UWyo MagazineDr. Wayne E. Wingfield

September 2015 | Vol. 17, No. 1


UW Distinguished Alumnus

Dr. Wayne E. WingfieldWayne E. Wingfield is a well known specialist in veterinary emergency and critical care medicine. He started this journey by earning a B.S. in zoology and physiology (’64) and an M.S. in entomology (’66).

He spent his career as a professor of medicine and chief of emergency and critical care medicine at the Colorado State University Veterinary Teaching Hospital. He has served in numerous professional organizations and published extensively in scientific literature. In 2000, he was selected as an Outstanding Faculty Member at Colorado State University. He retired in 2001.

Wingfield reflects back on why he chose to attend school at UW and how that choice shaped his life. He grew up in Los Alamos, N.M. “That’s where the atomic bombs were built, and my family was there from the beginning,” he explains. As a result of so many bright, scientific minds clustered in one community, it isn’t surprising the high school would have an excellent science program. One of his teachers was a wrestling coach with connections to UW who thought young Wingfield could get a scholarship there. He introduced his student to the UW coach, and Wingfield made a campus visit.

Wingfield says that even from the start, he loved the faculty and the small classes, and calls the quality of education at UW “beyond belief.” When students ask him where they should go to school, he tells them UW. “Wyoming students are often the best students: They have a great work ethic, they are polite, they are prepared. I’ve never been exposed to a Wyoming student who was not going to make it in the profession,” he adds.

Wingfield recalls the moment at UW that made him decide he wanted to go into teaching. It was in the classroom of none other than Professor Samuel Knight. “He had a way of showing up 10 minutes late to his first lecture. He walked in late and sauntered up to the board and picked up the chalk and drew a perfect circle. He got our attention and kept our attention. That pushed me toward being an academic, to teach in a manner that I could make an impact.”

The Wyoming weather made an impact on this young man from New Mexico at first, but he says he learned to love it and found out that 30 below zero is “no big deal.” He has long kept a cabin in Boulder, Wyo., from which he was en route when the call came from President Dick McGinity informing him of the award.

“Needless to say, I was speechless. This is very meaningful for me.”

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