Wyoming Welcomes Roberts as Newest Circuit Court Judge

• Citation: Vol. 28 No. 2 Pg. 7
• Publication year: 2005
• Pages: 7
• Year: 2005
• topic: Business of Law

Wyoming Bar Journal 2005.

Vol. 28, No. 2 #7 (April 2005). Wyoming Welcomes Roberts as Newest Circuit Court Judge

WYOMING LAWYER
April 2005/Vol. XXVIII, No. 2

Wyoming Welcomes Roberts as Newest Circuit Court Judge

By Mary Angell

If it weren't for his friends' and family's confidence in him, Wyoming's new Ninth Judicial District Circuit Court judge might be wielding a hammer today instead of a gavel

As a young man, Wesley Roberts wanted to be a carpenter. He never imagined himself as a judge.

"My whole career, people have seen my potential and seen the possibilities before I did," he told the Wyoming Lawyer recently. "I did great academically in high school, but growing up in a blue collar family, I didn't see myself having a white collar profession."

He recalls wanting to drop chemistry class in high school. He just wanted to be a carpenter, he told the teacher, who refused to let him drop the class and advised him to consider all his possibilities.

"I stayed in chemistry class and graduated from high school," Roberts said. "I had no plans to go to college, so I hadn't pursued a scholarship. I was going to go to work and build houses."

Then his mother suggested he look into a scholarship she had discovered.

So Roberts ended up going to the University of Wyoming and graduating with honors in 1981 with a degree in marketing. Even as a college graduate, he stayed true to his roots and, like his father, went into the oil and gas industry. He worked for three...