When WyoFile’s new managing editor Katie Klingsporn left her hometown of Lander, Wyoming, for Colorado nearly 20 years ago, she thought she would never come back.
Katie Klingsporn and her one-year-old daughter Evelyn.
With their roots entrenched in the Centennial State, Klingsporn and her husband had a baby and bought a house near Telluride. But that’s when they began to feel more like big-city dwellers and less like residents of the Mountain West. Their daily commutes grew longer, busier. As more people flocked to Colorado, an exhausted Klingsporn lamented, “If we could just find a place that wasn’t so crowded, that was really beautiful, that had access to the mountains and was a little more affordable.”
It didn’t take long for Klingsporn to realize her family’s next move.
Earlier this year the former Colorado newspaper editor and radio reporter returned to Lander. In some ways it was like traveling back in time: “Even items on restaurant menus haven’t changed,” she said. But outside of Lander, plenty has changed in Klingsporn’s home state, from the closure of coal mines critical to the state’s economy to an immigration prison on the horizon. Klingsporn, who joined WyoFile in August, is interested in continuing WyoFile’s investigative coverage on such developments. But she is also working to broaden and diversify the digital state news outlet’s offerings.
She discussed her vision for WyoFile and some of her latest stories.
