Due to the fact that brother Pete pronounced brother as busser, Kenneth Fear has since been called Buss by all that knew him. Buss graduated from Big Piney High School in 1938. Despite the opportunity to play basketball at the University of Wyoming, Buss chose to marry his school sweetheart, Mardell Bennett, and move to the cookhouse on the family ranch.
Ranching was the way of life for Buss fear. At the age of eight he started participating in cattle roundups. As he grew older, Buss’ interests circled around the ranch as well as rodeo activities. He built rodeo grounds on his ranch property for local rodeos and provided that area for the practice of local talents. He later became instrumental in getting land from the BLM to build the current Sublette County Fairgrounds. With assistance from other Big Piney residents, Buss organized the moving of the community hall to the new fairgrounds and from there the community rallied and building began on the arena as well as livestock areas. At the same time, Buss was on the school board and land was needed for a new school. It just so happened that the previous location of the community hall was such a perfect spot for the school to be built.
As a community leader, Buss was a member of the Sublette County Farm Bureau, a 4-H leader, and served on the Wyoming Livestock Board, the BLM Board as well as the Sublette 9 School Board. He was a member of the roping club and even after stepping down, he remained active and served as an officer for a number of years.
Fear’s expertise with livestock did not go unnoticed on the global scope. A cattle company in South Africa highlighted Buss in their advertisements so Buss and Mardell spent six weeks touring Africa. Later, the Western Livestock Journal magazine sponsored a trip to Australia and of course Buss and his wife took advantage to see the cattle methods “Down Under”. Buss declared it as a learning adventure.
Buss was the father of four children all of whom graduated from Big Piney High School. He joins his daughter, Deanne Bradley, as a Distinguished Alumni in the Big Piney Hall of Fame. His key words to his family were “at all times be dependable and responsible”. Others from the community called him a fair man with high principals and a firm handshake that was his bond.