Antelope Creek School welcomes its first two students
The Andersons, a Garrett ranch family, fought for the school in district board meetings, a legislative hearing and a lawsuit that went before the Wyoming Supreme Court.
A one-room schoolhouse in Garrett, Wyoming, hosted its official grand opening this week, bringing to a close a years-long campaign to establish just such a school in the small and extremely rural ranching community.
The Antelope Creek School welcomed its first students, Emmitt and Waverly Anderson, this month.
The pupils’ parents, Anna and Carson Anderson, started advocating for the school in 2019. The struggle has involved both triumphs and setbacks; the Andersons’ journey has weaved through site visits, school board meetings, a lawsuit that reached the Wyoming Supreme Court and a legislative committee hearing about the state’s budget.
But seeing the school established in Garrett has made the whole ordeal worth it, Anna said.
“This is life-changing for our family,” she said. “It really means everything.”
Garrett is about a two-hour drive from Laramie in good weather. And good weather is not guaranteed. The Andersons can get snowed in at their ranch — the Slow and Easy — for weeks at a time during the winter; even when they’re not snowed in, icy roads make the commute to Laramie — or even to Rock River — perilous and time-consuming.
As their children neared school age, the Andersons were staring down the possibility that their family might have to split up — one parent and the children living in town during the week throughout the school year, the other remaining alone on the ranch to work.
The Andersons doubted their children would thrive with either homeschooling or virtual learning. So they started pushing for a rural schoolhouse — one that could serve their children and potentially other children in the years to come.
Rural schools are not a new concept in Wyoming or in Albany County. In fact, a majority of schools in the state are classified as rural, and the existence of rural schools is a point of pride for many in Wyoming, who see them as a necessary part of the state’s responsibility to provide an education for all children, even far-flung ranch kids.
The Albany County School Board first approved the Antelope Creek School — then called the Buckle School — in February 2022.
But the proposal landed on the desk of then-Superintendent of Public Instruction, Brian Schroeder, who nixed the idea, saying it would be too expensive and suggesting the Andersons enroll their children in virtual education.
This was devastating news for the Andersons, who responded by launching a lawsuit, seeking to overturn Schroeder’s decision.
The Wyoming Supreme Court ultimately ruled against the Andersons, saying the superintendent is allowed to decide that transportation reimbursements or virtual learning programs are sufficient alternatives to building a one-room schoolhouse.
That could have been the end of the matter, but the Andersons intended to keep fighting for the school and for the ability of their family to stay together during the school year.
By this point, they had found a powerful ally in Rep. Trey Sherwood (HD-14).
“Trey Sherwood will always be our hero,” Anna said. “Trey is the real MVP here.”
In addition to representing the Andersons, the Garrett community and the rest of rural northern Albany County in the State House, Sherwood is a member of the Joint Appropriations Committee. And in that role she fought for a line in the state budget explicitly setting aside money for the school in Garrett.
The Andersons fought for that budget amendment as well, testifying before lawmakers in Cheyenne.
“We want the legislators to help protect rural children and their education in Wyoming,” Carson told the appropriations committee. “Rural community children are equal to in-town children. Both need a safe and local education.”
Lawmakers approved the amendment and it survived the session, being signed into law by Gov. Mark Gordon alongside the rest of the state’s biennium funding.
With appropriations now available, the approval process could begin again.
The Andersons — and seemingly the rest of Garrett — lobbied the Albany County School Board to re-approve the project. In a meeting last April, the trustees did just that.
“As a board, it’s our responsibility, I believe, to remove any barriers that come in front of us and to provide the best offerings of education that we can,” Trustee Kim Sorenson said just before the unanimous vote. “We should offer the best program that we can possibly offer.”
The schoolhouse earned its other necessary approvals. The district recruited a teacher and built the one-room schoolhouse.
On Tuesday, the Antelope Creek School hosted a grand opening, attended by members of the Garrett community, Sherwood, school board trustees, Albany County Schools Superintendent John Goldhardt and, of course, the Andersons themselves.
“We just feel really blessed and grateful,” Anna said after the opening. “We had a really good turnout, and I feel it was really, really cool. It was a special day.”
With her kids now attending the school, Anna said she hopes her family’s ordeal — the various periods of limbo and all the stress and uncertainty — can pave the way for a brighter future, not just for Garrett but for rural ranching communities across the state.
The 2025 General Session of the Wyoming Legislature is still a few months away, but Sherwood said she is drafting a resolution in support of equitable funding for rural schools.