CHEYENNE (AP) - Larry V. Birleffi, a television and radio broadcaster known for more than 50 years as the "Voice of the Wyoming Cowboys," died Saturday. He was 90.

Birleffi died at Davis Hospice Center in Cheyenne, according to son-in-law Phil Noble.

Birleffi was an icon of Wyoming athletics. He was the announcer for Wyoming football, basketball and other sports for 37 years and wrote a sports column for the (Cheyenne) Wyoming Tribune Eagle. He was manager and part owner of KFBC Radio in Cheyenne and did assignments for ABC Wide World of Sports.

"They just don't make them like that anymore," Kevin McKinney, the color radio analyst for UW sports the last 12 years, said. "A guy who was our eyes to Wyoming athletics for all those years. There wasn't any television, only Larry. … He was my hero because I grew up with him."

There was a moment of silence in Birleffi's honor just before the Wyoming-Bowling Green football game Saturday.

The press box at War Memorial Stadium at the University of Wyoming was named in Birleffi's honor in 1992. Birleffi was inducted into the Wyoming Intercollegiate Athletics Hall of Fame in 1996 and named an Outstanding Alumni for the College of Arts and Sciences of the University of Wyoming in 2001.

He was inducted into the Wyoming Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 2003.

Birleffi began his career as a sports reporter for the Laramie Daily Boomerang and moved into radio and television.

He was born April 17, 1918, in Hartville and lived in Wyoming all his life except during World War II. He was a major in the U.S. Army 92nd Infantry Division, serving in Italy, and earned a Bronze Star.

He graduated from Sunrise High School and from the University of Wyoming in 1942, with a major in journalism.

Birleffi was preceded in death by his wife, Lois, in 2004, and by two brothers, Arthur Birleffi and John Birleffi.

He is survived by a sister, Evelyn Johnston, of Billings, Mont.; three daughters, Lynn Birleffi, of Cheyenne; Bobbie Birleffi, of New York; and Laurie Rosen, of Chevy Chase, Md.; and two grandchildren.

Services are planned at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday at St. Mary's Cathedral in Cheyenne.