2022 Inductees

Zane Hilman lived on the family homestead up Little Goose Canyon in Big Horn and enjoyed sharing it with his family. He was often known to ride to school. On one occasion Zane endured the subzero weather to ride five miles only to hear that school was canceled due to the...

Wayne Hunter was born and raised on Cherry Creek in Goshen County where his family raised cattle, horses, and draft horses. Wayne attended country school in the Cherry Creek Community and later he graduated from Torrington High School. The family had a ranch southwest of...

Wayne and Biddy Bonham of Federal are the epidemy of a truly devoted Wyoming ranch couple. Their bond was inseparable and their work ethic unmatched. Wayne was born in Sterling, Colorado on the family ranch. Always a cowboy, he worked with his family until he went to work...

Tom started his cowboy life at an early age on the banks of the Powder River some 20 miles south of Arvada. He learned his craft from his dad, Bill Wagoner, and went on his own in his early teens. He broke horses for others and his reputation to make good horses grew. He...

Thomas Daniel (T.D.) O’Neil, Senior was born July 5, 1867, in Pomeroy, Ohio, to John and Margaret Curtis O'Neil. T. D. and his family moved to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, in 1889 where T.D. began working as a machinist with the Union Pacific Railroad, though only having an...

Rod grew up and has spent most of his life on the Little Powder River north of Gillette. He was raised as a fourth-generation rancher and started riding horses at a young age. Rod’s love of horses has involved him in nearly every part of the industry from training horses,...

Bill Hamilton grew up on a ranch on the Wind River near Fort Washakie. He was a fourth generation Wyoming rancher, who knew he wanted to be a rancher from the time he was a toddler. His dad gave him his first heifer and from that first heifer, he continued to keep his...

Robert H. (Bob) Borgialli was born January 29, 1933, to Charlie and Ruth Borgialli (the second of six children) at the Marshall and Hazel Cullum home in Newcastle. He grew up on the family ranch and attended grade school at the Borgialli Country School. He then attended...

Richard H. Hamilton was born August 28, 1944, to John H. and Lola Landers Hamilton. He is a fourth-generation cattle rancher, descending from a long line of cowmen dating back to the 17th century in Virginia. Richard learned ranching skills working alongside his...

Ramul Dvarishkis was born February 7, 1910, in Scranton, North Dakota. At age seven he and his family moved to Wyoming to start sheep ranching with his uncle Nick Wishwell. In his early teens and into his 20s Ramul supplied the sheep camps with whatever they required. In...

Philetus Rathburn was born in New York in 1882. He never knew his parents. His first home was an orphanage near the Brooklyn Bridge that was operated by the Children’s Aid Society. In 1889, Phil was placed on an orphan train and sent west. The following year, he was...

Ivan Samuel “Pete” Hoagland was born March 3, 1910, in Benkelman, Nebraska, on the family farm. He and his family moved to Springfield, Missouri, when he was very young, but Pete never did like it there. He and his father did not get along so he stayed away from home as...

Neal Schuman was born on March 16, 1938, to Philip and Pauline Schuman who had moved to the United States from Russia to start a better life for them and their family. Neal grew up in Clearmont, where he and his sisters helped their parents’ farm and ranch on leased...

My Grandfather, Milford Byron Steele was born on April 17, 1902, at the Ed P. Steele Ranch in Boulder, Wyoming.  His parents, Edward Phoebus Steele and Emma Hoff Steele had 8 children, Johnnie L. Steele, Frankie N. Steele, Bessie May Steele, Willie Edward Steele, Harry...

Maurice Williams was born on April 24, 1908, on Raven Creek south of Moorcroft and attended school there. He spent most of his 85 years working on ranches. In his youth and later he worked on the family ranch on Raven Creek and on other ranches during spring roundup...

Lua Kelly was born in Riverton on June 23, 1942, to Earl and Louise Kelly. In 1953 his family moved to Lander where Earl was employed by Grieve Land and Cattle Co. Lua rode the Spring roundups until he graduated high school, then got in on the Fall and Winter roundups....

Charles Leonard Priebe and his family moved to Denver, in 1916. Leonard’s father died when he was quite young. He had to quit school in the 8th grade so that he could join his brother Lester to support the family of eight. He worked on farms, ranches and in the Denver...

Larry was born and raised in South Texas where he lived on his family’s small cattle outfit. He served in the US Army after graduating from high school. Larry covered a lot of the West, working on numerous ranches in Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Montana, and Wyoming...

Kent Snidecor was born June 30, 1943, outside of San Bernardino, CA. He was acquainted with the horse at a young age. He and his friends labeled themselves the Flying Five and spent their free time getting into mischief on horseback. The more serious offenses got the...

Joseph Stewart Bassett was the youngest of six children born to George Russell Bassett and Lauretta Stewart Bassett in Kane, on May 24, 1927. Joe’s dad died in 1937 of pneumonia. From 11 years old on, Joe was raised with his other five siblings by his widowed mother. Joe...

John H. Hamilton was born June 9, 1910, to Charles B. Hamilton and Roda M. Johnson. He was a third generation Bridger Valley cattleman. His grandfather came to the area with Albert Sidney Johnston’s army in 1857 (as part of the Utah or Mormon War) and then became cattle...

Jim Maher has been a Wyoming cowboy for 49 years. His life in the saddle began at the age of eight in Arizona. He rode with his uncle on his boy’s ranch and worked for Scottsdale Feedlot as a pen rider detecting sick cattle and doctoring them. He also worked for the V Bar...

Frank E. Miller was a third-generation cowboy, having worked and managed his grandfather’s outfit in Carbon County from the early 1920s until his retirement in 1984 when the family left the place for good. Throughout this time, he developed a keen ability to manage sheep,...

Charles Alfred Stillman-Philbrick’s adoptive father was Elroy P. “Bronco Jim” Philbrick who was born during October 1849 in Maine to Chandler N. Philbrick and Frances Noyes Philbrick. Emma Wilson Stillman started living with Elroy P. “Bronco Jim” Philbrick in about 1878....

Col. Jesse Lincoln Driskill - 1820-1894 Jesse Lincoln “Link” Driskill II - 1858-1946 John Wylie “Bud” Driskill - 1851-1906 William Walter “Tobe” Driskill - 1852-1922 Jesse Loring “Diddy” Driskill - 1882-1973 Jesse Belvin “Buz” Driskill - 1907-1987 Malcolm Franklin Driskill...

Dennis Robert Daly was born February 27, 1938, in Minneapolis to Robert and Leona Daly. In 1941, the family, which included older sister Patricia, moved to Laramie and later to their newly acquired ranch in Glendo. Dennis started his cattle entrepreneurship early with a...

Dee Burtch was born in a sheep wagon, on September 22, 1895, in Alcova, in a draw north of the North Platte River. He attended the ranch school for two years then went to the Alcova School for six years. Some sessions of school were only three months long. During WWI Dee...

Clyde Woolery was born in December 1947 to ranchers Harvey and Violette Woolery. As a child, he, his two brothers, and sister worked alongside their parents in daily running of the ranch operation. The family split their time between the “home place” in Kinnear Valley and...

Clyde came to Wyoming with a family friend after his parents both died in 1904 from a flu epidemic. After arriving in Wyoming, Clyde helped the Davis family establish their homestead and day worked for neighboring ranches until he landed a job with the Bill Yates family on...

The Renner family came to Wyoming in 1897 and settled on Gooseberry Creek, south of Meeteetse. Chris was born on October 15, 1944, the youngest child of Clifton Adison (C.A.) Renner and Grayce (Fehyl) Renner. Chris has ranched his entire life, first on his father’s ranch –...

Charles L. “Chuck” Reynolds was born in Gillette and began his cowboy career on the Old Reynolds Ranch at Rocky Point. He left the ranch in 1957 and moved to the Parks Land and Livestock where he broke horses and did other cowboy work. He moved from ranch to ranch...

Carl Philip Mathisen, born September 1, 1912, known to everyone in Sublette and Fremont Counties as “Red” because of his hair, was truly a cowboy in the basic sense of the word. He knew cows! His family, as well as the dozens of cowpokes who worked with and for him, can...

Bob Lucas was born into a ranching family in Jackson in 1952. Both sets of grandparents (the Lucases and the Imesons) were among the early settlers into Jackson Hole, one family arriving in the valley in 1889 and the other in 1896. These early settlers were the generation...

Bob Bessey was born June 27, 1940, in Riverton. His dad, Lyle Bessey, was a livestock trucker who brought mustangs home for Bob to break and train. This was the beginning of Bob’s true passion, riding and training horses. At 13-14 years old, he shod his first horse in...

Bert Lamb was born March 16,1927, to George Dewey Lamb and Josephine Isabelle Meyer Lamb in Rock Springs. He was the sixth of eight children. Bert’s parents owned a small ranch on Henrys Fork in Washam, Wyoming. Bert’s dad was away from home a lot working to support the...

Artie is a descendant of pioneering Wyoming families. The family of Artie’s paternal grandmother, Clara Hitshew Joss, came to Wyoming in 1876. The Hitshews built a house at the head of Lance Creek about seven miles north of Keeline, in 1888. Art Joss Sr. bought this land...