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

<title>You Still Here? Tuesday, October 25, 2022 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

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You Still Here? Tuesday, October 25, 2022

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

Clair McFarland

Politics

Government & Politics

A Republican U.S. House candidate debate Thursday night in Casper featured both direct and subtle jabs, recurring speech patterns, bragging points and just a couple moderator interventions.

Nine candidates are running to win the GOP nomination to Wyoming’s lone U.S. House seat at the Aug. 18 primary election. 

Eight of those – not Keith Goodenough – answered questions Thursday night at Casper College in a forum hosted by the League of Women Voters of Wyoming, WyoFile, and Wyoming Public Media.  

The eight attending were: Philanthropist Steve Friess, Secretary of State Chuck Gray, state Senate President Bo Biteman, veteran and former congressional staffer David Giralt, veteran and former High Plains-District BLM leader Kevin Christensen, actor and singer Richard Dodson, former Superintendent of Public Instruction Jillian Balow, and Casper businessman Reid Rasner.

Friess in his closing statements asserted the race is actually between two people.

His campaign spokesman Tim Edson confirmed Friday that Friess was talking about himself and Gray.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Race"}]

"Our internal polling shows it is now a two-person race between Steve Friess and Chuck Gray (tied at 16%, with the rest of the field lagging behind).  Chuck has been running for office in Wyoming for years.  Despite 100% name awareness, Chuck struggles to get above 20% in his own polling -- because his unfavorable ratings are astronomically high. Steve Friess is now tied with Chuck Gray, has the momentum, and will overtake him by 

[{"type":"text","text":"You can attribute all of these quotes to me as the campaign's spokesman."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Friess noted that a candidate was missing from the stage that night."}]

Teton County-based attorney Frank Chapman dropped out of the race that morning, casting it as a waste of multiple people’s money for him to continue in a race with so much “clutter.”

“I believe that’s because he’s been looking at the same polling I’ve seen,” said Friess, “which really shows that this is now a two-man race. The polling shows it quite clearly.”

Rasner apparently disagreed, proclaiming himself the winner of the debate in a Thursday announcement. 

Friess leveled a subtle jab at career politicians and said, “We need someone with a businessman’s point of view who will solve problems in Washington, and not a career politician.”

With Chapman’s departure, Friess is now among three candidates, with Gray and Rasner, who have loaned more than $1 million to their own campaigns.

[{"type":"text","text":"Other candidates derided the practice."}]

The candidates with war chests under $200,000 as of July 1 - Christensen, Dodson, Giralt, Balow, and Biteman – all placed the emphasis on connecting with the people rather than pouring money into the race.

Rasner, who’s loaned himself at least $1.7 million and spent around $2 million, pointed to the individual contributions he’s also won across Wyoming.

Friess has the most financial momentum. He acknowledged he’s self-loaned considerable sums – at least $2 million as of July 1 – but has also raised over $400,000 from individual contributors.

He said he raised that money because he cares deeply about the opportunity to serve the state and would ban stock trading in Washington, D.C.

“I’m not going there to get more money. I’m going there because it’s an opportunity to serve,” said Friess. “Our family’s had a tradition of doing so.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Please Don’t"}]

In opening the forum, WyoFile executive editor Matt Copeland warned all participants they could face removal if they weren’t respectful and courteous, and if they personally attacked or sparred directly with the other candidates.

One introductory prompt and two questions later, Copeland warned Gray for breaking the rules.

Gray attacked both WyoFile and Rasner, claiming WyoFile “has millions of false attacks” on its website over the years and Rasner “has put thousands of dollars of false attacks” against him.”

“But like President Trump –“ Gray continued, then Copeland cut him off.

“Mr. Gray. Please don’t address your fellow candidates,” said Copeland.

Gray pressed on, saying, “I’m not spending as much as Mr. Friess over there with the Jackson element …"

[{"type":"text","text":"Again Copeland intervened with a warning."}]

“But I am going to spend to take on the radical media and the insiders,” Gray said.

[{"type":"text","text":"Boos sounded from the audience."}]

Copeland in a brief Friday phone interview denied both the “insider” charge and the false reporting charge.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"Absolutely not,” he said of the latter claim."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Media, Insiders"}]

The media and an unspecified group of “insiders” dominated many of Gray’s points that night.

He used either the word “insider” or “insiders” 12 times, though one was a specific reference to the problem of insider trading in Congress. He used the word “media” nine times.

He used the term “track record” eight times, referencing his work in state government.

[{"type":"text","text":"Rasner picked up on the trend and fired back at Gray."}]

“Cheyenne and Washington, D.C., are full of politicians with a proven track record,” said Rasner in his closing speech. “A proven track record in Cheyenne or D.C. means nothing. I have a proven track record in Wyoming, in business. Of signing both sides of the checks.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Rasner runs Casper-based financial advisor business Omnivest Financial."}]

While Rasner was more subtle than Gray and was not warned for civility, he did take another oblique shot, referencing occasions when a state land management board voted – as did Gray – in favor of leasing state public lands to wind farms.

Gray repeatedly derides wind power as “woke” and wrong for Wyoming, and after his three “aye" votes, he became one of the state’s most vocal critics against two bigger, foreign-backed wind projects on state lands.

[{"type":"text","text":"Workhorse, Roots"}]

Biteman’s go-to term was “work,” which recurred in his points at least seven times.

He pointed to his decade in the state Legislature and term as Senate president, as well as his career as a landman.

“I’m a workhorse, not a show horse. I’m not going to Congress to be famous, to get on Fox News or to shoot off press releases every day,” said Biteman.

Balow pointed to her Wyoming roots and upbringing, her earlier work with the late U.S. Sen. Mike Enzi, and how she handled Wyoming’s schools during COVID.

Christensen was the only candidate who wanted to reform, rather than rescind, the Clinton-era Roadless Rule for public lands.

Everyone proposed means, some varying, for rescuing the Social Security system.

Gray friess 7 24 26

<title>Steve Friess Says Wyoming U.S. House Race A 'Two-Man Race' Now | Cowboy State Daily</title>

U.S. House candidate Steve Friess concluded the Thursday-night debate in Casper by saying polling shows the nine-person Wyoming GOP race is really just between two people — himself and Chuck Gray. "The polling shows it quite clearly," Friess said.

Steve Friess Says Wyoming U.S. House Race A 'Two-Man Race' Now

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

Renée Jean

Wyoming Life

The sound of pounding hammers and children giggling rang at the Old West Museum during Cheyenne Frontier Days — a symphony to Cheyenne’s leatherman, Rob Underwood, there to demonstrate an old-world skill to a brand-new generation.

You won’t find Underwood advertised on billboards or signs. He works strictly by word of mouth. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Yet he’s as busy as he wants to be. "}]

The people who need him find him, whether they just want to save a family heirloom or their favorite purse.

“I’ve done 26 purses so far this year,” Underwood said with a chuckle. “That’s a bread-and-butter item.”

A military veteran, Underwood has long made a hobby of fixing leather items. 

“I was working part-time at the local Tandy Leather, and there were so many people who would come in and say, ‘The strap broke off my purse. Can you guys fix it?’,” he said.

Saying “no” to a broken purse wasn’t the worst thing. But the ones who came in holding a piece of history — that was different. 

“It was the people who would say, ‘This is the wallet my grandfather carried in Vietnam. Can you fix it?’” he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Those were the stories that got to him. "}]

“So, I left Tandy in 2017 and opened up Rocking RA Leatherworks specifically because I wanted to be able to fix things,” he said. “To me, leather is something you should be able to give to your grandchildren.”

One of his first big projects was repairing three leather aprons for Freemasons. 

“They brought it to me and said, ‘Is there any way to restore this?’” Underwood said. “And I said, ‘Absolutely.’”

All it took was a little knowledge, a little TLC, and a lot of patience — the main ingredient in all successful leatherwork. 

That restoration turned out well enough that the aprons were displayed at a museum in Baltimore. 

During the Great Depression, there were 120,000 cobbler shops in the United States. Today, only a few thousand remain — a sign of how rare this kind of handiwork has become.

“My father-in-law, after he got out of the war in Vietnam, they sent him to learn how to be a cobbler,” Underwood said.

He didn’t go to a school to learn his craft. Nor did he learn it from a YouTube video.

He learned the old-fashioned way, huddled up next to a potbellied stove with his grandfather during the winter. That was when they repaired saddles, halters, and all the other leather items needed on the ranch.

He didn’t glimpse the wider world of leather work until junior high, thanks to a required rotation through home economics, wood shop, and arts and crafts.

“If you didn’t want to do ceramics or painting, you could do leatherwork,” he said. “And basically, what I’m demonstrating here is kind of how I got started as a young man.”

At first, it was just to pass the time. He liked the idea of making something both beautiful and useful. And leather was so versatile. He could make anything he could imagine. 

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

The hobby became something more after he retired from a military career as a medic in 2015. 

“I deal with vertigo,” he said. “Sometimes the room will spin. It’s damage from a bomb that went off and caused some problems, as they tend to do.”

Because of that, Underwood needed a service dog. But, to keep him upright, the dog needed a special harness. 

Underwood worked with a physical therapist at Baylor University in Texas to design a custom harness that would let the dog subtly pull him back into alignment whenever his world tilted. 

“That was the difference between me being in my house 29 out of 30 days, versus being here and able to do this,” Underwood said, gesturing at all the children pounding their wooden mallets onto butterfly and flower stamps planted on a strip of moistened leather — and giggling all the while.

Underwood no longer needs a service dog, but it helped start him down the right road, doing his physical therapy and learning to “trust humanity” again.

“So when I know there are veterans who have service dogs, I like to get with them and build them a harness,” he said. “And instead of charging the $500 or $600 that those typically are, I will let them pay whatever they can pay. Because, knowing what my dog did for me, I want them to have that opportunity as well.”

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

As western culture surges in popularity, the number of leather items needing repair continues to outstrip the number of people who can fix them. 

That’s lamentable to Underwood, and it’s one reason he’s always willing to demonstrate the craft whenever he’s asked.

“My biggest hope is someone will walk away and go online and go, ‘OK, I remember this hammer, and here’s that butterfly, and then they’ll start,’” he said. “And then, just like any trade, you work. You practice. People tell you, ‘You could do this better, you could do this different.’ And, eventually, you grow into people who do stuff like this.”

He gestured toward a magazine cover with carved leather plates that have been infused with beeswax, to make them stiff and waterproof.

“One of the things you can do is use leather and melt beeswax into it, and then put it at like 122 degrees and it becomes incredibly stiff,” he said. “So folks who didn’t have money to pay for ceramic or tile would make plates of leather.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"It’s also waterproof."}]

“You can wash the plates in water,” he said. “And you wouldn’t have to worry about it.”

Leather can do almost anything a person can dream up, Underwood said.

All it requires is for the next generation to pick up the tools and make something beautiful and useful. 

The legacy Cheyenne’s leatherman hopes to pass on is simple. It’s to hear someone say, “My grandpa made this back in 1900, and it still looks great.” 

Leather 1 7 24 26

<title>Meet The Cheyenne Leatherman Repairing Heirlooms — And Reviving A Lost Skill | Cowboy State Daily</title>

In an era of mass-produced, throwaway goods, Cheyenne craftsman Rob Underwood is different. Amid a surge in western culture popularity, he demonstrated old-world leatherman skills during Cheyenne Frontier Days, hoping to keep a dying trade alive.

Meet The Cheyenne Leatherman Repairing Heirlooms — And Reviving A Lost Skill

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

Environment

The founders of a Colorado company said they’ve found a way to boost rainfall by at least 10% in certain locations, using technology that could help mitigate the persistent Colorado River water crisis.

However, an abiding distaste for “cloud seeding” in Wyoming has hampered efforts here so far, representatives of Rain Enhancement Technologies say.

the company’s CEO, and chief meteorologist Jeff Chagnon told Cowboy State Daily their system relies solely on solar-generated electricity, not cloud-seeding chemicals.

They’ve built rain-making facilities in Utah and Colorado, but when they’ve approached Wyoming officials their message has been conflated with the “cloud-seeding umbrella,” Seidl said.

Legislative Rep. Karlee Provenza, D-Laramie and former Rep. Mike Schmid, R-La Barge, were involved in pitched debates over cloud seeding during the 2025 session. 

The state seeded clouds in the Wind River Range, Sierra Madres and Medicine Bow Range for almost two decades before the House of Representatives ended funding for plane-based seeding last year, though ground-based efforts continue. 

Provenza and Schmid told Cowboy State Daily they’d be open to considering Rain Enhancement Technology’s method if they can be shown proof that it works.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"An Abiding Water Crisis"}]

A shortage of Colorado River water is alarming officials in Wyoming and other western states.

In the simplest terms, it’s feared there won’t be enough water to meet to allotments established for seven states, Indian tribes and Mexico under the 1922 Colorado River Compact.

And there’s been growing tension between the Upper Basin states of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico, and the Lower Basin states of Arizona, Nevada and California. 

The Upper Basin states claim the Lower Basin keeps demanding more water amid a dwindling supply.

This year, that’s included a drawdown of 1 million acre-feet at Flaming Gorge Reservoir, on the Wyoming-Utah state line, to make up for a shortage at Lake Powell, on the Utah-Arizona line.

Seidl said he doesn’t think his company could supply the entire estimated 2 to 4-million-acre-foot shortfall on the Colorado.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"But they could certainly help, he said."}]

At one of the company’s sites serving 64,000 acres of land an additional 8,750 acre-feet of water was generated over one winter, Seidl said.

Using ground-based electricity to generate more precipitation isn’t a new idea, Seidl said, but his company is a pioneer in attempting to deploy it on large scale.  

Rain Enhancement Technologies emerged “as a real company and a public company” on Jan. 1, 2025.

Chagnon said the heart of the system is a “football goal-post looking thing” with antenna that carry 100,000 volts of electricity generated by on-site solar panels.

An electrical charge can prompt tiny water droplets to converge into drops heavy enough to fall as precipitation, he said.

“We’re not adding anything to the cloud," Chagnon said. "We are adding a charge to those seeds (aerosol droplets) as air passes by our unit. They become ionized and ingested into the clouds. If you take two droplets and they’re charged, there will be an attractive force. It helps them get bigger, faster.”

Test sites in Oman, as well as facilities in Utah and Colorado, have demonstrated the capacity to boost natural precipitation by up 15% or more, Seidl said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"“We guarantee 10%,” he said."}]

The company is trying to sell its units to private parties, and to municipal, county and state agencies, he said.

It costs $150,000 a year to lease a unit, against a total purchase price of $750,000, and units have an estimated 15-year lifespan, he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Willing To Check It Out"}]

Provenza said she thinks the largest barrier to precipitation enhancement in Wyoming is politics.

She said the conservative Freedom Caucus was to blame for blocking efforts to continue cloud seeding because of baseless fears over the chemicals.

And so, she wonders if “this new form” used by Rain Enhancement Technologies would face similar pushback.

The problem of water shortages isn’t going away, she said, adding that, “The Legislature is going to have to grapple with the idea that were going to have to do more if we want to keep more of our water. As a lawmaker, I’m going to have to see proof of the concept. We’re talking about taxpayer dollars.

“I’m certainly open to hearing about it. I hope my colleagues have the same mindset of curiosity about it.” 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Better Than Cloud Seeding?"}]

Schmid said the fears he and others had over cloud seeding weren’t baseless.

He said he was never shown proof seeding made a difference over the long run. And there was evidence the silver iodide used was harmful to aquatic plants and wildlife, he added.

Schmid said he found evidence that silver iodide contamination contributed to the health problems and low birth rates of the legendary Whiskey Mountain bighorn sheep herd in the Dubois area.

That herd once numbered around 2,500 sheep but shrank to fewer than 500 because of chronic pneumonia outbreaks and low reproduction, he said.

“Silver iodide can cause lung problems in wild sheep,” Schmid said.

He said Rain Enhancement Technologies’ idea sounds encouraging, but he has questions.

“If they ionize clouds here in the Green River Basin, would that steal water from somebody else down range?” he asked.

“Prove to me that it’s working, that it’s not hurting our plant life and our wildlife, and that it does not steal water from our neighbors, and I’m all for it.” 

Rain legislators 7 24 26

<title>‘Rain Makers’ Say They Can Boost Wyoming’s Water Supply, Wyo Lawmakers Want Proof | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A Colorado “rain maker” company claims it has used electricity to boost water supplies in two western states by 10-15% and can do it for Wyoming if lawmakers don't conflate their methods with cloud seeding. Two legislators say they want proof first.

‘Rain Makers’ Say They Can Boost Wyoming’s Water Supply, Wyo Lawmakers Want Proof

Gillette Fourth of July Parade participants not being allowed to hand out Bibles and copies of the U.S. Constitution has prompted a complaint to the Campbell County Commission. 

State House Appropriations Chairman John Bear, R-Gillette, asserts in 

 that community groups “were barred by Campbell County Parks & Recreation officials from handing out U.S. Constitutions and Bibles during the Independence Day 250 parade.”

Campbell County Parks officials say they were merely enforcing a rule against handing out paper products at the parade, adopted around 2021 to curb trash cleanup after the event.

Bear wrote in the same column that a few towns away, Lander’s local LGBT advocacy group handed out condoms to parade-goers and kids.

“Since when are free condoms protected by the Constitution while Bibles are not?” asked Bear in the column.

Organizers of the Lander parade’s Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) float adamantly deny handing out condoms.

Carol Smith in an open letter to Bear, which she sent to Cowboy State Daily, says she was on that float, and no one on it handed out condoms.

“We handed out candy to children and celebrated inclusion with the community, just as we have in previous years,” wrote Smith, who reiterated the point in a phone interview this week.

Sarah Reilley, who said she’s driven the float for three years but couldn’t attend the parade this year, told Cowboy State Daily she would never have handed out condoms.

“Absolutely not,” said Reilley in an interview. She wrote in a Facebook post last week that doing that would have been both expensive and “WILDLY inappropriate.”

"It's important for leaders in our state and elected representatives to do the work to fact-check for themselves, instead of taking fake images and spreading lies in order to create division," said Reilley. 

Bear told Cowboy State Daily that a “solid” witness had alerted him to the alleged Lander incident. The witness said no to being interviewed by Cowboy State Daily, said Bear.

According to Reilley and a screenshot she posted, the image Bear dispatched of two hands holding what appears to be a condom returned a Google Reverse Images result of a viral SnapChat screenshot.

Cowboy State Daily’s own Google Reverse Images search, days later, did not replicate that result. That could be because SnapChat doesn’t retain images, Reilley said.

The rest of the controversy is now a complaint that is pending before the Campbell County Commission.

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

Kurt Siebenaler applied for a permit to run a float on behalf of his church, Church at the Barn, in Campbell County’s Fourth of July parade, he told Cowboy State Daily on Thursday.

[{"type":"text","text":"It was a fun task before all the drama, he said."}]

“The theme was, our country was founded on Biblical principles,” he said. 

Congregants decked out the float with Bibles, a big USA sign and a liberty bell. They’d planned to hand out pocket versions of the U.S. Constitution and New Testament volumes, he added.

When Siebenaler applied to be in the parade, the application said fliers, stickers, paper products, brochures, paper handouts, and leaflets weren’t allowed in it, he recalled.

Siebenaler went to check with a Parks and Recreation staffer, Darla Cotton, and she said the volumes would not be allowed under that rule, he added.

“She said because if people don’t want them, they’re just going to throw them on the ground when they leave,” Siebenaler said. 

He countered that they weren’t going to hand them out to “a half dozen kids or whatever” but would be more targeted.

Cotton maintained her veto but said the churchgoers could sign up for a booth at the later hot dog feed at Bicentennial Park and hand out Bibles and Constitutions there, Siebenaler said, adding that the church approved that plan.

Cotton contacted Siebenaler ahead of the hot dog feed to say the department had run out of room for booths and needed to give political candidates priority to be fair across races, he recalled.

Siebenaler told the church, and “word got out to a couple (county) commissioners.”

Then Cotton reportedly told Siebenaler that if the church could find a political candidate willing to share a booth, it could hand out its volumes from there.

Ira Shober, a county commission candidate who attends the church, agreed to share, Siebenaler said.

[{"type":"text","text":"The Monday Meeting"}]

Commission Chair Bob Jordan and Commissioner Jerry Means met with Campbell County Parks and Recreation Director Dwayne Dillinger, superintendent Adam Gibson, Bear, Republican state Rep. Abby Angelos, at least one attorney representing the county and other stakeholders to discuss the issues on the Monday before July 4.

Dillinger and Angelos are both Republicans running against each other for a Gillette-based seat in the state Senate.

[{"type":"text","text":"Bear is running again for his seat in the House."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"The primary election is Aug. 18."}]

In Bear’s telling, Dillinger wasn’t aware of the dustup, “but he defended it when the time came.”

“I keep telling him if you have a conflict, you can’t err on the side of trampling people’s inalienable constitutional rights,” Bear told Cowboy State Daily.

Dillinger was reticent in his interviews with Cowboy State Daily, saying he had to be careful not to campaign in a story told from his professional post because of the Hatch Act.

That federal law bars people working for agencies that receive federal money from using their positions to campaign.

He said the parade rules on which Cotton relied were implemented long before he became the director.

Bear said that county personnel said Gillette city officials didn’t want the trash, but that a later call to the city debunked that.

Cotton sent Cowboy State Daily the PDF copies of the rules for each year from 2021-2026. Those show the ban on “flyers, stickers and other types of materials” starting in 2021, with the warning that “they end up everywhere as trash rather than in the hands of the parade attendee.”

When a state lawmaker asked why Campbell County parade floats couldn't hand out Bibles but a Lander float could hand out condoms, the Lander float organizers said they did no such thing. Campbell County's Bible saga is much more complicated.

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