The battle between media organizations and the University of Wyoming for the list of university presidential finalists came to an end Thursday.
The UW Board of Trustees plan to release the names of the finalists over the next few days, university spokesperson Chad Baldwin said in an interview with the Associated Press.
Newspapers around the state are satisfied with his information.
“Obviously we are pleased that we won,” Reed Eckhardt said. “But this wasn’t really a win for us. This was a win for Wyoming.”
Eckhardt is the executive editor of the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, who along with the Casper Star-Tribune and the AP jointly filed the original lawsuit against the trustees to have the names released. The suit will be dropped in light of the Board’s decision.
Baldwin said in an AP interview that he expects the search committee to be moving quickly. Although five finalists were initially to be recommended, some finalists have dropped out because their names would no longer be kept secret. It is not yet known what that number will be.
UW’s decision to open up the president search opens up to the process to the public, Eckhardt said. “You and I pay for that [UW president] position, and we should be involved,” he said.
On Jan. 23, Albany County District Judge Jeffrey Donnell made his initial ruling that the university would have to release the list of finalists’ names by Feb. 5.
The biggest challenge for Eckhardt during the process has been the back-and-forth between decisions.
“Representative [Kermit] Brown is friends with the university and had the bill ready to go. That’s the part I found frustrating,” Eckhardt said. “You don’t change the rules in the middle of the process.”
Eckhardt’s overarching goal for this win is to inform the public.
“Hopefully this process will educate the people of Wyoming to have an open government,” Eckhardt said. “Hopefully they have learned they have the right to know what is going on with government officials.”
