Russell Stafford

The following is an example of the work that the veteran organizations of northern Wyoming do on a routine basis. This is a combined effort between the Wyoming Veterans Commission, The American Legion Department of Wyoming, Wyoming Workforce Services, Congresswoman Hageman’s office, Veterans Navigation Network, the city of Powell, and numerous other individuals. 

At the end of July 2025, Wyoming Veterans’ Commissioner, Nicole Laffin, received a call from Tim Sheppard, the Wyoming Veterans Commission director, concerning a veteran in need. This is not unusual and happens many times a month throughout the state of Wyoming. The veteran in need had a drastic change in life over the past two years. From having steady employment, a comfortable home, and a vehicle, they were suddenly in dire need of support with keeping their home, getting reliable transportation, and finding employment. Commissioner Laffin began immediately to make several phone calls to find funding and stop the eviction. Blake Furhiman and the Veterans Navigation Network were able to provide emergency funding to stop the eviction. Thank you Blake Furhiman from the Veterans Navigation Network, for the fantastic assistance provided. 

The next step for Commissioner Laffin was to secure employment and a vehicle for the veteran. Contacting Rob Gardner with Wyoming Workforce Services began the process of employment. Rob was “all in” to help the veteran and assisted in dusting off the veterans’ resume. Rob was instrumental in searching high and low for the right job. This meant finding employment that the veteran was qualified for and could do physically. While searching for employment, Rob contacted employers to ensure that they understood the situation and why there was a gap in employment. Although the veteran still had no vehicle, they made it to every interview because Rob was willing to go the extra mile and drove them to the interviews. With Rob’s help, a great match was found. Thank you, Rob Gardner, with Wyoming Workforce Services for being relentless in your assistance. And thank you Rob for ensuring that this veteran was not alone and picking weeds, delivering groceries and all the other assistance you provided.

The Wyoming Veterans Commission also wanted to ensure that the veteran was provided mentally and that they were interacting with others. The American Legion Department of Wyoming was contacted and Post 26 in Powell was asked to step up and assist with this. Post 26 Commander Steve Olsen provided initial contact with the veteran. Post 26 was able to provide another mortgage payment for the veteran, ensuring that there would not be another homeless veteran, and started the veteran’s interaction with others. This included taking them to post meetings, taco Tuesday dinners, and numerous other events happening at the post. Post 26 also provided transportation to the bank and grocery store and ensured that food commodities were distributed accordingly. Thank you to Steve Olsen and Edward Morrow for the needed assistance that you provided from Post 26.

Although the veteran had applied for Social Security assistance, a little extra help was needed to navigate the process. Rachel Hedges with Rep. Hageman’s office secured a timelier Social Security appointment/evaluation. Thank you, Rachel Hedges, for assisting in this otherwise long process.

While all of this was being done, Tim Sheppard of the Wyoming Veterans Commission, took on the task of securing a vehicle for the veteran. Between Tim and Powell’s Mayor John Wetzel, persistence paid off. In December, a family in Powell donated one of their vehicles to the veteran. Thank you to Mayor Wetzel and Tim Sheppard for being persistent and sending out requests repeatedly until it paid off. 

The family delivered the vehicle to a service station to get maintenance done. This included getting an oil change, a service inspection, repairing the lights, and general cleaning before providing it to the veteran. Thank you to the generous family from Powell for this donation.

A vehicle is never “free”; taxes and licensing can be very expensive. This is where an officer of the Wyoming Department of Transportation Investigation and Compliance division stepped in to assist. The officer explained how to transfer a “gift” vehicle title and took time to contact the Park County Treasurer to ensure that no sales tax would be assessed. Thank you to the WYDOT officer who assisted with all of this.

Although the veteran had received mortgage assistance for August, September, October and November, and has secured employment, one last payment was needed to ensure that housing stayed secure. Fellow Wyoming Veteran Commissioner Bobby Werner, of Greybull, was contacted to assist with this. Commissioner Werner, who is also Post 32 Commander of the Greybull American Legion, contacted his post for this assistance. The post provided the January mortgage payment, and seven Post 32 Legionnaires also stepped up to provide a generous donation towards new tires for the vehicle. Thank you to Commissioner/Post 32 Commander Werner, and Post 32 members for stepping up to assist with this endeavor. 

A local dealership in Powell stepped in to supply the tires, at cost, for the veteran. They also provided time and labor for putting on the new tires. Thank you to the generous dealership of Powell for this assistance. 

There are so many others who are not mentioned but did assist with this endeavor. Thank you to all those silent volunteers.

This is just one extreme example of the great assistance and care that is given throughout the state of Wyoming, and especially in the Big Horn Basin. 

Thank you to Wyoming Veterans Commissioner and Lovell Post 11 Commander Nicole Laffin for spearheading this mission and for ensuring that the goal of no veteran left behind was successfully accomplished. 

(Russell Stafford is the past Post 26 commander and the commander of The American Legion Department of Wyoming.)