Walter C. Urbigkit Jr. (November 9, 1927 October 31, 2011) was a member of the

Wyoming House of Representatives The Wyoming House of Representatives is the lower house of the Wyoming Legislature, Wyoming State Legislature. There are 62 Representatives in the House, representing an equal number of single-member constituent districts across the Wyoming, st ...

for

Laramie, Wyoming Laramie () is a List of municipalities in Wyoming, city in and the county seat of Albany County, Wyoming, United States, known for its high elevation at , for its railroad history, and as the home of the University of Wyoming. The population wa ...

, as a

Democrat Democrat, Democrats, or Democratic may refer to: Politics *A proponent of democracy, or democratic government; a form of government involving rule by the people. *A member of a Democratic Party: **Democratic Party (Cyprus) (DCY) **Democratic Part ...

from 1973 to 1985, including two years as minority leader, and later a justice of the

Wyoming Supreme Court The Wyoming Supreme Court is the highest court in the U.S. state of Wyoming. The Court consists of a Chief Justice and four Associate Justices. Each Justice is appointed by the Governor of Wyoming from a list of three nominees submitted by the ...

from November 1, 1985, to January 1993, serving as chief justice from 1991 to 1993. Urbigkit lost his bid for a second term in a retention election in November 1992. In 1987, Urbigkit was credited by the

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for advancing the use of the word "conclusory" in jurisprudence. Born in Burris, Wyoming to Walter C. and Bertha (Miller) Urbigkit, he graduated from Fremont County Vocational High School in 1945,Wyoming State Archives page on Walter C. Urbigkit, Jr.
/ref> and then received a

B.A. A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree ...

from the

University of Wyoming The University of Wyoming (UW) is a Public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Laramie, Wyoming, United States. It was founded in March 1886, four years before the territory was admitted as the 44th state, ...

in 1949; he won the university's Distinguished Alumni of the Year Award in 1992.University of Wyoming Alumni Association
He received a J.D. from the

University of Wyoming College of Law A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Uni ...

in 1951, and served in the

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during the

Korean War The Korean War (25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953) was an armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula fought between North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea; DPRK) and South Korea (Republic of Korea; ROK) and their allies. North Korea was s ...

. He then served as an attorney in the United States Veterans Administration from 1953 to 1955, when he left government to open a private law practice in Cheyenne.

References

Members of the Wyoming House of Representatives Justices of the Wyoming Supreme Court American jurists University of Wyoming alumni 2011 deaths Place of birth missing 1927 births Chief justices of the Wyoming Supreme Court 20th-century American judges 20th-century members of the Wyoming Legislature {{Wyoming-state-judge-stub