In the words of “Man of Constant Sorrow“:
I am the man of constant sorrow/
I’ve seen trouble all my days/
I bid farewell to ol’ Kentucky/
The place where I was born and raised.
Okay, I wasn’t born and raised here, but you get the point. I’m leaving Kentucky.
I’m Wyoming-bound.
I’ve accepted a job as the energy reporter at the Casper Star-Tribune. This is no small job. Despite the cowboy imagery, Wyoming is first and foremost an energy state. Wyoming is the number one US coal-producing state, producing 40 percent of US coal. It’s a top producer of natural gas and ahead of many other states in wind energy production. A Russian firm is mining uranium there and an Israeli firm is breaking new ground on geothermal energy.
It’s also home to the highest rates of workplace fatalities in the nation. And, as you can imagine, the energy firm and interests in the state exert a powerful influence on the affairs of the state.
This is a recipe for a difficult and challenging beat. I’ll be writing stories of both international, national, and hyper-local interest. Those stories are highly unlikely to make everyone happy. That’s not unusual in journalism, but as the sole energy reporter in a state where energy is life, this job is going to be craaazy.
Yet that’s why I took this job. I intend to show up, listen a lot, talk to a lot of people, see as much as I can, and then crank out some damn fine journalism.
As the old cowboy ballad goes:
Whoop-ee-ti-yi-o get along little doggies,
It’s your misfortune and not of my own.
Whoop-ee-ti-yi-o get along little doggies,
You know that Wyoming will be your new home.
Despatches | {Wyoming} 