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Murel Connolly
Talk about cram-jamming a life full of goodies! Murel Connolly’s days continue to be a brisk swirl of cheerleading while getting a kick out of the pleasure of all that is community. For years she’s been making sure that people get to their destination in one way or another. Whether she’s making connections at work down at the dentist’s office or watching the flow of consignment goods pass through Murel’s Great Treasures, Connolly’s in the middle of it all in Wheatland, Wyoming. “It’s a great place to live. I love it,” she chirps. “There is so much community support and love.”
We all know those places, the ones people turn off the highway to see, to poke around and enrich their travels. Her consignment store, started at home on a whim, is in its 14th year and a down-home and downtown attraction with everything from “soup to nuts”. It’s the watering hole, a “conglomerate” for streams of knick-knacks, antiques, clothing and the latest news. Well, Murel’s stocks offerings to browsers and buyers of all sizes. The store is more of a hobby these days, and Connolly is happy that another really amazing Wyoming woman, one with three generations of roots, is running the store – 84 years old, Jean Short.
“For over 35 years Murel has been a fixture in the Wheatland community,” says Fachon Wilson who nominated Connolly as a Trailblazer. “She has contributed to the welfare of the general population through volunteer activities ranging from doing the make-up for the high school and theater groups in town, to taking care of the elderly in Wheatland and Cheyenne, to leading the Catholic Church Women’s Group (CCW).” She raises money for scholarships, becomes the one-gal cheer squad for local athletic events (when necessary), and puts positive energy towards combating cancer based on her own daughter’s past experiences.
While setting so many people up for success, Connolly manages to keep her own family at heart. She glows when speaking about her two grown daughters and son, all in their mid-to-late 30s, plus two well-loved grandkids. A natural caretaker, Connolly is the primary caretaker of her 94 year old mother, Mary Kay Schwope, who she sees three or four times a day and still shares dinner with every evening. It’s a lineage of leaders, according to Wilson who admires Connolly for taking example from their parents: “living a life of service to others… Murel is known by all for her humor and upbeat attitude about life. Clearly she is a woman who knows how to make the best of any situation.”
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