Always Sign Up!
From Volunteer to Visionary: How One Woman's Decision to Say "Yes" Created a Legacy at Cheyenne Frontier Days
Always Sign Up!
As a young person, my family chided me for always running to the chalkboard and signing up for everything. In hindsight, that particular trait has served me well throughout my life.
Every time I signed up for something, I learned something new. As the Executive Director of the Cheyenne Frontier Days Foundation, I “signed up” to project-manage the Morning Star American Indian Village. It took up the majority of the last four years of my life, but it has been the most rewarding “sign-up” I’ve ever made.
My first “sign-up” for Cheyenne Frontier Days was in 1979, as a volunteer on the Public Relations Committee. Tasked with hosting the media and others covering the annual Cheyenne Frontier Days celebration, I loved working with the media, seeing how they worked, what they covered, and what they considered newsworthy.
Because of my marketing background and my history as a CFD volunteer, I was asked by CFD’s CEO in 2017 to join the Trail Guide to the Future Committee—another form of “signing up.” The committee was tasked with creating a CFD strategic planning document. With input from strategic futurist Joe Tankersley, the Trail Guide mapped out long-term goals and operations for decades to come. It also helped lay the groundwork for the eventual development of Morning Star.
Eventually, I served on the CFD Inc. Board of Directors, which led to the creation of the CFD Foundation for the philanthropic and fundraising activities of CFD Inc. I then became president of the CFD Foundation Board.
About that same time, a longtime CFD volunteer and past Rodeo Committee Chairman, Roger Schriener, escorted a potential donor around the CFD grounds. When asked what CFD might need, Roger replied, “A new Indian Village,” since they were walking past it at the time. Not having a clue what that might look like, CFD returned to the potential donor the following year with a new gate and a new sign for the existing Indian Village. The donor calmly replied, “Think bigger.”
Needless to say, we came back in May of the following year—this time with our “Think Bigger” concept boards—and secured a $10.1 million donation for a new, much larger, culturally and educationally based Indian Village at CFD.
Prior to announcing the groundbreaking for the new Village, our cultural consultant, Ivan Posey from the Wind River Reservation, called to say we should not use the name Arrowhead American Indian Village. Despite the CFD logo being an arrowhead, he explained that arrowheads are considered bad medicine because they were always meant to kill, whether for food or protection.
Confronted with this unexpected change, I immediately asked, “How about calling it Morning Star?”
And the Morning Star American Indian Village had its name.
The name symbolized a new beginning for the 130-year partnership of cowboys and Indians at CFD, much like Venus, the Morning Star, signals the beginning of a new day when one steps out of their tipi, which faces east to greet it.
The next several years involved adjustments from concept boards to actual architectural drawings and securing the materials necessary to bring the Village to life within the $10.1 million budget.
Although the Foundation had completed several prior projects, the new Morning Star American Indian Village was by far the largest. It consumed the majority of the final years of my working life as the Executive Director of the Foundation.
I had signed up, but what did that mean?
What did Morning Star need to be successful?
The architect’s designs were beautiful scaffolding, but how could we give Morning Star a heart, a brain, and a soul that would leave a mark on everyone who came?
That question became central to my work.
Morning Star was never intended to be simply another CFD attraction. Having grown up with CFD and the American Indian dancers, I realized I really knew very little about their culture. My goal was to learn and help make Morning Star a permanent educational and cultural destination honoring the Indigenous Nations of the Plains.
I wanted to give visitors the opportunity to encounter Native history, culture, and contemporary voices with greater understanding and respect—an understanding that I myself had not gained in more than 40 years of attending CFD.
Recognizing my own lack of knowledge, I developed a list of potential topics that could provide guests with greater insight through signage and exhibits. I got to work researching and talking with American Indians.
Then a photograph from the past, hanging on a wall in the CFD Event Center, spoke to me.
The colorized photograph from the 1938 CFD event featured Lakota Sioux dancers and three CFD dignitaries. I began to wonder: Who were these people? What were their stories?
Although their individual stories may be lost, the responsibility of telling someone else’s stories became my goal.
I wanted the stories told at Morning Star to provide cultural context: how Indigenous people lived; the plants they used and for what purposes—food, medicine, and utilitarian needs; the importance of the bison and the horse; and why, here in this corner of Wyoming, cowboys and Indians developed a partnership that has lasted more than 130 years.
This is how the vision for Morning Star formed.
And then, on July 17, 2026, that vision became a place filled with more than 1,000 people witnessing its grand opening.
It became a legacy.
Morning Star became the new beginning its name suggests. It is real. The now life-sized 1938 photograph graces one of its outside walls, attracting future guests. American Indian art covers the end walls of all the vendor buildings. Tipis stand where people can gather, and visitors begin a journey that can continue long after they leave the grounds.
My professional life has moved through nursing, sales, management, writing, fundraising, project management, hospitality, and community work.
Nursing taught me to listen, assess, prioritize, and remain calm when circumstances change. Hospitality taught me how people experience a place. Sales taught me to communicate value. Project management taught me how to move an idea to completion. Fundraising taught me how to connect resources with purpose. Writing taught me how to make people care. And community work taught me that relationships are often the most valuable asset.
Morning Star brought all of these experiences together.
It also connected me to a vision of leadership that does not require standing at a podium.
As a woman, I recognize that the leadership I brought to Morning Star came from connecting people and voices, asking questions, listening, building relationships, and bringing different perspectives together around a shared vision. Perhaps that is where our greatest influence lies—not always in being the loudest voice in the room, but in recognizing what is needed, connecting the right people, and helping move a vision forward.
I look forward to my next “sign-up.”
Because the truth is, I didn’t sign up for Morning Star.
Morning Star signed me up.
It signed me up to help others see what I didn’t see growing up with CFD. By giving Morning Star a story and a voice, the vision for Morning Star—and its completion—has changed me forever.
Thank you, Morning Star, for pushing me to grow, to see what was missing, to ask the questions, to learn what I did not know, to connect people and voices, and to help a vision become real.
