Uni­ver­sity of Wyoming Pro­fes­sor killed in head on Collision

Sept. 7, 2010 — Adrian Ban­t­jes, an asso­ciate pro­fes­sor in the Uni­ver­sity of Wyoming Depart­ment of His­tory, was killed in a head-on auto­mo­bile crash at approx­i­mately 8:15 p.m. Fri­day about 11 miles south of Saratoga on Wyoming High­way 130.

“The tragic death of Pro­fes­sor Ban­t­jes is a tremen­dous loss for the Uni­ver­sity of Wyoming. He was an excel­lent scholar and a val­ued mem­ber of the fac­ulty who was well-liked by stu­dents and col­leagues alike,” UW Pres­i­dent Tom Buchanan says. “He will be missed by all who knew him. Our thoughts and prayers are with his fam­ily at this dif­fi­cult time.”

Ban­t­jes’ wife, Mary Hen­ning, and daugh­ter Aida, 8, were injured in the crash and both were hos­pi­tal­ized. Hen­ning remained in the hos­pi­tal as of Tues­day morn­ing. Aida has been released from the hospital.

Shown here is Ban­t­jes 1998 Nis­san Pathfinder after his head-on col­li­sion with Ella Young, 82. (Cour­tesy Wyoming High­way Patrol)

Ban­t­jes, 50, joined the UW fac­ulty in 1991. He received B.A. (1980) and M.A. (1983) degrees from Ryk­suni­ver­siteit Lei­den, The Nether­lands, and a Ph.D. (1991) from the Uni­ver­sity of Texas, Austin.

His research and teach­ing focused on mod­ern Latin Amer­i­can his­tory with an empha­sis on the polit­i­cal, social, cul­tural, and reli­gious his­tory of 20^th cen­tury Mex­ico. His doc­toral research focused on the Mex­i­can Rev­o­lu­tion (1910−40) and resulted in a book, “As If Jesus Walked on Earth: Car­denismo, Sonora, and the Mex­i­can Rev­o­lu­tion,” which won the Michael C. Meyer Prize in 1997. Since then, he pub­lished a series of essays on cul­tural rev­o­lu­tion in Mex­ico with a focus on the rela­tion­ship between state for­ma­tion and pop­u­lar religiosity.

Ban­t­jes, who was respected for his exper­tise in Latin-American his­tory, taught mod­ern and colo­nial Latin Amer­i­can and Mex­i­can his­tory, an intro­duc­tion to Latin Amer­i­can stud­ies, and spe­cial­ized sem­i­nars on top­ics such as Latin Amer­i­can rev­o­lu­tions, pop­u­lar reli­gions and indige­nous cul­tures. He also taught inter­dis­ci­pli­nary courses in inter­na­tional stud­ies, reli­gious stud­ies, Amer­i­can Indian stud­ies, Chi­cano stud­ies and Amer­i­can studies.

As an aca­d­e­mic hobby, he was inter­ested in the cul­tural his­tory of fly-fishing. Ban­t­jes taught what may well be the first course on the his­tory of fly-fishing ever offered at a U.S. uni­ver­sity, and pub­lished essays on the his­tory of the sport in the Rocky Mountains.