Mel Stonehouse

Early spring in Wyoming is a time when ranchers and cowboys are up to their armpits in mud and muck, feeding winter weary stock, pitching ice busted from water tanks and trying to keep first-calf heifers paired up with their newborns. It is hard, dirty, brutal work and there should be a hall of fame for it.

Actually, there is. And in the spring the new class of inductees is named for the Wyoming Cowboy Hall of Fame. Nominations run from December through late February. Those nominations can be made by anyone who fills out an online application form. The nominations are separated into 10 regions, each about two counties, where committees research and score the applications in the area they call home.

The state board of directors votes on the applications in early May. There are 41 inductees for 2020. Plans were for an induction ceremony in September; instead it was postponed until Sept. 11, 2021. It will be held at Little America Hotel and Resort in Cheyenne, in conjunction with the 2021 class induction. Each inductee will be honored, and the 2021 induction will be held Sept. 12.

Park County inductees for 2020, to be celebrated in 2021, are Mel Stonehouse, Robert Earl Curtis and Dale Sims.

Mel Stonehouse was born in April 1912, at Oak Creek, Colorado, south of Steamboat Springs. His father froze to death in a 1915 blizzard and Stonehouse was sent to a Denver orphanage. At age 7, he fled the orphanage and wandered from ranch to ranch, working to survive. His quest for survival led him to Tijuana, Mexico, where he was working as a jockey until C.B. Irwin met him and brought him to his ranch near Horse Creek, northwest of Cheyenne, where Stonehouse learned to ride broncs.

At 15 he entered his first rodeo, but an injury soon after sent him to live with and work for stock contractor Ed McCarty, near Chugwater. After he was on his feet, Stonehouse did ranch work and trained remount horses for the U.S. Army for the next 10 years.

But rodeo kept calling his name, a name already recognized on the circuit. Rodeo took him to England and Australia and he was later injured at Cody Stampede Rodeo. He recovered with the Tom Knight family, and while there met Irene Way, who would become his wife. They married in 1940.

Stonehouse worked for Knight, then the J Bar 9, both near Cody. While packing for hunters, Stonehouse fell in love with the mountains. In 1949, Stonehouse took over the trail ride and outfitting at Pahaska Tepee near the East Entrance of Yellowstone National Park. He built a hunting and fishing outfitting business and in that capacity guided both Roy Rogers and Col. Jimmy Doolittle.

In 1950, Stonehouse suffered a broken leg that never healed properly. It pained him for more than 30 years and was finally amputated. Stonehouse never stopped riding, even after he sold his hunting interests. He fed, doctored, gathered and branded cattle from horseback, never slowed by his prosthesis. Stonehouse ran yearlings and cow-calf pairs at a small ranch outside Cody until cancer claimed him in 1989.

“He was a character,” his granddaughter Yancy Bonner wrote. “A small man, he was wiry and strong, a fighter and true friend to those he loved. He had a wonderful sense of humor, loved animals and doted on his grandchildren. He dealt with ... adversity ...but overcame it to become a top rodeo cowboy, a fine hand and a beloved father and grandfather.”

Dale Sims was born in 1937 at Greybull. He married Bonnie Coguill in 1955 and in 1957 went to the TE Ranch near Cody. His days on horseback took him to the Belknap Ranch, Diamond Bar and Stire’s Cattle Co. He retired in 2002, but still spends his time helping neighbors and friends with their ranching operations.

Robert Earl Curtis was born near Meeteetse in 1931 to ranchers Chuck and Edith Curtis. He grew up working with his father on the Pitchfork Ranch and learned horse shoeing and training and was a good roper by the time he was 11.

Curtis married Frances Hamby and continued to work on the Pitchfork while he continued to learn the craft of ranching from his father.  The family moved to Big Timber, Montana, leasing a ranch along the Boulder River. They returned to Park County and ran Herefords on the W Bar Ranch. In 1963 the family bought the Two Dot near Cody and raised Angus cattle and American quarter horses.

His daughter recalled her father rising each day at 4 a.m., often working until dark every day of the week.

After the family sold the Two Dot, Earl and Frances Curtis bought a horse ranch on the South Fork and worked on the 711 and the Diamond Bar as well. Even after suffering a stroke, Curtis continued to ride and teach his grandchildren to ride and care for horses. He passed away in 2013.

It could be said that the way these men lived their lives, always working hard and looking for the next adventure, is a true illustration of the cowboy way.

The nomination includes qualifications. It notes the hall of fame honors cowgirls, too, and living nominees must be at least 65, although special circumstances may apply. Posthumous nominations are accepted, but any nominee must have logged 45 years in the saddle. Groups, such as families, siblings, husband and wife, may be nominated, but every member of the group has to meet all the stipulations.

Nominees don’t have to be Wyoming natives, but must have spent most of their working life here. Ranch ownership is not required, but rodeo alone will not qualify a nominee. He or she must have been a working cowboy.

Two or three good photos may be included for use at the induction ceremony.

If a nomination is complete but the nominee is not selected for inclusion in the application year, the nomination automatically rolls over to the next year.

The goal of the Wyoming Cowboy Hall of Fame is to preserve, publish and document the working cowboys of Wyoming. It researches, profiles and honors both those who first brought the culture to the state and those who continue to live the life in spite of its demands.

“WCHF plans to collect, display and preserve the stories, photos and artifacts of such individuals and anything else that will honor and highlight their contributions to our history,” the website reads.