By Bill Sniffin
“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.“
– Mark Twain
You could always find lots of cars and trucks around my home. I am an admitted car nut and just love vehicles of all kinds.
Perhaps out here in Wyoming it is a throwback to a time when your
wealth was tied to the number of horses you had. And if wealth were
connected to the number of cars you own, my friend Joe Kenney would be a
multi-millionaire. I think he has ten vehicles, two motorcycles, a
motorcycle, and an airplane at last count.
I am down to a Ford Excursion, an all-wheel drive Lincoln sedan, and a
17-year old hail-damaged Lexus convertible. Oh yeah, we also have a
14-year old motorhome that we used to call Follow My Nose. Now it is
emblazoned with the Wyoming Cowboy logo and the name of the song “Life
is a Highway” by Chris LeDoux. The late Wyoming cowboy-singer was one of
many folks who recorded that song. I like his version the best.
So here is my question for all of you: Wyoming has 579,315 people.
How many cars and trucks are there? Do you think there are more
vehicles than people here in Wyoming?
Our local Fremont County Commissioner Mike Jones sent me the current
most updated 2018 statistics from the United States Census Bureau, which
measures all these things. It has some surprising info about my own
county and even more surprising data about the state of Wyoming.
If you guessed that, yes, Wyoming has more vehicles than it has
people, you were right. The 579,315 people in the state own 603,717
licensed cars and trucks.
People (especially wives) repeat the old saw: “The only difference
between men and boys is the cost and size of all their toys.”
Toys? Yeah, here in Wyoming, we have toys. And most of them are
registered with the state government. Besides cars and trucks, we have
294,164 “other” vehicles.
More importantly, this total includes trailers, lots of trailers.
Including RVs, this amounts to an astonishing total of 207,413 trailers.
It also includes 26,144 motorcycles.
Snowmobiles, boats, airplanes, and ATVs are not listed in this total but obviously would add big numbers if they were.
Wyoming people drive more miles per year than folks in any other
state. That average is 16,800 miles for every man, woman, and child.
Amazing. No wonder my tires keep wearing out.
These miles are traveled on our 30,430 miles of highways and roads in
our state. Of this total, 6,075 are federal. Did you know that the
longest highway in America is US 26? Closely followed by Interstate 80,
which I believe is the longest interstate highway in the country,
stretching from New York City to San Francisco, closely following the
route of famous US 30 Lincoln Highway. It was Honest Abe who first
proposed this national road along about 1863, when he was pretty much
preoccupied with the Civil War and getting the transcontinental railroad
built.
In Wyoming, we like to brag about our low taxes but the state
collected $686,766,223 in sales and use taxes. That is a pile of money.
Property taxes collected across the state amounted to over a billion dollars with a total of $1,344,432,107.
My columns are usually limited to 750 words so I have to cherry-pick
items here. It would fill a whole bunch of pages to write about all of
this detail.
In my business career, after starting out as a reporter and ad
salesmen, I developed a love for data and numbers when I became an owner
and publisher. This surprised everyone. To me, numbers are not just
numbers – they tell big stories. I used to love the early IBM
advertisements for computer systems where they pictured businesspersons
pondering spreadsheets. The caption read: “Not just data – but reality.”
Just love that concept.
School statistics could take up an entire column. There are 48
school districts in Wyoming with one-sixth of them in my Fremont County.
There are 355 schools located from one end of the state to the other.
There are 7,248 teachers and 736 administrators. According to these
reports, there are 6,884 other staff to help keep things going.
Total enrollment is 93,647 students. We have a graduation rate of
81.7 percent. The composite ACT score for juniors in high school was
19.5 in 2018.
Total general fund expenses for education were $1,493,600,712 for a
per-student average of $17,694.
This is one of the highest rates in the
country. In my county of Fremont (with its eight districts), the
average per student cost was an amazing $22,299.
I will wrap this up by sharing that the U. S. Government owns 46,313
square miles out the state’s total of 97,093 square miles. The Bureau of
Land Management controls 27,162 square miles of this total.
It is a big place with big numbers.
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