CWC names 2023/24 Honorary Degree recipients

Shanna Choate and Tammy Green are Central Wyoming College’s 2023-2024 Honorary Degree recipients. The goal of awarding the CWC Honorary Degree, the Associate of Humane Letters (AHL), is to honor those who build stronger community relationships throughout the CWC service area, recognize the value of the community to CWC, and inspire students. CWC’s commencement ceremonies are May 10, 2024, at 4:30 pm and 7:00 pm in the Robert A. Peck Arts Center Theatre, and are open to the public. Shanna will be honored at the 4:30 pm ceremony along with the A&S Division graduates, and Tammy will be honored at the 7:00 pm ceremony along with the BTHS Division graduates.

Shanna and her husband, Ray, are the owners and operators of Good Portions, a mobile soup kitchen in the Riverton area. Shanna purchased the food trailer with help through fundraising and a grant from the LOR Foundation after serving food and providing care to local homeless folks (along with several friends) from the trunk of her car for 2 years. She and her husband have been called to help the homeless and addicted community in our area, and they do that well! She and her husband can now take the food trailer around the county to serve meals. She is a friend to all and believes that every person deserves a “good portion” of food, friendship, and goodwill. She doesn’t ask anything in return for her kindness. Shanna, along with friends who call themselves “Hope Dealers”, serves meals and then sits with the people to learn their stories and build relationships while they eat. With the motto “Your Story Matters” in mind, she will find those who need her the most, often going out of the way to make sure they are taken care of. She cares deeply for those who are often forgotten, lost, or left behind.

Shanna is also an active participant in CWC Theater productions and homeschools her own four children in addition to her other community service pursuits. She is a model of selfless service and humanity in our community. Shanna brings awareness to the need for action in our community concerning social problems. Her work is an example of overcoming barriers and stigmas of addiction and homelessness in our community, through care and compassion. Shanna is a very spiritual person who has followed her calling to Wyoming. She has put all of her blood, sweat, and tears into living out this calling. God has placed this community of people on her heart, and she is determined to do His work, even, and especially, when it isn’t pleasant. She inspires those around her to step up and do more than they think they are capable of doing. She recognizes that it isn’t her abilities that help her to do this work, but God’s ability to do it through her.

According to CWC Faculty member, Jacki Klancher, who nominated Tammy for this honor “Tammy’s dedication to her family, her community, her work, and her friends, fills my heart with joy every time I hear of her accomplishments, or see her in person, and in action. She has been one of the biggest advocates for CWC students, and their efforts to finish their degrees and was a natural leader on the CWC BIKES expedition where she and the team biked 1000 miles from Eureka, MT to Lander, WY”.

Her destiny did not land her in college classes until she was close to 60 years old, but she has applied her generosity of spirit to lead her community, feed hungry people, provide clothing to those in need, to fundraise for people experiencing hard times, put backpacks underneath cold bodies on the streets of Salt Lake City and filled those backpacks with food, clothing, love and light. To show her love of giving to and helping people, Tammy joined a “Humanitarian Trip” to Haiti in 2017. While there, she worked with children living in an orphanage. Tammy won the Spirit of Lander award in 2022, was presented with the “Award of Excellence for Volunteerism” from the 13th Annual Wyoming Jefferson Awards in 2017, a Community Service Award from the Daughters of the American Revolution, and assisted with the Lander Christmas drive for kids for many years. Tammy has been a wife, and a mother to three children, and is currently parenting her grandson. Tammy was also ordained as a marriage minister by the American Marriage Ministries in 2013. She gives wisdom as much as she gives hair counsel at her shop and impacts EVERYONE she meets with her endless optimism.

As a student at CWC, on the CWC BIKES expedition – Tammy did not “sign up” or join, Jacki recruited her with full intention, because she wanted HER. She wanted her spirit, her drive, her leadership, and her intellect on that expedition. And she never let her, or her team down. EVER. From MT to WY she rode, and collected data, and laughed, and sang. The only time she left was to be with her husband who had been diagnosed with cancer. So, Tammy is an inspiration, every day, and in every way to so many people. She makes the world a better place.

She is everything you would want from a CWC college graduate, but Tammy graduated from the school of life and committed her entire being to leading by example in putting others in advance of herself. She has shown that adversity can become an opportunity and that giving up is not an option.

Congratulations, Shanna and Tammy!