Alan K. Simpson graduated from the University of Wyoming
with a B.S. in history in 1954 and a JD in 1958 before embarking on a
remarkable political career.
After serving as Wyoming's assistant attorney general, Cody city
attorney and United States commissioner, Simpson was elected in 1964 to the
Wyoming House of Representatives. He was majority whip, majority floor leader
and speaker pro tempore in the House of Representatives before being elected in
1978 to the U.S. Senate. In Simpson's 18 years in the Senate (1979-1997), he
served 10 years as Republican whip and was the chairman of the Senate Committee
on Veterans' Affairs.
After retiring following his third senate term, Simpson went
on to teach as a visiting lecturer at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy
School of Government before returning to his hometown of Cody. He has continued
to be involved at UW, serving on several boards and committees.
In 2006, Simpson was asked to be a member of the Iraq Study
Group, a panel appointed by the U.S. Congress to assess the current situation
in Iraq and the Iraq War. In 2010, President Barack Obama asked Simpson to
co-chair the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.
Also, Simpson is the author of Right in the Old Gazoo: A Lifetime of Scrapping
with the Press, written upon his retirement from the U.S. Senate.
Photo courtesy of UW Photo Services.
