By Micaela Myers
In 2010, Wyoming became the first state to adopt James Owen's Cowboy Ethics as its official state code. Not long after, the Associated Students of the University of Wyoming urged UW to follow suit. Soon, UW not only adopted the ethics but joined forces with Owen's nonprofit Center for Cowboy Ethics and Leadership to offer a leadership curriculum using the Code of the West as the organizing concept.
"The job of education isn't to turn out wiz kids who can go straight into management training; it's to help produce well-rounded citizens who make positive contributions to our society," Owen, the author of Cowboy Ethics, says. "Wyoming is the Cowboy State, and I think it's only fitting that UW was the first school of higher learning to embrace the Code of the West."
Whether it's counseling women and children in need, helping students succeed, conducting research or countless other things large and small, the people of UW exemplify the Cowboy Ethics, impacting the state and beyond each and everyday. To illustrate the ethics at work, UWyo Magazine interviewed 10 students, staff, faculty and alumni—not the most well-known or lauded but everyday people who are making an impact, who represent the thousands of others working hard to make a difference.
