Wyoming High School Athlete of the Week: How Voting Works & How to Win

What is the WyoPreps Wyoming High School Athlete of the Week?

The WyoPreps Athlete of the Week is Wyoming's premier statewide recognition program for high school student-athletes. WyoPreps — operated by Townsquare Media Casper, parent of Y-95 Country and K2 Radio — awards 28 honors per calendar year across all WHSAA-sanctioned sports, from football and basketball to rodeo, American Legion Baseball, and all-star competitions. Both a male and a female athlete are recognized each week, making it the only consistent dual-gender statewide prep recognition program in Wyoming.

• Covers all 72 WHSAA member schools in all four classifications: 4A (700+ students), 3A (201–699), 2A (110–209), and 1A (109 or fewer).
• Nominations accepted from coaches, parents, fans, and athletes themselves — submitted no later than noon on Mondays for that week's competition window.
• WyoPreps issues 28 total awards per calendar year (Aug. 18, 2025 through Aug. 9, 2026 cycle), covering every season of the WHSAA calendar.
• The program spans every sanctioned sport plus Wyoming High School Rodeo and American Legion Baseball — reflecting Wyoming's agricultural and outdoor sports culture distinctly absent from metro-market prep polls elsewhere.
• Fan voting is free and open at both wyopreps.com and y95country.com; the same poll appears on both platforms simultaneously each week.
• Winners receive statewide recognition across WyoPreps' editorial coverage, social media, and Townsquare Media radio properties reaching audiences across the Cowboy State.

Which Wyoming schools and WHSAA classes compete for this award?

The WyoPreps Athlete of the Week draws nominees from every corner of Wyoming — from the 4A powerhouses in Casper and Cheyenne to small Class 1A schools on the eastern plains and western mountain ranges. The table below shows 14 representative schools by WHSAA classification and city; any of Wyoming's 72 member schools can and does produce finalists in any given week.

The 4A classification carries 15 schools split between North and South conferences. Class 3A holds 16 schools in balanced East and West six-team groupings. Class 2A covers 14 schools across the state's smaller communities — including Big Horn, Tongue River, and Wyoming Indian — while Class 1A comprises 22 schools, many running nine-man football and competing in multi-sport athletes who regularly surface as WyoPreps finalists.

Wyoming's geography shapes this competition in ways that matter for vote campaigns. The state spans 97,000 square miles with a population under 600,000 — tight-knit rural communities where a single dedicated booster network can generate a disproportionate vote share. A Class 2A school in Moorcroft or Thermopolis drawing on every available alumni device can challenge a Class 4A nominee from a 2,000-student Casper or Cheyenne school whose supporter base is simply less organized that week.

How does WyoPreps Athlete of the Week voting work?

The WyoPreps Athlete of the Week operates on a hybrid editorial-plus-fan-vote model — different in a key way from pure fan polls at newspaper sites. Fan voting is one input into the final decision, not the only one; WyoPreps' editorial staff retains the right to select the winner based on overall merit, and winning the fan poll does not automatically guarantee selection. Understanding this distinction matters for anyone building a vote campaign.

The nomination and voting timeline

1. Nominations open Friday at 5 p.m. after each week's competitions and close Monday at 9 a.m. (sometimes noon — check the current poll page for exact times). Submissions outside this window are not considered.
2. WyoPreps editors curate a finalist ballot from all valid nominations, typically five boys and five girls (the number can vary). Only the previous week's performances count — season stats do not factor in.
3. The fan poll goes live at wyopreps.com and simultaneously at y95country.com, allowing one vote per device per poll cycle. Voters choose one male and one female finalist from the ballot.
4. Winners are announced Tuesday or Wednesday on WyoPreps editorial content across the site, social media channels, and Townsquare Media radio properties.

Because the vote informs rather than decides alone, a strong poll performance that doesn't win the fan vote can still contribute to an editorial selection — and a fan-vote leader who won primarily through aggressive mobilization without a standout performance may not win. For a broader explanation of how online contest polls like this one work in general, see our guide to online voting.

How is the WyoPreps Athlete of the Week winner selected?

WyoPreps applies an editorial judgment model that combines fan poll data with sports desk assessment — the winner is chosen by WyoPreps staff based on the week's performances statewide, with fan vote totals counted as part of the overall deliberation, not as the sole deciding metric. This is explicitly stated on the WyoPreps nomination page: "Your vote is counted as part of the overall deliberation, and winning the poll does not guarantee a selection."

What this means practically:

• An athlete who performed exceptionally well but whose school has a smaller online following can still win if WyoPreps editors judge the performance as the week's best.
• An athlete who dominates the fan poll through strong community mobilization still has a meaningful edge — WyoPreps takes fan engagement as a signal of merit and community support.
• Only the prior week's performances matter. Season totals, previous awards, and past recognition carry no weight in any given week's selection.
• The program spans all sports — fall, winter, spring, rodeo, and summer baseball — so a cross-sport week might pit a football performance against a swimming time or a rodeo result, evaluated on their respective sport contexts by WyoPreps editors.

Winners receive a published recognition feature on wyopreps.com, coverage across Townsquare Media Casper's platforms (Y-95 Country, K2 Radio), and a publicly searchable record of the award. There is no cash prize or physical trophy described in WyoPreps' program materials — the value is the statewide credential and the searchable editorial mention.

Building vote totals for a WyoPreps Athlete of the Week nominee

Because the fan vote informs but does not solely determine the outcome, the most effective approach combines two things: demonstrating genuine community support through strong poll numbers, and ensuring the nomination itself describes the performance clearly enough for WyoPreps editors to act on it. Strong vote numbers without a compelling nomination rarely win. For general vote-building principles applicable to any online poll, see our full guide and the dedicated how-to section. The Wyoming-specific notes below reflect what drives results in this market.

Wyoming's tight-knit community structure creates a specific opportunity: a single parent or coach with the right network can reach a surprisingly large share of a school's total support base in one round of messages. In a small Class 2A town, that might be most of the adult population. In Casper or Cheyenne, it means tapping multiple overlapping networks — alumni, church, neighborhood — rather than relying on any single group.

The submission quality is as important as the vote total. WyoPreps editors cite the prior week's performance when selecting winners — a nomination that includes specific statistics, game context, and a brief coach quote gives editors the material to justify a selection. Pair a strong poll push with a well-written Monday morning nomination.

When organic outreach has reached its natural ceiling and the vote gap is significant, some supporters look to paid audience-extension services. If that route applies, a service that delivers paced, genuine votes matched to the poll's per-device structure is the only format that avoids detectable traffic patterns — see our sports fan poll votes page for more detail.

WyoPreps Athlete of the Week rules — and the buy-votes question

WyoPreps states openly on its nomination page that fan vote results are advisory: "Your vote is counted as part of the overall deliberation, and winning the poll does not guarantee a selection." This transparency is consistent across WyoPreps' program description. The practical rule set comes from WyoPreps' own platform and its Townsquare Media parent's standard poll terms — the key restriction is automated or scripted vote manipulation rather than genuine multi-device human voting.

The meaningful distinction in this program:

• Automated scripts or bots that fire rapid-fire requests from the same device fingerprint or IP block, circumventing normal human voting behavior — these produce detectable traffic patterns and violate standard poll platform terms. Because the poll is partly editorial, flagged votes are removed from the count.
• Genuine multi-device household voting within the normal per-device cadence — structurally identical to mobilizing a large booster network, and consistent with how WyoPreps expects fan engagement to work.
• Paid outreach to real human voters — real individuals casting genuine votes from their own devices. Functionally the same as a booster email reaching additional families, though whether it satisfies the spirit of any specific poll terms is a judgment each entrant should make after checking the current WyoPreps nomination page.

Because the WyoPreps award is partially editorial, the risk profile differs from a pure fan-vote newspaper poll. Even a dominant fan-poll performance does not guarantee a win — which means vote totals that appear suspiciously inflated may draw editorial skepticism rather than produce an award. The honest calculus: legitimate community mobilization that produces a genuine spike in poll numbers is the approach most likely to both move the vote total and satisfy editorial standards simultaneously.

For a neutral, balanced treatment of buying votes for online polls in general — including legality, platform risk, and when it makes sense — see our complete guide.

Wyoming high school sports season timeline for WyoPreps Athlete of the Week

WyoPreps runs 28 Athlete of the Week awards per calendar year, tracking the full WHSAA athletic calendar. The program explicitly covers every sanctioned sport plus Wyoming High School Rodeo and American Legion Baseball — sports absent from most metro-market athlete polls — making it a genuinely year-round program rather than a fall-heavy one. The table below maps award weeks to the WHSAA seasonal calendar.

The nominations-only-open-Friday rule means supporters should monitor WyoPreps' site and social channels on Friday afternoons after competitions end to catch the opening of the nomination window. Early preparation — drafting the nomination write-up with statistics and coach commentary before Friday — avoids the Monday morning scramble when the window closes.

For a broader look at Wyoming's statewide sports and contest voting programs or the full US contest guide directory, visit our state and country hub pages.