Joseph "Joe" Alexander Waggoner

Joe Waggoner Funeral Service Was Held Friday

Funeral service was held Friday at 2 p.m. for Joseph Alexander Waggoner, 80, a 1974 "Stockman of the Century", long time Goshen County resident, and pioneer in the beef industry.

Waggoner died April 29 after an illness of several weeks at Goshen County Memorial Hospital.

He was born July 6, 1893, at Gordon, Neb. He was raised on the Pass Ranch, near Thedford, Neb., where his father was foreman for the Standard Cattle Co., part of the old "Hundred and One," Waggoner had said.

He became a cattleman at the age of eight, when one the ranch foremen gave him two orphan calves. He fed them hay tea, made by boiling water with hay in it, and added a little milk, and they survived.

He received his schooling, and got his education "in the bunkhouse", Waggoner used to say, "and it was pretty liberal."

Waggoner did attend school in Wood Lake, Neb. after the family moved there when his father bought a nearby ranch.

Later he attended business college in Omaha.

In 1915, Waggoner and a cousin bought a Model T Ford and headed west.

At Cheyenne, the two young men decided to go north, and after a breakdown of their car near Jay Em, they stayed there to homestead.

Homesteaders were required to file 40 acres, so Waggoner began dry-land farming.

He was married to Lennie Scott on May 12, 1920, at Torrington, after serving in World War I.

He was a member of Ferdinand Brandstetter Post No. 1 American Legion at Van Tassell, the Wyoming Stockgrowers, and the American National Cattleman's Association.

He is survived by his widow, Lennie; a son, Bob of Henry, Neb.; daughters, Mrs. Leroy (Dorothy) Grapes of Jay Em and Mrs. Duane (Chloe) Haefele of Douglas.

The Rev. Eugene West officiated at the Bethel Baptist Church in Torrington. Burial was in Valley View Cemetery.

A memorial has been established to the Cancer Fund.

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