The lacy dress is all ready to go, hanging in Bernadine Reed's closet.

So is the crocheted purse and the hat of lavender netting, the one her mother used to wear.

On Saturday she'll put them on for another presentation of her "Women of Wyoming" show, the one she first did in 1989 for her friends in a group of women insurance agents.

The women asked her to come up with a program for their meeting.

"Make it about women - that's all they said," Reed recalled.

"I had read a lot of stuff, read a lot about women in Wyoming. It just dawned on me - 'Women of Wyoming,' of course."

Reed, now 93, couldn't remember on the spot which of the famous women she would portray. But all the women will be portrayed, in costume, by members of her extended family, which seems to have earned its own place in Wyoming history.

"She's the monarch of our family, that is for sure," said Reed's great-niece, Noreene Rodgers, who is part of the show. "She has just been an incredible somebody to look up to."

Reed's mother, Burchel Clark, was born on the Goose Egg Ranch, Rodgers said. Her father, Benard Scherch, founded Wyoming's oldest realty company, See Ben Realty.

Reed grew up in Casper in a bungalow across the street from Natrona County High School, a home she said she still owns and rents out, since she moved recently to Meadow Wind Assisted Living Community.

After she graduated from NCHS, she moved with a brother to Washington, D.C., where she said she hung around long enough in the office of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation that they gave her a job.

When she'd had enough of the big city and wanted to move back to Wyoming, she spoke with her former eighth-grade teacher - then the state superintendent of schools, who said she should come to Cheyenne.

Along the way she met her husband, Fred Reed, who worked for Western Airlines. They had a son, Fred, now an attorney in Cheyenne. Her grandson, Michael Reed, is a physical therapist in Casper, she said. In a picture on her dresser at Meadow Wind, he has a wife, two children and a dog.

Bernadine Reed also raised her niece Renee Rodgers after Renee's mother and grandmother died. Renee Rodgers plays Sacagawea in the show.

Reed had her own insurance business and was the first woman on the board of the Independent Insurance Agents of Wyoming, her great-niece said.

"She was just one of the first women to get out there and work," Noreene Rodgers said. "I really don't think she thought of it as being a pioneer in the work area. She's always been a very strong character, strong-willed."

Later she devoted time to the Natrona County pioneer museum.

This weekend, many of the relatives will be in town for the show. They're going to tape it, Renee Rodgers said.

"At 93, we want to get it down for her."

Reed remembers a time she got 100 answers right on a 100-question history test.

Now she plays bingo at Meadow Wind. The dress in her closet is a few years older than she is. She can't remember who it belonged to. She can't read the history books she loves. But she can still share her history.

"Wyoming," she said, "has some very outstanding women."

Women of Wyoming

Bernadine Reed's "Women of Wyoming" show will be Saturday at 2 p.m. at Meadow Wind Assisted Living Community, 3955 E. 12th St. The public is welcome. For information, call 577-3045.

Among the women depicted in the show:

Esther Hobart Morris, a South Pass City justice of the peace and the first woman to hold a judicial position

Nellie Tayloe Ross, the first woman governor in the United States

Sacagawea, guide to explorers Lewis and Clark, buried on the Wind River Indian Reservation

Cattle Kate, rumored prostitute and cattle rustler lynched over what may have been a land dispute

Eliza Swain, first woman to vote, in Wyoming in 1870

Verda James, first woman speaker of the Wyoming House of Representatives

Verna Keyes, who designed the Wyoming state flag

Reach Barbara Nordby at (307) 266-0633 or at barbara.nordby@casperstartribune.net.