Ag industry celebration: Annual Agriculture Hall of Fame Picnic honors Wyoming ag industry’s finest
Individuals from across the state of Wyoming spent the afternoon of Aug. 13 gathered at Riverside Park in Douglas to celebrate the induction of Doug Miyamoto and Juan Reyes into the Wyoming Agriculture Hall of Fame and to recognize Neil Long as the Wyoming Ag in the Classroom (WAIC) Educator of the Year.
Hosted by Farm Credit Services of America (FCSAmerica); Clark and Associates Land Brokers LLC; the University of Wyoming (UW) College of Agriculture, Life Sciences and Natural Resources (CALSNR) and the Wyoming Livestock Roundup, the annual Wyoming Agriculture Hall of Fame Awards Picnic is a highly-anticipated summer event where producers, Wyoming ag personnel and Cowboy State delegates convene to catch up and celebrate agricultural excellence.
Wyoming Ag Hall of Fame inductees
Following a warm welcome from Clark and Associates Owner Mark McNamee, Wyoming Livestock Roundup Publisher Dennis Sun and FCSAmerica Regional Vice President of Business Development Rick Griffith, Sens. John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis (both R-WY) presented the Wyoming Agriculture Hall of Fame inductees with their awards and read from transcripts they published in the Congressional Record.
In his speech, Barrasso noted Miyamoto – a Rawlins native and UW alumnus – is “Wyoming through and through” and has been an iconic leader for the state’s agriculture industry for decades.
Miyamoto has served in a vast array of capacities for agencies and institutions including UW, the State Engineer’s Office, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service and the Wyoming Livestock Board.
In 2015, he became director of the Wyoming Department of Agriculture where he continues to serve to this day, and in 2023 he was selected to serve as president of the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture.
“Doug has long been a strong voice, a selfless advocate and a loyal friend to our agriculture producers in Wyoming,” Barrasso stated. “Doug’s dedication and service to Wyoming’s agriculture industry makes him an outstanding choice for the Wyoming Agriculture Hall of Fame.”
In acceptance of his award, Miyamoto said, “It’s a great honor to be selected for this. Over the years, I have known almost everybody who has been inducted into the Wyoming Agriculture Hall of Fame, and I have a great amount of respect for all of them. I would say I have just been doing what I am supposed to be doing, and I couldn’t do it without fantastic representatives in Congress or without a very supportive boss.”
“I hope I can do a lot more to help Wyoming ag. It’s been a passion of mine,” he continued. “And this award is really important to me, especially because I get to be inducted with my longtime friend Juan Reyes.”
Having previously done business with Reyes, whom she also considers a good friend, Lummis provided a very personal tribute to the second hall of fame inductee.
“Juan’s remarkable story brought him to this point in his life where he is one of Wyoming’s most outstanding ag producers, and when you hear about his background, you’ll just marvel. It’s the great American success story,” she shared.
“Juan’s journey to Wyoming is nothing short of remarkable and inspiring,” Lummis added. “It began in a place that could hardly be more different from Wheatland or Tie Siding – Covadonga, Cuba. There, Juan’s family faced a heartbreaking decision no family should ever have to face – sending their young children away to a foreign land while their home and way of life were threatened by Fidel Castro’s regime.”
She continued to note, at the young age of 11, with little more than the clothes on their backs, Reyes and his sisters were sent to Florida through Operation Peter Pan where they lived in a refugee camp with other children who made the journey. They were then moved to Washington state to live with a host family before their parents were finally able to join them.
After falling in love with agriculture as a teenager, Reyes enrolled at UW where he met his wife Joni, and the two soon began a business venture that would become wildly successful.
Today, Reyes and his family own and operate the renowned MR Angus Ranch, which is home to about 900 head of registered Angus cows and 100 head of commercial cows, as well as a 6,000- to 7,000-head capacity feedlot and combined acreage of owned and leased rangeland and farmland dedicated to growing corn, alfalfa and triticale under center pivot and flood irrigation systems.
Among his peers Reyes has become an iconic cattleman and cow dog trainer.
“So many ranchers in Wyoming know and admire Juan, and never so much more than when they learn his story as a young person, what he went through and how he has innovated to become one of Wyoming’s most important, most significant and most beloved ranchers,” Lummis concluded.
Upon accepting his award, Reyes credited his wife and two kids, Jennifer and Jason, for the role they have played in MR Angus Ranch’s success, and thanked friends and business partners in the crowd for the way they have “molded” his life.
“This is a family thing. It’s always been about family for me,” he stated. “It’s been a great life, and it couldn’t have been done without all of my friends. I mean that sincerely.”
WAIC Educator of the Year
After presenting the hall of fame induction awards, WAIC Executive Director Andrew Joannides and WAIC Education Advocate Carolyn Jacobs honored the 2025 WAIC Educator of the Year.
Jacobs noted Long began his teaching career in 2019 in Casper, where he adopted WAIC’s WyoWonders curriculum in his third-grade classroom. As an avid outdoorsman, he focused on sharing the importance of Wyoming’s outdoor recreation and tourism industry with his students and would often take them exploring through town.
Today, Long teaches fifth grade at Baldwin Elementary in Lander and has taken a new twist on the curriculum.
“Neil still teaches about outdoor recreation and tourism, but instead of focusing on more on the science aspect, he teaches his fifth graders about the ‘mystery stewards of Wyoming’ – the special people in our state who are stewards of our lands,” Jacobs shared. “Our state is wonderful, our state is special, and Neil is teaching Lander fifth graders exactly this – how to be stewards of the lands they love.”
As the 2025 Educator of the Year, Long was awarded a cash prize of $2,500, funded by the Vermillion Ranch, Wyoming Livestock Roundup and Mantha Phillips.
Future of agriculture
In addition to recognizing some of Wyoming agriculture’s most influential leaders, the program also featured exciting announcements regarding UW CALSNR and the future of the state’s ag industry.
UW Foundation President and Chief Executive Officer John Stark shared, through recent successful fundraising efforts, four deanships have been created at the university, including the FCSAmerica Dean within UW CALSNR.
Stark explained, “Deanships are important for supporting UW CALSNR, in this case, and for attracting and retaining good leaders.”
UW CALSNR Dean Kelly Crane expressed his excitement and gratitude for the funding, then invited the governor and first lady to the stage.
After congratulating the award winners, the governor announced a statewide and government-wide approach to redouble efforts to ensure agriculture continues to play a critical role in Wyoming.
“Together we can make our university and our state the premier place in the country where we demonstrate Wyoming’s ability to manage our future for ourselves and better than anyone else,” he stated.
“Making sure the next generation has a fighting chance to get a foothold in this lifestyle is so essential to what Wyoming is,” he concluded. “It’s our character. It’s our heart. It’s our spine. It’s what makes us go. We need to work together – and this is a challenge to all of us – to ensure we pass on a legacy where we can balance all of our natural resources with economic development in a way that respects private property, allows for growth and ensures our kids have a place to live.”
Hannah Bugas is the managing editor of the Wyoming Livestock Roundup. Send comments on this article to roundup@wylr.net.
