The story of us

Moorcroft High School teacher and advisor Andrea Wood, along with around 40 sophomore students, were working hard researching the resources available to them at the Texas Trails Museum last Thursday morning. The kids were spread throughout the building, reading pioneer books on the early families and the towns of the county as well as examining pictures and writing story drafts at tables set up for the purpose.

The project they are undertaking is "huge", according to Wood. The students are writing the history of the area through pictures and interviews of Crook County to be heard and read on the Wyoming based travel app, TravelStories.

The app is available for download for free from Google Play and is currently in use around the country as tourists travel and visit places unknown.

The project was sponsored by the Crook County Promotion Board and the class has received a national signature grant through the Rural Schools Collaborative. The endeavor has cost over $10,000.

These young people are responsible for the research, writing, editing and recording of the information and their results must meet state standards for accuracy before being published on the app, according to Wood.

To facilitate the task, the group walked through the Crook County Museum in Sundance with director Rocky Courchaine recently and, last Thursday, they attended the West Texas Trails Museum with director Cynthia Clonch in Moorcroft, ascertaining written familial, pictorial and geographical history.

Each student has been assigned a group and each group has been assigned a collection of stories that are scattered throughout Crook County on the interstate and highways.

"The students are researching the information that goes with the stories,” Wood says, explaining they are writing the stories and finding the pictures that will accompany them.

In the weeks to come, they will interview individuals who are associated with said stories, “So they will have at least one book resource, an internet resource and an interview with an actual person.” The recorded stories will be read by certain students for the app as well.

The purpose of this endeavor, according to Wood, “is to make it so that people who are visiting our area can know and understand more about who we are the place that we’re in”.

They anticipate the release of the Crook County stories on the app to available in June of this year; however, an open house is planned for May to allow the county residents to “come and walk around.” Each of the stories will be available to be seen and heard at the gathering.

Wood admires the hard work of the kids.

“I’m really proud of these students and what they have been doing. It’s a huge undertaking and they have taken it on,” she says.

“I have been excited about seeing them learning about Crook County history and about the geography of our county; some of them weren’t aware of small towns like Aladdin, Alva or Beulah, or about parts of our history like the existence of LaBelle. It’s been fun seeing them get an understanding of where we live and why we’re here.”

Wood noted that the idea of this endeavor was started with a local teacher named Scott Handley in the 1980s. His students researched several historical stories at that time, which were subsequently made into books and Wood’s class were able to read.

“One of the things we are going to do before our stories go to TravelStories is publish them in a book, just like Mr. Handley did,” Wood says.