the limelight as he rails against both Congress and President Barack Obama for not doing more to deal with the country’s $15 trillion deficit.

         As co-chairman of Obama’s Deficit Reduction Commission, Simpson and his group came up with the best plan, yet presented, to cut the deficit without destroying the American economy.

         Each time Congress and the president stumble as they attempt to do something, Simpson shows up again on TV offering stern warnings and making a very strong case.

         • There are 35 football bowl games this holiday season on TV. The first one? It was the New Mexico Bowl, featuring Wyoming against Temple.

         Although the Cowboys lost the game, this gave both the state some national publicity and the University some great recruiting fodder.

         We are also impressed that Coach Dave Christensen signed a five-year contract extension. My fear is that as he continues to be successful he will join Bob Devaney, Pat Dye, Dennis Erickson, Dana Dimel, Fred Akers and others out the door to a bigger program.

         • Our junior U. S. Sen. John Barrasso continues to climb the leadership ladder in the Senate.

         With natural charisma and incredible media skills, Barrasso could very well be the most often featured politician on the national talk shows and cable networks.

         As he gains influence, this can only help Wyoming.

• Most major news outlets ran a feature not long ago where Wyoming was identified as the “best-run” state government in the country.

         Now, this is something to be happy about.

         Our thrifty, conservative ways have served us well during the national economic downturn.

         States finishing last? California, New York, Illinois and New Jersey. Is that surprising?

         • Another person getting national attention is Dana Perino, a native of Evanston. She worked for the George Bush White House as press secretary. She now appears on the Fox News TV show “The Five.”

When I have watched it, she always offers a thoughtful point of view. Not sure what her long-term goal might be, but it appears she can be just about anything she wants to be. She also is a regular contributor to the Washington Post.

         Wonder if she has maintained her Wyoming residency?

         Her biography says she was a barrel racer while growing up in the Cowboy State. A real cowgirl, it seems.

         • One of the best selling books this holiday season has been In My Time, by former Vice President Cheney.

         I am looking forward to reading it later this winter. 

         My understanding is that it contains a lot about his life in Wyoming prior to becoming the Veep.

         And then there is Don Hardy’s definitive book on Simpson called Shooting From The Lip. It is getting good national reviews, too.

• And finally, the Wyoming Business Report says Bloomberg News listed our state as a top performer, outperforming the country in certain indexes in the third quarter.

The Bloomberg Economic Evaluation of States (BEES) illustrates how agricultural and industrial states fared better than the rest of the nation from July through September, compared with the previous three months.

Wyoming, the biggest coal producer and the third-largest natural-gas reserve, was the top performer, lifted by higher home prices, a drop in mortgage delinquencies and a jump in tax collections, the BEES index showed.

         My goal is to spend a lot more time on a lot fewer things. – Tom Brokaw.

         Okay, although I may want to slow down a little now that I have reached retirement age, what is the outlook going forward for the great state of Wyoming?

         As one of the rare states that has seen its economy grow and its unemployment rate remain low, Wyoming has enjoyed prosperity rarely seen across our great land.

         While looking into my crystal ball, the image I see offers up a cloudy view, indeed. It is harder to predict our future right now than any time in the past several decades.

         The reasons it is so hard to make these predictions are local, state and national concerns.

         Locally here in Lander, job growth continues to be thwarted by infrastructure problems, primarily the lack of affordable housing.

        Wyoming, statistically, is among the leaders in the country in job growth and population growth, per capita, but we still lag in key areas.

         When out-of-state workers come to Wyoming and do their work and then go home, it continues to foster the colony-mentality of our state.

         Our biggest industries are energy-related followed by the impressive tourism industry and by the agriculture sector. Our fledgling manufacturing sector is being impacted by the national economic downtown and employee recruitment problems.

         But there are success stories aplenty, as reported at the Wyoming Business Alliance forum in Cheyenne last month.

Readers of this column have read the term “Wyoming’s recession-proof economy” many times, which was written with the belief that the country’s energy demand will continue to grow. 

This appears to still be true but the pace may slow for a few years. The country may be saved from the impending electric blackouts and brownouts for a year and two because the economy is flat and growth is stagnant.

Demand for power ultimately will continue to grow but the ability to supply it is on hold due to cancellation of so many proposed coal-fired power plants.

         Coal continues to be nation’s bad boy when it comes to pollution, which is unfair. The Environmental Protection Agency recently bowed out from canceling coal plant construction, leaving licensing decisions to the states.

       It would be nice if the Legislature would show some vision to help out their constituents when it comes to lowering prices for energy within our borders.

       Best way would be to launch some public-private partnerships between the state and private business to building some power plants or to develop natural gas on state lands. One businessman wrote me that his natural gas bill was up a bunch this winter, and this weather has been pretty mild.

       Despite some constitutional issues, such a program could be difficult to implement and the energy lobbyists will go nuts – but the citizens would totally support such a program.

       The biggest problem with our state’s economic growth will be finding the answer to this simple question: where are the workers going to come from?

       We will see record numbers of teachers and state employees retiring. Who will take their places?

       Perhaps a partial answer to this problem will be an invasion of baby boomer/vigorous retirees who will move here to take advantage of our low tax rates and quality of life.

       These newcomers will also contribute to our new title as the oldest state in the union when it comes to average age of its citizens.

       So, now let’s go out on a limb. With my eyes closed and my fingers crossed, here are some predictions for 2012:      

       First, we are seeing an unusual population boom with extra kindergarten classes being added in both Rock Springs and Lander. The prevailing thinking is that we are getting older, as a state, not younger. This is a good trend, by the way.

       Second, the state will continue to be swimming in severance tax money. Wyoming people are the Arabs of America. We will have billions of dollars to spend for years to come. But we could double our severance taxes and it would not make a particle of difference to the industries. It would make a huge difference to Wyoming.

       Third, as we pour mountains of money into education, some leaders are bemoaning that the money going into K-12 education just helps educate future workers who leave Wyoming as soon as they graduate. Instead, these folks think more money should go to community colleges, whose students are 90 percent in-state residents. Interesting.

         Happy holidays and thanks for reading.

We have all heard about Western Hospitality. In Wyoming, we offer more of it than perhaps anywhere else in the world.

It’s about Western Hospitality and is my all-time favorite golf story. It occurred in the West, all right, but not in America. This occurred in Western Great Britain in the Welsh highlands.

Wales is the formerly independent country that is about the size of Wyoming. Its people are Celtic and very friendly.

My family’s ancestors are Welsh. Their names were Price and Jones. During my time there in July 1987, it seemed like a good idea to visit the hometown of my forebears. My Aunt Mabel said our ancient relatives lived between “Bilth” and “Bettws” before emigrating to the United States in the 1880s.

There were many places called Bettws, which means “holy place.” The only Bilth was “Builth Wells” which had a small place named Bettws nearby.

From 1986 to 1989, I was a part-time student pursuing a Masters Degree at the University of Wales in Cardiff and also serving as a guest lecturer. I had rented a room from a well-to-do Arab fellow student, Ali Al’Hail. He offered to drive to Builth Wells. Ali is now a television broadcaster for the Al Jezeera network in Qatar.

We headed up over some rugged short mountains called the Brecon Beacons. It was raining, which it does most of the time there. We marveled at a series of waterfalls. The area looked like Glacier National Park.

It was still raining when we got to Builth Wells. I found old gravestones for people named Jones and Price and posed next to them for photos.

At the information center was a brochure about the local golf club. It seemed like a good idea to buy a golf shirt. The clubhouse was a converted 1600-era stone barn. We tried the door but couldn’t figure out how to open it. Instead of a doorknob, there was just a hole. We walked around ducking into various doorways to get out of a driving rain.

Suddenly we were standing in the middle of a dark locker room. Four elderly men in their late 60s and 70s were in various stages of undress. They looked up in shock. They took umbrage at our barging into their dressing room.

I apologized and explained how my ancestors had come from this place. Since I was a fledgling golfer, I had thought it would be nice to buy a golf shirt that said Builth Wells on it.

“Can you tell me where your pro shop is?” I asked.

“No,” another man said, “you order them in advance.”

“No, wait,” one of the fellows, said. “We’ll meet you after we get dressed. And that door isn’t locked. Just stick your finger into the hole and lift up. It’ll open.”

Ali and I went back to the original door and sure enough, it opened easily. A few minutes later, the four men arrived. They had played golf on that day as they had every Thursday, raining or not.

One man, J. Ewert Davies plopped his wet sweater into my hands. “Here, take this. Don’t make a big deal out of it,” he said, as I protested and tried to pay him. “Take it back to America as a souvenir from our town.”

It was nearly new. It had “Builth Wells Golf Club” inscribed on it.

They ordered pints of beer all around. We pulled up chairs and talked about Wales and America. They were now a jolly bunch.

My new friend J. Ewert then told about his first experience in America.

In 1940, his ship docked in New York City. He and a fellow sailor were given an eight-hour leave. They stopped at the famous Waldorf Astoria Hotel, but had little money. It didn’t matter because the people in the bar refused to let the two Welsh sailors buy a drink. They stayed there all night long with the food and drink provided by the Americans. “I never forgot that American hospitality,” Ewert said.

One of the other gents turned to me and said: “And that’s why he gave you his sweater. He’s had a guilty conscience for 47 years!”

I laughed at the joke, but decided, much like J. Ewert`s experience back in 1940, I wouldn’t soon forget this gesture of hospitality either.

         After tapping into my network of friends around the state, here are their ideas of some unique Wyoming-oriented Christmas gifts you can buy.

         But the best gifts might be gift subscriptions to the newspaper you are reading right now to your friends and loved ones. Most newspapers have special Christmas offers. It is the gift that keeps on giving.

         Shopping in local-owned stores is another fun experience       of the Christmas season. Not only do you get to support the local economy but also you can see all your friends when you go shopping. Also, shop the special ad sections in newspapers like this one for special hours for special deals.

         Some companies are pushing “Buying American” this year, which makes a lot of sense. I would go a step further and promote “Shop Wyoming.” This is really fun!

         It also makes sense to make donations this time of year to needy causes. And if you know any widows or widowers or people who are sick, perhaps the best gift of all is your time and your concern. Put that on your list, too.

         Here are some suggestions that have come floating in:

         Steph Kessler has a lot to be thankful for this Christmas, as her husband John Gans successfully completed brain tumor surgery. Gans is CEO of the National Outdoor Leadership School in Lander.          Her idea of an ideal Wyoming gift is to folks with new a baby is “baby moccasins.” They are special, warm and comfortable, she reminds. Members of the Shoshone and Arapaho Tribes handcraft them. They are beaded and made of deer hide.

         Brother Ron in Laramie suggests University of Wyoming memorabilia – lots of it. With a bowl game looming, especially.

         Former Kemmerer Editor Sarah Millhouse said she was given some original Wyoming-made Koltiska liqueur when she moved to Iowa from Wyoming.

         Ex-Wyoming Tourism Director Gene Bryan recommends Chugwater Chili or if your pocketbook can afford it, Western Design furniture.

         Rock Springs Publisher Holly Dabb recommends Farson honey, Kronski’s from Boschetto’s in Rock Springs and the Donner Party Cookbook by Terry Del Bene. The Donner party’s trip originated in Sweetwater County all those years ago. Includes recipes like brain stew. Yummy!

Bob Scholl and John Smithbaker of Lander recommend Wyoming Jade and a Wyoming-made compass, by Brunton, of course.

         Robert Legoski likes Monastery creations from Dayton and Debra Sasso Dayton likes Mystic Monk Coffee and pottery by her brother in law Jason Dayton.

Tim Monroe of Casper thinks a great Christmas gift is a plane ticket on Allegiant to Las Vegas.

         Paul Susich likes the Wyoming Centennial Elk Rib Back Scratcher. Deanna Trumble-Green of Lander sells her own unique soap and sells pottery soap dishes to go along with them.

         Books are always a good idea. Pete Illoway of Cheyenne likes books by C. J. Box (also of Cheyenne). Steve Mossbrook of Riverton recommends the Wind River Country picture book. Lander’s Dave Langerman reminds me to mention his outdoor survivor book called Life In The Wild versus the Alternative (lots of good hints that could save your life).

         I have already mentioned in an earlier column the big national best sellers with Wyoming ties including Dick Cheney’s In My Time and Don Hardy’s book about Al Simpson, Shooting from the Lip. I would add that Lynne Cheney’s Book Blue Skies, No Fences as an outstanding memoir of growing up in Wyoming. Best geology book is Rising from the Plains by John McPhee, all about the late Dave Love.

         UW Prof Phil Roberts reminded me that copies of the sixth edition of the invaluable Wyoming Almanac, produced by him and his two brothers are still available. Mary Ann Hoyt of Lander has a new cookbook out, just in time for Christmas.

         Jim Hicks recommends a town of Buffalo-oriented book about Jack Meldrum called The Character, which is a real hoot. Former Wyomingite Jennifer Knight recommends Cowboy in Caracas by another former Wyomingite Charles Hardy about some turbulent times in Venezuela.

Books by Candy Moulton, Mark Jenkins, Craig Johnson, Cat Urbigkit and the Gears from Thermopolis all make great stocking stuffers, too.

         This is also my chance to pitch my new book Strong Winds, Blowing Snow, Slick in Spots which goes along with my other two previous books High Altitudes, Low Multitudes and The Best Part of America. They are priced at $16.95, $14.95 and $12.95 and can purchased by email or sending a check to me at Box 900, Lander, Wy 82520. Add $2 per book for postage.

         Happy Shopping!