EVANSTON — When local teacher Aimee Cogger invited Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon to sit in on one of her classes last January, she wasn’t sure Gordon would accept.

After all, the invite came on the heels of a somewhat contentious exchange between Mrs. Cogger and the popular two-term Republican leader during a Q&A session at the Wyoming Press Association Convention’s annual Governor’s Luncheon.

As the governor fielded softball questions from other journalists in attendance, Cogger — then an English teacher at Evanston Middle School and now in her first year at Evanston High School — decided to press Gordon on one of his education initiatives. When his response included a blanket statement about how Wyoming students are bored out of their minds in today’s classrooms, Cogger decided she’d heard enough.

“I’ve been fortunate enough to attend several Governor’s Luncheons at the convention, so every year I make sure I have a question ready, usually related to education,” Cogger said. “I asked him a two-part question, the second half having to do with the feasibility of competency-based education. It was his response to that question that raised my ire. Though I know he didn’t mean it maliciously, twice he said that students were sitting bored in classrooms across the state.”

It was then that the normally soft-spoken, conflict-avoidant teacher invited the governor to visit her classroom.

“I was absolutely sick to my stomach afterward,” she said, laughing.

Although the governor accepted the invitation on the spot, months went by without a word from Cheyenne, and Cogger went about the business of educating the students of Uinta County District No. 1. In that time, she accepted a position at EHS, and was talked into coming out of retirement to once again help coach speech and debate, something she had done both at EHS and at Cody High School.

Then, in mid-October, Cogger received a call from Chad Auer, Gov. Gordon’s senior policy advisor.

Was Cogger still interested in the governor visiting her class?

“Oh, absolutely,” she said. “Then panic set it in.”

Things moved quickly after that and, on Nov. 6, the day after the 2024 Presidential Election, Gov. Gordon found himself sitting in the back of Mrs. Cogger’s Pre-AP English 10 class, as students participated in a “balloon debate.”

The class was divided into three groups, with each student assigned a fictional character. All the fictional characters are placed in a hot-air balloon that’s slowly going down over the ocean due to being over-filled; the students then had to make the case for why their character shouldn’t be thrown out of the balloon.

The winning character from each group then had to square off against each other, with counterclaims and rebuttals. The entire class (including Gov. Gordon, EHS Principal Scott Kohler and Assistant Superintendent Doug Rigby) voted for the winner out of the last three standing: Moana (as argued by Caroline Nelson), Fix-It-Felix (as argued by Lance Dalley) and Flynn Rider (as argued by Raegan Dean). Nelson made the most compelling argument for Moana, winning in a landslide.

“The argument I had for her was that when we were over the ocean, we could use the water’s help to set the balloon down and then navigate to land,” Nelson said. “If that didn’t work, I could call Maui to come as a big hawk, then he could help us.”

Solid reasoning, to be sure. Asked if she thought the governor enjoyed the lesson, Nelson answered in the affirmative.

“I think the visit went well, and the lesson was a great idea to represent the lesson that we are currently learning,” she said. “I think the governor liked the visit. He liked to interact with what we were doing and had all good things to talk about when it was done.”

Following the lesson, the governor spoke to the class about conflict resolution — among other topics — and then opened up the discussion for a Q&A.

Asked his views on standardized testing, Gordon said some are valuable to teachers, because they help to inform teachers on how much students are learning, as well as how much they are retaining as they go forward.

“There are others that I don’t support so much,” he added. “But we’re working on a new approach to education, which from my standpoint — hopefully — is more about what you learn, and how you process, and how you solve problems, than it is about what you retain and can regurgitate on a test.”

Another student inquired about how funding is distributed to different educational programs, and whether the governor thought it was equal across the board.

“Our constitution requires that every student gets roughly the same access to what’s defined by what’s called the ‘Basket of Goods,’” Gordon said. “There’s an effort to try and fund all programs as close to equal as can be. That becomes difficult. There are these efforts to try and figure out how to equalize those costs … activities are kind of in a funny place — some districts put a lot towards activities, others, not so much. We need to look at that, a little bit. It’s great that we all have football teams, and volleyball teams and all that. But it’s also really important that we have band, and speech and debate and theater — all of those things.”   

Asked what made him want to be governor, Gordon explained how his upbringing in Kaycee — population 287 — led him to become active in local politics in an effort to ensure the voices of small-town Wyoming continued to be heard.

“My town of 280 people — I started out in the conservation district level, and ended up here,” he said. “I never anticipated it … so all of you should be ready. That may happen, so take advantage of it. Step forward, and make a difference — because you will.”

Of course, one student couldn’t help but ask what the governor’s first meeting with Cogger was like, getting a chuckle from Gordon.

“She’s obviously a very passionate teacher,” he said. “And she obviously cares a lot about being able to educate her students.”

Asked afterward if she was surprised the governor made good on his promise to visit, Cogger said not in the least.

“I knew I made an impression on him based on his response,” she said. “This is what I also appreciate about politics in Wyoming. By the governor visiting my classroom, in little ol’ Evanston, Wyoming, it showed me that he took my questions and concerns seriously. I mean, how lucky are we to have the governor of our state sit in on a class and stick around and talk with the kids afterward?”

The students agreed, and appreciated that Gordon interacted with them, and seemed genuinely interested in their responses.

“He was very insightful when it came to his part of the lesson,” Dean said. “It was interesting listening to what he had to say. I really liked the Q&A and how he answered many of our questions; It was good hearing his standpoint on some of the topics asked. I really enjoyed listening to him and being able to feel heard. I believed he handled our questions well.”

Principal Kohler called the visit a memorable experience, and appreciated that Gordon took time before the lesson to meet with staff and students.

“He interacted with us, and asked how things are going,” Kohler explained. “He cares about our state and about education. Visits like this are important, because we have students who are old enough to vote this year and the rest aren’t far off. They are the future leadership and it’s so important for them to be involved and learn how to be a productive citizen. They get to see how things work and contribute to the future of our town and state.”

The Wyoming Press Convention is just around the corner, and Cogger said she is already looking forward to the Governor’s Luncheon. She’s not sure what question she’ll ask this time around, but she wouldn’t mind if it resulted in another visit to her classroom by the governor.

“I think the governor came away with a better understanding of what takes place in my classroom and, hopefully, all Wyoming classrooms,” she said. “Teachers are amazing at connecting with their students and making learning engaging, most doing this with limited resources and even more limited budgets. I think people have lost sight of how many hats teachers wear for how little appreciation it feels like they receive.”