Exciting week for Jim Collins

When State Committeeman and Delegate to the GOP National Convention Jim Collins broke away to speak with the Independent Record, a little trouble was brewing on the convention floor.

"I think it's been quite exciting. They've been having a rules fight and they need, I think six or seven states to have a majority sign-off, so I'm looking forward to seeing how the Party handles adversity."

It was his first day as a delegate and within an hour the final push to change the rules had failed.

After a bit of a row, the Chair called for a verbal vote of ayes and nays, and although both provided thunderous response, the Chair gave the nod to the ayes, leaving the party rules in tact. A delegate from Utah rose and motioned for a roll call of the votes but the Chair denied it, saying several states had been disqualified. The Colorado delegation left en masse.

Sen. John Barrasso took the stage and began the healing:

"Who here is proud to be an American?"

The crowd roared its approval.

Athough Collins came to Cleveland as a bound Ted Cruz supporter, he said he was ready to vote for the party's presumptive nominee, Donald Trump.

"I'm a very strong Cruz supporter but there is no doubt Trump will win this thing and if someone tried to take it away from him, I'd vote against him. Even if it was Cruz," he said, explaining why:

"The establishment told me I had to support Bob Dole and they told me I had to vote for that guy from Arizona (he paused), McCain! And then they told me I had to support Mitt Romney. Well, where is the establishment now?"

This is Collins' first run as a national delegate but he's been serving Hot Springs County as a member of his irrigation district, as a hospital committeeman and for the Wyoming Wild Sheep Foundation where he helps get sportsmen and agricultural producers to work together to fight diseases transferred by bighorn to domestic sheep.

"I get volunteered to death," he said with a grin.

He sought and won election as a state committeeman and he's running again this year for re-election.

"I guess I wasn't very happy but I think we've balanced our county party," he said.

Jim and his wife, Cindy (a Chugwater alumnus), sold their ranch, which straddled Natrona and Carbon counties, and relocated here several years ago.

"All our kids were in Casper going to school and it was 22 miles of dirt road and then 80 miles to Casper, where our kids were and we were beginning to feel like hermits," he said.

On Sunday he and Cindy had attended a reception on Lake Erie and although the opening of the festivities were clouded by the threat of violence, Collins said he saw little reason to worry.

"I've never seen security like this. Last night they dropped us four blocks from the security and we had to walk through protesters. They were with Black Lives Matter and they were carrying horrible signs: kill all the police. But I looked on the lake and there was the Coast Guard down there, snipers with big guns and there were snipers on the rooftops. So I feel it's safe here."