One More For The Road

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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Did not see that coming. <a href="https://t.co/oQRDxfb1cy">pic.twitter.com/oQRDxfb1cy</a></p>— jamie (@gnuman1979) <a href="https://twitter.com/gnuman1979/status/1573134977113407488?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 23, 2022</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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Cowboy State Daily is Wyoming’s largest newspaper with Wyoming’s most experienced journalists. 

<title>One More For The Road: Friday, September 23, 2022 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

One More For The Road: Friday, September 23, 2022

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

Renée Jean

Around Wyoming

Growing up, Texan James Neely had never heard of mountain man Jim Baker, who was a frontier scout, trapper and early non-Native settler with ties to both Colorado and Wyoming when the West was young.

A sister’s genealogy search changed all that a couple decades ago. On Saturday, he was among a handful of Baker descendants who gathered for a photo commemorating the Little Snake River Museum’s work to preserve the 

 cabin Baker built when he settled in present-day Savery in 1873.

Members of HistoriCorps and other volunteers in the Savery area spent last summer hand-hewing cottonwood logs to replace water-damaged logs at the cabin. The work is not finished, Little Snake River Museum Director Lela Emmons told Cowboy State Daily. 

Efforts are already underway to raise additional funds to keep the restoration going, and to source more of the huge cottonwood logs 

“There’s still another 10 or 12 logs we need to replace,” she said. “Getting those logs is the hardest part of the whole thing.”

Large cottonwood logs aren’t simply available at Home Depot or some other lumberyard.

“We have to find the right cottonwoods, get them milled,” she said. “And they’re so heavy, you can’t just lift them up. You have to hire a guy with a big backhoe or something who can lift them.”

It’s a fuel-intensive process, Emmons added, which means the logs must be sourced as near to the museum as possible.

Once they have the right logs, they’ll also need to bring HistoriCorps back to do the work, which will cost around $40,000 for another two-week stint.

Emmons said she hopes to identify grant funding to help with that.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Best Shot In The West"}]

Neely drove from Texas with his wife, Sandra, just to learn more about his ancestor and see the cabin where Baker once lived.

“I would be a first cousin, three times removed,” Neely told Cowboy State Daily. “So, there’s a lot of people here who know more about him than I do.”

The work done on the cabin, which is now a rare surviving structure from the mountain man era, is “wonderful,” he said. 

“It’s an important part of history and, of course, if it deteriorates, nobody can enjoy it,” Neely said. “So it’s really nice that they have done this. A lot of people, at least in our part of the world, are not familiar with Jim Baker. They’ve heard of Jim Bridger, people like that … but (Baker) was an important character, too.”

Kit Carson, in fact, has been quoted in newspaper articles of the time saying Baker was the “best shot in the West,” next to himself, of course. When Carson sent 

 invitations to 18 mountain men for what would be their last trapping event together in 1851, Baker was on that list. 

Jim Bridger, when he was looking for an elite scout to help him at Fort Phil Kearney, hired Baker. Baker was also one of the scouts for Gen. John Charles Fremont’s third expedition to explore and map the American West alongside Carson, and he was part of the 1841 Bartleson-Bidwell Party, among the earliest wagon parties bound for California.

Baker’s contemporaries certainly thought he was important. But unlike them, Baker was not interested in publicity, biographer Leighton Baker wrote in his book, “The Red-Headed Shoshoni.” 

Baker loved the mountains and hated the spotlight. So, when Ned Buntline suggested writing a biography about him, Baker flat out refused. 

He did not care if the world forgot who he was.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Too Many People"}]

In fact, when Denver became too populous for his tastes, he packed up and in 1873 moved to Savery, where he built a two-story cabin with a third-story tower as his home. The tower, dismantled in 1881, was so he could climb high and see far — just in case any of the American Indian tribes who disliked him decided to come to call. 

Baker is thought to be one of the first non-Native settlers in Denver. He was later honored with a stained-glass likeness at the state Capitol, and he became one of the first settlers of the Little Snake River Valley. 

The cabin itself has lived several lives. 

Baker first built it from massive cottonwood logs felled by himself and some of his children along the Little Snake River. They squared the timbers by hand with broad axes and not much else.

After Baker’s death in 1898, there was a tussle between Wyoming, Colorado, and Savery over who would keep the cabin. 

Wyoming won the first round of that battle, and Baker’s cabin was displayed in Frontier Park in Cheyenne for 60-some years starting in 1917. Then, one year, the cabin was disassembled and stored, never to return as a display at Frontier Park. 

Savery still wanted Baker’s cabin though, and was eventually successful in convincing the state to send it back home to the Little Snake River Valley in 1976.

When it arrived, it was like a giant pile of scattered Lincoln logs, with few numbers explaining how the cabin had been put together. 

Original photos of the cabin and miniature models of the logs were used to figure out just how to reassemble the cabin in its present location, a mile from where Baker had originally built it.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Fight Is On"}]

Three decades before Baker built his fortified cottonwood cabin near Savery, he’d already helped make the surrounding landscape part of Wyoming history.

In 1841, near the Little Snake River Valley, Baker was among trappers who survived the fight that gave Battle Mountain its name. 

The conflict also became associated with Battle Creek, Battle Pass, and Battle Highway — place names that still mark the country where Baker later chose to make his home.

The battle is one of the most stunning tales of the mountain man era.

That summer, Baker had been trapping in the Green River country. Jim Bridger decided to send the young scout to warn French-Canadian trader Henry Fraeb, who was building a trading post somewhere near the confluence of Battle Creek and the Little Snake River, that large war parties of Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho were gathering in the region.

Bridger wanted Fraeb to abandon his exposed trading post and come back to Bridger’s camp along Henry’s Fork of the Green River, where he and his men would be much safer.

But Fraeb wasn’t keen to abandon his post. 

One day, while Baker and a few companions were hunting bison and cleaning their kills in the vicinity of Fraeb’s outpost, they saw huge puffs of dust suddenly appear over the southwest flank of the peak now known as Battle Mountain, which was then called Bastion Mountain. A large allied war party of Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Sioux — what Baker relative Chilly Rollingson calls the “Platte River Indians” —  then came riding down the southwest side of Battle Mountain. 

They were making a beeline for Fraeb’s trading post — exactly the scenario Bridger had feared.

Baker and his companions raced back to the outpost to help defend it and their lives. In the ensuing battle, Fraeb was among the first killed.

Baker, just 21 or so at the time, stepped up to take command, and his fellow scouts would later credit him with saving their lives. 

Baker, in an account decades later in a Denver newspaper, said the Indians numbered 700 or more. Other accounts have put the numbers anywhere from 200 to thousands. 

Baker told the newspaper he and the men hid behind stumps and positioned dead horses as breastworks to withstand what was about to happen.

With their manpower limited to about 24 scouts, and scarce quantities of ammunition, Baker told the men they had to make every shot count. That meant waiting until their attackers were close enough to ensure each bullet was going to hit someone or a horse. 

Baker and the men with him believed they were going to die. All they could do was make their own lives as costly as possible.

Baker’s strategy worked better than they could have imagined. Each time one of their fellow warriors fell, the Indians would stop their charge and draw back. Eventually, with only five horses left to fight over, the Indians decided to take their dead and wounded away and leave the trappers alone.

It was a stunning reversal of fate for the surviving trappers.

Carson, who told a Denver reporter he heard the story later from Indian points of view, said the warriors believed a supernatural force had turned the fight against them. They could not otherwise see how a battle where they held such overwhelming odds went so poorly.

Bastion Mountain was renamed Battle Mountain after the fight, and a different mountain was renamed Baker’s Peak.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Keeping History Alive"}]

In later times, some of Baker’s favorite trails, drawn out on his trapper maps, have become paved highways today. 

Many people travel these routes who do not realize how these roads came to be. 

The preservation of Baker’s cabin, as the mountain man who helped settle this area of the West, is a “big responsibility,” Cynthia Collyard told Cowboy State Daily. 

She now lives in Colorado and is a direct descendant of Baker. Her great-grandmother was Baker’s daughter, Jenny, making him her great-great grandfather.

“This is rightly where it belonged, because this is where it was originally built,” she said. “But it’s a big thing for a little museum to take on the care of something like this, outside in the elements.”

She hopes to see the restoration work continue, knowing some logs on the cabin have rotted and need to be replaced. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"The restoration so far is good, she added."}]

“It’s been done in the nick of time,” she said. “And I think a lot more work needs to be done. I don’t think it’s finished by any means.”

Collyard has been actively working through tribal records to learn more about Baker, trying to separate facts from “barstool” storytelling through the years, which have muddied the historical waters.

What she hopes for, more than anything, is for Baker and his role in history to be remembered accurately.

That’s a goal important as well to other Baker relatives such as Rollingson and Paul and Michael McAllister.

The McAllisters have donated rare Baker photos and artifacts to museums in Craig and Savery, as well as donated time to helping preserve Baker’s cabin.

“History is important,” Michael said, noting that he and his brother both helped mill and square many of the new cottonwood logs for the restoration. “Anytime you can keep history alive, it’s all for the good.”

Baker cabin 1 8 11 26

<title>Jim Baker Descendants Celebrate Work To Save Forgotten Mountain Man’s Savery Home | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Long before he built his cabin in Savery, Jim Baker led two dozen men in an 1841 fight that gave Battle Mountain its name. Now his far-flung descendants and a tiny museum are fighting time, money and rotten logs to save the frontier scout’s last home.

Jim Baker Descendants Celebrate Work To Save Forgotten Mountain Man’s Savery Home

Kerry Drake

Crime & Courts

A Cheyenne woman who was added to Laramie County’s “10 Most Wanted” list last year was arrested earlier this month and waived her preliminary hearing Monday on a February 2023 charge of child endangerment for smoking methamphetamine and using fentanyl around her two children.

Ashley Nicole Bennett was also charged with two counts of forgery in 2023. Bennett, 40, skipped town after posting a $5,000 cash bond and was not arrested until Aug. 2 of this year. She is being held at the Laramie County Detention Center.

Bennett’s daughter, who is listed as “NB” in court documents, called the Cheyenne Police Department in February 2023, when she was 15 years old. 

According to an affidavit filed by police, who asked her if Bennett had smoked with her or provided her drugs, NB stated she overdosed in 2022 by taking her mother’s Suboxone and had intended to take her own life.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Not Taken To Hospital"}]

“Although Ashley did not provide the fentanyl or Suboxone on this occasion, Ashley did nothing to prevent the accessibility of these drugs to NB,” the affidavit states. The teen said her mother used Narcan on her but did not call emergency medical services or take her to the hospital.

Bennett was one of five fugitives added to the Laramie County Sheriff’s Office “most wanted” list in December.

NB’s 9-year-old brother, called “MM” in court documents, was allegedly also exposed to the two controlled substances. If convicted of this felony, Bennett faces up to five years in prison and/or a $5,000 fine.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Try Fentanyl"}]

NB told police her mother let her use fentanyl after she said she wanted to try it, and her mother said it tasted like “burnt popcorn.” 

The daughter said Bennett took her to a convenience store and had her act as a “lookout” while her mother smoked drugs, and another time smoked drugs in a bathroom stall at a gas station while NB also served as a lookout.

NB told police Adam Schmidt, then 39, and James Dykema, then 50, also lived in the family’s trailer house and smoked methamphetamine there, according to the police affidavit.

When police attempted to do a welfare check on the children on Jan. 24, 2023, Dykema allegedly answered the door and said they needed Schmidt’s permission to enter, and he was not home. 

Police called Schmidt, who said he was at work and did not want them at the trailer while he wasn’t there.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Scared Of Arrest"}]

The next day NB contacted police and told them the two men were scared they would arrest Dykema because he had an outstanding warrant, and affidavit says. NB told police Schmidt hid the drugs in the yard but did not know exactly where.

She also said her mother had a lock box where she kept some drugs, pipes and Narcan.

The affidavit said Bennett allowed police to do a welfare check at 2:30 p.m. Jan. 25, 2023, and they asked if they could search for drugs. An officer said he could not complete a thorough search at that time.

The next day, the officer said he spoke with NB, who told him she took a photograph of her mother’s drugs. “I observed a small, partially melted blue pill on a piece of tin foil, with burnt residue around it,” he wrote. Through his training, he noted, he knew people often consume fentanyl pills by placing them on aluminum foil, heating the underside and inhaling the fumes.

The officer said that process was consistent with what he observed in NB’s photo.

On Jan. 26, 2023, police obtained a search warrant and said they found used drug paraphernalia commonly used to smoke methamphetamine and fentanyl, used plastic bags with methamphetamine residue, and burnt foil. The bags tested presumptively positive for methamphetamine, the officer wrote.

Bennett’s two children were then placed in protective custody.

On the two forgery charges, Bennett is accused of cashing two fraudulent checks made out to Otis Burchett, who died in November 2022. Bennett was identified by an employee at First Education Federal Credit Union as the person who cashed the two fraudulent checks. The account was drawn from WyHy Federal Credit Union.

The two checks cashed totaled $1,345. The forgery count are felonies and punishable by up to 10 years in prison and/or a $10,000 fine.

Kerry Drake can be reached at: Kerry@CowboyStateDaily.com

Ashley bennett with cops 8 10 26

<title>Cheyenne Woman Who Allegedly Let Teenage Daughter Use Fentanyl Captured | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A Cheyenne woman who has been wanted by the police since 2023 for child endangerment after allegedly letting her teenage daughter use fentanyl and acted as her mom's "lookout" was captured earlier this month and waived a preliminary hearing on Monday.

Cheyenne Woman Who Allegedly Let Teenage Daughter Use Fentanyl Captured

Mac Watson

Daily Video News

It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Tuesday, August 11th.  I’m Mac Watson.

This newscast is brought to you by the Wyoming State Fair. Wrap up your summer at the Wyoming State Fair, August 11th through the 15th in Douglas!

Rodeo, Demolition Derby, live music, entertainment and fair food await. Learn more at W-Y State Fair dot com. See you at the fair! This ad was paid for by Converse County Tourism.

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Climbing into a three-wheeler called "The Pantydropper" with a 50-year Sturgis veteran who boasted "it goes zero to 100 in a second," ended up with our reporter at the wheel and the flashing lights of a South Dakota patrol car behind them. Cowboy State Daily’s Kolby Fedore wasn’t arrested, but her first experience at Sturgis was unforgettable, to say the least.

“Against my better judgment, I got into Manny Myer's tricked-out trike that he calls ‘The Pantydropper.’ It got its name because he says that's the toll to ride. But luckily, I got a ride for free. We got past the Boar's Nest when he pulled over and asked me to drive, so I took over and something happened. A cable snapped and I lost the throttle, so Manny figured out that he could kind of hang off the side and operate the throttle from under the hood while still kind of hanging on to this three wheeler, and that was going fine and well until we saw the flashing lights of a South Dakota highway trooper. The trooper said he pulled us over for driving recklessly. Luckily, Myers was able to talk him out of a ticket, and we figured out a way to jimmy-rig a set of jumper cables onto that lever so that we could fire up the horses and run it by the reins. We made it to the Buffalo Chip just as the sun was setting, and Sturgis was really waking up. It was loud, chaotic, and just a lot of fun for motorcycle enthusiasts. And I'm glad that I went.”

motorcycles pour in the town of Sturgis from every direction

, transforming the place into a temporary city of chrome, leather and humanity, with Main Street as its pulsing center. The South Dakota town swells from just over 7,000 people to half a million each year.

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Laramie County Sheriff Brian Kozak says the lawsuit two Cheyenne politicos are waging against him is at least partly political in nature, and tied to his investigation of the 'CheckGate' controversy. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that the sheriff says recent search warrants have “stirred the hornets' nest.”

“Governor's candidate Rebecca Bextel, and he, also then in late June, was sued for alleged public records violations, where the plaintiffs Lichter Immigration and Kevin Lewis, represented by Attorney Drake Hill, are saying you did not hand over the proper documents so that we can get on with this immigration case. More recently, Thursday, the plaintiffs asked the court to consider holding the sheriff in contempt for allegedly not handing over the documents he was ordered to hand over in time by an August 5th deadline. So you have these moving pieces with people who do have deep political ties, but are on the one hand saying no, the sheriff broke the law, and the sheriff saying the people who are accusing me of breaking the law have political ties to the people I'm investigating.”

Colorado-based firm Lichter Immigration and its investigator Kevin Lewis 

 against Laramie County Sheriff Brian Kozak and his office June 30.

Wyoming sportsmen are saying the sudden resignation of Game and Fish Director Angi Bruce came as a surprise despite some misgivings about the department's direction. Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that Bruce, the department's first female director, now has a job in the governor's office. 

“There has been some consternation with the department, but it wasn't necessarily personally against Angie Bruce. It was more just the direction they sense the department's been going now for a while, and also what they've noted. There's been a lot of notable high profile retirements lately that might have come a little early of the old guard, and maybe people aren't quite as happy with, you know, the shifting of the new people that are coming in, particularly people from other parts of the country. Game and Fish is going through a period of shakeups right now, but should I mean everybody's hoping it'll stabilize soon when a new governor comes in and and you know appoints a new director.”

There is no clear explanation as to why Bruce suddenly left the helm at Game and Fish for an appointment as director of special policy initiatives for Gov. Mark Gordon’s office, a job she started Monday. Prominent Wyoming outdoorsman Guy Eastman of Cody tells Cowboy State Daily, “I think that was a surprise to everybody. I didn’t see that one coming.”

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

A new attack ad surfaced against gubernatorial candidate Megan Degenfelder this weekend, after independent groups attacked her opponent Eric Barlow for weeks. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that Rep. Harriet Hageman condemns the ad and says Barlow created it, which he denies.

“We found a PAC buying attack ads on Megan Degenfelder, and so it's just becoming kind of a mudslinging, dark-money race. A PAC called ‘Keep Wyoming Working’ is saying that she helped a coal company get loopholes to avoid paying taxes, and then the company went bankrupt. She received a salary from the coal company. The ad does not point to any loopholes in particular.”

Barlow and Degenfelder, now both the targets of political action groups’ high-profile TV attack ads, both deny coordinating those ads.

I’ll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.

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Cowboy State Daily News continues now….

As of Monday, Jackson's Lindsay Woods is poised to win the Mongol Derby 2026, the longest and most arduous multi-horse race in the world. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports if she wins the 620-mile marathon, she'll become the second woman from Wyoming to do so.

“As of Monday, Lindsay Woods was one of the top three riders. She had six stations between her and the finish line. A lot of people who have spoken to a lot of people who know Lindsay and are eagerly following her progress say she is in it to win it, she's been training for months. She's a very skilled equestrian. She has got the mental and physical fortitude to see this through, and it's possible we could have another Wyoming winner of the Mongol Derby before the end of the week.”

the Mongol Derby. She split the victory with fellow rider and now lifelong friend Willemien Jooste of South Africa in July 2022.

A 34-acre parcel of land donated to Sublette County more than a decade ago to benefit 4-H, FFA, and youth agricultural education has become the center of a bitter dispute between two organizations that both work with local children. Cowboy State Daily’s Kate Meadows reports that both organizations say they are committed to helping local youth, but they have been unable to agree on how — or whether — they can share the same ground.

“MESA is a local equine therapy organization that has asked to lease a portion of it that they believed were not being used by Sublet County 4-H. Sublette County 4H essentially said no. We need all 34 acres for what we're doing now and for future projects, and that's leaving Mesa kind of up in the air with how do we grow our program and where can we find a place to be permanently. MESA Director Carla Seely said that they are looking at alternative options right now and looking for 20 acre, 10-to 20-acre parcels of land that they could use on a permanent basis. This would be a place where they could not only carry out their programs but also house their horses permanently.”

According to Director Carla Seely, MESA is seeking a permanent facility to keep and increase its number of horses before it can serve more children. The county-owned parcel was a fitting place to look, she says, because MESA supports youth and agriculture through equine therapy. She also contended that 4-H uses only a portion of the 34 acres, while a portion of the donated land remains vacant.

Grizzlies are stuffing themselves with moths at higher elevations, but once the moths are gone food supplies could get scarce as bears move to lower elevations seeking protein for hibernation, one ecologist says. Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that a poor chokecherry crop is one concern.

“I checked in with a couple people here in Wyoming, and one of them, you know, Chuck Neal. He's an old-school ecologist and knows bears pretty well. He says at least at the higher altitudes, they're doing okay. And he said, at least in his area, north north west Wyoming, he's noticed that the choke cherry crop is really hurting this year, and and the bears are highly dependent on that. And then when it comes to black bears, Dan Thompson with Game and Fish said, "Yeah, people are probably probably noticed a lot more black bear activity because they are out looking, you know, maybe looking in some unusual places to try to find food.”

While it’s been exceptionally dry at lower elevations, things have looked better for grizzlies farther upslope, says Neal, who frequently hikes in grizzly country in northwest Wyoming. 

The Farmer’s Almanac has released its winter forecast, and Cowboy State Daily meteorologist Don Day calls it “voodoo magic.” However, Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that Day does believe a very strong El Niño is on the way but he's “not going to follow the herd into slaughter this time.”

“He's going to release his winter forecast later on in the year when we have a better idea of how the Super El Nino is interacting with everything else because that'll have broad implications. He called El Nino the quarterback and the head coach of this upcoming winter season, but there are other players on the field and on the bench, and those need to be considered before we put a three to four month outlook on the winter weather out there.”

With a Super El Niño on the horizon after several consecutive historically dry months, Day was willing to discuss the broad trends that could impact Wyoming this winter. As for the specifics, there’s such a thing as being too early. Day's message: trust these at your peril, especially when it’s still summer.

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And that’s today’s news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on 

 - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our 

 channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I’m Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.

News image 8 11 26

<title>Cowboy State Daily Video Newscast: Tuesday, August 11, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Tuesday's headlines include:
* Bad Decisions In Sturgis
* Why Did Game & Fish Dir. Quit?
* Kozak Says Lawsuit Due To CheckGate

Cowboy State Daily Video Newscast: Tuesday, August 11, 2026

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's general assignment reporter, Clair McFarland.

Clair McFarland

Government & Politics

Politics

Wyoming’s gubernatorial campaign is ratcheting up with attack ads now targeting Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder.

One of her two Republican opponents, Sen. Eric Barlow, has been the target of attack ads for weeks by both TV and mail.

A new political action group (PAC) that registered in Wyoming on Aug. 5 has started airing a commercial against Degenfelder, implying she engaged in “dirty deals” while working for a coal company.

U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman condemned the ad and blamed Barlow for it in a Monday Facebook post.

Degenfelder spokeswoman Charlotte Jones did the same in a Monday email to Cowboy State Daily.

Barlow, conversely, says he did not orchestrate the ad, and he too condemns it. 

[{"type":"text","text":"First, The Narrative"}]

The ad opens on a female voice and an artificial intelligence-rendered avatar of Degenfelder in a sleek black suit.

“For Megan Degenfelder, dirty politics was just business as usual,” the ad alleges. It says Degenfelder was “paid thousands to lobby for loopholes that let her company dodge millions in local taxes.”

[{"type":"text","text":"It then notes that her company went bankrupt."}]

“Degenfelder made money, Wyoming got left holding the bag,” the ad says, showcasing a July 

 reporting that Cloud Peak Energy coal company still owed Campbell County around $30-$40 million in unpaid taxes after it filed for bankruptcy.

[{"type":"text","text":"The ad does not say what “loopholes” allowed that."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Second, The Facts"}]

Before August 2017, when then-Superintendent of Public Instruction Jillian Balow hired Degenfelder, the latter 

Cloud Peak Energy in August 2019 found a buyer, Navajo Transitional Energy, which agreed to pay the company’s taxes, 

Wyoming Secretary of State filings say Degenfelder was a registered lobbyist for Southland Royalty Company LLC from 2016 into early 2021. That was an oil and gas company, 

[{"type":"text","text":"Third, The Backlash"}]

Team Degenfelder doesn’t believe Barlow, a Monday email from Jones says.

“Wyoming voters know hypocrisy when they see it,” said Jones. “At the same time Eric Barlow decries negative campaigning calling him to task on his record, his out-of-state allies are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on an entirely AI-generated attack ad on Megan Degenfelder’s career fighting for Wyoming’s coal industry and energy jobs.”

Jones calls the ad a misguided attack and even more of an attack on Wyoming’s coal and energy industry and workers.

She also called it “consistent with Eric Barlow’s record of siding with environmental activists over Wyoming coal miners. Wyoming voters should take note, it speaks volumes about whose side Eric Barlow is on and how he would govern.”

Hageman was also unimpressed and redoubled her long-standing support for Degenfelder.

“I have learned first-hand as a legislator that what you say in a campaign defines what you will do when elected, and this ad speaks volumes,” said Hageman. “Campaigning on an anti-coal message shows that this is a concerted effort to stop production of one of our biggest assets.”

She called the Powder River Basin Resource Council, which the Barlow family helped to build, a "passion project" of the state senator's. 

Barlow countered that he’s pro-coal and pro-energy, and not behind the ad.

 “I’m from Campbell County. I grew up in Campbell County,” said Barlow. “I’ve been elected six times in Campbell County, by coal miners and rig hands.”

On the one hand, Barlow had banded with other western ranchers and landowners in 2002 to oppose what he 

 development on northern Wyoming ranchlands, and had ties then to the environmental group Powder River Basin Resource Council. Vanity Fair 

 to reduce severance taxes for coal. It wasn’t successful that year but later, more incremental bills drove coal severance taxes down 

He also said he ran a budget amendment to move a coal mining road and allow for 97 million more tons of coal to be mined.

“For anybody to think I’m not supportive  of coal and oil and gas and uranium is disingenuous,” he said. “And they’re just trying to dredge something up that does not exist.”

After the anti-Degenfelder ad aired, Barlow took to Facebook himself to condemn disparaging ads “against other gubernatorial candidates.”

“So I am not involved and I don’t know who is, and I want them all to stop,” he said. “These outside money outside agendas outside voices trying to push Wyoming people around, knock it off … We don’t need you.”

As for the third well-known Republican candidate in that race, retired Marine Corps Col. Brent Bien, his campaign outreach coordinator Cheryl Aguiar also said the Bien campaign had nothing to do with the ad.

"We don’t have any money," said Aguiar with a laugh. "I mean if we were to do an ad it would be to say good things about Brent, promote him. I don’t even know anything about her coal stuff."

[{"type":"text","text":"And, The Tangents"}]

The anti-Degenfelder PAC Keep Wyoming Working listed Armada Strategies as its ad buyer in an Aug. 6 Federal Communications Commission filing, with a Florida contact, Taylor Fernie, listed as the billing contact.

Fernie in turn is listed as a senior buyer with AxMedia, the same firm 

 for the group Barlow for governor. Similar crossover between the firms has surfaced 

“They do races all over the country,” Barlow countered, “and I don’t have any idea what other things they do. So I can’t speak to what a national company does.”

Jones said previously that Degenfelder is not affiliated with the federal issues group Women for Responsible Government Action. Regarding the state-level PAC, Jones added, “The campaign has not and is not permitted to communicate or coordinate with outside groups."

A new attack ad surfaced against gubernatorial candidate Megan Degenfelder this weekend, after independent groups attacked her opponent Eric Barlow for weeks. Rep. Harriet Hageman condemned the ad and said Barlow created it, which he denies.

One More For The Road: Friday, September 23, 2022

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