History is being celebrated at the University of Wyoming through a new faculty fellowship named in honor of Professor emeritus and Wyoming’s preeminent historian, Phil Roberts.
The fellowship will allow future historians to dedicate their time to teaching and presenting about Wyoming’s rich Western past, something Roberts did in a way that appealed to a wide audience.
“We couldn't be more thrilled because we've been trying to get this done for about 15 or 20 years, and it's finally come to fruition,” Jeffrey Means, the current chair of UW’s Department of History and an associate professor, told Cowboy State Daily. “We couldn't be more thrilled.”
It was an anonymous donation followed by a match from the state of Wyoming that made it possible to finally establish the long-awaited Phil Roberts Faculty Fellowship in Wyoming History and the West.
“Phil’s legacy is the literally tens of thousands of students who've taken his classes over the years and who grew to love history in Wyoming,” Means said.
The faculty fellowship, UW staff say, is a recognition of Roberts’ passion to share the complex past of the Cowboy State.
The Beloved Professor
Roberts literally wrote the book on Wyoming history before even joining the faculty at UW. “Wyoming Alamac,” co-authored with his brothers David and Steven in 1989, is now it it’s eight edition and hosted online.
The rest, as they say, is history.
In 1990, he joined the Department of History and taught thousands of students during his tenure. He also traveled the state and has given hundreds of presentations, sharing his passion for Wyoming and its rich Western heritage.
Means first witnessed this enthusiasm Roberts has for teaching history on “Stump the Professor Day” at the end of the semester.
He was shocked when he saw Roberts dressed up in a robe and a tartar cap made of wool atop his head. Roberts grinned at Means as he marched into class. Once there, students could ask him any question about the history of Wyoming, and if Roberts was stumped, would get a prize.
“I believe that he was stumped less than five times in his entire career,” Means said. “He really just enjoyed what he did, and he made it wonderful for his students.”
Roberts had joined a long-distinguished group of historians that have taught Wyoming history over the years at UW. Means said Roberts didn't just teach classes, research and write history. He experienced Wyoming.
“He got out everywhere,” Means said. “He has done more for the state of Wyoming as far as maintaining and uncovering its history than any one individual ever.”
Through his website, presentations and articles, Roberts had made it so that anyone can access the stories about Wyoming history from the present day all the way back before the fur trappers.
It’s His History, Too
Roberts not only has taught Wyoming history, he and his family have lived it on a ranch in Hat Creek country near Lusk.
When Roberts was a child, he remembers driving to Lusk from his family’s ranch, he told Cowboy State Daily’s Wendy Corr in 2023.
In the summertime, his folks would sometimes stop on the way to town at the ruts that marked the route of the old Cheyenne-Deadwood Stage Line and have a picnic.
“I remember my legs were so short that they wouldn’t reach down to the bottom of the ruts,” Roberts said. “And that’s what started getting me fascinated with Western history.”
Since that first spark of interest, Roberts has spent a lifetime researching and relaying the stories of his home state as a teacher, author and a speaker.
Although born in Lusk, Roberts and his family did not stay there.
From there, they moved to Torrington, then later to Thermopolis, Worland and Cody, where he graduated from high school in 1966. From there, he attended college at Northwest in Powell before getting drafted into the Marine Corps.
When he returned from duty, he chose to finish out his undergraduate career at the University of Wyoming, where he earned a law degree in 1977.
“I was self-employed at my own law firm,” said Roberts. “I practiced in Medicine Bow, in Laramie and in Cheyenne, mostly natural resources (law).”
As much as the law career interested him, the cases that really captured Roberts’ attention were the ones that required historical research.
“I was doing some research for a legal case once in the State Archives and Katherine Halverson, who was the director of the State Archives, noticed my interest and she said, ‘Have you ever thought about switching careers to history?’” Roberts recalled. “And I laughed and I said, ‘I don’t think I’d ever do that.’ And she said, ‘Well, think about it. We have a job opening here and you might find it interesting.’”
Roberts did find it interesting – so much so that he took the job and worked the next five years as a research historian at the Wyoming State Archives.
That job, and a move to Washington state, set him on the path to earn a Ph.D. in history at the University of Washington in Seattle in 1990.]
The Importance Of History
Roberts’ advice to his students and friends has been to “walk the walk and see what people do.”
This saying captured his belief in the power of firsthand experience and deep engagement with history. To Roberts, it is important to know Wyoming history because it influences the decisions that are made even today.
“Our history is a living thing,” Means said. “Originally, Wyoming was the place you went through to get someplace better and part of the great American desert.”
The Oregon Trail went through Wyoming which was just the pass-through state for immigrants to get to their final destination. This does not diminish the importance of Wyoming’s history or its significance to the building of America and to the indigenous people that were here before.
“Wyoming is the perfect state and the perfect history to remind the United States of how it came to be and what was here before,” Means said.
The Fellowship
The new Phil Roberts faculty fellowship will be used to promote this history and further study of Wyoming. In six years, it will total $250,000 and the interest, about $10,000 to $12,000 a year, will be used to fund a faculty member in the history department.
The money also will be used by the faculty fellow for a variety of purposes dedicated to Wyoming history. This includes research, travel to put on symposiums, travel around the state and opportunities to give talks to communities.
“It will provide the funds and the time to really focus on Wyoming history,” Means said. “And Wyoming’s place within not only Western history, but also U.S. history and even global history.”
As the fellowship fund matures to help the next historian on their journey, Roberts own work on preserving history continues. In his retirement, he continues to write and promote the Wyoming history he has dedicated his life to.
Contact Jackie Dorothy at jackie@cowboystatedaily.com
Jackie Dorothy can be reached at jackie@cowboystatedaily.com.
