State+Song

toc
 * Wyoming State Song **

//Wyoming March Song//, words by Charles E. Winter and music by George E. Knapp, was adopted as the official Wyoming state song in 1955.

According to Winter, the idea of a state song was proposed to him by Grand Encampment Herald editor Earle R. Clemens around 1903. At the time, “one of the principal forms of recreation [in Encampment] was singing in the town hall… As we used to gather around to sing the popular hits of the day, [Clemens] often spoke of the need for a Wyoming state song.”

“The words of the song came to Winter as he was traveling through Pennsylvania in a train, filled with homesickness for the beauty and wild ruggedness of his adopted state.”

Several months after his return, Winter gave a typed copy of the verses to Clemens “with the suggestion to compose a melody to match the words.” It sat in a pigeon hole in Clemens’ desk until he was inspired to write the melody.

“‘One day,’ Winter recalled, ‘Clemens bounced into my office with the statement that he now had the melody for the song. He wrote out the music by hand, in pen and ink.’”

Winter, Clemens and two others, a barber and a tailor, presented the song as a quartet at the 1905 Wyoming Industrial Convention in Sheridan. It was enthusiastically received and the delegates declared it the state song. The quartet sang the song at each stop on their trip home to Encampment, spreading its popularity. The extreme range of the song, excepting the chorus, was difficult for the average person to sing. The song was registered for copyright in 1903.

Early in 1920, Professor George E. Knapp, director of music at the University of Wyoming, composed a march version assisted by other members of the music faculty and advance harmony students. This setting required a much smaller range and was thus easier to sing and dance to. Knapp introduced this new version at a State Teachers’ meeting and it was afterward printed in the State Course of Study textbooks used throughout Wyoming. This version of the song was registered for copyright in 1920.

In 1912, Mrs. Vaughn of Cheyenne composed a third version of the music, this setting specifically for a soprano solo. Her version was often performed by the Lyons Club of Cheyenne in to the 1930s but never saw more than local use.

On February 15, 1955, the march was formally adopted by the Wyoming State Legislature as the state song.

The copyright for the “Wyoming March Song” passed from George E. Knapp to the Richter Music Company of Casper then to Jim and Audrey Bailey of Bailey’s Office Supply. When the Bailey’s sold the business to Larry and Margo Bean in the late 1970s, the copyright transferred as well. The copyright was allowed to expire and the song is now in the public domain.

Charles E. Winter
Charles E. Winter was born in 1870 in Muscatine, IA. He studied at Iowa Wesleyan University before graduating from Nebraska Wesleyan University in 1892. He was admitted to the Nebraska Bar and practiced in Omaha. During 1896-1900, he was clerk of the county court there. In 1902, Winter moved to Grand Encampment and continued to practice until 1913 when he moved to Casper. Between 1913 and 1919, he served as a district court judge, then resigned and returned to private practice and was active in local civic affairs. In 1922 he was elected US Representative on a Republican ticket and served until 1928. He was appointed attorney general and acting governor of Puerto Rico 1932-1933. He died in 1948 in Casper.

Earle R. Clemens
Earle R. Clemens was born in 1877 in Flowerfield, MI. Following graduation from common school, he and his brother began publishing the Constantine Record in Constantine, MI, in 1897. In 1902, Clemens moved to Encampment and became editor of the //Grand Encampment Herald//. From there, he moved to Rhyolite, Nevada then on to Terra Belle, California, in 1911 where he and his wife ran a local newspapers. For a short time, he traveled the country with an opera company, billed as the “Tenor of the Desert”. He died in 1943 in Terra Belle, CA and is buried in Constantine, MI.

George Edwin Knapp
George Edwin Knapp was born in 1886 in Martinsburg, WV. He studied voice in Bloomington and Chicago, IL, appearing briefly as a baritone soloist in small concerts and on stage. He taught at Cedar Valley Seminary in Osage, Iowa, Central Michigan Normal School (college) in Mt Pleasant, MI. During WWI, he was Army song leader and later director of community music in St Louis, MO, before moving to Central CA to work for the War Camp Community Service. Following the war, Knapp taught at the University of Wyoming from fall 1919 to spring 1931. He then moved to Lake Charles, Louisiana, working as a voice instructor, news reporter, freelance writer, and church choir director.