First Lady of Wyoming tours Fremont County Wednesday

RIVERTON, Wyo. (Wyoming News Now) -

THE FIRST LADY OF WYOMING TOOK A TOUR AROUND FREMONT COUNTY TODAY...

At the base of Sinks Canyon in Lander, Wyoming is the Alpine Science Institute, owned by Central Wyoming College. Our own first lady was there today taking a tour of the mobile meat processing and teaching unit. She also toured around a few other places in Fremont County to witness their robust local food supply, and learn about the future of local food in the area.

“There’s so many farmers and ranchers here in the state that want to give to their neighbors. They want to have them have great food. It’s healthy, it doesn’t have to travel long distances. And when you go into the grocery store, and things are depleted, you know right away that you could get some local beef, some pork or lamb,” said First Lady Jennie Gordon.

Last year at the Food Coalition meeting in Casper, the first lady was in attendance along with Jack Schmidt: CWC’s local food and agricultural liason. He presented the idea of a mobile meat processing unit that could be used by the college as well as travel the state to serve where it’s needed.

“It was really something that I thought was innovative and maybe would be helpful for ranchers. And as the COVID hit, we started talking more and more about farm to table programs,” First Lady Gordon said.

The Wyoming Hunger Initiative was working on COVID relief when they noticed that many farmers and ranchers wanted to donate meat to the food bank, but were unable to since meat processors were so full.

First Lady Gordon said, ”We started talking to folks here at Central Wyoming College and they mentioned this mobile unit, so we came to see it today.”

As soon as CWC’s classes resume, the mobile teaching unit will be used to instruct students how to butcher meat. The hopes are that this will fill a huge gap by training students in the much needed profession of meat processing.

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