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 State Legislature. There are 60 Representatives in the House, representing an equal number of single-member constituent districts across the state, each with a population of ...

for

Laramie, Wyoming Laramie is a city in and the county seat of Albany County, Wyoming, United States. The population was estimated 32,711 in 2019, making it the third-largest city in Wyoming after Cheyenne and Casper. Located on the Laramie River in southeastern ...

, 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 (United States) (D) **Democratic ...

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 supreme court, 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 sub ...

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. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

from the

University of Wyoming The University of Wyoming (UW) is a public land-grant research university in Laramie, Wyoming. It was founded in March 1886, four years before the territory was admitted as the 44th state, and opened in September 1887. The University of Wyoming ...

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 The University of Wyoming College of Law is the law school of the University of Wyoming and the only law school located in Wyoming. It is situated in the Rocky Mountains in Laramie, Wyoming at 7,165 ft. between the Laramie Mountains and Snowy ...

in 1951, and served in the

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during the

Korean War , date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...

. He then served as an attorney in the

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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 {{Wyoming-state-judge-stub