Riding for the Brand

 

Distinguished Alumna Maggie Scarlett embodies the Wyoming values of service and philanthropy.

 

When Maggie Scarlett speaks of “Riding for the Brand,” her voice carries conviction. For this 2025 Distinguished Alumna, the brand isn’t just UW — it’s the entire state that shaped her family for generations and launched her into a life of extraordinary service. 

“We particularly resonate with that part of the cowboy ethics that says, ‘Ride for the Brand,’” Scarlett says. “Wyoming and the University of Wyoming have provided us with a foundation for so much of what we have been able to accomplish in our lives.” 

Born in Cody, Scarlett is Wyoming through and through. Her family settled in northwestern Wyoming in the late 1800s, building lives as ranchers, farmers, small-business owners and educators. Her parents graduated from UW in 1935, establishing a family tradition that continues today. “It was always very clear to my brothers and me that indeed we would be Cowboys,” Scarlett says. 

At her father’s businesses, the young Scarlett learned the value of hard work and community investment. “We all were involved in the family business enterprises,” she says. This formative experience would later inform her own business acumen. 

Scarlett discovered her calling early in her college career: “I took an introductory course to speech correction. It just became clear that that was the career I was going to pursue and enjoy.” She earned her bachelor’s degree in speech-language and hearing sciences from UW in 1963. But UW gave Scarlett more than a profession — it gave her the arts. A freshman survey course launched her lifelong passion for supporting art museums and cultural institutions. 

It also was at UW where she met her future husband, Dick Scarlett — at the freshman steak fry, where they were both wearing the traditional brown freshman beanies. “As I always say, seven years later, we rushed into marriage,” she laughs. 

After earning her master’s in audiology and speech pathology from Colorado State University, she worked for over 20 years as a speech-language pathologist in both medical and educational settings across Wyoming, Colorado and Utah. Her rural Wyoming experience would later drive her philanthropic efforts to strengthen UW’s speech-language pathology program. 

 

“I loved working with clients, with patients and particularly with children,” she says. “Language is really such a defining part of our persona, our personality. It provides us with a vehicle to accomplish so much. To make a difference in someone’s life in that way has always been so meaningful to me.”

While building her clinical career, Scarlett also served as director, vice president and secretary of United Bancorporation of Wyoming — the state’s largest financial institution at the time — and later participated in the management of Webster Motors after her father’s passing. 
In Jackson, Scarlett played a pivotal role in establishing the National Museum of Wildlife Art. As a founding member in 1987, she helped transform an ambitious vision into reality, serving on the board for over two decades, including a term as president from 2001–03. 

“I love Western art — that makes sense, because I grew up right across the street from the Buffalo Bill Center of the West,” she says. The Whitney Western Art Museum became her “backyard,” fostering an appreciation for landscapes that “resonated with my feelings about Wyoming and the West.” She has also served in leadership roles for the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, the Whitney Western Art Museum and the McCracken Research Library, as well as serving on the boards of the University of Wyoming Art Museum and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. In 2002, she was appointed by President George W. Bush to the board of the Institute of Museum and Library Services. 

Perhaps nowhere is Scarlett’s commitment to “Riding for the Brand” more evident than in her transformative philanthropy to UW. She and Dick have established multiple endowed chairs, funded critical programs, and supported infrastructure improvements that have elevated the university’s reputation and capabilities. They established the Maggie Scarlett Summer Speaker Series, the Maggie and Dick Scarlett Excellence Fund in Speech-Language Pathology, and funding for the UW Speech and Hearing Clinic relocation to Mountain View Medical Park. 

In 2004, Scarlett received a Distinguished Alumnus Award from the College of Arts and Sciences, and in 2018, she received an honorary doctorate from UW. Maggie and Dick have three children and eight grandchildren — the fourth generation of Cowboys in the family. “The most important chapter of my life is my family,” Scarlett says. 

U.S. Sen. Alan Simpson, a longtime friend from Cody, captured Scarlett’s essence in his nomination letter: “Maggie Scarlett is truly a living symbol of everything that makes the University of Wyoming great. Her exemplary life’s work embodies the spirit of this distinguished award.”