Research, mentorship, teaching and management all contributed to Laramie’s Bill Hepworth being inducted to the Pronghorn Hall of Fame.
Hepworth’s noteworthy involvement with the Cowboy State’s trademark big game animal stems from his 38-year career with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department and serving as an adjunct professor at the University of Wyoming.
“Bill’s really the ‘Dean of Pronghorn’ in Wyoming,” says Rich Guenzel, retired Game and Fish wildlife biologist. “From his contributions to many pronghorn research projects to helping solve handling and rearing pronghorn in captivity for research, Bill has an impressive and extensive pronghorn resume’.”
Hepworth started his game and Fish career in 1956 as a fish biologist, but served the bulk of his career directing the Game and Fish Laboratory and research. From 1987 to his retirement in January 1995, he served as the wildlife management coordinator or head biologist for southeast Wyoming.
In the nomination letter, Guenzel cited Hepworth for conducting several major pronghorn research projects in the Red Desert in the 1960s and 1970s that “are considered classic studies … and provide baseline for current and future research in the state.” Hepworth coauthored the department’s publication Abundance, Distribution and Food Habits of the Pronghorn with Chuck Sundstrom and Ken Diem in 1973, which is still widely cited.
“This was quite an unexpected honor,” Hepworth said. “But there’s a lot of other people in Wyoming that also should be recognized for their pronghorn efforts over the years.”
Guenzel also cites Hepworth for helping many UW wildlife graduate students with his mentoring and constructive editing. Hepworth also helped instruct two undergraduate wildlife management classes at UW.
Hepworth is an Afton, Wyoming native who also earned his college degrees from UW: a bachelor’s in wildlife management and a master’s researching the ecology of two distinct brook trout populations in the Snowy Range. He has been an official Boone and Crockett Club records program scorer since 1962 and continues to actively score big and trophy game at 85 years of age.
Since the Western States and Provinces Pronghorn Workshop established the hall of fame in 2002, Hepworth is only the seventh inductee. Guenzel is also a member of the hall of fame, being inducted in 2010. He was cited for pioneering pronghorn aerial survey techniques.
