Greater Cheyenne Chamber of Commerce Business Journal Q2 2014 | Page 8

Dale Steenbergen,

The Greater Cheyenne Chamber of Commerce

President/CEO

G

rowing up on a ranch requires
a lot of manual labor. I did
many jobs around the ranch,
but my least favorite by far
was running a post hole digger. If you
haven’t ever had the joy of operating this
piece of equipment, you don’t have a
proper appreciation for your education. I
personally guarantee a couple of days of
digging post holes by hand will definitely
turn the most defiant teenager toward
his educational endeavors in order to
avoid many more days of like activity!
One particular day, I went out with my
Grandpa to fix some fence. It was a
Saturday and, as a teenager, I had
things to do that evening. I knew we
would need to finish this project before
I would be released, so I began digging
furiously. My Grandfather pointed
out to me that my holes would be
crooked, my lines wouldn’t be straight,
and I would be out of energy by noon.
Grandpa was an older guy by that time
and I frustratingly watched him, slowly
and methodically, lift one pinch of dirt after
another with a constant and steady effort.
I, of course, was furious that on the very
day that I wanted to be out with my friends
and enjoying life, I was harnessed to an
old man who had no interest in my desires
at all. When 10:00 AM rolled around, I
was several holes ahead of the old dude
and I said to myself, “We won’t finish until

PG 8 l

Update

midnight at this rate.” Noon rolled around
and we stopped for lunch. I noticed that
Grandpa had caught up just a little bit and
it seemed while I wasn’t looking he was
digging faster. I didn’t pay this much mind
and it never even entered my mind that at
this point, I was going slower. I gained a
little energy over lunch and again, I began

“Planning our
infrastructure carefully,
utilizing rules and
enforcement that
make sense, and
listening to some of
the folks who have
been around the block
a time or two are all
important as we work
to drive Cheyenne
and Laramie County
forward.”
DALE STEENBERGEN,

CEO/PRESIDENT OF THE GREATER
CHEYENNE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

feverishly digging as I had to prove that the
old man could not keep up. The middle of
the afternoon came and I suddenly noticed
that Grandpa had caught up with me. It
was astonishing and a little embarrassing.
Then late afternoon came and I was dead
tired. Grandpa finished his line, took
a short break, and then silently walked

over and started straightening the posts I
had hurried through and then helped me
finish up my half. Needless to say, the
whole ordeal irritated me, but I learned a
valuable lesson that day, even if it took me
the next 10 years Ѽ