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Michael P. Ramirez

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

<title>Daily Cartoon: Monday, February 21, 2022 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Daily Cartoon: Monday, February 21, 2022

Employee kate meadows cropped

Kate Meadows

Around Wyoming

Public Safety

Sweetwater County Sheriff's Deputy Zach Otte keeps a plastic sandwich bag full of coins tucked in his pocket.

It started as a $20 bill exchanged for quarters. Now it's become an essential piece of patrol equipment.

Otte, who has been with the sheriff's office for two years, is on a summertime mission to visit as many lemonade stands as his calls for service will allow.

The effort began after Jason Mower, the Sweetwater County Sheriff's Office public affairs director, announced on social media that deputies would spend the summer hunting down lemonade stands — places where they could wet their whistles, encourage young entrepreneurs and build connections with local families.

[{"type":"text","text":"Big dreams. Small stands. Cold lemonade."}]

Those are the kinds of calls Sweetwater County deputies are hoping to answer during the dog days of summer.

"This year, from my perspective as public affairs director, we have a lot going on with an election cycle and a lot of unknowns about what the next nine months will hold," Mower told Cowboy State Daily. "People are antsy."

He saw a similar initiative online and realized there was no reason Sweetwater County couldn't do the same.

Through social media, Mower invites parents whose children are operating lemonade stands to send him a direct message with the location and hours.

"Summer break is here, and we know there are some hardworking young business owners across Sweetwater County setting up tables, mixing lemonade and chasing big dreams one cup at a time," the sheriff's office wrote in announcing the Lemonade Patrol.

[{"type":"text","text":"The response was immediate."}]

"Boy, about the second I did that, my direct message inbox was flooded," Mower said.

He now maintains a running list of stands, updating it several times a week and sending locations out to deputies.

"Every time Jason sends out an address of where a stand is set up, if I'm not on a call, that's my first stop," Otte said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Maelie's Big Goal"}]

One youngster who benefited from the Lemonade Patrol is 6-year-old Maelie Teuscher.

Maelie was selling lemonade Friday outside Napa Auto Parts in Green River when deputies Otte and Mike Merkley pulled up.

[{"type":"text","text":"She wasn't pocketing the proceeds."}]

Maelie was raising money for the Clearwater Aquarium in Florida, where she will soon attend a marine biology camp.

Each year, her mother, Moriah Teuscher, tries to teach her daughter the value of working for opportunities and giving back.

"We like her to give back for opportunities and realize not everything is just handed to you," Teuscher told Cowboy State Daily.

This year, Maelie decided she wanted to sell lemonade to benefit an aquarium made famous as the home of dolphins featured in the 

 movies. Customers could have a cup of lemonade in exchange for a donation of any amount.

After two hours behind the lemonade table, Maelie headed home with $387.60 destined for the aquarium.

[{"type":"text","text":"Seeing sheriff's deputies pull up was among the highlights of the day."}]

"It's a neat initiative to teach kids that law enforcement is there to help," Teuscher said. "Their lemonade funds come out of their own pocket. It's all in the goodness of their hearts."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"More Than A Cup Of Lemonade"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Weekends have become especially busy for the lemonade patrol."}]

Not a weekend has passed since the initiative launched without deputies sending Mower photos of themselves sipping lemonade and grinning alongside young entrepreneurs.

Lemonade patrols have been popping up in communities around the country as law enforcement agencies look for ways to build positive relationships with families. Mower said he is unaware of any other Wyoming agency operating an organized effort like Sweetwater County's.

Police departments in Twin Falls, Idaho, and Puyallup, Washington, participate in their own initiative to support youth lemonade stands. Other interactions between young entrepreneurs and law enforcement occur more unofficially.

The Sweetwater County Sheriff's Office asks parents not to publicly post their children's locations, but instead to send them privately through Facebook.

"We love seeing kids build confidence, responsibility and a little small-business grit," the sheriff's office shared on social media.

[{"type":"text","text":"For Otte, the patrol is about changing perceptions."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"A big thing for me is to get out in communities,\" he said."}]

Too often, he said, children assume a patrol car means someone is in trouble.

"I like to flip that," Otte said. "We give them positive interactions. We sit there and connect with them. We ask why they're doing it."

One of his favorite stops was a lemonade and bake sale at a Green River school.

After buying lemonade and a cake pop, Otte turned on his patrol lights for the children.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"They were over the moon,\" he said. “They were giddy.”"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Lt. Derek Morrell has been making informal lemonade stops for years."}]

After once arriving at a stand empty-handed, he started keeping a cup full of spare change in his patrol car. The cup moves with him whenever he changes patrol cars.

Mower said he believes the initiative has made deputies more mindful of what local kids are doing throughout the summer.

"I think it's led to paying more attention to those types of things," he said.

For example, one deputy noticed while out on lemonade patrol that the Green River high school wrestling team was having a burgers and brats fundraiser.

"I think with the lemonade stands and kids on our deputies' radar, it's led to some other interactions with youth," Mower said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Inflation Even Hits Lemonade"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"The first cup Mower bought this summer cost $1."}]

"At the next stand, it cost $2," he said, laughing. "I was like, 'What is this?'"

[{"type":"text","text":"Deputies jokingly blamed inflation."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"One young entrepreneur sweetened the deal by offering 25-cent refills."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Mower gladly took advantage."}]

"I'll stand here and talk to you and have an extra cup of lemonade," he said.

Word about the lemonade patrol continues to spread as children tell their friends about deputies stopping by.

Mower said he hopes it may even inspire kids who are bored during summer break to try something new.

"Maybe it's not lemonade," he said. "Maybe they make chocolate chip cookies."

For deputies, the effort has become a simple but meaningful reminder that community policing can be as easy as stopping for a cold drink on a hot afternoon.

"We're helping kids realize we're not just here to take everyone to jail," Mower said. "We're people, too. We care."

"There are days where it's hot, and we don't want to just be drinking water or energy drinks," he said.

In many ways, deputies say the lemonade patrol has proven to be a win-win: Kids gain customers, officers gain conversations, and a community gets one more reason to smile.

Or, as Mower put it, the biggest question may be why it took them so long to think of it.

[{"type":"text","text":"Sometimes, the sweetest ideas are also the simplest."}]

Lemonade Maelie with Sweetwater County Sheriffs Deputy Mike Merkley 7 4 26

<title>Why Sweetwater County Sheriff's Deputies Make It A Point To Support Lemonade Stands | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The Sweetwater County Sheriff's Office is making it a point to support lemonade stands in the community. Deputy Zach Otte said that children assume a patrol car means someone is in trouble. The lemonade patrol is about changing perceptions, he said.

Why Sweetwater County Sheriff's Deputies Make It A Point To Support Lemonade Stands

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's business and tourism reporter, Renée Jean

Renée Jean

Wyoming Life

It wasn’t the fanciest Harley-Davidson on the lot when the 95th anniversary Dyna Wide Glide edition motorcycle caught the eye of retired Torrington lawman Randy Giles.

“It was just something that I thought a person my size would enjoy, so I bought it,” he said. “Nothing special attracted me to it. It was just a good, suitable bike for me, for my size and my riding capabilities.”

The used bike was also priced just right. Not too expensive — even if the dealer still got his fair share.

Giles didn’t do anything special to the bike, at least not at first. He bought some leather saddlebags for weekend rides with his friends. It was just a good, solid practical ride.

Then one day he rear-ended a police car in Cheyenne, totaling the bike. 

Bent handlebars, damaged exhaust, smashed forward controls — the motorcycle was done for. Or so the insurance company said.

But Giles was a former auto body repair man before he was a lawman. He knew his way around metal and paint. So that was the beginning of a new journey for him and his Harley.

“I decided to buy it back from the insurance company and built it the way that I wanted to,” he told Cowboy State Daily. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"From Totaled To Wanted"}]

Now the motorcycle is more than just a ride. It’s an iron horse that an Old West lawman might ride today, all duded up with air-brushed posters of famous outlaws like Butch Cassidy and Billy the Kid with a leather saddle ringed by bullets. 

There’s also a picture of a lawman who has just pulled two pistols, one of them smoking, with Devils Tower in the background. 

It’s a rolling gallery of Western outlaw history now, turning heads and starting conversations everywhere he goes. It’s also won awards in various motorcycle shows, beating out some of the big names on the circuit.

“I was in a show at Deadwood Mountain Grand, and I took People’s Choice,” Giles said. “And there were people like Paul Yaffe, Corry Ness, and Donnie Smith in that show, so I feel like I got a little bragging rights there.”

Giles’ outlaw bike, which he calls "Wanted Dead Or Alive," has been through several transformations since it was wrecked in 2006. First came bright yellow with purple flames, then orange, and then a deep blue show-bike look that was starting to win awards every now and then.

“I’d win some and I’d lose some,” he said with a chuckle. “Well, nobody likes to lose, so I just had to do better.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Harley As A Canvas"}]

Better, he ultimately decided, would be to lean into what has meaning to him. 

He had a 30-year career in law enforcement, including time spent as the chief of police in Lingle, where he learned some Wyoming towns still have an old city code that referred to his position as the town marshal.

“I thought that was just Old West,” he said. “I am interested in the Old West lawmen, Native Americans, cowboys, and all that kind of stuff. Lawmen and outlaws, so that’s where I got my idea.”

Growing up in Wyoming helped deepen that fascination. He was surrounded most of his life by landscapes tied to real frontier legends — Powder River country, the old territorial prison where Butch Cassidy once famously stayed, and areas where Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were said to have robbed a few trains.

Giles had been diving into books and television documentaries about the West since his 40s. So that became his theme and his Harley became a canvas.

Giles started his concept with a cherry-maroon paint color, which he did himself. Then he hired an artist to layer intricate airbrushed “Wanted” posters of iconic outlaws such as Jesse James and Butch Cassidy on the bike. 

The portraits look aged and weathered, as if peeled from an 1800s-era sheriff’s office wall. Chains and iron handcuffs are painted draped across the tank in the “trompe-l’oeil,” fool-the-eye tradition that is a hallmark of so many Renaissance painters. 

On the rear fender, a lone gunfighter stands with two pistols drawn, one of them smoking, with Devils Tower rising in the background.

“Devils Tower ties it into Wyoming,” Giles said. “That and the gunfighter are the two features I like the most.”

But he also cherishes the custom-tooled brown leather saddle seat with its crossed revolvers and vintage “Wyoming US Marshal” star badge. And it’s not long before he’s named it as his favorite feature as well. The saddle has a sharp, braided leather edging around it as well as a shiny bullet belt that completes the look. 

The bike that has emerged is part Western shrine, but it also harkens to Harley history as a part vintage “Frisco chopper,” a minimalist, tall and narrow custom Harley-Davidson meant for aggressive side-street riding and lane-splitting. The style emerged in the San Francisco Bay area in the 1960s.

Giles also swapped out the bike’s front end for a vintage Springer front, which has exposed chrome springs, rather than modern, telescopic fork shocks. And he used tall, ape-hanger handlebars, giving the bike a sleek silhouette with a commanding, arms-up riding stance.

The engine is the classic Harley V-twin with straight pipes, loaded with aftermarket chrome covers and paired with the long, unbaffled chrome straight-pipe exhausts. 

All of which to say, this is a motorcycle that definitely makes an entrance when the engine starts. It’s meant not just to be seen but to be heard, and talked about.

Giles doesn’t just plop this bike in the parking lot when he takes it to a show. He builds a miniature frontier world around it.

“I put ropes around it and a display that I made with some pilings, some ropes, and some Wanted posters and lamps,” he said. “It just went well with the theme that I had.”

Giles has other bikes he’s duded up for shows as well, but this is the one that starts the most conversations.

“They’ll stand there and just look it over really good for a long time and take pictures,” he said. “And that’s what makes me happy, to see somebody enjoying something that I’ve done.”

Giles is living firmly inside what people call the “Harley lifestyle,” but he’s doing it in Wyoming style.

He’s been taking bikes to Sturgis every year since 1990, trailering up multiple bikes, some to ride and some to show. Then he spends the week doing what Harley culture is famous for — people-watching, checking out vendors, and soaking in all the craziness.

It’s the latter, he’ll admit with a laugh, that he likes about Sturgis. But there’s also camaraderie, meeting new people, and looking at all the vendors, scoping out new ideas for the next Harley project.

No bike is ever truly finished, Giles said.

“I’ll accessorize this bike if I see something I like,” he said. “But I’ve got two other bikes now that I’m working on, so I’ve got to make financial room for those.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Next Up: A Gold Digger"}]

One is a 1998 Softail he’s rebuilding from the frame up around a $4,000 Evolution engine he won as a prize at Sturgis.

He’s sandblasted the frame and covered it and the swingarm in gold leaf. Its theme will be another Western archetype. He’s going to call it Gold Digger.

“Not so much the girl who tries to take money from a rich guy,” he said. “But the guy who goes out and pans for gold.”

Right now this project is living in his half of the family garage — much to his wife’s occasional frustration.

“I try and squeeze her out, and then she gets mad,” he admits with a laugh.

Recently he’s been imagining clever peace offerings. Like when his green bike “Slow Poke” won a trophy, he sent her up to collect it in his stead.

“She thought that was neat,” he said. “So maybe I’ve got her in my corner now.”

When he’s finished with “Gold Digger,” he’s thinking that bike might become hers. 

“She’s been mad at me ever since I bought that one,” he said. “So if I give her that one, maybe she won’t be so mad at me anymore.”

Gold Digger has a good chance, he believes, of beating his outlaw Harley, and winning more awards. 

But regardless, he plans to keep the old outlaw that started the Harley hobby he enjoys so much. It’s the perfect iron horse for a former town marshal with its vintage badge on a custom leather seat and its Wanted posters of the West’s most famous outlaws on the tank.

Outlaw Harley 20260620 123548 6.28.26

<title>Retired Wyoming Lawman’s Outlaw Harley Turns Heads Across West | Cowboy State Daily</title>

After retired Torrington lawman Randy Giles totaled his Harley, he didn’t walk away from it. The former auto body repairman turned it into a Western-themed town marshal’s show bike. His outlaw Harley has been beating big-name builders in shows across the West.

Retired Wyoming Lawman’s Outlaw Harley Turns Heads Across West

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

For more than 40 years, Hope Sheets marched through Cody's famed Stampede Parade in a flowing pink gown, four-inch heels and an extravagant flowered hat, waving to thousands of spectators while leading a fluffy white poodle dyed bubblegum pink.

[{"type":"text","text":"Children waited for her."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Visitors photographed her."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Generations of Cody residents simply expected to see her."}]

When Sheets died in May 2025, the Pink Lady disappeared with her, and last year's Fourth of July felt different.

"It was a weird parade," said her oldest daughter, Lisa Kealey. "We were all very sad to go watch it without my mom in it."

[{"type":"text","text":"This year, however, the Pink Lady returned."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"In Her Shoes"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Kealey insists she never intended to step into her mother's famous shoes."}]

Then parade organizers invited her to help celebrate America's 250th birthday by bringing back some of the event's most iconic entries.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"I just said yes,\" she recalled. \"I didn't think about it.\""}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Only afterward did the reality sink in."}]

"I'm doing my version of my mom," Kealey said. "I'm not copy-catting her exactly, but it is the same idea. It has the same personality."

Hope's original gown wouldn't fit. Standing just over five feet tall, she was much smaller than her daughter.

Kealey sat at her sewing machine and created a new pink dress inspired by the original — one longtime Cody residents would instantly recognize, but that still reflected her own style.

[{"type":"text","text":"One piece, however, came directly from her mother's costume."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"The flower-covered hat."}]

"I actually gave her that hat," Kealey said. "So now it comes full circle."

She carefully cleaned it, reshaped it and added fresh posies before wearing it down Sheridan Avenue.

"I do look quite a bit like my mom," Kealey said. "And everybody that found out is just super, super excited that I'm kind of bringing this whole thing back in honor of her."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Poodles To Pomeranian"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"After the decision was made, one challenge remained. "}]

[{"type":"text","text":"The Pink Lady needed a pink dog."}]

Courtney asked the community if anyone had a white poodle she could borrow.

"I was shocked at how many people came forward to offer their dog," she said.

At one point she nearly settled on Roscoe, a large Goldendoodle whose owner had even bought him tiny pink Crocs.

"It was hilarious," Kealey said, but ultimately, Roscoe was simply too much dog.

Instead, she found a tiny white Pomeranian to be professionally groomed and dyed before the parade.

"She'll look like a little stuffed animal out there," she said ahead of the march. 

For a few blocks through downtown Cody, spectators once again saw a flash of pink, a fluffy pink dog, and a familiar flowered hat.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Performance Art"}]

Long before she became the Pink Lady, Hope Sheets was already well known around Wyoming.

She and her husband, Lloyd, traveled the country performing music before eventually settling in Cody, where the family became known for singing and entertaining together.

When health problems ended her singing career, Sheets found another stage.

She opened a dog grooming business with the slogan, "There's Hope for Your Pooch."

[{"type":"text","text":"Then she had another idea."}]

"She lived to perform," Kealey said, so it made sense to advertise her dog grooming business in dramatic fashion. 

[{"type":"text","text":"The gimmick worked."}]

"It was just kind of a cool, catchy thing to do," Kealey said. "She was very brilliant, very creative, and it just took hold."

Soon, the Pink Lady became one of the Cody Stampede Parade's most recognizable figures.

Kealey laughs that many people remember the pink dress before anything else.

"It's hilarious that she's known for that when she was such an amazing musician and singer."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Cody Original"}]

"She was alive and nutty and crazy," is how Jenny Zink remembers her longtime friend.

Their shared love of performing quickly grew into a friendship that lasted more than three decades.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"She was a very dramatic person in a lively, colorful way,\" Zink said."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"The parade simply amplified who Hope already was."}]

"She walked in three-inch heels all the way down the parade route and just waved," Zink remembered. "People would run out from the crowd and give her a hug."

Even after breaking her ankle while rescuing one of her beloved poodles, Hope refused to miss the parade.

Instead, Zink dressed as a nurse and pushed her the entire route in a wheelchair, her cast stretched proudly out front while the pink poodle trotted alongside.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"We weren't going to miss the parade,\" Zink recalled with a laugh."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Hope's absence last year didn't go unnoticed."}]

"People would ask why she wasn't in the parade," Zink said. "They just couldn't imagine that she would be missing a parade after all those years."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"More Than Pink"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"To Kealey, her mother was much more than Cody's Pink Lady."}]

"She was an irreverent, brilliant, funny, naughty and loving, eccentric person,” she said.

Growing up, Kealey remembers waiting for Hope to come home after late-night performances.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"She'd come in and lean over my bed and kiss me goodnight,” she said."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Remembering that still brings tears."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"I loved my mom,\" Kealey said. \"I couldn't imagine life without her.\""}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Then she laughed while describing the woman the community adored. "}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Kealey chuckled before describing another side of her mother."}]

"She was narcissistic,” she said. "She would be out there to see who could see her, but in the process of seeing who could see her, she saw other people too.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"They felt seen by her. She just made everybody she met feel special.\""}]

Hope Sheets was a fixture for four decades in the Cody Stampede Parade as the “Pink Lady.” More than a year after her death, her daughter has stepped into the iconic pink dress to keep the tradition alive. "I'm doing my version of my mom," she said.

Daily Cartoon: Monday, February 21, 2022

Michael P. Ramirez

Cartoonist

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Daily Cartoon: Monday, February 21, 2022

Authors

Michael P. Ramirez

Cartoonist

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