Cemetery district's community partnerships criticized in tumultuous board meeting

GILLETTE — A Campbell County Cemetery District board meeting last week was upended by a chaotic public comment period stirred by criticisms levied by board treasurer Dean Vomhof over the board’s financial relationship to three local nonprofit organizations.

The cemetery district has partnered with the Campbell County Chamber of Commerce since 2018, Energy Capital Economic Group since 2020 and paid for advertising with the mental health nonprofit Happy Girls Don’t Do That since 2018.

Following a Cowboy State Daily article last month documenting Vomhof’s concerns about the board’s payments, the cemetery district’s legal counsel Barry Crago said the state’s Department of Audit reached out to the district over concerns that its membership status with the Chamber of Commerce and the ECED are unconstitutional.

The City of Gillette partners with the chamber, as do a handful of special districts. And the city, Campbell County Commission and Campbell County Health contribute money to Energy Capital Economic Development.

The cemetery district’s payments total $5,000 to Happy Girls Don’t Do That since November of 2022, $10,000 per year for an annual membership with ECED since 2020 and about $1,100 a year for a Chamber of Commerce membership since 2018.

The cemetery district has between $5 to $6 million in its budget and about $44 million in reserves, said Cemetery District Superintendent Darin Edmonds. The reserve account is to be used to begin construction on a new cemetery, Mount Nebo, which is expected to open around 2040.

The Cowboy State Daily report precipitated a packed regular meeting Wednesday in support of Vomhof. Many of the attendees have been frequent commenters at city and county meetings over the past year.

The meeting’s public comment period — which lasted for two hours after it was moved to the start of the meeting — began with calls for explanations about why, and how, the cemetery district had selected the three nonprofits to pay before diverting into complaints about the propriety of the cemetery’s yearly concert series and calls for cemetery board president Jim Hastings’ resignation.

Gillette resident Rolf Arands said that some of the work supported by ECED seemed to be more speculative than financially generative, as well as outside the purview of the cemetery district.

“It’s speculation, and you shouldn’t be speculating with taxpayer dollars. That’s my opinion, doesn’t mean I’m right,” Arands said, adding that hearing statements like ‘I believe’ from trustees when it came to the mission of the nonprofits breached “a weird boundary, you have to know when it’s you versus what’s best for your constituents.”

Open Door Church pastor Ed Sisti, who also said he leads the far-right group John Patriot of Northeastern Wyoming, said the people who had gathered for the board meeting were “not (the board’s) enemy.”

“Working with the John Patriot group, we pretty much well understand what the community wants,” Sisti said. “…We know what the majority believes … And you may say, ‘Well, what’s your research?’ Or whatever. You know what my research is? These two eyes.”

Attendees also expressed confusion about why the cemetery district was purchasing advertising.

Hastings also serves on the board of Happy Girls Don’t Do That. He isn’t paid for either position. He said that advertising allows county residents to get a sense of the cemetery’s services, and that the mission of the nonprofit is a worthy one.

“Their mission is to stop bullying and lower the incidence of suicide among young girls,” Hastings said. “And so when we talked in (the cemetery board’s) marketing committee about advertising … I knew of the group and I was so enthusiastic about it, it’s a relatively new group.”

After the public comment period was finished, most attendees left the meeting. 

When the board addressed new business a short time later, Crago said the Wyoming Department of Audit had contacted the board concerning its membership status with the Chamber of Commerce and ECED.

The Department of Audit said that while the advertising purchased for Happy Girls Don’t Do That did fall under the purview of cemetery district business, the membership purchases did not, per Wyoming statute §35-8-303, which authorizes the creation of cemetery districts.

“I think it’s going to be helpful for the board going forward, no matter what you decide to do … on this expenditure, (that) I ask them for some further clarification,” Crago said. “The reason being is, I have a hard time with the state telling us, as a local board … what you can or cannot do.”

Crago said the state determining what does and doesn’t fall under the purview of statute §35-8-303 — which he said is written fairly broadly — runs counter to a cemetery district system with more localized control.

“The way the process in my mind works is you have citizens, as they did, show up today, to give you (their) opinion, and that guides you as to what is cemetery business,” he said.

The board voted unanimously to approve Crago’s request to ask for clarification from the state about what it believes to be the parameters of cemetery business. Other board members expressed a willingness to reevaluate the board’s involvement with community partnerships in the future.

“We have to make decisions that feel correct to us, I would hope that would be an expected outcome,” said trustee Maureen Hurley. “…I likely was going to change my mind on a few of those issues, maybe. Or maybe not. Maybe by March I’ll be like, ‘Well, this (partnership) makes a little bit more sense.’”

This story was published Oct. 14, 2025.