Curtis Ando

“A Wyoming Legacy,” an exhibit dedicated to the life of Curtis Ando and his family’s connections to Heart Mountain and the local Powell community, has opened at the Heart Mountain Interpretive Center.

Mackenzie Legler, this year’s Curtis Ando intern, curated the exhibit after a summer spent conducting extensive research, interviews and archival collection. She met with members of the Ando family, who provided Mackenzie with a detailed history of the family’s immigration to the United States at the beginning of the 20th century, the family’s military background and Curtis’ history and legacy in Powell.

Curtis Ando was the son of a Japanese American incarceree from Heart Mountain and a local farmer who was one of the few Japanese Americans who lived in Park County before the war. After graduating from Powell High School, where he was a basketball and football star, Curtis joined the Marines. He died tragically in Vietnam on Jan. 2, 1967, while serving with the 3rd Tank Battalion of the 3rd Marine Division.

Mackenzie is the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation’s second Curtis Ando Intern. The internship is open to eligible Park County high school students. The Ando internship provides a chance to work within a museum setting and help with multiple research and educational activities related to the World War II incarceration of more than 120,000 Japanese Americans, Vietnam, the Ando story, and the tragedies of bigotry and war.

The new exhibit is open now and will be open for one year. The Ando story is shared through interpretive panels, and it offers the local community an opportunity to share stories about Curtis Ando through an attached QR code available in the exhibit.