Doran Arp Lummis

Doran Arp Lummis, 91, won the victory over death on May 21, 2019 at Davis Hospice in Cheyenne, after a short illness.

Doran was born in Cheyenne on September 27, 1927, to Doran W. and Anna Christine [Arp] Lummis. Doran worked with his father on the ranch his grandfather Jochim Arp owned South of Cheyenne. They raised horses for the cavalry at Fort D.A. Russell, milked cows, and put up hay with horses. Doran remembers a neighbor coming to the dairy barn one day in the 1930’s, and watching his father give the man a pail of milk and a slab of bacon he was curing; it was all that man’s family had to eat that day, one of the darker days of the Depression. After the cavalry disbanded, the ranch was converted to a cow-calf operation and later to a steer operation. The family business, Arp & Hammond Hardware Co., founded in 1894, and its companion ranch, Lummis Livestock Company, still operate in Cheyenne and Laramie County today.

Doran played basketball for Cheyenne High School during a four-year run as State Champions, after which he played basketball for the University of Wyoming, earning All-Conference academic honors. Before he could finish college, Doran was drafted during WWII into the US Army, serving in the tank corps. While Doran was training for service in the Pacific at Fort Knox, KY, Japan surrendered. Doran always said that “Harry Truman saved my life”; Doran shipped out to occupied Japan, where he served at Zama.

Returning to the ranch, Doran married his high school sweetheart, Enid Bennett, and together they raised four children, Christine, Claudia, Cynthia and Doran Erik [Del} Lummis, all of whom still live and work in Wyoming.

Doran served as a Laramie County Commissioner in the 1960’s, and as a member of the State Board of Equalization in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Doran also served on the State Board of Agriculture and on the Employment Securities Commission. He was an active member of Trinity Lutheran Church and was the second of five generations (so far) that have attended Trinity Lutheran School. Doran was a 4-H leader, belonged to the Cheyenne Lions Club, the Board of Cheyenne Federal Savings & Loan, and is a former Cheyenne Chamber of Commerce Person of the Year. He was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1972 in Miami, FL, and was an active Republican throughout his life.

He was preceded in death by his wife, Enid, son-in-law Al Wiederspahn, and best friends Lou Broyles, Bob St. Clair, Albert Vosler and Nate Rosenberg.

Like many in the Greatest Generation, Doran loved God, his family, his Country, his community, and the ranching business. He is survived by his four children, daughter-in-law Sally Lummis, brother-in-law James Bennett, eight grandchildren, and numerous great grandchildren.

Interment services and military honors will be Thursday, 2:00 p.m., at Lakeview Cemetery.

Memorial Services will be Thursday, 3:00 p.m., at Trinity Lutheran Church.