The World Needs More Cowboys Celebration April 14 in Lovell

Students will learn more about the University of Wyoming, UW alumni will connect with their alma mater, and members of the public will find out more about UW’s presence in Big Horn County during a “The World Needs More Cowboys” celebration Wednesday, April 14, in Lovell.

The public is invited to the event from 5-7 p.m. at the Lovell Community Center. Free appetizers and beverages will be served.

UW President Ed Seidel will be in attendance and speak during a brief program at the celebration, highlighting the university’s efforts to boost entrepreneurism and the state’s economy, among other topics.

Sundance Wicks, assistant coach of UW’s men’s basketball team, will speak as well.

They’ll be joined by current UW students from Big Horn County -- Marissa Arnold, Mandi Jo Baxendale and Delanee Miller -- who will discuss their experiences at the state’s university.

UW faculty members and admissions representatives will be on hand to answer questions and interact with attendees on topics including the Cowboy Commitment, UW’s new merit- and need-based financial aid offerings for Wyoming high school graduates. Free UW-branded giveaway items will be available, including T-shirts to the first 50 high school students.

Additionally, UW alumnus Joseph Shumway, vice president and branch manager of Lovell’s Big Horn Federal Savings Bank, will talk about how UW helped advance his career and prepare him for his role in the community -- and what it means to him to be a UW Cowboy. Shumway is one of 24 UW alumni being featured in advertising in Wyoming newspapers and other media under the banner of “The World Needs More Cowboys -- and So Does Wyoming.”

The Big Horn County event is the 11th in a series of events planned around the state in counties where UW alumni featured in the advertising live and work. The series, interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, is resuming now that Gov. Mark Gordon has eased restrictions on public gatherings in the state.

“It’s clear that our marketing tagline, ‘The World Needs More Cowboys,’ has connected virtually with people across Wyoming. These events are about making that connection even stronger through face-to-face interaction,” says Chad Baldwin, UW’s associate vice president for marketing and communications. “It’s a great opportunity for local students to learn more about their state’s university, for alumni to connect with their alma mater and one another, and for members of the community to meet UW’s new president along with coaches, faculty and students.”

Before the April 14 evening event, Seidel, UW political science Professor Jean Garrison and the current UW students from Big Horn County are scheduled to speak to students at Lovell High School. A visit to Rocky Mountain High School is planned the morning of April 15.

Seidel began service as the university’s 28th president July 1, 2020. Before coming to UW, he was the vice president for economic development and innovation for the University of Illinois System, building and supporting programs that engage university, public and private partners -- and strengthening the links among higher education, research and business to stimulate economic development across that state.

His long record of leadership experience includes more than three years as director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he was among the original co-principal investigators for Blue Waters, a federally funded project that brought one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers to Urbana-Champaign.

Previously, he was the senior vice president for research and innovation for the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology in Moscow, Russia, in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Before that, he directed the Office of Cyberinfrastructure and led the Directorate of Mathematical and Physical Sciences as National Science Foundation assistant director. He also led the Center for Computation & Technology at Louisiana State University and directed the numerical relativity group at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute) in Germany.

Seidel received his Ph.D. in relativistic astrophysics from Yale University, earned a master’s degree in physics at the University of Pennsylvania, and received a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and physics from the College of William and Mary.