Stanley K. Hathaway

Infobox US Cabinet official
name=Stanley K. Hathaway


order=40th
title=United States Secretary of the Interior
term_start=June 12, 1975
term_end=October 9, 1975
predecessor=Rogers Morton
successor=Thomas S. Kleppe
president=Gerald Ford
order2=27th
title2=Governor of Wyoming
term_start2=1967
term_end2=1975
predecessor2=Clifford Hansen
successor2=Edgar Herschler
birth_date=birth date|1924|7|19|mf=y
birth_place=Osceola, Nebraska
death_date=death date and age|2005|10|4|1924|7|19
death_place=Cheyenne, Wyoming
party=Republican
religion=Episcopalian

Stanley Knapp Hathaway (July 19, 1924–October 4, 2005) was a U.S. Republican politician who served as Governor of Wyoming from 1967 to 1975. Thereafter, he served four months as the United States Secretary of the Interior.

Early life

He was born in Osceola in Polk County in Nebraska, the son of Robert and Lily Knapp. Following his mother's death when he was only two years old, he was adopted by Franklin and Velma Hathaway. He entered the University of Wyoming in Laramie but dropped out to join the military. During World War II, he served in the United States Army Air Corps. Following the war, he graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He earned a bachelor's degree in 1948 and a law degree in 1950. He was married to the former Roberta Harley, who died in 2004. The couple had two children.

Political career

From 1954 until his election in 1962 as state Republican Party chairman, he served as prosecuting attorney for Goshen County, Wyoming. He was party chairman for two years until 1964, when Barry M. Goldwater was defeated in Wyoming by U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Hathaway did not seek a third term as governor in 1974 and instead supported trucking executive and State Senator Richard R. "Dick" Jones of Cody and Powell in Park County in northwestern Wyoming. Jones was defeated in a Democratic year by Edgar Herschler of Kemmerer in Lincoln County in southwestern Wyoming.

Upon leaving the governorship, Hathaway joined the Cabinet of his fellow native Nebraskan, U.S. President Gerald Ford before resigning for health reasons. Following his tenure as Interior Secretary, he returned to Wyoming, and co-founded the law firm of Hathaway and Kunz, where he practiced until his death. He died at his home in Cheyenne from an undisclosed illness at the age of eighty-one.

He is remembered for the Hathaway Scholarships available to Wyoming students attending colleges within the state.