Betty Laycock Weger's Kenny Sailors scrapbook, 1940-1946

Betty Laycock Weger was a University of Wyoming student during the 1940s. She documented the University of Wyoming basketball player, Kenneth “Kenny” Sailors, in a scrapbook from 1940-1946.

Kenneth “Kenny” Sailors was born in Bushnell, Nebraska in January of 1921, before moving to Hillsdale, Wyoming, and later Laramie, Wyoming. Sailors developed his jump shot playing basketball against his older brother, Barton “Bud” Sailors on the family farm in Hillsdale. He brought that skill and others to the University of Wyoming in 1940, and in 1943 he led the Cowboys to the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship. Sailors was the 1943 NCAA Basketball Tournament, Most Outstanding Player. He was the unanimous selection as College Basketball Player of the Year in 1943 and received it again in 1946. Sailors was the only player in the history of Wyoming Cowboys basketball selected as an All-American three times, in 1942, 1943, and 1946. Sailors went on to play in the BAA and NBA from 1946-1951. Sailors was inducted into the University of Wyoming, Athletics Hall of Fame on October 29, 1993. In 2012, he was named to the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame. In 2014, the University of Wyoming announced its plans to erect a specially commissioned sculpture of Sailors outside of the University's basketball stadium, the Arena Auditorium. Sailors died on January 30, 2016, sixteen days after his 95th birthday.