EVANSTON — The Uinta County Library in Evanston will host the 3rd annual Poetry Fest at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 19. Participants are encouraged to bring a poem about, by or for women.  Refreshments will be provided by the Uinta County Library Foundation and Patricia Arnold, at the grand piano, will provide entertainment.

In honor of the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, and in honor of those Wyoming women who have been appointed as the state’s poets laureate, the Evanston 19th Amendment Committee and the Uinta County Library Book Club invite the public to this celebratory event.

Wyoming’s nickname is the “Equality State,” and for good reason. Wyoming was the first territory to grant women suffrage and the first state in the nation to allow women to vote, serve on juries and hold public office. 

In 1869 — 51 years before the U.S. enacted the 19th Amendment — the territory of Wyoming needed enough voting citizens to meet the population requirement for statehood, so it gave women the right to vote. When the territory became a state in 1890, women retained that right.  

Wyoming had many firsts for women. In 1869, the Wyoming Legislature gave married women property rights separate from their husbands. The legislature also passed a bill to guarantee equal pay for male and female teachers.

Esther Hobart Morris of South Pass City was a pioneer of the suffrage movement in Wyoming. In 1870, she became the first-ever female justice of the peace.

Another first for American women was when Nellie Tayloe Ross was elected as Wyoming’s governor in 1924. Later, she was the first woman appointed director of the U.S. Mint.

In 1981, Gov. Ed Herschler continued the tradition of firsts for women when he named Peggy Simson Curry of Casper as Wyoming’s first-ever poet laureate. Poets laureate are chosen for their achievements, and they are regarded by their country or region as its most eminent or representative poet. The goal of the official appointment is to seek to raise consciousness and a greater appreciation of poetry.

Peggy Simson Curry was born in Scotland and moved to Colorado as a child where she grew up on her father’s family ranch. She wrote her first poem in fourth grade. She attended the University of Wyoming, where she met and married William Curry. They eventually moved to Casper, where they were both teachers. Simson Curry is the author of several novels, short stories and poetry. She taught creative writing at Casper College for 25 years. She died in Casper in 1987.

Simson Curry was inducted into the Western Writers Hall of Fame. She was a finalist for UW’s American Heritage Center Wyoming Citizen of the Century Award.

Another Wyoming poet laureate, Charles Levendosky, said of Curry, “She was of the land, marked by it. She gave it back to us in her poetry,” according to WyoHistory.org.

In 2011, Gov. Matt Mead appointed Patricia Frolander of Sundance as poet laureate. Frolander was born and raised in the city but married into a ranching family. In her popular book of prose titled, “Married Into It,” she shares the hardships and the rewards of life on a ranch.

In 2013, Mead appointed Echo Roy Klaproth of Shoshoni as Wyoming Poet Laureate. Klaproth is a retired teacher, ordained minister and fourth-generation rancher. Her family homesteaded in the late 1800s. Klaproth is a published poet, non-fiction and fiction writer. 

Continuing his  tradition of appointing women as the state’s poet laureate, in 2015, Mead bestowed the honor to A. Rose Hill of Sheridan. Hill is a business woman and a long-time member of Wyoming Writers, Inc. She read her poem “Song of Wyoming” at her appointment ceremony to honor Gov. Mead. 

Of the eight Wyoming poets to have received the honor of being named Wyoming Poet Laureate, four of them are women. In the poetry arena, Wyoming lives up to its adopted title, the “Equality State.”