Bell doc gets public screening in Cody

The Cody Theatre was at capacity on Tuesday night as the community showed support for increased awareness surrounding mental illness and treatment during a screening for PBS Wyoming’s State of Mind “Frontier State: The Luke Bell Story.” 

The broadcaster’s ongoing, award-winning documentary series explores the mental health crisis in Wyoming. The episode screened on Tuesday focuses on Luke, a rising country music star who grew up in Cody. 

Luke suffered from mental illness, including Bipolar II with psychotic episodes. Following the death of his father, David Bell, he began drinking heavily and distancing himself from family members in an effort to hide his decline. It was unlike him, said his mother, Carol Bell, because “he always sought connection.” 

Over several years, the Bell family attempted to find treatment for Luke to no avail. He died in 2022 at age 32.

In the documentary, Carol and her parents, Stan and Mary Flitner, of Shell, grapple with the friction between Wyoming’s cowboy culture and the cultural taboo of mental illness and seeking help. The episode received an Emmy nomination from the Television Academy’s Heartland Chapter.

Following the screening, a panel discussion including Stan Flitner, Mat Hames, the director, and Heather Bales, a licensed therapist was moderated by Wyoming PBS CEO Joanna Kail. 

Flitner, who is part of the Big Horn County Citizens for Economic Development (BCED), has worked with his colleagues in the group to organize mental health fairs throughout the Big Horn Basin area, hosting workshops in Park, Big Horn and Washakie counties last year, with two planned so far this year in Greybull and Powell.

“(Losing Luke) inspired me (to ask) what can we do to see somebody that’s that way and identify it,” Flitner said. “And I don’t think it’s that hard. Mental health was already coming in (and being talked about), but people are just hungry for it now. It’s got to be like physical health. It’s the same: your brain needs exercise, your body needs exercise – there’s no difference. It should be both.”

Kail agreed and noted that, since the series debuted, she has often been asked about how change will come to Wyoming and if the legislature will participate.

“Everyone asks me, they’ll say, ‘Well, what about the legislature? What about funding? What about money? What about that sort of thing?’” she recalled. “The difference in Wyoming is that it has to happen at the community level. It’s you guys coming to this screening and filling the house. That’s where it’s going to happen.”

Josh Foster, of Downrange Warriors, a Cody-based nonprofit that works with veterans and first responders in the community, told the panelists that screenings and public discussions help de-stigmatize the topic.

“Mental health is a real crisis,” he said. “We all can keep working together, but the people in this room are the outreach because people (outside of this room) won’t share stories unless they connect to the person across from them. People have a hard time sharing.”

Foster asked the panel if future screenings were possible. Earlier this year, he said, both first responders and the broader community were traumatized after a Byron mother shot her four children and then herself, but “because the stigma, we all know about it, we all hear about it, but we are in Wyoming. We always say we don’t need help, but we do, and this is a very good way to do it. We call it windshield time: we’re looking at a screen or we’re watching something we all can relate to (together).”

Kail and the panelists said that they were interested in bringing additional screenings to other communities and increasing public outreach with the program. Hames added that becoming more involved in one’s community led to better mental health outcomes. 

“In my grandparents’ generation, they would go to church, they would go to the Kiwanis Club, they would be involved in the outside world, talking to people,” he recalled, referring to the sociological concept of third-spaces, a cultural environment outside of the home and work where social interaction and community are fostered. “My teenage son sometimes says, ‘Dad, you need to touch grass,’ and I guess that’s an expression that Gen Z people will know and it just means, ‘Get outside and go experience real life, be around people.’ 

“I think a subliminal goal of this whole series has been ‘(Get to) know your neighbor, talk to your neighbor. Get involved in your community in some way, shape or form.’ That sounds simplistic and cliche, but I really do think that that’s how our world is a bit different now than what it was like before, and we just need to get outside and be around each other.”

Seeking help also doesn’t have to resemble the traditional concept of a therapist in an office with a fainting couch. Bales, who founded WYO Hoofbeats, a local equine therapy program, said she has been amazed at how people open up when they are allowed to work through their problems and process their emotions simply by being outdoors and around horses.

“Our clients don’t like to come into an office to sit and talk to a complete stranger and tell their entire life story,” she explained. “But they will sit there and tell the horse all day long, or they will sit and brush a horse, and it’s pretty incredible what comes out of their mouths without even knowing.”