Jerry Lanchbury

Jerry Lanchbury
born Nov. 9, 1930

Whether shoeing horses or ministering to convicts, Jerry Lanchbury has always worked to gain trust by showing he cares.

"With horses, you have to have a familiarity with them, so they have confidence with you," said Lanchbury who has worked as a local farrier for nearly half a century.

He was employed as a road and highway maintenance worker as his primary job, but Lanchbury said it is his work with horses that he has enjoyed, and still continues.

For the past 15 years, Lanchbury and others have visited with inmates in the Park County jail, helping organize Bible study courses and spreading the Gospel.

"We just go in and present Bible study to them, and as we go through it, they get more involved. They've got plenty of time in there to get involved in the Word and become a little more receptive, too," he said.

"When they come to faith like that, it's pretty rewarding," he said, adding that some may pay lip service to their religious epiphany, only to later fall back into their old bad habits.

"But if you can just get the seed planted, then down the line, even though they get out and maybe forget for a while, sometimes they come back around," he said.

That seed was planted in Lanchbury during a Billy Graham crusade in Cody, after which he began working with youth groups, and later in nursing homes, work he continues.

It wasn't where Lanchbury expected he might end up. He was born in Powell, where his father worked for the railroad and met his mother, who moved to Ralston from Kansas because "she was very scared of tornadoes," Lanchbury said.

Lanchbury's family established the Eagle's Nest stage stop between Cody and Powell in 1893, before either town existed. "It was a stop for all the freight coming up from Thermopolis and Meeteetse or down from Red Lodge," he said.

Lanchbury has lived through tough times, including trouble with the law as a young man, after he was "raised in the rough life around the rodeo game."

"Then, after all that, I came to the Lord and it was a changed life. I wanted to be an ambassador for the Lord and I have been blessed," he said, citing his wife Barbara, who died in 1999, as among his greatest blessings.

"She just had that heart of serving people and caring, and through her inspiration, brought me in, giving the glory to God and her faith. If I had half her faith I'd be doing well," he said.

Lanchbury still lives north of Cody, on land near Cottonwood Creek that his father homesteaded. He raises "just enough cows to pay taxes on." The town has changed over the years, he said.

"You knew each other a little better, and if somebody was in need, they would come up with a great amount of help in a crisis. Even just in everyday living, they were there for one another," he said.

Many of the old characters — local celebrities famous for nothing much — are gone too. "There were a lot of them by Shoshone Bank. There was a rail that went down the stairs where they were, and a lot of them didn't even drink, but they were there every day, and you saw them and everybody knew them," he said.

"There's something about Cody that just grows and stays with you when you leave, and you miss Cody, and all you want to do is get back to Cody. I'm blessed for being here and having a family here," he said.