Winthrop Campbell Condict III

Longtime valley rancher Winthrop Campbell Condict III passed away at age 85 in Saratoga, Wyo., not far from his 1880s family ranch homestead on Brush Creek, where he was born on Jan. 9, 1925.

Winthrop was educated in Saratoga, where he graduated from Saratoga High School as salutatorian in 1942, before attending one year at the University of Wyoming and returning home to operate the Saratoga family ranch with his father, WC II.

In 1944, he married his high school sweetheart Elsie Baldwin before joining the Navy, where he trained in PT boats and scored one of the highest in his certification class. His naval ship, the USS Sabine, was stationed in the North China Sea from where he escorted his naval officers by PT boat in and out of a dangerous Shanghai. Months after the bombing of Japan, his platoon was ordered on a secret World War II photographic mission into Sasebo, Nagasaki, Japan to photograph the destruction, whereupon he was later honorably discharged from the Navy due to serious side-effects from the mission.

Returning to the ranch, his Navy training and mechanical abilities led him to invent a hydraulic forklift that modernized ranch operations on one of the premiere, gravity-free-flow irrigated ranches in the Rockies, with a water irrigation system designed by his engineer father.

After his naval tour ended, he became a private pilot and later a commercial instrument-rated pilot, before heading to Alaska as a bush pilot and hunting/fishing guide, where he logged thousands of hours across Alaska from Kotzebue to the Aleutian Chain, and rescued several people from numerous near bear attacks, and those stranded on snowcapped ice fields and tundra. He was also a mentor to many who took up flying small planes.

He and his wife, Elsie, acquired other properties, including a wilderness property in Dubios, Wyo., and fishing properties in Naknek and Wasilla. He continued to ranch and operate his businesses while continuing to fly in Alaska.

As an avid conservationist, big-game hunter (with many world-class trophies) and fisherman, he traveled the globe with his wife, where they explored, photographed and narrowly escaped death on several adventures.

Those who knew him called him a great adventure storyteller. He taught his children a deep respect for conservation, to shoot guns, hunt, fish, work with horses and operate a large, successful cattle ranch. He understood the delicate balance of land and water rights to preserve a rare, unique and dying ranch lifestyle.

He supported many conservation and wildlife groups: Safari Club International, North American Wild Sheep Foundation, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and the NRA.

He also supported the First Presbyterian Church, was a member of the Republican Inner Circle and became a Wyoming Mayflower Society member, tracing his patriotic, Scottish-English, Presbyterian, New York and New Jersey family lines of historical politicians, Continental Congress members, doctors, lawyers and farmers back to the mid-1600s (“Condicts and Cousins,” 1916 edition, online).

Winthrop is survived by his five children, Wynn Condict, Helen Condict Case, Aurilla Kratz, Mark Condict and Colleen Davis; 11 grandchildren, Bruce Romios, Gary Condict, Abby Weber, Holly Herring, Christina Mills, Ellen-Jane Roeder, Hilliary Condict, Amanda Davis, David Condict, Clayton Condict and Aaron Davis; and nine great-grandchildren, Brigitte, Emily and Nataleigh Weber, Macrady Roeder, Alexander and Braxton Mills, Calvin, Ali and Shelby Condict. He is also survived by his brother, Alden Condict, and his nephews, Billy Hampton, Alden and Michael Condict.

He was preceded in death by his wife, Elsie, in 1998; his mother, Aurilla Poole Condict; his father, WC Condict II; three sisters, Bernice Hampton, Maysel Beales and infant sister Alice; his grandparents, Winthrop I and Hattie Young Condict; and his eldest grandson, Benjamin Romios.