About
OUR BOARD
Dawn Wehrman
President
WACA President Dawn Wehrman
has worked in Activities since 2007 and served WACA for 12 years. She is dedicated to providing education related to quality of life opportunities for the institutionalize elderly. She completed MEPAP 1 & 2 Casper College/the two year program NCCAP.
Phone#: (307) 921-1373
E-Mail: dawnfish86@yahoo.com
Vice President
Rachel Velarda
Rachel has work over 26 year at Westward Heights in lander WY. 307 349-8587 rachelvelarde1028@gmail.com
Ashely Booth
Secretary
Ashely joins the Board with many skills. She has worked as an OTA and the past year as the Activity Director of Shepherd of the Valley Rehab and LTC in Casper.
Phone#: (307) 340 0327
Diane DeYoung
Treasurer
Diane is an Evanston WY native began working at 15 years old as an aide in LTC. C.N.A., thenActivity Director, now the Social Service Designee/Resident Advocate at Rocky Mountain Care Center. Experience of 42 years under her belt she has been the WACA Treasurer for over 6 years. She completed Recreation Therapy.
(307) 679-3488
Katrina Thomas
Newsletter Editor
Raised in St Paul Minnesota, moved to buffalo WY at 17. Started working in the nursing home kitchen, instinctually fell in love with Geriatrics. CNA 2002, at Amie Holt Care 7 years in Activities. Married the love of my life for 15 yrs-2 beautiful children. We love FFA and 4H and enjoy raising sheep.
Terri Newman ADC
Education Chair
Terri has worked in Activities since 1974 & served WACA for 35 years. She is dedicated to providing education. She taught MEPAP I & II State Approved Courses at Casper College for 23 years. She is Activity Director Certified / NCCAP. Terri Semi-Retired in 2021.
(307) 941-1469
Hilda Giffrow
Awards and Marketing
Hilda has been an active WACA Member for over 26 years. LTC versatility as an Activity Dir: Assistant. CNA/CMA is her talent. She Completed the 2 year MEOAP 1 & @ Casper College in 1998. (307) 247-5104. hgiffrow@yahoo.com
Zoie Nichols
IT Coordinator
Zoie works on Lander at Westward Heights as an Activity Assistant. She enjoys her work and is new to the WACA Board.
307 343-3716 zoienichol97@gmail.com
HISTORY
The Wyoming Activity Coordinators Association was officially formed in 1979 at the formally “Sailors and Solders Home” of Buffalo Wyoming”; Now Wyoming Veterans Home an Assisted Living. There were about 12 Activity Directors who joined together and they had an educational speaker and they organized the matrix. They donated their dues and with less than 200 dollars jumped started this group.
Jackie Allen was one of these leaders from Shepard of the Valley Care Center in Casper. She was a person who invested building others into powerhouses to represent the quality of life for the residents. She and many other strong women went toe to toe with Administrators of Wyoming defending Activity Programs Statewide.
At this time Wyoming was flush with oil money and there were many new Nursing homes being built. WACA had 4 educational meetings a year, hosted by many different Nursing Homes. When the energy boom began to slow down around 1985 Wyoming’s Administrators Association asked WACA to send a representative to speak with them. WACA had been summoned.
The Administrators Association felt that 4 meetings a year were too much expense and Shirley Greene Morrison 35 year veteran of the WACA Board negotiated with over 50 men to be granted support of two WACA workshops a year for quality education.
Scott Haycock CEO of Riverton was a leader in the Administrators Organizations, which there where two in the State. Mr. Haycock was relentless with support for quality-trained staff to run well run and well-budgeted activity programs. He was very helpful as a speaker at WACA and supporting Casper Colleges Activity Professional Courses that officially started in 1995 a two year Associates of Applied Science Degreed Program. This was a in person on campus course until 2004 then went on the WEN live teleconference until 2009 when it was moved to Wyoming Workforce Training in 2009.
Nancy DeBolt, Jamie Lookingbill and Cathy Barrett were the original Instructors and then Terri Newman carried it forward from 1997 until May of 2019 and is presently helping the transition to an online educational system through Casper College.
WACA has been the supportive guiding force behind the Casper Colleges’ Activity Professional Programs since it’s conception and will remain a sponsor and partner is maintaining quality education for the well-being of those who provide quality of life for the elderly and infirm through the State.
There were many good and great leaders of WACA through the years and Nancy Debolt Activity Director of Torrington’s Nursing Home became the National Association for Activity Professionals president in 1997. She is one of the founder of the NCCAP/MEPAP I and II and the worldwide pioneer of one to ones in our profession. Stephanie Cohee-Wiggens of Gillette/Newcastle became the Activity Assistant of the Nation at NAAP in 2002.
Shirley Morrison is the longest WACA serving Board member of 36 years then Terri Newman 26 years, JoAnn Bohannon 18 years, Diana Pruninger 20 years, Dawn Wehrman 14, Jamie Lookingbill 8, Tom Mansfield 10 years and many good people have served 2 to 4 plus years. Fall of 2021 we lost this great servant for WACA to her final journey. That Fall the WACA Body has created a new Scholarship in name of Shirley Morrison.
WACA has held Workshops in every part of the State buzzing through 40 years. We have witness OBRA of 1987 for LTC-State Regulations for LTC of 1997 and 2000-LTC Updates of October 18, 2017- Assisted Living Regulations 2004 and changes of payment sources too numerous to count. We are serving through eh Covid Pandemic from 2019 to present. WACA had to cancel their first June Workshop due to the Pandemic in June of 2020. Bravely WACA continued their Workshops that Fall of 2020.
WACA is witness to the dawn of technology, cell phones and the automatic medical record. Activities are stunningly steady through the years. Bingo is still a favorite, crafts are still created, exercises are still encouraged, trips to Wal Mart go on everyday, food is still used for bribery and we still rock at singing “You are my Sunshine."
Here’s to the next 40 years…and God Bless the magnificent Activity People who give their whole hearts and souls to others. Activity professionals are undoubtedly the richest people in the world because we value the human experience of the truest wealth in all of history of time, “the smile.”
CONTACT US
Questions? Want to know more? Contact us below
WACA
Wyoming Activity Coordinators Association
Tel: 307-921-1373
Email: Dawnfish86@gmail.com
Mailing Address: 110 s. 8th Thermopolis, WY 82443