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

<title>Daily Cartoon: Monday, March 7, 2022 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Daily Cartoon: Monday, March 7, 2022

Bill Sniffin

Opinion

CSD Columnists

Today is Sunday, Aug. 16. With Election Day just 48 hours away, it is time to put on my prognosticator’s hat and try to figure out who will win Tuesday’s political races.

All the political excitement is in the Wyoming Republican primary. We are a one-party state, so everything happens in the primary.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Predictions And Favorites"}]

Cowboy State Daily columnists have some interesting points of view.

 Eric Barlow for governor and Kevin Christensen for U.S. House.

 Eric Barlow for governor and Steve Friess for U.S. House.

 Brent Bien for governor and Chuck Gray for U.S. House.

 Megan Degenfelder for governor and Chuck Gray for U.S. House.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Here is how I see these races:"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"U.S. House"}]

A gambling man would probably pick Secretary of State Chuck Gray of Casper to win the race for U.S. House.

Nobody else in this race has his network of followers, and he has been consistent. Considered a lightning rod, Gray has always been in the news. Gray seems to enjoy “just being Chuck.”

For example, how many state officials in history have been invited outside during a heated discussion by a sitting governor who is known to be somewhat mild-mannered? Probably not many.

Longtime political writer Joan Barron calls Gray an “obnoxious grandstander.”

After thoroughly analyzing this campaign, based on my 56 years of watching politics in Wyoming, I came to the conclusion recently that Steve Friess of Jackson might pull off a last-minute upset over Gray.

A lot of Friess’ boosters claim that not since Wyoming sent first-termers Dick Cheney and Liz Cheney to Congress have we had the chance to send someone who can make a big difference like Steve Friess can.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"That argument may very well be true."}]

But there are seven other Republicans in the race, and unless large numbers of their supporters bail out and move over to Friess, this race should go to Chuck.

Those candidates are Jillian Balow of Cheyenne, Bob Biteman of Ranchester, Reid Rasner, Kevin Christensen, and Keith Goodenough of Casper, David Giralt of Mills and Richard Dodson of Sundance.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"It will be close."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Governor"}]

Like Gray, State Sen. Eric Barlow of Gillette has been the leader in his race from Day One. He has put together a tremendous team statewide and has boatloads of support.

As a former Speaker of the House, he was obviously well-liked, based on the number of legislators helping him. Has he heard of the “Speaker’s Curse?”

For some reason, Wyoming voters have not elected a House speaker or Senate president as governor in 50 years.

Megan Degenfelder of Cheyenne is young, at age 37, but has an amazing machine working for her. She has President Donald Trump working hard for her. She can honestly say that she will have the president’s ear if elected.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Folks, this is huge."}]

Her team has spent more than a million dollars attacking Barlow’s record. Based on all the TV ads and fliers, you would almost wonder why he is not in jail.

Barlow has not fired back much, which is commendable, but probably a bad tactic in these crazy political days.

The sleeper is retired Marine Col. Brent Bien of Cody. He has worked very hard and has a huge personal following. He lost the primary to Gov. Mark Gordon four years ago, receiving 48,572 votes.

If those same people vote for him, he just might win.

Despite a huge late surge by Degenfelder, I have a hunch Barlow will hold on and emerge victorious.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"U.S. Senate"}]

You would think this race would be a big deal. There are only 100 men and women in the U.S. Senate.

Current U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman has done an excellent job and has President Donald Trump’s endorsement.

Her biggest rival is 37-year-old Sam Mead of the well-connected Mead family from Jackson. His uncle Matt was governor, and his grandmother Mary Mead ran for governor.

He has worked hard and generated quite a bit of support.

Harriet will win and will do a great job as our next U.S. senator.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Other Races"}]

Longtime Casper State Rep. Steve Harshman should cruise to an easy win in the contest for state superintendent of public instruction. He is a longtime teacher and coach and has been a consistent leader in the state Legislature.

This is a case of one candidate having much better name recognition than the others, Chad Auer of Cheyenne and Tom Kelly of Sheridan.

The secretary of state’s race has been somewhat underwhelming. It is hard to find issues for the candidates to fight about.

Robert Short of Douglas appears to be the front-runner, although Rachel Williams of Cody has the Freedom Caucus folks working hard for her.

CJ Young of Cheyenne and Qwenton Oviatt of Hudson will finish out of the running.

State Treasurer Curt Meier of La Grange should have no trouble defeating challenger Scott Smith of Lingle.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Turnout"}]

Originally, I thought this election would have a small turnout.

Now I have changed my mind totally. We could easily have 130,000 to 150,000 total Republican votes.

The record was four years ago when 172,000 voted. Other recent years have seen turnout as low as 117,000.

The bigger turnout will favor Degenfelder and Friess, in my opinion.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Conclusion"}]

These are just my predictions as a columnist. What do you think?

We want to hear what you have to say. Cowboy State Daily will be running an election quiz, and you can see if you can top our staff. It will be in the Monday morning newsletter.

Managing Editor Greg Johnson won our last quiz two years ago, and Jen Kocher, one of our writers from Gillette, won it four years ago. Six years ago, Tom Lacock of Cheyenne won it.

That quiz will be in Cowboy State Daily Monday.

Sniffin headshot 7 2 25

<title>Bill Sniffin: Barlow, Friess, Hageman, Harshman, Short, Meier, Headed For Wins? | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Columnist Bill Sniffin writes: “Who is going to win? This primary election has so many variables. These are the folks I think will win on Tuesday.”

Bill Sniffin: Barlow, Friess, Hageman, Harshman, Short, Meier, Headed For Wins?

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

Renée Jean

Wyoming Life

High on the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest, a decaying log cabin that once anchored one of Wyoming’s old range-sheep operations was in danger of being lost after the Niland family’s long-held Forest Service arrangement ended.

Instead, the Little Snake River Museum, is working to turn it into a public window into the state’s historic sheep industry, which once moved thousands of animals — and dozens of wagons — through the high country every summer.

Lela Emmons is director of the Little Snake River Museum. The Divide Sheep Camp cabin she is working to save sits on a 40-acre permit area on the Medicine Bow-Routt. 

It served as the summer headquarters for the Divide Sheep Company, a mid-sized sheep operation owned by the Niland family and established in 1909, four years after the Forest Service itself was created. 

Emmons described the arrangement as a “100-year lease” and said the family’s ability to maintain the cabin was tied to continuous operation of the site. 

After Tom Niland’s death, the family was required to decide whether to remove, relocate, or donate the structure to an entity such as the Little Snake River Museum for preservation.

They chose the latter, to keep the cabin’s history intact.

“This is one of the few remaining summer cabins for the sheep industry,” Emmons said. “This infrastructure of corrals and cabins and even the sheepherder art on the trees is all going away. There will be nothing left if we don’t preserve this cabin.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Regional Significance"}]

The Niland cabin served as a collaborative hub for more than just the Niland family, which adds to the site’s historic significance.

“There would be like 50 wagons parked up there in the summer,” Emmons told Cowboy State Daily. “They would park all the wagons and then from this point on they would pack with horses. They’d have two or three pack horses and then they’d trail those up in the mountains and then they’d use little teepee tents.”

The tents had just enough room for a dry place to sleep, as well as little stoves to keep warm or cook food at night.

“They had little kitchen boxes, and they would spend the summer that way,” Emmons said. “They didn’t have wagons up in the mountains because it was too hard to get around in them.”

Many different operations used the Niland camp as a staging point. The camp had a centralized supply depot, as well as corrals and other workspaces where different operations could separate, count, brand, and dip their sheep for ticks.

“They didn’t have the spray-on stuff we have now, one shot gets rid of ticks,” Emmons said. “So they’d have to dip them. And before they’d come out, they had this tool where they’d dunk their head under and then pull them back up with the other.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Just In The Nick Of Time"}]

The Niland cabin looks, at first glance, like a hundred other weather-beaten log buildings in Wyoming’s high country. 

But many signs of its deeper history are still there, written on the walls and on the aspen trees that surround this little cabin in Carbon County.

Saving the cabin and all of its history has come just in the nick of time, too.

“This wall,” Emmons said, gesturing toward a newly built wall with pine logs on its face, “Wade (Golden) shored it up with things to hold the roof and then he gave (the wall) just one pound, and the whole thing just fell over. It was so rotten.”

Golden is part of a core restoration crew that also includes Mathias Kneeland and Rick Beck. 

Because of that, Emmons is sure that the cabin wouldn’t have survived one more winter without falling apart. 

The cabin’s restoration will remain true to its history, Emmons said, though a few changes are being made to help ensure it survives.

“We built this deck with removable panels here so that as the snow comes off in the winter, it can drop down there and won’t just sit and be heavy,” Emmons explained.

But they left the front room’s roof pitch the same as it ever was, deeming that too big a change for the preservation of history.

Inside the cabin, there’s treasure of another sort. Guests of the cabin, through the years, have written little messages on the wall. It was part of a tradition at the cabin, talking who had been there and what had taken place when at the cabin.

“We went swimming at the second (illegible). Got leeches and we caught fish,” reads one message written by someone named Teagan. 

“Marvelous Dinner + Company even better! Love Kate,” Reads another dated June 28, 1987. 

“First time 12 yrs, I’ll be back,” is signed 9-19-96 by Bill Niland. Below that is another message from Bill that says, “I’m back for good! 5-25-03.”

Emmons has been told some of the signatures on the wall may belong to former Los Angeles Dodgers players. She’s still trying to verify which signatures belong to them, and where they might be located.

“I’m kind of hoping people don’t keep doing that,” she added. 

While the older ones are a piece of history and part of tradition at the cabin, she said newer ones would no longer be adding to that tradition, given that the cabin’s use is changing and it is no longer a sheep operation.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Windows Into Time"}]

Emmons has taken photographs of life at the cabin and had them placed on metal signs. She plans to place the metal images strategically around the cabin. They’ll be a window into what might have been seen from that location during Wyoming’s sheep herding heyday.

While cattle ranching dominates Wyoming’s popular western image, Wyoming’s sheep herds and wool helped build the economies of communities across Carbon County and the state.

By 1910, the Cowboy State was grazing more than 5.5 million sheep, making it one of the leading wool and mutton producers in the United States. Carbon County, meanwhile, was once the top lamb-and-wool county in the nation. 

Wyoming is also where sheep wagons were invented in the 1880s. The covered wagons had a bed, a stove, a table, and a kitchen sink, as well as some storage. They acted as tiny mobile homes for sheep herders, especially during the winter.

The industry also brought a unique mix of cultures to Wyoming, including Basque, Scottish, and Irish herders. Many of their descendants still live in Wyoming.

The Niland cabin is surrounded by an aging aspen forest. Many of the trees have names and dates or other messages carved on them.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"The landscape, though, is changing."}]

“All these trees are going to die,” Emmons said. “And then all the little ones will grow up again. So, all of a sudden, you’ll have these vistas through the trees you didn’t even know you had.”

It will be a scenic spot for a public access cabin, once completed. 

Emmons hopes the cabin will prove useful for Wyoming students, whether high school or college, to learn about the forest and a little of Wyoming’s sheep herding history. 

This fall, she’s hoping to finish installing a solar powered water system for the property, as well as a functioning toilet and fire-suppression capacity, thanks to a grant from the Wyoming Community Foundation. 

“I love it up here,” Emmons said. “I would get up here about 7 o’clock in the morning or 6:30. The sun is just rising and the kids wouldn’t have shown up yet, and it’s just so peaceful up here. It’s amazing.”

The cabin’s restoration will take a few years, Emmons said, but once it’s ready there will be a picnic or a party to celebrate.

“We don’t get anything done in a hurry,” she said with a chuckle, looking around at the new fence around the property built by youths with the Wyoming Conservation Corps and the new front for the cabin that’s recently been installed. “But we do get it done eventually.”

Niland Cabin 20260809 161551 8 15 26

<title>Leeches, Lambs And Log Walls: Race Is On To Save Medicine-Bow’s Niland Cabin | Cowboy State Daily</title>

High up in the Medicine Bow National Forest, a log cabin that once anchored one of Wyoming’s old range-sheep operations was in danger of being lost forever until the Little Snake River Museum stepped up. "There will be nothing left if we don’t preserve this cabin," they say.

Leeches, Lambs And Log Walls: Race Is On To Save Medicine-Bow’s Niland Cabin

Business & Tourism

There is just something about the Elk Mountain Hotel that inspires devotion.

Peter Thieriot, for example, was warned that the Elk Mountain Hotel was nothing more than a money pit. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"He bought it anyway."}]

Locals joked that the hotel required a tetanus shot before walking in.

No one was laughing once Thieriot finished restoring it. 

He took the hotel back to its studs, then rebuilt it room by room by room.

Nine layers of wallpaper were stripped from the dining room. Samples of each layer still decorate a wall just outside the dining room, even though Thieriot no longer owns the hotel.

Christine Neel is the hotel’s present-day owner. 

She did what a lot of small-town Wyoming kids wind up doing — leaving Wyoming. 

Her folks packed up and moved to Texas before Neel graduated from high school. She went to Texas A&M, becoming an “Aggie,” with a major in nursing and business.

But when the 120-year-old Elk Mountain Hotel went up for sale in January 2020, she leapt at the chance to take over the tiny boutique hotel in little Elk Mountain, where the elevation of 7,264 feet far exceeds its population of 146 people. 

“I’ve been in love with the hotel since childhood,” Neel told Cowboy State Daily. “I grew up not too far from there on a ranch … I remember going to brunches over there, attending weddings over there, before and after the renovation.”

When she heard the owners had decided to get out of the hotel business, something clicked. 

She suddenly knew she wanted to own that hotel.

“I think it just has a charm like no place else has,” she said. “I’ve always just loved it. So I couldn’t say no when the opportunity came up.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Reborn From Ashes"}]

Neel says many travelers find the Elk Mountain Hotel by surprise when they’re traveling to Yellowstone National Park along Interstate 80. 

It’s a pleasant surprise for most. Tripadvisor shows a 4.8 out of 5-bubble rating, and it’s easy to see why.

At first sight, it’s like gazing into another time and place, and then melting into it with each step toward the hotel. None of the rooms have televisions, which deepens the effect.

There are no air conditioners humming, either.  

Tiny refrigerators and microwaves are the only nod to the modern world — and they do not bother. They’re quiet.

The hotel sits at the base of Elk Mountain, in the same spot where the Overland Trail once had its stage stop, just east of the Medicine Bow River.

The establishment was then known as The Crossing. 

After Union Pacific finished the Transcontinental Railroad, The Crossing fell into disrepair and burned down in 1905.

A man from Wales named John Evans built a new hotel on top of the ashes, naming it Mountain View Hotel. It was white with green trim then, and it’s white with green trim now.

No one knows exactly how or why Evans came to Wyoming. What is known about him is that he was adopted by the Jones family and worked for a time at the Evan's Bro’s Store in Carbon, now an abandoned coal town southwest of Medicine Bow.

Eventually, Evans married his adoptive sister, Mary Ann Jones.

The couple had 10 children, seven of whom died very young. Some of those children are buried at the old Carbon Cemetery.

When the couple moved from Carbon to Elk Mountain to work for J.S. Jones, they had two living children, Joseph and Aubrey. John ran the bar and Mary was the cook. 

They bought The Crossing from Jones in 1903. Two years later, after their son William was born, The Crossing burned down.

The couple borrowed money from Mary’s sister Catherine to rebuild the hotel. 

They had 16 bedrooms upstairs and a bar and dance hall downstairs. It had indoor plumbing and Elk Mountain’s first power plant. In addition to itself, the hotel’s coal-fired plant supplied power to neighbors as well. 

The dance hall quickly became a community gathering spot for dances, parties, political rallies and town meetings.

In the 1920s, John Evans and his boys built an open-air dance pavilion.

Many famous people would come to play at the Garden Spot Pavilion, including Lawrence Welk and Louis Armstrong.

The hotel’s 12 rooms echo some of that history. 

Two are named for both Welk and Armstrong. Others are devoted to famous Wyoming figures Jim Bridger, Esther Hobart Morris and Eliza Swain. 

Another honors someone infamous: “Big Nose” George Parrot.

Each room leans into its historic namesake, with relevant photographs, artwork, and history hanging on the walls. 

The hotel is framed by mature trees and a profusion of pink hollyhocks — perfect for the Victorian architecture.

Inside, the vintage charm continues with a warm mixture of leather, wood, and posh upholstery alongside photos of historical Elk Mountain figures that help tell the hotel’s unique story. 

The restaurant serves steaks and pasta, along with homemade desserts and cocktails. Reservations are required.

Stay there once, and it’s easy to understand why people keep coming back. Because there’s just something about the Elk Mountain Hotel. 

Elk Mountain Hotel 20260811 095626 8 15 26

<title>How Wyoming’s Elk Mountain Hotel Went From Money Pit To Historic Showplace | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Built 120 years ago when an Overland Trail stage stop burned down, many warned its previous owner it would be a money pit to restore. He did it anyway, and now the Elk Mountain Hotel has become a showplace on the National Register of Historic Places.

How Wyoming’s Elk Mountain Hotel Went From Money Pit To Historic Showplace

Jen Kocher - Headshot CSD

Jen Kocher

Around Wyoming

For the Haux sisters, the enduring mystery of their father’s fate still crystallizes around one stark image: His truck, abandoned in the Red Desert, an image taken from a newspaper article.

Clifford “Russ” Haux of Mills vanished on Nov. 26, 2003, near Wamsutter in south-central Wyoming where he worked as an oil-rig driller. The 42-year-old husband and father of three had gone out with a co-worker to free a stuck vehicle and never returned.

The last image of him is his fading headlights as he drove off into a winter night trying to find a place to cross a ditch.

One minute he was there, the next, he was gone — last seen driving his pickup into a ditch, looking for a place to cross.

For two years, extensive searches turned up nothing. Then a hunter found his purple Ford Ranger less than six miles from where he was last seen. Its front tires were stuck in a washed-out riverbed, with evidence suggesting he’d tried to free them.

His children – Lois, Justy and Chancy – grew up on memories and secondhand stories, left to wonder what had happened to their father.

The story doesn’t add up based on their recollections of their dad: A guy they describe as a “driller through and through” and seasoned “mountain man” who was also a skilled outdoorsman.

“I don’t know what happened out there or the trauma he had to go through,” Justy told Cowboy State Daily. “Anything could have happened.”

The Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Office likewise can’t speculate about what might have happened to Haux after he left the vehicle. But there’s no evidence to date to suggest Haux was a victim, said Jason Mower, public information officer with the department.

“Based on the evidence available, including what was found when Haux’s vehicle was later located, the disappearance has been considered accidental rather than the result of foul play,” Mower wrote in an email to Cowboy State Daily.

More than two decades later, Mower said the case remains active and unresolved with no new leads they can publicly release at this time.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Disappearing Headlights"}]

His daughters have many questions about what transpired the night their father disappeared and how his vehicle went overlooked for two years, given the extensive search efforts described in the documentation shared by the sheriff’s office.

All they know is that Haux and his friend and co-worker left the oil rig the night of Nov. 26 to retrieve his Suburban that they’d gotten stuck in a mud bog on Nov. 18.

In the early morning hours of Nov. 19, Haux’s rig mates returned to camp, Mower said. Haux apparently stayed with the vehicle and was rescued on Nov. 20. The sheriff’s office did not specify how Haux was recovered, though his daughters were told it was by a search plane.

It was this vehicle that Haux and his rig mate were going to retrieve the night he disappeared.

The man named in the report was driving the forklift they’d borrowed from the rig to dig out the vehicle. Cowboy State Daily is not identifying him, as law enforcement has not labeled him a person of interest in Haux’s disappearance.

It’s not clear if they were successfully able to free the vehicle, but when Haux tried to cross a ditch in his pickup, he was unable to do so. The co-worker tried “to knock down the bank of the ditch” that was blocking Haux from crossing but couldn’t, according to the sheriff’s report.

[{"type":"text","text":"Instead, Haux headed south along the ditch, looking for a passable route."}]

The co-worker watched Haux’s headlights fade into the night. That was the last time anyone saw him alive.

When nobody could locate him, Haux was officially reported missing two days later to the Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Office, which launched a 10-day search effort complete with four-wheelers and vehicles, said the report.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Frantic Search"}]

Lois, then 5 and the daughter of Haux’s second wife, Laquana, remembers how frantic her mother was when they got the call that Haux was missing.

Justy, who was 15, learned about it when she tried to call her father to wish him a happy Thanksgiving. She and her brother, Chancy, then 18, lived with their mother in Worland.

The sisters recall the family wanted to help look for him but were told by rescuers to stay put for their safety, given the dangerous terrain.

Meanwhile, the sisters said, Haux’s brother hired a pilot and attempted to search by airplane.  

The temperature the night Haux disappeared plunged from a high of 27 down to 10 degrees with no precipitation, according to historical weather data for Rock Springs from the National Weather Service.

Their dad was a tough man, Lois said, and an avid outdoorsman who they believe would have known how to handle himself safely in the elements. He was also a big guy at over 6 feet tall and just under 200 pounds.

Nearly 23 years after Clifford “Russ” Haux vanished in the Red Desert near Wamsutter, his daughters are still haunted. The 42-year-old husband and father of three had gone out with a co-worker to free a stuck vehicle and never returned.

Daily Cartoon: Monday, March 7, 2022

Michael P. Ramirez

Cartoonist

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Daily Cartoon: Monday, March 7, 2022

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Michael P. Ramirez

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