OPINION: Let’s Not Tell Outsiders to Stay Away From Wyoming

It's no secret that many of us love our way of life in Wyoming. But, I think we need to be careful about being too protective of it.

I want to start this mini-rant with a BIG disclaimer. I LOVE Casper and my family LOVES Wyoming. So many people have welcomed us here with open arms and that love and acceptance almost instantly made this area feel like home. So, this is not a personal thing.

Every now and then I will share something I find on the net about Casper or this part of Wyoming being named a "best of this" or "best of that". That would many times result in Facebook comments with an angry emoji telling us to stop letting "outsiders" know how great it is here.

Many are not mean comments by any stretch of the imagination. But, it's a very common vibe. Keep this town to ourselves and don't let the outsiders in. I respectfully disagree. In my not-so-humble opinion, we need to impart more of what we live and believe in this area and spread it to the rest of the country. Wouldn't it be great if more of America could be as courteous and giving as so many in Casper are? Let's let America know this is a great place to live and welcome them with open arms.

I want to acknowledge that I understand the objections like these:

• We don't want a big population with people everywhere
• We don't want people to come here and try to change the way we are
• Traffic is enough of a headache already

I may be naive, but I have yet to meet anyone that moved to Casper because they wanted to change things. On the contrary, the people I've interacted with that have moved here came to Casper because they didn't like it somewhere else.

I just bristle when I see comments about keeping people away from this area. I personally tell everyone that will listen to me how incredible life in this part of Wyoming is. To me, the more the merrier. While I don't want Casper to be a real metro area, I want people to come here and experience how awesome life can really be when you're a Wyomingite.