Cheyenne East Boys Basketball Season Review

The Cheyenne East boys basketball team is coming off their 4th straight winning season with yet another appearance in the 4A State Tournament. That being said, the T-Birds had a fairly difficult journey through the 4A East regional tournament with a win and 2 losses.

East earned a #4 seed and drew Star Valley in the first round of the state tourney and this game was difficult for the T-Birds that resulted in a 66-45 loss. They shot just 28% from the floor and went 1-26 from the 3 point line. Graedyn Buell had 25 points and 10 rebounds, going 10-24 from the field but it was a rough game all the way around.

To their credit. Cheyenne East bounced back and defeated Green River in the consolation round 71-65. East led by as many as 14 and Buell had another big-time game with 32 points on 11-20 from the floor. Colter McAnelly had 11 and Jordan Codner chipped in 10.

In the 5th/6th place game, East ended the season with an 81-67 loss to Riverton to wrap things up at 17-6. The T-Birds made 10, 3 pointers in the game but Riverton was just on fire from the field. East was led again by Buell with 29 on 11-26 from the floor and Drew Jackson went 8-9 from the field and finished with 20 points.

Buell was an easy pick to make for the 4A all-state list as he averaged 25 points per game which led the 4A ranks. Jake Rayl was named all-conference but those were two of six seniors on the squad. So there will be some re-tooling for the 2021-22 season. We do have a short video to share with you on this team in the state tournament. Enjoy!

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FLASHBACK: Found on Youtube - Cheyenne East High 1987 Video Yearbook

CLASSIC CHEYENNE: The Cole Shopping Center

In December of 2020, Blue Federal Credit Union completed its new headquarters at the corner of Converse and Pershing in Cheyenne. Well, it’s not so much a ‘corner’ as it is the smooth edge of a roundabout, but anyway. Before Blue FCU built its new campus, the site was at one time a premier shopping destination for Cheyenne. From the 1950s through 2016 it was Cheyenne's Cole Shopping Center.

Local businessman Frank Cole bought the land that would become a Cheyenne gathering place in the 1950s when the corner of Converse and Pershing was the edge of town. Starting in 1952, three different Safeway grocery stores called the Cole home over its half-century of existence. A plethora of other stores served the neighborhood too. From the movie theater to Blockbuster; there was the Cole Department Store, the fabric store, the East Branch of the Carnegie Library, and so much more.

As Cheyenne grew and changed, the Shopping Center fell into decline. Stores closed and new ones didn't take their places. The anchor of the area, Safeway, closed for good in 2016 with much of the rest following. In 2018 the buildings were demolished and the new construction began.

The Cole was so integral to the neighborhood that when we asked on social media for folks’ memories we were flooded with hundreds of responses.

Check out many of those memories below, along with several pictures of the Cole Shopping Center, mostly from near the end in the twenty-teens.

Source: Cheyenne East Boys Basketball Season Review