The Amazing Race

The Amazing Race

This is an interesting story for those of you who have ever watched the Amazing Race on TV. Evidently a couple years ago the race ran through Wyoming. Producers went to Willie LeClair, the man whose sweat I went to for my first ever sweat. Willie is an elder in the Shoshoni tribe, a chaplain for the state, and will be performing Roni’s sister’s wedding in August. Anyway, the producers asked him if he would gather a group of people together to help run an obstacle for the participants to complete. The program wanted to capture the spirit of the west so they planned for the racers to put together a tipi and put a wheel on a cart. Willie accepted the request and told the crew that he would he get his boys to help the participants complete these tasks. Taking this into account the program named Willie’s boys in this program Indian #1, Indian #2, etc. This is hilarious because as I told you before, in the Shoshoni tribe as well as in other Indian tribes, it is a common practice for adoptions to be performed. Willie has adopted most of the people that go to sweats with Roni and Ed. In fact, one of his adopted sons is Mark Stratmoen, Ed's Chief Deputy Coroner and the only other full time employee in the Coroner's Office. (Mark is the individual telling me this story.) Mark said that when he and his other adopted brothers, most of whom are Caucasians, showed up to help out with the television program, the producers were a bit surprised to learn that most of "Willie’s boys" weren’t your typical Indian boys.