Wauneta native Jim DeHart, now of Albany County, Wyoming, recently received honors as Albany County’s top ranch hand.

According to the Laramie Boomerang newspaper, the Albany County Farm Bureau awarded DeHart with its Top Ranch Hand of Albany County award earlier this month. 

DeHart is the manager of the Simon Ranch near Laramie, Wyo.

“Jim is very easy to work for,” friend and coworker Raymond Leach wrote about DeHart in nominating him for the award. “He is a very knowledgeable cow person, a good cowboy, good with horses and a fair hand with a rope.”

According to the article published in the July 11 issue of the Laramie Boomerang, the Top Ranch Hand award goes to a hard working individual employed on an Albany County ranch who is knowledgeable about irrigation, care of cattle and other livestock, fencing, mechanical abilities and the multitude of other work that occurs on ranches, each year.

The idea of recognizing a hired person on a ranch was devised by the Albany County Farm Bureau in the mid-1950s. A hired person is many times the unsung hero of a ranch, according to the Albany County Farm Bureau.

DeHart, grew up in Wauneta where he started working for the Maddux Cattle Company when he was 13. He learned ranching there, and worked with cattle on weekends and school breaks to learn more. He graduated from Wauneta High School in 1990 and went to Colby Community College and earned a degree in beef management. 

In 1992, he began working full time for Maddux Cattle, where he worked for 18 years.

He moved to Wyoming in 2002.

In the fall of 2003. DeHart started putting water lines and water tanks in on the Simon Ranch, and he was instrumental in the project, Leach said. He recommended better water locations so the cattle would better graze  the pastures. DeHart does mechanical work at the ranch, and does welding, fencing, haying and other work as needed. He and his wife, LaShon, have two children. DeHart is the son of Vicky DeHart of Laramie, Wyo., and the late Bill DeHart.