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It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Friday, November 6th.  I'm Mac Watson. – While one Sweetwater County mom braces for having vital medical care for her children cut off, Cowboy State Daily's Emma Jane Jackson reports that her bigger fear is what 350 WE Soda layoffs announced Wednesday will do to her neighbors.  "One of the fallouts that the employees of WE Soda are bracing for is the possible loss of health insurance with the sweeping layoff that's coming up. I talked to Bree McMullen, whose husband has worked at the mine since 2019, and she said that it's been really helpful for her family, taking care of their five kids and a granddaughter, two of which, her 18-year-old son and her one-year-old granddaughter, were born with the same condition, and both of them now have ongoing medical needs that she said the job provided really good insurance for. She also said that the pay was good enough that she was able to stay home and raise her kids as a stay-at-home mom." WE Soda is set to cut 40% of its workforce in Sweetwater County. Representative Cody Wylie, R-Rock Springs, tells Cowboy State Daily that this announcement hits at an especially bad time since the holidays are coming up. He emphasized that the cut of 350 employees is 3% of the county.  Read the full story HERE. – A popular AI police dispatch app reported that a man was killed behind a Gillette apartment complex Wednesday. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports the only problem with the report is that it was completely wrong.  "The incident was actually categorized as a fatality report, but come to find out, according to Campbell County Sheriff's Lieutenant Dan Maul, this was just a routine traffic stop. A woman was apprehended and taken into custody for a warrant, but there was no physical altercation or anything that would indicate that someone had been killed. Welcome to the increasingly strange world of AI-generated police reports. Crime Radar is one of the most popular apps in the country, with over four and a half million downloads and people using it to keep track of live police dispatch calls, and this isn't just happening in Gillette. There are several incidents in other states where heinous crimes, overdoses, shootings, have been misreported by Crime Radar in the past." Byron Oedekoven, a former Campbell County sheriff and longtime leader of the Wyoming Association of Sheriffs and Chiefs of Police, tells Cowboy State Daily he's not opposed to using artificial intelligence. He sees its potential, but draws a firm line between using a machine to gather information and allowing it to make decisions about what's true. Read the full story HERE. – Glenrock voters ousted their mayor Tuesday amid a monthslong fight over the town's Flock license plate reader cameras. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports transparency hawks say he lost because of the Flock controversy, while others point to a general feeling of unrest. "I spoke to John Galloway, who has done public records requests and writing and transparency work on this topic. So he pointed out that during the primary election, Judy Colling lost to the mayor, but in the general election, she bounced back and defeated him. He's pointing to in the meantime exchanges between the mayor and residents versus calling having a really direct public response about where she stands on Flock cameras and skepticism toward them. Other people said, 'No, why would you blame the mayor? Maybe some people are ready for change.' All of this has unfolded since early July." The controversial cameras were bought and installed in 2024 after the police department included them in its budget and the council approved their purchase, installation and use, according to Mayor Bruce Roumell. Read the full story HERE. – Mail troubles are brewing in Lincoln County. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports one homeowner in a new subdivision has been waiting over a year to receive mail service, while nearby Grover residents must now travel to Afton to collect mail after their local postal services were closed.  "They all thought they'd be getting mail like any day now, but they still don't have the locking mechanism for these boxes a year later. Evidently, there's one guy for the whole state of Wyoming to put these locks into place, and the homeowners themselves can't hire somebody to do the work. It has to be done by an authorized postal person, and there's only one guy in the whole state for that. And so they are still waiting a year later for an actual physical residential address." Mark Call said his request dates back to November of 2025 and that he, his wife, and his neighbors have repeatedly contacted postal officials seeking service since then. He said he was told the lock would be installed in early 2026, but the work remains unfinished.  Read the full story HERE.  – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.     Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – A Rock Springs UFO investigator says he has no explanation for videos of mysterious rotating lights a Gillette woman captured. Cowboy State Daily's Emma Jane Jackson spoke to the woman who says she's seen the strange object multiple times in Wyoming and Montana. "Gillette woman Sommer Chase said that she and her husband both started seeing these mysterious rotating lights when he was working as a miner in Colestrip, Montana, and then they moved to Gillette over the summer. She told me that when she and her husband take their regular walks in the evening, it's pretty common to see these same lights that seem to rotate in a triangle shape in the sky. She finally posted these on social media pretty recently, and she was kind of concerned about being called a liar or just being met with skepticism. But she actually found that not only did the video get 200,000 views, but there were people commenting from all over the country saying that they've seen the same thing." Chase tells Cowboy State Daily that her sightings stretch back to her childhood on a North Dakota farm, long before anyone carried a camera in their pocket. She adds she's certain she isn't hallucinating and believes the lights aren't satellites or drones.  Read the full story HERE. – A Rock Springs man who told his girlfriend "I will wait 20 years so I can kill you" was sentenced Tuesday to 12-20 years in prison. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports police say he kidnapped the woman and tortured her for days, even threatening to murder her cat and family. "24-year-old Jake Thomas Canestrini in October accepted a plea deal and was sentenced on Tuesday after pleading guilty to kidnapping and two counts of aggravated assault and battery. Sweetwater County Judge Clark Stitz sentenced him to 12 to 20 years, which coincidentally, before he had even been arrested, he allegedly told the victim in this case that he would wait up to 20 years to kill her." The case began with the woman's account of what happened after her parents left town May 30. She and Canestrini were living at her parents' Rock Springs home. Shortly after the parents left, she told investigators, Canestrini threw her to the ground multiple times and would not let her leave. Rock Springs Police Officer Tiffany Harris wrote in an affidavit supporting the original charges that he repeatedly hit her in the head. Read the full story HERE. – With 408 applicants waiting for housing vouchers and 158 waiting for one-bedroom public-housing units, the Rock Springs Housing Authority is closing both waiting lists Dec. 1. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports the agency's director made the difficult decision. "I spoke with Rock Springs Housing Authority Director April Thompson. She told me that it was a very difficult decision because she wants to help everyone. She said if she could give everyone an affordable place to live, she would. However, that's not the reality. I talked to Mayor Max Mickelson, and he said that the City Council will be discussing some ordinances later on this month to really look at affordable housing and just some of those key issues that Rock Springs  is seeing, but you know the state as a whole as well." Thompson tells Cowboy State Daily that the agency could continue accepting applications, but that would mean telling people they might wait four or five years before receiving assistance. Instead, Thompson decided to close the two lists for the first time in her 13 years with the Housing Authority. Read the full story HERE. – An orphaned moose calf apparently has bonded with a huge bull in Grand Teton, following the bull around like a puppy. Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that Grand Teton wildlife watchers say the bull is affectionate and patient, but gets annoyed when the calf tries to nurse. "Nobody's sure what happened to the calf's mother.out of all the moose out there has kind of latched on and bonded with this one huge bull, and and people say you know the bull's patient, lets him hang out with him, nuzzles him and stuff, and then they probably if the calf tries to nurse the the bull pushes it away. But really the calf is big enough now that it's eating solid food. It's eating forage. I also talked to biologists and said that if it's to the point where it's weaned off of milk and it can eat forage, it is weird for it to bond with a bull rather than go find a surrogate mama cow." Female animals will sometimes adopt the offspring of other females that were killed. They might also babysit each other's calves, fawns or cubs. When a female grizzly was spotted in Yellowstone in 2024 with five cubs in tow, the consensus was that some of the cubs must have been adopted. Read the full story HERE. — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can wat

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Thursday, November 5th.  I'm Mac Watson. – A trucker accused of stabbing another trucker 17 times at a rest area along I-80 in Wyoming was bound over to felony-level court Wednesday for attempted first-degree murder. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports Andrew Kris Bzdak could get life in prison if convicted. "This case began shortly after 3:30 a.m. on September 13. After frantic callers were reporting that a man had been stabbed inside a rest area off of I-80 near Rock Springs. When authorities arrived, they found a Sikh truck driver who had been hauling freight. He had stumbled outside of the rest area and collapsed onto the pavement. He had been stabbed multiple times in the head, chest, and other areas of his body, a total of 17 times. This crime gained national attention. Some people were calling it a hate crime, although local authorities are saying a motive has not yet been established."  Bzdak appeared in Sweetwater County Circuit Court wearing an orange jail uniform, his wrists secured in handcuffs attached to a chain wrapped around his waist.  Read the full story HERE. – The Wyoming Constitution Party chair is happy that Rebecca Bextel vaulted it to major-party status Tuesday by winning more than 10% of the vote, but says it's not a Freedom Caucus Party. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports party Chair Joshua Shimkus says, "that's not where the party is heading." "It is interesting as a potentially a paradox because Bexel is aligned with the Freedom Caucus politically, polled more than 31,000 votes in the governor's race, lending the party legitimacy. So whether all 31,000 of those voters are aligned with the Freedom Caucus. It's not safe to say.  However, the person for whom they voted is. But yet, you talk to the Chair. He said, 'no, that's not the direction of the party.' So, I asked, 'what is the difference between this party and the Republican Party?' He said, 'There's just more emphasis on the Ninth and 10th Amendments, and those federal amendments emphasize the individual.'" Does this mean a mass migration of Freedom Caucus members to the Constitution Party is in the near future? State House Speaker Pro Tem Jeremy Haroldson, R-Wheatland, tells Cowboy State Daily that the caucus isn't planning a defection to the Constitution Party. Read the full story HERE. – WE Soda announced Wednesday it will cut 350 jobs and ditch underground dry mining to fight Chinese competition, leaving its 800 workers reeling. Cowboy State Daily's Emma Jane Jackson reports that the union president says, "It feels almost like a sucker punch," for the trona mine's workers. "We Soda is moving from underground mining to solution mining to try to meet that competition. For the workers, though, that means a huge hit. I talked to Marshall Cummings, president of the local union, and he said that this is an earth-shattering moment for him and his membership. Ultimately, this is going to impact more than 40% of the workforce, bringing the total number of employees from over 850 down to 500 in the next two years." During a visit to Green River from London in September, WE Soda CEO Alasdair Warren told Cowboy State Daily that a flood of low-cost Chinese natural soda ash production has fundamentally disrupted traditional export markets. Read the full story HERE. – For those wondering what's in those industrial-looking semi-trailers with military escorts on I-80 through Wyoming, it could've been a nuclear missile. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports one trucker who recently passed a missile convoy says, "I was terrified."  "When the Air Force is transporting nuclear missile components to their silos across southeast Wyoming, you can tell because the payload transporter three is very distinct. It looks like a heavily armored semi-trailer. There's an escort of armored vehicles and helicopters that are supervising it as it goes along I-80. If the U.S. Department of Energy is transporting a nuclear payload, those vehicles are designed to be as subtle as possible. You would never know it. In fact, the vehicles that they use to do that are so secretive, only three photos are known to exist, and they're kind of boring because they look like normal semi-trucks. So it's entirely possible that Wyomingites have passed components of a nuclear missile, if not a nuclear payload itself." The vehicle that trucker Roberto Figueroa passed near Burns was a Payload Transporter III, a $1 million semi-trailer built specifically for the U.S. Air Force. According to the F.E. Warren Air Force Base website, the semi-trailer has "the ability to load, unload, transport, emplace, or remove and replace Minuteman weapon system aerospace vehicle equipment and supporting equipment in a controlled environment." Read the full story HERE.  – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.     Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – Brothers who ran Peak Resorts before selling to Vail Resorts for $264 million in 2019 are now negotiating to buy Snowy Range Ski Area in southern Wyoming. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports one of the brothers, Jesse Boyd, says, "We love to ski, and we just miss being around it." "Jesse said he was driving around in Wyoming and saw the Snowy Range ski area, and he was like, 'Wow, that I've never been there. I never skied there.' There's not very many resorts where that's the case. He skied all over the country, and so you know he decided to check it out. He decided to bring his group, his other brothers, and his best friend to Wyoming to check out the snowy range. So they made them an offer basically that they couldn't refuse." Boyd says that he could foresee buying a couple more resorts, but they aren't out to rebuild the 17-resort public company they once helped run before its sale to Vail Resorts. "No more empire building," Boyd tells Cowboy State Daily. Read the full story HERE. – A video from the Wapiti area appears to show hunters driving toward deer, shooting near houses and using a pickup's hood as a rifle rest. Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that one outdoorsman who saw the video says it's "disgusting." "Paul Ulrich, of course, who is in the Wyoming sportsmanship group, the Hunter Ethics groups. Paul said he was appalled by what he saw in the video. One of the retired game wardens said, 'it's tough to tell from one video, but laying a gun across a rifle across the hood of a vehicle is according to his interpretation of the Wyoming statute – that is a violation because that is still using a vehicle to hunt big game.' Even if you're just using it as a rifle rest, that's a no-no." The videographer tells Cowboy State Daily that the Wyoming Game and Fish Department told them the hunters have the landowner's permission to hunt. But the videographer said the hunters were still shooting too close to houses and a busy highway. A request for more information sent to Game and Fish wasn't answered by publication time. Read the full story HERE. – Lincoln County was the only Wyoming county to vote in favor of Proposition 1 in Tuesday's general election, a controversial measure to cut residential property tax by 50% for most homeowners. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that Niobrara, the state's reddest county, rejected it the hardest. "We reported that Prop One only survived one county, and that's Lincoln. And that is because of a quirk of the Wyoming Constitution that says, essentially, under votes and over votes count as no votes. And so, technically, part County has a narrow split to where more people voted for than against. But once you lump in those over votes and under votes, technically Prop One didn't survive Park County despite its larger number of favor than most. Wyoming's reddest county, Niobrara, which went 90 plus percent for Trump in 2024, gave Prop One its most resounding defeat of any county at 70 some percent." The petition-led ballot initiative sought to change state law and add the cut to Wyoming's other property tax exemptions, such as a 25% cut on the first $1 million of home value, and a 50% exemption for long-term homeowners over 65. Read the full story HERE. – Casper residents say motorcycles, cars and pickups race down East Second Street like it's a dragway. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that one woman says the roaring engines and reckless driving has frustrated neighbors for years. "Geraldine Henrikson lives near East Second Street, and she says that they drive like maniacs. She says these are mostly young people who are showing off. They'll park at different places like Dairy Queen, she said, and then usually in the evening hours after the sun goes down, she can hear their revving engines as they race down the street. Resident Frank Sanchez, who also lives nearby and is an Uber driver who is on those streets at night says that it is an absolute nightmare. He talks about people not wearing helmets, not wearing protective gear, driving way too fast, going up to 60 miles per hour over the speed limit." The complaints about East Second Street aren't new. Eight years ago, Casper police identified the city's 10 intersections with the worst crash records, using data collected by the agency and the Wyoming Department of Transportation. Half of them were on East Second Street. Read the full story HERE. — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Wednesday, November 4th.  I'm Mac Watson. – Wyoming voters rejected a ballot initiative Tuesday that sought to cut residential property tax by 50% for most homes. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that the measure drew opposition from local-level agencies that said that would decimate their budgets and ability to provide services. "So this makes a slightly less-chaotic trajectory going into the legislative session because had Prop 1 passed, there would be kind of this tension about, well, is the legislature going to do more to fund local governments? How is it going to make up the difference for schools? And so seeing that, it makes a slightly more solid legislative session coming up, where they're going to be able to lean back on the things they've researched during the interim and the things they're concerned about with respect to infrastructure." Had it passed, the initiative would have exempted 50% of the assessed value of primary homes for people who have lived in Wyoming for at least one year, and in that home for at least six months of the prior year. Read the full story HERE. – Eric Barlow, a state legislator of 14 years, is Wyoming's next governor. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that Barlow has made headlines by creating a method for nonviolent felons to have their gun rights restored after their sentences are complete. "It really was a landslide with 64% of the vote as of late Tuesday evening about 10pm. Barlow had 69% of the vote to Bexdale's 18% and Casner's 13% The governor-elect said, 'We're very honored with the trust the Wyoming voters have placed in us. We've traveled 448 days. We did the math, meeting people, hearing what was on their minds, what they were interested in, concerned about, and the opportunities for them and their families and communities. I think folks responded to that.'" Also a rancher and veterinarian, the 60-year-old first clinched the GOP nomination in August by winning every county. Read the full story HERE. – Despite speculation around whether the Democrat Lisa Kinney in the U.S. House race would follow the projected blue wave, it was a Republican sweep across the board in Wyoming's five state-level top-elected positions, and its two federal races that were on the ballot. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland breaks down the races. "It was exactly the Republican sweep in Wyoming major offices that the prediction markets, the pundits were calling for. Barlow an easy win for Governor. Hageman, an easy win for Senate. Chuck Gray, some resistance, but still noteworthy win for U.S. House, and Steve Harshman, Republican for Superintendent Public Instruction. Robert Short for Secretary of State; pretty much a red sweep."  Wyoming didn't follow the national trend in the mid-term elections as many Republican incumbents were ousted by Democratic candidates.  Read the full story HERE. – A Wyoming couple still has few answers a week removed from being stranded in Cambodia when their cruise ship abruptly went bankrupt and kicked them off. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that the former Wyoming couple says they're now lugging suitcases around Kuala Lumpur, trying to regroup. "It's a chance for them to kind of take a beat, get some emotional distance from all the turmoil, and decide what to do next. After Kuala Lumpur, they plan to go to Australia. They have made lots of friends, doing this kind of lifestyle. They've had lots of offers of places to stay while they get things figured out. So it'll be interesting to see what they come up with. They do want to come back to Wyoming eventually. They had a plan to circumnavigate the globe in like four years, and so they don't really want to come back before they've done that." Their sudden departure has left Paul and Lynn Montoya figuring out not just where to go next, but what their retirement will look like now without the floating home they paid $179,000 to buy. The couple also loaned Villa Vie $100,000 during the company's spring cash crunch — money they don't expect to recover.  Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.     Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – Wyoming meteorologists are watching the earliest polar vortex forming in the Arctic Circle in recorded history. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that meteorologists are saying it could mean significant winter weather by Thanksgiving.  "Getting one that started before the end of October is unprecedented. Every meteorologist is using that term to describe it, and what that means is, by the time we reach the end of November, notably the Thanksgiving holiday, we could be dealing with intense cold and intense snow, depending on what else is happening around that time. It's the earliest that any meteorologists have seen since they started recording polar vortexes in 1958. When polar vortex Arctic air comes down into the U.S., there are impacts, mainly extreme cold, and there could be significant snow." Cowboy State Daily Meteorologist Don Day isn't going to "paint himself into a corner" about what this will mean for Wyoming, even hypothetically, but the polar vortex could eventually have an impact. That's especially true for anyone planning to travel for Thanksgiving, he says. Read the full story HERE. – The situation at Flaming Gorge remains dire as drawdowns are continuing despite billions of gallons of water being dumped into Lake Powell last month. Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports that Tony Valdez says his Buckboard Marina is practically dry.  "There's been like a series of really heavy rainstorms, and I checked in Lake Powell over the month of October gained like 600,000-acre-feet of water, just pure 100% gain from rainwater flushing down the river corridor, and that's kind of ironic because that's how much they've taken from Flaming Gorge. I called the marina manager at Flaming Gorge. He said he's upset because he's going, 'they just got a bunch of rain. Their problem, at least for now, was solved. But things are every bit as bad for us. When do we start getting some water back?' And I have reached out to both the Bureau of Reclamation and our state engineer. Unfortunately, by publication time, I hadn't heard back from either one of them." The Bureau of Reclamation reported that although the October spike at Lake Powell helped, it wasn't enough to break the long-term trend of critical shortages. Lake Powell remains about 174 feet below full pool, according to the agency. Read the full story HERE. – A Laramie judge Tuesday elevated the case of Aili Wang, a Chinese national accused of poisoning her University of Wyoming colleague, to Albany County's felony-level court. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports the judge found probable cause for attempted murder and aggravated assault charges. "When someone chooses to exercise their right to a preliminary hearing like this and to cross-examine the state's witness, it is interesting to hear kind of the other side of the story. And some things that Wang's defense attorney Linda Devine emphasized were that though a camera had reportedly captured her going into her colleague's office, messing around with stuff in there. No camera actually captured her putting any poison into either of the reservoirs, the coffee tin, the coffee pot, and the stuff like that. The defense attorney really dwelled on and really splayed throughout her cross-examination." The 32-year-old Wang could face between 20 years and life in prison if convicted of the attempted murder charge, and another 10-year maximum if convicted of aggravated assault. Read the full story HERE. – A record 81 grizzly bears have died in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem in 2026. Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that livestock predation is the No. 1 reason for bear mortality, but poaching is also a leading cause. "We've just set another new record for grizzly deaths in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem. Of course, what that means, depends on who you ask. I did talk to Humane World for Animals, and from their perspective, this is bad news. They contend too many bears are dying. Too many bears are getting killed. But I also talked to a biologist, the statewide bear biologist Cecily Costello for Montana, and she said, pretty much you have more bears. The more your population grows, the more deaths you're going to have. It's just kind of how demographics works." Costello tells Cowboy State Daily overall that the grizzly population is stable. The record figure reflects records kept since grizzlies were given Endangered Species Act protections in 1975. In 1972, at least 120 bears in the GYE perished. Read the full story HERE.  — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Tuesday, November 3rd.  I'm Mac Watson. This newscast is sponsored by Lisa Kinney for Congress. Lisa has, Chuck hasn't. That's why former Gov. Mike Sullivan has endorsed Lisa Kinney for Wyoming House. Learn why Lisa is the choice for Wyoming's future at Lisa Kinney for Congress dot com. – Republican Chuck Gray and Democrat Lisa Kinney, running for Wyoming's U.S. House seat, filmed each other during a bizarre argument at a forum in Centennial. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports the two candidates are accusing each other of lying and underhanded behavior during their campaigns. "It's kind of a mess because on the one hand we don't have video so far of what happened right before the doorway clash. What we can see on the video is them videoing each other. There's two videos, one from each candidate, and Kinney is confronting Gray about political attack ads that a separate PAC, backed by Gray's father, has leveled against her. And then the woman who organized the event came and confronted Kinney. The accounts are different. Kinney said that she was pushed. The woman said that she only touched Kinney and told her she was out of line. It was definitely a unique ending to the forum at the Centennial Library, which is a casual event designed for the very rural voters in that area to get to know their candidates all the way down the ballot." Gray tells Cowboy State Daily in a text message that Kinney "decided to try to make a scene because she's upset about an advertisement, and now is deciding to lie about what happened." According to Kinney's account, she approached Gray to discuss issues and tried to get him to take a photograph with her.  Read the full story HERE. – A Casper mother was found dead inside her wrecked vehicle on Casper Mountain following a desperate dayslong search after she didn't pick her kids up from the local Boys & Girls Club. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports Kandice Gunter's sister says, "It's not fair." "30-year-old Kandice Gunter had been missing for days as her photo was circulating around the internet, and different people were trying to organize search parties to go out and look for her. Over the weekend, her body was discovered, and her vehicle had launched off of Casper Mountain in an area known as Lookout Point over a guardrail. I spoke with her sister Kayla Gunter, who was distraught when she discovered the news that her sister had passed away.  This was not the outcome that she was hoping and praying for. Gunter leaves behind two children, ages six and nine." At about 9:20 a.m. Sunday, multiple first-responder agencies were dispatched to Casper Mountain Road after reports that a vehicle had left the roadway and gone through a guardrail, the Casper Police Department reports. Responders located the vehicle and Kandice Gunter, who was pronounced dead at the scene. Read the full story HERE. – Renowned wildlife photographer Tom Mangelsen called a Yellowstone ranger an "a*****e" for hazing a grizzly and wolves away from a carcass. Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that he said it ruined a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for tourists who traveled thousands of miles to see the wildlife. "Prominent wildlife photographer Tom Mangelsen was there and he said there were probably 100 people gathered there. So he and others are upset because they say, you know, the younger bear that was circling in, he wasn't really trying to go for the people. It was just trying to take a wide berth to try to get his turn at the carcass, and so their argument is is that the Park Service jumped the gun, no pun intended, and kind of ruined that viewing opportunity for everybody because once the animals were pushed off, they didn't come back, and everybody lost their chance. I did talk to a photographer, another photographer, who said, you know, sometimes that's what happens. It's that the Park Service, they're just erring on the side of prudence, and yeah, it stinks when people's viewing opportunities may be cut short by this." Park rules state that there must be at least 100 yards between people and large predators such as grizzlies and wolves. Read the full story HERE. – A slow cashier kept one trucker at the counter just long enough to save his life before a fleeing van plowed straight through an Evansville truck stop. Cowboy State Daily's Emma Jane Jackson reports one trucker says, "If I got my change right away, I'd have been walking right through that door." "Roger Meinerts is a trucker from Iowa, and he told me that he was the only customer inside the convenience store when a van plowed through the glass doors early Sunday morning. When he first heard it made contact, he kind of froze and then quickly moved out of the way. When he heard the van make impact, he quickly moved out of the way, and he said as soon as he got out of the way, the driver pressed on the gas again and drove clear through the store all the way to the other wall. The van was owned by Loenbro. It's a construction contractor company. When I reached out to them, the company's attorney said that they were reporting the van as stolen and that the driver was not one of their employees." Before he started recording the aftermath of the crash, Meinerts told Cowboy State Daily that several police officers had knees on the suspect's back struggling to handcuff him, which is also something he heard the suspect yelling about afterward. The Evansville Police Department did not respond to Cowboy State Daily by publication. Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.     Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – Wyoming emergency responders routinely cross into neighboring states to fight fires, respond to crashes or do rescues. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports that some question the costs but a Sheridan County fire chief who crosses into Montana says emergencies do not recognize state boundaries. "I spoke with Fire Chief Jeff Barron. He is the head of the Tongue River Fire District. He said that the fire district responds to emergencies over the state line five or six times a year. These are often vehicle accidents that occur in the winter, and he said more often than not they are residents of Sheridan County or involved vehicles that have Wyoming license plates. Chief Barron explained to me that a lot of times emergencies can't wait, and his fire department is the closest to the emergency. So even though maybe an accident happened in Montana, the closest fire department or emergency services unit is in Hardin, which is about 45 minutes away." Critics have questioned the use of Sheridan County taxpayer dollars to fight fires in Montana and raised concerns about a longstanding practice of providing mutual aid across the border without detailed public accounting of the expenses. Chief Barron says the expenses are relatively modest as the Tongue River Fire Protection District is staffed by volunteers who are not paid for emergency responses.  Read the full story HERE.  – Lilacs around Wyoming are still blooming in November, a rare detour for the colorful flowers that typically blossom in the spring. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that Cheyenne Botanic Gardens founder Shane Smith blames the "strange weather we're having right now." "It's unseasonably warm. We just haven't had those double-digit, you know, teens that kind of signal to the plants, hey, it's time for you kids to go to bed now. But a week to 10 days is what Don Day tells me will finally get that cold shot that will put everything to sleep once and for all. And the good news is, the lilacs are probably going to be fine. They're like wild animals, right? They know how to take care of themselves." A warmer-than-usual winter like last year's would "create some havoc," Smith tells Cowboy State Daily, particularly for fruit-bearing plants. But as homeowners, there's not much anybody can do about it. Read the full story HERE. – An apprentice Park County falconer catches red-tailed hawks to train for hunting by dropping caged pigeons from her moving vehicle. Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports the process often catches the attention of people who stop to help the pigeons — and end up scaring away the hawk. "Somebody saw her doing this. 'What are they doing to that poor pigeon? What kind of psycho is out here throwing pigeons out of their car?' And the falconer explained it to me. The reason is if you stop the car, the hawk is going to get suspicious and fly off. The pigeon is in a cage that has snares on the outside. So the idea is the hawk swoops down, tries to get the pigeon, and gets caught in the snare. So that's what's going on with the pigeons and cages. She's still at the apprentice level at this point, and so juvenile red-tail hawks are kind of like the only bird that she's authorized to capture at this point in her career." Tessa Clifton is an apprentice falconer in Park County. Falconry is regulated by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department and allows licensed falconers to hunt small game with trained raptors. It requires certification and training as an apprentice. Clifton has about a year left as an apprentice before she can become a general falconer. Read the full story HERE. – Scientists have discovered what they call "Peter Pan" salamanders in a Laramie pond. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that while their siblings move onto land and area residents escort them across roads, this version of Wyoming's only native salamander grows up but never leaves home. "I spoke with Mason Lee. She's the senior project director with the University of Wyoming's Biodiversity Institute. She said the city gave them the go-ahead to look for what they're calling petomorphs. It's this type of salamander that basically looks like a tadpole and it continues growing in an aqu

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Monday, November 2nd.  I'm Mac Watson.   This newscast is sponsored by Lisa Kinney for Congress. Lisa has, Chuck hasn't. That's why former Gov. Mike Sullivan has endorsed Lisa Kinney for Wyoming House. Learn why Lisa is the choice for Wyoming's future at Lisa Kinney for Congress dot com. – Two Sheridan boys escaped their burning home late last week as 40-foot flames tore through it — one clutching a cat, the other closing doors behind him. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports their mom, Ginia Fraser, says they knew what to do because Sheridan firefighters visited their school. "Her husband went downstairs to see if someone was breaking into the house, and he saw their camper in the driveway, fully engulfed in flames. He said they had only minutes to get out of the house because it was starting to look like it was going to catch the house on fire as well. Her two sons sleep in the basement, and she said that's always been a concern for her. So they had rehearsed exit strategies if something like this should ever occur. Also, firefighters had gone to the boys' elementary school, and they remembered the things that the firefighters had taught them, including to shut all the doors as they made their way outside, because they were able to get out safe." Although the camper was fully engulfed when firefighters arrived, authorities have not publicly announced a cause or final point of origin of the fire. Read the full story HERE. – Wild-horse advocates are incensed by what they say was the needless killing of three rare blue-eyed cremello mustangs by the Bureau of Land Management during a recent roundup. Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports the BLM says all three horses were killed because they were blind. "The BLM is saying it's just one of those things that had to be handled on site as quickly and as humanely as possible. I also talked to a retired BLM official who kind of backed up the BLM narrative, saying, 'Yeah, it's a decision they make on the ground. If a horse is just blind or just has vision problems, it's just going to be too debilitating. They just put it down right there, and there's just really not time to mess around with it.'" Wyoming Mustang Institute director Chad Hanson tells Cowboy State Daily he thinks the BLM's decision to euthanize the horses was a snap decision before a veterinarian could make a full assessment. Read the full story HERE. – A Riverton woman who spent a summer in Wyoming's Gas Hills playing in the raw yellow uranium with her best friend and a poodle still sets off Geiger counters. Cowboy State Daily's Jackie Dorothy reports that Roni Roemmich says, at least "I don't glow in the dark." "Roni Roemmich grew up around the Gas Hills and didn't think anything of playing with the yellow tailings left over from uranium mining, There were many other kids just like her who played in the dirt, came home covered in it, and actually had no side effects. While others have said that the uranium mining has definitely influenced their health, for Roni it did not. It was just a curious part of her childhood that she never thought of. Even now, decades later, though Roni says she has not suffered any side effects from the uranium that she knows of, she has been known to set off a Geiger counter." Uranium was discovered throughout Wyoming beginning in the early 1900s. It was not until 1948, when the Atomic Energy Commission guaranteed a market for yellowcake, which was processed uranium, that prospecting for the yellow rocks started in earnest.  Read the full story HERE. – Investigators have sent a human bone found in 1998 in the Bridger-Tetons to the DNA Doe Project for forensic investigative genealogy. Cowboy State Daily's Jen Kocher reports the Teton County Sheriff's Office is hopeful, with forensic science evolving, this can be a break they've been waiting for. "They sent the tibia bone to the University of North Texas, and they were able to get a DNA profile for this guy. They thought they had it at that point. They thought they would be able to identify him with the profile. However, when they put it in CODIS, which is the national database run by the FBI, there were no hits on it. So nobody had reported him missing, or he had no criminal record that they could trace. The next step is now a new investigator took over the case, and now it's being sent out. The bone has been sent out to do forensic investigative genealogy." What baffles investigators most was John Doe's IV setup — tube, bag, and needle dangling from a tree limb five feet above where the arm would have been — as though he had been mid-transfusion when he died. The eight or so vials found on the ground yielded no results when tested because they were too degraded. Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.     Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – Wyoming gubernatorial candidate Rebecca Bextel isn't the only moon landing skeptic, as 5% to 12% of Americans agree. Cowboy State Daily's Dale Killingbeck reports that the nation's leading skeptic says the best proof is that no one has replicated the feat nearly six decades later despite better technology. "Bart Sibrel mentions many different, several different things that he says causes him not to believe. One is that there's a radiation field around the Earth that he has a quote from a scientist that says it would, it needs to be overcome. And so his argument is that they really haven't overcome this. They didn't have the right radiation shielding for the Apollo astronauts to go through. And so he believes that's one of the reasons that the space missions were essentially faked and they stayed in an Earth orbit instead of going to the Moon. He also points to photos from the moon that have shadows going in different directions." Sibrel said he believes Neil Armstrong's famous "one small step" onto the lunar surface, which had the world transfixed in front of their TV sets on July 20, 1969, actually was shot a year earlier in a secret hangar at a New Mexico Air Force base. Read the full story HERE. – A Laramie couple who sold their home so they could live on a cruise ship is stranded in Cambodia after the company ran out of money for fuel. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that after spending $450,000 so far, Paul and Lynn Montoya are stuck.  "She's kind of running the gamut of emotions from anger to sadness. The other guy really didn't say much about how he's feeling, but obviously they're in a very uncertain situation. Cambodia is not the easiest country to get in and out of. There's some red tape with passports and so on. They were hoping that the company would get enough money together to take them all to Bangkok, which is a little friendlier, a little easier to navigate. This tour would have taken them around the world in about four years. They were hoping to do this to live this lifestyle for the next 15 years. They've only been at sea 17 months. This is a pretty premature end to what they had been hoping for. So many unanswered questions at this point for the couple." Paul and Lynn Montoya are two of the 200 passengers left high and dry by Villa Vie Residences, which pulled the plug on their cruise ship, the Odyssey. The company told passengers they'd have to disembark the Odyssey in Cambodia, along with pets and any personal items they could carry. Read the full story HERE.  – Three Wyoming women have built their own farming and ranching operations from scratch, with little money and no inherited agricultural operation — but plenty of determination. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports the women say the secret is to start small, ask for help and be willing to learn. "I had one, Holly Romeling, tell me that she and her husband Ben started out with 10 cows, a bull, and nowhere to put them. So she was the first to admit that this is really putting the cart before the horse. Another rancher I spoke with, Sierra Schlenker, she started with less than five acres, a trailer, a cheap horse, a bottle-fed calf, and a small garden. So each of these women who I spoke with had a dream of some sort of being a rancher. None of them came from a ranching background. The closest one I talked to grew up with horses, but even that isn't the same as having a herd of cattle or dozens of acres of land. The dream of ranching isn't easy for these women, and they'll all be the first to say so, because if ranching were easy, everybody would do it. Schlenker said, 'You have to start somewhere.'" Across Wyoming, aspiring ranchers face enormous financial barriers to entering an industry where land, livestock, equipment and operating expenses can add up to millions of dollars. The average American farm producer is 58 years old, according to the 2022 USDA Census of Agriculture. Read the full story HERE. – A black bamboo plant located in the University of Wyoming's Williams Conservatory since 1994 has bloomed for the first time and is turning into a corpse. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that the plant blooms infrequently, but when it does, some people say we're all doomed! "The UW Williams Conservatory director Sarah Lemli says that the black bamboo has been there since the conservatory opened in 1994. These bamboo plants only bloom once every 40 to 150 years, and so it was ironically spectacular that she got to witness it bloom, but she cautions that historically this has been linked to plague, famine, and pestilence. This plant is indigenous to northern India. That's where the bad omen comes from. The people in India started observing that after the plant blooms, it dies shortly afterwards, and it usually brings a ton of rodents who come to feast on it. And when there's an abundance of food, they produce thousands of babies. And when the all-you-can-eat buffet runs out, t

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Friday, October 30th.  I'm Mac Watson.   This newscast is sponsored by Lisa Kinney for Congress. Lisa has, Chuck hasn't. That's why former Gov. Mike Sullivan has endorsed Lisa Kinney for Wyoming House. Learn why Lisa is the choice for Wyoming's future at Lisa Kinney for Congress dot com. – Northern Arapaho Tribal leaders gouged out the driveway leading from a tribal road into a church property Thursday, then planted two of the tribe's flags. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports the incident is the latest outcry after Pastor Sarah Lucas called out "idolatry" in tribal rituals. "It came to a head on Thursday when tribal leaders took a track hoe and some other equipment and gouged out a driveway between the church and the tribally held road, Rendezvous Road. Now the church sits on private property but is surrounded by the Wind River Indian Reservation. I understand that congregants can still access the church from the other side, from Mission Road. Once tribal leaders were done gouging out the driveway to Rendezvous Road, they dug and mounted two Northern Arapaho tribal flags in that driveway. Lucas told me that she's in touch with her attorney, but beyond that, declined to comment. She was watching the excavation on Thursday, as were several tribal members, and there were at least three of the tribe's governors and Northern Arapaho Business council members there." Spectators, mostly tribal members, watched the operation, photographed it, laughed and chattered. Read the full story HERE. – Lander's Dakota James Jordan is the first Wyomingite to see his hunting privileges immediately revoked for life in all 50 states after pleading guilty to poaching deer, elk and moose in Fremont County. Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports one ex-game warden calls the punishment, "A good deterrent." "He is currently in the Fremont County Detention Center, serving a 96-day jail term, and then he had vehicles and firearms confiscated, $18,000 in fines and restitution, and also had his hunting and trapping privileges revoked for life, and that hits even harder because the Interstate. We've talked about the Interstate Game Violators Compact, which basically means any penalties in one state carry over to the other states. As of August of 2022, all 50 states were signed onto that. What that boils down to is this guy not only has lost privileges for life in Wyoming, he's lost them in all 50 states." Dakota James Jordan illegally killed multiple deer and elk and a bull moose in Fremont County starting in 2021, according to an affidavit written by Wyoming Game and Fish game warden Jon Desonier and filed with court documents. Six Wyomingites previously saw their privileges revoked for life, between 2004 and 2020.  Read the full story HERE. – After a Gillette veterinarian reported an attack on her horse, other livestock owners say roaming dogs are a growing threat across the county. Cowboy State Daily's Emma Jane Jackson reports one encounter proved fatal.  "I talked to Kaylee Little, who owns a horse breeding business. She said she had to run these dogs off earlier this week, and then for Dana Miller in late August, an attack on her pony Woodrow was actually fatal. The left side of his face was mauled, resulting in an infection. When he didn't respond to medication, they had to make the decision to euthanize. For Kaylee Little, she said that the best thing that could happen is either for the owners to keep them at home, or for animal control to take care of the situation before someone takes it into their own hands. In fact, Kaylee Little said, 'If they come back to her property again to attack her horses, quote, it's not going to be good.'" Cowboy State Daily reached dispatch and animal-control officers at the Campbell County Sheriff's Office. They directed questions to a department lieutenant, who was not immediately available and hadn't responded by publication. Read the full story HERE.  – FBI Director Kash Patel met with Wyoming law enforcement leaders in Laramie on Wednesday, then released a video montage touting the state as a law-and-order haven. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports Patel said, "Wyoming is doing some of the best work in the country." "The FBI held kind of a discussion on Wednesday morning at War Memorial Stadium with Wyoming law enforcement leaders on what the FBI can do, what equipment it has, how it can help in certain situations, and they also talked about prevalent law enforcement issues like drones are a concern on the horizon, a potential threat one of these days. And in the afternoon, Kash Patel and Representative Harriet Hageman and U.S. Attorney for Wyoming Darin Smith had a roundtable discussion as well. The day after Patel visited, he also posted a video montage set to music featuring his visits with Wyoming law enforcement." The FBI talked with Wyoming sheriffs and other agency heads about its technology capabilities, managing various crime trends, and working together, Brian Browne, Laramie assistant city manager for public safety, told Cowboy State Daily. Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.     Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – Big Piney's football team faces an 800-mile round trip for its first playoff game Friday. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that Mountain View coach Dustin Rees, whose team will log thousands of miles this season, says that's just how it is in Wyoming — especially when the playoffs begin. "According to activities director Lori Green, when Big Piney moved to nine-man football, their itinerary began to look something like a road trip map. They're now logging longer distances to play these games against other nine-man teams. Big Piney's trip to Pine Bluffs will be one of the longest trips that a nine-man football team takes this season. Mountain View will log the most miles, just under 3,000 in one season."  The itinerary calls for a night in Laramie, a walkthrough after they arrive, another walkthrough Friday morning, then the final push to Pine Bluffs. After the game, they'll head to Cheyenne for another hotel stay before finally pointing the bus west toward home. It'll take two nights and 27 hotel rooms to get the Punchers there and back. Read the full story HERE. – Robert Hastings, a world-renowned UFO researcher and author, says whatever has watched nuclear sites for decades will take notice of Wyoming's, too. Cowboy State Daily's Emma Jane Jackson reports he says, "There are many cases where these objects have maneuvered around civilian nuclear-power plants." "Before his retirement, the last case that he formally researched was actually at F.E. Warren Air Force Base when a similar thing happened. Several missiles went dark. The base was unable to communicate with them. At the same time, some personnel there reported seeing some kind of mysterious craft. And he told me that with all of the nuclear energy development going on in Wyoming, he would not be surprised if there is more of a presence of whatever has been hovering over nuclear sites for the past several decades." As Wyoming prepares to pioneer next-generation nuclear technology, Hastings expects UAP activity to follow and sees their presence as a potential safeguard against catastrophic failure. Read the full story HERE. – State Rep. Mike Yin filed election-finance complaints on Wednesday against Wyoming gubernatorial candidates Rebecca Bextel, Brent Bien, and Megan Degenfelder. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that Degenfelder and Bextel say Yin's complaints are frivolous; Bien said he's reviewing his donations. "He said he's doing it just as an individual voter and 'my interest is in seeing the law applied evenly, and the integrity of our elections protected.' He wants to see Bextel cure any issues before the election, and he wants Bien and Degenfelder's issues referred to the attorney general to consider whether a fine is merited." Secretary of State Chuck Gray told Cowboy State Daily that his office is reviewing the complaints filed by Yin, "according to Wyoming law." All three complaints say Degenfelder, Bien and Bextel posted contributions reporting that certain individuals donated to their campaigns more than the legal $2,500 limit for statewide races. Read the full story HERE. – Casper's Wolcott Street is a Halloween mecca, where homes get as many as 1,300 trick-or-treaters and spend up to $500 each on candy. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that one resident say, "There have been times when there were 100 people standing in front of our house." "Every year, thousands of trick-or-treaters descend on a central Casper neighborhood, kind of around Walcott Street. Bob Tarantola lives on Stafford, and he says that last year he got about 1,300 trick-or-treaters. This year he is armed with $500 worth of candy. Tarantola has lived there for over 20 years, and he said just in the last 10 years, it's really picked up steam. The police department started blocking off some of the streets to slow traffic. It's an older established neighborhood. Abby Roich, a resident who lives there, calls it the 'Big Tree neighborhood.' She says it's like something out of a movie. Around 4pm in the afternoon, the youngest trick or treaters start arriving, and that will continue for about four hours." A few blocks away, Greg and Lauren Groves have learned the same lesson. Their first Halloween in the neighborhood, neighbors warned them what was coming. They bought four medium-sized bags of candy. Greg Groves ended up making two emergency trips to the store. This year, they're armed with about 1,000 pieces. Read the full story HERE. — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Thursday, October 29th.  I'm Mac Watson.   This newscast is sponsored by Lisa Kinney for Congress. Lisa has, Chuck hasn't. That's why former Gov. Mike Sullivan has endorsed Lisa Kinney for Wyoming House. Learn why Lisa is the choice for Wyoming's future at Lisa Kinney for Congress dot com. – Wyoming campaign finance reports filed as of Wednesday morning show Eric Barlow has out-fundraised his opponent Rebecca Bextel in the gubernatorial race by nearly four-to-one. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports Bextel says her numbers are much higher and is filing an amended report. "Candidates love to point to their individual fundraising, right? What did the normal people, the average Joes, the grandmas, donate? Barlow's campaign team pointed out that he's raised like $1.5 million in individual contributions, and the vast majority of that is from Wyomingites. Bextel's campaign report, you know, again, it's still difficult to say with her yet promising an amended report, but it looks to be almost all generated from individual sources. So we have Barlow with a record-setting figure from individuals, and then we have Bexel with just a massive proportion from individuals." Democratic nominee Ken Casner raised and spent zero dollars. The general election is Nov. 3. Read the full story  HERE.  – Prometheus Hyperscale has abandoned plans for a massive data center spanning Natrona and Converse counties. Cowboy State Daily's Emma Jane Jackson reports that the move has blindsided officials even as its multibillion-dollar southwest Wyoming project moves ahead.  "When I talked to Natrona County Commissioner Dave North, he said that he had no advance warning that this project was going to pull out. He said that this company has actually always been good about communicating with the county commissioners. So he said it was kind of a shock to him. Trevor Nielsen, the president of Prometheus Hyperscale, didn't give an exact reason, but he did say that the company is going to be looking for other locations in Wyoming. Though Prometheus has pulled out, Dave North told me that the owner of the land where the project was going to be built is still moving forward with rezoning that land. That doesn't mean that another data center is coming, but it leaves the door open for future development." At full scale, the project was projected to bring thousands of temporary construction jobs, roughly 150 permanent roles, and tens of millions in annual property tax revenue. Read the full story HERE. – Eric Snow, the Republican candidate for Teton County Sheriff, says the Democratic incumbent Matt Carr's office has waged a retaliatory campaign against him throughout his campaign. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that Carr denies the allegations. "There have been allegations of bribery. No one has taken action against Carr or or found bribery for him at this juncture. But in the meantime, you have a very controversial arrest by Eric Snow in July, where the person he arrested, a young man, reportedly didn't have any signs of of drug or alcohol presence in his body during this investigation, and so after that, there's other things like there's claims that his supervisor tried to get him stripped of his drug recognition expert certification. He's been placed on administrative leave in a very public incident days before the election. So there's just kind of a huge string of events here."  Snow's attorney, Mark Jackowski, says the saga may be the beginning of a lawsuit. Read the full story HERE. – While hiding Christmas gifts, a Cheyenne man stumbled upon a hidden wallet dating to 1959. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that decades after it vanished, J.R. Larsen tracked down the owner's daughters, who were thrilled to get back a piece of their father's past. "He found an old wallet with photographs inside and a license going back to the 1950s. So he decided to try to track down the family that it might belong to. He posted photos to a Cheyenne community board, and it didn't take more than a day before the phone started ringing. And he was soon put in touch with the daughters who claimed that the wallet belonged to their dad. George Long was a family man. The girls remember him as being super playful. He had jet-black hair that he always wore slicked back like Elvis, and he wore 501 jeans. They said they can still remember the crease in his back pocket where he always had kept that wallet." J.R. Larsen didn't know George Monroe Long when he discovered the wallet and a collection of old keepsakes tucked away in a hiding spot in his house. Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.     Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – The Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation says that a 34-year-old man shot and killed by U.S. Marshals during a manhunt last year may not have died had an Evanston woman not blocked them from entering her home, where he was hiding at the time. Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports that back in March of 2025, Kaylee Marie Simmons, tried numerous ways to stop authorities from arresting Steven Sheesley. "One of the other things that they outlined in the affidavit was that, in their opinion, the woman was intentionally using her young children as shields to keep law enforcement at bay. They had three warrants to go in and search the home and to arrest this guy, but they said that she was blocking the entrance. She's holding a young child, and then she kind of grabbed her other child and put that child in the way as well. And while this was going on, and they were trying to get in to locate the guy, he jumped out the bathroom window. They chased him, and that led to the confrontation in a nearby maintenance shed where they ended up shooting him." DCI has recommended Simmons be charged with misdemeanor interference with a peace officer and felony compounding, or trying to delay or impede an investigation by withholding evidence. Read the full story HERE. – A routine speeding stop in South Dakota turned into a wildlife investigation when a trooper discovered 70 harvested ducks in the driver's vehicle, 52 more than is legally allowed. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports that only three of the packaged ducks met legal transportation requirements. "South Dakota state troopers have not identified the man who was pulled over for speeding on October 13, and then at that traffic stop, the trooper discovered these 70 ducks in his vehicle. In the photos, it appears that some of the ducks that were harvested are only the breast meat in the Ziploc bags. According to South Dakota regulations, every harvested duck has to have a wing attached when it is traveling, so that troopers or parks and wildlife officials can identify the species of bird.  The unidentified driver was given a citation, Nick Harrington with South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks told me that this case will go through the whole legal process, and it's possible that more charges will be filed." Authorities are being tight-lipped about the case. The driver's name has not been released, nor have authorities disclosed where he is from, where he was headed or how fast he was driving when he was pulled over. Read the full story HERE. – U.S. Attorney Darin Smith announced Wednesday that Chuck Gray's former deputy will oversee a federal operation monitoring Wyoming's general election next week. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports state authorities told the monitors they must stay at least 100 yards away from the polls. "You have U.S. Attorney for Wyoming Darin Smith saying, 'We've appointed the monitoring chief,' and that is Jesse Naiman. This statement doesn't specifically note that it is a fact that Naiman was the number-two in Secretary of State Chuck Gray's office. You have Gray who's very big on election integrity and scrutiny and his number two deputy goes over to the federal prosecutor's office, the federal installment of the DOJ in Wyoming, and then becomes the monitor for the feds on election operations." DOJ election monitors visited Laramie County polling sites Aug. 18, to the surprise and consternation of Laramie County Clerk Debra Lee, who cast the operation as disruptive and ill-noticed. Gov. Mark Gordon also raised the alarm, casting the incident as federal overreach. Read the full story HERE. – Three Crown Vic Police Interceptors hit Cheyenne's auction block this month. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that for a generation of Americans, the Ford cruisers were the silhouette of Five-O: Long hood, huge trunk, upright roof, and headlights that could cause a panicked brake check from a quarter-mile away. "There was a time when this was the reigning American cop car, especially in the 1990s and early 2000s. Car aficionado Austin Griess says that he still gets nervous when he sees one behind him in his rearview mirror. It's ironic that the quintessential cop car is also known as a granny-mobile. They are spacious and great for going over curbs, picking up groceries. The city of Cheyenne actually got several of these. They've auctioned off over a dozen in recent years as they've moved on towards newer SUVs." Although they aren't glamorous anymore, the Crown Vic was the big, boxy, V8-powered undisputed king of the American cop car and nearly impossible to see in a rearview mirror without checking the speedometer. Read the full story HERE. — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Wednesday, October 28th.  I'm Mac Watson.   This newscast is sponsored by Lisa Kinney for Congress. Lisa has, Chuck hasn't. That's why former Gov. Mike Sullivan has endorsed Lisa Kinney for Wyoming House. Learn why Lisa is the choice for Wyoming's future at Lisa Kinney for Congress dot com. – The Trump administration sent DOJ election monitors to Cheyenne on primary election day, causing Gov. Mark Gordon to voice his concerns with the decision. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports the Wyoming Attorney General said, in an opinion released publicly Tuesday, that the law doesn't authorize them to be in polling places and can be removed. "So the AG had gone through federal law, federal laws invoked by the DOJ, and found that none of them specifically authorized this DOJ election monitoring that happened in the primary election; that's expected to happen in the general election. And he noted that the county clerks and their election judges are supposed to keep random members of the public who aren't specifically authorized by law out of polling places supposed to have just nice, clean lines of voters, certain poll watchers appointed by parties and other officials. He even said the sheriff can get involved because it is a crime to disrupt an election." Gov. Gordon raised his concerns about the incident, stating his opposition to what he called surprising breaches of the state's elections process. Secretary of State Chuck Gray defended the incident, saying election observation is allowed. Read the full story HERE.  – As Kemmerer's coal mine faces a 2029 shutdown and a looming hit to local tax revenues, community leaders are holding out hope for a late-stage turnaround. Cowboy State Daily's Emma Jane Jackson reports the mayor says, "We've still got lots of good coal out there."  "The mine has announced a closure date of 2029, but Kemmerer Mayor Robert Bowen says the story might not be over. He said that he's still hoping for some kind of Hail Mary – maybe a new industry coming in – finding another use for the coal, and he said there is still plenty of life left in the mine, if they were to mine across the highway. That plan was in the works for a while, but it got tabled since the company said they didn't want to invest the money right now." The Kemmerer coal mine traces its roots to the Kemmerer Coal Co., founded in 1897, and has operated as an open-pit mine since 1950. In recent years it has changed owners several times. Read the full story HERE. – Past-date chicken, shrimp and other foods are turning up on Wyoming grocery shelves, and shoppers notice. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that one Cheyenne shopper says, "I got sick once on some bad meat." "Albertsons has publicly acknowledged that the use-by and sell-by dates indicate freshness and quality. Suzanne Long, their chief officer, said that those don't indicate that something is unsafe, and that they try to make sure that they're not putting out food that could make someone potentially sick. I looked at data from ReFED, which is a national nonprofit that tracks food waste, and it looks specifically at Wyoming, and found that Wyoming retailers are throwing away 46% of their food, or about 47,000 pounds of food a day. That doesn't mean it's going in the garbage. Some of it is donated, some of it is composted, but almost the majority is not being bought by consumers." In Wyoming, and most of the country, selling food simply because it has passed the date printed on the package isn't illegal. Federal law generally treats most package dates as measures of quality rather than food safety. Read the full story HERE. – Wyoming economists say a state income tax is on the table if Prop 1 passes, because it's a targeted way to get back the huge tax discounts the initiative would give wealthy people. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports Sen. Cale Case says, "It's not a threat. It just makes income tax more logical." "Senator Cale Case's assertion that passing Prop 1, slashing some residential property taxes in half, would actually pave the way for a state income tax because of a very unique clause we have in our state constitution. And so, in the past, lawmakers have been like, 'Should we do an income tax? Nah, people just wipe it out with their property taxes, right?' Especially the wealthy. But with Prop 1 aiming to disproportionately help wealthy people with a quarter of its savings going to Teton County residents." If Prop 1 becomes law, it would favor Wyoming's richest county, which is Teton County. But applying an income tax to the wealthy could reverse that disproportionate benefit, because the Wyoming Constitution says people can credit their sales, use, and property taxes against any income tax imposed. Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.     Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – More than 50 years after a 17-year-old Utah girl was killed, officials confirmed Tuesday that Melissa Smith is conclusively linked to notorious serial killer Ted Bundy. Cowboy State Daily's Jen Kocher reports that the case was solved after Bundy's DNA profile was created from another case.  "They did not have definitive evidence to close this case. So what happened is one of the investigators got together with the two neighboring counties and went back carefully over all the case notes and all the evidence they had to look for correlations, and it was in this evidence that they found that they had biological samples that they could compare from both of the girls, which matched to Bundy's Y chromosome. So parlaying on that DNA technology, they were then able to compare that same DNA profile to one from Melissa Smith, and therefore, using the two combined with the other evidence, they were definitively able to say, "Okay, this is Bundy once and for all.'" Tuesday's announcement comes on the 52nd anniversary of the day Smith's nude body was discovered on Oct. 27, 1974. Read the full story HERE. – Wyoming regulators have officially signed off on the 650-megawatt Laramie Range Wind Project near Cheyenne. Cowboy State Daily's Emma Jane Jackson reports the developer still faces 26 strict new conditions, including a 2.5-mile residential setback. "It's a long process going through the final approval for this project, but the Repsol spokesperson I talked to said that it represents a really good economic opportunity for the company, but the Repsol spokesperson that I talked to said that it represents a really good economic opportunity both for the company and for the county as far as tax revenue, and it gives some ranchers who choose to lease their land an opportunity to diversify their income and secure their ranches for future generations." Justin Arnold, head of the Laramie County Planning Commission, tells Cowboy State Daily the state's conditions changed the project so much that it no longer resembles what the company first submitted to the county. Read the full story HERE. – A non-U.S. citizen pleaded guilty Tuesday to illegally voting in Wyoming's 2024 presidential election. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray confirmed that the man is the previously unnamed Carbon County voter his office identified in October 2025. "30-year-old Maxim Shakirov pled guilty on Tuesday to voting in a federal election, despite knowing that he wasn't an American citizen. On November 5, in 2024, Shakarov voted at the Carbon County election polls, and his vote counted. Over a year later, the clerk called to investigate and check up on his citizen status. When he didn't return her phone calls, a local investigator got a hold of him and was able to talk to Shakirov, who admitted that he knew that he wasn't an American citizen. He said he had a green card, which is not the same as citizenship, and does not allow someone to vote in an election. I spoke with Chuck Gray on Tuesday, and he confirmed that Shakirov was one of three voters who voted illegally. Gray added that only United States citizens should be voting in Wyoming elections." Federal prosecutors eventually charged Shakirov with falsely and willfully representing himself as a U.S. citizen. Read the full story HERE. – What European deer callers consider an art, Americans might find hysterical. Germany's champion red deer callers try to mimic their "roar" by cramming huge tubes into their mouths. Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports that one Wyoming hunter says it sounds like a Sasquatch having gastrointestinal problems. "They have what they call red deer or red stags over there. They're a really close cousin of our elk, but they make an elk bugle when they're in the rut. There, the red deer make more of a roaring sound, and so to imitate that, they open their mouths as wide as they can and shove these tubes up in their mouths and recreate the grunts and roars of red deer, and it creates some visuals that some people find anywhere from utterly hysterical to maybe mildly disturbing." Wyoming hunting guide Brad Carpenter tells Cowboy State Daily that as far as the huge, awkward red deer calls, he says they're similar to huge birchwood moose calls he saw hunters and guides using in the Yukon. Read the full story HERE. — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Tuesday, October 27th.  I'm Mac Watson.   This newscast is sponsored by Lisa Kinney for Congress. Lisa has, Chuck hasn't. That's why former Gov. Mike Sullivan has endorsed Lisa Kinney for Wyoming House. Learn why Lisa is the choice for Wyoming's future at Lisa Kinney for Congress dot com. – Wyoming gubernatorial candidate Rebecca Bextel appeared on Tucker Carlson's show over the weekend, claiming Eric Barlow is a Democrat and is against fossil fuels. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports she also said the U.S. didn't land on the moon. "A lot of the interview was her oft-repeated concerns about what she calls scams in Teton County, and complaints about her opponent, Senator Eric Barlow, whom she consistently levels claims against. This is not the first time Carlson has taken an interest in Wyoming politics. He co-founded the Daily Caller News Foundation with backing from the late Wyoming philanthropist Foster Friess, and then Carlson turned around in June and gave a $7,000 campaign donation to Friess' son Steve Friess in the latter's House campaign." Bextel vies for election against the Republican nominee, state Sen. Eric Barlow, and the Democratic nominee, Ken Casner. The election is Nov. 3. Read the full story HERE. – A Wyoming judge has rejected a plea deal that would have given a Riverton man 18- to-20 years in prison for shooting a woman in the face and leaving their 5-year-old daughter alone in a motel room with her dead mother. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports 25-year-old Sterling Louis Black Jr. could once again face a second-degree murder trial in the March 7 death of Angelina Rose Bell. "Because this was a binding agreement, Judge Jason Conder couldn't simply sentence him to anything that he wanted. He either had to accept the plea or reject it altogether, which is what he did. The rejected agreement means that both parties have to decide where they'll go from there. I did reach out to the defense attorney. He did not respond before publication. I also reached out to Angelina Bell's father, Byron Bell. He said this was the deal of a century, and he was very relieved that the judge rejected it." Bell said some of the deepest hurt comes from losing the future he had pictured — growing older alongside his daughter and watching her and her "sisters," the cousins she grew up close to, raise their children together. Read the full story HERE. – Bomgaars won't sell firearms to Colorado residents at the national chain's Wyoming stores because of a clash in state regulations. Cowboy State Daily's Emma Jane Jackson reports that a Cheyenne gun shop owner says, "Colorado is the gift that keeps on giving" to smaller businesses. "I talked to Ryan Allen, the owner of Frontier Arms Supply, and he said that they, as a small gun shop, they're able to navigate these restrictions. Like Colorado customers have to abide by Colorado's three-day waiting period, but his store is small enough that it's easy for them to just hold those guns, mark them, and release them at the right time to Colorado customers, and he said that he's actually seen an influx, both with people buying firearms as well as other things like ammunition and shotgun shells, either that aren't accessible in Colorado or people just coming to Wyoming to avoid the 6.5 percent increased tax on these things in Colorado." Aaron Bomgaars, executive vice president of Bomgaars, tells Cowboy State Daily that the company has a statewide policy in Wyoming prohibiting sales to Colorado customers "out of an abundance of caution. We don't allow sales of firearms to Colorado residents due to the differences in state regulations." Read the full story HERE. – Wyoming GOP Chair Bryan Miller said the party won't endorse Eric Barlow for governor because he didn't commit to the Republican platform, and won't endorse Bextel because she's not a Republican. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland esports He also said Checkgate "destroyed the Freedom Caucus." "It's important to note a couple Freedom Caucus members are still standing, like Tomi Strock, Bill Allemand. But yes, they were largely demolished in the primary election. Miller credits CheckGate for that. The controversy in which Bextel handed out checks on the floor of the House a couple days before a bill she had championed was up for an introductory vote. And he said that there wasn't corruption, but it gave kind of a photo op attracting claims of corruption, which then drove what he called the leftist fundraising efforts headed into the primary." Miller lamented that the party landed at odds with President Donald Trump in the gubernatorial primary. Trump endorsed Degenfelder. Party leadership endorsed Bien. Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.     Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – Cheyenne police say a drunk man dressed as Black Spider-Man was found unconscious after being booted from a bar for trying to fight people. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports he told police that someone dressed as the traditional red-and-blue Spider-Man attacked him in the bar. "I spoke with the Cheyenne Police Department spokeswoman Alex Farkas, who says they did find a man dressed as Spider-Man unconscious in the parking lot, but there was no evidence that he had been assaulted. In fact, she said that reports came in that he had actually tried to hit patrons at the Crown Bar and was thrown out by bouncers. When police found the alleged Spider-Man, he was unconscious and was later transported to the hospital. When police spoke with the man in the parking garage, he said that he didn't throw any of the punches; that there was another Spider-Man in the traditional red and blue costume, who had caused chaos at the Crown Bar. Police say he was heavily intoxicated, and they took him to the hospital. That Spider-Man, it should be noted, was dressed in a black costume, what's known as Spider-Noir." As far as an identity of the webslinger, Brian Snyder owns Bohemian Metals across from the parking garage and lives above his shop. He tells Cowboy State Daily he had, in fact, spotted a red-and-blue Spider-Man walking toward the Crown that night and took careful mental notes. Snyder describes the red-and-blue Spider-Man as "Too out of shape to be the real Spider-Man, kind of pudgy. Just imagine Jack Black stuffed in a Spider-Man costume." Read the full story HERE. – After a hunter found two graves in the same spot from men who died 45 years apart, a gravesite researcher says she's baffled by it. Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports that Michelle Nelson says back then you were buried where you died.  "There's been little tidbits posted about this site previously, but you know she did some digging, and the one from 1877 was a soldier, possibly a civilian, a French civilian contractor, was working as a surveyor, and the story is that he accidentally shot himself while cleaning his rifle up there in 1877. The grave from 1922 was apparently a railroad tie hack, and she said her research revealed that he apparently died of a heart attack up there. But there's really no information like what he was doing in that location or how he ended up being buried right next to that other gentleman." Nelson said the site is obscure, but not undiscovered or entirely unknown. She provides information for the website Find A Grave, which offers information about little-known or undocumented burial sites. Read the full story HERE.  – Better Wyoming Action & Research, a left-leaning PAC, has retracted about 20 false mailers it sent about GOP Albany County Sheriff candidate Daron Wyatt. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports Wyatt says, "Even one of them being delivered with factually inaccurate information is an issue." "They tell me that only 20 copies of the false mailers were dispatched before that retraction. But but they have claimed things like that why it had been investigated by the FBI and that why it had destroyed torture evidence. He was really bothered by the false claims, and he's been burying a lot of false claims throughout the campaign by now. It's kind of an onslaught on Wyatt, to be honest. He did not vow any kind of legal action on Monday. He said right now he's just focused on taking the high road." Better Wyoming Action and Research endorsed incumbent Democratic nominee Aaron Appelhans on Monday. Read the full story HERE. – Thermopolis police report that a local man said he was drunk the night he shot up his neighbors' homes last week and was caught on video in an apparent attempt to ambush one of them. Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports that police also say that it was lucky no one answered the door that night. "This guy apparently was caught on the surveillance camera at the door of one of the one of the houses, banging on the door, and then after banging on the door, according to the affidavit by police, he then would hold the rifle he was holding up, put it up against his shoulder, and hold it up to the door as if he was ready to shoot whoever was going to answer the door. So that's why the police say, 'Hey, it's lucky nobody answered the door.' What's kind of strange is, at least according to the affidavits, there didn't seem to be much of a motivation other than he was drunk. He told police, 'I was just drunk. I was a little depressed, and I was just shooting off steam." 42-year-old Joseph Cavalli is being charged with two felonies, aggravated assault, threatening with a deadly weapon, and property destruction, and misdemeanor reckless endangerment. Although he was initially held on a $250,000 bond, that has been reduced to $5,000 cash only. Read the full story HERE. — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button o

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Monday, October 26th.  I'm Mac Watson.   This newscast is sponsored by Lisa Kinney for Congress. Lisa has, Chuck hasn't. That's why former Gov. Mike Sullivan has endorsed Lisa Kinney for Wyoming House. Learn why Lisa is the choice for Wyoming's future at Lisa Kinney for Congress dot com. – Nearly 30 years after the naked body of an 18-year-old Shoshoni woman was found decomposing along an Idaho highway, investigators are still pushing to solve the cold case. Cowboy State Daily's Jen Kocher reports it doesn't help that some of the evidence was destroyed in 2008. "They retrieved a partial male DNA profile off of her body. However, it hasn't matched anyone yet. They do have one suspect and two persons of interest, and the suspect is the last guy who saw her, a trucker named David Lord. The Bonneville, Idaho Sheriff's Office leadership in 2008 determined that her evidence was taking up too much space in the evidence locker, so that he ordered some of it destroyed. So they still do have evidence. However, the partial male profile so far has not conclusively matched with their suspect David Lord or the other two men who are persons of interest. This case hinges on a tip coming forward." The investigation into Tanya Teske's murder shifted in the spring of 1998 when federal and local authorities connected a series of killings spanning from 1983 to 1997 across Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and Idaho. The killings were dubbed the "Great Basin Murders," named from the geographic region in which the bodies were found. Read the full story HERE. – After 54 years of delivering mail through wind, ice and mud on a 66-mile rural route around Hulett, Wyoming, the Spangler family is calling it quits. Cowboy State Daily's Dale Killingbeck reports that Ione Spangler says,  "I would probably have to finish it with a walker." "It was a 66-mile route up and up to a little town in Montana, and then back down to Hewlett in a kind of a circle, hitting all these ranches along the way, and as you would expect, lots of mud in the wintertime back in the day. It was interesting how it started because her dad was like a bondsman. He put up a bond for this mail person back in the day, and this person got sick, and so the U.S. Postal Service said, 'Hey, you put up the bond now; it's your route, so you got to do it.'" Spangler recalls some winter challenges. Once, perhaps in 1978, when she and her sister were helping with the route, a blizzard struck. They had chains on their truck tires and were traveling in four-wheel-drive, but the wind was blowing drifts across the road faster than they could shovel them out. She remembers two men met them on the road and helped them get across the state line into Montana. Read the full story HERE. – A skeleton sex orgy strapped to the roof of a Casper GMC SUV has some residents angered and some shrugging. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that one outraged resident says, "To me this is no different than a couple having sex in public."  "I spoke to the president of the Wyoming Prosecuting Attorneys Association, Loretta Kallas, and she says that this is a free-speech issue. So, while there are state laws prohibiting sex acts in public and obscenity laws, this one falls into an interesting category where the people who put up the display might argue that it's satire or political commentary. Kallas says that matters because prosecutors wouldn't just have to convince the public that this is obscene; they would have to convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt." Under Wyoming law, material is obscene when an average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that it appeals to a prurient interest; it depicts or describes sexual conduct in a patently offensive way; and, taken as a whole, it lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value. The key word there is "and." All three requirements have to be met, Kallas tells Cowboy State Daily. Read the full story HERE. – Truckers who crisscross the steepest mountain grades across the West pray they never have to use a runaway truck ramp but they're grateful for them. Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports that one trucker says, "It's the difference between getting stopped and a bunch of people getting killed." "The truckers I talked to said that they're very aware of where these runaway truck ramps are, especially driving in the Rockies in Wyoming and Colorado. The alternative to steering into a giant, basically a giant gravel moat that slows down an 80,000-pound missile coming down a 10% grade is to plow into other motorists, and that's obviously not not the outcome that that anybody wants. They also reacted to this recent incident on I-70, just just west of the Eisenhower Tunnel in Colorado, where a runaway truck had to use the ramp, and he had so much speed going that his truck, with a huge plume of of dust coming up behind him, went all the way to the top of this runaway truck ramp, which even the truckers I talked to said 'That's insane.'" Runaway truck ramps run channels of deep gravel and sand off the side of the highway to catch semitrailers that become 40 tons of steel, rubber, and momentum that can obliterate anything in their path. A 2023 study published in the journal Transportation Research Procedia found that gravel arresters can bring a vehicle to a complete stop in as little as 150 feet, depending on weight and whether the driver is or isn't braking. Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.     Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – Our own Clair McFarland writes that recently she's made a recipe her family loves but sounds gross. It's called feetloaf which she describes as a gruesome abomination of culinary science as a Halloween prank.  "I found the feetloaf recipe on a blog. I was getting pretty excited about the recipe, but when I was making the monster feet out of the meatloaf, I was laughing to myself because of how ridiculous I felt. But I shaped up the ankles, flooded them with ketchup, topped them with an onion slice to signify a bone, and put little onion toenails. It's the first time I've ever given a manicure to severed meat feet, and then popped it in the oven. and I thought, 'oh boy, when these feet come out; they're going to be so disgusted,' and it's going to pay them back for all those times they spat toothpaste on the faucet. But they were not disgusted; they were completely delighted." Clair adds "I can honestly say those were the only feet I've ever eaten and they were delicious!" Read the full story HERE. – Cowboy State Daily's Bill Sniffin just bought a Tesla because he loved the idea of the car driving him. In fact, the 80-year-old let the car drive for nearly all of his recent 3,000-mile trip.  "We flew down to Dallas. I had a doctor friend down there who had been trying to sell me this Tesla, and I fell in love with the car and fell in love with the idea of it doing a lot of the driving. And so we took off on a 3000-mile trip and went back to Iowa to our hometowns and visited relatives. And I just let the doggone car do most of the driving, and all it requires is that you take your finger and just press on it to give it a little constant pressure. Because these cars are all sensors. It's just full of sensors, and as long as it senses that you're paying attention, away it can go." Bill tells Cowboy State Daily that the only problem the car had navigating was construction zones. But besides that, Bill says it was a smooth ride back to Wyoming. Read the full story HERE. – Cheyenne is getting the PRCA's rodeo headquarters and Hall of Fame, but Wyoming tourism leaders are pushing for rodeo statewide to maximize the impact. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that former Wyoming tourism director Diane Shober says the statewide economic potential is huge. "This isn't just a huge economic impact in Southeast Wyoming or Cheyenne. It doesn't stop at the Laramie County border. Wyoming is a rodeo state. Like Jim Walter was saying when he was in Madison County, he basically was one of the communities on the way to the Baseball Hall of Fame, and they had all these people traveling through his community, and then one day they just started asking, you know, what about these people who travel through here? And when they did that, it was just like a huge boost for their tourism. Wyoming can do kind of a similar thing. Cheyenne is now Wyoming's Cooperstown." The 35-acre PRCA and ProRodeo Hall of Fame campus will anchor the 415-acre Hitching Post Business District near Interstates 25 and 80. Those two corridors put visitors on routes leading across the state. Read the full story HERE.  – For a woman with deep agricultural roots who became a candlemaker because she was tired of the consumerism of Christmas, she's thrilled her candle "Calf Slobbers"  is such a big hit. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports it may sound gross but for creator Jackie Miller Reeves, calf slobbers is a good thing. "The scent has really caught on to a lot of just Western buyers, egg-minded people, and non-ag-minded people. They buy in part for the curiosity. Some people, you know, purchase this scent because they're curious: what the heck does calf slobbers smell like? According to Miller Reeves, calf slabber has a sweet tang to it. You might think of it like smelling like lemon meringue pie. I talked to Lana Davis in Nebraska who owns Wesley's Boutique and purchases the calf slobber scent from Jackie Miller Reeves. Lana Davis also told me that it is her best-selling scent as well. And even last week when we were working on this story, it was sold out at Wesley's Boutique." While the name might raise eyebrows, the fragrance itself is bringing back memories of homemade pies topped with fluffy meringue — which is also sometim

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Friday, October 23rd.  I'm Mac Watson.   This newscast is sponsored by Lisa Kinney for Congress. Lisa has, Chuck hasn't. That's why former Gov. Mike Sullivan has endorsed Lisa Kinney for Wyoming House. Learn why Lisa is the choice for Wyoming's future at Lisa Kinney for Congress dot com. – A Lander man was convinced traditional traps would never capture the celebrity stray dog Diya at Split Rock Rest Area near Jeffrey City, so he secretly coaxed her to walk 90 miles to his home. Cowboy State Daily's Emma Jane Jackson reports the hiker, who wants to remain anonymous, said, "She followed me and my dog every step of the way." "Diya showed up at the Split Rock Rest area in mid-September, and based on her demeanor, she seems to be domesticated. She loves other dogs and she loves kids, but she's very cautious about adults and even more cautious about any kind of confinement. So, getting her into a kennel or on a leash proved to be incredibly tricky. She's also very smart. She was dodging attempts to try to feed her tranquilizer. This anonymous man also didn't loop anyone in on his plans beforehand. I'm in a group chat with Mark Lewis and several of the other volunteers, and Diya disappeared from the rest area on Friday night. Unbeknownst to everyone, she had started that 90-mile walk. So, at that time, people were fearing the worst. The unexpected plan is a happy ending for Diya, who has now been renamed Juniper. Mark Lewis said that he fully trusts that she's in good hands and she's off to a great life." Diya first arrived at the remote Fremont County rest stop in mid-September, quickly winning the hearts of dozens of locals while frustrating every effort to capture her. Read the full story HERE. – The Albany County Sheriff's race is a genuine feud as the two high-profile law enforcement officers sharply criticize each other. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports it casts the controversy of a high death rate in Sheriff Aaron Appelhans' jail against opponent Daron Wyatt's use-of-force history. "They're definitely criticizing each other. Wyatt said that he's busting out a semi-retirement because he sees problems and issues, liability risks at the sheriff's office, whereas Applehans is pointing to the you know these past use-of-force incidents like, 'whoa, Albany County, do we want this again?' Because they had a really controversial office- involved shooting in 2018 so they are you know in the political metaphorical sense they're at each other's throats. As far as projections for who might win are concerned, it's hard to tell because this truly is a purple county. Being a Republican doesn't guarantee the win. Being a Democrat doesn't guarantee a win, which makes it interesting to watch going into the general election." Appelhans, who is 45 and originally from Denver, has spent his entire adult life in Laramie, where he got his law-enforcement start at the University of Wyoming Police Department 16 years ago. The  59-year-old Wyatt, has 38 years of law-enforcement experience, including as a homicide and cold-case detective.  Read the full story HERE. – A Colorado man accused of searching for "cliffs near me" before killing his wife by driving off a cliff has returned to Wyoming and is being held on a $5 million bond for murder. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports police say the truck accelerated to 57 mph before going off the cliff. "46-year-old Forrest Wood was being held in a Colorado detention center in September, but he has since been extradited to Wyoming. He had initial appearance October 12, and this week he waived his preliminary hearing, which moves his murder case to Carbon County District Court. The case stems from a June 3 crash outside of Saratoga, where the couple was driving around before he started searching, allegedly, 'cliffs near me,' and then drove off a cliff. They both initially survived the crash. However, she died sometime later. When investigators started digging, they found that Wood had used his cell phone after the crash, but no attempts to call 911 were made." Wood told investigators the trip was supposed to give him and his wife time to talk about their troubled marriage. Read the full story HERE. – Deadly diseases called bluetongue and EHD that leave deer with bloody foam coming from their noses and mouths have hit parts of Wyoming this year, especially whitetails. Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports the disease, which has hit North Dakota hard, can kill up to 90% of a herd. "They're transmitted through mid bites to wildlife, deer, elk, pronghorn, and basically they cause really nasty, horrible deaths. Basically the animals just kind of choked to death on their own blood because it causes really nasty, internal hemorrhaging. The midges that spread this disease, they like wet areas. One retired biologist, Joe Sandrini, told me that the midges tend to thrive in long-standing mud, and whitetails live along river bottoms and places like that, where there's going to be more of these constantly wet, muddy conditions where the midges are going to be. Hence, when there's an outbreak, the whitetailed deer tend to get hit first and hardest." Retired game warden and biologist Joe Sandrini tells Cowboy State Daily that one of the worst outbreaks he ever saw hit the Black Hills region a few years ago. "They were picking up dead deer every day in the town of Hulett," added Sandrini, who retired from the Wyoming Game and Fish Department in 2024. Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.     Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – A candidate running for Albany County coroner is wondering why the DUI arrest of the sitting coroner last October never went public, so he's raising it. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports Sally King "was too intoxicated to have driven to the scene of the dead body," the police report reads. "In pretty much any Wyoming community, if a public official is getting a DUI, it's going to leak, and the news is going to pick it up. But that didn't seem to have happened for a year in the case of Sally King, Albany County coroner, who was arrested October 2025. She ultimately pleaded guilty, and now that she is facing  Republican Ryan Hershey going into the general election, Hershey has asked, 'why this never really reached the public?' It did finally surface when Hershey obtained the police report and made it public." King confirmed the arrest in a Wednesday email to Cowboy State Daily, saying, "I am deeply sorry and regret the decisions I made that day that led up to the situation." Read the full story HERE. – A Cheyenne dad says his daughter's SUV was vandalized with dog feces, oil, spray paint, garbage and broken glass after an argument with her boyfriend. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports he says his daughter is scared for her life, and with no arrest in 7 weeks, he "loses sleep every night." "John Becker explained that his daughter was in a toxic relationship, and in September, she and her now-ex got into an argument. When she left the Fox Hill Apartments in Casper later that night, she found her car in the parking lot had been vandalized with dog feces, oil, oil filters, spray paint, and even shards of glass smeared across the hood, the windows, and around the car. 18-year-old Tagan Becker had just bought this car. It was nearly brand new. In fact, she hadn't even made her first payment on it, so she was devastated. When she took the car to be cleaned and detailed, the bill was $1,500. Ultimately, the Beckers would like restitution, but they would also like some kind of disciplinary action against this person, who she says has made her feel afraid." Becker said his daughter and the unidentified young adult had been dating for a year.   Becker added the young man spent time with the family and was welcomed into their home. Read the full story HERE. – Carbon County Undersheriff Shawn Kelley abandoned his vacation Sunday to help rescue a hunter in the Snowy Range. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports that Sheriff Alex Bakken said he wasn't surprised.  "Kelley has been under sheriff for the past eight years, and said he always takes his phone with him when he goes on vacation, especially when he's up in the Snowy Range, so that if he is needed on a search or if they're shorthanded, that he is available. He was watching Sunday afternoon football at his family cabin during a week of hunting, and got a call that another hunter about five miles from him believed he was having a heart attack. So Kelley responded in his side-by-side. He went up there and assisted in the search and went back to his cabin and continued his vacation." The unidentified man was stranded in rugged mountain terrain near Ryan Brothers Lake, about five miles from Kelley's cabin. He was airlifted to a hospital, where his condition is unknown.  Read the full story HERE.  – An SUV crashed through the glass storefront of a Casper nail salon with people inside Thursday, shattering windows and scattering debris. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports the salon's owner was shaken long after it happened.  "Thursday afternoon, I spoke to Top Nail Salon owner Ngoc Nguyen, and she said that it was so scary. She was in the building when this SUV slammed into the glass doors, shattering them completely. She says, 'Luckily, no one was hurt, and the driver appeared to be okay.' She had gotten out of the vehicle and was walking around when law enforcement arrived. The Storefront Safety Council, which studies these types of crashes, says that this happens more than 100 times every day in the United States. Most common causes listed include operator error, someone hitting what they think is the brake and accidentally hitting the gas pedal, as well as impairment." The driver, an older woman

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Thursday, October 22nd.  I'm Mac Watson.   This newscast is brought to you by Casper Medical Imaging & Outpatient Radiology – Working to improve breast cancer screening rates across Natrona County and the state. If you're due for your mammogram, don't put it off any longer.  Self-schedule your screening mammogram at casper medical imaging dot net. – More than 100 people packed into the Midwest Recreation Center on Wednesday night to begin a four-day, full-court press to save grades 6-12 of their school which is on the Natrona County School District 1 chopping block. Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson was at the meeting in Midwest and says people were upset, but organized. "I'm standing here in the Midwest Community Center, where they just got done with a public meeting. It was packed in here. There's more than 100 people, and basically, what they were doing was trying to figure out how to save their school. It seems like most of the people here just found out about this last week, and so they're rushing over the next few days, trying to organize to send emails, call school board members, call legislators, and the message is clear. They just want to save the school. They say it'll pretty much destroy the community, and so they want to send a message that hey, give us more time to figure out how we can make this work and not have to close it down." Parents, school staff and students are organizing an email and phone blitz targeting school district trustees ahead of Monday's school board meeting and Wyoming legislators with a single message — give us time to come up with alternatives to a drastic decision they say will devastate the close knit northern Natrona County oil town. Read the full story HERE. – A Rock Springs businessman said gubernatorial candidate Rebecca Bextel's accusations about him are "pissing him off." Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that Bextel has claimed that Bruce Pivic approached her at a UW game, which he says didn't happen. "In one account, she claimed he was foaming at the mouth. She has said that he was demanding more money for the university and more help for the business community. And in a recent video, she said that it was Bruce Pivick. And Bruce Pivick has said all along, 'I never had any such interaction with her. I don't know what she's talking about. I don't know where she got this idea.' So Pivic set out this week to correct the record, because he had finally had enough. For one thing, she said that he is a UW trustee and on the Wyoming Business Council. For another, she said the man was about a foot shorter than she was. Pivic is 5'10" according to his driver's license, which he showed me on Wednesday, and Bextel is 5'9" according to her court record." Bextel has said repeatedly that the accoster, "Bruce," is on the Wyoming Business Council's board and the UW Board of Trustees, plus on the "board" of Barlow's campaign committee. The Wyoming Business Council and UW Board of Trustees don't share members currently, except for Gov. Mark Gordon, who serves both. Read the full story HERE. – The parents of a 26-year-old Casper woman who was killed while filming herself driving 105 mph off Highway 487 are heartbroken. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that as Sydney Ruschmann's parents rushed to the accident last week, her stepfather says an officer warned him, "Do not come here, sir. Do not come here." "Sydney Ruschmann was reportedly using a social media app called Snapchat when her tires left the pavement, going over 105 miles per hour. She overcorrected to the left, sending the Ford Contour into a passengers' side-leaning skid. She struck a delineator post before the vehicle rolled and ended up in the opposite ditch. She was pronounced dead at the scene. The crash happened at about 10 p.m. at night. By this time, her parents, Adam and Melinda Doyle, had been notified as her emergency contacts through her cell phone's emergency services, and so they started driving towards the scene of the crash because they could tell where her location was using the Find My App." According to Wyoming Department of Transportation crash data,  4,452 crashes involving suspected distracted driving happened between 2020 through 2024. Those crashes killed 52 people. Read the full story HERE. – The longtime Uinta County Coroner was arrested Wednesday morning. Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports that Gregory Crandall faces allegations that he stole more than $41,000 of public money, intentionally falsified a death certificate, and committed numerous other acts of misconduct. "DCI did an exhaustive investigation here, more almost more than a year and a half, and what they found, according to DCI, are allegations of a lot of financial alleged financial misappropriation services getting the county was getting billed for that weren't getting done, services that were greatly exaggerated with what the bills were. But some of them, a couple of the more serious allegations, one of them deals with allegations that the coroner deliberately altered a death certificate to cover up potential malfeasance in how they handled a body. And there's another allegation too about a body from an officer-involved shooting that was sent down to Denver to a pathologist down there. And when it arrived in Denver, it was just wrapped in a blanket. It didn't have all of the evidence tags. It wasn't put in plastic." The 66-year-old Crandall has been the county coroner since 2003 and is unopposed on the upcoming Nov. 3 general election ballot. Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.     Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – A Cheyenne man who told a trooper that a pound of meth that was sticking out from under his butt was just a burrito was sentenced to more than 8 years in jail last week. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports the trooper didn't believe the claim and called in a K9 which confirmed the substance. "A Wyoming trooper who stopped a 58-year-old Cheyenne man on I-80 and noticed that the man was sitting on something silver and cylinder-shaped. When the trooper asked about it, Matthew Jacoby told him it was a burrito. Federal prosecutors later said that the Wyoming trooper was prepared to testify that in his thousands of traffic stops, he's never seen anyone sitting on their food. Three weeks later, Jacoby was also caught throwing methamphetamine out of the window of a stolen Dodge." Authorities say Trooper Austin Barker was sitting in his patrol vehicle when a silver four-door Saab blew past him at 95 mph in a 75 mph zone on December 8, 2025. Barker pulled out and stopped Jacoby, who was alone behind the wheel. Read the full story HERE. – American Fertilizer is pitching a massive "world-scale" nitrogen fertilizer plant outside of Cheyenne. Cowboy State Daily's Emma Jane Jackson reports that Cheyenne Mayor Patrick Collins calls the prospect "an exciting opportunity."  "A lot of the interest in this plant is coming from a national security angle. Right now, the U.S. imports a good chunk of the fertilizer. A lot of the fertilizer that U.S. farmers use is imported, so we're reliant on other countries to keep our supply chain going. The project is in very early development. It's a company called American Fertilizer. Right now, according to federal filings, they've raised over $2 million dollars from their own investments, but Mayor Collins told me that the project could be a lot bigger, even up to a multi-billion-dollar facility. Although the exact site has not been nailed down yet, Cheyenne looks promising and potentially having the plant at the Swan Ranch Business Park. Mayor Collins said this is a good spot because of the rail access and the intersecting highways." Cheyenne already has a nitrogen plant operated by Dyno Nobel, but American Fertilizer claims that its proposed facility would be the first world-scale nitrogen fertilizer plant in the region.  Read the full story HERE. – Cody-based US Ballistic Laboratories plans to open a second military-munitions site in Romania to churn out 155-millimeter high-explosive shells. Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports that CEO John McCue says with conflicts in Ukraine and Iran, "everybody's scrambling" for ammunition. "They've got their occupancy permit for that space, and hope to be actually churning out ammunition very, very soon. The CEO, he's a Cody native, so he kind of wanted to bring the business back home anyway. And then it was just just a good location, and Wyoming is a very business-friendly as well as munitions-friendly location, and so that and plus that the fact that it's near a railspur also helped." A $25 million deal to establish an ammunition production facility with US Ballistic was announced in September by Romania according to international reports. McCue tells Cowboy State Daily before the announcement, US Ballistic was very much "below the radar" in Romania but is now well-known and generally highly regarded there.  Read the full story HERE.  – The story of a giant 28-foot inflatable pumpkin rampaging more than 60 miles across southeastern Wyoming is being reported by news outlets as "breaking news." Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports that it's fake, another Casper Planet satire story picked up and reported as "real" news. "One outlet that I saw said that this is the Wyomingest thing ever. And I talked to Mr. Hathaway, who runs Casper Planet, and he says he can't believe that it took off the way it did, the story, not the pumpkin. And it's just incredible to him that people take that as real news when he goes out of his way to say this is satire. It's fake. I just make it up." The monstrous squash rambling across Wyoming toward Colorado was just the latest of those brainstorms, which he posted Sunday evening. The W

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Wednesday, October 21st.  I'm Mac Watson.   This newscast is brought to you by Casper Medical Imaging & Outpatient Radiology – Working to improve breast cancer screening rates across Natrona County and the state. If you're due for your mammogram, don't put it off any longer.  Self-schedule your screening mammogram at casper medical imaging dot net. – The Oklahoma-based Chickasaw Nation has bought one of the biggest horse betting operations in Wyoming, including Horse Palace locations and Sweetwater Downs. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports the sale includes "the entire operations" of Wyoming Holdings LLC, said a gaming official. "It's unique. We've had tribes owning gaming operations in Wyoming for years, but they've been Wyoming-based tribes. The Northern Arapaho, the Eastern Shoshone have owned casinos on the reservation. Now we have an out-of-state tribe buying big gaming operations on state land, which is a little bit unique. The director of the gaming commission, Nick Larramendy, emphasized that the Chickasaw Nation has extensive experience with gaming and, in particular, horse racing." Global Gaming Solutions, which is a subsidiary of the Chickasaw Nation, received Gaming Commission approval late last week for its purchase of Wyoming Holdings LLC. That includes about 13 different facilities, including live horse racing, off-track betting, historic horse racing machines and live betting. Read the full story HERE. – After a Cheyenne daycare provider allegedly blew a .40 BAC while caring for kids — five times the legal limit — a nurse says some people are unconscious at .15 and people over .50 still can walk and talk. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore went in search of answers to the question: How drunk is really drunk? "There is no hard and fast number. I spoke to a Wheatland nurse named Cory Meyer, who's encountered hundreds of drunk people in her career, and she said that though a BAC can tell how much alcohol is in someone's blood, there's no way to know how that number will affect a person cognitively. Meyer explains that some people have a much higher tolerance to alcohol. These are people who are usually daily drinkers, and so their body has become accustomed to processing those high levels of toxicity. The latest federal national survey on drug and health estimates that alcohol use is widespread in Wyoming." Most people know 0.08% as the line where it's illegal to drive. Double that, and a person can be severely impaired. WYDOT counted 622 alcohol-involved crashes in 2024: 25 of those were fatal. Read the full story HERE. – A Wyoming postal rep is filing a grievance because magazines, catalogs, and large envelopes that were supposed to be processed in Cheyenne are now going to Denver, adding at least a day to some Wyoming deliveries. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that Bob Jacknitsky, Wyoming's state representative for postal workers union NPMHU Local 321, calls the move, "ridiculous." "What he's hoping to get to is arbitration, where he feels like he'll get a fair hearing about his allegations. He's saying that taking the flats away from Wyoming violates the Postal Service's universal service obligation, and he doesn't believe that it's more efficient in saving any money. Wyoming has tens of thousands of these flats. They had three employees who were processing them. He feels that that was more efficient than sending them to Denver and then sending them back to Cheyenne." To document the delivery effects in Cheyenne, Jacknitsky has been mailing flats to himself, as well as documenting other examples. In one case, he says a flat mailed from Florida reached a Cheyenne address faster than one mailed within Cheyenne. Read the full story HERE. – Steve Harshman, the longest-serving state House member, and Republican nominee for Superintendent of Public Instruction, says he can't vote for the 50% tax cut in Prop 1. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports the legislator led a blockbuster effort to cut nearly all residential property taxes in 2024, but he says that measure had more guardrails. "Those in politics knew Representative Steve Harshman as the champion of property tax relief measures. He was trying to get rid of nearly all property taxes with a bill that would have replaced them with sales taxes at that time. Now the measure failed after days of controversy and debate. But then he came out on the debate stage last week and said he cannot support Prop 1. I asked him about that. He said it's apples and oranges, Clair, because my measure proposed a backfill with the sales tax hike, and it had a limit of a million-dollar cap, so you couldn't get the exemption on more than a million dollars' worth of home value." Property taxes fund public schools, community colleges, local governments and special districts. Firefighters are some of the most vocal opponents against plans to cut them. Read the full story HERE.  – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.     Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – Sublette County commissioners voted 4-1 Tuesday to uphold the expiration of a permit for a proposed residential trauma treatment center for girls near Pinedale. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports the owners say they've spent years on the project and might take the fight to court. "The Moyes family moved to Wyoming from California with the number one goal of building this sanctuary for girls ages 12 to 17. They bought property between Pinedale and Bondurant and intended to build this state-of-the art facility. Melinda Moyes told me there would be nothing like it in the country. However, county commissioners have pushed back on the project, saying that it has not met deadlines for getting certain permits, and because of that, they have failed to show reasonable progress in the four years that they've been trying to get going. And so, commissioners on Tuesday squashed the plan to move forward." The Sanctuary began as a deeply personal mission for the Moyes family. In 2014, trauma from a fire at their California home left their daughter with severe mental health challenges. As the family sought help, the family tells Cowboy State Daily they repeatedly encountered a troubling reality: Finding appropriate residential treatment for adolescent girls recovering from trauma was extraordinarily difficult. Read the full story HERE. – The driver for a popular music artist died from a medical emergency before the tour bus he was operating crossed three lanes of Interstate 25 and rolled near Cheyenne. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports one band member said, "It was a terrifying experience for everyone on board." "The family of a 50-year-old tour bus driver says that David Rollingcloud Jackson suffered a medical emergency and actually died while he was behind the wheel before a rollover in Cheyenne. He was driving for the artist Sawyer Hill when the incident happened. The vehicle went into three lanes before ultimately rolling. There were nine others on the bus. Several of them were injured, and Jackson died as a result."  WHP spokesman Aaron Brown tells Cowboy State Daily the investigation is not concluded. Brown added that Jackson was driving a 2024 Freightliner M2 and no other vehicles were involved. Read the full story HERE. – Activists called the raid on an Idaho mink farm "liberation" for the 1,500 minks they released. But Cowboy State Daily's Emma Jane Jackson reports they can't take care of themselves, says the farm's owner, leaving many to die of heat, stress, or get run over. "The activists say that mink are known to be able to survive in the wild, but the farm owner says that that has not been the case. The Franklin County, Idaho Sheriff's Office is investigating the incident, but no arrests have been made yet. The farm owner's son said that this is an act of terrorism, but a spokesperson for an animal rights group that I talked to said that the real terrorists are the ones keeping the animals in cages. There is a history of similar activists facing legal consequences. One of them is Joseph Budenburg. He did a similar release of mink from an Idaho farm about 10 years ago. Actually did get convicted and spent time in prison. He told me that this action, though, is still justified, saying, 'The fur industry's days are numbered. Compassionate activists will continue to open cages and shut these places down.'" When he spoke to Cowboy State Daily on Tuesday, farm owner Jeff Hobbs said he was still working to gather the loose minks in Franklin County. At this point, he said about 90% of the mink have been caught. Read the full story HERE. – When a moose calf became hopelessly tangled in wire fencing near an Idaho woman's home, sheriff's deputy Shiloh Frantz came to the rescue. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports it wasn't easy.  "He had bolt cutters, but the handles were too short on those tools. So he knew he needed something with a longer handle. The one thing he had in his truck were tree trimmers, which didn't do a great job of cutting the wire. He did manage to do it. What it did do was keep him a safer distance from the moose.The deputy told me that he used sweet talk on the moose. He said things like, "Hey, buddy, we're going to get you out of this. I'm going to help you. He said that that helped the moose. When the moose was freed, it ran to a field and it stopped. It turned back and looked at Deputy Frantz, and he said, 'it made my day.'" The rescue began when a woman in her mid-70s called the Latah County, Idaho's Sheriff's Office after discovering the calf tangled in wire fencing on her property. Read the full story HERE. — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Tuesday, October 20th.  I'm Mac Watson.   This newscast is brought to you by Casper Medical Imaging & Outpatient Radiology – Working to improve breast cancer screening rates across Natrona County and the state. If you're due for your mammogram, don't put it off any longer.  Self-schedule your screening mammogram at casper medical imaging dot net. – Although Wyoming has sent only Republicans to the U.S. House for 50 years, a national nonpartisan analysis group says the GOP lock on the state is no longer a certainty. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports Inside Elections has moved the race from "Solid Republican" to "Likely Republican." "So you got a political columnist saying, 'yeah, you got strife in the Republican Party nationally,' some 'Anyone But Chuck' people there in Wyoming, so couple that with Gray running ads on national, pretty generic, high interest issues right now. That Politico columnist took it as, 'Yep, this maybe is shaky.' Whereas Mary Kay Hill, a longtime politico here in Wyoming, who served as Governor Mead's chief of staff, she said, "Well, some of that advertising could be a response to just natural uncertainty about how many voters he'll pull from only having 25% coming out of the primary, and so there's a lot of unknowns." Wyoming hasn't elected a Democrat to its U.S. House seat in 50 years, and the GOP primary election historically decides the general election winner. Read the full story HERE. – When a horse got lost in Yellowstone with an iPhone in his saddle last week, Verizon declined to ping its location to help. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports the owner, Paige Chavez, was thrilled the horse was found safe, but remains unhappy with the company.  "According to federal law, Verizon is legally obligated to help when there is a threat or danger to a person, but that provision did not apply in this situation because it was just the horse that was lost that is considered property. When Chavez and her family contacted Verizon, desperately seeking their help, the phone company was adamant that they could not give her any information. Ultimately, they did find the horse, but Chavez spoke with Cowboy State Daily and said she still hates Verizon." In its transparency reports, Verizon says it receives emergency requests from law enforcement involving threats of death or serious physical injury. In the second half of 2024 alone, Verizon reported receiving 36,564 emergency requests from law enforcement involving danger of death or serious physical injury. Read the full story HERE. – A 9-month-old Angus bull sold for a staggering $900,000 at a Billings auction Saturday. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports that buyers are betting his genetics will produce generations of premium cattle worth millions.  "Auctioneer Roger Jacobs was very excited about this sale on Saturday. He got to the $900,000 and then started bidding for a million. And he was talking, he's saying, 'I've never asked for this. I've never asked for a million before.' It ended up stopping at 900,000, and he just exclaimed, 'I sold a bull for 900,000!' This was a record for the ranch, the Basin Angus Ranch in Montana, and it was also a record for the livestock barn in Billings. The money is more about the genetics and the physical makeup of the bull than it is about any meat that people will see in the freezer."  The sale was an extraordinary moment for Montana cattleman Doug Stevenson, who has spent his life raising Angus cattle and knows a thing or two about producing valuable bulls. Read the full story HERE. – When a trailer flipped carrying cattle right outside a massive stock show and rodeo in Billings on Saturday, University of Wyoming grad Michaela Suter did what any rodeo person would do. Cowboy State Daily's Emma Jane Jackson reports that Suter called in the cowboys to wrangle the loose herd. "The Northern International Livestock Exposition, or NILE, was held in Billings over the weekend, drawing in thousands of people, when a livestock trailer carrying 84 head of cows crashed on the street right outside. With first responders arriving on the scene in minutes. Michaela Suter, the office manager for NILE and a University of Wyoming grad, decided to send in some more backup with two cowboys from NILE going out to help round up the cows. Traffic was at a standstill in one of Billings' busiest streets, and two pickup men on horseback with lassos came out.  They ended up lassoing a calf who had escaped from the trailer." Billings Fire Department Incident Commander Darrek Mitchell tells Cowboy State Daily that the one loose calf was secured quickly, and only one cow died in the aftermath. Mitchell guessed that the cow suffocated, which was a better outcome than in a similar incident in Miles City in 2025 where numerous animals had to be euthanized. The street was reopened in under two hours. Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.     Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – A Cheyenne woman who runs an in-home daycare faces a charge of child endangering after police say she blew above a 0.40% on a blood alcohol test during a welfare check at the home. Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports 34-year-old Breanna Mallo faces a misdemeanor charge after she was found to be allegedly intoxicated and admitting to police that she was "drinking a Busch Light and Fat Tire beer." "What made this one stand out was, number one, that the suspect is running a home daycare business out of her home, and when police did a welfare check at the house, she blew a blood alcohol content of more than 0.40, which is more than five times the legal limit. I spoke to a retired law enforcement officer who was a sheriff in Wyoming for 16 years. He said in his nearly 40 years of law enforcement, he's only seen that level of blood alcohol content twice, but in both cases, those people were taken to the hospital to be evaluated because it's that dangerous. Anything over a 0.40, statistically speaking, you should be unconscious." The affidavit doesn't say why the Cheyenne Police Department Officer responded to Mallo's home Thursday afternoon, only that it was in response to a request for a welfare check. Read the full story HERE. – An otherwise healthy 7-year-old Gillette girl was airlifted to Denver last week after a routine cold suddenly turned serious. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports Octaveia "Tavey" Mindrumer's blood-oxygen level had plummeted, her heart was racing above 150 beats per minute and she needed continuous high-flow oxygen. "They sent her to school on Monday, but hours later, she would be sent to the emergency room in Gillette, struggling to breathe. At the ER, she was diagnosed with rhinovirus, which is extremely common and usually symptoms subside on their own. However, in her case, she was also diagnosed with acute respiratory illness, and she was life-flighted to Children's Hospital Colorado in Aurora. After the girl arrived in Colorado, she was discharged the next day. Her parents said that doctors told them that this rhinovirus had made its way to her lungs, and that this year's rhinovirus has been a little bit more aggressive than in years past." Tavey's experience represents the extreme end of a common infection. Nationally, rhinovirus/enterovirus activity is elevated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's latest respiratory-virus update. Read the full story HERE. – The energy company behind a 2.7-gigawatt data center for Google in Cheyenne is donating $105 million to conservation and education efforts in Yellowstone. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports Gov. Gordon said he loves the Tallgrass donation because "Yellowstone needs infrastructure." "They said they wanted to do good for Wyoming. Wyoming's a huge part of their network, huge part of their story, and they said this was an area where we thought we could help Wyoming's kids and research and the infrastructure within the park, and Governor Gordon also was thrilled that there might be some people not thrilled with the private/public partnership, but he pointed out that there has been private industry involvement in Yellowstone pretty much all along." A Blackstone Infrastructure portfolio company, Tallgrass is headquartered in Kansas, operates primarily out of Colorado, and runs oil and natural gas infrastructure as well as carbon-sequestration operations. Read the full story HERE. – After spreading their father's ashes on an elk hunt in the Snowy Range, two Casper brothers used the 1977 Chevrolet Scottsdale pickup their dad bought new in Medicine Bow to recover an elk. Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz  reports that one brother says, "It was like one last hunt with Pop." "They used the 1977 Chevy Scottsdale pickup that their dad bought brand new from Cooper Chevrolet and Medicine Bow in 1977. That truck is still in the family, like the year before he died. So in 2022, the dad, Ken, passed that pickup down to his son Doug, and Doug still has it. They used it to pull the camper up and use it to go hunting just about a week ago, so that it's just really kind of cool how they were able to, you know, bring everybody together and go hunting with their dad's truck like they did, so many years when when he was alive." The family has gone to Elk Hunt Area 12 in the Snowy Range every fall since the late 1960s, Rick tells Cowboy State Daily. And this year was no exception.  Read the full story HERE.  — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Monday, October 19th.  I'm Mac Watson.   This newscast is brought to you by Casper Medical Imaging & Outpatient Radiology – Working to improve breast cancer screening rates across Natrona County and the state. If you're due for your mammogram, don't put it off any longer.  Self-schedule your screening mammogram at casper medical imaging dot net.   – Police say an 88-year-old Cheyenne man had the gas pedal 99% floored when he plowed into people in Fort Collins, killing one — overriding his truck's automatic system that tried to stop itself. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports the suspect was charged Friday with vehicular homicide. "Van Lemaster is being charged for an August 29 crash, where he drove his Chevy Silverado onto the sidewalk into a group of pedestrians. He killed 33-year-old Joshua Douglas and injured six others. A witness standing near Lemaster's truck said that they were trying to get him to stop driving, but he was saying that he just wanted to get out of the commotion. This happened to be a huge parade in Fort Collins that day.  He struck a Nissan behind him, and then after striking the Nissan, they heard him rev his engine aggressively, and the tires squeal as he continued driving towards people." Lemaster was arrested by Fort Collins police Friday on suspicion of seven criminal charges, including felony vehicular homicide and four counts of vehicular assault. Read the full story HERE. – Sue, a 15-year-old fully outfitted palomino gelding, was rescued this past weekend after spending a week lost in a remote area of southwest Yellowstone. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports the horse's owner said, "The only things lost were my bridle, my phone, and a little weight on Sue." "He wandered off in the Bechler region, which is in the remote southwest corner of Yellowstone National Park. Apparently, they were just traipsing around trying to find him. They crossed the river, and sure enough, there he was, just waiting to be picked up. He was fully tacked when he went missing, and except for his bridle and the phone of his owner, everything was there. So he was in good health, wasn't injured, lost a little bit of weight, which was to be expected, but he was reunited with his family and back home in Idaho's Teton Valley later that day." Owner Morgan D'Ambra tells Cowboy State Daily that when Sue got back home, "He literally ran out of the trailer when we got back to our pasture. He couldn't wait to be back with his brothers." Read the full story HERE. – Midwest became the first spot in the nation to play high school football under lights in 1925. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports that now grades 6-12 are on the cut list in the Natrona County School District.  "Public schools have to have a certain number of teachers for core classes, and because of the way things are set up currently, it makes Midwest School actually overstaffed with teachers, and then the funding model does not work. Midwest was the first school to have electric lights on its football field. That makes it the first school to have effectively 'Friday night lights,' what we now know as 'Friday Night Lights.' Steve Harshman, who was running for state superintendent, attended Midwest schools, and he said that 'we certainly don't want to shut down small-town Wyoming.'" According to a message sent to parents from the interim principal Walt Wilcox, Natrona County School District leadership is considering closing the secondary grades, starting with the 2027–2028 school year. The mayor of Midwest tells Cowboy State Daily, "This is a town killer." Read the full story HERE. – Last week, a Gillette woman inadvertently handed over control of everything — bank accounts, credit cards, etc. to an online scammer. Cowboy State Daily's Jen Kocher reports the police couldn't help but a local cybersecurity duo stopped the criminal just in time. "She gave access, and unintentionally, to scammers who were able to get onto her computer and basically access her checking account, her Cash Apps, and they were even trying to get the deed to her house. She had absolutely no idea what to do. The woman was friends with Nick Boltin's wife, and his wife said, 'Hey, you have to contact my husband. He's a cybersecurity expert. He'll know what to do.' He was able to get on and stop them basically in their tracks. It's a very terrifying experience." Nick Boltin and his longtime friend, Dan Knievel, are now business partners at White Hat Rescue, a startup cybersecurity firm in Gillette, where the pair of tech nerds are on a mission to out-hack the malicious hackers who target people online. Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.     Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – Leland Chapman, son of TV's Dog The Bounty Hunter, said a fugitive he had been tracking in Wyoming and Montana for the alleged killing of a man in 2025 has been arrested. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports Leland says he repeatedly found the man but legally couldn't put him in handcuffs. "Chapman was hunting Sage Francisco Spang, who the Billings Police Department had been looking for for almost a year, wanted in connection of a July 2025 killing. Chapman says that he spotted Spang in multiple places, including a gas station on September 1, as well as a local bar. Then Northern Cheyenne tribal chief Gene Small told a local news outlet that there were warrants ready for this man's arrest, but they were waiting for a judge to sign off on them. Chapman said on his personal Facebook page that Spang had been arrested. When Cowboy State Daily reached out to tribal officials, they did not comment on Spang's current whereabouts and if he is in custody." In a public statement about the case, Chapman said he spent 17 days in July and August, quickly located Spang and repeatedly tried to get authorities to arrest him. Read the full story HERE. – After the Laramie County Fire Authority said they were cancelling its trunk-or-treat due to property tax cuts, supporters of Prop 1 mocked the post as "propaganda" and said it is a political stunt. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports critics took the post not just as lamenting earlier property tax cuts, but as a veiled campaign against a deeper property tax cut facing voters on the Nov. 3 ballot. "it is probably fair to say that the post backfired. I asked the fire chief. He said, no, we weren't trying to propagandize anyone. We were making this announcement. Community engagement, community education is part of our budget, and this recent 25% property tax cut did dig into it. Whereas critics of the post, especially Prop One supporters, supporters of the proposed 50% tax cut for certain qualifying homes, called it propaganda. Now fire departments have been part of the property tax conversation all along because they are hugely funded by property taxes. The fire chief told me that they are working with a 2018-level budget and 2026-level expenses. Diesel prices are a big part of that." If it passes, Proposition 1 will change state law so that homeowners can claim an alternate 50% property tax exemption on home structures. Read the full story HERE. – Wyoming's famous Fossil Cabin, billed as the "world's oldest cabin," has been moved to Medicine Bow. But Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that it hasn't reopened to the public until the town's insurance company will cover it.  "There's no other cabin like this in the world. It's a one and only. How do you value something like that? And then, you know, the construction.  Is it structurally sound? Are fossils going to fall off on people when they go up there? What the guy did was basically built a wooden structure, slathered it with concrete, popped a few fossils into it like bricks, and then it's been sitting out for decades." Saving the unusual attraction took roughly eight years. The museum board hopes to have the cabin ready for guests next spring, but unresolved insurance questions mean there's no firm reopening date.  Read the full story HERE. – A Wheatland ranch family has dedicated the past 30 years to taming about 2,000 wild Wyoming mustangs before they're adopted. Cowboy State Daily's Dale Killingbeck reports getting them "gentled" and ready to ride requires a lot of patience and willingness to land in the dirt. "They do that on their 800-acre ranch, and what that involves is making the horses to be able to be led, get a halter, and in some cases they do some saddle work as well, preparing them for a saddle. They've done over 2,000 horses during their past 30-some, nearly 30-some years, that the operation has been ongoing." The family started taming mustangs back in 1998. The BLM supplied 10 at a time and the Mantles were given 30 days to get the horses to the place where they could be caught, led, and loaded into a trailer. Read the full story HERE.  — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I'm Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.