Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation
Educators participating in a National Endowment for the Humanities-sponsored workshop at Heart Mountain.

POWELL, Wyo. — The Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation issued the following statement on April 3.

Thanks to the National Endowment for the Humanities, almost 300 educators from around the country have participated in workshops at the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation to learn about the Japanese American experience during World War II.

While they were in Wyoming, they stayed in local hotels and retreat centers, shopped in stores along Sheridan Avenue in Cody and ate in local restaurants. 

Many of our participants called it the most profound educational experience of their careers. They vowed to return to Wyoming to enjoy more of what our great state has to offer.

These are just some reasons why we have asked Wyoming’s congressional delegation to prevent the dismantling of NEH without the approval of Congress. We urge the Wyoming delegation to persuade the White House to stop this disregard of congressional authority that will hurt Wyoming institutions and citizens.

NEH provides 80% of the budget for Wyoming Humanities that supports institutions throughout our state. NEH has provided at least 12 grants since 1978 to the five-museum complex at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, where hundreds of visitors gathered Monday (March 31) to honor the life and career of Sen. Alan Simpson, a longtime supporter of the NEH and Heart Mountain.

Programs such as those sponsored by the NEH support institutions that benefit Wyoming residents. We are grateful that Wyoming’s congressional delegation has supported the NEH and its mission during previous attempts to end its funding, including in the last Congress. 

The history taught at NEH-supported institutions throughout Wyoming is American history that includes all that is good about our nation’s values. It also includes the times when some of our ancestors lost sight of what makes America great and how they righted wrongs and vowed to do better.

We need to preserve the NEH to help remember our nation’s rich history.

The Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation, a Smithsonian affiliate, preserves the site where some 14,000 Japanese Americans were unjustly incarcerated in Wyoming from 1942 through 1945. Their stories are told within the foundation’s museum, Heart Mountain Interpretive Center, located between Cody and Powell. For more information, call the center at (307) 754-8000 or email [email protected].

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Wyoming’s congressional delegation consists of Sens. John Barrasso and Cynthia Lumis and Rep. Harriet Hageman, all Republicans.