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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: Tuesday, October 11, 2022 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Daily Cartoon: Tuesday, October 11, 2022

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

Renée Jean

Business & Tourism

The first time Farmstead Cider went after old apples in Jackson Hole, it was just for the flavor. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"It soon became about the bears. "}]

Every fall as apples drop and ferment in the backyards and ghost orchards of Jackson Hole, grizzlies and black bears do what comes naturally. They follow their noses straight into trouble — calorie-rich fruits that taste oh-so-good when you’re a bear desperate to fatten up for winter. 

The first harvest, though, was all about the homesick wives, Farmstead Cider’s co-owner Orion Bellorado said. They had grown up on the East Coast, where apple harvests are a big deal. 

“We started harvesting the apples in our neighborhood off of peoples’ trees that were kind of derelict,” he said. “And they were tiny, so we pressed a bunch of juice and made some cider out of it.”

The party was great and word soon got around. 

“Someone from the county found out about it and said, ‘Hey, you should really put in for this community grant to start a business,” Bellorado recalled. “‘Because we’ve really been having issues with bears.’”

That was in 2016, and the business has been going ever since, bottling 5,000 to 7,000 gallons of native-yeast cider a year and selling it across Wyoming as well as other states such as Washington and Montana. 

In the process of climbing into backyards and abandoned orchards, Bellorado stumbled onto a bigger realization. Wyoming is curiously — if quietly — rich in apples across the state.

“They are everywhere,” he said. “I mean, Lander was called Apple Town before it was called Lander. It’s full on part of this interesting tidbit of our culture and our history that’s really been left behind.”

That history is being rediscovered thanks to a project called the Wyoming Apple Project. Through it, researchers have been cataloguing a hidden network of heritage and volunteer trees that have somehow survived a century or so of drought and neglect. Researchers say these hardy survivors might point the way to a new kind of apple economy in one of the harshest fruit-growing climates in America.

You wouldn’t know it from today’s landscape of hay bales and cattle, but Wyoming was once thick with apples. Homesteaders brought apple seeds to plant in their new homes, carving out orchards that were just as essential as a root cellar to their survival.

Apples meant sauce, butter, cider, vinegar and livestock feed. They were essential calories, but also comfort — the kind that could be stored up through a long, hard winter.

By the early 1900s, experimental orchards and private growers had tested at least 218 named apple cultivars across Wyoming, including 11 that were Wyoming-bred. 

Among the most ambitious of the early apple pioneers was an experimental fruit farm in Lander, which trialed 175 different cultivars under superintendent John Steinbrecht, who also developed 10 of the 11 Wyoming-bred cultivars. 

Not far away from Steinbrecht was Lander orchardist Ed Young, who planted a prodigious 3,000-some apple trees in 1882 — an act of faith in a place better known for blizzards than fruit blossoms.

At the time, Wyoming was held up as a national example of what’s possible on the frontier. 

“A lot of those early settlers, such as Ed Young, and their success in growing apples was used in news articles back east, to bring hope to people thinking about moving West,” University of Wyoming graduate and plant physiologist Jonathan Magby told Cowboy State Daily. “It helped show them that you can successfully inhabit this remote location of the United States.”

Wyoming’s apples at that time came from everywhere — Minnesota, Wisconsin, New York, Canada and even Russia. Several nurseries were involved in seeing which varieties could stand up to Wyoming’s brutal mix of cold, drought and wind, including 

At one point, at least 70 out-of-state nurseries and 20 in-state nurseries across 11 Wyoming cities were selling apple stock to Wyoming growers.

Then, slowly, the state forgot about its apples.

Wyoming’s agricultural identity shifted solidly toward cattle and general row crops. Many orchards were abandoned. Irrigation ditches shifted. Families moved away or sold off land.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Winters kept coming. "}]

And the apple trees that had been left behind continued growing. They became part of an unintended Darwinist experiment — one where only the fittest would survive. 

What’s left of the apple trees that once dotted Wyoming are now the toughest of the tough. Trees too full of Wyoming grit to give up and die.

Among the most interesting is a gnarled apple tree in Lander. Its limbs curl up to the sun like an insect on its back, and its trunk is so hollowed out, one wouldn’t be surprised to find a hobbit — or some other creature of legend — sleeping inside.

Somehow, though, this ancient tree is still alive, still leafing out, still stubbornly insisting on producing apples, despite a century or so in a place that routinely tries to freeze them to death.

Wyoming is not a state known for hardy trees. It is, after all, among the coldest and driest of states in the Lower 48. And apple trees aren’t known for being especially long-lived, either. Most never see a 100th birthday.

That makes this particular apple tree special. It’s passed a 100-year stress test, one where Wyoming wind and drought are separating the true pioneers from the pretenders.

To Magby, the Lander tree is far more than a curiosity. It’s a symbol of what Wyoming apples once were, as well as what they could be again. 

These survivors could help develop ever more hardy Wyoming stock, making apples a potential new and viable agricultural commodity. Because of that, the tree’s tissue was pulled and grafted onto new stock, so it can keep growing for another 100 years.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Like A CSI Detective"}]

Magby has been searching out all the old heritage apple trees of Wyoming using DNA finger-printing techniques more often associated with crime shows like CSI. 

So far he’s sampled 510 trees at 91 locations in 19 cities, from Lander and Sheridan to Buffalo and Casper, to figure out which trees match known cultivars and which might be lost or forgotten varieties. So far he’s found more than 150 unique genetic fingerprints that don’t match anything in old reference collections. 

Some of those varieties show up in multiple towns, suggesting they are long-lost cultivars that no longer exist anywhere else. hey are a living link to an era when Wyoming was serious apple country.

Two varieties that keep showing up, meanwhile, are Wealthy and Haralson, both bred in Minnesota. They are roughly one-third of all the identified surviving trees in his data set.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"More Than Charming History"}]

Magby doesn’t see Wyoming apples as a charming historical footnote. He believes these survivors are pointing the way to a viable agricultural commodity for the state, one that could lead to more products that are made in Wyoming, such as Farmstead Cider in Jackson Hole. Making products in Wyoming — referred to as value-added products — is a better bang for the buck. It keeps most of the economic value chain in-state.

Apple cider production makes a lot of sense in Wyoming, alongside the growing microbrewery scene, Magby said. People also just enjoy fresh produce that’s been grown in Wyoming, whether that’s an apple or other fruits.

“We take pride in anything that’s been produced in Wyoming,” Magby said. “So I’d love to see someone take a strong stance of producing and backing development of cultivars and revamping testing of grape and pear varieties and other small fruits, just to provide that diversity, not just in fresh food products, but also diversity of economies.”

Bellorado is already living that future at Farmstead Cider, thanks to bear-safety grants that helped launch a business to haul apples out of backyards and ghost orchards. 

Now, instead of attracting trouble, those apples are a useful and delicious product in a growing business. It’s more joy to the human world, all from abandoned, pioneer apple trees.

Apples Ian Mc Gregor co owner of Farmstead Cider Courtesy Photo 6 27 26

<title>Wyoming’s Ghost Apple Orchard Trees Have Been Rediscovered And Are Producing | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Wyoming was once thick with apples. In fact, it was a top apple producer. Now those forgotten apple trees are being rediscovered by small cider houses. "They're everywhere," said one cider house owner. "Lander was called Apple Town before Lander."

Wyoming’s Ghost Apple Orchard Trees Have Been Rediscovered And Are Producing

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

Hunting

Wyoming is frequently called “the antelope capital of the world,” but with this year’s hunting tag results many hunters aren’t feeling it.

When the Wyoming Game and Fish Department announced draw results earlier this month, hunters’ social media forums started lighting up with comments like, “I struck out on antelope.”

For many resident hunters, the yearly ritual of entering the antelope draw once was essentially a formality. Hunters practically considered it a guarantee.  

That’s changed, and possibly for good, some seasoned Wyoming antelope hunters said.

Guy Eastman of Cody put in for a tag in Hunt Area 61, near Wamsutter, and didn’t draw.

Granted, that’s always been a tough tag to get because it’s in highly coveted hunting territory, said Eastman, who represents the third generation of the famous outdoor multimedia family.

"That’s the heart of Carbon County. That’s the number one county in the country for big antelope,” he said.

However, it is his fourth year in a row of striking out, which he views as unusual.

And it seems to be the same story across the hunting community, Eastman said.

“I don’t know anybody who drew a good antelope tag in my network of people,” he said. "I didn’t draw anything. Nor antelope, no deer, no elk. Not a darn thing.” 

Larry Hicks has hunted Wyoming antelope for decades. And as a state senator and conservationist, he’s been involved in wildlife policy issues.

This year, he applied for an antelope tag in Hunt Area 68, which he didn’t draw.

Area 68 is a highly desirable hunt area that runs from Jeffrey City to the north side of the Ferris Mountains.  

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Putting In For The Draw"}]

Wyoming offers both limited quota and general hunting tags for deer and elk. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Antelope tags are limited quota only."}]

General tags may be purchased over-the-counter at any time.

Hunters must apply and pay for limited quota tags in advance, usually in May. Those who don’t draw tags have their money refunded, minus an application fee.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Resident antelope tags cost $37."}]

Non-resident tags cost $326 for the regular non-resident draw and $1,200 for the special first-round non-resident draw.

When applying for tags, hunters list their first-, second- and third-choice hunt areas.

The draw system is set up so residents “don’t compete” directly with non-residents for tags because non-resident tag allocations percentages are pre-set, Hicks said.

The pricey special non-resident draw has much better odds than the regular non-resident draw, but there’s still no guarantee of getting a tag, he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Winterkill And Drought"}]

Many hunt areas in Fremont, Carbon, Sublette and Carbon counties are considered the best of the best, and were always difficult to draw tags, Hicks noted.

Even so, draw odds have dropped, mostly because herds in those areas are still recovering from devastating losses during the harsh winter of 2022-2023.

"We’re down tens of thousands of antelope, and a lot of those are in the premier areas across south-central Wyoming,” Hicks said.

And fewer antelope means Game and Fish will issue fewer tags.

“The drawing odds have gone to heck (in some hunt areas) because there are no tags,” Hicks said.

Some areas that might have had as many as 200 antelope tags a few years ago had only 25 resident tags this year, he said.

It could take up to eight years for antelope herds to recover from the devastating winterkill losses, “and we’re about three years in,” he said.

And current drought conditions could hamper the recovery, Hicks said.

“I worry about antelope fawn survival rates this summer in dry conditions,” he said. “If it gets too dry, the does will quit lactating in August, and the fawns will die.”

While numbers might be down in parts of Wyoming, the demand for tags isn’t.

Eastman noted that in years past, the number of first-choice applicants for Type 1 (any antelope) tags in Area 61 was about 500. This year, there were close to 600 applicants for 89 available Type 1 resident tags. And there were 183 second-choice and applicants and 106 third-choice applicants.

The situation was similar in other hunt areas, according to 

Hunt Area 53, in south Carbon County, had seven resident Type 1 Tags available. There were 169 first-choice applicants, 127 second-choice and 111 third-choice.  

Area 72, in central Natrona County, had a comparatively generous supply of 616 Type 1 resident tags, which were first-choice for 955 applicants, along with 364 for second-choice and 140 third-choice applicants.   

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Willing To Pay The Price"}]

Dax McCarty runs the Douglas-Based Wagonhound Outfitters. Most of his guided antelope hunts are in Area 30 near Douglas.

Herds in that part of Wyoming didn’t suffer as badly during the 2022-2023 winter.

“In the areas where we hunt, the population has stayed steady,” he told Cowboy State Daily.

His clients had good luck drawing tags this year, he said, even though the overall trend has been toward longer odds.

“The antelope draw has been getting a little bit tougher, but draws have been getting tougher for everything because of the increase in demand,” McCarty said.

The guided hunts he offers are mostly on private land and offer a good balance of abundant opportunity and high-quality trophy bucks, he said.

Non-resident clients can gain an edge in the draws by accumulating preference points.

He recommends that those with fewer preference points pay the extra money to put in for the special non-resident tag draw.

Because Wyoming has such a stellar reputation for antelope hunting, “they’re will to pay for that special draw,” McCarty said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"More Hunters Moving In"}]

Eastman said he expects the competition to increase for hunting tags across the board.

Because of his presence in hunting media, “I talk to a lot of hunters from all over the country,” he said. 

He’s found that increasingly, hunters are moving to Wyoming to gain resident status.

A person must live in Wyoming for a full calendar year to qualify for resident hunting tags.

On paper, Wyoming’s population growth seems small, but Eastman noted a high percentage of newcomers coming primarily because of the hunting and angling.

“More people have the opportunity to work remotely. And if they’re sick of putting in for the non-resident tag draws, they think, ‘If I’m going to work remote, I’m going to move to Wyoming and hunt as a resident',” he said.

“The holes that’s left in Wyoming’s population by people who die or move out is being filled by people who come here to recreate, hunt and fish,” Eastman said.

Even so, Wyoming will remain one of the best states for hunters, he added.

“It’s not all doom and gloom. There’s still good hunting in Wyoming,” he said.

“The good thing is, Wyoming has enough public and enough rough country” to keep hunters from crowding out each other, he said.

Pronghorn 6 26 26

<title>With Antelope Numbers Still Down, This Year’s Tag Draw Dismal For Many Hunters | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Wyoming hunters who didn’t draw antelope tags this year aren't alone. “I don’t know anybody who drew a good antelope tag,” said prominent outdoorsman Guy Eastman. They blame the winter of 2022-2023, which devastated antelope populations.

With Antelope Numbers Still Down, This Year’s Tag Draw Dismal For Many Hunters

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

Clair McFarland

Government & Politics

Legislature

The Johnson County Sheriff’s Office on Friday released body camera video 

of the Dec. 28 DUI arrest of state Rep. Bill Allemand in response to a Cowboy State Daily request.

Cowboy State Daily had viewed about 18 minutes of the body camera video in Buffalo Circuit Court at a March 

 hearing, but Friday’s release spans roughly one hour over the course of Allemand’s 

 and jail booking in Buffalo just after midday Dec. 28. 

It omits a recitation of Allemand's driver's license number, the Johnson County Sheriff's Office said in an email. 

The video shows Allemand, a Republican representative from Midwest, Wyoming, arguing with Johnson County Sheriff’s Deputy Caleb Campbell.

Allemand voices disagreement about whether Campbell had grounds for the initial traffic stop. Allemand develops a more adversarial stance toward the deputy throughout his arrest, ultimately calling him an “asshole” and saying he’s not a good person.  

“I don’t know why you would say that,” says Campbell. “I thought I was pretty respectful.”

Allemand offers to pay for the deputy’s gas at a fuel stop on the way to jail. He informs the deputy he’s a legislator.

Once in jail, Allemand emphasizes that he has an “Honor Wyoming” 

 — a reference to the Honor Wyoming political group that has 

[{"type":"text","text":"He also jokes with the booking deputies."}]

While getting his booking photo taken, Allemand muses, “Wow! This is going to be on Cowboy State Daily. You can sell these pictures to Cowboy State Daily, probably for a million dollars.”

The booking deputy jokes, “K, well, we’ll try. I’ll split it with you.”

[{"type":"text","text":"“I don’t want none of it,” Allemand answers."}]

Booking photos from Johnson County and across the state are free 

[{"type":"text","text":"Why So Colorful?"}]

Allemand’s attorney Mike Vang told Cowboy State Daily in a Friday phone interview that Allemand was likely growing frustrated with the deputy because he thought he was

Buffalo Circuit Court Magistrate Jeremy Kisling 

 that Campbell had enough evidence for the initial traffic stop and to continue the traffic stop.

The Johnson County Attorney’s Office can use several minutes worth of evidence from the stop, which include Allemand 

failing his field sobriety tests, swaying, stumbling, and slurring his speech.

But prosecutors can’t use as direct evidence the potentially incriminating things Allemand said during a 12-minute stretch where he was detained in handcuffs, but hadn’t been read his Miranda rights, Kisling ruled.

Campbell had stopped Allemand on claims that after stopping at a stop sign just off Interstate 25, Allemand lurched forward, nearly hit another vehicle, then stopped abruptly.

This, coupled with the evidence that Allemand was the subject of a drunk driving report by another driver on the Interstate near Buffalo, made for enough evidence to justify Campbell’s stop, Kisling ruled.

[{"type":"text","text":"Vang said he still believes Kisling got the evidence question wrong."}]

“Here’s the big deal,” said Vang. “The cop never claimed he saw any type of a traffic violation except for Mr. Allemand allegedly running a stop sign.”

Vang said the dash camera recording “clearly shows Mr. Allemand never makes any driving infraction. He comes to a complete stop like he’s supposed to, just as he’s turning off the interstate.”

The dash camera video of the contested stop, played at the March hearing, is grainy and inconclusive.

As a car approaches from the left, said Vang, “it was obscured from his view.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Allemand stopped to avoid hitting it."}]

“That deputy lacks the skills to properly do a DUI investigation,” said Vang.

The Johnson County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to a late-day Friday request for a response to that.

Allemand is scheduled to go to trial Sept. 16. That’s a month after the heated Republican 

 he’s now waging against Bar Nunn Mayor Peter Boyer, set for Aug. 18.

Elected in 2022, Allemand is in his second term in the state House of Representatives. He's also a member of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, a group of populist-leaning House Republicans. 

[{"type":"text","text":"From The Beginning Now"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"The body camera video projects the view from Campbell’s torso forward."}]

It shows the deputy approaching Allemand in the parking lot of a gas station in Buffalo, Miller’s Travel Center. 

As Campbell approaches Allemand's truck in the video, the lawmaker appears to be sitting in the driver’s seat of a blue pickup looking at a cellphone.

Vang told Cowboy State Daily the lawmaker stopped there to get fuel, not avoid law enforcement.  

[{"type":"text","text":"Campbell raps on the window and says “howdy.\"  "}]

Allemand talks to him, asks what he did wrong, and after a brief exchange, leans over his passenger seat to retrieve documents for the deputy. 

In the video, the lawmaker is dressed in a casual blue T-shirt, his hair somewhat ruffled. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Campbell asks Allemand why his speech sounds the way it does."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"“I dunno,” answers Allemand, handing the deputy a document. "}]

At legislative meetings and elsewhere Allemand speaks loudly, somewhat slowly and with a unique cadence. That pattern also surfaces in the video, though Allemand’s speech sounds less articulate than usual in the 

[{"type":"text","text":"Campbell would later report that Allemand's speech was “slurred.” "}]

In the video, the deputy orders Allemand to exit the vehicle, and Allemand does. 

[{"type":"text","text":"“K, am I being arrested?” asks Allemand. "}]

“You’re being detained right now,” Campbell answers. The deputy explains that there’s a firearm in the truck, which he says Allemand “did not disclose.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Allemand says he has a conceal carry permit for it. "}]

Though Kisling disagreed with Campbell questioning Allemand in confinement without first giving his Miranda rights, the magistrate ruled last week that it was fair of Campbell to detain Allemand because of the gun.

 merited that detainment, Kisling ruled.

[{"type":"text","text":"The Reason I Stopped You"}]

Campbell later tells Allemand that he watched Allemand stop at an intersection, start to pull into traffic, and “almost hit a car.” Campbell also notes that Allemand was reportedly the subject of a report every drunk driving incident, or REDDI report.

The caller had reported man in his 60s with white hair driving a blue pickup all over the interstate, from rumble strip to rumble strip, court documents say.

“You did stop at the stop sign, but the way you stopped was improper,” says Campbell in the video.

[{"type":"text","text":"Allemand voices disagreement and confusion. At one point he chuckles."}]

“You went past the stop sign,” explains Campbell. “But you stopped — but only because there was a vehicle in front of you that you were going to hit. So that gives me reasonable suspicion to stop you.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Allemand says, “I don’t understand that. If I stop — “"}]

Campbell interrupts and says these events give him reasonable suspicion for the stop, as does the REDDI report.

[{"type":"text","text":"This Won’t Be In The Case In Chief"}]

While detaining Allemand, Campbell asked a series of questions that Kisling found, in his order last week, could lead to Allemand incriminating himself.

Because Allemand was confined and hadn’t been read his Miranda rights at that juncture, the Johnson County Attorney’s Office won’t be able to use the following exchange in its direct evidence pool at trial.

But because Campbell didn’t coerce, trick, or deceive Allemand into giving the answers he gave, the prosecutor may still “impeach” or fact check Allemand if he says something that contradicts these statements in court.

Law enforcement officers are supposed to read a person his Miranda rights before asking incriminating questions, if the person is confined to such an extent that a reasonable person in his shoes wouldn’t feel free to leave.

[{"type":"text","text":"Campbell asks, “Did you drink anything today?”"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"“Yes,” answers Allemand. "}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Campbell asks how much. "}]

[{"type":"text","text":"“Probably two beers,” says Allemand in the video. "}]

“That’s everybody’s answer,” parries Campbell while handcuffing Allemand. 

[{"type":"text","text":"“So what did I do illegal?” Allemand asks in the video. "}]

He was driving erratically, he was reported as a drunk driver and he stopped just short of hitting a vehicle, answers Campbell, adding, “if that makes sense.”

The Johnson County Sheriff's Office on Friday released body camera video of state Rep. Bill Allemand's December DUI arrest. Allemand grew more adversarial toward the deputy throughout his arrest, ultimately calling him an "asshole." 

Daily Cartoon: Tuesday, October 11, 2022

Michael P. Ramirez

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Daily Cartoon: Tuesday, October 11, 2022

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Michael P. Ramirez

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