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Governor's Symposium Addresses High Rate Of Suicide

Craig A. Miller

Governor Matt Mead is hosting the Second Annual Symposium on Suicide Prevention on May 10 in Cheyenne at the Little America Hotel. The event will present a variety of perspectives, from lived experience to prevention to treatment, and it’ll focus on solutions to an issue that touches the lives of far too many in Wyoming.

Richard Barrett, Special Counsel to the Governor and Coordinator of the symposium, said Wyoming has some the highest suicide rates in the nation. “We have one of the highest suicide rates among the young, among the middle-aged, among the old, among every ethnic group and on the Wind River Indian River Reservation where suicide continues to be running at high rates. So, unfortunately, we are at a high rate across the board.”

Barrett said the governor is urging anyone and everyone to attend this symposium because it’s an issue in communities across the state.

“It’s been the governor’s experience that very few Wyomingites have not been impacted in some way, directly or indirectly, by suicide.”

The event is free, and registration is recommended. 

Tennessee -- despite what the name might make you think -- was born and raised in the Northeast. She most recently called Vermont home. For the last 15 years she's been making radio -- as a youth radio educator, documentary producer, and now reporter. Her work has aired on Reveal, The Heart, LatinoUSA, Across Women's Lives from PRI, and American RadioWorks. One of her ongoing creative projects is co-producing Wage/Working (a jukebox-based oral history project about workers and income inequality). When she's not reporting, Tennessee likes to go on exploratory running adventures with her mutt Murray.
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