Bill Waneka remembers well the circumstances that ultimately led to what he calls his “Stock Show disease.”
In the late 1960s, Bill had a 4-H youth agent by the name of Chuck Sylvester who invited him to work as a livestock superintendent at the Colorado State Fair. Attending one of the fair’s rodeo performances, Bill fatefully took a seat behind Charlie Kirk, livestock superintendent for the National Western.
When Charlie asked why he’d never worked Stock Show, Bill responded frankly that he’d never been asked.
“Charlie turned around,” Bill reflects, “and says to me; ‘you’re hired.’”
Waneka has spent much of the nearly 50 years since that conversation dedicating a great deal of his time and talents to the National Western Stock Show. In recognition of his numerous contributions, the Red Meat Club of Denver will recognize Bill as the 2018 recipient of the Friend of the National Western Award this January.
Bill was born and raised on the Waneka family’s centennial farm located just east of Lafayette, CO. While acknowledging that he played on Lafayette High’s 1965 state champion football team and was an all-state selection himself, he notes humbly that the coach only let him play positions where he couldn’t actually touch the football.
Those who know Bill know how devoted he is to his parents, his father Chuck—who Bill describes as his “mentor and best friend”—and his late mother Lois, who passed away in 2016 after 70 years of marriage. The Waneka family farmed and ran a dairy during Bill’s youth. After high school Bill attended nearby Colorado State University, graduating with a degree in Agricultural Economics and Animal Science.
While he and a couple classmates started a commodity trading firm in Fort Collins for a few years right out of college at Colorado State University (CSU), it wasn’t long until he got the itch to return to farming.
“My biggest trouble with an office job was trying to decide what to wear to work every morning,” Bill laughs. “So, I went back to farming.”
Around the same time, Bill’s association with Stock Show began to grow. While he worked as a livestock superintendent and began volunteering with the Junior Auction committee in the mid-1970s, perhaps his most lasting mark began when he took the reins of the National Western Catch-a-Calf program. Bill led the program for 35 years, and continues to serve both as a committee member and annual participant sponsor.
Bill moved to a place west of Wheatland, WY in 2000, leaving a lingering drought and the headaches of urban encroachment behind. He worked various jobs, serving perhaps most notably for a number of years as a substitute at Wheatland High, teaching everything from vocational agriculture to science to, yes, even band and choir. Although a knee replacement last year has kept him close to home of late, Bill is also a partner in Trout Camp, a guided fishing and hunting destination getaway in remote northeastern Saskatchewan.
Bill notes that an added benefit to living in Wyoming is being a little bit closer to his daughter Molly and her family, who reside in Buffalo in the northcentral part of the state. A CSU graduate herself, Molly and her husband John, a product of the University of Wyoming College of Law, keep busy raising Bill’s four grandkids, who range in age from one to eight. And as if to demonstrate how resilient traditions can be, Molly today stays busy as co-superintendent of the Catch-a-Calf program.
Most Red Meat Club attendees would likely agree with Bill’s diagnosis that Stock Show can easily become a “disease,” albeit one that nobody’s in a hurry to remedy.
Those wishing to celebrate the affliction are invited to attend and honor Bill at this year’s Red Meat Club dinner, to be held on Thursday, January 11, 2018, as always in the National Western Club. This year’s featured speaker is CSU Executive Vice Chancellor Amy Parsons, who will speak about CSU’s exciting partnership in the National Western Center. Those interested should contact Anneliese Phippen at (303) 299-5556 to see if reservations are still available. — WLJ
