Archives West Finding Aid

Kenny Sailors was a member of the University of Wyoming basketball team from 1940-1946 and was part of the 1943 NCAA national championship team. He is considered one of the inventors of the jump shot. After college, he played professional basketball from 1946 to 1951 and was a charter member of the National Basketball Association (NBA.) After retiring from professional sports, he worked for a short period as the director of the City of Cheyenne Parks and Recreation Department and he was elected to the Wyoming State House of Representatives where he served as a legislator from 1955-1956. He was active with the Wyoming Boys State program, and he was a republican candidate in the 1960 U.S. House Race against William Henry Harrison, the 1962 U.S. Senate race against Milward Simpson, and the 1964 U.S. Senate race against John Wold. Sailors had a long career as a dude rancher and hunting guide and outfitter. He managed the Jackson Lake Lodge in the 1950s then purchased and operated the Heart Six Guest Ranch in Jackson Hole. In the mid 1960s he moved to Alaska where he owned and operated the Seventy Six Ranch near the community of Glennallen and where he was a high school teacher and coach. In 1999, he retired and lived in Idaho for a short period before returning to Wyoming. Sailors was born in Nebraska and as an infant the family moved to a farm near Hillsdale, a rural community in southeast Wyoming. The family moved to Laramie in 1935 and he graduated from Laramie High School in 1939. He served in the United States Marine Corps during World War II. In 1943, he married fellow UW student, Marilynne “Bokie” Corbyn and they had two children, Linda and Dan. He retired in Laramie.