Stan Hathaway: Trust In Wyoming

So. I echo the legislature together and I said you've got to do something here. We're broke. We went out and got the business. We went after. It's a strong state because of it. Well because the idea is that people. If we can find better jobs for the young people. A great future. Stan Hathaway. From a childhood homesteading in a tent in Goshen County Wyoming. He grew up to become the 19th governor of the state. On his watch. Wyoming imposed its first mineral severance tax and acted as provided a trust fund for the future and a wealth of services to the state's citizens. He reshaped Wyoming government and the lives of the people who live here. Three things shapes that were his early

years on the prairie and the sod house literally is World War Two Army Air Corps experiences and the B-17 and the third thing was is marriage and love. Bobby Hathaway stand Knapp Hathaway was born in 1924 you know sealed in Nebraska one of six children of Robert and Lily now. His mother died when he was two and his father unable to raise six children sent Stan to live with Velma an older first cousin of Stan's who was married to Earl Hathaway. So Velma and Earl then many children had their own and they lived in South Dakota. They were so thrilled to get this darling little baby boy. It was the time of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression and the Hathaways who adopted Stan moved west from South Dakota to Wyoming. Clinging to the dream of resting a living from their own small plot of land.

The great. Winds that started in Kansas and Nebraska. Went into a while and it blew clear down to hard pan. And there was nothing and I shall never forget my mother. She couldn't keep. Dirt out of the house but the great thing in my mind about the Great Depression is how people help each other. And I knew that I could walk to any of the neighbors. And they would have me for dinner. And. It's just a wonderful feeling. He was separated from his siblings and raised in pretty harsh circumstances and his old school principal would say in later years Dan would melt 15 cows twice a day once in the morning and once at night after they

got in high school. We had to sugar industry was over for the year. They all all the kids at the school had to work. I think Stan was quite happy. We were all happy. We didn't know that we were poor. The ordeals of that generation are hard to imagine today. After the dust bowl and the economic collapse came World War II. Eager to enlist Colonel Hathaway who had served in the First World War announced that he was signing up so they melt the cars that night and said Earl was kind of pensive. Stan said. And then he said you know I think I'll go in tomorrow and last. He had already served in World War One. Stan said all go to. So they got up in the morning and went in because they were doing it over at the courthouse. There was a line of six or seven blocks of.

Old people young people middle aged people women mostly men and women who wanted to sign up to get into the war. It's always in my memory because. That's what they thought of our country. You know. My dad and I finally got up to where the table like this. And they wouldn't take him because it was too old. And they wouldn't take it. I was only 60 and they went down to the Bronco bar of Dagh a couple of bears went home and when they had left home I said well what did you do with me. There were 12 hours of mail twice a day. And what you can't do that to me and she was really pretty upset. Mom was so tickled and she is she. She

cooked a big dinner. But Hathaway persisted. And soon while still in his teens he was a radioman and Gunner flying in a B-17 over Europe. He flew dozens of combat missions and was shot down twice. Live to die I thought we were all going to die. We lost 56. Are. 17 to 24. For my radio room. You know I saw it played it on both sides I was good. In a plane about which nearly hit us. I don't know how. I don't know how I survived. One of the missions they had dropped their bomb load and a bomb got hung up in the bomb bay. There are 20000 feet flying back to England that can't land with bomb bay doors open and the bomb lodged. Stand got down on a little catwalk and

with a stick was able to dislodge the bomb. It fell harmlessly into the English Channel and they were able to land. I got to the point. I flew on 63. Missions. And some of us on the plane. The idea that we were going to be around much longer and. I prayed. And I accepted the Lord Jesus Christ. I had courage and I didn't and did not. But it bothered me. And the crash landings and the sales of fire involved with crash landings those were things that haunted stage for his entire life but also shaped him. When Stan was discharged he intended to go to the University of Wyoming and study law. But he was reunited with his brother Milt also a veteran and one night over several bottles of stout. They made the decision to attend the University of Nebraska

together. Lucky for Stan that's where he met Bobby. She originates from Sioux City Iowa and her grandmother was there and she was really close to her. And then she went to the University of Nebraska to school which is where she met dad. The story is that mom was engaged to I don't know if your mom was mom was actually engaged him in and he introduced them. Bobby suddenly grown woman. And she was with Stan all the time and she enabled stand to go to law school by teaching. She was accepted to medical school and she gave that up to help dad through law school and he really wanted to return to his home home area. And I don't think there was ever any question that they would do that. I think she was in love. We've all heard about love.

They moved to Goshen County. She taught out in tiny Huntly while he set up a law office in Torrington. The first year in a law practice. I didn't make any money at all. I had one client. He came in one morning. I showed him what the hell are you doing here in the daytime. We had no time to be off. He said That's no way to treat a client. That's the only client I had for two years. He paid me $40. So is still about starved you know. But above in my work and we would restore Stan and I have laughed on occasion. What his life would have been had Bobby been the medical doctor. Stan would have been a man of leisure hunting and fishing to things he loved the most in the state of Wyoming What a lost a great leader the law practice took hold. And Bobby and Stan began building a life. Small town Wyoming was a great place to raise a family.

It was a wonderful town and. We had no cares when we were little we lived in a neighborhood where. All the kids were our age. We went in and out the back doors and in and out of the refrigerators our backyard was the focus in the summer. We had people there all the time and the parents would get together and get for yard parties all summer. We were very close to the people there and even the dog seemed to run in herds around the neighborhood. In a way those backyard parties were the beginning of a political base for the Hathaways. Stan Hathaway ran for county attorney and one well started at a more grassroots level because they were precinct committee men and committee women. And I remember mom spending all the hours on the phone reminding people to vote and going and getting gathering people up and taking him to the polls. That was when the travel started and they went to all the conventions. In 1964 he became a Republican state

chairman. And that was the Goldwater period Goldwater lost as you know and I said I'm through with politics. I didn't like it. Well my friends came down on him say Sharon you got or you've got to run for governor. I said I don't have to run for anything. But in January 1966 Senator Milward Simpson stands political hero confided that illness would force him not to run again. And when that news became public governor cliff Hansen decided he would run for the Senate. Next thing I knew I was running. And one of the most enjoyable things in my life. Hello. Please. Go into Bush's. State media and these wonderful people. You know just made you feel good.

He wasn't the candidate of Ag and mineral interests what he called the third house. It wasn't like he had a strong base of support from within traditional Republican party interests from which to launch this. Effort. When he decided to run against the darling of the Republican Party at the time Joe Burke who was just a tremendous guy and the well-qualified man stand instead of being the insider he was he and the good old boy he was the outside guy look and then. Stand won the Republican primary. Now it was on to the general election and a race against a well-known articulate Democrat Ernest Wilkerson who demanded a debate. They thought that. Wilkerson was so articulate that he would just cut. Hathaway to ribbons. But Hathaway said he you know felt like he was running from him and he didn't want to do that. So we marched up to his office said you bet I'm going to debate. But the condition was that they would hold the answers to three minutes which would kind of help even the odds

because Wilkerson was famous for not being able to get to the point in any short period of time. In 1966 one of the biggest issues in the gubernatorial race was whether to impose a tax on mineral extraction. Today it's considered Stan Hathaways greatest legacy. Except in that first race he was against it. There was talk of a severance tax at the Wyoming constitutional convention. It has been talked and talked and talked about for years and it wasn't till Ernest Wilkerson ran for governor in 1966 against Stan Hathaway. That. The issue. Really came front and center. Stan Hathaway was elected in 1966 to be the 19th governor of Wyoming the happy years in Torent and ended suddenly when the family was picked up and driven to the state capitol. We all cried all the way to Cheyanne all four of us and we hadn't really. There was the campaign and Mom and Dad must have been doing some preparation but we didn't. We didn't talk about it until we got up and

went. I don't think anybody understood the changes that it would mean. Biggest thing Stanton manage was to man law office and that was the beauty of the man he brought to the table. No governmental experience. And in some ways that made him a much better person because he had no preconceived ideas or notions on how things should run run. When he left Dorrington he had a net worth of about a million dollars and I came in to Wyoming for governor for the he highest salary ever had 25000. Is less than that for most time one reason the governor's salary was so low. Was it the state purse was empty. So the candidate who had opposed mineral severance taxes became a governor who championed the tax. So I call the legislature together and I said you got to do something here.

We're broke. You know the general fund got down to $80 once becoming governors saying revenue needs for the state seeing that there was going to be a lot of development and. A minimal severance tax wasn't going to impede that probably changed his mind and even so he didn't have any easy route of it. The Republicans were deadly opposed to any attacks on minerals. They've been fighting it for 40 years. So I went to the Democrats and got a few of them stirred along with ranchers the mineral industry had a powerful voice in the Wyoming legislature a contingent led by the director of the Wyoming Mining Association came into Governor Hathaways office to tell him what was what he said we don't like what we're seeing and. Governor we don't like your appointments we don't like

the things you've done or the mineral industry and we want you to know that if you. Run again and you have no future you will not be elected. It infuriated me at the time when I stood up in bed. I said don't you bastards ever come in here one at a time or to a group and threaten me with with my future in politics cause I don't give a damn. I am here to serve the people that elected me and I'm going to do the best I can. But Hathaway was no enemy of industry. In fact he began a campaign to recruit out-of-state banks and corporations to finance development mining the coal and grow the economy. We went out and got the business. You can't sit here and wait and hope that they'll come around. We went after you. We took that

old airplane went all over the country. And so he asked if he could borrow my brother Roy and take him down to Cheyenne as just for a couple of years he said as the director of economic planning and development. Roy would arrange to go to New York to go to Chicago to go to California and sit down with potential people who might have shown some flicker of interest in Wyoming. The pitch was simple. Wyoming is a nicer place and a less crowded place a better place to raise a family and grow a business. And for the energy industry there was a wealth of raw materials unsurpassed anywhere on the continent. Instead of working with a hundred feet of overburden to get to a 2 or 3 foot thick seam of coal come out to Wyoming and did show them. A hundred foot thick seems of coal where only a few feet of. And that was the start of the development of the huge coal industry in the Powder River

Basin. As I look back on it it was my biggest contribution to the state. I caught more hell over than anything else. It was just a matter of issue after issue facing the state tremendous industry. Proliferation of coal mining the over tamborine that was going on while mine was not prepared and we needed to be. I thought as governor he had to take a leadership point. Well he didn't really. It's proven but today we get more minerals and that is STATE OF THE UNION. And if if we we're a country we would rate the top four or five. But we are certain on those men are not doing anything with with the revenue generated by the severance tax. Hathaway did a lot of other things to grow and reshape state government

and stand when he was in the governor's office two or three of his personnel sat down and drafted the law that created the Wyoming Environmental Quality Act. I'm going where. We want to help you plan your future. Wyoming during those eight years. Oh. Several major departments were created in mining and economic development and planning the legislative service office central purchasing on the Wyoming Industrial Development Corporation of health and social services and so there was a lot of expansion growth in state government. Stan Hathaway may not have gone into office knowing all the things he wanted to do. He adapted to situations learned from others and when he faced opposition he dealt with it plainly did. See what was going on around me and pick up ideas for effective programs where another States and went one way or the state we might hopefully the needs of the people stan was the kind of

manager that he would go into the cafeteria. In the basement of the Capitol building and and have coffee with people and sit down and actually listen to what was going on with the secretaries or the mid-management people. It has been known and over dressing people down when they've taken reasonable positions. So he's he's gruff kind and firm all at the same time almost no one described stands years as governor without mentioning Bobby Hathaway. She was a supporter a partner and adviser and a force on her own mom worked a full day. And so this was a whole new thing. It was beyond the role of giving teas and acting as a hostess mom was truly busy with real very real issues. The arts council and the Department of Health and Social Services were she had a lot of things she wanted to get done. She got them in 1970.

Hathaway easily won a second term as governor. The state was growing wealthy off the energy industry and many who had once opposed mineral severance taxes now wanted to raise the tax. They decided they'd like this stay. And they wanted to double their rate on it. I said I told my auto industry that we would ask for money unless we got it. But a lot of the coal in Wyoming belong to the federal government and without a federal leasing program that coal was imprisoned underground. After two terms as governor Hathaway was expecting to take a federal judgeship then he got a call from Washington D.C. in 1975 and one evening Gerry Ford. Called Stan at his home. And said Stan I need your help. He said I'd like you to give up the judge. I'd like you to come back to Washington

D.C. So we're having problems at the Department of Interior. We need to put a Federal call leasing program in place. We need to start developing our nation's coal reserves. We're subject to the whims and challenges from MOPAC and other countries and we don't have the energy independence we need. And coal can fill that void. Gerald Ford was an appointed president. Nelson Rockefeller was an appointed vice president. The Democrats control the United States Senate. And as Stan Hathaways coming in trying to run a.. Under those conditions. Late late in the term. And you know it was an eye opener for all the boys from Wyoming. Stan Hathaway just didn't really major up the way I thought a person should. As the as the fellow who made the decisions on all of these very valuable natural resources as the vice president said here

it came this is a while back. He said you never had a chance. You never had a chance. The environmentalists. Where did you go. Let me have a chance. Hathaway was approved by the U.S. Senate despite a grueling grilling during confirmation hearings that ordeal was followed by a painful initiation into the Washington bureaucracy. First cabinet meeting he went to his fellow Kurdistan and says now. I want you to know that. We have our own ideas of what should be accomplished. And. He said. These words that we don't need any advice from you. Secretary. Hathaway. Stand literally worked on the Federal Coal leasing issue reviewing in my statement. The

documents and supporting information on that. He worked on it are two to three weeks day and night literally day and night. So he went in to see prison for prison for it. You didn't think he was being successful. He was having so much opposition to what he had done. That he thought it would be in the best interest of the president if he resigned. And President Ford said Oh I support you. You. Came around from behind his desk and hugged him and said let's just check things out. The White House position came in. And. That was standing there in the White House gave him a full and complete physical exam. And told him he said I think you're suffering from burnout from overworking and that you have cancer and depression. They were devastated I think they were. Extremely disappointed.

That they feared that they let everyone down. And. You know. People really they really hadn't. But it was a hard thing to talk about. Hathaways White House breakdown led to his resignation from interior and it began a series of hospitalizations for him and for Bobby. Months went by and then he called Brent Cootes and asked him to come to Wyoming and start a new law firm. We had a mutual friend that. Said Stan's dead man. He'll never make it back. He said if you go with him you felt. You. Know he's lost it when you came back home. He had a net worth of about $30000 most of the funds that they had created for their two daughters for college. He was broke flat on the back. He literally had to start his whole career again and establish their whole life. And I think was a huge accomplishment to get past that.

Stan Hathaway and his law partners built an enormously successful practice with many energy industry clients. He kept a certain distance from the political world but the politicians did not forget him. I know that he talked with all the governors that were elected after him and I understand it. Come talk to him one on one any time they want off the record about anything. When you ask Wyoming folks what they view as the legacy of Stan Hathaway the answer is no surprise. There's no question about the Hathaway legacy is the Wyoming permanent mental fusspot. He was the only leader. Given those circumstances that could have gotten the original severance tax that is so vital to the development of the state of. But to his credit he really pushed on the severance tax thing and I thought it was one of the best things he ever day even though I knew that others had proposed it first. It took a lot of courage and guts to

face the legislature. But when you ask the people closest to him what they remember about Stan Hathaway you get another sort of answer. We were raised to think that we need to get back when we really understood the stresses they were under. We could see it every day. And I think because of that we didn't share a lot with our parents about how. Miserable. We were. They have Hoplites. They had two full plates. He became the commander of the line. He would tell everyone when they could blow the duck. So another call saying fly fish. He went to Yale powder river letter. But but he had give out a hoop and a holler that they would let every one on the street know that Stanton got a fish whether it was a big ass one or not.