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You still here 10 31 22 no play scaled

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

<title>You Still Here? Monday, October 31, 2022 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

You Still Here? Monday, October 31, 2022

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Wyoming Life

A Montana police officer spotted the giant banana rolling through Billings on Wednesday afternoon and did what countless law enforcement officers have done before him.

[{"type":"text","text":"He turned around and pulled it over."}]

For Steve Braithwaite, owner, builder and full-time driver of the 23-foot-long Big Banana Car, the stop was less of a surprise than a tradition.

"I would see a police car going the other way and get my documents ready," Braithwaite told Cowboy State Daily from Seattle on Thursday morning. "I knew they were going to loop around and pull me over." 

After 15 years, more than 250,000 miles and enough roadside conversations to fill a produce aisle, Braithwaite has learned that driving a giant banana attracts attention.

[{"type":"text","text":"Especially from cops."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"They always find a reason to pull me over,\" Braithwaite said. "}]

in this case it was an issue with the license plate, but ultimately he was not given a ticket.  

Braithwaite figures he may have spent the better part of a decade as one of the most frequently pulled-over drivers in America.

[{"type":"text","text":"Not for speeding, but simply because he was driving a giant banana."}]

"For the first eight or nine years I was the most pulled-over man in America," he said. "It was constant."

[{"type":"text","text":"Often officers simply wanted photographs."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Other times they invented reasons to start a conversation."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"His favorite stop happened in a small mountain town in West Virginia."}]

A traffic light turned red. Braithwaite stopped. The light turned green and he made a leisurely turn through the intersection.

[{"type":"text","text":"A few moments later, flashing lights appeared behind him."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"A police officer marched up to the banana and delivered the news."}]

"'The reason I pulled you over, that light back there, you peeled out.'"

[{"type":"text","text":"For a moment, Braithwaite didn't know if he was being serious or not."}]

"He said it so straight-faced," Braithwaite recalled. "And I'm like, 'Oh yeah.'"

[{"type":"text","text":"The banana jokes, he said, are \"never-ending.\""}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Fortunately, so are the laughs."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"How It All Started"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"The whole thing began in a gas station in 2008."}]

Braithwaite, a lifelong hot-rod enthusiast, had become bored attending car shows.

Then he watched an episode of the British television show "Top Gear" featuring bizarre custom-built vehicles, including a street-legal garden shed and a drivable couch.

[{"type":"text","text":"For the next month, his brain worked overtime."}]

"Everything I looked at, I thought, 'can I turn that into a car?'" he said. "My drill, my neighbor's lawn mower, everything."

Then one day he found himself standing beside a bowl of fruit in a gas station. 

[{"type":"text","text":"On top sat a banana."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Not the curved cartoon banana he'd always pictured, but a straighter one."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Suddenly, he could see it."}]

"The windshield would go there. The wheels would go there."

[{"type":"text","text":"Then came the moment that changed everything."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"I pictured it driving down the road and died laughing,\" he said."}]

The image captivated him so completely that the checkout line moved without him noticing.

"The lady directly behind me had to tap me on the shoulder," he said. "They must have been thinking, 'Oh my God, is that the first banana he's ever seen?'"

[{"type":"text","text":"His rule was simple."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"If it makes me laugh now, I'm going to do it.\""}]

[{"type":"text","text":"It still made him laugh."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"So he built it."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"What he expected to be a parade novelty became his daily driver."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"The truck beneath the banana has now traveled more than 250,000 miles."}]

"I didn't think I'd be driving it anywhere near as much as I am," he said.

[{"type":"text","text":"Roaming In Wyoming"}]

Braithwaite didn't stop in Wyoming on this trip. He was headed west toward Washington.

[{"type":"text","text":"But Wyoming still occupies an important place in banana history."}]

Several years ago, while crossing the state, the Big Banana Car suddenly died alongside a lonely stretch of highway.

"I hadn't realized the distances between towns," he said. "I was in the middle of nowhere."

Parked beside the highway, luggage scattered around him. He "managed to get it running again."

By then he was running out of time to get to Los Angeles for a TV appearance, so he left in a hurry. 

[{"type":"text","text":"But he says there's a chance he might come back."}]

Braithwaite wants to race the famous Oscar Mayer Wienermobile, and why not in the Rockies?

He has already challenged it, but he says he thinks Kraft won't go for it. 

Sooner or later, he figures, some reporter would ask a dangerous question.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"Instead of which is the quicker vehicle, which is the healthier food?\""}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Then he laughs."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"And they're going to lose that.\""}]

[{"type":"text","text":"World Needs More Whimsy"}]

Casper car enthusiast Tom Morton says he is curious about the drag race with Oscar Mayer's wiener. 

"What's next?" Morton asks, "Asparagus street rods?" Overall, he says "I like it." 

[{"type":"text","text":"What began as a joke has evolved into something larger."}]

Braithwaite recently drove the banana into Mexico, where he was pulled over five times in three days.

[{"type":"text","text":"Every encounter was friendly, he says. "}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Now he's thinking much bigger."}]

His goal is to drive the Big Banana Car through Central America; somehow get it shipped across oceans and eventually circle the globe.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"I just want to keep going,\" he said."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"He's calling the adventure \"The World Needs More Whimsy Grand Tour.\""}]

[{"type":"text","text":"A sign mounted to the back of the vehicle carries the slogan."}]

"The world is dangerously low on whimsy," says the man hoping to make a difference. 

Banana montana highway patrol 6 18 26

<title>Giant Banana Pulled Over in Montana: Driver Says Cops Have Stopped Him 100s Of Times | Cowboy State Daily</title>

For 15 years, Steve Braithwaite has driven a 23-foot banana across the country and, on Wednesday, just like hundreds of times before, he was pulled over by law enforcement. "They always find a reason to pull me over," Braithwaite said.

Giant Banana Pulled Over in Montana: Driver Says Cops Have Stopped Him 100s Of Times

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

Clair McFarland

Crime & Courts

Two people died Wednesday after a two-vehicle crash unfolded in front of Riverton’s Walmart, drawing passersby from both sides of the city’s busiest road, North Federal Boulevard.

[{"type":"text","text":"The crash was reported around 8:15 p.m."}]

A white Dodge pickup with a crunched hood sat on its side in the middle of the road, while the mangled remains of what witnesses said had been a black Jeep sat upright nearly a half-block south of the pickup, on the northbound lane of the road.

Police, emergency medical personnel and the Riverton Volunteer Fire Department converged. People on the scene pulled one man out of the pickup. The man was bleeding.

“I asked him what the year was,” said Trent Hallada, who was walking in the area and felt debris, “possibly” hit his eye when the crash happened. “He couldn’t even say the date and year.”

Two more eyewitnesses, who both declined to be identified by name, said the driver of the pickup sat on the ground while personnel responded, but when the response calmed slightly, he tried to run.

Law enforcement officers tackled him and took him into custody, the two witnesses said.

The Fremont County Coroner’s office also responded with a transport truck. One person, who lay in the middle of the road under a tarp and closer to the black vehicle, was placed into the transport truck. Firefighters held red tarps around the person to shield public view.

The Riverton Police Department announced in a Thursday statement that “both occupants of one of the vehicles had serious injuries;” one was pronounced dead one the scene, and the second was taken to SageWest Health Care, “where they succumbed to their injuries.”

The RPD statement doesn’t describe the two different vehicles, calling them “one of the vehicles” and “the other vehicle.” But the statement, coupled with witness interviews, indicates that two people were in the black vehicle, and have both now died.

And the driver of the pickup was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence and vehicular homicide, plus other related offenses, the statement indicates when coupled with witness interviews.

RPD concluded its statement with a request for anyone with information on the wreck to call 307-856-4891.

Riverton crash 6 18 26

<title>Two Dead, One Tackled And Arrested in Riverton Crash | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Two people died Wednesday evening after a two-vehicle crash unfolded in front of Riverton’s Walmart. Law enforcement officers tackled a suspect who was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence and vehicular homicide.

Two Dead, One Tackled And Arrested in Riverton Crash

Courts

A 12-person Laramie County jury found former South Cheyenne Water and Sewer District General Manager Dena Hansen guilty Wednesday of stealing about $350,000 from the district over nearly a decade.

A Laramie County District Court clerk confirmed Hansen's conviction on a single felony theft count. The verdict form was not publicly available Wednesday afternoon.

The case centered on allegations that about $350,000 was diverted from the South Cheyenne Water and Sewer District between 2014 and 2024 while Hansen oversaw its finances.

For years, the amounts were small enough to disappear into a stack of utility bills.

[{"type":"text","text":"A few hundred dollars one month. A little more the next."}]

Some was cash handed across a counter by customers paying water bills. Checks sometimes sat for days before clearing. Deposit slips appeared to tell different stories, depending on which copy investigators examined.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Familiar Face"}]

According to court records, Hansen worked for the district for more than 30 years.

Employees told investigators she was deeply involved in the district's day-to-day financial operations.

She handled deposits, interacted with customers, and maintained broad control over money moving through the office, says an affidavit of probable cause. 

The district serves customers south of Cheyenne, collecting monthly payments from residents and businesses for water and sewer service.

Those payments arrived in different forms — checks, cash and money orders — and for years appeared to move through the office without raising significant alarms.

After concerns arose about district finances in 2024, the South Cheyenne Water and Sewer District hired forensic accounting firm Jacobson and Associates to review years of records.

That review ultimately identified what investigators alleged were hundreds of thousands of dollars in missing funds.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Two Deposit Slips"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"One of the recurring details in the affidavit involved deposit slips."}]

Investigators alleged Hansen prepared bank deposits using duplicate deposit forms.

The yellow copies retained by the district frequently showed larger amounts than the white copies submitted to the bank -- a discrepancy that became a focus of the investigation.

In one section of the affidavit, investigators wrote that deposit slips appeared to have been altered using correction fluid before being delivered to the bank.

The records described instances where the amount recorded on the district's copy did not match the amount ultimately deposited.

Investigators concluded cash had been removed from deposits before they reached district accounts.

The affidavit further alleged that checks were sometimes substituted for missing cash to make deposit totals appear balanced.

Employees told investigators the district did not begin accepting online payments until October 2021.

According to witness statements summarized in the affidavit, Hansen opposed implementing online payment options.

Several employees reportedly told investigators they never understood why online payments were resisted.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Customers Complaints"}]

The investigation also uncovered complaints from customers who noticed something unusual.

Some customers contacted the district wondering why their checks had not cleared their bank accounts.

Investigators said those reports suggested certain checks were being held before being deposited, notes the affidavit. 

The delays became one of many small pieces investigators later compared against deposit records and customer payments.

Employees interviewed during the investigation described Hansen as the person primarily responsible for deposits.

Several told investigators they did not routinely transport deposits to the bank themselves.

[{"type":"text","text":"Others reported that Hansen sometimes took deposits home overnight."}]

The affidavit notes that employees said deposits occasionally left the office with Hansen.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Cash Trail "}]

The affidavit details a review of personal banking records belonging to Hansen and her husband.

According to investigators, bank records showed approximately $242,573.88 in cash deposits into personal accounts between 2014 and 2024.

Most of those occurred during the same years investigators identified substantial shortages in district deposits.

The accounting review attempted to compare money missing from district accounts with cash appearing elsewhere.

Month after month, investigators charted shortages ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars.

[{"type":"text","text":"Some months showed no shortages at all."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Others showed significant discrepancies."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Over time, investigators alleged, the missing amounts accumulated."}]

Forensic accountants identified approximately $263,934.73 in missing funds between 2017 and 2024.

A review of earlier records, covering July 2014 through June 2017, identified an additional estimated $96,000 in missing deposits.

Combined, investigators concluded roughly $350,000 had disappeared from district accounts.

The investigation eventually grew into a criminal case supported by years of financial records, employee interviews, and forensic accounting analyses.

When prosecutors filed the felony theft charge, the resulting affidavit stretched across dozens of pages detailing deposit records, customer payments and banking activity dating to 2014.

A 12-person jury heard the case during a trial that began June 8.

A sentencing date had not been announced as of Wednesday afternoon. Under Wyoming law, felony theft is punishable by up to 10 years in prison, a fine of up to $10,000, or both.

Dena Hansen and Cheyenne green sign IMG 6015 6 17 26

<title>Jury Finds Former Cheyenne Water Manager Guilty Of Stealing $350K Over A Decade | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A Laramie County jury on Wednesday found the former manager of the South Cheyenne Water and Sewer District guilty of stealing about $350,000 from district accounts over a decade. For years, the amounts were small enough to disappear into a stack of utility bills. She faces up to 10 years in prison.

Jury Finds Former Cheyenne Water Manager Guilty Of Stealing $350K Over A Decade

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's Feature Reporter, Andrew Rossi.

Andrew Rossi

Business

Agriculture

There's a big bee emergency in Yellowstone National Park after a semi-truck carrying dozens of beehives crashed Tuesday.

Dalton Broadus of West Yellowstone, Montana, was driving north along U.S. Highway 191 around 9 a.m. Tuesday when he drove past the scene.

Damaged and destroyed beehives were scattered across a quarter-mile stretch of road. Bees were swarming his vehicle, several tow trucks and a Yellowstone ambulance were at the scene, and someone in a beekeeping suit was already assessing the area.

“It happened about an hour before I got there, I believe,” Broadus said.

The Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office, Hebgen Basin Fire/EMS, the Montana Department of Transportation, and the Montana Department of Agriculture responded to the scene.

James Peterson, dispatch manager for Eaton Road Solutions, told Cowboy State Daily his company received a call from the National Park Service to recover the flipped semi-truck. He wasn’t sure what caused the accident.

“We brought three recovery trucks and two traffic-control trucks from Idaho Falls,” he said. “It took us about three hours to get it back up.”

Peterson said Eaton’s crews were heading back to the scene Wednesday night to start recovering the damaged hives and, hopefully, the bees that had been residing inside.

“We’ve been working one-on-one with the company (that owns the hives), and they’re trying to save what they can,” he said.

The crews will require bee suits while on the scene. Fortunately, Eaton already had some at the ready.

“We haven’t dealt much with bees,” Peterson said. “This was our second bee call in 15 years, and we still have the beekeeping suits we got for the first call."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Bee Catastrophe"}]

After viewing Broadus’s video, Cheyenne venture capitalist and beekeeper Michael Jordan said that, from what he could see, the incident was “a devastating loss” for all involved.

“From the way it looks. I’d think about 40 to 50 percent of what’s there is salvageable, maybe,” he said. “It’s a big dump across a long section, so I’d say they’ve got a three-day ordeal ahead of them.”

According to Jordan, an average honey box can hold between 75,000 and 125,000 bees. Each box costs around $500 and generates $2,000 in profit from honey production.

A semi-truck like the one that crashed can carry 250 to 500 honey boxes, and potentially double that if they’re trying to save space.

[{"type":"text","text":"“There could be up to 1,000 of those boxes in one load,” he said."}]

That’s easily millions of bees and hundreds of thousands of dollars lost in Yellowstone.

Jordan has been involved in similar incidents. He helped coordinate a salvage effort after a beehive-carrying semi-truck was involved in an incident on I-80 near Arlington.

“The first four hours are critical,” he said. “The truck drivers, the insurance company, and the owners of the colonies have to work together and approve everything. Somebody on-site is going to be the manager, and they’ll figure out how to fix the problem, so there’s a lot of communication that needs to happen.”

In this incident, all parties will have to coordinate with the Park Service. They’ll need to have a lot of input, given the accident happened in Yellowstone, and fines could be assessed.

“When your boat sinks in Glendale Lake, they charge you for littering, not to mention salvage,” Jordan said. “It’s going to be a pretty big loss, and that’s just the property damage. The owners will need approval from the insurance companies, and then there’s whatever liability the trucking company will have with the NPS. If the mitigation takes too long, they could lose everything."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Bee Recovery"}]

Jordan wasn’t sure how the NPS would manage a 500-hive bee recovery in Yellowstone.

In a high-traffic area, such as a highway through Yellowstone during the summer, the first step in a successful recovery might be to call the fire department, he said. That’s potentially the worst-case scenario for the bees and the beekeepers, but the quickest solution for the NPS.

“If the bees are deemed a hazard to traffic, the fire department might go ahead and foam the whole area,” Jordan said. “That kills everything in the area, but you can go in and clear everything out without having to close down the highway.”

As for the bees, Jordan said everyone involved in the salvage operation must make critical moves within 48 hours. That’s how long they have before the surviving bees move on.

“The queens are going to be looking for locations where they feel safe,” he said. “If you can’t get new hives set up in 48 hours, the queens will migrate and leave a pheromone trail that the bees accommodating her in that hive will follow.”

Tracking down and individually placing the queens in new or rebuilt honey boxes is the best strategy, assuming the surviving queens can be located. Otherwise, there might be a big bee population in northwest Yellowstone.

“If the queens are in Yellowstone, they’re going to migrate into Yellowstone’s forests,” he said. “You can prevent that if you find the queens and put them in individual hives, but you have 48 hours to do it.”

When Jordan helped salvage the scene near Arlington, they successfully recovered 70% of the bees that had been on the semi-truck. They accomplished this by quickly setting up new honey boxes in a safe spot near the scene.

“Bees are very communal,” he said. “They work on a swarm mentality, and they can migrate and integrate into a new colony pretty easily. Once the new housing is set up, they’ll typically migrate to those locations within 24 hours.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Busy As Bees"}]

Jordan imagines the companies that owned the damaged honey boxes are coordinating a large response and rushing new housing to the scene.

“I’d say salvaging those colonies and hives will be a three-day ordeal, working 18 hours a day,” he said. “It depends on who’s managing the cleanup. The owners will want to keep as much product as they can, and there are many factors that go into that.”

That already complicated and urgent effort will likely become even more complex, given that it all needs to happen within a national park. The NPS might implement its own strategy to ensure the safety of visitors, traffic and the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem.

, a Yellowstone spokesperson said there were no reported injuries.

"Although the highway remains open, expect delays and traffic control measures as cleanup and mitigation work continue at the site of the accident,” the statement reads.

Broadus had the same takeaway from the incident as he’s had for years driving that 55-mph section of road in Yellowstone's northwest corner: slow down.

“I’m surprised there aren’t more accidents like this,” he said. “I drive from West Yellowstone every day during the summer. People speed quite a bit and pass within tight margins of oncoming traffic. They need to slow down.”

A semitruck carrying millions of honeybees flipped over on U.S. Highway 191 in Yellowstone National Park on Tuesday. Cheyenne beekeeper Michael Jordan called the scene "a devastating loss" of hundreds of thousands of dollars to the owners of the bees.

You Still Here? Monday, October 31, 2022

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