Ten Sleep resident inducted into Hall of Fame

TEN SLEEP – Ten Sleep resident Ken Orchard was inducted into the East Denver High School Hall of Fame during an official recognition induction ceremony held in the Calloway Gym of the school, Oct. 7 for his tremendous achievements in wrestling in 1953 and 1954.

"It's kind of a neat honor, the hall of famers down there go clear back to 1924. All athletics are included, boys and girls and there are 234 [inductees] so far. They pick one person for each ten year period and I was selected for the 1950s. Someplace I read that they had a group of 100 and that they picked 10 boys and five girls to go into the hall of fame," Orchard said. "There are not too many wrestlers in the hall of fame," he added.

During Orchard's two years of high school wrestling he captured the state title in 1953 and was all-city in 1953 and 1954 creating a record, which he held for over 64 years. "Back then all-city was about the size of Wyoming now, a half million people," Orchard said.

"They called him a while back, a couple months ago, and told him that somebody had finally broke his record down there," Orchard's wife Jo added.

Orchard's interest in wrestling began after he saw East Denver High School student Norman Speak, who would become Orchards hero and teacher, wrestle when he was a kid. "He was a three time all-state wrestler, I saw him as a kid and boy I thought he was wonderful," Orchard said.

In Denver, at that time, junior high consisted of grades 7-9 and high school, which had about 3,000 students, consisted of grades 10-12, Orchard explained. He stated that he wrestled for three years in junior high and only two years in high school because he tore his knee up during his senior year.

When Orchard started wrestling in junior high, he was determined to be the best wrestler that he could be. He stated that he would practice with the high school team as well. When he started wrestling in high school he would practice with the Denver University team. "I did three years in Junior high, but I was slipping off to the high school. Any way I got to know the coach, so they let me come up and wrestle even though I wasn't going to school there. Just like the same way when I went out to Denver University, I wasn't going to school there but I got to know the coach and Norman was out there so I got to wrestle. I was wrestling with their team, I was kind of helping them work out," he said.

When Orchard went to college at the University of Arizona he wrestled intermural but it wasn't the same so he decided to ride bucking horses. "All year long they [East Denver High School] had an apparatus gym class. All the wrestlers would go and wrestle for an hour plus we would play on the stuff. I would wrestle there and then I would go to the college and wrestle for a couple hours then I would come back to the high school and wrestle from 3-6 p.m. every day and then on Fridays, if we didn't have a tournament, we would go to the Y [YMCA, Young Men's Christian Association] and wrestle. I got sick of it, I did that for years. So I started riding bucking horses," Orchard said. "I rode a lot of bucking horses and I was the southwestern regional champion bronc rider my last year in college," he added.

Orchard's senior picture is on the wall of the Hall of Fame room off of the old gymnasium [Calloway Gym] along with the other 234 inductees. Orchard stated that he finds it interesting that his picture and his hero/ teacher's picture are on the same wall.