Save O'Bryan Memorial - Univ of WY

Lowell O'Bryan was a student at the University of Wyoming in the 1920s. During a student-sponsored event in 1922, he was killed while pulling a bucking horse away from a group of classmates, thus ensuring their safety.  UW's small number of faculty and students at that time made the death of one of their own an especially heartbreaking event.  To commemorate O'Bryan, his classmates raised the money needed to build a native stone fountain.  Over the years, the monument has been a place of rest and reflection.

Now, more than 90 years later, the monument is in need of repair.  And it needs a plaque to explain its significance.  Currently the monument is a mystery to anyone who passes it.  There is nothing to explain its meaning except for a bronze plaque placed by his classmates that reads, "He gave himself to insure the safety of others."

Funds will be used to powerwash, stain, and seal the stone monument and to repair mortar.  Funds will also allow for a plaque that tells O'Bryan's story and why the monument exists.

It seems only natural that a group of students at the University of Wyoming carry forward the commemoration of O'Bryan funded by their predecessors.  That's what a group of students in a 2015 First-Year Seminar are attempting to do.  The story of Lowell O'Bryan is a part of UW history that is virtually untold.  We want to remedy that situation and tell this young man's story.