Welcome, Cowboy HOF Class of 2025

I was privileged to travel to Casper for this year’s celebration of our Cowboy State’s 2025 Honoree Induction for the Wyoming Cowboy Hall of Fame. The fun social happening is done up “cowboy style” by a hardworking staff and planning team who seem to enjoy it as much as those of us who just show up in time for the party.

Friend and fellow WCHOF supporter Deb Sewell and I joyfully absorbed the beauty and variety of miles and miles of wonderful Wyoming as we anticipated the fun. The landscape offered frequent glimpses of our Cowboy State’s wild game, and we enjoyed the happy singing of many birds. Wending our way across the miles in Debs’ smooth-traveling air-conditioned vehicle reminded me why so many tourists chose to visit and vacation here. I couldn’t help reminiscing about how different travel was when our forbears first saw Wyoming!

Region 1, Campbell, Crook and Weston counties, was well represented with cowboy honorees this year. WCHOF members from the other counties across our state were also en route to Casper, to represent their nominees, whose names had been selected for 2025 induction. 

Deb and I were privileged to be “ranch raised” in Weston County. We both realize the special honor it is to have generations of our family members nominated and chosen (from among so many nominated statewide each year) for induction into the very select group of honorees. Our Wyoming homeland builds and teaches strength, self-confidence, stamina, honesty and the meaning of a firm handshake to all her children — just one more thing we are grateful for.

The ever-changing views from Debs’ car windows were brightened by autumn colors. Wildlife was frequently glimpsed. A tang of fall freshness raced on the breezes that rustled leaves and bent evergreen branches in some areas. The parking lot at our host hotel was crowded when we arrived, and wheeled-luggage conveyances were being pushed or pulled across the parking lot and entering the wide automatic double door into the lobby, elevators and guest rooms. I enjoyed a quiet chuckle pondering what the ancestors and forbears we’re there to induct into WCHOF would’ve thought if they could see us now! They’d be justified in wondering if we could’ve ever kept up with them in their day.

I quickly acknowledged to myself and God that, “I certainly couldn’t, soft as I’ve grown since moving off the ranch!” while happily placing my small overnight bag and a change of clothes on hangers inside a plastic zipper cover on that smoothly rolling conveyance. I appreciated each convenience as I followed Deb through automatic doors into the lobby, thence an elevator and down a carpeted hall into our climate-controlled room. My mind was silently admitting to my conscience, “The fault lies wholly within my own indolence!”

Every Sedgwick and Coy ancestor in my pedigree would, of course, be shocked to see how I’ve let their bloodlines decline in strength and vigor! A whispered “Pure laziness! Disgusting!” bounced around inside my skull. Thankfully, the cheerful greetings of other arriving cowboys and cowgirls and their family members sidetracked those thoughts — a crack I was more than eager to disappear into and a shade I could conveniently pull across those guilty and painful acknowledgments. I wasted no time doing exactly that!

Deb and I enjoyed Ramkota Inn’s delicious food and restful sleep hospitality for a night and day, then her cowboy father Sammy Sewell was inducted as Weston County’s 2025 honoree. The presence of Deb’s extended family made the experience even sweeter for us all — topped off by generational family photos being taken to record the joyful honor. Knowing that Sammy is the third generation of Deb’s family to be inducted is surely the best part of all! We both love the wide variety of Wyoming’s beautiful scenery and glimpses of wildlife, and Deb driving home on a different route than the one we took going to Casper further enhanced our experience. Long live Wyoming and her cowboys!