Wyoming is a state in the Mountain region of the Western United States. The western two thirds of the state are covered mostly with the mountain ranges and rangelands in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High Plains. Wyoming is the tenth largest U.S. state by area, and it is the least populous, with a U.S. Census population of 563,626 in 2010. This is a 14.1% increase since 2000.Cheyenne is the capital and the most populous city of Wyoming with a population of nearly 60,000 people within its city proper.
Public education is directed by the state superintendent of public instruction, an elected state official. Educational policies are set by the State Board of Education, a nine-member board appointed by the governor. The constitution prohibits the state from establishing curriculum and text book selections; these are the prerogatives of local school boards. The Wyoming School for the Deaf was the only in-state school dedicated to supporting deaf students in Wyoming, but it closed in summer of 2000. Wyoming was chosen as the official state for the Free State Wyoming project; a splinter of the Free State Project. The purpose of the project is to relocate Libertarians to a single state, making it possible to live a “free life”.
Nellie Tayloe Ross (November 29, 1876 – December 19, 1977) was an American politician, the 14th Governor of Wyoming from 1925 to 1927, and director of the United States Mint from 1933-1953. She was the first woman to serve as governor of a U.S. state. To date, she remains the only woman to have served as governor of Wyoming. She was a staunch supporter of prohibition during the 1920s. In 1922, William Ross was elected governor of Wyoming by appealing to progressive voters in both parties. However, after little more than a year and a half in office, he died on October 2, 1924, from complications from an appendectomy. The Democratic Party then nominated Nellie Ross to run for governor in a special election the following month. Nellie Tayloe Ross refused to campaign, but easily won the race on November 4, 1924. On January 5, 1925, she became the first female governor in the history of the United States. As governor she continued her late husband’s policies, which called for tax cuts, government assistance for poor farmers, banking reform, and laws protecting children, women workers, and miners. She urged Wyoming to ratify a pending federal amendment prohibiting child labor. Like her husband, she advocated the strengthening of prohibition laws.
Ross ran for re-election in 1926, but was narrowly defeated. Ross blamed her loss in part on the fact that she had again refused to campaign for herself and the fact that she supported prohibition. Nevertheless, she remained active in the Democratic Party and campaigned for Al Smith in the 1928 presidential election though the two disagreed on prohibition. At the 1928 Democratic National Convention, she received 31 votes from 10 states for vice president on the first ballot. She also gave a speech seconding Smith’s nomination.