The Mayor’s Minute from Mayor Patrick Collins – July 25, 2025

Published on July 25, 2025

Folks, it’s Cheyenne Frontier Days, which is my favorite 10 days of the year. I will admit to being a bit tired, but I love it. The days are long but so exciting. As I think about this year’s edition, I find myself being so grateful to our Cheyenne residents. I can’t tell you how many visitors have come up to me to say how friendly people in Cheyenne are. They are blown away by our hospitality. I also hear so many complements on how clean the city is. Thank you! Our residents are great ambassadors for the city. I know the extra traffic and lines could shorten our patience, but that has not happened. I couldn’t be more proud of our community.

I hope you have attended a parade this year. I know the parade has been going on for decades, but it is an amazing thing on the first Saturday when everyone seems to know just when and where they are supposed to be. It seems to run so seamlessly. One thing I was excited to see is the new Modular Vehicle Barriers the city purchased being put to work protecting the perimeter of the parade. These barriers are designed to stop vehicles from entering the parade perimeter. We had a vehicle driver who had a medical emergency just a few weeks before CFD and the pickup veered into an event on the lawn of the State Museum. Thankfully, no one was hurt. Making the parade and all our other outdoor events safer gives me some peace of mind. Events like the terrorist attack in New Orleans show how important these kinds of safety measures are. Thanks to City Council for the funding and Jason and the team at Community Recreation and Events for getting them deployed.

One of the things Judy and I get to do is participate in the grand entry for the rodeo each day. The carriages we ride in are beautiful and part of what makes our parade and Old West Museum so spectacular. Another thing that is spectacular is the folks who come from all over the country to drive the carriages. They bring their horses and drive all week long. We have had teams and drivers from Texas, Kansas, Missouri, Colorado, Nebraska, and Wyoming this week. I don’t think we could do the things we do without these great people. They always thank us for letting them come and participate, but the thanks also goes the other way.

Frontier Days started 129 years ago in 1897 as a one-day cowboy roundup. Local businesspeople thought bringing people to town would help the economy. The business connection continued for a hundred years until they spun off from the Chamber of Commerce and stood up on their own. The Chamber holds a Pardners N’ Prosperity luncheon on the first Friday of CFD. I shared with the audience the amazing accomplishment of anything making it 129 years. The Dow Jones Industrial had one company that made it more than 120 years, GE, and they are not on the list anymore. The S&P 500 has maybe 15 companies that have had as many birthdays as CFD. 129 years is something our community should be so proud of and shows the impact a group of volunteers can have when they work together.

The crew from the USS Cheyenne was in town for the first half of CFD. The captain, chief of the boat, Junior Sailor of the Year, Sailor of the Year, and Junior Officer of the Year all made the trip. The chief of the boat has been here before, but it was all new for the rest of the crew. They loved their visit and wanted to thank everyone for the hospitality. They told me the relationship between the ship and the city it’s named for is one of the best in the Navy. The USS Cheyenne has been in dry dock for a couple of years now getting the reactor refueled and updating the rest of the equipment. It was heartbreaking a couple of years ago when I went to the change of command to see holes cut in the side and top to let the crew make the updates. Good news – the boat is now in the water and should be ready for duty in the next year. She will be on patrol representing Cheyenne and protecting our nation. One of the very cool things that CFD has imparted on the boat is the yellow feather we wear on our cowboy hats for mental health and suicide awareness. The USS Cheyenne crew has a yellow feather sewn on their duty caps for the same reason. They also have a western belt buckle customized with the USS Cheyenne logo they wear. Cool to see for sure.

We took the family to the Xtreme Bull Riding on Monday evening. I like bull riding as it seems like a very fair fight to me. The bulls won two-thirds of the battles, but the ones the cowboys won were huge rides and scored big numbers. We had so much fun that we bought tickets for the finals the next night. The battle between Stetson Wright and Wacey Schalla was memorable. Stetson got the better of the competition on the first night, but Wacey had an amazing ride on finals night to win the event. They are first and second in the world right now and I expect they will battle until the NFR.

I was blown away by a man from France named Manu Lataste who demonstrated the ancient art of bull jumping. The bull he jumped was specially bred for these kinds of events – small and really fast. He would face the bull and when it charged, he would run at it and then make a complete flip in the air over the charging bull. It was crazy and so fun to watch. Manu has jumped over 500 bulls in his career and even the bull fighters seemed awed by him.

The pancake breakfast is another long-time staple of CFD. I flipped pancakes in Big Red on Wednesday. The lines were all the way down 15th Street and out of sight. The Kiwanis Club was out in force serving pancakes and coffee. While the breakfast is a fun event for our community and visitors, it is also a time for the Kiwanis Club to practice in case they are called in times of emergency to feed large quantities of people. I am impressed that massed-produced pancakes at this level can taste this good. I met people from all over the world and so many U.S. states, all having a great time. I also met Kiwanians from the region that have come up to volunteer for years now. One of the special parts of the breakfast is the Bob Mathews family that plays music for the guests on the big stage.  Three generations playing the fiddle and entertaining the crowd. They rock! Thank you to the Kiwanians and the rest of the volunteers who get up early and feed everyone.

I spend a lot of time in the sponsor booths during the rodeo. I want them to know how proud I am of the rodeo, but I also know and understand that without sponsors, our rodeo would not exist. This year I have met so many businesspeople and entrepreneurs who are looking to bring businesses to Cheyenne. Some are in the arms manufacturing industry and are looking for a welcoming place to bring their manufacturing facilities. Others are looking to take Wyoming’s raw materials and manufacture a finished product for export to other states or nations. It is the most activity I have ever seen at the park from a business recruitment and expansion perspective. I see Betsey and Rachelle every day meeting with prospective businesses and sharing our amazing rodeo experience. I hope we will see many of these ventures come to fruition in the next couple of years.

We have just a few days of Cheyenne Frontier Days left. It makes me sad as once CFD is done, school starts, and the summer is almost over. Dang, it happens so fast these days. I want to thank everyone who volunteers year-round to make this an amazing place to live, work and raise a family.