So important is an understanding of how the noble art of music works, and so important do we consider familiarity with great composers in the Western tradition, that all of our students here at the College are required to take two semesters of Music Theory & History in their junior year.  True, this is only a beginning, but a serious beginning must be made—one that stretches from the fundamental ingredients of music (rhythms in simple and compound time signatures, pitch in bass and treble clef, key signatures, the circle of fifths, scales and intervals) all the way to some of the greatest masterpieces of the art, like the St. Matthew Passion of Johann Sebastian Bach.

Unlike less complex forms of aural stimulation, “art music”—a better term than “classical music”—needs, and deserves, to be given multiple hearings, with full attention.  One needs to give this rich music a chance to speak to one’s soul, to convey its beauties to one’s mind, to mould one’s heart.  It’s not supposed to be instant gratification; there is more intellectual substance to it.  A cartoon, for example, tells you right away what it’s about, and you laugh at the joke.  In contrast, an artfully written novel or play takes time to enter into and appreciate.  Like a good wine, it must “breathe.”         

Just as there are great books, which are known to be great by the common consensus of scholars and thoughtful people across the ages, and just as there are great paintings and great sculptures, so too there are great works of music, known and felt to be such by educated musicians and music lovers—works notable for their depth of feeling, nobility of sentiment, exquisite artistry.  Ignorance of these is as bad, for someone who seeks to be educated in Western (and Catholic) culture, as ignorance of Dante and Shakespeare in literature, Plato and Aristotle in philosophy, Augustine and Aquinas in theology.

One often hears a false claim: today’s popular music is “more emotional,” some say, while traditional music is “less emotional.”  In reality, the emotions evoked in today’s popular music are more crude and monotonous.  The emotions elicited by the music of Bach or Mozart, being more intellectual, are actually more profound and pure—therefore, more variegated, subtle, and rich.  There is no expression of joy or sorrow as profound as what you find in Bach’s cantatas, Mozart’s piano concertos, Beethoven’s string quartets.  Intellectual pleasures are the highest pleasures but the awareness of them requires a certain limiting and purifying of the passions as such.  Nevertheless, the final result of this is the ability to experience passions that are more subtle, more all-encompassing, more fully what passions are supposed to be.

Although one cannot train the ear in a day, a week, a month, or even a year, a beginning must nevertheless be made in developing the skill of attentive listening to beautiful sound that is inherently worth listening to.  That is what we attempt to do, and it is certainly my hope and prayer that our students will become, not only witnesses to what is true and lovers of what is good, but also ambassadors for the beautiful, captivated by the reflection of the face of Eternal Beauty.

Dr. Peter Kwasniewski is Professor of Theology and Philosophy at Wyoming Catholic College, as well as Instructor in Music History and Theory.

Just a few days ago, on December 15, Pope Benedict XVI gave an address to university students of Rome in which he said many things that apply pointedly to the great adventure of faith and reason that Wyoming Catholic College is engaged upon. Taking as his text James 5:7—“Be steadfast, brothers, until the coming of the Lord”—the Pope then spoke eloquently about the “interior attitude necessary to prepare ourselves to hear and welcome again the proclamation of the birth of the Redeemer in the stable of Bethlehem.”  As a teacher, I am often struck by how much patience, dedication, and care is required of both students and faculty in order to develop that inner attitude of receptivity to the astonishing truth that the Eternal Word of the Father, the Divine Wisdom in whom and for whom all things exist, has become man, so that we might become God through His grace. 

This is the crowning truth of our salvation, and each Christmas reminds us of the ineffable goodness of God towards us.  It is a truth that anyone, no matter how simple, poor, or illiterate, can hear, believe, welcome, and rejoice in.  But it is a truth that the world, the flesh, and the devil hate to hear and strive unceasingly to suppress with a variety of tools—contempt, social disgrace, sophistical refutations, specious alternatives, violent threats, or silence.  This is why every age has desperately needed educated Catholics as teachers, preachers, apologists, writers, witnesses, beacons, leaders.  There will be no formation of such Catholics without the same kind of hard labor and patient endurance that characterizes the farmer.  St. Augustine grasped very clearly that to attain even a basic understanding of the mysteries of divine Revelation, one must devote oneself to a whole host of disciplines with great constancy, energy, and concentration.  The work is both gratifying and wearying to our human nature; we often do not see what is ahead, where we have come from, or how we will succeed.

The Pope said to the university students: “The Apostle's exhortation to patient steadfastness, which might somewhat perplex the people of our time, is in fact the path toward a profound acceptance of the question of God, the meaning it has in life and history, because it is precisely in the patience, fidelity and steadfastness of the search for God, in the openness to him, that he reveals his face. We do not need a generic, indefinite god, but the living and true God, who opens the horizon of man's future to the prospect of a firm and sure hope, a hope that is rich with eternity and that permits us to face the present in all its aspects with courage.”  Surely this is what our age needs; and it will not get what it needs without men and women who have been formed as seekers of God, lovers of his face, alive with his life, ablaze with his hope—and, at the same time, equipped to “always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear” (1 Peter 3:15).

The words of our Holy Father are utterly vital to bear in mind as we proceed with the “farming” of the intellectual life, where results are not instantaneous, and where technology cannot substitute for character and wisdom: “Patience is the virtue of those who entrust themselves to this [divine] presence in history, who do not let themselves be overcome by the temptation of placing all hope in the immediate, in the purely horizontal perspective, in technically perfect projects which are far from the deepest of realities, that which gives the human person the highest dignity: the transcendent dimension, being a creature in the image and likeness of God, carrying in the heart the desire of ascending to him.”

Our Lady, Mother of the Word made flesh, Seat of Wisdom, our Life, our Sweetness, and our Hope!  Pray for us, for all the students, teachers, administrators, and their families this Christmas season.

Dr. Peter Kwasniewski is Professor of Theology and Philosophy at Wyoming Catholic College, as well as Instructor in Music History and Theory.

Sometimes students wonder why we read books by authors who espouse mistaken views. In co-teaching the senior science courses, which contain readings by a number of these supposedly “bad” authors, I have frequently had occasion to ponder this question, and so I’d like to offer some brief reflections here. Why not restrict one’s studies to the “good” authors? There are three basic reasons.

First, an educated person must be prepared to deal with error, and this preparation requires some exposure to it. Modern society is rife with problematic “isms,” from moral relativism to metaphysical naturalism masquerading as science to militant atheism, and most of us cannot help but encounter such views from time to time. By learning about ancient and modern errors as they arose from their historical roots, and by seeing them set in contrast to the perennial philosophy and theology of the Catholic intellectual tradition, we can both avoid being taken unaware by these errors and be ready to respond effectively to them.

Second, through its very opposition, error sometimes manifests the truth. One form of this occurs when an author unwittingly reveals the error of his own principles by the absurdity of the conclusions he draws from them, by concluding, for example, that the material world does not really exist, or that we can have no knowledge of it.

Third, even authors who propose profoundly mistaken views frequently have a kernel of truth hidden in their positions. As Aristotle teaches, everyone says something true about reality, and hence we should be grateful not only to those with whom we agree but also to those with whom we do not. Francis Bacon greatly errs in trying to do away with formal and final causality in nature, but he offers worthwhile insights into the pitfalls of human nature, such as the temptation to favor evidence supporting one’s own view while ignoring evidence to the contrary. Through reading such authors, the liberally educated person learns to separate the wheat from the chaff, to gather kernels of truth wherever they may be found, lie in noxious surroundings though they may.

Dr. Michael Bolin is Assistant Professor of Theology and Philosophy at Wyoming Catholic College.

As the Christmas break approaches (an event on the minds of all my students!), we Americans will soon find ourselves in the maelstrom of another presidential election.  Like most Americans, I am interested in what the candidates have to say about the economy and foreign policy, healthcare and immigration, pro-life matters and religious liberties.  As a professor of Rhetoric, however, I am perhaps more interested than most of my fellow Americans in not only what candidates say, but how they say it.  For Rhetoricians, the contemporary election year is a sad and frustrating phenomenon.

It is all too easy to romanticize the past: the politicians of yesteryear were as noble or as slimy as the politicians we have today.  There is, however, a major difference between how past politicians spoke to our ancestors and how current politicians speak to us today.  Before televised speeches—let alone the 24-hour news cycle, a development that may spell the doom of the American republic—politicians spoke face-to-face with voters in public speeches and debates.  Presidential candidates still do this, of course, but mainly as a supplement to recorded statements, recorded statements that are usually little more than sound bites or bullet points, giving stock answers to predictable questions.  Instead of thoughtful, researched, drawn out arguments the American public gets reductive slogans worthy of an Orwellian regime (“Hopeful compassionate change we can believe in from mavericks who are straight shooters!”).

Politicians, however, are simply giving us what we want, or what we can handle: upon close inspection, the most significant change in our political discourse over the past hundred years or so has been the ability of the audience to listen critically.  Consider the audience of an orator like Lincoln: even if his audience consisted of simple farmers, these farmers would have been exposed regularly to examples of oratory modeled on great orations of the past.  County fairs often featured Ciceronian orations extolling the virtues of American agriculture; even country preachers modeled themselves on the sermons of great Protestant divines; eloquent, structured toasts and speeches were expected features of public events.  American culture at the time of Lincoln, in other words, was one in which the average citizen encountered regularly acts of rhetoric that demonstrated sustained logic in elegant, gripping language, held up to the standards of great Western orators.

The Rhetorical model of Liberal Education—the curriculum followed by the ancient Greeks and Romans, the early Church Fathers, the Byzantines, the Christian Humanists of the Renaissance, and many of the Founding Fathers of America—aimed at training young people to be public figures: people of strong character who could think clearly and speak persuasively in the public sphere.  It was an education for leaders, preachers, and statesmen.  Traditionally, this kind of education was only needed by the ruling class: Chesterton’s free and happy peasants had little need of Ciceronian eloquence.  In America, however, if we relegate this kind of Liberal Education to a select few, we are in great danger: every American voter (at least in theory) plays a role in guiding our regime.  Liberal Education is a more urgent matter for the average person today than perhaps at any other time in history: he needs the tools to be a critical recipient of the messages constantly bombarding him from the media, able to sort through the mess in a thoughtful manner and deliver an intelligent, persuasive response.Contrast those simple American farmers with the average American voter today: he lives in a culture with no public standards for elevated oral discourse.  Public entertainments have no oratorical component.  If he goes to church, he probably hears homilies that are either self-help motivational talks or cutesy stories littered with bad jokes (one would be surprised to learn that we have literally hundreds of homiletic manuals and thousands of masterful sermons in the Western tradition!).  A toast at a wedding reception or formal party—even a funeral elegy!—is today little more than funny anecdotes poorly strung together.  No wonder our politicians talk to us in mentally reductive sound bites.

At Wyoming Catholic College, we teach our students the Rhetorical tradition to make them into strong, confident public thinkers and speakers.  Only these kinds of citizens have the ability to reshape our political landscape, demanding more substance from our politicians of whatever stripe, and returning a measure of thoughtful debate and eloquent language to our currently impoverished political discourse.

Dr. Sean Lewis is Assistant Professor of Humanities at Wyoming Catholic College.

It struck me as wonderfully fitting that on this feastday of St. Cecilia, heavenly patroness of music, I would be discussing with my juniors and seniors today texts that, in different ways, are closely connected with her.

The juniors in Christology are reading Colossians, Philippians, and Hebrews.  There is a particular verse in Colossians that has always been cited in connection with St. Cecilia herself, in the acts of her martyrdom: “Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts” (Col 3:16).  The Psalter of David, above all, connects us with thousands of years of Jewish and Christian worship, and more importantly, connects us right now with the prayer of Christ and the angels and saints in heaven.  We are so blessed that every day at the College chaplaincy’s principal Mass, the cantors and congregation sing, in Latin and English chant, the inspired words of the psalms at the Introit, Alleluia, Offertory, and Communion, thus fulfilling the explicit wishes of the Second Vatican Council.

The seniors, for their part, in the course on sacramental and liturgical theology are reading Venerable Pius XII’s magnificent encyclical on the sacred liturgy, Mediator Dei, which includes an extensive treatment of the beauty of liturgical music and of chanting of the Divine Office, woven of “psalms, hymns, and songs.”  Through the study of Pius XII and other classic documents, we learn better how to balance and relate the nova et vetera, the “new things and old,” that Holy Mother Church gives to us in her public liturgy—above all, how to celebrate the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite in continuity with the great Tradition of the Church, embodied in the Extraordinary Form.  Even as Pope Benedict XVI desires and has legislated for the universal Church, so we celebrate both Forms at Wyoming Catholic College, with a sound understanding of how the active participation of the faithful is to be pursued through gestures, words, singing, and meditative listening.

In keeping with our emphasis on dignified public worship in accord with the best of the Church’s Tradition, the College community is greatly looking forward to the implementation of the new translation of the Roman Missal, which will come into effect this weekend, the First Sunday of Advent.  All students, faculty, and staff received a copy of the Magnificat Roman Missal Companion as a way of preparing for the change, so that we might have a better appreciation for the riches about to be made available to all.  I want to highlight the closing words of Anthony Esolen in his splendid essay “On the Art of Translation” (pp. 15–24 in the Companion): “So when we pray in this [new] translation, let us not be embarrassed by beauty, by intricacy, by elevation, by mystery, by the potency of repetition, by fullness of heart and of expression.  Let us instead consider every word of the Latin to be like the wine at Cana, and let us be grateful for translators who humbled themselves to accept that wine, without desiring to translate it back into water.”  In a community like WCC’s, which, in keeping with Vatican II and the subsequent Magisterium, already warmly embraces the use of Latin chant, it can only come as truly good news that our English-language Masses will now reflect more accurately the beauty of the official Latin Missal.

Sancta Caecilia, ora pro nobis!

Dr. Peter Kwasniewski is Professor of Theology and Philosophy at Wyoming Catholic College, as well as Instructor in Music History and Theory.

In honor of today’s feast of Albert the Great, patron saint of scientists, I’d like to offer some words on humility. Isaac Newton, perhaps the greatest scientist who ever lived, famously compared himself to a boy “playing on the sea-shore ... whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me” – and said again “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

Nothing better induces a sense of the grandeur of God and of our own smallness than contemplation of the universe that science so astonishingly reveals. Unfortunately some scientists – those who tend to gain a hearing through the secular media – exhibit precious little of Newton’s humility. These are researchers who are insolent in the face of our cosmic origins, who speak of science’s demotion of God, who play satanic games with biotechnology.

But if the hubris of scientists rightly gives believers pause, we should also ask whether Christians are always sufficiently humble before the discoveries of science. I do not mean humble as a post-Christian secularist mindset would construe “humble” – witness the oft-repeated nonsense that Copernicus “put us in our place” by relegating the earth to an obscure orbit around an ordinary star in an average galaxy in a vast cosmos, a claim that foolishly commits the very fallacy its proponents pretend to attack (i.e., that of basing a metaphysical statement on the mere accident of physical location). Rather, I mean “humble” in the authentic sense that we must acknowledge truth wherever it is found, since it has only God for its Author, even if it has been discovered and promoted by those with an anti-Christian agenda. Abusus non tollit usum: the abuse of a good thing is no argument against its legitimate use. Scientific truth is mighty and shall prevail, and it were well that Catholics, following the repeated urging of the popes, boldly follow the path of that conquest.

Stanley Grove is Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Music at Wyoming Catholic College.

The Outdoor Leadership Program continues to develop WCC’s students into tomorrow’s leaders, beginning this semester with our annual 21-day Freshmen NOLS course. This year, 35 incoming freshman, 4 student leaders, 2 professors, 4 priests, and 8 NOLS instructors developed and practiced their leadership skills in the demanding and authentic alpine mountain environment of the Wind River Mountain Range. Students returned experiencing numerous tough and challenging situations, gaining valuable insights about themselves and others that will transfer to their future lives here at WCC (and far beyond). While the freshman were living in the wilderness, an additional 18 students completed the 10-day Wilderness First Responder Course and received their WFR certification -- a hefty certification for any outdoor leader.

Providing more opportunities for students to lead in the backcountry, this fall’s Outdoor Weekend saw a total of 112 students participate in 11 different trips. The trips ranged from backpacking and peak ascents, to canoeing, backcountry fishing, and even included a backpacking group that climbed East Temple Peak speaking only in Latin for the entire trip. In addition, a group of 34 students headed south to Zion National Park in Utah. In Zion four different groups of students did a variety of hikes and adventures including two technical slot canyons where they had to rappel multiple times into pools of freezing cold water. The wetsuits did not appear to be necessary until they hit the water, however, the biggest challenge consisted of a 120-foot free hanging rappel. All the trips returned safely with plenty of great stories and highlights.

In addition to the wilderness trips, WCC’s rock climbing program has also expanded with the help of competent and confident student instructors. This semester, eight students with prior rock climbing training completed the 2-day certification course allowing them to lead and instruct the rest of the student body. Various weekend trips and afternoon trips have now exposed nearly half of the college’s students to this exciting and challenging activity. 

The First Annual Sinks Canyon Adventure Race was a great success. Saturday, October 29, before the Halloween dance, eight teams tackled the course which involved a variety of challenges including: 1.5 miles of jogging/running, a tightrope with hand line across the river, a 40 foot rock climb, a 50 foot rappel, a Tyrolean Traverse across the river, a 6 mile bike ride and a number of other challenges throughout the course requiring problem solving and teamwork.  This test run proved Sinks Canyon to be a perfect venue for future races.

Now winter is upon us, and the first cross-country ski trip took place last weekend. As freshmen look forward to their 7-day winter expedition in January, other students are eager for this winter’s ice climbing and backcountry ski trips.  Then, as the weather warms up and the snow melts, students will get to try whitewater rafting and continue to rock climb, mountain bike and much more.  

Ultimately, the Outdoor Leadership Program continues to evolve and meet the needs of WCC’s vision to incorporate a strong, cutting edge liberal arts education with an unprecedented outdoor leadership program to send forth tomorrow’s leaders to shape and better our future.

Dr. Thomas Zimmer is Assistant Professor of Leadership & Outdoor Education at Wyoming Catholic College.

One thousand five hundred fifty years ago, one of the greatest Roman Pontiffs entered into his eternal reward. Pope Leo the Great, whose name alone marks him among the most illustrious sovereigns to ever occupy Peter’s throne, changed the face of the papacy and consolidated the supreme authority of the Roman See in a period of political chaos and spiritual crisis.

The date of St. Leo’s birth and details of his early life are unclear, but we know he was raised in Tuscany, and received an exceptional liberal arts education.  In 440 Leo was elected pope.  From the time of his election, he had a vision of the changes he needed to affect, the challenges he would face, and the great labours he would endure in the service of the Church. He immediately began working to centralize ecclesiastical authority under the Roman Pontiff, and he was not afraid to use the all tools granted to him through his office to fight his numerous detractors.

During Leo’s reign the Western empire was crumbing, and Italy’s administrative infrastructure and defenses had been seriously diminished.  Twice Pope Leo personally worked as a peacemaker to prevent the complete destruction of the city of Rome.  In 452 Attila the Hun made his incursion into Italy. Two separate chroniclers relate that Pope Leo himself led a delegation to meet Attila in Mantua and was able to dissuade him from invading Rome.  Then, in 455, the Vandals entered the city of Rome, but Pope Leo, clearly an adept ambassador, prevented the Vandals from slaughtering the citizens and burning the city to the ground.

The spiritual situation in the Church was also bleak, with two especially nefarious enemies prowling about: Nestorians (who taught that God has two natures) and Monophysites (who taught that Jesus had one nature, a novel of mixture human and divine.)  These heresies were spreading westward like a disease from Persia, Syria, Egypt and the Levant.  Pope Leo was also concerned that Pelagians and Manicheans in Italy were working to destroy the Church, and he gave many vehement homilies to his congregations in Rome against any affiliation with known heretics.  Relying heavily on his profound knowledge of sacred scripture, Leo fought hard to destroy these errors.

His remaining literary corpus contains 143 letters and 96 sermons, but he is most remembered for his famous Tome, an ordered enunciation of the formulas of Western Christology.  When Leo’s Tome was read at the Council of Chalcedon, the bishops assembled are said to have acclaimed together "Peter has spoken through the mouth of Leo."  Through his letters, Leo had correspondence with all parts of the Church and was very effective in leading both the East and the West.  His letters and sermons contain some of the most glorious examples of eloquence and rhetoric of the period.  His Latin style, which became known as the cursus Leonicus, was a standard for centuries.  This fiery yet symmetrical style of writing bears witness to Leo’s fervent confession of faith combined with his fair and deliberate way of rule.

While he delighted the faithful with his oratory skills, Pope Leo, as a true pastor to his flock, did not miss an opportunity to remind the faithful of the essentials of our faith.  He makes frequent mention in his sermons of the importance of alms-giving, the virtue of charity, and the power of the Sacraments.  He is hailed as the author of the social doctrine known as the the universal destination of goods and often reminded the faithful of their equality within the Church despite any class differences.

Astute sensitivity to the liturgy and its relationship to the daily lives of the faithful lead Pope Leo to formalize and emphasis the tradition of Quottour Tempora or Ember Days, which mark the changing seasons with three days of fasting and prayer.  In order to ensure consistency of liturgy throughout the Church, he published the Leonine Sacramentary and decreed its application.

St. Leo the Great is a model to the modern Catholic, who lives in a world where our common moral sensibilities have been shattered, a world where heresies grow so vast as they are nameless, a world where Catholic leadership and obedience to the successor of St. Peter is needed more than ever.  At Wyoming Catholic College, we provide students with a liberal arts education encompassing a thorough knowledge of sacred scripture and liturgy through Theology,  a deep understanding of virtue in Philosophy, appreciation for and mastery of the rhetorical arts in the Trivium and Latin, and the ability and confidence be great leaders through our unique outdoor leadership program.   We hope to prepare our students to go out and subdue the modern day Attila and the Vandals and correct today’s Manicheans and Monophysites.

Sancte Leo Magne, Ora pro nobis.

Patrick Owens is an Instructor in Latin at Wyoming Catholic College.

On a recent day trip as part of the college’s required Field Science course, I accompanied a colleague, Dr. Teresa Tibbets, and several of her students to Wyoming’s Whisky Basin, a beautiful valley in the northwestern part of the state.

We travelled there to observe bighorn sheep that were moving to lower elevations in search of grazing. Early snow had begun to cover the surrounding mountain ridges. We passed the day exploring the basin, scanning the slopes with binoculars, looking for tracks and scat, and finally coming upon four shy ewes as they fed near a creek. But the payoff was not limited to the sighting of these majestic creatures. As we combed the area, we also examined rock formations, sketched plants and shrubs and listened attentively for songbirds, such as Clark’s Nutcracker.

The glory of the autumn landscape made me recall those words of Gerard Manley Hopkins: “The world is charged with the grandeur of God….”  This, to be sure, is not typical fare for college classes nationwide, but frequent encounters with natural beauty form an essential part of the curriculum at Wyoming Catholic.

The reason seems clear. Through such encounters, whether hiking, horseback riding or star-gazing, students and faculty here cultivate the very habits necessary for all true education: wonder, patience, humility and love. Not a bad beginning in that apprenticeship of life-long learning which we call the Liberal Arts.

Dr. John Freeh is Visiting Associate Professor of Humanities at Wyoming Catholic College.

It is Fall in Wyoming. The aspens and river willows are glowing in shades of gold, the Clark’s Nutcrackers are busily collecting and hiding pine nuts, and the honeybees are visiting the last blooms of the asters with urgency. It is a time of transition for many animals living in the Wind River Mountains, who migrate into the foothills as the green meadows of the high country turn white with snow. For those searching for large mammals, either with bow, rifle, or binoculars, this is the time for the hunt.

Last week, members of the sophomore Field Science course and I went on our own search for the elusive Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis). Bighorn sheep are generally hard to find because of their preference for high elevations and rocky terrain not often traversed by the average hiker. Our search was focused in Whisky Basin, located about 70 miles north of Lander, where the largest herd of Rocky Mountain bighorns spend their winter. We spent the morning with our binoculars raised to the stony crags above us scanning for sheep.

As we turned a bend in the dirt road, there stood four bighorn ewes, about 100 feet from us, at a natural mineral lick near the creek. We observed the ewes for about twenty minutes as they returned to the rocky bands above us. Although the students and I had spent time reading about the natural history of bighorn sheep, as I gazed at the smiles and awe on the students’ faces, I realized no field guide could replace the experience of directly observing an animal.  The beauty of God’s creation, His First Book, is read in another way.

Dr. Teresa Tibbets is Adjunct Professor of Field Science at Wyoming Catholic College.