Obituary recalls Sandy Wasmuth’s ranch roots, UW years and Laramie life

Sandy Wasmuth’s life followed a Wyoming path familiar to many Albany County families: ranch country childhood, a move to Laramie for the University of Wyoming, marriage, work, and decades of community ties. She died May 20, 2026, at age 82, after a life that carried her from Newcastle and Clareton into the daily rhythm of Laramie bank counters and family life.

Born Aug. 5, 1943, in Newcastle to Clarence and Marjorie Cotton, Sandy was the youngest of three children. She grew up on a ranch in Clareton and attended school in Newcastle from kindergarten through 12th grade. As a child, she loved being outdoors, catching frogs and caring for her pet duck, details that fit the ranch-country upbringing that shaped her early years. She graduated from Newcastle High School in May 1961, then moved to Laramie that fall to attend the University of Wyoming, where she planned to study art education.

The campus she entered was still relatively small by modern standards. The University of Wyoming, Wyoming’s only university, had been founded in 1886 and first admitted students in fall 1887. Its fall 1961-62 enrollment was 4,344 students, placing Sandy among a generation of young women whose college years helped broaden the state’s professional and civic life.

College also changed the course of her personal life. While attending UW, Sandy met Eddie Wasmuth, and the two eloped on Dec. 9, 1961. They spent 60 years together before Eddie died July 21, 2022, at age 82, at the Hospice House of Laramie. Eddie was born Jan. 30, 1940, in West Point, Nebraska, and his family later spent time in Minnesota before settling in Laramie. Sandy and Eddie raised three children, Bob Wasmuth of Cimarron, Kansas, Debbie Fisher and Jim Wasmuth, both of Laramie.

Sandy did not finish her art degree, but she found a long professional home in banking. She worked 35 years before retiring from First Interstate Bank, where she especially enjoyed operating the proof machine and talking with customers. First Interstate traces its Wyoming roots to 1968, when Homer Scott Sr. bought the Bank of Commerce in Sheridan, a reminder that Sandy’s career unfolded inside one of the state’s homegrown institutions.

She is survived by her three children, three grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Services were held May 29 at Laramie Valley Chapel, and memorial gifts were suggested for Laramie Hospice House or the Laramie Soup Kitchen. In Albany County, where the digital archives preserve records going back to 1865 and the Albany County Historical Society dates to 1931, Sandy Wasmuth’s story lands as part of the county’s living record.