Humanity rebuilds what inhumanity has destroyed

Every year since 1973 Gallup has been polling American citizens about their confidence in institutions. It asks, “Please tell me how much confidence you, yourself, have in [blank].” This year’s results found that trust in all 16 institutions polled was down for the second year in a row. For 10, confidence is at its lowest point since the survey began. 

At the very bottom of the list, Congress has the trust of only one in 14 Americans. Instead of doing its job of building consensus and passing reasonable laws, congress is usurping judicial and executive powers by its illegal J-6 committee. This star chamber seems designed to quash any investigation into congressional wrongdoing while running roughshod over the constitutional rights of anybody it wants to bring down. Shamefully, Representative Cheney is its chief enabler. 

According to the survey, neither television news (11%), nor newspapers (16%) can convince even one in five Americans that they are doing the job of truth-telling. The criminal justice system is in the same boat. Its job is to prosecute criminals with stringently equal justice under law. But only one in seven trusts it to do so.

The presidency (23%) and the Supreme Court (25%) garner the trust of only one in four citizens. Thus, all three branches of the federal government—legislative, executive and judicial—have lost the confidence of more than three-quarters of American citizens.

In a constitutional republic, the cure should happen at the ballot box. But that is plagued by a similar lack of confidence. In January, an ABC/Ipsos poll found that only one in five Americans was “very confident” in the integrity of our election system. That, too, is down from the previous year. A whopping 59 percent of Republicans answered that they are “not so confident” or “not confident at all.” By extrapolation, fewer than 18% of Wyomingites are “very confident” in national elections. 

With confidence in government institutions at an all-time low, and confidence in our corrective mechanism equally low, there is wide-spread concern about the future of the republic. What are concerned citizens to do?

The first thing to be said is: Don’t panic. Panic never helps anything. Rather, it usually makes matters worse. Panic acts hastily without either a clear understanding of the problem or a realistic strategy to make headway. Lashing out in the fog of war too often leads to “friendly fire.” That damages good people and further diminishes our ability to address the real problem. 

Undeniably, it is emotionally satisfying to lash out at bogeymen. That’s why it is so tempting. The injustice of our justice system, the suppression of truth in media, the unconstitutional actions of Congress and the executive branch, are all the panicked reactions of people caught up in the moment. Our response must rise above that.

“If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you…” wrote Rudyard Kipling, “Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it.”

The second thing to say is: Don’t give up. Satan is the master of discouragement and deceit. The two are related. His power lies in lies. Even more formidable than his overwhelming power is his ability to convince you that you can never win—and so never to start the fight.

Always remember that the challenges we face have been faced down by countless thousands before our generation. Consider the dauntless hearts of America’s Founders who took up arms against the world's most powerful navy. Learn about the riots, lynchings, and societal convulsions leading up to the Civil War. And yet civilization prevailed. Consider the knife-edge uncertainty of American G.I.s who loaded onto landing craft in preparation for D-Day.

Each generation must face its own call to arms. God alone gives the victory. But those yet unborn will judge whether and how you answered the call. To channel saints Ignatius and Augustine, work like it all depends on you; but pray because it all depends on God.

Finally, be human. Recognize that the collapse of institutional confidence is not an inevitable result of their humanity, it is a result of their inhumanity. Inhumanity allows the ends to justify any means necessary. It dispenses with principles in a mad scramble to get its way. In the long run, this never works. Such short-sightedness trashes the institution in the near run and fails to achieve the ultimate goal.

Speak the truth even if it causes you to lose the argument. Insist on justice even when you are in the wrong. Remain respectful no matter how vehemently you disagree. Have the courage to speak up even when you know it will bring pain. 

These are the things that make us human. These are the things that will rebuild our world.

A blueprint for grassroots rebuilding

Every day I meet people who are concerned by current events. They see schools, municipalities, states, and federal alphabet-soup agencies pushing globalist agendas and opposing the people they are supposed to serve. But people only speak of their grave concerns in hushed tones, if at all. And most of them, lacking clear direction, are paralyzed into inactivity.

Last week I used this space to lay the cornerstone of an effective response. It begins with in-person gatherings at the local community level. Today, I want to extend that foundation and show how one community is coming together. Perhaps it will inspire others to do the same.

Evil wins by isolating individuals and discouraging them from acting. That’s why the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights specifically protects “the right of the people peaceably to assemble.” There is power in personal connection. Our founders knew it, and so does every tyrant.

But it’s not only state power that can prevent peaceful assembly. We also see psychological manipulation used to isolate us. Media companies employ swarms of behavioral psychologists whose task is to keep us glued to the screen. By mass hypnosis, they have isolated more people and crushed more communities than any tyrant in history.

Thankfully, the spell of social media is not irresistible. As rational creatures, we can choose a better way. When we break the grip of social media and get people together, we are empowered. Assemblies of people are force multipliers. Like the dying embers of a campfire, physical proximity rekindles the flame.

Once gathered we are positioned to fight the next dragon, discouragement. In war, psychological operations are designed to undermine the enemy’s will to act. They do this by exaggerating the power of the enemy and belittling the power of any resistance. People who feel powerless lack the courage to act. But the propaganda that makes you feel powerless is a lie. 

The truth is that even the smallest resistance is infinitely powerful. You can resist the power of lies by refusing to adopt their language. You can resist the destruction of families by keeping your own family together. You can push back against the forces of secularization simply by going to church. These—and a thousand other acts—are more powerful than you know.

And courage is contagious. By acting you encourage others to act. If you are looking for a list of meaningful actions to give you a starting place, you will benefit from an article written by Joy Pullman titled, “85 Things You Can Do To Help The United States Shake Wide Awake.”

Joy Pullman, Executive Editor, The Federalist

Pullman compiled assorted ideas from The Federalist staff. Suggestions range from the simple act of playing a board game or reading with your kids to writing a book or running for office. The fourth suggestion on the list is, “Start a neighborhood group — present yourself under an umbrella that welcomes all other responsible members of your community who are sick and tired of being sick and tired, and who are willing to stand up.”

Inspired by Pullman’s article, several people from Evanston, Wyoming did just that. We called a meeting on a cold January morning. A baker’s dozen showed up. Many had never met one another. But soon friendships were forming. We decided that the answer to global and impersonal problems is to focus on local and personal solutions.

Our second meeting doubled in size and brainstormed a list of key decision-makers in Evanston. Since nobody can attend to everything, tasks were divvied up. Some volunteered to cover the school board, while others went to the legislative session, local party meetings, or the city council. We share what we learn with each other and recommend action when needed.

We are unabashedly Evanston-first. We are not careless about other communities, but confident that Evanston’s success will benefit them, as well. By the third meeting, we adopted a motto: “We gather to build, not to tear down. We focus on local solutions, to distant problems. We work to support neighbors for a better community.” 

Evanston is defined by geographical boundary lines. We have had enough of the false language of “neighbors” in Timbuktu, and “communities” that will never occupy the same real estate. Our commitment is to real flesh and blood community. Real-world encounters expose the fraud of divisive ideologies.

That makes us non-partisan. We invite participation from everyone. No political, ideological, or religious requirements are needed, only a desire to share ideas and work for the mutual benefit of our friends and neighbors. 

Try this in your community. Don’t wait until you have figured all the angles. Just get people together and get out of the way. The Bill of Rights protects assemblies because they have amazing power to build.

Rediscover the joy of in-person community.

Photo credit; Braxton Apana

We human beings are social creatures. We are designed to live in community. This is not just an occasional activity. It is who we are, the way we are born. It is our immutable, unchangeable nature. Put a man in solitary confinement and he will go mad. It runs against his nature and contradicts his identity.

Human beings are not only social creatures. We have other commonly shared and unchangeable traits as well. Health and sanity require that we live in such a way that all of these aspects of our nature be respected. Just as surely as we need air and water, human thriving also requires a well-ordered community. That’s where governments fit.

Good governance understands human nature and legislates in harmony with it. Bad governments don’t. Bad governments tell lies about human nature and create human misery. The roots of all societal evils are lies about human nature.

We can use the terms good and bad because they have objective content. These are not merely value judgments. Human nature is what it is. To have a nature means that some things are natural and others, not. Some things are in keeping with the way we were born, and their opposites are unnatural. 

Just as external governments are either good or bad depending on their accounting for human nature, so also self-government—personal choices—are either good or bad depending on whether they contribute to your health and welfare, or not.

Both governments and individuals must give an accounting to realities outside of themselves that cannot be denied, changed, or wished away. It is a lie to say that we can be anything that we want. A zebra cannot change its stripes. Nor can a man become something other than what he is. The One who made both man and zebra must be acknowledged and obeyed.

The punishment for disobedience does not usually involve thunderbolts from heaven. More often, it comes in the form of sickness, sadness, broken relationships and run-down neighborhoods. Rebellion against our nature as social creatures is the direct cause of broken societies.

Sociality and community have to do with gatherings of people. When people gather in person, communities arise. They arise organically. They arise out of love and affection, friendship and marriage. When these communities break down, the cure is to return to their roots. That means in-person gatherings.

For the past three decades, we have increasingly experimented with ways of doing community that do not require bodies. By connecting minds, interests, and ideologies through electro-magnetic waves, we have not succeeded in improving communities. We see degeneration, instead.

On a personal level, we have all experienced the empty dissatisfaction of virtual business meetings, virtual school, and even virtual church. That hollow feeling in your soul is not something that is wrong with you. It is your perfectly natural human nature crying for recognition and respect. It is the hunger for community that remains after you have tried to satisfy it with imaginary food.

Every attempt to replace bodily gatherings with technology fails. And it fails for two reasons. One reason is that the warmth, body language, facial expressions and human touch that bodies make possible are cut off and denied.

The second reason is more sinister. Technological “gatherings” destroy community because they ignore the bodies of your real neighbors while devoting time and energy to those who do not share your space, but only your ideology. Real neighbors keep us sane because they keep us grounded. The real needs of real neighbors keep us human by keeping us accountable to human nature. 

Any community that does not take into account every single person within its boundaries, is a community off the rails. So-called “global communities” consist only of ideologues who have no accountability to real human beings or any actual geographical community. Such anti-communities are responsible for untold human misery.

The good news is that you already have the cure. Since every community was built by people who gathered together, any community can be rebuilt by people who gather together. Turn off your computer. Pocket your phone and lace up your shoes. Walk across the street and introduce yourself. Invite your neighbor to a cook-out. Call a community get-together.

In a time of crisis, these are the people who will come to your aid. After Armageddon, it won’t be pundits and politicians who show up at your door. It will be you and your next-door neighbor who will either live or die together. So, it’s not too soon to start talking now. 

As you talk and build side by side, you will be pleasantly surprised to discover an incredibly deep satisfaction. That’s the feeling social creatures have when they rediscover the joy of human community.

In 2022, let’s keep our oaths.

Photo by Tim Mossholder on unsplash.

As Old Man 2021 finishes the race and a baby New Year comes out of the gate, let’s make some New Year’s resolutions that will count for generations. Rather than hollow promises to shed a few pounds, it is time that we make an oath to keep all previous oaths.

Like a resolution, an oath is a solemn declaration to fulfill a pledge. Unlike a resolution, oaths call on God as a witness. Oath makers recognize that even the highest human power—possessing overwhelming resources, sophisticated surveillance, and the most powerful weapons in the world—remains dwarfed by the almighty and all-seeing God who transcends all human judgment and power.

Sadly, oath keepers have been lately tarred and feathered in a guilt-by-association campaign aided by an incurious press. Ray Epps, president of the Arizona chapter of the “Oath Keepers” has been caught on numerous video clips encouraging thousands of people to enter restricted zones on January 6. His boss, Stewart Rhodes, is likewise implicated through intercepted communications.

Ray Epps inciting illegality on January 5, 2021

Despite this apparently illegal activity, neither of these men has been arrested or charged with crimes. Rather, the FBI has scandalously let their behavior skate even while treating association with their suspect organization as suspicious. While the discredited Southern Poverty Law Center has labelled the group “antigovernment,” the FBI is more cautious in its wording.

Most recently, an anonymous “whistleblower” has made unsubstantiated claims that over 200 Wyomingites including several high-profile conservatives were once involved with the organization. Whether the purported involvement was in recent history, or amounted to more than winding up on someone’s email list, it didn’t say. Regardless, such membership would be protected by the first amendment. There is no criminal activity here unless the “whistleblower” turns out to be a government employee.

Rather than smearing oath keepers, we should encourage them. We can begin by considering why people willingly take oaths in the first place. While cynics take oaths to lure people into their confidence, honest oath-makers take oaths because they want the transcendent God to help them keep their oaths. They do so to undertake public duties that require personal integrity.

Such public duties include marriage, parenthood, government (from the president to public school teachers), military and law-enforcement to name a few.  These people wield such power over others that there is a grave danger of abuse. Neither legislation, nor its enforcement can possibly ensure perfect integrity in public officials. Oaths require self-policing and humble submission to a power higher than law enforcement can reach.

Oath keepers recognize that duty will sometimes conflict with their personal desires for wealth, happiness, or even life. With sound mind and free will, they take oaths to bind themselves to self-sacrifice when the mind and will object to the call of duty.

Love leads couples to the altar. But the oaths taken there keep them together in rough times. Adventure and patriotism lead some to volunteer for military service, but the military oath binds them to act honorably when bullets are flying. Ambition may induce politicians to seek higher office, but their oath of office requires them to abandon ambition when it conflicts with the public trust.

We need more oath keepers, not fewer. Children need parents who keep marriage vows even when feelings flag. Townsfolk need peace officers who will protect and defend without abusing the awesome powers entrusted to them. A free republic requires elected officials who will “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” even when nobody is watching (U.S. Constitution Article II, Section 1, Clause 8).

On December 28, the Fourth Day of Christmas, Christians throughout the world solemnly remember the slaughter of the Holy Innocents. According to St. Matthew, King Herod sent out his soldiers with orders to kill all the baby boys in the region of Bethlehem (Mt. 2:16). 

What kind of soldier would obey such an order? Were they, themselves, acting under threat of death? For the parents who helplessly watched sharp steel cut into tender flesh, the motivation of the soldiers offered no consolation. The manifest injustice screamed to heaven and to the One who sees all.

Having seen and considered the great evil that comes from officers bound to kings rather than to God, we have our officers breathe an oath to the heavens. They consciously call themselves to account before the judge of all.

Every mother and father, every teacher and board member, every councilman and congress member, has made a similar oath. Sadly, American jurisprudence has grown weak, fickle, and sometimes outrightly partisan in its failure to enforce these oaths. That should deepen the resolve of every oath maker to be an oath keeper.

Oaths don’t have an expiration date. They don’t have conditions attached. Thank God for every individual who lives up to an oath. And let us resolve to fulfill our own oaths to family, church, and country in 2022 and beyond.

Also published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle on December 31, 2021; and in the Cowboy State Daily on January 5, 2022.

Thankfulness in hindsight gives hope in foresight.

Lovingly baked turkeys and hams, all over Wyoming, have become chaotic pots of leftover meat. Formal dinner rolls have been repurposed as sandwich buns. A bevy of side dishes now languish in refrigerators vainly hoping to be chosen before they spoil.

Black Friday shoppers have been up since the crack of dawn to snatch up deals to put under the Christmas tree. Thanksgiving Day 2021 is in the books.

For the past five years, this author has stoically accepted the fact that any Friday column that attempts to chime in on Thanksgiving will be embarrassingly late to the party. This year, however, I want to buck convention. After Thanksgiving celebrations that focused on present blessings, let’s use this day after Thanksgiving to be thankful for the blessings of the past.

I am thankful, first, that my parents had me. They didn’t have to. They were wed in the same year that the Pill was released on the world. After having two children, already, I was not needed to complete their perfect suburban family. By a mere daily dose of the new miracle drug, I would be a cipher.

It is impossible to imagine what non-existence would be like. Gone would be all the happy memories of childhood, achievements of adolescence, and satisfaction of raising a family under Wyoming skies. More than that, the kids and grandkids that laugh and fight around my table would be deleted from the universe, and the world would be less joyful, absent their love.

I am thankful that my grandfather attended youth group at St. John Lutheran Church in Ord, Nebraska. He might have frequented the bar, instead. As with most young men of his age, it is quite likely that he was Luke-warm to the meetings. Perhaps he had a few arguments with his parents over driving all the way into town for a mediocre Bible study and corny games. But despite any youthful resistance, he met my grandmother through it.

Over a century ago, there is no way on God’s green earth that a farm-boy from Ord, Nebraska should meet a girl who lived 70 miles away. But, facilitated by the Walther League, two Lutheran families intertwined. Rather than falling into the chaos of the roaring 20s, two kids built a nest of stability, warmth and value that still nurtures and protects generations of family scattered from Seattle to Sarasota. 

I am grateful to God for the freedom that enabled my great great grandfather, John, to travel the streets of Chicago in horse-drawn wagon and distribute bottles of fresh milk. Decades before anybody had refrigerators, there were a thousand ways for milk to spoil and sicken his many customers. But the relationship of conscientiousness and trust built between John and his customers enabled them to receive safe and nutritious milk without stifling government regulation.

For John, this freedom provided a stable home to share with his wife, Anna, and their seven children. It enabled them both to teach their children ethics of hard work, trustworthiness, sexual virtues, and faithfulness to God. Generations later, these lessons would still echo in the hearts of their descendants.

Words fail to describe the multitude of blessings that have fallen to me from their self-denial and hard work. Yet they are merely random examples—cherry-picked from dozens of generations known, and hundreds of generations unknown—who lived lives of extraordinary ordinariness. I don’t deserve to have their gifts. But I do.

Not just me, but all of us are infinitely richer because of the heroic lives they led. Yet, they did not consider their own lives “heroic.” As they trudged the dusty streets and cultivated the sunbaked ground, they were incapable of seeing over the horizon of time to the particular ways that they were storing up treasures for me.

Daily, they rolled out of bed, put on their shoes, and put their hand to the plow. Daily, they encountered pain, disappointment, and loss. Daily, they fought temptation to choose the easy way over the right way. But with each triumph over temptation, they were storing up a cornucopia of fruit for today’s bounty.

We live in a culture of individualistic, immediate self-fulfillment. We are saturated by preachers who tell us to scratch every itch and gratify every lust. We know, intuitively, that these are false preachers. Yet, in the middle of the struggles their message is tantalizing. 

That is why I am grateful not only for the benefits previous generations accrued for me. Even more, I am thankful for the example they left me. It is a light at one end of the tunnel. Looking back and seeing that light we are encouraged and assured that there is light at the other end, as well.

Also published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, November 26, 2021, and the Cowboy State Daily, November 28, 2021.

Families are a force of nature.

Photo credit: Jessica Rockowitz on Unsplash

A human family is the most basic unit of human society. Its bonds of love are a force of nature. No human being since Adam and Eve ever came into existence without exactly one father and one mother. At the very moment of conception, the bond of love between a husband and a wife creates two similar—and yet distinct—bonds of love between the father and the child, and between the mother and the child.

These velvet chains of love make individuals responsible to care for one another. When they prevail, all three people thrive in tangible ways. The husband and wife receive economic, social, and health benefits. The child receives an entire set of specific and unique benefits from his or her father. And that same child receives another set of specific and unique benefits from his or her mother. Thus, a family is the most effective welfare program in the universe.

Bonds of love are not interchangeable. Human families are not Tinkertoys that can be disassembled and rearranged without harming the persons in them. Bonds of love, once formed, cannot be broken without damaging people. That is why husbands and wives make life-long promises before governments and God. That is why every child has the right to the love of both natural parents.

These bonds make the family pre-political. Families exist before the city (polis) exists; and, cities are built by families. A city is neither a mere collection of buildings nor a commune of individuals. It is a community of families. That is the most basic of all political truths. It is the one thing that Democrats, Republicans, and every other party can agree on.

Just governments recognize and protect family rights. They treat marriage contracts at least as seriously as they treat business contracts. Just governments protect the natural rights that every child has to the love of both parents. Governments cannot create families. But they are obligated to support them.

Totalitarians of every stripe deny that governments are for families. Evil governments always set about to dissolve the bonds of family and control individuals directly. They intentionally interfere in families and set themselves up as a better big brother. Universally, totalitarians fail to recognize that the dissolution of family bonds is destructive to the state.

When family structure is broken, not only are the individual persons harmed, but neighborhoods devolve into ghettos and nations fail. Governments that protect family rights simultaneously help individuals to thrive and preserve the state. 

That is why it is the direct responsibility of governments to encourage family bonds, protect them from destructive forces, and shield them from outside interference. And that is why citizens have an absolute right to this kind of government. 

We should insist that our government takes marriage vows seriously. We should insist that our elected officials enact policies designed to keep parents with their own children. We should be outraged when politicians run roughshod over parental rights and insert themselves between children and their parents.

Instinctively families across America are pushing back. They are showing up at school board meetings to object to the teaching of junk science and divisive social theories. They are showing up at libraries to assert their first amendment rights to protect children from inappropriate sexualization. They are taking schools and employers to court against meddling in family medical decisions.

While families are acting on instinct, totalitarians know what is at stake. Former governor, Terry McAuliffe, spoke for them all, “I’m not going to let parents come into schools and actually take books out and make their own decisions. I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” He could not have drawn the battle lines more clearly.

Every school board, every library, every government official from the governor to the local health nurse should stand with families. Those who don’t are standing against a force of nature and the very foundation of society.

Wyoming families also know something else about forces of nature: They should be respected. It is unwise and extremely dangerous to get between a she-bear and her cubs. She does not care if the interloper has good intentions or bad. She only knows that he should not be there. Her reaction is instinctive and furious.

Politicians from every party should take note. Parents don’t care whether you have good intentions, or bad. They don’t care whether you are a Republican, a Democrat—or a Whig. Those who insert themselves between parents and children, are messing with a force of nature.

It took years for America’s parents to notice people and institutions encroaching upon the relationship between parents and their children. But now that the threat has been spotted, it can never be un-seen. A force of nature has been unleashed. Disrespect it at your peril.

Also published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, November 19, 2021. 

Local athlete completes the Ironman challenge

Evanston resident, homeschooling mother of nine, and English professor at Western Wyoming Community College traveled to Waco, Texas with her family to compete in the first-ever Waco Ironman. April Lange joined nearly 800 fellow athletes on October 23, 2021, for the grueling 140.6-mile race.

It was the end of a long road. Lange’s rekindled passion for running (she had been a high-school standout in Texas) led to a first-place finish in a local 5k race after the birth of her youngest child. From there, she set her sights on ever-greater challenges. 

Her first triathlon was a modest, 32-mile Olympic distance. A triathlon is a race of three disciplines: swimming, biking, and running. Evanston’s “Thin Air Triathlon” was organized by the Proffit ranching family and held on the shores of Sulphur Creek Reservoir.

After conquering the distance—and her competitors—Lange went on to ever greater challenges. In July 2018 she ran her first marathon and qualified to run in Boston. Shortly after her return from the 124th running of the Boston Marathon, in 2019, she set her sights on the Ironman challenge.

The Ironman was first run in 1978 on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. It consists of a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bicycle ride, and a 26.2-mile marathon. All must be accomplished in under 17 hours.

The level of conditioning required cannot be long maintained. Athletes must ramp up training with a goal of reaching peak conditioning in the weeks before the event. Lange mapped out her training schedule to prepare for a July 2020 race. Then, COVID-19 struck the world. 

Among the many disruptions caused by the evil virus and widely varied responses to it, athletic events were canceled around the globe. Early on, the cancellations seemed to make sense. Athletes were disappointed but understanding. 

But as time progressed, politicization wreaked havoc on athletes’ well-being. In one case, an Ironman was canceled only two weeks before the start because Harris County Texas used COVID-19 as an excuse to prevent the athletes from riding bicycles on a ten-mile stretch of freeway—although swimming, biking, and running were perfectly “safe” just across the county line.

Arbitrary rulings such as these affected thousands of athletes for more than a year and a half. It’s not just that races were canceled. More harmful was that guidance changed every two weeks, making future planning all but impossible. Repeatedly athletes came near to peak conditioning only to have their race canceled. In disappointment, they had to start the cycle all over again. 

Lange struggled through three cancellations before finally being allowed to compete in Waco, Texas. It was a sort of homecoming. During her high school career, she had lived on farm near Waco and still has numerous relatives in the area. 

Awaiting the start, 10/23/21

On race day, a queue of competitors stood in the predawn darkness while the iconic voice of Ironman’s, Mike Reilly, whipped up the crowd. At 7:25 A.M. contestants started plunging into the Brazos River at five-second intervals. After an hour and 25-minute swim, Lange emerged to shed her wetsuit and mount her bicycle. 

The hazards of this leg were not limited to physical exertion. Competitors began experiencing flat tires—a lot of them. Race planners had warned the competitors that in a race of this size about 25 flat tires should be expected. But on this day, there were many more. 

A malefactor had deliberately sabotaged the bicycle course with tacks. He even defeated the precautions of race organizers who use leaf blowers to clean the course before each race, by gluing the tacks to the road. It is sad to contemplate the darkness of a heart that would deliberately hurt hundreds of strangers who had trained for months just to be there.

Blessedly, Lange avoided any flats. After six hours and 48 minutes, she traded her bike for a pair of running shoes. A marathon later, she crossed the finish line to hear the voice of Mike Reilly say, “April Lange, you are an ironman.” It was the 304th time he had intoned those words in Waco. Completing the course just shy of 14 hours she was the 12th of 27 women in her age group to finish. Thirty-five had started that morning.

Just to finish an Ironman puts a person in an elite fraternity. Counting both official and unofficial races held around the globe, there are approximately 50,000 finishers annually. That’s only 1 in every 140,000 people. A map posted at the entrance of Ironman Village, showed at least one other competitor from Wyoming. I was unable to learn his or her name. If it was you, or someone you know, please email me at the address below. I would like to learn your story.

Wyoming should be proud of anyone with the stick-to-it-ness and discipline to complete this iconic challenge. 

Note: This author is the proud husband, and biggest fan, of his wife, April.

Also published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, November 5, 2021, and in the Kemmerer Gazette, November 16, 2021.