The Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation expressed its opposition last week to a U.S. House of Representatives amendment that would remove funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities. 

Since the beginning of 2020, Heart Mountain has received more than $660,000 in NEH funding, which helped the organizations keep the interpretive open during the COVID-19 pandemic and brought more than 220 educators to the site for workshops, according to a foundation press release.

These visiting educators stayed in local establishments, bought Western wear and boots at shops on Cody’s Sheridan Avenue, cheered on participants in the Cody Rodeo and ate and drank at many local restaurants and bars. Participants flew in and out of Cody’s Yellowstone Regional Airport, and they rented cars from local businesses.

Heart Mountain used local restaurants and businesses to provide meals and services ranging from printing to shuttle buses. NEH funding paid for bus rentals from local schools and facilities at local schools and museums. These NEH programs brought visitors not just to Heart Mountain but to the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody and the Homesteader Museum and Northwest College in Powell. 

The foundation is grateful for the bipartisan support it has received for these efforts and for its plans for the future, which include an exhibit in the restored root cellar. 

The NEH has deep Wyoming connections, particularly historian Lynne V. Cheney, who was chair NEH from 1986 to 1993. 

“Beyond the financial benefits NEH support provides our community, it benefits the entire nation by helping our citizens learn about their important history,” the foundation said in the release. “That is why Republican and Democratic presidents have supported its mission and why we oppose this amendment.”