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| Helen Schmill |
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| Ann Chambers Noble and Neil McMurry |
According to biographer Ann Chambers Noble, “If there was a difference of opinion, his [McMurry’s] answer would be to have coffee the next morning, and they [the folks at odds] would sit, resolve it, and have a handshake at the end of breakfast. He would always stick to what they agreed on.”
Now, Noble shares more about this energetic businessman’s acumen and philanthropy in her latest book Hurry McMurry: W.N. “Neil” McMurry, Wyoming Entrepreneur. In a short presentation at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center’s McCracken Library gallery on Friday, June 17, 11:30 a.m. – noon, Noble discusses her book about McMurry, one of Wyoming’s most well-known philanthropists and businessmen from Casper. The program is free to the public; visitors simply need to let admissions staff know they’re in the Center for the program.
McMurry grew up in Casper during the Great Depression and went on to develop a series of successful businesses in Wyoming, including a construction company, Rissler & McMurry, that built most of the state highways. Noble says that in writing the book, she found it interesting that everyone—whether McMurry worked for them or they worked for him—had the same opinion about McMurry’s character. “All talked about what an incredible work ethic he had and how honest he always was.”
With gifts to Casper College, to various children’s programs, and to many education-focused entities, McMurry’s philanthropic interests have made many important initiatives possible within Wyoming. Nevertheless, he remains very humble—a trait that Noble says almost prevented the book from being written as her subject was reluctant to garner so much attention
Noble’s book will be available for purchase in the Center’s Museum Store, and the family will be on hand for a book-signing beginning at 1:30 p.m. Read more about McMurry at www.hurrymcmurry.com, and stay abreast of Historical Center activities on its Web site at www.bbhc.org.
Committed to connecting people with the Spirit of the American West, the Buffalo Bill Historical Center weaves the varied threads of the western experience—history and myth, art and Native culture, firearms technology and Yellowstone natural history—into the rich panorama that is the American West. The Center, an Affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, is now operating its summer schedule, open daily 8 a.m. – 6 p.m. For general information, visit www.bbhc.org, or call 307.587.4771.
For W.N. “Hurry” McMurry, solving problems is best done over breakfast.
"We're working on a second anthology as well as the online magazine. Since the group's inception, several of our members, myself included, have published our own books."
Patricia Frolander writes of a place and way of life where disaster can be measured in seconds and where the most harrowing loss can emerge from the simplest of mistakes. Frolander understands just how indifferent the world is to human presence, but she makes of that understanding a quiet grandeur. Against indifference, these poems insist on redemptive beauty and the power of relationship. They are unstinting and clear-eyed, poems about the world as-it-is and about how human beings live not in but with it, and with each other, in both endurance and mutual support.Laurie Wagner Buyer,
Vivid, honest, full of the beautiful clarity of hard-won expression, these poems will change the way the world thinks about women in ranching. Beneath the tough conditions and unrelenting work of western ranch life lie unbreakable threads of tenderness and conviction, one that ties working hands to stalwart hearts, and observant minds to the absolute souls of the earth.John D. Nesbitt, novelist and poet,
The poems in Married Into It show true Western spirit as they express a love for the land, the animals, and the ranching way of life. This collection is evocative-rich with details and toned with perfect elegy.
