LARAMIE - To mark the 10th anniversary of Matthew Shepard's death, Mois's Kaufman returned to Laramie with a reporter from the New York Times. Kaufman, director of Tectonic Theater Project which wrote "The Laramie Project," wanted to see what had changed.

'We've had some degree of apprehension about coming back to Laramie,' Kaufman said in the Times' article. 'There had been such fervor about how Matthew Shepard's death would make a difference. There are hundreds of hate crimes each year, but Matthew is the one that resonated nationally. But what if nothing has really changed?'

And here we go again.

In the glare of the media spotlight, Laramie became the name for the intolerance and closed-mindedness of small Western towns. Reporters, some who had never been to Wyoming, came and did their interviews. They took pictures and wrote stories.

And the story they found was sensational indeed: a beautiful, blond young man, tied to a fence, arms spread as if he had been crucified, killed because of hate.

"Certainly, I think the majority of the reporters, their stories were already written. There was a great deal of trying to paint Wyoming with a brush of the mythos of the old West," said Jim Osborn, a gay man who was a student at the University of Wyoming 10 years ago.

"They came in looking for the swinging doors and the horse tied to a post outside the bar."

But to those who have lived here, Wyoming doesn't necessarily need to change - at least no more than the rest of the world. It has its bigots, just as California, New York and Kentucky have theirs.

Somehow, Laramie has become the definition of intolerance.

"My sense is that there were people back then who were all to quick to want to blame this situation on some pathology unique to Wyoming and to rural America. The sad reality is we've seen this kind of senseless violence all over America," said Tom Buchanan, University of Wyoming president and a Wyoming resident for 30 years. "Problems persist everywhere, and it's our job, whatever community we live in, to work every day to make our communities better."

Ten years ago today, Matthew Shepard died in his hospital bed.

The people of Laramie and the University of Wyoming tried to make sense of it, even as the world watched.

Following are six perspectives from people connected to UW, each a different look at the murder and the decade that has passed.

Tom Buchanan, UW president

The memorial is just a stone bench with a black plaque. It reads: "Matthew Wayne Shepard. December 1, 1976 - October 12, 1998. Beloved son, brother and friend. He continues to make a difference. Peace be with him and all who sit here."

It could be a tree. It could be a plaque. It could be anything.

What's important is the reminder. Not a reminder of the act itself, of the violence. But a reminder of people's responsibility to the communities where they live.

"It's nice to have a physical memorial but I think, more importantly, I think the bench reminds us on a daily basis that we've got work to do," Buchanan said.

Ten years ago, Buchanan was the vice president for academic affairs. He'd grown up in New York, but had come to UW 30 years ago as a student. He returned to the university after getting his doctorate. He had fallen in love with Laramie and Wyoming.

After Shepard was found, Buchanan was called in as part of the university crisis team. The team had dealt with serious student situations all too frequently, but in that first meeting, nobody knew how this student would grab a hold of the university or the nation.

"I would tell you, one of the things that it did to me is it showed me once and for all that there is no place, no matter how safe and secure we think we are, there is no place that is immune to random acts of senseless violence.

"Overnight, that reality was shattered."

While Matthew Shepard will always be part of the university's history, it has not become its definition. It has moved on, just as the world has moved on.

Still, it disturbs Buchanan to think that some people, 2,000 miles away, think of hate when they think of Laramie.

"I'd like Laramie to be known for the great, positive, forward-looking, safe, friendly community that it is and not for the random acts of two misguided, disturbed young men. Laramie is a lot bigger than that, and it's a lot better than that. But it's part of who we are now. It's not going to go away."

Michelle Denzer, 40, part-time student

In 1998, Denzer lived in California. Wyoming was a state she probably learned about in school, but she never thought about it. Had no idea about it.

And then suddenly, Wyoming was everywhere.

"I remember hearing about this little boy getting beat up because he was gay. My mother and I were together when the news came on and said he had passed away. We both started crying. What a horrible thing. It was just such a senseless act of brutality."

It's not that it made her think Wyoming was full of homophobic bigots. It was just … the only thing she had heard.

In 2005, her husband took a job at the University of Wyoming, and Denzer became a student, studying social work. Even then, seven years later, her friends in California wondered why she was going. You're going to where that little boy was killed, they had told her. It's all they, like Denzer, knew about Laramie.

But today, Denzer wouldn't want to be anywhere else. Some of the nicest people she knows are in Wyoming. The campus she knows is accepting and warm. She doesn't see tension between groups of people. As a non-traditional student herself, she has spent time in the Rainbow Resource Center, a safe and supportive place for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people and their friends and families.

"Laramie is the friendliest places I have ever been in my life. As I've learned to love Laramie, it's hard to imagine that something like that even happened here. That is not what the people of Laramie are about."

Robin Hill, coordinator of instructional computing

October 1998 was a beautiful fall, she remembers, just like this one: warm, colorful and almost peaceful. Of course, the peace would be broken.

Late in that fall, as she drove around Capitol Hill in Denver, a man yelled at her, "Hey, Wyoming."

She waved, thinking he must have seen her license plate.

"You guys like to beat up gays, huh?"

"I certainly thought that was unfair. The picture drawn was unfair. Attitudes are much more nuanced here, I believe, than they came out to be," Hill said.

Hill is fourth-generation Wyoming. Her great-grandfather was a lawyer who argued against adopting the bucking horse and rider as a state symbol. It'd make us look like a bunch of yokels, he had said.

And suddenly, in the glare of the media's lights, the world saw Laramie as yokels indeed. Bigoted yokels.

"I wouldn't have though that such an expression of oppression and narrow-mindedness would have happened in Laramie. I still wonder if he was killed directly because he was gay," she said.

"He was just a normal, flawed human being, and it was still a tragedy."

Hill is not a supporter of hate crime laws.

"I think a crime is a crime. Nobody should be beaten and killed, it doesn't matter if you are gay or straight. I think a good effect of this is that we were able to discuss that."

It encourages her to hear people talking about gay issues more openly 10 years later. True, Wyoming did not pass a same-sex marriage law when it had the chance, but people do talk about benefits for same-sex partners and other issues.

And just as the encounter in Denver had pained her, another chance encounter gave her hope.

She was in a store, buying a bottle of wine, when she overheard a group of young people talking about transgender issues. They weren't condemning, they were just talking.

"They were all very respectful and were taking it seriously, as if it mattered to them."

Jim Osborn, UW assistant to the associate vice president for diversity and employment practices

Thought he had told close friends and some relatives that he was gay in 1995, he didn't really come out publicly until 1998. Then he did it on national television.

A few weeks earlier, a friend had introduced him to a freshman named Matt Shepard. He'd see Matt on campus, stopped and asked him how classes were going.

"Matt had the most amazing smile. His eyes lit up, and his whole body smiled at you."

Osborn, then chairman of the student Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Association, was planning Gay Awareness Week in early October. He learned Matt was in the hospital through an e-mail from a mutual friend. By the time the news broke, Osborn was fielding media questions from across the country, even as he was trying to grieve. Everyone wanted to know what it was like to be a gay man in Wyoming.

"All I could do was speak about the Wyoming I knew."

And the Wyoming he knew is a place where he has chosen to stay, and live. He grew up in Wright, a small coal-mining town in Campbell County.

True, Wyoming doesn't have as many resources for gay people as more urban areas do. But here he can drive for 20 minutes and be in the middle of nowhere. He can go pheasant and duck hunting, camping and fishing. He loves that Wyoming is still small and neighborly.

He doesn't face overt attacks when he walks on campus.

"What's more difficult are the smaller things - like, if we set up a table for Gay Awareness Week, or Discovery Days, we have had families that have gone past. Sometimes, they scurry their children to the walkway to protect them from some imagined threat."

After he talked as a gay man on Good Morning America, Court TV and other news outlets, some of Osborn's relatives quit contacting him. That's OK, he says. It's their choice.

But as people started looking at the university again for anniversary stories, he worried that they would focus too much on tangible changes. Have we passed a hate-crimes law? Do we have benefits for same-sex partners?

"What happened to Matt did not happen because he was from Wyoming. These types of attacks happen every day in all parts of the country."

"Matthew Shepard was not an event. He was a person. He sat in classes. He went to see his adviser."

Sarah Waldron, 19, Kingsburg, Colo.

Amanda Elston, 19, Hartly, Delaware

Heather Welch, 20, Cody

Students, University of Wyoming

On the lawn of Prexy's Pasture, on an uncharacteristically warm October day, the students waited for a morning class.

To them, Matthew Shepard is someone they read about in a play or heard about in a movie. They were 9 and 10 when he was murdered.

"I remember pictures of a fence and of the verdict. I remember watching the news with my parents but not understanding what was happening. But I knew it was bad," Waldron said.

It had nothing to do with picking a university. Sure, it crossed their minds when friends mentioned it: Laramie? Isn't that where that boy from that movie got killed? But to them it didn't brand the university, just as the massacre at Virginia Tech didn't brand that school as more dangerous than any other.

"Yeah, something bad happened here, but it doesn't necessarily make this a bad place," Waldron said. "I really liked the campus; it had a nice feel to it. I see the same people every day, and I really like the close-knit feeling."

A couple of days earlier, Elston noticed that the bench on which she was sitting had Matthew Shepard's name inscribed on it. It was the memorial the university had dedicated just a few days before. She thought about him then, and the girls talk about him when someone asks.

In a lot of ways, America still has a way to go, they say. They'd like to see rights for gay couples and laws against hate.

But they also see progress. They can talk about Matthew, for one thing, openly and honestly.

Or they can not talk about him, because, well, the campus has moved on and college kids have other things to talk about. Especially on a sunny October morning when class has yet to start.

Brittany Toups, 19

Alex Montoya, 19

Students, University of Wyoming

The signs warned the passersby: "Caution: Live acts of homosexuality in progress."

And there they were, right outside the student union, gay and lesbian students blatantly flaunting their alternative lifestyle: They read books. Listened to iPods. Drank juice.

Toups strummed a guitar. This was her first public event after coming out, and she worried that people were staring.

She first heard Matthew's story from her girlfriend, Montoya, who came to Laramie before her. Montoya heard about it in an English class and did some research.

"I was a little nervous, knowing I was gay. On the other hand, I came out publicly when I came here. I was able to be myself," Toups said.

"I think Wyoming has outgrown the stigma. I don't think Laramie is known just as the town that killed the gay student."

Just then, student Shanae Anthony, 22, of Billings, Mont., walked by. She stopped and asked what they were doing.

"I just wanted to say I support you," she said.

Not long after, two more students passed - a man and a woman holding hands.

They turned their heads to read the signs and watch the gay students do homework, eat pizza and laugh with their friends.

The woman leaned into the man and lowered her voice: "That is so weird. Why are they doing that?"

Watch a video about the Matthew Shepard anniversary and view a photo slideshow at trib.com.]]->