No Kings’ rallies reach rural, conservative Wyoming

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No Kings' rallies reach rural, conservative Wyoming

ALPINE— If history has taught us anything, it’s that revolutionary ideas often start at a local watering hole. Paul Revere and the Sons of Liberty gathered at Boston’s Green Dragon Tavern. The Founding Fathers frequented Philadelphia’s City Tavern. And on April 5, 2025, Sid Woods and Wayne Noffsinger devised a plan at Jackson’s Snake River Brewpub.

The two old friends, who had both lived in Star Valley for the better part of three or four decades, hadn’t seen each other in quite some time. Both identify as members of Lincoln County’s “other” community, which includes queer people living in a sparsely populated valley steeped in conservative politics and deep religious tradition. Those who do not fit the mold tend to meet one another.

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Co-organizer Sid Woods demonstrates during a “No Kings” protest Saturday, June 14, 2025, in Alpine. “I certainly hold no gripes against people who aren’t coming, especially if their skin color’s a little darker. No gripes at all,” she said. “We have your back. We’re here.” (Ryan Dorgan/WyoFile)

It seemed serendipitous that Noffsinger and Woods would meet again this spring. He, a 57-year-old artist and medical assistant, had just attended his first protest on Jackson’s Town Square, one of over 1,000 “Hands Off!” rallies opposing President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s cuts to federal programs and jobs.

Woods, 62, a writer who recently retired from the United States Forest Service, has spent her entire life organizing and showing up, calling out everything from controversial nuclear energy projects in New England to the “usual indignities” affecting women and queer people across Wyoming in the aftermath of the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay University of Wyoming student in Laramie.

The two have different memories of who came up with the idea to hold their own “No Kings” Nationwide Day of Defiance rally in Alpine rather than returning to Jackson. “I think we were imbibed with beer,” Noffsinger said.

Regardless, their work identified Alpine as the smallest of 13 Wyoming towns and cities. Nationally, organizers reported that approximately 2,000 events drew millions of people to protest the Trump administration.

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The Jackson Police Department estimated anywhere from 225 to 300 people gathered on the Town Square for a “No Kings” protest Saturday, June 14, 2025. Participants estimated 500. (Rebecca Huntington/WyoFile)

Most demonstrations were peaceful. However, they came just hours after another disturbing example of political violence: the shootings of two Democratic state lawmakers and their spouses in Minnesota, which left two dead and two injured.

Police discovered “No Kings” flyers in the suspect’s car. Wyoming legislative leaders issued a statement Saturday afternoon urging civility and mutual understanding as authorities continued their search for the suspected gunman.

“May we come together in this moment of sorrow to reflect on the values that unite us and to work toward a future where such acts of political violence have no place in America,” the lawmakers who represent Wyoming wrote.

Vying for survival

Wyoming was not on Noffsinger’s radar. He moved from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, where he attended community college and first came out.

“I lived in Los Angeles and I lived in the ‘gay ghetto,'” according to him. “I’ve never felt the need to go beat my drum. I’m like, ‘Eh, I’m gay. “Big fucking deal.”

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Jen Slovak and Rob Dyke demonstrate during a “No Kings” protest Saturday, June 14, 2025, in Alpine, Wyoming. We RSVP’d to the Jackson one but then saw Alpine was having one, which is great,” Slovak said. “We wanted to stay local and support our community here. We’re so proud of our community.” (Ryan Dorgan/WyoFile)

However, after returning to Las Vegas and meeting someone, the 22-year-old packed his bags and returned home with his new Star Valley-born and raised partner in 1990. The two lived and worked in their home art gallery in Etna, where Noffsinger first met Woods and her partner.

“Back then, in my recollection, it was mostly queer communities that were being targeted,” Woods told me. Wyoming experienced heightened tensions following Matthew Shepard’s death, similar to the wolf incident from last year. When people are under pressure, they tend to batten down the hatches and get worse.

One night, while at the gallery, Woods’ truck’s window was shot out.

“There was a long period of drive-by epithets. “Our house was broken into, and we had paintballs fired at it,” Noffsinger stated. “The day that they buried Matthew Shepard, they smashed our mailbox with a sledgehammer.”

His new home was not Las Vegas, and he quickly realized that as a gay man in rural Wyoming, he couldn’t maintain anonymity — or even expect apathy from neighbors — as he could in a city like Los Angeles.

He and his partner sent a letter to the valley’s newspaper, the Star Valley Independent, and later spoke with the Casper Star-Tribune, which published a front-page story about their experience being targeted as a gay couple in a socially conservative and deeply religious community.

“After you do that, it changes to where you become the activist in your own life, vying for your own survival,” Noffsinger told me. “Especially in a rural setting like this, where people don’t know you, they make up stories about you. That is one of the motivators for me to get involved in this. They’re making up false stories about immigrants.

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Karellina Kiljander, 22, holds a Mexican flag while protesting in the “No Kings” demonstration on Saturday, June 14, 2025, at Healing Park in Casper. Kiljander said friends and members of her family who are Latino have been harassed as anti-immigration rhetoric has increased. “Just because of our skin color doesn’t make us any different,” she said. “We work hard just like everybody else.” (Dan Cepeda/Oil City News)

That’s what prompted Karellina Kiljander, 22, to attend a “No Kings” rally in Casper, one of Wyoming’s largest cities. On Saturday morning, she held up a Mexican flag and wore a Mexico shirt to demonstrate how she and others she knows have been increasingly harassed as anti-immigrant sentiment grows.

“It is affecting my life. “I have people in my life who are Hispanic, and it’s bullshit,” she said. “They’re just trying to live their lives, working hard to support their families. People despised them, but they worked so hard.”

Others who felt the same way were too afraid to come forward, she said.

“Just because of our skin color it doesn’t make us any different,” she told me. “We work just as hard as anybody else.”

According to Allyse Taylor, organizer of the Casper Unity and Solidarity Project, approximately 600 people attended the demonstration at Healing Park in Casper. The group had held several “Kick out the Clowns” protests in the park and was planning another one before the “No Kings” wave took off.

Aside from a few critical comments from passing vehicles and one person who briefly stopped his truck to angrily engage with some of the protesters, the event was otherwise uneventful and enjoyable.

Many of the protestors intended to attend a PRIDE celebration at David Street Station later that day in downtown Casper.

The Casper Pride event was lively and well attended. The Alpine protest, meanwhile, was an opportunity to offer up some visibility in a place where, according to Woods and Noffsinger, being the “other” is often punished.

They wanted to make sure that people who are part of marginalized communities in Alpine and further up the valley — namely queer people, people of color and immigrants — could see that they didn’t necessarily need to drive an hour north and join the hundreds of people protesting Saturday in Jackson to feel safe and accepted in Wyoming.

“For me, it was what was being said about people that I knew. I have trans friends. I’m watching their rights being eroded,” Noffsinger said. “Nobody wants to be born to be the target of derision for the rest of their fucking life. Nobody chooses that.”

“I come from an ecological background where, hello, ecological diversity is understood as a positive. Why can’t social diversity be understood as a positive?” Woods said. “It’s not about the administration or the issues so much as the idea that, to me, we are a more diverse state than the false image of what this state is.”

A small-town rally

By 10 a.m. Saturday, more than 60 people joined Woods and Noffsinger along the bridge over the Snake River in Alpine. It’s a high-traffic choke point for commuters and tourists heading to Jackson, for locals towing boats out to the Palisades Reservoir — basically anyone moving in or out of the northern valley had to pass through Alpine’s “No Kings” gauntlet.

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Demonstrators wave flags at approaching traffic during a “No Kings” protest Saturday, June 14, 2025, in Alpine. The rally drew more than 60 demonstrators in the small western Wyoming town 36 miles south of Jackson. (Ryan Dorgan/WyoFile)

Pamela Thompson of Alpine was nervous to attend and had planned to drive to Jackson or another nearby rally instead.

“The division and aggressiveness is frightening,” she told me. “I feel that as long as I assimilate, everything will be fine. But honestly, I don’t care if I put myself out there because this is insane. We need to do something.

“It just feels good to be with people who understand that this is wrong because you do question your sanity at times. “Does anyone pay attention or care?”

However, supportive honks appeared to outnumber vocal opposition throughout the morning. Many middle fingers were thrown, and chants of “Trump! Trump! Trump!” occasionally rang out at 35 miles per hour.

As he drove past, one motorist yelled, “All illegals must go!” A pickup truck occasionally came to a halt as rallygoers appeared to brace for possible trouble.

Residents of smaller towns frequently travel to more populous areas to participate in political demonstrations. Pinedale and Driggs, Idaho, residents joined hundreds of demonstrators under the antler arches on Jackson’s Town Square.

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Protesters at the “No Kings” rally on the Jackson Town Square hail passing motorists who honked in support on June 14, 2025. Hundreds gathered to harshly criticize President Donald Trump and his policies. (Angus M. Thuermer Jr./WyoFile)

Rebecca Bercher lives in Shell, which has a population of less than 100. She went to the rally in Sheridan, about a two-hour drive northeast, to express her dissatisfaction with how the Trump administration is handling the military.

She spent eight years in the Army, while her husband retired after 23. They have two sons who are both active-duty military.

“I’m upset about the communistic parade that’s going on that looks like something out of the Soviet Union today,” she said of Saturday’s massive military parade commemorating the 250th anniversary of the United States Army, an expensive display intended to honor America’s military power.

“And I do not like federalizing the National Guard above the wishes of a governor of a state,” Bercher added, referring to the federal deployment of National Guard troops to protests in Los Angeles, despite opposition from state and local leaders.

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U.S. Army veteran Rebecca Bercher waves a flag during the “No Kings” demonstration Saturday in Sheridan. Her husband is also a veteran and her two sons are both active duty military. Bercher said she objects to the administration’s massive military parade, federal deployment of National Guard troops and cuts to the Department of Veterans Affairs. (Daniel Kenah/WyoFile)

Bercher and her husband also depend on the Department of Veterans Affairs for their health care, she said, “I hate that they’re cutting it as well.”

Back in Alpine, as the clock hit noon and people began to filter out, Noffsinger and Woods walked along the highway making sure the area was cleaned up. Noffsinger’s nerves from earlier in the morning seemed to have faded after seeing dozens of his friends and neighbors who chose to stay and plant a flag in their own valley rather than drive to another larger city.

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Wayne Noffsinger keeps demonstrators hydrated during a “No Kings” protest Saturday, June 14, 2025, in Alpine. (Ryan Dorgan/WyoFile)

Some told Woods that they were disappointed with the turnout, as if they had expected more from their hometown.

“We need to really reach out to one another right now, especially in our community so people don’t feel like they’re alone,” she said. “That’s what struck me in Jackson, the idea that there are others like us. It’s as if you’re coming out again.”

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