Rebecca Hein

Rebecca Hein, assistant editor of WyoHistory.org, is the author of more than 100 published articles and essays, in journals as diverse as The Writer, the CAG Quarterly (California Association for the Gifted), and the American Reporter online. She is the former principal cellist of the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra and wrote arts columns for the Casper Star-Tribune from 2000-2006. She blogs about the connection between music and writing at www.musicofwriting.wordpress.com, and about the special needs of gifted children at www.caseofbrilliance.wordpress.com.

Carolyn Deuel

Carolyn Deuel played every percussion instrument except tympani, in the Casper and Wyoming Symphony Orchestras, from 1976 through the present. Her specialty is mallet percussion.

Richard Rognstad

Rick Rognstad, cello and bass, played cello in the Casper Civic Symphony while in high school and also as an import during the years he attended college in Colorado. He won the Young Artist Competition on bass as a high school junior.

Deborah Bovie

Deborah Bovie played cello in the symphony starting in about 1974 and was still in the orchestra as of the end of the 2023 season. This totals 49 years, making her the person who has served in the symphony the longest. She was usually assistant principal cello, but did pinch-hit occasionally as principal.

Andrea DiGregorio

Andrea (Reynolds) DiGregorio, cello, joined the Casper Youth Symphony sometime during her junior high school years, younger than most students. She won the Civic Symphony Young Artist Competition when in high school.

Delores Thornton

Delores Thornton played second flute in the Casper Civic Symphony starting in 1976 for about four years, and then became principal flute. She continued as principal through the Casper Symphony years, and also well into the Wyoming Symphony years, retiring in 2021.

Dale Bohren

Dale Bohren played in the Civic Symphony bass section while in high school and later, during the Casper Symphony years, played in the orchestra including sometimes as principal bass. During the Wyoming Symphony’s first years he was executive director, pulling the orchestra out of a major financial slump.

John Kirk

John Kirk was principal cello of the Casper Symphony Orchestra from 1981 to 1983. His position was the first of conductor Curtis Peacock’s project to supply the orchestra with key “core musicians:” professional-caliber performers whose job was to provide leadership for their section.

John Stovall

John Stovall played bass in the Casper Civic Symphony while in high school. Traveling further, geographically and professionally, than any other Casper classical musician, he ended up in the Boston Symphony Orchestra, where he still plays in the bass section.

A Woman Alone on Her Claim

Chicago native Florence Blake risked her life in a bull pasture; traveled to Devil’s Tower and Yellowstone Park; and attended many all-night dances—all part of her life as a single woman homesteader in Campbell County, Wyoming in the early 1920s. She lived in Wyoming seven months each year.

The Yellowstone Microbe That Changed the World

A Nobel Prize, big business and scientific breakthroughs including Covid-19 tests and vaccines were decades in the future when microbiologist Thomas D. Brock began taking samples from Yellowstone Park’s hot springs in the summer of 1964.