EVANSTON — Lifetime rancher Ida “Kaye” Harvey Sadlier of Robertson will be inducted into the Class of 2024 Wyoming Cowboy Hall of Fame (WCHF) on Oct. 11 -12 in Casper. Sadlier will join 22 other inductees from across the state at the ceremony. Regional committees in ten different areas of Wyoming researched and scored more htan 50 nominations and sent the top picks to the WCHF State Board of Directors. The state board also selected several nominees.

Carol Hamilton and Deanna Behunin, who also ranch near Robertson, nominated Sadlier.

“We thought she deserved this award because, throughout her life, she has worked on the ranch; first with her father and now with her son,” Hamilton said.

“She well deserves this award,” Behunin said. “She has ranched all her life and is dedicated to it; she rode the range and helped with everything about the cattle. We’ve all done some of the ranch work but she does it all and we felt she deserved to be honored. We were happy to nominate her.”

Formed for historical, cultural, literary and educational purposes, WCHF’s chief goal is “To preserve, promote, perpetuate, publish and document Wyoming’s working cowboy and ranching history through researching, profiling and honoring individuals who broke the first trails and introduced that culture to this state. WCHF plans to collect, display and preserve the stories, photos and artifacts of such individuals and anything else that will honor and highlight their contributions to our history.”

“I am overwhelmed by it all,” Sadlier said. “I will be joining outstanding company who were earlier inducted — my father Harold Harvey and my uncle Bert Harvey. My whole family will be at the ceremony with me. It was so sweet of Deanna and Carol to nominate me.”

Sadlier was born March 9, 1943, raised on a ranch near Robertson and attended school in Mountain View. Her daughter, Vicki Widiker, wrote in the nomination letter that Kaye’s true love are her horses. Her father bred and raised colts and Kaye and her sister Juanita would help train them. While still in elementary school, the two girls would spend their summer days riding their horses several miles from their home to watch over the calves and lambs to make sure coyotes didn’t get them. The girls also rode their horses several miles every morning to catch the school bus.

Widiker said when her mom and dad married, they moved away from the ranch but they still had horses. Kaye and Ike Sadlier participated in rodeos in Wyoming and Utah, with Ike calf roping and Kaye barrel racing and later team roping with her father.

In 1974, the couple moved back to the family ranch in Robertson and Sadlier worked with her father in the daily operation of the cattle ranch.

“No matter what needed to be done, whether it was holding a bull out in the field to be doctored, roping calves in the branding corral or hauling sick calves across your saddle back to the house, Kaye had confidence in her horses to take care of the job,” Widiker wrote about her mother in the nomination letter.

When her father retired in 1994, Kaye and her son, Bob, took over operation of the ranch and at 80 years of age, Kaye still helps her son with the daily duties of a rancher. When she broke her pelvis several years ago, the first question she asked her orthopedic surgeon was how long before she could ride a horse again and it wasn’t long before she was back on a horse helping her son on the ranch.

“These days on the ranch, I feel very lucky to still be able to ride and help my son,” Sadlier said. “I rode yesterday to move the cows up to the old homestead place and tomorrow we will move more cows and brand and vaccinate calves.”