Speakers and Honorary Marshals L

Mandy Fabel, Keynote Speaker

8:30 a.m./12:15 p.m./3:30 p.m. Ceremonies

Mandy Fabel received an M.B.A. from the University of Wyoming and currently serves on the UW College of Business Advisory Board.

Fabel is the executive director of Leadership Wyoming, a notable leadership development organization supporting Wyoming’s leaders.

Fabel’s love of outdoor adventure includes being married on top of Pingora Peak in the Wind River Mountains and spending winter weekends chasing fresh snow to ride her snowmobile. Fabel and her husband live in Lander and feel extremely grateful for the opportunity to call Wyoming home.

Leah Hardy, Honorary Marshal

8:30 a.m. Ceremony

Leah Hardy completed a B.F.A. in art at the University of Kansas in 1987, including a year abroad at Howard Gardens Art School in Cardiff, Wales, UK (1986–87) and earned her M.F.A. from the University of Indiana, Bloomington in 1990.

Having taught art at the University of Wyoming since 2001, Hardy heads the Metalsmithing Program which she established in 2009.

She has conducted research in North India on metalsmithing techniques such as ‘kikar kam’ and has co-taught an international course for UW art students in India for five summers.

Exhibited nationally and internationally, Hardy’s intimately scaled mixed media sculpture has garnered numerous awards and inclusions in books, periodicals, juried and invitational exhibitions, as well as residencies in Australia, New Zealand, China, and India.

Hardy’s artwork is in public and private collections in the US, China, Czech Republic, New Zealand, Australia, Europe, and India.

In 2017 Hardy was an invited visiting artist at the University of South Australia, Adelaide, during which time she directed a collaborative artistic project, In Camels’ Footsteps, beginning with a week-long camel trek with Australian artists and culminating in exhibitions in Adelaide and Sydney in 2018 highlighting artwork in response to the experience.

Hardy was one of five finalists for the 2024 Women to Watch international exhibition at the National Museum for Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.

Linda Hutchinson, Honorary Marshal

8:30 a.m. Ceremony

Mathematics education has been the focus of Linda Hutchison’s career. She began as a high school mathematics teacher in California (1979–1988) before she moved on to doctoral studies in mathematics