You Still Here

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You still here 10 24 22 no play scaled

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

<title>You Still Here? Monday, October 24, 2022 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Be advised: profane language.

You Still Here? Monday, October 24, 2022

Coy Knobel

Don Day Weather

Mostly sunny, smoky, slight chance of rain in much of Wyoming on Monday. Smoky, chance of rain overnight. Highs from the low 80s to upper 90s. Lows from the upper 40s to mid 60s.

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Slight chance of rain after 2 p.m., widespread smoke mainly before noon, mostly sunny, hot and breezy today with a high near 97 and wind gusts as high as 28 mph. Partly cloudy overnight with patchy smoke, a slight chance of rain before 8 p.m. and a low near 62.

Slight chance of rain after noon, areas of smoke, sunny and breezy today with a high near 95 and wind gusts as high as 30 mph. Increasing clouds and breezy overnight with patchy smoke, a low near 63 and wind gusts as high as 23 mph.

  Slight chance of rain after 3 p.m., areas of smoke, sunny and hot today with a high near 93 and wind gusts as high as 25 mph. Partly cloudy overnight with patchy smoke, a slight chance of rain before 9 p.m. and a low near 62.

  Slight chance of rain after noon, patchy smoke after 3 p.m., sunny today with a high near 86 and mostly cloudy overnight with patchy smoke before 3 a.m. and a low near 55.

   Slight chance of rain after noon, patchy smoke, increasing clouds and breezy today with a high near 90 and wind gusts as high as 26 mph. Mostly cloudy and breezy overnight with a slight chance of rain before 7 p.m., patchy smoke, a low near 57 and wind gusts as high as 23 mph.

 Slight chance of rain after noon, patchy smoke after 3 p.m., mostly sunny today with a high near 89 and mostly cloudy overnight with patchy smoke before 3 a.m. and a low near 57.

 Slight chance of rain after 2 p.m., patchy smoke, increasing clouds and breezy today with a high near 85 and wind gusts as high as 30 mph. Partly cloudy and breezy overnight with widespread smoke mainly after 4 a.m., a low near 51 and wind gusts as high as 24 mph.

 Slight chance of rain after 3 p.m., patchy smoke, sunny and breezy today with a high near 88 and wind gusts as high as 28 mph. Partly cloudy overnight with widespread smoke mainly after 2 a.m. and a low near 52.

  Slight chance of rain after 3 p.m., patchy smoke, sunny and breezy today with a high near 87 and wind gusts as high as 28 mph. Partly cloudy and breezy overnight with patchy smoke, a low near 50 and wind gusts as high as 24 mph.

 Slight chance of rain after 3 p.m., areas of smoke, sunny and breezy today with a high near 84 and wind gusts as high as 37 mph. Partly cloudy and breezy overnight with patchy smoke, a low near 53 and wind gusts as high as 30 mph.

  Areas of smoke, sunny and breezy today with a high near 89 and wind gusts as high as 24 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with widespread smoke mainly after 2 a.m., a low near 49 and wind gusts as high as 23 mph.

Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park

:  Widespread smoke mainly before 7 a.m., sunny today with a high near 82 and wind gusts as high as 21 mph. Mostly clear overnight with widespread smoke mainly after 11 p.m., a low near 43 and wind gusts as high as 21 mph.

Widespread smoke mainly before 9 a.m., sunny and hot today with a high near 99 and wind gusts as high as 21 mph. Partly cloudy overnight with widespread smoke mainly after 5 a.m. and a low near 63.

:  Widespread smoke mainly before 2 p.m., sunny today with a high near 94 and mostly clear overnight with widespread smoke, a low near 63 and wind gusts as high as 20 mph.

  Widespread smoke, sunny today with a high near 93 and mostly clear overnight with widespread smoke and a low near 60.

   Widespread smoke mainly after 11 a.m., sunny and breezy today with a high near 93 and wind gusts as high as 24 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with widespread smoke mainly before midnight, a low near 64 and wind gusts as high as 23 mph.

   Areas of smoke, sunny and hot today with a high near 96 and mostly clear overnight with areas of smoke and a low near 56.

:   Areas of smoke, sunny and hot today with a high near 95 and mostly clear overnight with areas of smoke and a low near 58.

Areas of smoke, mostly sunny today with a high near 95 and wind gusts as high as 26 mph. Mostly clear overnight with areas of smoke, a low near 61 and wind gusts as high as 24 mph.

   Areas of smoke, slight chance of rain after 3 p.m., mostly sunny today with a high near 93 and wind gusts as high as 21 mph. Partly cloudy overnight with areas of smoke, a low near 63 and wind gusts as high as 20 mph.

:  Areas of smoke, slight chance of rain after 3 p.m., mostly sunny today with a high near 90 and wind gusts as high as 20 mph. Mostly clear overnight with areas of smoke, a low near 61 and wind gusts as high as 16 mph.

  Areas of smoke, slight chance of rain after 3 p.m., otherwise sunny and hot today with a high near 98 and partly cloudy overnight with areas of smoke, a chance of rain before 9 p.m. and a low near 62.

   Areas of smoke, chance of rain after 3 p.m., otherwise sunny and hot today with a high near 96 and partly cloudy overnight with patchy smoke and a low near 61.

  Areas of smoke, chance of rain after 3 p.m., otherwise sunny and hot today with a high near 97 and partly cloudy overnight with patchy smoke, a chance of rain before 9 p.m. and a low near 64.

   Patchy smoke, slight chance of rain after noon, otherwise mostly sunny today with a high near 89 and partly cloudy overnight with patchy smoke, a slight chance of rain before midnight and a low near 64.

  Patchy smoke, chance of rain after noon, otherwise mostly sunny today with a high near 83 and partly cloudy overnight with a chance of rain before midnight, patchy smoke and a low near 57.

  Patchy smoke, slight chance of rain after 3 p.m., otherwise sunny and hot today with a high near 93 and partly cloudy overnight with patchy smoke, a chance of rain before 9 p.m. and a low near 66.

   Patchy smoke, sunny today with a high near 87 and wind gusts as high as 25 mph. Mostly cloudy overnight with a chance of rain before 9 p.m., patchy smoke, a low near 60 and wind gusts as high as 25 mph.

   Patchy smoke, slight chance of rain after noon, otherwise mostly sunny today with a high near 84 and partly cloudy overnight with a chance of rain before 9 p.m., patchy smoke and a low near 56.

   Patchy smoke, slight chance of rain after 1 p.m., otherwise mostly sunny today with a high near 88 and wind gusts as high as 26 mph. Mostly cloudy and breezy overnight with a slight chance of rain before 7 p.m., patchy smoke, a low near 55 and wind gusts as high as 23 mph.

Daycap no play 8 10 26

<title>Don Day's Wyoming Weather Forecast: Monday, August 10, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Don Day's Wyoming Weather Forecast: Monday, August 10, 2026

Mac Watson

Daily Video News

It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Monday, August 10th.  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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Highly targeted gubernatorial candidate Eric Barlow joked Saturday about all the negative campaign ads by donning a vet glove and pulling yak dung from his own mailbox. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that Barlow posted a video on social media saying, “That’s not how we treat people in Wyoming.” 

“So yeah, I've seen some people misunderstand this video as if somebody pranked him by putting yak dung in the mailbox. But my understanding is he put them in. My understanding is he put it there himself as a gag for this video. So he gloves up. He puts on a vet glove up to his shoulder, and he reaches in the mailbox and pulls out the dung, and yep, there it is. So the video is making fun of how many political flyers, many of them negative, we are getting this campaign season. He told me in a later interview that he disagrees with negative campaigning in any of the races.” 

The Republican gubernatorial candidate is one of the state’s most targeted political candidates, as multiple groups have launched negative mailers and TV commercials against him this summer. 

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With the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally kicking off this weekend, many bikers offered tips on how to avoid getting your ass kicked at the celebration. Cowboy State Daily’s Kolby Fedore spoke to Sturgis regular Bob Pruitt, who says “understand the unwritten rules before you accidentally break one.”

“The top three things not to do are one: don't sit on someone's bike. It's not a park bench. You can admire it and then keep walking. Number two: make sure that you're not being disrespectful to the old ladies. And an old lady in biker culture is the utmost term of respect. If you say that someone is your wife, maybe you love them, but if you call them your old lady, you'll kill for them. And number three, and this is the most important one: know when to shut your mouth. When the drinks start flowing, it's easy to start talking trash or say something you didn't mean, and if someone doesn't like what you say, or if someone doesn't appreciate what you've said, that's when you're going to get your ass kicked.”

Every August, the highways to South Dakota begin to thunder as hordes of bikers pour into the Black Hills. What began in 1938 with the Jackpine Gypsies Motorcycle Club has grown into one of the most famous motorcycle gatherings in the world. 

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Waking up in a hospital after an overdose finally scared “Lisa” sober, and she's now warning people about the growing access to fentanyl in Wyoming. Cowboy State Daily’s Jen Kocher reports that Lisa says, "It's a terrible way to live, worse than anything else.”

“It absolutely sidetracked her life and took it over completely for a couple years. And luckily, she was able to get away from it. But she said that the withdrawals were so painful and so terrible it would propel her to keep taking fentanyl, despite the fact that she could easily die from it. Her bottom moment was she took it before a court hearing. She smoked fentanyl and took a couple pills. Went into her court hearing. That's the last thing she remembers. She barely survived.”

 provided by the Wyoming Department of Health, around 350 Wyoming residents died of an opioid-related overdose. Of these, more than 90% were unintentional.

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After being hit again by thieves who dined and dashed, the owner of Sweet Zoey restaurant in Casper posted photos of the offenders instead of calling the police. Cowboy State Daily’s Zak Sonntag reports the owner took the matter into her own hands.

“Owner Zoey Aldahash went straight to social media and she posted an image of the family to her Facebook account. And a couple things stood out about this reaction. Number one, what you saw was an outpouring of support and tons of reaction from the community, So it shows the way that even a small restaurant can feel like a part of a community in a meaningful way, and yet not everybody agreed with the way that the owner approached the situation because she posted a photo of people with some circumstances that may not be known, and particularly, they were concerned about whether or not there were minors in the photo.”

Casper PD’s Public information officer, Rebekah Ladd, tells Cowboy State Daily social media will often bring useful information to investigators, but it can also result in undue accusations, misidentification or harassment, which raises additional concerns if juveniles are involved.

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

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Cowboy State Daily News continues now….

One Wyoming man who knows the corrections system says finding a job after prison is hard, and keeping it is harder. Cowboy State Daily’s Kolby Fedore reports that Clifford Fewel says after a felon is released, the new freedom has a lot of tripwires and his goal is to help these people “stay free forever.”

“Clifford Fewel started doing this kind of work after working in the Department of Corrections for a long time, and then as a parole officer. He said that he connected to inmates and he learned not to judge them. When Fewel worked in corrections as prisoners were getting ready to leave, instead of saying don't come back, he would say stay free forever. That has since become the name of his initiative.  Former inmate Terry Smith, who was once a tribal judge, was convicted of selling drugs and sentenced to six months in federal prison. When she got out, she was required to take some of Fewel’s courses together. Today she says that she and Fewel remained friends, and now she has found meaningful employment working to help inmates like herself stay free forever.”

After losing a newspaper advertising job and moving to Arizona, Fewel tells Cowboy State Daily that he needed work with benefits and reluctantly applied to the state prison system. He worked as a corrections officer, became a programs officer, and eventually moved into parole. One of his strengths, he says, is being able to relate to inmates without feeling superior to them. 

Milanii Sojos dropped out of high school, became a mother at 17, and spent years caught in a cycle of abuse, fighting, and drinking. Cowboy State Daily’s Kate Meadows reports that today, Sojos sees her future in a combination of two fields — caring for people and understanding the justice system.

“While attending Fort Washakie High School, she started into a pattern of fighting and drinking and partying, and that was a grip that really took stronghold of her. She did find another way to basically use her hands rather than fighting people. She is using them to help people, and that really came about after she took an EMT course in Jackson, became certified as a first responder, and realized that she did have a purpose and there was so much more to life than physically fighting people to solve problems.”

Sojos, who is a tribal member of the Eastern Shoshone, recently was the first in her class to earn her certified nursing assistant (CNA) certification and continues to work toward a nursing degree. She is preparing to study criminal justice at Gillette College this fall.

For nearly 40 years, generations of wild moose have returned to Fish Creek Ranch near Big Piney, Wyoming, where they trust Pamela Chrisman so much she can walk up and pet them. Cowboy State Daily’s Kolby Fedore reports that she says, “this is kind of a safe haven for all those guys.”

“According to Pam Chrisman, it started in the 1980 s with a moose that she came to start calling Grandma Moose. The moose was really thin and gray, and she noticed that it was wanting to eat hay with the horses, so Chrisman decided to let the moose eat in peace. The next year, Grandma Moose brought a calf, and from there it grew into a herd of moose that she was eventually able to feed out of the palm of her hand.”

Wyoming Game and Fish biologist John Lund tells Cowboy State Daily how remarkable this relationship truly is. Moose are known to be territorial and aggressive, especially when they have, especially with their young. So the fact that Chrisman was able to develop that kind of a bond really shows a mutual respect.

Two years ago, a GMC Yukon flew off a highway in Park County and bounced off giant boulders in Wyoming's Oregon Basin. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that the wreckage is still there and likely there to stay because recovering it would be a fruitless effort, said the owner of a local tow company.

“They got charged with probation violation because they were intoxicated at the time, but in 2026, that vehicle is still there and it's likely to stay there. Lots of vehicles end up in places where they probably shouldn't have been and will never get out of. And for towing and recovery companies, can they get those vehicles out? Yes. Is it worth the time and expense? Probably not. Even if they scrap the vehicle that they recover, that's not going to recoup their costs. And agencies like the BLM typically don't invest that much money to recover vehicles.”

, Suzanne Marie Cole drove the 7,000-pound SUV off the highway in what she claimed was a carjacking. She was arrested on two misdemeanor charges of probation violation, as it was determined she was intoxicated at the time of the accident.

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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 10 26

<title>Cowboy State Daily Video Newscast: Monday, August 10, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Monday's headlines include:
* How To Stay Alive In Sturgis
* Wyoming's Very Real Fentanyl Crisis
* That Wrecked SUV Ain't Going Anywhere

Cowboy State Daily Video Newscast: Monday, August 10, 2026

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

Renée Jean

Tourism

Will Grant still has the two horses, Chicken Fry and Badger, that he rode across Wyoming in the summer of 2019 when he retraced all 2,000 miles of the Pony Express trail. 

Chicken Fry was born in New Mexico, and no one knows for sure how old he is.

“He’s had some hard miles on him,” Grant said. “Not a hard life, but plenty of work. So we rope off them a little bit, but not too much, and they’re like trail horses.”

Some of those hard trail miles happened in a landscape that deeply respects its roots. Wyoming, Grant told Cowboy State Daily,  has cared for its Pony Express Trail better than other states.

“You can see it there,” Grant said. “It’s very well marked in Wyoming. Very well marked.”

Mosquitoes in Jeffrey City are particularly bad, while South Pass can be freezing cold even in July. 

That’s left Grant wondering how Pony Express riders kept their feet and their hands warm, given that they were riding through South Pass in January of 1861.

“The winds through there are no joke,” he added.

These are just a few of the gritty details Grant learned about Wyoming as he rode through it on the back of a horse, surrounded by a vast, windswept sea of sagebrush. 

He had known from the outset that he would face the same brutal elements the pioneers did — shifting mud, relentless wind, desert conditions, mosquitoes, and the like.

But, as he wrote in his book, “The Last Ride of the Pony Express,” thinking about the hardships ahead of time and experiencing them firsthand are two very different things. 

That point became starkly clear under the flash of a sudden Wyoming summer storm. Grant and his two horses, he realized immediately, were the highest point on the landscape. They were walking targets clad in iron horseshoes. And there was nowhere for them to take cover. It was just miles of open sagebrush in every direction, as far as his eyes could see.

The crack of thunder overhead filled him with dread as he rode across the land in that gathering storm. He also gained a new appreciation for the 1860s couriers who wrote of learning to read the landscape in between blinding pulses of lightning strikes.

“I learned that the Pony Express as a mail service was a really impressive display of American entrepreneurship,” he said. “There’s no other country in the world that could have done the same thing given the same environmental parameters. There were no horses out there. There was no infrastructure on which to set up a fast horse mail relay over 2,000 miles to deliver a letter in 10 days.”

There were wild horses, and they were a huge danger to a lone rider managing two horses. Grant writes about that in his book, how careful he was to avoid either inciting an attack or losing his horses to that stallion’s wild harem.

The Mongols and the Romans and the Persians did have ancient horse relays to quickly traverse their kingdoms. But these were created in already civilized areas that their empires controlled, and those relays were fed and maintained by the full resources and might of those empires. 

America’s Pony Express was a business venture started completely from scratch, with no empire behind it at all, traversing a vast and empty land that was openly hostile. There were no resources from a surrounding empire to help them through all the places that lacked food, water and shelter. 

Pony Express riders didn’t wait for perfect conditions, though. They rode in all kinds of weather, making a 2,000-mile trip in a just 10 days. 

Grant took his time, compared to them. His journey lasted 142 nights.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Modern-Day Station Masters"}]

He also had something else the original 1860s riders didn’t. Wyoming ranchers — many of them descended from original homesteaders — who helped him all along the way, as did members of the modern-day Pony Express riders. The ranchers, in particular, were an informal network of modern-day station masters, ready and willing to help him all along the way.

Time and again, just as weather threatened to overwhelm him and his small string of horses, Grant would ride up on a private gate to find it already opened to him. The rancher before had let the next farm know he was on the way and to watch out for him.

These ranchers didn’t just grant him passage through their land. They would actively pull him out of a storm, offering secure pasture space and protection from the elements. There were often hot meals and a dry bunkhouse were included, as well as their stories.

“The traveling horseman still finds a lot of hospitality in Wyoming, I’ll tell you that,” Grant said. “People were good to me. Opening pasture gates, no worries. Really good people all along the way.”

There was the time a well-meaning rancher tried to talk him into taking an ornery mule with him … 

But warm hospitality and cheerful dinners and storytelling were more common. It was a powerful reminder that while the physical shelters of the 1860s may have crumbled, the human infrastructure of mutual aid remains intact across the Wyoming plains. It’s been actively kept alive behind the closed gates of modern cattle ranchers, many of whom are still living by the unwritten code of the West, handed down from one generation to the next.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Write What You Know"}]

Grant’s Pony Express ride wasn’t just a history fascination for him. He found in the ride a perfect intersection for the two halves of his life.

“I’m a journalist, and I mostly have been writing for magazines,” he said. “What I really wanted to do is write a book. The Pony Express emerged as a topic that I thought I could shed some light on because I worked as a horse trainer and a cowboy.”

Grant, born and raised in Littleton, Colorado, spent his summers cowboying on a ranch between Chugwater and LaGrange in Wyoming, studying under a foreman named Tim Sussex.

“Those were good years for me because Tim really showed me how to handle horses in a lot of different ways, but really how to be quiet with a horse,” he said. “That is the best thing you can do, get a ranch hand job on the wide open prairies of Wyoming.”

His first degree program was forestry and geology in Tennessee, after which he went back to horses, breaking colts in Larkspur, Colorado, then working for a ranch in Texas. 

In 2008, he went back to school to study journalism at University of Montana School of Journalism.

“I needed it,” he said. “I’d been training horses and doing ranch work for like eight years. I had to use a different part of my brain.”

When he went hunting for a book idea, the old writer’s advice — write what you know — stuck.

“I saw the Pony Express as a way to overlap my expertise with horses and write what you know,” he said. “I decided to dive into the Pony Express and I thought, ‘Well, obviously, I’m gonna have to just ride it. Travel it by horseback.’”

That, he added, was the “best summer of my life.” 

Even if it was the summer of 2019 — not the summer of ’69.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Trail Logic And Life"}]

Spending five months on the back of a horse gave him new perspectives on hardships and life. 

“When things are bad, you can expect they are going to get better,” he said. “If you have a bad camp, then the next night is almost certainly going to be better. And if you have two bad nights in a row, then your odds are even better that you’re headed for greener pastures.”

That simple trail logic helped him keep his morale intact through the inevitable stretches of cold and wet, hot and thirsty, tired and hungry all along the way.

He also learned more about his horses than he expected.

“I’ve been around horses my entire life,” he said. “But I learned a lot about their nonverbal communication. I learned you can tell a lot about a horse by listening to the way they walk.”

Any discomfort comes out in the sound of the hooves striking the ground.

He also noticed things about humans as well, including that they seem to care more about someone who is riding on the back of a horse than they do about someone who is on foot.

“They’re more likely to offer support because of the horses,” he said. “People cared about the wellbeing of the horses more than they cared about the wellbeing of me for sure. Having the animals with you opens up a lot of doors.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Next Book"}]

These days Grant lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where Chicken Fry and Badger have the run of the place, and Grant spends more time “wrangling sentences” than he does cattle.

He’s already knee-deep in his next book, which is about the ancestry of the American cowboy.

The research has already taken him to Mexico, Spain, and soon Morocco. Next summer he’ll tackle history that’s “closer to home.”

Whether that brings him back to Wyoming remains to be seen. But Wyoming will have its thread in the book regardless.

“I’ve got a lot of good Wyoming material built up over the years,” he said. “Horsebacking it across Wyoming for the Pony Express gave me a pretty good look at the country.”

And being a wrangler near Chugwater was a whole other dimension of the state and its cowboys.

After riding the Pony Express across Wyoming and sleeping under its stars, Grant may have left tracks that already blew away. But the stories Wyoming whispered to him in the night still live on, indelible memories that explain the code of the West in ways words never could.

Will Grant 7 N8 A8831 8 9 26

<title>Cowboy Rides All 2,000 Miles Of Pony Express, Says Wyoming Weather Overwhelming | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Cowboy and journalist Will Grant rode all 2,000 miles of the Pony Express trail on horseback. He said the trip gave him a newfound respect for Wyoming weather. Mosquitoes in Jeffrey City are bad, while South Pass can be freezing cold even in July. 

Cowboy Rides All 2,000 Miles Of Pony Express, Says Wyoming Weather Overwhelming

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Agriculture

Four generations of one family farmed the land beneath the western face of the Tetons before Darren Rude ever laid eyes on it.

The 432-acre ranch outside Alta came with weathered barns, irrigated fields and a century of Wyoming agricultural history.

Rude, founder of the nutritional supplement company Youtheory, said it was exactly what he and his wife spent years looking for — a place where their children and 13 grandchildren could someday gather, surrounded by cattle, hay fields and Wyoming's wide-open spaces.

[{"type":"text","text":"Now that dream sits at the center of a Teton County land-use battle."}]

The Teton County Board of County Commissioners voted 2-1 last week to deny Rude permission to build a 6,438-square-foot agricultural barn on the property, siding with neighbors who argued the building was never intended to serve agriculture at all.

[{"type":"text","text":"Within minutes of the vote, Rude announced he intends to sue."}]

"This case is illuminating a defining question and a fork in the road for Teton County," neighboring landowner Ken Fritschel told commissioners.

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

[{"type":"text","text":"Both sides insist they support agriculture."}]

That much became clear during nearly four hours of testimony before the county commissioners.

Neighbor Sharon Shopper opened public comment by telling commissioners Alta has always been an agricultural community.

"This petition was not circulated because these folks oppose agriculture," she said. "Alta is an agricultural community. We live beside working farms and ranches." 

Kristen Fritschel told commissioners she had no issue with the bar at first, but after a conversation with Rude's ranch hand, Malin Strong, she became concerned. 

Rude told Cowboy State Daily the ranch hand was placing stakes to mark the proposed barn site when neighboring property owners asked what was planned.

"He said, 'We're building a barn here, and I'm going to live here, and we're going to almost have an amusement park. It's going to be so fun for kids," Rude recalled.

Rude said Strong described his own vision for the property with a zip line from the property's historic grain barn, a pond and other family activities.

Those comments, he says, reflected Strong's personal ideas, not the project's actual purpose.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Wildlife Versus Working Land"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Other opponents focused on wildlife."}]

, who identified himself as a wildlife ecologist with more than four decades of experience, described South Leigh Creek as a critical wildlife corridor connecting habitat used by moose, elk, mule deer and other species.

"A large permanent structure," he argued, "can affect that wildlife movement through that South Leigh corridor." 

Another ecologist said historical aerial photographs showed little evidence of sustained agricultural activity at the proposed building site during the two decades before Rude applied for his permit.

[{"type":"text","text":"He argued the creek bottom had largely returned to natural habitat. "}]

One opponent questioned whether the seven-acre area surrounding the proposed barn could naturally support cattle, and another argued the application changed repeatedly during the approval process, creating ambiguity over what was actually being proposed. 

Neighbor Charles Baldwin pointed to electrical systems, plumbing and other features he believed looked more consistent with recreation than livestock.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'That's All BS' "}]

The loudest defense of the project came from Jim Beard, who has worked the property for decades.

Standing before commissioners, Beard said the ranch continues to produce potatoes, grain and hay while supporting cattle.

"We're going to continue farming there," Beard said. "We could use the barn there to store hay."

He said generations of ranchers traditionally placed barns in the creek bottom because they were protected from Wyoming's fierce winter winds.

Beard also said he couldn't "believe all the hoopla going on," adding, "Everybody gets a little piece of paradise, and then they want to shut it down for other people."

What about claims the site would become a racetrack or recreational playground?

[{"type":"text","text":"\"That's all BS,\" Beard told commissioners. "}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Lawyers Clash, Commissioners Divide "}]

Rude's attorney, Nicole Fleck, argued the county should evaluate the application based on what was actually submitted — a non-habitable agricultural structure — rather than speculation about future recreational uses.

The neighbors' attorney, Christine Kosydar, countered that the Planning Commission committed fundamental legal errors by recommending approval.

She argued the proposed building site itself was not actively farmed when the application was filed and said later revisions to the application could not cure those deficiencies. 

Her presentation also argued the proposed barn sat too far from the property's primary agricultural activity and was too large relative to the existing operation.

When deliberations began, commissioners found themselves wrestling with a question neither side fully answered.

"I feel like we have a legitimate dispute about the primary purpose of this structure," said Commissioner Luther Propst.

After questioning county staff, Vice Chair Wes Gardner said he believed the county's land development regulations gave priority to agricultural exemptions over Natural Resource Overlay restrictions.

"I have no reason to distrust Mr. Rude's affidavit whatsoever," Gardner said before casting the lone vote to approve the permit. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Chair Mark Newcomb and Propst voted no."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Commissioners Len Carlman and Natalia Macker were absent. "}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Headed To Court"}]

Rude has said he plans to challenge the decision in court, arguing the county improperly denied an application that complied with its land development regulations.

For neighbors, the case has always been about protecting one of Alta's most sensitive wildlife corridors.

An Alta-area ranch owner says he plans to sue after Teton County rejected his plan to build a huge 6,500-square-foot barn on his land. Some neighbors also don’t want it, calling it more of “an amusement park” than a working barn.

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