Graduating as the valedictorian of the Class of 1982, Clint Gilchrist set out on a life that would take him places and the present challenges that makes him a Distinguished Alumni of Big Piney High School. Graduating from the University of Wyoming with a degree in Electrical Engineering, young Gilchrist found employment as a civilian contractor for the United States Navy at the submarine base in Bremerton, Washington. He spent ten years working there as a computer programmer on sonar research for torpedoes. In 1996, Gilchrist left the Navy and returned to his Big Piney roots in Wyoming.
Cashing in his government retirement account, Gilchrist invested with his sister in an office supply store she had started in Pinedale a few years earlier. Becoming self-employed, he figures he was either going to sink or swim with their business together. By offering computer sales and repair, he soon became locally known as “the computer guy”. The business went through some very hard times as they squeaked by, month to month, to pay the bills. Their perseverance and hard work paid off as the business finally began turning a profit. The gas and oil boom of Sublette County provided even a better opportunity for the business and the couple opened a second office supply store in Big Piney. In 2014, they passed the twenty-year mark of the business that has provided employment opportunities for many family members and friends. The business is still in operation today.
With his background in computers, Gilchrist was excited about the prospects of internet and what it could mean to the locals and businesses in Sublette County. Working with Wyoming.com, he put up modems in the back of the Pinedale and Big Piney Office Supply stores so the local communities could dial up and hear the “ding – you got mail.” In 1997, he partnered with Dawn Ballou to create the website Pinedale OnLine. Their Pinedale Online was the first strictly online news for Sublette County and celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2017.
Clint’s interests in history led him to become involved with local history programs and projects. He helped the Museum of the Mountain Man with their computer needs and became an indispensable volunteer with their programs and history projects. He helped start the museum’s Rocky Mountain Fur Trade Journal and has been involved with other publications of the museum.
Serving on the Sublette County Historic Preservation Board for over twenty years and as its President for many of those years, Gilchrist has help lead projects that include scanning 5000 historical pictures of Sublette County, a ten-year project to survey, inventory, and document historic homesteads of Sublette County and restore the fire lookout tower on Deadline Ridge in the Wyoming Range.
While serving on the Sublette County Historical Society board, Gilchrist travel to New York and successfully obtained rare fur trade documents of the 1800s including letters written by famous traders such as William Sublette and William Drummond Stewart. Clint also help start the Somers Homestead Living History Museum, the Lander Trail-New Fork Crossing Park, and the restoration project of Trapper’s Point. The latter was renovated and rededicated this past year celebrating its 50th Anniversary. For these efforts and many more, Clint Gilchrist was awarded with a Preserve Wyoming Award presented by the State of Wyoming Historic Preservation Office.
In 2017, Clint Gilchrist was selected Executive Director of the Museum of the Mountain Man for the Sublette County Historical Society. After being self-employed and his own boss, Gilchrist says it is his first “real” job since working for the Navy. It is the culmination of a lifetime passion for history and the achievement of turning a free time hobby into a professional career. As Executive Director, Mr. Gilchrist works on the message and goal that all of Sublette County should care about its history and the preservation of our cultural heritage. Clint’s involvement of and success of his projects surely reinforces that expression, “if there is a will, there is a way.”