Ramirez Avatar

Michael P. Ramirez

Daily Cartoon

Cartoon 11 26 21 scaled

Cowboy State Daily is Wyoming’s largest newspaper with Wyoming’s most experienced journalists. 

<title>Daily Cartoon: Friday, November 26, 2021 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Daily Cartoon: Friday, November 26, 2021

Julie Mankin

Wyoming Life

Entertainment

 annual “Daddy of ’em All” Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo that began Friday looks far different to some usual contestants.

Even the cowboy who could “still make Cheyenne” in George Strait’s 1996 country hit might not be aiming his truck “toward that Wyoming line” today.

That’s because entries at the Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo will be down by about 70%.

Morning slack competition, which drew hundreds of athletes in each timed event and made Cheyenne the world’s largest pro rodeo, has been eliminated.

Slack is for overflow competitors for events that draw dozens more entries than spots in the main performances. Slack usually happens early mornings or late nights, typically for timed events.

This week, just 72 of the sport’s winningest contestants (and champions of nine rodeos as far away as Oregon and Arizona) were invited to enter each event.

Before this year’s rodeo, it wasn’t unusual to see 200 or more contestants in timed slack event rounds.

The change was announced last winter as a way to help ease horse-trailer-parking congestion and create a more manageable schedule for the event’s thousands of volunteers.

Also announced was the Frontier Days Committee’s purse increase, bringing total prize money at the 10-day rodeo to $960,000.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Breaking Point"}]

Still, area barrel racer Kate Spaur Devore recently went viral with a simple social media post: “Goodbye to the Daddy.”

“Cheyenne closed the door on many of the very contestants who helped build its reputation as the ‘Daddy of ’em All,’” Devore said.

CFD is typically the third-richest rodeo in the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association’s regular season, behind Houston and San Antonio.

Because rodeo is a pay-to-play sport, accessibility to Cheyenne’s fat paychecks was known to provide the confidence and capital to launch a newcomer’s career, if not save a veteran’s entire season.

Cheyenne Frontier Days CEO Tom Hirsig said he understands eliminating slack competition is a huge change for the 130-year-old rodeo, but the world’s largest outdoor rodeo had simply outgrown its ability to handle the hundreds of slack riders.

“People are upset they’re not able to come,” he said. “But we simply have no room for those big rigs anymore.”

He also mentioned that rodeos have to absorb stock charges without help from contestants. The cost of fresh cattle today is sky-high and can’t be recaptured.

It’s a price that’s multiplied for every additional bovine chased down Cheyenne’s long arena.

Devore referenced the same sandy arena’s starring role in Garth Brooks’ 1995 hit song “The Beaches of Cheyenne” when she wrote, “So many dreamed of dancing on that stage. We came in droves, paid our entry fees, and took our chances.

[{"type":"text","text":"“Every year seemed to produce another Cinderella story.”"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"From Slack To Hall Of Fame"}]

Ote Berry, for instance, was 22 in July 1985 and about to go to work in a hay field when he won the bulldogging event in Cheyenne, which propelled the South Dakota native into his first National Finals Rodeo and a Hall-of-Fame career as one of the greatest of all time.

Eliminating the slack competitions at CFD is a fundamental change for the historic rodeo, many competitors say.

“Honestly, there is no more Daddy of ’em All,” said veteran barrel racer Kelly Yates, whose late father was a Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) director for eight years.

Yates turned pro at age 13 and has made as many competitive runs in Cheyenne as any contestant.

Along with her brother and father, both Hall-of-Fame ropers, she’s competed at the NFR.

But lately, she only competes at the finals of the PRCA’s Mountain States Circuit, which includes Cheyenne Frontier Days.

This year, Yates earned a coveted berth into Frontier Days via her 2025 circuit earnings. But she said it “won’t do her any good.”

Now that Cheyenne’s entries are so limited, its paychecks aren’t counted toward circuit standings, but only world standings.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Sudden Death"}]

The limit on entries comes seven years after another major shift was made to CFD’s competition format that had some athletes changing the famed rodeo’s nickname to “The Stepdaddy.”

Traditionally, each of 12 rodeo athletes advanced to Cheyenne’s lucrative finals based on his or her two combined scores or times.

In 2019, the rodeo switched to sudden-death tournament brackets as a way to make changing weather conditions fairer for contestants and make results easier for spectators to follow.

[{"type":"text","text":"Its popularity has been questionable."}]

Contestants now make Cheyenne’s finals based on money earned, with the losers able to take a mulligan and advance via the Wild Card Round. That means cowboys can make Cheyenne’s esteemed short round despite an earlier no-score or no-time.

Yates said she and her family members noticed fewer spectators in the grandstands when they competed last year. This year, there will be a lot fewer contestants.

Finally, the new format makes it impossible for athletes to trade at Cheyenne when they have scheduling conflicts at the simultaneous California Rodeo Salinas.

Thus, some pros are skipping Cheyenne for Salinas, which still accepts hundreds of competitors and offers a traditional competition format at Big Week.

“There’s no Daddy,” Yates said. “There’s just a Cheyenne rodeo, limited.”

Julie Mankin can be reached at: jm@outwestmedia.net

Cheyenne Frontier Cowboy Lifestyle Network 7 18 26

<title>Some Riders Say Cheyenne Frontier Days Isn't The Same After Eliminating Slack | Cowboy State Daily</title>

For the first time in more than a century, Cheyenne Frontier Days won’t have slack competition, which is for overflow competitors. Although some are saddened by the move, the rodeo says it has outgrown its ability to handle the hundreds of extra riders.

Some Riders Say Cheyenne Frontier Days Isn't The Same After Eliminating Slack

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Dale Killingbeck

Dale Killingbeck

Around Wyoming

Douglas photographer Mark Panasuk enjoys transforming a dark scene into something beautiful.

He’s always on the lookout for another interesting setting, and when he found an abandoned stone ranch house north of Lost Springs, Wyoming, he knew he had something special.

Unlike the famous line from poet Dylan Thomas, he portrayed the property as going “gentle into that good night.”

Digging into its history, Panasuk became even more enamored with capturing the stone walls and grounds with the Milky Way above it because it once was home to one of the most successful Back ranchers in the West — Jim Edwards.

“It was kind of a unique house in that it was big house, two story, out in the prairie here in eastern Wyoming,” Panasuk said. “It had several buildings … and he was really inventive because he put in that water tower.”

The tower was built with an opening that appeared to allow a space for a fire that would keep the water from freezing in the winter. 

The house had a bathroom with toilet, shower, and the property also featured a stone garage.

There is evidence of several other outbuildings that once were around it. Several accounts of the property state that Edwards was the first in the area to have indoor bathroom facilities.

Panasuk got permission from the current landowner to photograph the house and grounds, and the result shows the Milky Way like an arch above it framing the property.

He said he put a light inside the house, which has lost its windows, because he thought it made a better piece of art. 

Creating the final image required a combination of 35 photos and three-minute exposures to fully reveal the Milky Way.

He used a computer program to stitch the digital images together to make it one.

Panasuk said he spoke with some of the ranchers around the property and learned that a father or grandfather knew Edwards, who made a name for himself well beyond Wyoming.

Turns out that Edwards is a featured name at the Homestead National Historic Park in Beatrice, Nebraska, and Ebony Magazine once profiled him in its March 1949 issue that had Billy Eckstein on the cover. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Magazine Profile"}]

The profile was titled “The Last Days of Jim Edwards” and characterized him as a “legend” in Wyoming and a name that would remembered well beyond his death.

A history of Edwards written for the Black Past website says he was “one of the most successful African American homesteaders in the state of Wyoming.”

And “Pages From Converse County’s Past” compiled in the 1980s revealed that he was commonly known as “(N-word) Jim.”

But that word did not stop Edwards from becoming a successful rancher and business man. His coming and goings had fairly frequent mentions in the social columns of the local rural newspapers.

The Black Past account of Edwards' life says that he was born on Feb. 14, 1874, and arrived in Wyoming in 1900 with his father and a group of Italian miners responding to newspaper ads about work in a Lusk coal mine.

The miners drove Edwards out, and he walked to Lusk and found work on the Wilson Brother’s Running Water Ranch. 

Over the next 14 years, he rose to the rank of foreman and was a good sheepman, cowboy and horse trainer.

In his final years at the ranch, a dispute with the Wilson brothers led to a lawsuit that Edwards won in 1923, giving him $3,000 in back wages plus interest. The Wyoming Supreme Court increased it to $4,000.

The Lusk Free Lance on Nov. 1, 1923, reported that the dispute had been over an accounting of his share of sheep as well as his wages.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"1913 Homestead"}]

Meanwhile in 1913, the Wilsons helped him homestead acreage on Harney Creek. 

Edwards recruited other blacks to homestead on land around him, and he eventually bought their properties.

"Converse County's Past" states that Edwards married Lethel Dawson in 1914 in Denver, and that her parents cooked on a river boat on the Mississippi River

When her father contracted tuberculosis, they moved to Denver for his health.

A story looking back on Lost Springs in the Casper Star-Tribune on April 6, 1974, reports that Lethel’s father was a full-blooded Indian and her mother black. 

After her marriage to Edwards, she traveled to Denver from time to time to sing on radio stations.

The Lusk Standard newspaper on Sept. 12, 1919, reported that “Mrs. Jim Edwards” had just become the “happy” owner of a new piano.

“Now, we’ll have some jazz,” the editor wrote.

In the Ebony Magazine story a few years after his wife’s death, Edwards was still in charge of his 14,000-acre Sixteen-Bar-One Ranch. 

He had named it the Sixteen-Bar-One because it represented the ratio of white ranchers to black ones.

Edwards told the reporter that when he first arrived in Wyoming and then later set up his homestead, gunplay with neighboring ranchers and would-be outlaws was not uncommon. He was tested.

“No man will ever run Jim Edwards off of his land,” Edwards told the magazine. “Let ’em know right away that you’re going to fight for what you own. Just because a man’s colored is no reason for people to think he’s a coward.”

That philosophy likely was part of the reason for a story in the Niobrara County News on Dec. 3, 1914, when Edwards still served as herder for the Wilson Brothers and had a “mix-up” with a herder from another ranch over their bands of sheep.

Edwards had the man arrested, but later “dismissed the case and paid all the costs.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Sheep ‘Straying’"}]

Another mention of Edwards in the Lusk Herald a year earlier had him complaining that he had a lot of trouble with sheep “straying away.”

The Ebony account said that at one time, Edwards had 20,000 acres of land with oil rights, and during his normal operations had more than 1,000 head of cattle, 9,000 sheep, 200 horses, 5,000 chickens and 500 hogs.

He told the reporter that what he considered most important in his success was a “clean mind and a few years ago a pistol.”

“I didn’t have to use my pistol much, but then you don’t have to when you make your decision to stand at the outset,” he added.

Edwards built the stone house himself, helped pay for the construction of the Congregational Church in Lusk — where his wife sang in the choir — and told the reporter that Lethel had been “the guiding influence in my life.”

And it turned out that ranching was not his only interest and business success. 

A feature story in the Casper Tribune-Herald on July 16, 1945, profiled a restaurant co-owned by Mary Simms, a black woman, and Edwards that specialized in Southern fried chicken.

“In spite of rationing which has made it difficult to obtain the steaks to fill demand, the restaurant has kept abreast of the demands for the excellent fried chicken which has been its specialty,” the newspaper reported. “With the generous helping of chicken, French fries, a vegetable, dessert and the special golden brown succulent biscuits are served.”

Edwards’ love Lethel died of leukemia in 1945, according to the Converse County history, and he sold his ranch that contained 18 sections to four buyers in 1950.

The Scottsbluff Star-Herald on Jan. 7, 1951, recounted Edwards’ death at age 76.

“A Scottsbluff man died from suffocation Saturday night after water boiled away in a pot in which chicken was being cooked filling a basement room with smoke,” the newspaper reported. “The dead man was James E. Edwards, age unknown, who rented a room at 801 East Eighth Street.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"He is buried in Scottsbluff."}]

Panasuk said he was happy to get a photo of the once prosperous ranch while it still stands.

“The sad part about it is that probably about in 10 years it’s all going to be gone,” he said.

Edwards Ranch 7 18 26

<title>Douglas Photographer Captures Historic Black Rancher’s Homestead Under Milky Way | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A Douglas photographer found an old ranch building that caught his eye for a night shot. He found out it was once owned by one of most prosperous black ranchers in the West. “No man will ever run Jim Edwards off of his land,” the rancher once told a reporter.

Douglas Photographer Captures Historic Black Rancher’s Homestead Under Milky Way

Daily Smile

You don't intimidate me, you're going to be my best friend whether you like it or not!

Smile 7 18 26

<title>Daily Smile: Saturday, July 18, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Daily Smile: Saturday, July 18, 2026

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's managing editor, Greg Johnson.

Greg Johnson

CHEYENNE — Velma Wilson felt a wash of emotion that nearly had her in tears when she walked through the gates of the new Morning Star American Indian Village at Cheyenne Frontier Days on Friday.

A turquoise jewelry maker from the reservation in northern Arizona, Wilson said she wasn’t expecting to find a completely rebuilt, reimagined and elevated campus dedicated to Native American culture.

“When I first came in this morning, I was really moved,” said Wilson, who has been a fixture at the village for 26 years. “I got emotional, because this is so amazing and the (transformation) is almost unbelievable.”

As the new $10 million Morning Star American Indian Village celebrated its grand opening Friday on the first day of the 2026 Cheyenne Frontier Days, Wilson said that she and other Native Americans appreciate the transformation more than most visitors.

“You look around and what this is now and it’s really like, you know, it’s like somebody appreciates you,” Wilson said. “For years here, the Indian Village seemed like an afterthought, which is kind of what (American) history has been.”

She described setting up her booth in previous years “in a shed that was falling apart, so when it rained, water came through our roof. We had to put plastic on all our stuff to protect it.”

Then she made a grand, encompassing sweep of her arms and said that she's overwhelmed by the facility that includes new vendor spaces, rows of teepees and a grand centerpiece dance arbor that Wilson said honors her culture.

“It’s like, I can’t believe this is for us,” she said. “I was skeptical at the beginning when they were building this, but all my skepticism just all went away when I came in here.”

[{"type":"text","text":"It’s easy to see why."}]

Rebranded the Morning Star Indian Village, the winding walkways, brick vendor booths and meaningful artwork have created a new destination for Cheyenne and CFD.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"More Than A Tourist Trap"}]

In Native American culture, the Morning Star is a powerful force, representing new beginnings, said “Yellowstone” actor and frequent visitor to the Indian Village, Mo Brings Plenty.

He was the emcee of the village’s Friday grand opening, weaving humor and passion into his appreciation for the new Morning Star Indian Village.

“Years ago, this began with cowboys and Indians,” he said. “And today, what I love about this place is it maintains its tradition. We still have cowboys and Indians.”

The centerpiece of the village is an impressive dance arbor — a sunken, circular arena lined with 36 huge 18-inch fir posts that look like they’ll be there for another century.

It’s a fitting place for Native American dances, ceremonies and for family, said Wyoming state Rep. Ivan Posey, who’s an enrolled member of the Eastern Shoshone Tribe.

“Oh, this is beautiful,” he told Cowboy State Daily on Friday. “I walked through here this morning, and it’s impressive.”

He explained that the arbor is a circle for a reason; it symbolizes unity and family. During the grand opening ceremony, Posey performed a traditional cedar healing ceremony.

He also echoed Wilson in saying the new village “was probably a long time coming, but it’s here. This arbor is a great piece of work. It’s going to transcend those songs and dances to people … and give us an ability as tribal people to share that.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"‘You Got To Dream Bigger Than That’"}]

The vision for Morning Star began with Jackson resident and businessman B. Wayne Hughes Jr. and his wife, Molly, through their Hughes Foundation.

They came to Cheyenne Frontier Days officials and said, “What can we do to help you guys?” said CFD CEO Tom Hirsig. “So, they walked around and we said, ‘Well, there’s things we want to do.’”

Upgrading and rebuilding the Indian Village wasn’t one of those things, he added.

“Then they went to the Indian Village and they said, ‘This is what we want to help with. We want to improve this Indian Village,'” Hirsig said. “Wow, that’s exciting, because that’s something that really wasn’t in our plan, to put a lot of money into the Native American village.”

Cheyenne Frontier Days put together a $1 million makeover plan and took it to the couple.

“Wayne looked at us and said, ‘You got to dream bigger than that,’” Hirsig said.

That dream turned out 10 times bigger with a $10 million investment into the village.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"‘Felt The Need’"}]

Much of Friday’s ceremony was spent thanking the Hughes Foundation and the couple, who were visibly moved by what the new village means for Wyoming and Native American culture.

“You know, this is a hell of a time to choke up,” said Wayne, who also owns Cowboy State Daily.

Then he pulled out folded sheets of yellow paper and smoothed them with his hand while explaining how he would rather listen to speeches than give them.

“I usually wait until the last minute for this kind of thing, but this might be the last big speech I ever give,” he said as the crowd laughed. “Hopefully, it will be. I’m going to see if I can get through it.”

He told the several hundred gathered in a circle in and around the dance arbor that it’s humbling to see the results of years of planning and hard work by a lot of people.

“You know, walking into this place and seeing the dreams and the visions of everybody involved come to fruition is truly a blessing,” Wayne said. “And Molly and I are blessed to be here.

“We’re blessed to be citizens of Wyoming, and I just want to welcome all of you.”

He also recalled that day four years ago when he toured the Frontier Days grounds looking for opportunities to help.

“I was given a daylong tour of stadiums and barns and bleachers and building displays,” he said. “And along the way, (Wyoming Supreme Court) Justice Lynne Boomgaarden said, ‘Hey, take a look at Indian Village.’”

Being part Cherokee, Wayne said that he “felt the need … to recognize them in a way that they deserved. I was touched by the culture, and the culture touched me.

“Morning Star American Indian Village is now … truly a shining morning star,” he added. “And all the world can visit. It’s yours to share. Share it with your family, share it with your community and to commune with God.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"‘The Way It Should Be’"}]

Count Kathie Selden as one Cheyenne local who’s more than impressed with the new village.

She lives near the Cheyenne Frontier Days grounds and has been busting with curiosity for months as construction was underway.

“To get in here and see what all they were doing, it’s incredible,” Selden said. “I just walked in and it’s wonderful. I’ve been driving by for months wondering.”

[{"type":"text","text":"She said the village is now appropriate to what it represents."}]

“This is the way it should be, and we should have the support of our community as well as the First Nation community because the First Nations are the ones that this is about,” Selden said.

Her friend Lindi Kirkbride added that before, “the Indian Village seemed kind of stuck in the corner” of the CFD campus.

“Now it’s this kind of showcase, and that’s the way it should be,” she said. “It’s a statement of values rather than just, you know, this is outside everything else going on with the concerts and the rodeo and everything.”

The grand opening of the Morning Star village is just the beginning, Wayne said.

[{"type":"text","text":"“By the way,” he told the crowd. “There’s more to be done.”"}]

Wayne and Indian Village 7 17 26

<title>‘The Way It Should Be’: New $10M Indian Village Opens At Cheyenne Frontier Days | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The new $10 million Morning Star American Indian Village opened Friday for the first day of Cheyenne Frontier Days. Visitors said they were astonished by the transformation. "I got emotional, because this is so amazing," a Native American visitor said.

‘The Way It Should Be’: New $10M Indian Village Opens At Cheyenne Frontier Days

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Crime & Courts

 to bring a 12-year-old Oklahoma girl back to Wyoming has pleaded no-contest to three felony charges, ending the criminal case short of trial and leaving prosecutors free to seek the maximum possible sentence.

Christopher Steven Gravenmier, 31, entered no-contest pleas Wednesday in Lincoln County District Court to two counts of first-degree sexual abuse of a minor and one count of kidnapping.

Lincoln County Attorney Spencer Allred and Deputy Lincoln County Attorney Ember Oakley prosecuted the case.

Rather than agreeing to a negotiated prison term, the plea leaves sentencing open, allowing both sides to argue for the punishment they believe is appropriate.

"We're really pleased with this because we can argue up to the maximum," Oakley told Cowboy State Daily. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Sentencing is scheduled for July 29."}]

If the court orders the sentences to run consecutively, Gravenmier faces mandatory prison terms of 25 to 50 years on each of the two first-degree sexual abuse convictions, along with up to 20 years on the kidnapping conviction — a combined maximum of 120 years in prison.

[{"type":"text","text":"No-Contest Plea "}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Several other felony counts were dismissed as part of the plea agreement."}]

Although a no-contest plea differs procedurally from a guilty plea, it has the same legal effect in a criminal case.

"'No-contest' is legally the same as a guilty plea," Allred said. "No-contest pleas basically mean the defendant does not contest the charges against him, but it acts the exact same way as a guilty plea. He's still convicted of those counts. It's procedural. He says, 'I don't contest those charges,' but it acts the same way as a guilty plea."

By entering the plea, Gravenmier gave up his constitutional right to a trial, and the case now moves directly to sentencing.

[{"type":"text","text":"Taken From Home"}]

 April 22 when the girl, who had been reported missing from Oklahoma days earlier, called her grandmother from a Wyoming gas station and said she had been abducted.

Investigators initially encountered Gravenmier after the girl said she had borrowed his cellphone. But once she was safe, authorities say she identified him as the man who had brought her to Wyoming.

The girl told investigators she had communicated with Gravenmier for months on Snapchat before he drove from Kemmerer to Oklahoma. She alleged he told her he knew where she lived, prompting her to leave home with him because she feared what might happen if she refused.

Prosecutors allege Gravenmier drove the girl back to Wyoming, where he sexually abused her during the trip and after arriving in Kemmerer. Charging documents also allege he threatened her, attempted to prevent anyone from tracking her cellphone and warned her not to report what had happened.

Gravenmier was arrested later that day and charged with multiple felony counts. Several of those charges were dismissed as part of Wednesday's plea agreement.

[{"type":"text","text":"Police Station"}]

At the police station, Gravenmier admitted to investigators that he had driven to Oklahoma and picked up the girl several days earlier.

The affidavit says agents noticed that he became "very emotional" during questioning and appeared nervous, grabbing at his shirt, wiping his face and developing a noticeably dry mouth.

[{"type":"text","text":"After requesting an attorney, the interview ended."}]

While investigators obtained search warrants for his home and vehicle, Gravenmier remained at the police station.

A Kemmerer man accused of driving 16 hours to Oklahoma to bring a 12-year-old girl back to Wyoming pleaded no-contest to kidnapping and two sex abuse charges and now faces up to 120 years in jail. The affidavit said he told police he was "really sorry."

Daily Cartoon: Friday, November 26, 2021

Michael P. Ramirez

Cartoonist

More in Daily Cartoon

Daily Cartoon 1: Saturday, July 18, 2026

Daily Cartoon 2: Saturday, July 18, 2026

Daily Cartoon 1: Friday, July 17, 2026

Daily Cartoon 2: Friday, July 17, 2026

Most read

Daily Cartoon: Friday, November 26, 2021

Authors

Michael P. Ramirez

Cartoonist

More in Daily Cartoon

Daily Cartoon 1: Saturday, July 18, 2026

Daily Cartoon 2: Saturday, July 18, 2026

Daily Cartoon 1: Friday, July 17, 2026

Daily Cartoon 2: Friday, July 17, 2026

Most read