How Much Money Is It To Get Into Casper Wyoming Fairgrounds

Westward. Frank Eathorne says two of the nearly important moments in his life occurred when he was 7 years old, living on the family unit ranch in the Thunder Basin grasslands of eastern Wyoming.

The commencement came on a stormy spring day in 1975 after a Dominicus school form at Dry out Creek Customs Hall in the minuscule town of Bill, just north of the Eathorne U Diamond Ranch in Converse County.

"It was a rainy April Sunday later on church that I got down on my knees and accepted Jesus Christ equally my Lord and Savior. He has continued to sustain me in His Grace, Love and Mercy," Eathorne, chairman of the Wyoming Republican Party, said in a text.

His second epiphany occurred a curt time after when he was watching the news on the one television aqueduct the family could get on their remote 30,000-acre cattle ranch. He saw then-President Gerald Ford on the flickering black-and-white screen and was struck by another life-changing revelation.

"It was and then I knew I was a Republican," Eathorne recalled in a Wyoming GOP website video.

He did not elaborate what so inspired him near Ford, the moderate and unelected Republican vice president from Michigan who became president afterwards Richard Nixon's resignation over the Watergate scandal.

Just a quotation from Ford that Eathorne posted on the Wyoming GOP website seems to match Eathorne's political leanings: "A government large enough to give you everything you want is a authorities big enough to accept from you everything yous have."

4 decades after those 2 transformative moments, the at present 53-year-old Eathorne is in his fifth year as chairman of the Wyoming Republican Party.

His tenure coincides with a time of utter Republican dominance in Wyoming. Conservatives occupy all five statewide elected offices and control 90% of the seats in the Wyoming Legislature. They've added new restrictions on abortion while batting away attempts to fund country government or aggrandize Medicaid. His allies say he's the all-time thing for the GOP in contempo memory.

Wyoming Republican Party Chairman Frank Eathorne pauses to listen to Brian Shuck, the party's lawyer, during a conversation with Laramie County Land Committeeman Ben Sherman on May 7 at the Sheridan County Fairgrounds Exhibition Hall. The Laramie County delegation had just walked out of the state GOP convention afterward existence punished over a rules violation.

Still, that success has come with consequences. Detractors phone call him the worst GOP chairman in the last fifty years. Past surrounding himself with loyal partisans and exploiting an urban-rural divide at the heart of the party, he has solidified his control of the GOP's conservative agenda, in role past pushing dissenters out. With no real Democratic opposition to face up under Eathorne's leadership, Wyoming Republicans have taken to infighting, punishing those who deviate from the party-insider's line.

Following the country GOP convention earlier this month, longtime GOP leader and former Business firm Speaker Tom Lubnau of Gillette, quit the country party because of what he described in his resignation letter every bit "the lack of integrity, toxicity and the move toward secrecy."

Weary and scarred from his many battles with Eathorne, Lubnau said that afterward his resignation "I feel like I've jumped off a sinking send onto a tropical island with beaches and Mai Tais."

A working rancher with a reputation every bit a soft-spoken charmer, Eathorne'southward journeying to political power has not been without controversy: He had a short, questionable career as a Worland police officeholder, worked as a Terminix pest exterminator in northwest Wyoming and served every bit a parole officer in due south Texas. He returned to Wyoming in 1999 to accept over the family ranch and for a period accustomed federal agronomical subsidies. At present, he sits at the top of a party that'due south been described as both dominant and dysfunctional while emerging as the tip of the spear in Donald Trump's furious drive to unseat maybe his greatest political opponent: incumbent Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney.

Offset-name basis

Later on Cheney voted to impeach Trump in Jan 2021, Eathorne helped to orchestrate Cheney's censure by the state GOP fundamental committee. The move seemed to catch Trump's attending. Later the censure vote, they were on a outset-name footing.

"Frank has censured the incompetent Liz Cheney!" Trump announced in an April 2021 statement. "Frank has my complete and total endorsement for his reelection. He will never let yous down!"

Since then, Eathorne has solidified his position at the helm of the state party and with Trump.

When the former president decided to announced in Casper at an upcoming Memorial Mean solar day weekend rally for Cheney opponent Harriet Hageman, Eathorne said Trump called him personally with the news. Eathorne, a longtime Hageman friend and party ally, then informed the country fundamental committee.

Multiple people said the agreement amongst Wyoming politicos is that Eathorne revels in rubbing shoulders with Trump and Washington, D.C. elites.

Lubnau said as much.

"I heard somebody say, and I tin can't recollect who, that Frank just likes going to those Washington, D.C. parties and wearing cowboy chapeau and hobnobbing with the elite."

Although state statute dictates that political party leadership not have sides before the August Republican primary, Eathorne has arguably helped Hageman'south campaign by leading successful — although largely symbolic — state and national efforts to censure Cheney and expel her from the political party.

In his most recent push, at the February Republican National Commission meeting in Salt Lake City, Eathorne authored a resolution — which national delegates overwhelmingly approved — to censure Cheney and Illinois Congressman Adam Kinzinger and "cease any and all support of them as members of the Republican Political party for their behavior."

Before she announced her campaign for Congress, Hageman had worked closely with Eathorne in party leadership. She and Eathorne toured Washington, D.C. historic sites together when they attended national meetings.

"Frank has been a stiff leader for the Wyoming Republican Party," Hageman said in a statement for this story. "He recognizes that his role is to implement the agenda of the grassroots, and that is what he has done. He adheres to the GOP Platform and has represented our land well while serving on the RNC."

Tent size

But through these efforts, Eathorne has also emerged as a polarizing figure in the GOP.

Eathorne has said every bit much himself: "In Wyoming, we don't necessarily embrace the idea of a big tent," he said on Fob News earlier this year.

The "big tent" approach has been one of the cornerstones of the nation'due south Republicanism, espoused by Ronald Reagan as far back as 1967.

"Twenty years agone, the land party convention had a 'big tent' Republican atmosphere where you had social bourgeois Republicans, libertarian Republicans or Rotary Club Republicans who had a unified front end pulling together to get Republicans elected," said Rep. Clark Stith, (R-Rock Springs).

Few in Wyoming have a more established Republican Party full-blooded than Casper oilman Diemer Truthful, who served ii terms as state chairman and in both the Wyoming House and Senate. He contends Eathorne's small-tent approach is a divisive force that has alienated major segments of the political party, especially in the population centers of Laramie, Natrona and Campbell counties.

"Frank has failed in a colossal way," Truthful said. "He is probably the worst chairman that I've ever seen in my 50-plus years of being involved in Republican politics. His is admittedly a failed leadership."

True's concern centers on Eathorne'due south hard-line, "purist" approach to state politics, in which long-time loyal political party members are labeled RINOS — Republicans in Name Only — because they disagree with Eathorne and other current political party leaders.

"This Republican purity is a good fashion to get the Republican minority," True said.

Mary Martin, chairman of the Teton County Republicans, likes Eathorne personally, she said, describing him every bit amiable and "well mannered." Like Eathorne, she is upset with Cheney's criticism of Trump and Cheney'due south insistence that the former president is responsible for the Jan. 6, 2021 assail on the Capitol.

"My disappointment in Frank is that he hasn't been able to come up with a process to proceed the Republican Party with more than of a large-tent arroyo," she said. "We accept a couple of people who come to the Wyoming party meetings who are accented bullies."

In addition to Lubnau'southward publicized exit, Doug Chamberlain, a former fellow member of party leadership, specifically put his departure from the party on Eathorne.

"Your leadership in regards to how you treat me has 'crossed the line I have personally fatigued', beyond which I volition not allow myself to exist treated," Chamberlain wrote in a September 2020 letter that was marked confidential only eventually leaked. "As a result of these various incidents and bug I will no longer offer my volunteer services as 'Acting Parliamentarian' and 'Interim Treasurer.'"

"Thank you for the opportunity to serve you lot and the WRP. It has been enjoyable and rewarding until recently," he ended.

April Poley is campaign coordinator for state Sen. Anthony Bouchard's (R-Cheyenne) House run confronting Cheney and a former member of state GOP leadership nether Eathorne. When she told state party leadership that she was backing Bouchard, she was "instantly" removed from the grouping text chat used by elected leaders of the party.

"Information technology was like I was excommunicated from a church," Poley said.

Poley hasn't been the only political party operative to discover themselves on the outside looking in.

"Xx years ago y'all'd have more than 400 delegates to the country convention, whereas this final Saturday [May 7] you had 285 delegates to the convention," Stith said.

At the aforementioned fourth dimension, the Wyoming Republican Party'due south focus on purity has coincided with some significant legislative victories. Conservative lawmakers sought for years to pass a Voter ID police in Wyoming. The effort finally succeeded last year. Prior to the 2021 session, the Wyoming Legislature had only passed two abortion-related bills in 30 years, according to an assay past the nonprofit news site The 19th. Since then, it has passed three including a so-called "trigger beak," that will eliminate nearly all abortions in the country if the U.Due south. Supreme Courtroom overturns Roe v. Wade, which appears likely.

Eathorne'due south nigh avid supporters in the political party view him equally a galvanizing strength who is willing to stand up against what they view as assaults from the left and failures to deliver from institution Republicans. 1 of Eathorne's staunchest backers is Karl Allred, the Uinta County GOP chairman who start rose to prominence in Wyoming for suing and then-Gov. Matt Mead over renovations at the Wyoming Capitol.

Allred believes that if a person identifies as Republican just can't concord with at least 80% of the state party's platform, "you oughta expect somewhere else." He sees many of the Republican members of the Legislature as "Democrats that are now in the Republican Party."

All the same, Eathorne'southward grip on the party doesn't always interpret to legislative success. Even with vocal support fromTrump and bourgeois Kentucky U.Due south. Sen. Rand Paul, for example, the Eathorne wing of the party failed in several attempts to block "crossover" voting in the land master that allows voters to alter their party affiliation at the polling identify. Hageman supporters fence the practice could benefit Cheney. Similarly, GOP party leaders went into a special legislative session — which Eathorne personally pressed for in a alphabetic character to legislative leadership — with an aggressive set of 21 bills opposing federal vaccine mandates but were able to pass just one relatively meek measure out limiting federal enforcement.

The virtually recent example of political party tensions came during the May country GOP convention, when most members of the Laramie County delegation were refused seats over a rules violation. Earlier, almost of the delegates of Natrona Canton had been excluded because of a dispute over party dues.

Both counties have clashed with party leadership, leading some observers to question whether the rule violations were really an alibi to punish those that, in the eyes of the party, hadn't toed the line.

When rule violations by other — albeit smaller — counties were brought to light, the political party declined to take similar actions, even going so far as to remove a dominion from the bylaws that smaller counties had violated.

Most every one of the thirty-plus Laramie Canton delegates — including John Sundahl, Hageman'southward hubby — walked out in a line and tossed or slammed their credentials down in front of Eathorne, who was presiding over the meeting in his usual cowboy chapeau.

Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo. speaks at the Capitol in Washington last month. Cheney on Mon accused Republican leaders in the House of enabling white supremacy and antisemitism.
J. Scott Applewhite, AP

Eathorne v. Cheney

Cheney and others claim a band of political extremists has hijacked the state party. According to leaked documents, Eathorne is listed as a member of the Oath Keepers. Eathorne claims to be only a passive fellow member of the militant right-fly organization.

Eathorne's critics chafe over a podcast interview he did with Trump strategist Steve Bannon in February 2021, in which he suggested Wyoming — as some right-wing politicians had advocated in Texas — might consider secession from the matrimony. They are also concerned well-nigh Eathorne's activities at the January. 6, 2021 Trump rally in Washington that preceded the violent assault on the Capitol.

"Frank Eathorne is a member of the Adjuration Keepers," Cheney said in a statement for this story. "He was on the Capitol grounds during the violent set on on January 6. He has ignored the rulings of our courts. He has suggested Wyoming should consider secession from the United states. His views and his deportment make a mockery of the dominion of law, the Constitution, and the values on which the Republican Party, the state of Wyoming, and our smashing nation were founded."

Eathorne discussed secession on Steve Bannon'southward War Room saying "We are directly talking, focused on the global scene, but nosotros're also focused at habitation. Many of these Western states take the ability to be self-reliant, and we're keeping eyes on Texas too, and their consideration of possible secession. They have a different state constitution than we do equally far equally wording, only it's something we're all paying attention to."

Eathorne clarified recently he did not mean to imply that Wyoming should secede.

In a argument later on the events of January. six, Eathorne confirmed attending the rally, but said he "observed no violence or property impairment during my time in that location including a brief stop in the vicinity of the Capitol edifice."

The political warfare betwixt Cheney and Eathorne has become so intense that it sometimes seems to eclipse the primary battle between Cheney and Hageman. The two women are longtime political allies who agree on almost every policy point, but differ on Trump.

Wyoming State Republican Party Convention — Harriett Hagemen, candidate for the U.Southward. House of Representatives, talks to other guests during the Congressional Delegation Dinner on May vi at the Best Western in Sheridan.
Lauren Miller, Star-Tribune

But with Cheney and Eathorne it is more than personal. If past remarks are an indication, Eathorne sees her actions as an assail on his political hero. Cheney feels he has ruined her dwelling state party. "Our state party is broken," Cheney tweeted after the Laramie County walkout. "Wyoming deserves better."

When Cheney was asked why she chose not to attend the state political party convention, a spokesman told reporters it was because Eathorne would be at that place.

"The chairman of the Wyoming Republican Political party is a fellow member of the Oath Keepers who was at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and has called for secession, and so no, Liz will not exist attending," a Cheney spokesperson said.

The spokesperson did not mention Cheney's principal rival and sometime unpaid member of her advisory team, Hageman, who attended the convention only who was relatively placidity.

Wyoming political historian Philip J. Roberts contends "there has never been a sharper dissever betwixt an incumbent and party chair," even going back to the famous feud betwixt Sens. Francis E. Warren and Joseph Carey in the early on days of Wyoming statehood.

"Even at the height of the so-called Warren-Carey feud, party officers tried to marshal with one 'incumbent' or the other," Roberts said. "They didn't stand up out in that location alone, criticizing an incumbent in their party. I think this is unprecedented because we never had a party chair so slavishly in the thrall of an despot like Trump."

A strong family proper name

Politics run in Eathorne's family.

Friends and old timers in Douglas and surroundings generally call him "W. Frank" to distinguish him from his prominent male parent, Frank Glenn Eathorne Jr., a pop public servant and Farm Bureau leader who served several years as a Converse Canton commissioner.

The male parent, Frank Jr., was born in Texas but moved to the family unit ranch in Wyoming as a child and had a distinguished career.

An honors engineering graduate of the University of Wyoming, Frank Jr. served 2 tours in Vietnam equally an F4 fighter airplane pilot based in Cam Ranh Bay. While as a young Air Force lieutenant in flying training in Florida, he met and married a St. Petersburg secretary, West. Frank's mother, Leslie Kilgore.

In addition to serving on the canton commission, Frank Jr. was founder and chairman of the Thunder Basin Grasslands Prairie Ecosystem Clan and an officer of Wyoming Farm Bureau. Both he and Leslie were honored by the Farm Bureau for their distinguished service. The ii also worked with the Audubon Society to set up bird demography stations on their property.

"Everybody knew his dad …all around nicest guy y'all could ever meet," said Rep. Dan Zwontizer (R-Cheyenne), who's been in the Legislature since 2005. "He was beloved by everybody in Converse County."

Eathorne was built-in on March iii, 1969, in Douglas and raised in Antipodal County, where he attended Douglas Loftier School, graduating in 1987. His younger brother Mike remembers him equally "very able-bodied" and a "team player." Frank and Mike competed together in rodeo team roping. Frank, the more able-bodied of the two, besides competed in bronc and bull riding.

When Eathorne entered politics in the early 2000s, the community'south beloved for his father helped him gain footing in Converse Canton politics, and then a hotbed of the country's political scene.

"Frank Eathorne has certainly been key [in W. Frank moving into local political circles] and W. Frank picked up on those [bourgeois right-wing] beliefs," said Lucile Taylor, former Converse Canton clerk.

Many people even thought that W. Frank was his father when they saw his proper noun popular up in political contexts.

Eathorne and his married woman, Theresa, served as precinct committeeman and -woman in Antipodal County starting in 2002. He went on to serve in every office of the county party including 2 terms as chairman that ended in 2012, according to his Wyoming GOP bio. Eventually, Eathorne served three terms every bit state committeeman.

Eathorne'due south first foray into politics beyond his backyard was in 2012. He was a part of a grouping of Wyoming conservatives backing national delegates that would keep to support Ron Paul's bid for the Republican presidential nomination against the mainstream candidate Mitt Romney, according to Poley who was part of the same effort. At the centre of this group was a belief in smaller authorities and non-interventionist foreign policy.

But it was Eathorne's interest with WyWatch Family Activity that put him on the state-level political scene. The ultra-conservative grouping established itself equally an anti-abortion, anti-gay wedlock and pro "religious freedom" advancement organization. In its iv years of existence, Eathorne served equally vice chairman and, in its concluding year, manager.

WyWatch was an early adopter of the aggressive confrontational tactics more prevalent in today's politics. It was as well known, as far back every bit a decade ago, for criticizing Republicans for getting in the way of its efforts — a hallmark of the modern Wyoming GOP.

"Information technology was kind of the first threatening organization," Zwonitzer said. "It was a lot more emotionality and a lot more 'my style or the highway.'"

Eathorne has graduated from being a function of WyWatch, a group that purged those who didn't fully comply, to being chairman of a state party that does the same.

Eathorne ran for chairman of the state party in 2015, but only after much encouragement and praying, said Allred, the Uinta County Republican. Allred and others first started request him to run roughly a twelvemonth before the ballot.

"At outset information technology was a lot of 'nos,'" Allred said. "He said he'd accept to pray up on it and information technology took him a while."

Eathorne was ultimately convinced, but lost to Cheyenne lawyer Matt Micheli by 3 votes. He was later elected as vice-chairman in 2017. Four months later, he moved into the pinnacle spot post-obit the resignation of then-chairman Ryan Mulholland, who accustomed an out-of-state job with Google. Eathorne was reelected to the chairmanship in 2019.

"He could've been in politics way earlier because he's got the charisma," Frank'due south blood brother Mike Eathorne said. "Things similar that only happen for him."

Eathorne's allies and adversaries agree that he's "soft spoken," only how that translates differs depending on who you ask.

"Frank is so soft-spoken and gets forth with a lot of people. Information technology really takes a lot for Frank to go upset so we looked at information technology and figured he'd be the perfect guy for this job," Allred said.

But for Poley, the party official who found herself on the outside after supporting Bouchard, his tranquility demeanor "makes the hairs on the back of [her] cervix stand up."

"Pardone [sic] my French, only he only tells you to 'f*** off' in the nicest of ways and quietest of phonation," Poley said in a text message. "There is a heavy handedness in what appears every bit a quiet demeanor."

A checkered career

Before politics, Eathorne worked in law enforcement.

He attended Casper College and so Chadron State College in Nebraska, earning a degree in criminal justice.

On Dec. 28, 1990, he married Theresa Lynn Campbell, whom he had dated both at Casper College and at Chadron Country. In June 1992, he became a rookie patrolman with the Worland Law Department. Theresa, who had a business degree, landed a chore as personnel manager for Holly Sugar, then ane of Worland's largest employers.

But shortly afterwards Eathorne started his police force work, he was in trouble.

First, he was called on the carpet before Worland Mayor Tom Bancroft and Police Main Bob Richardson after he admitted having oral sex with a woman — not his wife — in his patrol motorcar while on duty during the midnight shift.

Later a disciplinary hearing, Eathorne was suspended without pay for 1 month and placed on section probation for a yr.

"Bottom line," Master Richardson told the mayor and city council members at a 1994 disciplinary hearing, according to a transcript, "Frank screwed up big time."

Simply 14 months later, according to allegations in a federal civil lawsuit, Eathorne barged armed and drunk into the apartment of 23-year-erstwhile law dispatcher Patricia Bravo on July 27, 1994 and tried unsuccessfully to pressure her into having sex with him.

Later nigh 10 minutes of pleading — including begging him to go because her 2-year-old daughter was asleep in another room — Bravo said she was able to convince Eathorne to leave but remained fearful that he might come dorsum. Before leaving, Eathorne "begged" Bravo to introduce him to her female neighbor, according to Bravo's statements in the complaint.

At 5-pes-1-inch, Bravo is a pes shorter than Eathorne.

In court testimony, Eathorne admitted having "four or five drinks" with friends at Goose'south Bar in Worland before he went unannounced to Bravo's flat shortly before ane a.m. to "bear surveillance" on a nearby house. But he denied Bravo's claims that he pressured her to accept sexual practice or intimidated her with his personal Glock .forty-caliber handgun holstered on his hip.

"I conducted myself politely, gentleman-similar," Eathorne said, according to a hearing transcript.

Tess Beltran, a neighbor, testified seeing a alpine human who she later identified every bit Eathorne, knock and then "force" his way into the door. "I thought information technology was a friend who was kidding effectually." Then she heard Bravo shouting. "I constitute out the side by side 24-hour interval that there was no kidding going on."

Eathorne said that he was "surprised" by Bravo's allegations and afterwards approached her in the police department parking lot.

"After shift one nighttime," Eathorne testified in a court deposition, "I saw her in the parking lot and I just said, you know, 'If I have done annihilation to make you mad, I'grand lamentable.' And that was it."

The resulting federal legal example against Eathorne ended in a court-approved settlement two weeks before it was set for trial. The settlement amount is not public record. Bravo said she was at her new home in Denver when she was manus delivered a $200 check written on the law firm account of her attorney Joseph E. Darrah, who is at present Park County Circuit Court Judge. It's unclear what Darrah collected in attorney's fees, and he declined to comment on the settlement.

The state of Wyoming paid for both the settlement and the 18 months of legal defense on the grounds that Eathorne's actions were in the "scope of duty" (as defined by the Wyoming Government Claims Human activity).

The state gave Eathorne free legal representation despite the statement by Principal Richardson that in his uninvited postal service-midnight visit to Bravo'southward apartment "he was not in whatsoever style, shape or form representing the Worland Police Department." As a second-year uniformed patrolman, Eathorne was not even authorized to conduct plain-apparel surveillance, Richardson said.

Eathorne resigned from the Worland Police department in September 1995 to have what he said was a meliorate paying chore as a pest exterminator for Terminix in the Bighorn Basin.

Only for Bravo, the diminutive onetime police dispatcher and single mother, the tense July 1994 incident with Eathorne in her Worland apartment was the showtime of what she said was an agonizing downward spiral.

Near xxx years later, neighbors still recall how distraught Bravo was following the incident.

"She was visibly, visibly upset," one neighbor said. "I recall she was truly afraid."

Bravo too asked her neighbors — who wish to remain bearding for fear of retribution from the Worland police — to keep an centre out for any men hanging around.

"If I were her I'd be scared to expiry too," her neighbor said.

Bravo said the incident inverse who she was equally a person and led her to attempt suicide. Doctors later told her she died for a few minutes before she was revived.

"What he did to me practically ruined me," she said recently at the Washakie County Library in her hometown of Worland, where she works every bit a dishwasher in a local cafe.

In the weeks afterward Bravo reported the incident in what she thought was a confidential substitution with her supervisor Cassandra Frank, she said, other employees stopped visiting her in the dispatcher's room. She began to receive a serial of negative performance reviews.

On November. 9, 1994, four months after the uninvited visit to her apartment, Bravo was fired past the joint urban center-county authority that employed her as dispatcher.

Occasionally breaking into tears, she said in a contempo interview that she was most hurt past the style her hometown and her former colleagues at the police department ostracized and shunned her afterward she reported the incident to her supervisor.

"I was just starting my life. And when that all happened, all the lies that came out, the whole police department totally just embraced him rather than me, who had grown upwardly in the customs," she said. "And of course, y'all know, we were nobody, my family was nobody because I grew up poor. We were poor. And I merely never even imagined that people that I knew would treat me the way they did and have his side."

That the Worland Law Department would shun Bravo and rally around a young, pop male person officeholder does not surprise one-time Washakie County attorney Wendy Press Sweeny.

"It was absolutely a civilisation in the police to protect their own," said Sweeny, now a deputy chaser for Sheridan County. "When there were DUIs, they got rides home instead of going to jail," Sweeney said of cops getting pulled over for driving drunk.

In that location were no female officers, but women worked in the department in other capacities. Only a few years before the Bravo case, three women dispatchers successfully sued the department for sexual harassment, winning an out-of-court settlement.

In Bravo's example, after she was fired and publicly disgraced, she left boondocks. Eathorne's only credible punishment was an admonishment from the police chief near drinking while armed.

"I told him he could carry a gun, or he could drinkable," Richardson testified in a lawsuit degradation. "He could not exercise both."

Despite this rocky starting time as a police officer in Worland, Eathorne later landed another police force enforcement job, earning $26,000 a twelvemonth every bit a parole officer in Fort Bend County, Texas, where his wife Theresa worked every bit a man resource executive at Imperial Sugar Corporation in nearby Sugar Land. According to Fort Bend County Administrator Lorraine Niemeyer, Eathorne left that chore after nineteen months with "no disciplinary items in the personnel file."

"Minus some indiscretion," former Chief Richardson recalled in a recent telephone interview, "Frank was an excellent constabulary officer. A very proficient police officer who left on adept terms."

When asked at the state convention if he regrets the encounter with Bravo or feels empathy for her, Eathorne said "no comment."

Just in an earlier interview in Casper, his brother Mike, 51, spoke well-nigh the unfairness of dredging up a 30-year-erstwhile case.

"That'southward not Frank right now," Mike Eathorne said. "That'due south non the smoking gun that should determine his future. We all brand mistakes. Nosotros all stumble and that's function of life. What really matters is where the heart is now."

Political contradictions

In the summertime of 1999, Eathorne returned to Wyoming to manage his family unit'due south sprawling Converse County U Diamond cattle ranch. Over the adjacent 20 years he climbed the ranks of the Wyoming Republican Party and fabricated it all the way a White House Christmas party, where he posed with President Donald and Beginning Lady Melania Trump in formal cowboy attire including a western cut sport glaze, rodeo belt buckle, cowboy boots and a white cowboy hat.

To his supporters, Eathorne is the shining light and moral exemplar of the state's dominant political party. "I think he is a human of unquestionable integrity," said Crook County rancher David Holland, who is Wyoming GOP vice-chairman nether Eathorne. "And he's a man of principle."

Steadfast in his abiding, unwavering pronouncements near American traditions and family values, Eathorne admits that his ain life has non ever been then exemplary.

"I have flaws and I ain them," he said via text.

In December, at the finish of a Sunday service at the Unity Christian Fellowship Church in Douglas, Eathorne rose in forepart of his family and young man church building members to publicly confess that he had committed adultery and to beg for forgiveness. Co-ordinate to those who were at the service, Eathorne apologized for the infidelity and said that he and Theresa Eathorne — his married woman of xxx years and mother of his three children — were attempting to reconcile.

Later he spoke, several male members of the congregation rushed forward to encompass him and praise him for his backbone in making the admission, according to several people who witnessed it.

On March 9, he filed for divorce. According to the divorce petition, the couple had non been living together since July 25, 2021. Theresa has since counter sued, asking for custody of the couple's one remaining minor child.

The divorce shocked some friends, according to people in the community. In Eathorne's previously best-selling marital transgressions, Theresa consistently rose to his defense. For example, in the 1993 disciplinary hearing in Worland after Eathorne admitted having oral sex in his patrol auto with some other adult female, Theresa passionately defended him and begged for leniency.

At one indicate she argued the sex act was "consensual" and that information technology had merely interrupted his duty for "three or four minutes," as documented in the hearing transcript.

"Y'all know nosotros're not looking for whatever special treatment," Theresa said. "Nosotros're not looking for annihilation of that sort. All we want is fair treatment subsequently this act occurred with this person." Theresa, then a personnel managing director at Holly Sugar Company, argued that her hubby'due south law-breaking was pocket-sized and that he should not exist fired.

In constabulary dispatcher Bravo'south 1994 sexual harassment lawsuit against Eathorne, Theresa defended him in a court deposition, accusing Bravo of lying about the incident, which occurred while Theresa was out of town.

Eathorne said that he does not recall details of the settlement except that he didn't have to pay for it with his own money. "I'd think that," he said.

It is non the only time that Eathorne, a vehement critic of government assistance, has benefitted from taxpayer largesse.

As manager of the family U Diamond Ranch north of Douglas, he received federal agricultural subsidies totaling $109,000 for the years 2001-2005, according to the Farm Subsidy Database. During most of that fourth dimension, he was involved with the Antipodal County Republican Party.

Eathorne at present regrets accepting the federal subsidies, he said.

"Since then, I have learned that government handouts are not for me," he said. "They don't fit my political ideology. If a private business can't remain in business on its own, it probably shouldn't be asking for authorities help."

'It has everything to practice with power'

Some argue that Eathorne'south aggressive campaign to oust Cheney from office may practise more to help the congresswoman than injure her in the Aug. 16 Republican Party primary.

Country Rep. Landon Brown (R-Cheyenne) calls Eathorne and his disciples in the land political party "Trumpicans." Eathorne "believes he is the mouthpiece for all Republicans, and he is not," Brown said. "He is opposed to everything that is not Trump. He is trying to steer people away from Liz to the indicate where he has alienated people who were on the fence."

Although some recent phone polls have included his proper noun as a potential choice for governor, Eathorne has never been a candidate for public office. He and his allies like to describe himself not equally a leader simply as a humble servant of his two masters, his god and the members of the state party central commission who chose him.

"I think some of [his rise to power] was divine providence, honestly," Mike Eathorne said. "Regardless of what other people might say about my brother, he's not for himself. He's about advancing liberty. He'south about advancing freedom."

But some members of his own party, even those who generally back up him, say lack of leadership and inability to control the state political party and its more than extreme elements are his biggest flaws.

"Every bit far as leadership style, he's really very weak in leadership because he'due south just letting these people run all over him," said Bonnie Foster, who served in Republican politics at the county level and on the state executive commission.

At the contempo dinner preceding the land convention, some members of the audience jeered at both Gov. Marker Gordon and U.Due south. Sen. John Barrasso, both Republicans. There is a full general lack of civility in political party ranks, critics say, and Eathorne does niggling to stop it.

"Those that elected me know me well plenty," Eathorne said in one of several brief exchanges for this story. "They know me by my record. I stand up for the timeless principles each and every time, the principles I was elected to stand for."

Ben Sherman, the Laramie Canton state committeeman, also blamed Eathorne for the lack of civility inside Wyoming'due south Republican politics.

"A lack of calling decorum on certain party members throughout his entire tenure has led to this mental attitude of general hate that is coming from the party," he said.

Eathorne also held loose reins during his time as chairman of the county party: He often let meetings migrate into topics almost entirely irrelevant to Wyoming, said one Converse County Republican.

"Almost of the coming together was taken up with floor conversation about Sharia law, which evidently has nothing to do with Wyoming," Glenrock resident Sally Ann Shurmur said.

This leadership fashion could work to his benefit.

"Frank Eathorne let it go unchecked. That's … why he stayed in power — because he doesn't effort to stop any of the fringe elements. He's just kind of let it all happen so I guess it keeps him in power," Zwonitzer said.

But to his allies, this mode makes him the quintessential leader.

"Frank relies on the state central committee. He believes the power belongs to the people," Allred said. "He's not a dictator. He's non a one-homo band."

But Eathorne'south deference is just a front, multiple people interviewed for this story said.

In the last five years or and so, Stith, who has also been a Sweetwater Canton consul since 1998, said "in that location's been a real shift" to a "top down" management approach by party leadership. Until recently, leadership would non permit the state cardinal committee to have a stance on substantive policy problems.

"The state central committee but dealt with process issues," he said.

Some see glaring irony in combining a heavy-handed leadership style and a laissez faire approach.

"There's a theme of top-down leadership, but they don't practice much control," Stith said.

Those who oppose Eathorne say at that place'south an explanation: Power over politics.

"They fearfulness losing command and it is all about power with these people, more than about what'south correct and what'southward wrong. They fear losing their power and will practice whatsoever they demand to practise to maintain or gain power," Poley said of current state party leadership over text. "That's the epitome of a political mind though, not in politics for the correct reason. These are the types of people that we need to go out of politics. The type that put party, power, and politics OVER the people and our land and United states of america constitutions."

Stifling or steering

8 years agone this month, the Wyoming Republican Political party debated whether to censure another loftier-ranking GOP official. Like Cheney, then Gov. Matt Mead had angered elements of the far right. Mead was known equally a moderate, and every bit a politician who put a strong emphasis on civility and pragmatism.

The endeavour to censure Mead ultimately failed. But ii people interviewed for this story identified the movement as the "turning point" in the political party, a shift that can't entirely exist pinned on Eathorne.

"It began to change from being a unified party to anger," Stith said.

But since that point, Eathorne's inaction to steer the party in a different management does fall at his feet, his critics say.

Before this calendar month, as some of the Laramie Canton delegates loitered outside the fairgrounds, Eathorne emerged and asked Sherman, the Laramie County country committeeman, "why there was anger directed at him."

Sherman told Eathorne that he was "steering the party in one specific direction" and wasn't assuasive for open contend.

"He has surrounded himself with people who all think exactly the same," Sherman said afterwards. "So there is no free and open up discourse."

But whether Eathorne is stifling argue or steering his party toward even more successful waters depends on who you inquire.

Originally from Indiana, Mike Pyatt is retired and lives in Mills where he is one of the leaders of the militantly anti-abortion Liberty's Place iv U Wyoming group, formed in part because members don't feel like they have a identify in the more traditional bourgeois Natrona Canton GOP.

Slight and gregarious with white hair and a wispy white mustache, Pyatt often holds forth at Metro Café, a Casper establishment that attracts customers from all political stripes.

Pyatt first met Eathorne at a county political convention in 2008 and immediately felt he had found a kindred soul. "We really hit it off for a diversity of reasons," Pyatt said, "but later I learned he was a brother in Christ. That was a mutual denominator nosotros had."

When it comes to a fight, "physical or political," Pyatt said, "I'd desire Frank on my side."

This summer, the nation'due south optics will exist on Wyoming equally the battle between Cheney and Trump's choice to defeat her, Hageman, will be decided. At pale could be Trump's grip on the Republican Party.

There are louder and more famous participants in the battle. But a quiet rancher from Antipodal Canton could help determine which side wins.

Matt Adelman, publisher of the Douglas Budget, contributed reporting for this story.

Source: https://missoulian.com/news/national/wyo-gop-chairman-quietly-assumed-power-as-party-fractured/article_89d1bcb0-2a98-5ccd-927a-be944f77b092.html

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