Cowboy Boots Encourage Green River Seniors to Talk About Mental Health - SweetwaterNOW

Lillynee Janota and Lily Murdock pick out their Jae boots Tuesday afternoon. SweetwaterNOW photo by Olivia Kennah

GREEN RIVER — The Green River High School and Expedition Academy senior classes received cowboy boots from the Jae Foundation this week, which are meant to serve as a physical reminder to check in with yourself and your loved ones.

The foundation aims to create “boot check” moments, and the cowboy boots, which are referred to as Jae boots, are a tool to encourage people to have conversations regarding mental health that they wouldn’t have had otherwise.

“With your Jae boots, we have two asks … number one, that you have a boot check with someone today. Someone’s going to be on your heart and they’re there for a reason. We say, if you can reach out today instead of tomorrow, because sometimes tomorrow is too late … The second ask is, if you ever find yourself in a space like Jae was in, and you’re not doing well, that you make a commitment to reach out for help,” Julie Mackey, Wyoming Outreach Coordinator for the Jae Foundation said.

Mackey said $48,000 had to be raised by a list of sponsors and donors to make the donations to the senior class possible, and there were around 240 pairs of boots given to the seniors in Green River. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Wyoming, through the Caring Foundation, covered more than half of the needed amount, Mackey said.

The students first learned about Jae Bing’s story. Growing up in Pinedale, Jae had a love for the outdoors and, of course, cowboy boots. In 2016, Jae took his own life. This shocked everyone who knew him, and his loved ones decided that something good would come from this tragedy. That’s how Jae Foundation came to be.

The hope Jae Foundation has with giving these boots to the senior class is that it will help change the culture of hiding mental health struggles and not talking about them. Mackey said the seniors are leaders in the school, and are therefore the ones who can help change this culture.

“The challenge that we’re putting on you seniors, the reason you got these boots is because you are the oldest in the school. The underclassmen look up to you. So if the culture’s gonna change, it has to start with you guys,” she said.

After learning about Jae’s story, the seniors got to pick from a large collection of boots, all choosing one pair to take home with them. When they wear their boots, or even see them in their closets, they are then reminded to reach out to someone they want to check in on.

Additionally, Jae Foundation asks that the students pick a day of the week for the entire school to have a boot-check day where these conversations about mental health can take place more frequently.

Leaving the presentation with their new boots, GRHS seniors Lillynee Janota and Mark Hildenbrand felt encouraged by the Jae boots.

“It really does feel like there’s someone really paying attention to this. Throughout my high school years I’ve seen so many people struggle with mental health but I just feel like nobody ever really cares about it. Like people just shrug it off like, ‘oh, it’s a teenager thing,’ but it’s really not,” Janota said. “I feel like it’s very powerful and motivational to see they have our backs.”

Photos courtesy of Julie Mackey

Recently, a 2024 Rock Springs High School graduate passed away, and Janota and Hildenbrand said that loss has made them experience the Jae Foundation in a unique way. Hildenbrand highlighted the importance of the idea of the boot checks through his own experience.

“It’s hard to keep in touch with everyone, I’m just thinking about how our friend passed away and the last time I talked to him was back in August, a month before he died,” he said.

“Because we did have someone we know who just passed away because of suicide, this was just really heartbreaking but it was also very motivational,” Janota said.

GRHS principal Darren Heslep spoke to the GRHS senior class about taking care of each other, and how it can help prevent tragic losses.

“I’ve had the privilege of seeing a lot of kids grow up overtime, but I’ve also seen a lot of other stuff. I’ve gone through some times when we’ve had to help schools heal after a tragic loss of a student … Doing this kind of stuff helps by preventing a lot of those things, by making you feel like it’s okay to talk about things when you’re having a tough time. Making it okay to treat people right when they’re a little bit different,” Heslep said. “I see a lot of stuff in my office about kids getting picked on and teased and bullied and things like that, and sometimes that drives kids to do things that we don’t want them to do. We need to be a little bit more understanding, a little bit more accepting, a little bit more empathetic.”

He also stressed the importance of paying attention to their own well being, and knowing that it’s ok to reach out for help.

“We also need to make sure we take care of ourselves. We sometimes wear ourselves down with all the stuff we do, and we think the thing that we’re going through is the worst thing in the world. And at the moment it might be, but there’s gonna be another thing later down the road,” Heslep said. “We just have to keep pushing forward and fighting through it and relying on the people that care enough about us to help us out.”

SweetwaterNOW photos by Olivia Kennah