Del McOmie’s 30-year political career began to keep frogs out of Lander’s water

Delbert McOmie’s political destiny may have been locked in at his birth on Oct. 26, 1935. The doctor who delivered him happened to be the city’s previous mayor. His grandfather on his mother’s side had been elected mayor that same year and would serve through 1947. The stars seemed aligned for McOmie’s own turn in the office, serving as Lander’s mayor for 14 years. He also was elected seven times to the state House of Representatives, serving from 1999 to 2013. Now 90, he spends a good amount of time debating the world’s problems with other aging-yet-feisty members of Lander’s Fox News All-Stars.

“My life has been public service,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “I get involved with things. I just saw things that needed to be talked about and done, and the next thing I know people appoint me to it. For me it’s always been about what’s best for the people.” At first, however, McOmie’s motivation wasn’t as wide-ranging. He wanted to keep frogs and snakes from coming out of the city’s water faucets. McOmie said the city’s water supply comes from the Middle Fork of the Popo Agie River, and it wasn’t uncommon then for frogs and other creatures to make their way through the system and into people’s pipes.

McOmie family roots delve deep in the Cowboy State. His great-grandfather’s bricks still make up many of the historic structures in town. The Oldenbergs were “second cousins” to the German kaiser who started World War I, he said. On his father’s side, his grandfather abandoned his grandmother and family when homesteading. His grandmother died in the 1918 flu epidemic, leaving his father homeless. “My dad was raised on the reservation by Indian families from the time he was 6 years old to 11 years old,” McOmie said. “Some of my best friends were the Indians.”

Politics for McOmie began when he was having a drink at a Lander bar with friends talking about the condition of Lander’s water. The guys told McOmie they would pay for his application fees if he would run for mayor to improve the dubious nature of what could come out of people’s water faucets. A chlorine plant at the end of town also made the water taste terrible. He recalled a neighbor coming over one day sharing that her faucet quit working because it was plugged with a water snake. “When I ran, I said I wanted to do something about Lander’s ‘pasteurized’ water,” he said. “We got it after it went through everybody’s pasture.”

McOmie was successful and spearheaded efforts to build a new water plant for the city. He stayed in office for the next 12 years while holding down his job at the Wyoming Department of Transportation. During his tenure as mayor, he co-founded the Fremont Council of Governments and was instrumental with the late U.S. Sen. Mike Enzi in forming the Wyoming Association of Municipalities. Former Lander Journal editor Bill Sniffin characterizes him as a “visionary” during his terms as mayor. “He was very forward thinking,” Sniffin said. “He really worried about the future of the community and was unbelievably involved in economic development.”

As a state legislator, McOmie is proud to have been on the House Education Committee that passed the Hathaway Scholarship bill. He also authored a bill that allows Wyoming drivers on primary and secondary roads to pass a vehicle going slower than the speed limit by up to 10 mph faster than the speed limit. “It was all about safety,” he said. He also has no regrets for the seat belt bill he helped push through the Legislature, which took three tries. McOmie, who never lost an election, said he always tried to seek out his detractors and opponents to share why he voted a certain way. “That’s the best way to communicate with people is to go talk to them,” he said.