Cowboy State Daily's The Roundup

Cowboy State Daily
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The Roundup is a gathering of voices, opinions and perspectives from interesting people in the Cowboy State of Wyoming.

  1. 2d ago

    Cowboy State Daily Video News: Friday, September 11, 2026

    It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Friday, September 11th.  I'm Mac Watson. – Wyoming GOP Vice-Chair Bob Ferguson says President Trump's controversial promise to give every American $5,000 if Republicans win both chambers of Congress was taken out of context. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports Ferguson says of the charges that it's a bribe, "That is an outright lie." "The criticism, the backlash was scathing. Several high-profile political figures were saying, 'This is a bribe. This is illegal.' Political figures in Wyoming were shocked as well, many of them. But the vice chair of the Wyoming State Republican Party, Bob Ferguson, was actually at the convention in Dallas, Texas, when Trump made those comments, and he said, "No, this is this is out of context of the bigger picture of dividends he's been proposing from tariffs revenue for months, and the the implication said Ferguson is that if Democrats take Congress, they're not going to be doing these tariff dividends, whereas Republicans would."  If the president were to make good on his claim to each American adult, it would cost the nation more than $1 trillion. Read the full story HERE. – The Weston County Sheriff's Office says one of their deputies was fired on while investigating a stolen gun Wednesday evening south of Upton. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that set off an overnight manhunt that ended with a suspect's capture Thursday morning. "Authorities caught Rodney Lee Anderson Jr. at about 5:50 a.m. Thursday morning, and he was taken into custody. The DCI was quickly on the scene to investigate the shots fired. Authorities were investigating a gun theft in Newcastle when dispatch heard that shots had been fired and sent help that way. So far, the Weston County Sheriff's Office has not revealed if anyone was struck during the gunfire." As of Thursday morning, no charges against Anderson had been filed with the court, though he was in the process of booking into the Weston County Detention Center. Read the full story HERE. – With Wyoming Game and Fish facing what its interim director calls a "dire" looming budget shortfall, wildlife groups say a trust fund proposed by a legislative committee has a "juggernaut of support." Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that one advocate says, "God, I hope we dream big." "Some folks have come up with the idea of basically setting up a trust fund for the game and fish. Some of that money could come from the state, but probably in the forms of moving things from savings accounts or putting maybe some of the mineral and energy. Tax revenue funds into that, rather than it couldn't come from the general fund because as soon as you start taking money from the general fund, the legislature has to get directly involved. People think, okay, a savings account that generates interest, and you can pull from the interest. And Bob Budd, who actually runs a conservation-based trust fund in Wyoming told me that's really not how it works. It's more of an investment account where the money in that account is actively being used to invest in stocks or bonds and those sorts of things, and that will create a yield." Jessi Johnson, government affairs director for the Wyoming Wildlife Federation tells Cowboy State Daily that other ideas floated at the committee meeting included state energy severance tax revenue, private donations, and money transferred from other state savings accounts. Read the full story HERE. – It took six Rock Springs police officers to subdue a 6-foot, 260-pound man who threatened to stab them at a local Pizza Hut restaurant. Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports that the man claimed he'd been in prison and the "cartel" wanted him for being a "snitch."  "They finally got him down and took six of the officers to get him down and wrestled the knife away from him after he had been tased, and it took the taser to really get him down. He was hit four times with a beanbag from a shotgun. It's a non lethal weapon, a non lethal round, where a shotgun will blast beanbags at you that are designed to to knock you down, knock the wind out of you. He not only threatened officers, he threatened to stab a canine dog that had responded with one of the officers." Zane T. Gavin of Phoenix, Arizona, was charged and had his initial appearance in Sweetwater County Circuit Court on Thursday with two counts of aggravated assault and three of interference with a peace officer. Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.     Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – A huge crowd of Grizzly 399 fans gathered Wednesday for the dedication of a gigantic sculpture of the world's most famous bear at the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi was at the unveiling and reports that "Against All Odds: Grizzly 399" also features the four cubs she had in 2020. "It was kind of cool to be part of what will probably be the last 399 Bear Jam as soon as the remarks were finished and the blue cloth had been pulled off of the statue. A crowd of people immediately surged towards it, just like crowds formed around 399 when she was alive. So the fact that we had that many people there and they all surged towards the statue was kind of cool to think that almost two years after we lost 399, there was still one more bear jam caused by her presence, and it'll probably be the last one." Hundreds of people attended the Wednesday evening ceremony, marking the triumphant return of "the Queen of the Tetons" to her home. Jocelyn Russell, the bronze artist who sculpted the larger-than-life grizzly, told everyone there her work now belongs to the world. Read the full story HERE.  – A disgraced forensic scientist who was sentenced to prison on Tuesday for deleting and manipulating DNA data in Colorado criminal cases handled 462 cases at the state crime lab in Wyoming. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports Wyoming crime lab director says, "We're lucky it was pre-DNA." "66-year-old Yvonne Missy Woods spent 29 years with the Colorado Bureau of Investigations. On Tuesday, she was sentenced to 10 years in prison for corrupting DNA. Wood spent about five years working at the Wyoming State Crime Lab before she joined the CBI, and she handled 462 cases. But an investigation revealed that none of those cases were corrupted. Woods's manipulation affected hundreds of Colorado cases, including 53 that included false or misleading information in her lab notes." Woods spent about five years in Wyoming before ever joining CBI, handling 462 cases at the state crime lab between roughly 1988 and 1993. Read the full story HERE. – Sen. Bob Ide didn't want to say "I told you so," because he empathizes with customers and businesses agonizing over Hilltop's cybersecurity shutdown this week. But Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that Ide says this is exactly why he's pushed bills to bring gold and silver into Wyoming's economy. "As senator, he successfully championed a bill requiring Wyoming to invest $10 million worth of gold in its permanent mineral trust fund account, and then he also was an early champion of successfully pushing legislation that introduced gold as legal tender, so I'd I'd said, look, stuff like this is why I pushed for this in the first place because the gold isn't depending on someone else's value of it, he said he said that as a business owner, he understands the agony. He empathizes with the agony that people who are dead in the water with their business transactions are experiencing right now. He didn't want to say "I told you so, but this was why he brought that legislation in part." Ide acknowledged that the 2025 bill doesn't push people to keep gold of their own. But he said it could serve as an awareness campaign for the private citizen anyway. Read the full story HERE. – A Casper couple said they're saddened because a black bear that broke into their second home near Driggs, Idaho, was killed under a zero-tolerance policy for bears that enter occupied structures. Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports that homeowner Page Mamot says, "He wasn't mean or aggressive." "A young black bear was up on their kitchen counter, trying to feast on a butter dish or something, and you know the husband caught it, coaxed to go outside, but it was still hanging around, and so they called the sheriff's department in the Idaho Game and Fish or Idaho Fish and Game Department, and ultimately a little bit sadly, the the decision was made to to kill that bear. So that bear was shot on site. The policy is if a bear enters an occupied structure, that's kind of it. That's they're kind of done at that point." Keith and Page Mamot tell Cowboy State Daily that they returned home from riding in their side-by-side UTV. Keith went to put some more fuel in the vehicle, while Page headed for the house, noticing that the retractable screen door to the kitchen area was hanging loose and assumed her husband had entered. Instead, "there was a black bear sitting on the counter," she says. 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.

  2. 3d ago

    Cowboy State Daily Video News: Thursday, September 10, 2026

    It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Thursday, September 10th.  I'm Mac Watson. – Hilltop Bank shut down all branches and offices Wednesday after experiencing a "cybersecurity incident." Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports the bank then disconnected itself from the internet to contain the issue. "They're calling it a cybersecurity incident. They shut down the systems. They unplugged the whole bank from the internet. They were able to give people a $1,000 cap on daily debit card transactions withdrawals, but other than that, the banks are offline. The spokesman, Bill Sullivan, told me that when they noted the incident, they unplugged their backup system because they didn't want it to be affected by what is going on." Hilltop announced Tuesday morning via Facebook that it was having "interruptions" with online and mobile banking and phone service and by Tuesday afternoon, it was still working to resolve the issues. Read the full story HERE. – New details were released Wednesday in the case of a Michigan woman accused of taking her missing 6-year-old son and leading Evanston police on a wild chase that sent her vehicle airborne twice. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that before the chase, the two were spotted at the local Walmart. "We're learning new information about the Michigan mother who left the state with her six-year-old son and was found in Evanston, Wyoming, after a woman recognized Liam, the little boy who had been circulating in online posts, and so she called the police, and they waited in the parking lot until the mother and son got to their car, and then a police officer went up to the window and asked Marisa Kalia if he could see her identification. At first, she seemed cooperative, but then she took off. She took off by going the wrong way, blowing past a stop sign, reaching speeds of up to 50 miles per hour within the city, and her vehicle actually went airborne twice before she finally pulled over, and cops were able to arrest her." Calliea is now charged in Uinta County Circuit Court with six misdemeanors: Fleeing or attempting to elude police, child endangerment, interference with a peace officer, possession of a controlled substance, reckless driving, and driving while her license was canceled, suspended or revoked. She could face felony kidnapping charges in Michigan, but hasn't been charged. Read the full story HERE. – A Fort Washakie family is devastated after the death of their 6-year-old border collie Drover, who was shot over the weekend after leaving their rural Wyoming property. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports the dog managed to make his way home before dying from the bullet wound. "The Penn family has a suspicion of who killed their six-year-old border collie, but they'll never be able to understand why. And the saddest part of this story was he was shot on somebody else's property by who they wouldn't say. But it's clear that the dog made it home, or at least tried to make it home before succumbing to the wound. He was a security dog. He apparently took that job and many other jobs very seriously, and his last and his last act was to try to get home to his family before he died." Owner Nate Penn tells Cowboy State Daily that Drover was a free-roaming dog, but he never strayed far from home and wasn't aggressive toward anyone. Read the full story HERE. – A $30,000 two-year commitment allowing the Glenrock Police to use five Flock cameras will automatically renew unless the town provides a written notice by Monday. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports that the mayor, police chief, and town council members aren't commenting on the issue. "A group of concerned citizens is planning to meet Thursday night to kind of finalize what the petition is going to be and how they're going to present it on Monday. In the past, Police Chief Colter Felton said he's been very supportive of what Flock is doing to protect the town. Town Attorney Amy Iberlin said that deference was given to Police Chief Felton to determine that the technology was in the best interest of the community and community safety. and then Glenrock resident Eric Farrington called the petition a powder keg. He said if the town council is going to ignore a petition and is not even concerned enough to create a special session to address this auto renewal, he said a lot of people are going to have lost a lot of faith in the city government." The contract is scheduled to automatically renew Oct. 14 for two more years unless the town provides written notice of non-renewal by Monday. Monday is also the date of the Glenrock Town Council's next regularly scheduled meeting. Read the full story HERE.  – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.     Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – University of Wyoming's new president Shane Reeves said in his state of the university speech that it's time to embrace AI and push the school to be a leader in it. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports the new president says, "This isn't a choice." "He said basically, there's no putting that genie back in the bottle, like you, you will either learn to use it or be replaced by someone who knows how to use it. And he talked about it being integrated, woven into the curriculum, not as like attack on, but as just another tool. And he emphasized not sacrificing students' critical thinking, personability, or grit." Brig. Gen. Shane Reeves took the helm of the state's only four-year university in July, after serving as academic dean at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York. Read the full story HERE. – A Douglas man is accused of attacking one of his sons with a hammer and punching another son during a domestic argument that escalated out of control. Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports that Joe Aceves is facing aggravated assault and battery charges. "According to Douglas police, they were arguing. It led into a physical confrontation where the father allegedly was punching and pushing one of the sons, and the other son came to the rescue of his brother. They ran out of the house, but the father is accused of grabbing a hammer and running after them. He caught one of them. He's accused of hitting that son multiple times with the hammer, once in the chest, several times in the leg before the son he was grappling with finally got the hammer away from him." If convicted, Aceves could get a maximum of up to 10 years in prison, a fine of up to $10,000, or both. Read the full story HERE. – Hundreds packed a Texas church to pray for Tim Smith as the search for the Wyoming hiker reaches Day 11 after a devastating flood in the Grand Canyon. Cowboy State Daily's Koby Fedore reports that his wife, Carrie said, "Today, we should be celebrating Tim's birthday." "The search continues at Grand Canyon National Park as the missing hiker from Wyoming has not been found. The search is now going on almost two weeks, and searchers have honed in on Phantom Ranch. They're currently sifting through piles of debris that washed downstream. Park officials say that the search is active, and they are still determined to find Smith." The National Park Service says Smith remains the only person missing and unaccounted for from the Aug. 29 flash flood in Bright Angel Canyon and the Phantom Ranch area. Read the full story HERE. – Fresh off her U.S. House primary loss, Jillian Balow trekked her 5-foot-1-inch frame over fallen trees and into a lodgepole pine basin, rested her compound bow against a tree and waited. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports it was there, she had to really learn "what stillness is." "So, pretty much immediately after her election loss, Jillian Baylow plunged into the wilderness. She went on a four-day horseback ride, fishing trip, camping trip with other women in late August, and then she turned right around and went bow hunting for a bull elk near Saratoga, and she contrasted campaigning versus hunting as opposites of one another on the campaign. It's stimuli, it's action, it's vitriol. on the hunt. She said, 'You almost have to retrain yourself to be still, to listen, and to detect tiny, tiny changes in the environment.'" Balow had looked forward to her second-ever bow elk hunt since applying for the tag in May, the same month she registered to run for Wyoming's lone U.S. House seat. 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.

  3. 4d ago

    Cowboy State Daily Video News: Wednesday, September, 9, 2026

    It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Wednesday, September 9th.  I'm Mac Watson.   This newscast is brought to you by Google. This Wednesday, September 9th, Google invites you to a free community meeting at 5pm at the Metropolitan Downtown in Cheyenne. Come learn more about Project Tembo, ask questions, and meet your Wyoming Google team. – Democratic state Sen. Mike Gierau is calling ads by fellow Dem, Rep. Liz Storer's PAC "distortive" and harmful to what he thought was the higher political ground his party held. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that Gierau compared its tactics to those of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus. "Senator Mike Gierau called the PAC's ads distortive because one showed a picture of a project that was going on in town under a text deriding the actions of county commissioners for allowing developments, and so he was saying 'this was not a county project. Why are we linking these two things?' He said that this kind of quote distortive messaging was similar to the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, which of course made headlines in 2024 when its political arm, its campaign arm, launched flyers that were so aggressive and indeed distortive that they landed in court on a defamation lawsuit that was dismissed more than a year later." The core dispute has been about the housing shortage that has been a flashpoint in Teton County for years.  Read the full story HERE. – A 6-year-old boy who was kidnapped in Michigan turned up safe in Wyoming on Monday, while his mom — who didn't have legal custody of him — was arrested in Evanston. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports the boy's father praised the "sharpness of a Wyoming officer" for recovering his son. "A Michigan woman named Marisa Kalia was arrested on Monday afternoon. She is being connected to a missing six-year-old boy from Michigan, who is now safely being reunited with his family. On Tuesday afternoon, he was with the Department of Family Services. A prosecutor for Uinta County said that charges have been filed against Marissa Kalia, although those charges are not yet publicly available until Wednesday. The father, Justin Malberg, made a public post thanking everyone who helped locate his son, and he had said on Monday night, that he was boarding a plane to go and be reunited with Liam." Liam Malburg has since been safely returned to his father, Uinta County Attorney Loretta Kallas confirmed Tuesday. Meanwhile, 30-year-old Marisa Calliea remains in the Uinta County Detention Center after being booked on Monday. Read the full story HERE.  – A Gillette carpenter and musician who lost most of his right hand when a firework exploded in it outside a bar July 4 now also faces the potential of having to do his rehab from prison. Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports Matthew Lynch has now been charged with arson and is due in court next week. "The Gillette police in their affidavit outlining why they called for the charges explained that, yes he was injured. However, the explosion also caused some damage to the business, to the bar he was standing outside, and some minor injuries to some people around him within a radius around him. They also got some bruises, some contusions. arson is the closest thing to charge with." Arson is a felony that could get Lynch up to five years in prison, a fine of up to $5,000, or both if convicted. Read the full story HERE. – Searchers continue to scour Wyoming's Wind River Mountains for Jonathan Bailey and his yellow Lab Wrigley, missing since Saturday when they didn't come back from a hike. Cowboy State Daily's Jen Kocher reports that a former Sublette County sheriff says,  "Anyone can get turned around out there." "Jonathan Bailey was camping with family in the Wind River Range, and he had separated briefly and was going to meet them at a campsite. They last saw him on Friday about 1:30 p.m. And when he failed to make it to the campsite that evening, they all hiked out and went and reported him missing to the sheriff on Saturday. His sister says he is an avid outdoors guy, a bow hunter who knows his way around the outdoors. He does have a sleeping bag with him, and they're just Hopeful he's just lost and just totally got turned around and will be found." For the past four days, the Sublette County Tip Top Search and Rescue team has combed the area on foot and by air looking for Jonathan Bailey and his yellow Labrador retriever, Wrigley, said Shannon Gehlhausen, office manager for the Sublette County Sheriff's Office. Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.     Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – Lawmakers are saying Rocky Mountain Power's inability to meet more demand is costing Wyoming. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports that one official says Sweetwater County especially, is missing out on opportunities. "Rocky Mountain Power came under fire at a recent Joint Minerals Committee meeting for not being able to provide the power needed for things like data centers and the power that is being more and more required by even other industries like mining and even local governments. State Senator Stacy Jones of Rock Springs said we don't have any extra power in Sweetwater County at all to have any sort of new industry coming in. Rocky Mountain Power Company spokesperson Jonah Whiteside said in a statement that their role is not to drive economic development, but to support it by providing reliable electric service in a way that balances new growth opportunities with the obligation to existing customers." The issue revolves around data centers, trona and soda ash producers, and other large industrial users that need far more electricity than Rocky Mountain Power's existing system can readily provide. Read the full story HERE. – Within an hour of identifying a vehicle believed to be connected to the murder of a 28-year-old woman in Sioux City, Iowa, a man was arrested on suspicion of first-degree murder. Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports that license plate reader technology last week led the Wyoming Highway Patrol to arrest 46-year-old Irosy Iotis. "In this case, Sioux City, Iowa's police chief said that a murder suspect or a killing that happened in a park There was apprehended on I 80 near Cheyenne only about an hour after they put after they put it into the license plate reader system, saying, "Hey, this is this is the car we're looking for. They found the car. They found him. Wyoming Highway Patrol picked him up after the license plate reader found his car driving somewhere in western Nebraska." Authorities say coordination with law enforcement agencies in multiple states, along with the FBI, led to Iotis' vehicle being stopped without incident. It was after the stop that the Sioux City Police Department quickly secured an arrest warrant for Iotis, who was driving the vehicle. Read the full story HERE. – A Casper couple was killed in a side-by-side crash on Muddy Mountain over the Labor Day Weekend, Natrona County authorities confirmed Tuesday. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports their daughter was injured trying to reach them and had to be airlifted off the mountain. "According to new information from the Natrona County Sheriff's Office on Tuesday morning, 49-year-old Sarah Turman and 50-year-old James Turman were killed on the Sunday crash on the front side of Muddy Mountain. the sheriff's office said that there were four people in a side-by-side, and two people, including 27-year-old Cheyenne, the deceased's daughter, got out of the side-by-side while the couple remained inside and tried to turn it around when it rolled over a hill, killing both of them. The 27-year-old daughter was Life Flighted for her injuries." Four people were aboard when the side-by-side was traveling uphill, and two passengers got out, investigators preliminarily determined. Sara and James remained aboard and attempted to turn the machine around when it rolled down the hillside. Read the full story HERE. – Colorado wildlife officials have killed nearly 300 black bears this year, almost four times as many as a year ago. Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports one official says, "I think what people aren't realizing is that trash is the primary reason for bears being in towns." "I believe 294 as of the end of August. That's the number of black bears that the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Department has killed because of human bear conflicts between from the beginning of the year through till the end of August. And of course, there could be more because bears are not done yet. They probably won't start going to sleep until October, or who knows? As warm, warm as the weather has been The drought and lack of natural food sources have much to do with why bears are getting into trouble and sometimes getting killed this year, he said, adding that people being careless with garbage and other possible food sources also is to blame." Bryan Peterson, the director of Bear Smart Durango, tells Cowboy State Daily people are careless with garbage. Bears show up, bears get into trouble, and sometimes they end up having to be euthanized because of that. 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.

  4. 5d ago

    Cowboy State Daily Radio News: Tuesday, September 8, 2026

    It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Tuesday, September 8th.  I'm Mac Watson.   This newscast is brought to you by Google. This Wednesday, September 9th, Google invites you to a free community meeting at 5pm at the Metropolitan Downtown in Cheyenne. Come learn more about Project Tembo, ask questions, and meet your Wyoming Google team. – A side-by-side rolled Sunday afternoon in the remote country between Casper and Muddy mountains, triggering a major emergency response. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that dispatch radio traffic carried a grim report from the scene: There was no pulse.  "Dispatch traffic confirmed that a woman was laying on top of the side-by-side and was no longer breathing when they called for a Life Flight service. The Natrona County Coroner's Office said they have identified next of kin, but did not confirm how many fatalities there were, and is not releasing any more information at this time. One witness who said they were camping at Bear Trap confirmed that they saw the fatal side by side wreck and that they had never heard so many sirens before." As of Monday, the Wyoming Department of Transportation's 2026 fatal-crash map showed two fatal ATV crashes elsewhere in the state. The Casper Mountain rollover was not displayed in the database. Read the full story HERE. – Two teen girls from rural Crook County in a month have been targets of alleged sex predators. Cowboy State Daily's Jen Kocher reports that authorities say it's troubling how girls from small Wyoming towns are meeting older men online — and terrifying that the men turn up in person to meet them. "What authorities find so frightening is the fact that these predators are so easily targeting teen girls in Wyoming and elsewhere. A lot of ways this is happening is through video games. So when you're playing a video game, there's also an easy way to go into chat rooms. Discord, the app, is one of those such servers where you can go and have private conversations. So this is how at least one of these incidents took place. The 36-year-old man got the 15-year-old girl to a chat room, and then the grooming begins. As a result of this manipulation, the 15-year-old believes this is her boyfriend, and believes it's perfectly normal and healthy to have a 36-year-old boyfriend." Terri Markham, executive director and co-founder of the Sheridan-based anti-human trafficking nonprofit Uprising, describes grooming as the deliberate process of building trust and an emotional connection with a child or vulnerable person for the purposes of manipulation, control, exploitation, or abuse. Read the full story HERE. – When Mike Gilmore bought a liquor store in Pinedale, his pursuit of premium spirits labels ballooned into searching for the perfect barrel. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports now his premium label, "Roaming Roads," has gone global, and recently found on shelves in Dublin, Ireland. "Gilmore went down the rabbit hole of making his own liquor, learned the ins and outs of doing it, what all is required, and fast forward, his liquor spirits are being sold in places like Ireland, Barbados, Italy, you name it. Thomas Sutton is the manager of Corkscrew Spirits in Dublin, and told us that it intrigued him straight away, and the liquid was so good it sealed the deal. That's what he said after Gilmore had approached him about the potential of selling the spirits in his liquor store in Dublin." When Gilmore moved to Pinedale in 2007, he was far from dreaming about international spirits distribution. He was simply looking for a change as he had  been working in law enforcement in central California and wanted to decompress and start something new. Read the full story HERE. – A Casper pastor and mechanic faces a long recovery after getting into a crash on I-25 that nearly killed him. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that Roger Davis says that he was crushed when his car "folded like an accordion." "Davis was driving an SUV on I-25 near Hat Six [viaduct], and he was passing under the viaduct when all of a sudden a car appeared in the left lane. He did not have enough time to stop, and the next thing he says he remembers is the dashboard coming at his face. When he came to, he woke up and realized he was unable to get out of the vehicle. So emergency response crews came and used the jaws of life to get him out and to the hospital. Davis sustained multiple broken bones. Essentially, his entire body was crushed. He broke his neck, his ribs, and leg. His hip and almost all of his teeth were knocked out. Davis believes that the other car had hit a deer, although that has not been confirmed by Wyoming Highway Patrol as of yet." The 59-year old tells Cowboy State Daily that he still faces multiple surgeries, rehabilitation and a recovery that is expected to take months." Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.     Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – Mule deer populations are "languishing" in parts of Wyoming, but with archery season underway, hunters say record trophy bucks are still out there. Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that after an unusually mild 2025-2026 winter, many deer stayed fat and growing larger antler racks. "The Green River region, the Sheridan region, and the Lander region are kind of the regions where the mule deer are looking the worst, quote unquote, where you know they're struggling the most. I talked to hunters from each of those regions, and one of them, Zach Key.  He hunts the Wyoming Range a lot. And he said, yeah, there's fewer deer, but we're starting to see after that massive winter kill of 22-23, We're starting to see the return of some significantly huge bucks. So there might not be that many deer running around. just from what guys are seeing out scouting, that's looking pretty good." Hunting seasons for 2026 are similar to the previous year. Antler point restrictions are in place for 2026 in some hunt areas. Hunters should expect difficult access to private lands and some overcrowding on accessible public lands, according to Game and Fish. Read the full story HERE.  – Warm Spring Geyser is a pool of brilliantly blue thermal water hidden in a cavern near Dubois, described by a frequent visitor as "like something you find down in the Caribbean." Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports the trick is finding it and whether to risk descending down into it. "I'm not going to tell you how to get to Warm Spring Geyser. In fact, a lot of people on the internet won't tell you. But if you know where to look, you can find the directions, and any business owner in Dubois will be able to point you in the right direction. But it is a really cool place to go. It's a cavern with a pool of natural thermal water sitting at the bottom, it's not a hot spring. The water tends to be around 80 degrees. The water is a pristine blue. There's a wonderful juniper growing right above it. It's a super cool spot, well worth the trip to anybody who's daring enough to head out there. And again, I won't tell you where it is, but there are plenty of people who can point you in the right direction." Even in a state with more geysers, hot springs, and thermal features than any land mass in the world, Warm Spring Geyser stands out. It's a pristine pool of thermal water at the bottom of an open cavern and accessible to anyone intrepid enough to find and descend into it. Read the full story HERE. – A dying Worland man's desire to have his ashes placed on a 5-foot exact model of the USS Constitution and then put aflame onto Boysen Reservoir didn't happen. Cowboy State Daily's Dale Killingbeck reports now the model — with every detail crafted by his own hands — is in a museum for everyone to see. "It's the only ship that kind of a Renaissance man in Worland built, and then he developed cancer, and he wanted his friend, his name is Carl Benz. He wanted his friend Cal Fulfer to put his ashes on that ship and basically send it out into a reservoir, Boysen Reservoir, and burn it down. His friend didn't want to do that. Cal wanted to put it into a museum. And after his friend died, that happened this year when the Worland museum was willing to take the ship. And the hope is that this ship, which is a model of the USS Constitution, a perfect model of the USS Constitution, including furniture in the captain's cabin in the back. His hope is that it's going to be able to be shared at other museums. It's really a fantastic piece of art." The intricately detailed 1/4-inch-to-1-foot-scaled ship includes cannon balls on the brass monkey, nautical knots in ropes laid on the deck, and furniture in the captain's cabin. It is made of oak, just like the real ship that was constructed in 1797 and remains the oldest U.S. Navy vessel still afloat, docked in the Charlestown Navy Yard in Massachusetts. Read the full story HERE. – A 95-year-old Cheyenne woman was going through keepsakes when she rediscovered an extortion letter threatening to kill her husband, the president of a Cheyenne bank, and kidnap her family. Cowboy State Daily's Zak Sonntag reports that the note was dated July 1, 1972, and addressed to her husband, Bill Allen, then president of Cheyenne National Bank. "He gets a letter at work that says 'you need to deliver $2,000 to the Albany Hotel by 10 a.m. on July 3, or your family will be kidnapped and I will kill you myself.' It's a handwritten letter. It's in cursive, and he gets it. The story goes that he calls his wife and he says, 'Keep the kids inside. Don't go near the windows. I'll deal with this.' And the way he dealt with it was by coming up with fake money that looked like real money. He cut up sectioned paper that looked like an envelope of cash, and he delivered it to the Albany Hotel." Archival newspaper accounts and court records identify the culprit as Bernar

  5. 6d ago

    Cowboy State Daily Radio News: Monday, September 7, 2026

    It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Monday, September 7th.  Happy Labor Day! I'm Mac Watson.   This newscast is brought to you by Google. This Wednesday, September 9th, Google invites you to a free community meeting at 5pm at the Metropolitan Downtown in Cheyenne. Come learn more about Project Tembo, ask questions, and meet your Wyoming Google team. – A West Point professor who claims he was stifled, then had his contract canceled for teaching humans are a major cause of climate change, is suing new University of Wyoming president Shane Reeves. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports Dr. Adam Kalkstein is also suing a former dean of the school and other officials. "Professor Kalkstein's a climatology professor, who is saying that teaching that humans are a major cause of global warming, climate change, is foundational to the education that that wing of education. And his lawsuit claims that the Trump administration basically said stop teaching this, and then West Point, which is under the Trump administration said stop teaching this, and he complied, but voiced his concerns, saying that made him feel like a fraud. And then they decided not to renew his contract, and so the lawsuit alleges violations of free speech and suppression of academic freedom against top West Point officials, including Brigadier General Shane Reeves, who in July moved on to become president of University of Wyoming." Kalkstein is a tenured professor who has taught climate science at the school for more than 17 years, says his complaint, filed by his attorney, Michael Sussman.   Read the full story HERE. – Wyoming hunters are buzzing over photos and videos of a monster mule deer buck, thought to be near Bondurant with an estimated 300-inch rack. Outdoors Reporters Mark Heinz reports that outdoorsmen are saying it could shatter the record for Wyoming's biggest buck.  "I talked to a couple, you know, pretty prominent hunters here in Wyoming, and they said, 'Yeah, that deer apparently that deer really does exist. It's somewhere northwest Wyoming.' Past that, they don't seem to know a whole lot about it or how it might have gotten that huge. I've heard some rumors that maybe an archery hunter got it. We'll see if that turns out to be true. This would, by a long ways, break the record for the biggest buck ever in Wyoming. The biggest buck ever in Wyoming is like, in terms of the inches the cumulative inches of the antlers, is like 15 inches smaller." Outdoorsman Rowdy Anderson of Riverton tells Cowboy State Daily that he and other local hunters have been seeing more bucks and better bucks this year, but nothing that would come close to the rumored Bondurant monster. Read the full story HERE. – Laramie-based Weitzel's Wings didn't defend their unprecedented four straight national Buffalo Wing Fest titles last weekend in New York. Cowboy State Daily's Anna-Louise Jackson reports Double Dub's has won 16 awards during its six-year run at the festival, but this year, they decided not to compete. "The Double Dubs guys decided to sit it out this year. Last year, they won the fourth straight Fam Favorite award, which was the first time in festival history anyone had done that. So even last year, they were talking about taking this year off. They were at the festival just in a very different capacity this year, and they kind of decided to sit it out, see kind of how the landscape evolves in terms of competition, and come back at some point to defend their title again." This year's fan favorite winner — Just Winging It, from Iceland. Weitzel and his crew have formed a friendship with them over the years, after helping them with their festival debut a few years ago.  Read the full story HERE. – Sometime in the past year, an American flag vanished at the site of the 1955 United Air Lines crash that killed 66 people on Medicine Bow Peak. Cowboy State Daily's Dale Killingbeck reports that a hiker from Kansas noticed and plans to replace it when she comes back next year if nobody beats her to it. "Lisa Stonehouse feels it's important to have a flag there because they're patriotic. Her husband had a career in the military, and so she said that she just thinks that having a flag at that memorial site-it's an ad hoc memorial site-but having that flag there would be important for just remembering the souls that were lost. She's planning on bringing back a flag, and if one's not already planted there, she plans to put one there." Last summer, Lisa West Stonehouse and her husband, Kevin, were hiking to one of several plane crash sites that can be found in Wyoming. The Kansas couple now travel full-time and returned to Wyoming this summer to escape the humidity of the Midwest. Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.     Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – Torrington's Beverly Dale receives $994 a month, has no permanent home, and little more than a car to her name. But Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that despite numerous obstacles, she's trying to build a business to help veterans, caregivers, and survivors find the support she says was missing from her own life. "Even though Beverly Dale was not in the military, she married a combat veteran who struggled with PTSD, and as they work to navigate the different resources available in Wyoming, she talks about it being a never-ending scavenger hunt. So out of that was born the idea for the Invisible Infantry, which is her plan to help streamline the process for people that are looking for some of these resources to help their loved ones and themselves as they go through this." The 51-year-old Dale founded The Invisible Infantry L3C, a Wyoming low-profit limited liability company focused on combat veterans and the spouses and caregivers living alongside war-related trauma and domestic violence. Read the full story HERE. – A Lander woman grows about 800 pounds of heirloom garlic a season in the Wind River Range, including a 400-year-old variety. Cowboy State Daily's Jackie Dorothy reports that their similarity is they're all hardneck — garlic that prefers cold weather and high altitude — but can range widely in taste and heat. "Melissa Hemken's garlic adventures actually came about because she has a hatchery; she hatches 1000 chicks every spring. So while everyone else is planting tomatoes and peas in the traditional garden, she's wrangling chicks. And by the time her chicks are old enough to have a garden, well, it's time to harvest garlic because the garlic season is when you harvest in July and you plant in October, which is perfect for her hatchery. She has expanded to 800 pounds every year now, and has five different heirloom varieties, ranging from very mild to very hot, she has one that's so spicy and hot that she has to cure it for at least three weeks before you can even bite into it." The oldest variety of garlic at Hemken's Melissahof Farm is the 400-year-old Chamisal Wild. This heritage garlic was found growing wild on the banks of Chamisal Creek in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of New Mexico and had been there for centuries. Read the full story HERE. – A Wyoming woman who resurrected Greybull's K-Bar Motel has a new challenge — renovating the worst "unlivable" homes she can find. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports Amanda McGrew says, "I don't know if this makes me completely insane, but it's definitely the most fun." "She told me that when she was a kid, her favorite thing to do was find old things and upcycle them, and basically drove her dad crazy because she took over his garage with all these little upcycled furniture projects. So I think you know it was just kind of something she always enjoyed doing. What she started doing was rehabilitating, kind of restoring the worst homes that she could find. I saw her ad. she told everyone on Facebook, 'Hey guys, I'm looking for a home to buy. It needs to be the worst possible shape. The worse, the better.'" For McGrew, a former Los Angeles school teacher, now lives in Shell, and is on house rehab No. 3 since taking on the K-Bar. It's part of a new mission in Wyoming — to find and fix the absolute worst homes.  Read the full story HERE.  – In a new study released Friday, scientists say DNA extracted from the bones of a prehistoric "American cheetah" found in Wyoming's Natural Trap Cave could help save struggling lion and tiger populations. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports one biologist says they were "shocked." "For the first time ever, nuclear DNA has been collected from the bones of the American cheetah-like cat, and those bones are the inner ear bone, one of the smallest bones of the body. What's interesting about this study is how it has a direct parallel from prehistoric times to modern times. In modern times, conservation organizations are worried about the African cheetah because they have a very small population size. Now, this new research from American cheetah-like cats that lived 20,000 years ago in northwest Wyoming, from fossils at Natural Trap Cave, reveal that they've always had a small population size."  The new study was published in the scientific journal Current Biology on Friday. 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.

  6. Sep 4

    Cowboy State Daily Radio News: Friday, September 4, 2026

    It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Friday, September 4th.  I'm Mac Watson. – We start off with an update. Five days after Timothy Smith vanished in a deadly Grand Canyon flash flood, there still is no sign of the Wyoming hiker. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that the National Park Service (who is leading the search) is still calling it a search-and-rescue, not recovery, mission. "The search for Star Valley resident Timothy Smith has been ongoing for almost a week as of Friday morning. National Park Service investigators are still calling this a rescue mission, not a recovery mission, which is important to his family as they wait patiently to learn more about what happened to their father. In their latest update, Timothy Smith's family said that their hearts are breaking, and they remain anxious as they wait for more information, but the search and rescue teams are actively looking, and they are so grateful that they are." Smith was hiking Saturday with longtime friends 46-year-old John Giusti, and 42-year-old Brent Rosenkranz, 42, both of Granbury, Texas, when a violent flash flood swept through Bright Angel Canyon. Searchers have since recovered the bodies of both men. Read the full story HERE. – The Arapahoe-area pastor who made headlines for a controversial sermon describing Northern Arapaho Tribal sundance rituals as idolatry, and urging fidelity to Jesus, has filed petitions for protection against two women who have led protests against her. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that Foundations For Nations Pastor Sarah Lucas tells Cowboy State Daily harassing and threatening behavior from protest leaders Alice Thomas and Darci Quiver has been pronounced and ongoing. "Sarah Lucas has filed petitions for protection orders against Darcy Quiver and Alice Thomas, two of the primary protest leaders for the past two months since the controversial sermon, and the the petitions say that they are engaging threatening behavior.  The petition pertaining to Quiver says that she is documenting and posting the family's activities online. The one pertaining to Thomas notes that Thomas did publicly post a photograph of Lucas's house and her home address, and when I interviewed Sarah Lucas, she said, 'Oh no, there's a packet. There's more documentation of this kind of behavior.' She said that she wants to air it in court rather than in the media before the court hearing. She has said that they are refusing to leave and her attorneys have sent at least one tribal government a letter saying they're defending religious liberty." Lucas preached on July 5 against a portion of the Sundance, which she characterized as praying to pipes. She urged tribal members to "tear down the idols" and trust in Jesus. Read the full story HERE. – A Cheyenne man says he went out of his mind when he allegedly slashed 52 tires on 22 vehicles parked in front of their homes at a low-income apartment complex. Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports that 47-year-old German Ramirez Jimenez blurted out that he lost his mind and was "on medication" during his Thursday afternoon first appearance in Laramie County Circuit Court before the judge shut him down. "I talked to a neighbor of his. He says he knows the guy. When he saw the surveillance video that showed him doing it, what he was more surprised about was how nonchalant he looked. That he just was just casually going and and and stabbing these tires with his knife. But in his words, it looked like he was just bored doing it. He didn't look angry or mad or anything. The victims here, most of them had multiple tires flat, not just one. it's a big expense for someone who can't afford and hasn't budgeted in for an emergency like something like this. So, in his words, it's taking food out of my two-year-old boy's mouth. So it does go a little far beyond just some vandalism." Ramirez Jimenez is charged with one count of felony property destruction which could land him in prison for 10 years, a fine of up to $10,000, or both. In the meantime, the judge set his bond at $3,000 cash only and scheduled a Sept. 11th preliminary hearing. Read the full story HERE. – A Colorado man was killed Wednesday on Teton Pass when his Ford F-250, which was towing a trailer, crossed the highway and launched into the air before crashing. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that Kelly Halpin, who lives at the base of the pass says, "Unfortunately, it's become normal." "The Wyoming Highway Patrol says that the truck was picking up speed as it went downhill. It crossed into the opposite lane and then into the opposite driveway, where it went slightly uphill before going airborne and landing on its side. The driver was injured, and 41-year-old Javier Chavez, a passenger, was killed. Highway patrol lists speed and an unspecified factor as possible contributors to this crash. Local resident Kelly Halpin lives near the highway, and from her back porch, she was able to see the smoke from this crash. She says that this is happening almost every three or four weeks that someone's getting killed." The succession of wrecks has pushed citizens to start Make Teton Pass Safer, a community coalition seeking immediate restrictions and longer-term changes to the highway.  Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.     Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – The proposed 41,000-acre Laramie Range Wind Project overcame one hurdle with Tuesday's permitting, but many more remain for the 139-turbine proposal on private and state land near Cheyenne. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports that includes meeting 26 conditions not yet made public. "There's still a long road ahead for this huge project. There's a lot of permits that still need to be had, a lot of meetings that they still that the developer still needs to attend, and a project this size, the the sheer size of it makes the process somewhat complex, and so it's caused a lot of questions and I think confusions among people as to what exactly is going on, and does this mean that we're going to see 139 wind turbines, you know, like in a month, and it's not. There's a lot that needs to happen before then." Keith Guille, a spokesperson with the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality tells Cowboy State Daily that the permittee must meet all local, state, and federal requirements. That will require returning to the Laramie County Commissioners and could necessitate meetings with other agencies, such as the Federal Aviation Administration and the State Land Commission. Read the full story HERE. – While two hunters snoozed in the cab of their pickup in the wee hours Tuesday along the I-80 between Laramie and Cheyenne, a thief swiped a suitcase and hand-roasted coffee from Belize from the bed of their truck. But Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports the alleged thief left expensive hunting gear, a chainsaw, and camera inside a backpack. "They pulled into the Lincoln Memorial up there on the pass between China and Laramie, and tried to catch some Z's, and the one guy said at some point he saw a white van with duct taped windows pulled up next to him. and he had a suitcase with some clothes and some coffee that he roasted himself from beans, from coffee beans from Belize, and they couldn't find that suitcase. And they finally put two and two together and figured out that the guy in the duct taped van had probably gone through the back of the pickup and taken the suitcase. But what makes it even weirder is the guy told me there was a chainsaw sitting right there. There was a tote with all my hunting optics. You know things like the rangefinder binoculars right there. There was a $500 sleeping bag right there, and the dude takes a suitcase full of clothes and coffee beans. He got a good cup of coffee out of it. Basically, is what amounts to." Both hunters tell Cowboy State Daily that they didn't report the theft to police, but did have to take an unexpected trip to Walmart to buy $400 worth of new clothes to continue their trip. Read the full story HERE. – Three high-profile Wyoming moms condemn the dark, baby-hurting jokes surfacing during the Lindsay Clancy murder trial. But Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports they also urge thoughtful reflection on the trial, and some said they're grateful for the spotlight on post-partum conditions. "So there's two things in play here, right? There's the trial, which is still in the deliberation phase. Don't know if she's to be held criminally responsible for strangling those kids, and then there's the bizarre and boisterous social reaction to it, where there's some people in solidarity with the postpartum psychosis, depression. There are some people disgusted by Clancy, and there are some people who have gone so far as to express their solidarity by making jokes about hurting their own kids. I talked to three high-profile moms of Wyoming. One is a mommy blogger. One leads an advocacy group for missing people, and one leads a true crime podcast. They were disgusted at that kind of joking." The jury in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial was sent home Thursday after yet another day without a verdict, due to return Friday morning. Read the full story HERE.  – Would you ever get into a fight over a goat? Well, a group of knuckleheads nearly threw punches and rocks at each other in Glacier National Park because one hiker was upset that two tourists left a trail to get a better view of some mountain goats. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that one man shouted, "You want to die?" "This quickly escalated into shouting, swearing. They were squaring up to start punching each other. Rocks were picked up and almost thrown, and racial slurs were hurled. And this was all because guys got too close to mountain goats. That raises the question of what you do in these circu

  7. Sep 3

    Cowboy State Daily Video News: Thursday, September 3, 2026

    It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Thursday, September 3rd.  I'm Mac Watson. – A Wyoming pilot and father of three remains missing after a devastating Grand Canyon flash flood over the weekend. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that his wife and children are holding out hope that Tim Smith will be found. "53-year-old Timothy Smith was hiking with two lifelong friends from Texas in the Grand Canyon on Saturday when a flood swept through Bright Angel Creek, killing his companions. By Sunday morning, Smith was reported missing. The National Park Service is leading this search with the assistance from the Coconino County Search and Rescue as well as the U.S. Border Patrol. Following the flood, initially 15 people were reported missing. Smith remains the only person who has yet to be found." Timothy Allen Smith, from Star Valley Ranch in western Wyoming, was hiking with longtime friends 46-year-old John Giusti, and 42-year-old Brent Rosenkranz, both of Granbury, Texas, when the flood struck Saturday afternoon. Read the full story HERE. – The driver of a runaway dump truck on Teton Pass that killed two people July 7th faces a pair of homicide by vehicle charges and could get him up to two years, so say court documents filed Tuesday. Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports that troopers say he bypassed a runaway truck escape. "The big takeaway from the affidavit that the trooper wrote about this case is that, and he said it multiple times in here that, in his opinion, this could have all been avoided. That people didn't have to die. That this truck driver could could have heeded some of the the warnings when his when he first started noticing some of the signs that his brakes might be failing that you got to pull over and that just past and that the the crash happened just past an escape ramp an area where trucks go in case their brakes do go out. Some people may wonder why does it take so long to initiate charges? In this case outlined in the affidavit, it takes a while to recreate that and to to really put together the picture. This trooper really put together a good picture of the series of events, what happened, who got hit first, and who got knocked into who? It was quite a chain reaction." 22-year-old Laiton George McMinn of Idaho faces a pair of misdemeanor homicide by vehicle charges. The two charges have maximum sentences of up to one year in jail and a fine of up to $2,000. That puts the maximum potential penalty, if convicted and given consecutive sentences, of up to two years and $4,000. Read the full story HERE. – A Johnson County rancher who tried to steal an elk head and antlers from hunters who helicoptered onto public land adjacent to his property last year says he was harassed and received death threats following the incident. Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that rancher Brett DeLaap says he has since apologized. "I talked to Brett and got Brett's side of the story, and yeah, he was very upfront and open about it. Basically he said, 'I went and grabbed that elk head just out of pure emotion. I was upset at the time. Those guys were irritating me.' It was basically a totally emotional decision that he regrets and he recognizes is wrong. So he had no problem with facing the charges and paying the fine. There's still some other things that really stick in his cry. I think you know that that whole incident was so hugely publicized, and he said he got a lot of shade from that." DeLapp was later charged with theft. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor theft charge and on April 29 was fined $220, according to Johnson County Circuit Court records. Read the full story HERE. – A 36-year-old Arizona man suspected of kidnapping a 15-year-old Sundance girl was captured hundreds of miles away in South Dakota less than five hours after she was reported missing. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that authorities credit license plate technology for the quick arrest. "Court records show that 36-year-old Dalton Renollet met up with a 15-year-old girl from Sundance, where he picked her up and was driving her across state lines. Initially, investigators thought he was going to his home in Arizona, but police in Utah were also looking for him, and it was cameras that were able to track his vehicle across state lines, and he was apprehended in South Dakota. Investigators say when they stopped Renollet, he admitted to having sexual contact with a minor who he knew was only 15 years old. He is now being charged with sexual contact with a minor. But Wyoming authorities say that he will at some point be brought back to Wyoming, where he is facing additional charges with federal charges coming as well." When the 15-year-old Sundance girl disappeared Monday morning, the Crook County Sheriff's Office and Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation had been investigating concerns the girl was being groomed by an adult believed to live outside of Wyoming. She was reported missing around 9:55a.m. on Monday, by 2:26 p.m. — just four hours and 31 minutes after the missing-person report — the girl was found safe in South Dakota. 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 Judicial Branch's former operating system fell prey to a hack that could have lifted personal data about people involved in court cases from 2015-2025. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that the Wyoming Judicial Branch first learned about the breach in mid-to-late July "The Wyoming Judicial Branch, its operating system that it recently retired but had for like 10 years, was compromised in a cybersecurity breach, and the judicial branch believes that that was names, addresses, dates of birth. The actual breach, according to the vendor West Publishing Corporation, that suffered the breach, also included things like social security numbers. The Wyoming judicial branch indicated that wasn't part of our Wyoming portion, and several states were involved. The judicial branch believes that its own systems and indeed its current database are fine. They believe that the things that are in operation now are perfectly secure, and that people should still have faith in the judicial branch." West Publishing Corporation's subsidiary C-Track released a statement saying it discovered "unauthorized activity by a third party" on June 30th. It "promptly" launched an investigation that included experts and law enforcement and "immediately took steps to contain the activity and secure its environment," that's according to their statement. Read the full story HERE. – After initially pushing back Wednesday, Platte County commissioners unanimously OK'd a request to rezone 5,344 acres of private ranchland in Goshen Hole for a utility-scale data center and energy complex. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports that the meeting, at times, was tense. "The meeting lasted almost four hours and included as much, if not more, back and forth between commissioners and the developer as public comment. Project developer Ian Marcus faced a barrage of questions, especially from Platte County Commissioner Ian Jalovich, who said, "We don't know much at all about this rezoning from agriculture to industrial? We've never done anything like this, and especially to this size. The meeting was contentious and it grew especially tense when commissioners felt like they weren't getting specific answers and the developer seemed like he felt like he was giving those specific answers. So at one point, Jalovich said, 'I'm very concerned that you guys don't know what you're going to do, and so how are we supposed to know what you're going to do?'" The property, privately owned, is located northeast of Wheatland near the Platte-Goshen county line in an area known as Goshen Hole. The proposed industrial designation would allow the property to be used for utility-scale energy generation, energy storage and a data center campus. Read the full story HERE. – A Gillette woman accused of pocketing more than $8,000 worth of fraudulent returns from a local liquor store denies stealing from her former employer, saying it was another worker. Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports store video captured some of the alleged thefts. "This person is accused of basically doing a return on them without the items being returned. So she prints out the receipt, puts it in as a return, and even if it was on somebody's credit card or something like that, it didn't get charged back to the credit card. She took the cash. She put it as a cash return, so she would take the cash out. Something of note is that, one day she's accused of taking more than $800 in these returns." In the meantime, Miakoda Morris, born in 2002, could get up to 10 years in prison if convicted of felony theft, according to charging documents filed in Campbell County Circuit Court on Tuesday. Read the full story HERE. – Now that pennies are going extinct, Wyoming legislators are considering rules outlining how to round up — or down — to the nearest nickel. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that some states have a Wild West approach, letting businesses choose for themselves as long as they're consistent. "There have been around 20 states that have passed some kind of law, whether it's round this way or hey, businesses just be consistent and you won't get sued. So the Department of Revenue was like, when you want to take a look at this, and they did go ahead and ask for a bill draft that would go one and two cents over goes back down to the flat number, three and four cents over goes up to the nickel, six and seven cents over goes down to the nickel, and eight and nine cents over goes up to the next dime. But there's caveats on there that they're looking at where potentially it would only apply to state agencies and

  8. Sep 2

    Cowboy State Daily Video News: Wednesday, September 2, 2026

    It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Wednesday, September 2nd.  I'm Mac Watson. – Nearly a year after the proposal was rejected, the scaled-down Laramie Range Wind Project was approved Tuesday after a contentious two-day hearing. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports that up to 139 wind turbines would be placed on more than 41,000 acres about 20 miles north of Cheyenne. "In a unanimous decision, the Wyoming Industrial Siting Council voted to approve a permit request for the Laramie Range Wind Project. This is a huge project; that if it moves forward, it would be twice the size of Cheyenne. Cheyenne area rancher and realtor Wendy Volk has been a staunch opponent of this project from the beginning. She has been an advocate against what she calls the Wyoming wind wall, where if you look at wind projects cumulatively, how they connect or how they're connected to each other. She says, if we're not careful, we're going to have a wall of wind across the whole southeastern corner of the state." The project was scaled down, initially starting out at about 53,000 acres, which would have been about three times the size of Cheyenne. After a lot of public pushback and a 'no' vote from Laramie County Commissioners last year, the developers offered to shrink it both in terms of acreage and in terms of number of wind turbines. Read the full story HERE. – A judge declined Monday to drop charges against transgender activist Rihanna Kelver, after Kelver claimed self-defense for pointing a pistol at a man last September. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports the judge ruled that Kelver wasn't "in danger of imminent death or serious bodily injury." "Rihanna Kelver had tried to get two felony counts dropped on self-defense claims here last week in court, and the judge said that she would take it under advisement. Judge Westby came out on Monday and said, "Look, Rihanna Kelver was not the initial aggressor. Evidence suggests Kelver was afraid in the moment, but this didn't rise to the level of allegedly pulling a handgun on someone, so the judge decided to keep the case alive. Sometimes the lawyers will negotiate a plea deal, and sometimes they'll gear up for trial, and that depends entirely on the case, the defendant, the counsel, that kind of thing." Kelver is arguably Wyoming's most outspoken transgender activist, and protested a new Wyoming ban on transgender use of public bathrooms last summer by using the women's bathroom at the state Capitol.  Read the full story HERE. – A 21-year-old Connecticut hiker was found dead near Montana's highest peak ending a three-day search that drew rescue crews, aircraft and military resources from Wyoming and Montana. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that the man's family says he died "doing what he loved, in a place he loved." "According to Montana's Park County Sheriff's Department, Jackson Slimac apparently fell while trying to climb one of the highest peaks, Granite Peak in Montana. He was reported overdue at 7:40 p.m. last Monday when Stillwater County Dispatch got the call. Search crews found Slimak late Thursday morning. This search included seven different agencies, including the U.S. Air Force and the Montana Army National Guard." Jackson Gregory Slimak apparently fell in the rugged terrain surrounding Montana's highest peak, the Park County, Montana, Sheriff's Office reported. Searchers located him at about 11:45 a.m. Thursday. Authorities found no evidence of suspicious activity and described his death as accidental. Read the full story HERE. –  Crook County rancher Sen. Ogden Driskill is unhappy about President Trump's meeting with a Brazilian meatpacking billionaire a day before he announced 300,000 tons of beef imports. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports that the state senator says it is costing Wyoming producers millions. "The state senator from Devil's Tower doesn't like the fact that President Trump met with a Brazilian billionaire who also owns a large stake of JBS, which is the nation's largest meat packer. What Driscoll doesn't appreciate is that Trump took advice from this billionaire to pause tariffs on imported beef for 90 days. What that does is it softens the beef market in the U.S. but it also lessens the motivation for cattle ranchers across the nation to build up their herds, which is exactly what cattle ranchers say needs to happen. And if you ask Driscoll, there's no better state than Wyoming to talk to a cattle rancher." Driskill's reaction comes a day after Wyoming cattle rancher Tyler Lindholm told Cowboy State Daily the president and his advisors don't understand the U.S. cattle market. Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.     Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – After a 3-foot bull snake slithered into the frame of a Riverton woman's car at the bank drive-through Monday, she was tempted to just set her car on fire. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that Stephanie Watson admitted, "Anything that slithers and doesn't have legs is the devil, in my book." "Watson, who is deathly afraid of snakes, hops out, grabs her Chihuahua. Like I don't want it to eat my dog. And then the bank manager Betsy offers to grab the snake, but what they end up doing is calling animal control. Animal control officer and the police chief borrowed a car jack from a dealership next door because this is a low-sitting SUV, and they try to get this snake out that way. Snake isn't having it, so someone pulls it to the dealership into the car bay for a higher lift. At that point, the chief of police, frustrated with trying to grab the slippery thing with the pincers, just grabs it with his hands." When Watson recounted the story to her daughters later, they were fascinated. So were her friends, who messaged her until her phone died. Read the full story HERE. – Maria Vargas was exhausted and crying as she dismantled her hair salon stations in downtown Jackson on Monday. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that Vargas was among a handful of remaining business owners who had a deadline to move out for an incoming 309,000 square-foot hotel project. "Her deadline to be out was yesterday. She's been trying to find a new space, but Jackson is really short on small commercial retail spaces, especially spaces that are affordable, she has looked. They're all you know double, triple, quadruple what she was paying, and to her, she doesn't want to charge more than $65 for a haircut. She's taking classes to see if she can, you know, maybe start a new career. She's also thinking about leaving and going somewhere that's a little bit cheaper. Retail space is very short, and so that prompted the mayor to tell Brad Wagstaff, the founder of Mogul Capital, you know, I want to see more. He called it activation on the ground floor. He wants to see some retail spaces on that city block to help mitigate the loss of small commercial retail spaces." The new landlord, Mogul Capital, is making way for a proposed hotel complex at the town's north entrance that will include residences and other amenities such as a restaurant and bar. Read the full story HERE. – After years of hauling cattle and beef to Utah, a Uinta County ranch family decided to take matters into their own hands and build a USDA-inspected meat processing facility on their ranch. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports the plant will have its final USDA inspection on Friday. "The owners of the Beck Ranch in rural Lone Tree, Wyoming, decided to take matters into their own hands. The meat processing plant will have its final certification from the USDA on Friday, assuming that that goes through without any hiccups. The Beck Ranch will now be able to have cattle from birth all the way through processing and selling the beef, and they can do it all on their property. This new processing plant will also be open to neighboring ranches to people in western Wyoming, eastern Utah who are looking for more efficient ways to process their own beef and be able to sell. In Wyoming's case, to be able to sell their beef across state lines." Jim Magagna, executive vice president of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, tells Cowboy State Daily the problem isn't necessarily that Wyoming has no processing facilities, it's that those facilities don't have enough capacity to meet the needs of all the ranchers who want to use them. Read the full story HERE. – With two weeks to go before the wolf hunting season begins near Yellowstone, a Big Piney hunter is vowing to shoot 12-year-old Wolf 1090F from the famed Mollie's Wolf Pack if he sees her. Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that in the meantime, wolf activists are trying their best to stop the hunt. "There's just really a groundswell of opposition to allowing that pack to be hunted.  This guy's just saying, 'Hey, I'm going up there. I'm hunting wolves. Yeah, sure. If I see that wolf, I'll shoot it.' And I asked that hunter. I said, 'if you, how would you know that the wolf you were seeing was 1090F?' And he said, 'You know, other than photos I've seen of her that have been published because she is a popular wolf, she has been photographed a lot.' He says, 'Other than photos, probably you know, because she doesn't like she doesn't have like a black ear or something that's really or distinctive limp, or something that's going to go. That's the wolf.'" Wyoming Game and Fish Commissioner Carlisle "Fonzy" Haskell tells Cowboy State Daily that he's received messages from New Zealand, Australia, and "from all over the U.S." to shut down the season in wolf hunt areas 1 and 2. Haskell added he has no plans to reverse his vote on the 2026 wolf hunting season, which the Commission approved in July. Read the full story HERE.  — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide ne

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