Your story sounds great...
There is a dojo in Casper, I believe it is still in operation. It was originally started by my sensei who moved away a few years later. It is called Aikido of Casper and they did have a website but it isn't working any more.
http://www.aikido.org/wyoming.html. Elizabeth Martin is my sensei's sister but i don't believe she is teaching there anymore. But I thought you might want to give them a call. I know that when the dojo first opened they had a quite a few students.
Good luck - keep training.
Gaia