CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) - Older but a somewhat less diligent student, Wyoming District Judge Ken Stebner often hit up his sister for notes when they were in law school together.

It could be said that Stebner has finally caught up. He sat alongside his sister, Justice Marilyn Kite, when he filled in on the Wyoming Supreme Court for three cases recently.

It was the first time siblings sat on the Wyoming Supreme Court together and may have been the first time in the nation.

"I've never heard of it happening anywhere else," Kite said. "Most states there's more of a population base and the chances of it happening are less likely than in Wyoming."

For the same reason, Wyoming justices fairly often have to recuse themselves. It is not unsual for them to have personal links to a case or have been previously involved as a judge or attorney.

When that happens, Chief Justice William Hill appoints a district judge to fill in. Last year he asked Stebner to make the three-hour drive from Rawlins to Cheyenne to hear oral arguments before the Supreme Court on Dec. 11.

Hill said he started thinking about the uniqueness of the situation only after Stebner agreed to hear the two consolidated school-finance cases and child custody case.

"I was just trying to find a justice," he explained.

Ken Pankey, a senior analyst with the National Center for State Courts in Williamsburg, Va., said he had never heard of a brother and sister on a state supreme court.

"It might be unusual for a brother and sister, because there haven't been as many women on supreme courts," he said. "It's probably not unusual in more than 200 years of history for siblings to be on a supreme court, or a father and son."

Interesting as it might have been, Kite, 56, and Stebner, 59, didn't launch into name-calling or bickering while they were both on the bench.

"It was all business," Stebner said.

Summed up Kite: "It was fun to be on the panel at the same time where we did have the opportunity to observe one another in the performance of our duties and see one another's thought processes."

Children of a dentist, Kite and Stebner grew up in Laramie and both went to the University of Wyoming. Because Stebner served in the Army and went to Vietnam after college, they enrolled in the University of Wyoming law school the same year. After their first year of law school, Stebner took a year off and graduated a year behind his sister.

"They were very, very close - their family is very close," said Hill, who was in Kite's law school class and still goes antelope hunting with them each fall. "But that isn't to say that they always got along. I would say that they're a very loving family, but that doesn't mean they always saw eye to eye."

He said Stebner was "plenty smart" as a student but "maybe not as dedicated as his sister." Both were "social creatures."

Hill remembered how Kite was a homecoming queen finalist while her brother was president of the University of Wyoming Turtles chapter.

"The Turtles ran a cow for homecoming queen," Hill said. "And it took votes away from this sister because they had a lot of friends in common.

"The suspicion always was the cow - her brother's cow - may have cost Marilyn the election."

Kite practiced law in Laramie after getting her law degree in 1974. Stebner, class of 1975, practiced on the Wind River Indian Reservation and in Sheridan before practicing in Laramie while his wife earned a teaching degree.

He worked in the same building as his sister, though not with her firm. He was named a county judge in Carbon County in 1983 and a district judge for Albany and Carbon counties in 1994.

Kite was sworn in as Wyoming's first female supreme court justice in 2000.

It will probably be awhile before two siblings sit on the Wyoming Supreme Court again. Stebner is retiring next month.

AP-WS-03-29-04 1617EST