(Riverton, WY) – The Riverton Medical District received the first half of a $100,000 grant donation from First Interstate Bank in Riverton at a check presentation held on April 16.
First Interstate Bank has committed to donating $100,000 to the Riverton Medical District, $50,000 of which was given on Wednesday, with the other half of the donation set for January 2026.
“We are very excited to be a part of not only the financing, but the donation as well,” commented Richard Uhl, First Interstate Bank Market President for Western Wyoming. “Amanda Slack, the Commercial Group Manager here in Riverton, took charge and brought that about.”
In addition to the grant, First Interstate facilitated the construction lending on the project, according to a recent release, with permanent financing done through the USDA.
“When Riverton Medical District came to us about five years ago with a dream of building a new hospital that would be locally owned and governed, we jumped at the chance to help out,” Slack explained in the release. “Supporting organizations with their goals of helping the community we call home maintain their health and happiness is core to our values.”
“We have what we call Commitment to Community, and we try to give at least a couple of these large donations to at least a few of our markets throughout our system,” Uhl explained.
When asked why funding something like the Riverton Medical District is important, UHL shared that the RMD will be “huge for this area.”
“It’s definitely needed. We heard that people were having to drive miles away to get the type of medical treatment they needed, so we are glad to see that will now happen locally.”
“(The donation) is going to help us find an Administrative Healthcare Fellow, which will kind of be our first employee,” shared Corte McGuffey, chairman of the Riverton Medical District. “That’s going to help us with getting operations ready to go when the hospital opens in September of 2026, and also help out with construction.”
“Construction is going good so far,” McGuffey continued, and added that thanks to some pretty cooperative weather this winter, “steel is going to start going up next week.”
“That’ll be really exciting when it starts to go vertical.”
“We’re partnering with Billings Clinic, we’re going to be a Billings Clinic affiliate,” McGuffey went on to share. “They’ve been instrumental in helping us through this process. They have a great construction team. Mitch Goplen… is in charge of all their facilities, and has gone through lots of construction projects, so he brings the construction expertise to our board.”
McGuffey was also excited to share that the RMD will be conducting a ‘beam signing’ ceremony on June 4, 11 AM, at the construction site (located at the Eastern Shoshone Business Park in Riverton, located just north of Walmart at 2505 N Federal Blvd.).
“Since we weren’t able to do an official groundbreaking because we started in December, we put it off until we had better weather,” McGuffey explained. “So we’re celebrating the groundbreaking but doing it in June, and we’re calling it a beam signing ceremony.”
McGuffey said the steelwork is scheduled to be almost completed by that point, and one of the last beams going up will be signed by those in attendance, including any community members who show up. “We want our whole community out for that if they’re able to make it and celebrate with us. It’s a great project.”
McGuffey went on to thank the community that has “been so supportive through this whole process.”
“We’ve been at this for like six years. The fundraising we’ve done over that time and the way the community has stepped up has been amazing.”
McGuffey says there will still be more opportunities for people to support the cause, headed up by the RMD philanthropic committee, and that folks can check the RMD website for updates.