One More For The Road

[{"type":"text","text":"Nothing more relaxing than an afternoon bike ride..."}]

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

<title>One More For The Road: Monday, August 14, 2023 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Nothing more relaxing than an afternoon bike ride...

One More For The Road: Monday, August 14, 2023

 Nothing more relaxing than an afternoon bike ride...

Kerry Drake

Wyoming Life

Around Wyoming

Cheyenne’s new vehicle noise ordinance was unanimously passed by the City Council to stop obnoxious motorists who drive their loud cars, trucks and motorcycles late at night, disrupting people’s sleep.

 soon after it went on the books in late September was auto mechanic Geno Stecks, who was driving a fairly unassuming 2006 Subaru with a modified muffler. 

It also wasn’t in the middle of the night or in a residential section of the capital city. Stecks said it was on a main thoroughfare at the intersection of East Lincolnway and Hugur Avenue at 2:45 in the afternoon.

“Communists. Control freaks!” is how Stecks responded when asked what he thought about the City Council members who approved the ordinance after many people opposed it during public testimony at three council meetings.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"He Wasn’t Speeding"}]

Stecks was on the job when he got busted, transporting auto parts for FM Automotive when he heard the police siren.

He told the officer that he didn’t think he’d been speeding, but was informed the stop was made because of excessive noise.

This how the encounter went, according to Stecks:

“I couldn’t hear my radio for your exhaust,” the officer told him.

“I said, ‘Turn your volume knob up,’” Stecks said he replied. "I couldn’t hear my exhaust because of my radio, because I’ve got a kick-ass stereo in it.”

In hindsight, Stecks said he’s since though of some other creative responses.

“I wish I had told him, ‘What are you going to tell the Hells Angels if they come roaring through town? Are you going to pull them over and cite them for having too loud exhaust? You probably wouldn’t live through it,’” said the bearded Stecks, wearing a T-shirt that depicted a full mug with the word “Beer – It’s What’s for Dinner.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Too Few Tickets"}]

A spokesperson for the Cheyenne Police Department said that after Stecks broke the ice as the first to be ticketed for driving too loudly, 43 other motorists were given noise violation citations in 2025, and 33 more so far this year.

Even those are way too few, said a council member who supported the noise ordinance.

“They should be writing 300 or 400,” said City Council Vice President Pete Laybourn. “The problem is immense, and I’m very disappointed with how it’s being handled. The ordinance hasn’t been effective at all.”

Laybourn said residents are purposely modifying their mufflers and making noise in all parts of the city, at all hours day and night, and also deliberately speeding.

“They tried to disrupt Friday Night at the Plaza last week, driving up Capitol (Avenue) and backfiring,” he said. “It was really, really bad.”

City Council President Tom Segrave was one of several councilmen who brought up the issue last summer because ​he was getting so many complaints from Cheyenne residents about excessive noise from motorists.

“I live off Yellowstone Road, and I can tell you it’s quite a sight to see a pack of people riding these loud little motorcycles down Yellowstone at night, often up until 1 a.m., popping wheelies,” Segrave said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Too Early To Tell"}]

He said it’s too early to know if the ordinance is making a difference. 

Segrave said he hasn’t been receiving complaints, but figures that will change during the summer when more people have their windows open.

The main difference between the new ordinance and a previous one is that it allows a police officer to use his or her judgment about whether a vehicle is too loud. 

The former regulation required a meter to be used at least 25 feet away, which Segrave said made it unenforceable.

Stecks said he paid the $100 fine, which would be increased to $200 if he breaks the ordinance again within a year. 

Possible jail time is on the books for a third offense, plus a $500 fine, but City Attorney John Brodie told Cowboy State Daily when the ordinance was passed last year that it’s 

“If anything, jail is maybe an imposed part of the sentence that would then be suspended,” he said.

“People told me, ‘You could have fought this,’” Steck said. “I said I’d be in worse trouble because I would have ended up in jail after I told the judge and the court how crooked they are. 

"There would have been F-bombs involved. When you’re a mechanic, F-bombs are the terminology of the trade.”

The ordinance requires all vehicles driven within city limits to be equipped with a muffler. It prohibits vehicles that bypass or cut out their mufflers to be louder and those that create “excessive smoke.”

Stecks said he agrees with the idea that people who drive small motorcycles known as “crotch rockets” up and down the street after 10 p.m. need to be ticketed. 

But he emphasized, “Not drivers who are just doing their job in the middle of the day.”

He said it would have made more sense if he’d received a ticket for a machine that he knows is really noisy: a fast 1931 Model A rat rod named “Clyde” that he built several years ago. 

Several of Stecks’ co-workers smiled and nodded their heads as he said this, because they know exactly how loud Clyde can be cranked it up.

Stecks said his main problem with the ordinance is that it relies on a police officer to make a judgment call about how loud the noise is.

“They need to measure it,” he said. “That’s the only way they should ever do this.”

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<title>Meet The First Driver To Get A Ticket Under Cheyenne’s New Noise Ordinance | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Mechanic Geno Stecks got the first ticket under Cheyenne’s new noise ordinance while delivering a car part in the middle of the day. When the officer told him he couldn't hear his radio because of the exhaust, Stecks said, "Turn your volume knob up."

Meet The First Driver To Get A Ticket Under Cheyenne’s New Noise Ordinance

Dave Simpson

Opinion

CSD Columnists

 up high in the Snowy Range in Carbon County?

Cowboy State Daily did a couple swell stories about them last summer, and their progress building a cabin at 9,800 feet, with no heavy equipment, and at a combined age of 148 (both 74).

They met 57 years ago, on the eighth floor of Orr Hall at the University of Wyoming, and they've been friends ever since. One was an engineering major, the other didn't know what the heck he wanted to be. They've been friends since September of 1969.

Well, I'm one of those guys. And the cabin project came out of hibernation two weeks ago, our third summer on the job. Our combined age this year: 150.

The good news is that we had a mild winter (not even enough snow to knock down a chimney), and we got in two weeks earlier than normal this year.

The bad news was high winds knocked down a lot of trees, and the folks who got in first had to do plenty of chainsaw work to clear the road.

in the early 1980s, when neither of us had any money, using the smallest chainsaw Homelite made to cut up logs for the walls. And now, 45 years later, I'm helping him build his cabin on his land next door.

Two summers ago we cleared land that's about 90 percent boulders and rocks, and 10 percent sand and dirt. You dig with a pry bar up there, not a shovel. We used about 120 bags of concrete mix to pour footings, then built the floor structure out of box beams, joists, and OSB (like plywood).

Last summer we put up walls, built trusses at roof level (no heavy equipment to lift them up), and tilted them into place. Then our sons arrived to help put up the roof sheathing and install a metal roof.

This year we're building interior walls, tacking up house wrap, cutting out openings and installing windows and doors. And there's a heavy wood stove to haul in some week I'm hoping to be elsewhere.

(My old friend didn't plan to put in a fireplace, but you can't have a mountain cabin without a wood stove. Not possible. He relented.)

Most exciting, we now have a Starlink dish up on his roof, and total internet access. Never thought I'd see that.

Unfortunately, I'm what they call a “hangar queen” in aviation:

torn Achilles, prostatectomy, four-disc cervical spine surgery - nothing attributable to the cabin work. Through it all, I figured I'd need summers off, recuperating.

But, the great docs around here have managed to get me back in shape for construction seasons twice now, even just 12 weeks after complicated neck surgery.

As they say in Laramie, I'm “back in the game,” but in a reduced role, a “gofer” finding lost tools, driving to Laramie to get stuff, cooking, and the guy who calls 911 if something awful happens.

When those stories appeared in Cowboy State Daily last year, there were a lot of comments on Facebook about “being as young as you think,” and “of course” you can keep building cabins at 148 years old. “Who says you can't do that when you're 74?” someone asked.

But, in the process, we've both gotten a greater appreciation for why most 75 year olds won't be working on cabins at high altitude this summer. We agree that we couldn't do the digging and concrete work today that we did just two years ago, at a naive, youthful combined age of 146.

We have more respect for the ravages of age now, and thank our stars that at 150, we're doing interior work, not mixing concrete and putting up roof trusses.

[{"type":"text","text":"As Walter Cronkite used to say, “And that's the way it is.”"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"So far, so good, for the geezer-built cabin way up in the mountains."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Let's hope, like previous years, nobody has to call 911."}]

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<title>Dave Simpson: Those Two Old Guys Are At It Again | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Columnist Dave Simpson writes, "Remember those two old guys building a cabin up high in the Snowy Range? Well, I'm one of those guys. The cabin project came out of hibernation two weeks ago, our third summer on the job. Our combined age this year: 150."

Dave Simpson: Those Two Old Guys Are At It Again

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

Andrew Rossi

Josh Rathbun was working in Riverside Cemetery in Thermopolis when he spotted and saved a renegade Russian tortoise.

Rathbun was on his lunch break Thursday when he spotted something under one of his employees’ trucks.

“I saw something moving,” he said. “I figured it was just a rabbit or a squirrel or something, but it was too slow. I looked a little harder, and it was a tortoise.”

The last native Wyoming tortoise died millions of years ago, so Rathbun knew he was dealing with a tortoise on the lam. He picked up the tiny tortoise, which was less than six inches long, and gave it a safe space to munch on some lettuce.

“I brought it into the shop and made a makeshift enclosure for it,” he said. “I gave it some food and water. It didn’t really want any water but mowed down on that lettuce pretty good.”

At the same time, Rathbun posted about the missing tortoise on Facebook. He was hoping its owner would realize their tortoise had escaped and would bring it home.

Many people eagerly expressed a desire to adopt the tiny tortoise should the owner fail to claim it. Almost a week later, there’s been no word from the owner.

“I heard someone say a lady lost a tortoise by the cemetery, but I haven’t gotten any messages,” he said. “I’m hoping someone didn’t abandon it, because that’s not cool.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Life In The Slow Lane"}]

While there are no wild species in Wyoming, tortoises are popular pets in the Cowboy State. Large ones, especially, are sought-after animals that can be a lot of trouble.

Many Wyomingites own sulcata tortoises, the third-largest tortoise species in the world. With enough food and space, a sulcata can reach 250 pounds, 30 inches in length, and live over 100 years.

Based on its size and shape, the tortoise Rathbun found was a Central Asian, or Russian, tortoise. They’re less than a foot long and stay under 3 pounds when fully grown and can live up to 50 years.

That said, even small tortoises have big personalities and tend to shape their world to their liking. That makes tortoises surprisingly adept escape artists.

Thermopolis resident Lindsey Reed told Cowboy State Daily that two of her Russian tortoises have escaped from her yard. One dug a 4-foot tunnel under her fence, and another followed it through. 

. "If you have something they want, or if they have a destination in mind, they can move pretty quickly, and it can be easy to lose track of them."

In October 2024, Wapiti resident and reptile breeder Sean Cooper received a call that his male sulcata tortoise, "Sheldon", had been found wandering through the sagebrush 

. That was Sheldon’s third escape since Cooper had owned him.

“He's escaped once in Florida and twice here,” Cooper said. “It blows my mind how far he had gone and how much he’d gone through. He crawled uphill through (the sagebrush) and did not stop. It was quite amazing.”

"Sweet Pea" is a sulcata tortoise living in Cody. In July 2024, he 

 and was found several blocks away, munching on someone's front lawn and hissing at anyone who tried to approach.

"He will take care of himself," said Sweet Pea's owner, Sabrina Hanson. "If there's something in my yard that he doesn't like, it will be moved. Lawn furniture ends up out in the yard if they're not where he wants them, and he's dumped over our grill before."

Sometimes, tortoises can become prisoners of their own determined wandering.

In October 2025, a sulcata tortoise in Worland almost died after being 

. The fire started when the tortoise knocked over its own heat lamp.

Fortunately, the Worland Fire Department was able to suppress the fire and save the trapped tortoise. It survived with minor injuries.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Lifelong Commitment"}]

According to Rathbun, the Russian tortoise he found is in good hands. It is now in a foster home that could become its forever home, as it has everything a tortoise needs.

“A lady in town had a tortoise that recently died of old age, so she already had the enclosure,” he said. “She wanted it and was the perfect person to have it.”

With no word from the owner, Rathbun and others are wondering where this tortoise came from. The worst-case scenario is that someone abandoned their tortoise to die.

“I heard that someone had released a tortoise by the Bighorn River, but I don’t think this is the same one,” he said.

Many people underestimate how care-intensive a tortoise can be. Cooper said even the world’s largest tortoise species start out as "golf ball-sized babies” that quickly grow much larger than an uninformed owner might anticipate.

"People don’t realize how much of a responsibility they really are once they start to get huge," he said. "They require a lot of space to roam, and you have to build an escape-proof area with enough space to keep them happy.”

, a single Russian tortoise needs a 4-by-4-foot space rich in grasses, spurges, and other plants for grazing.

While many people feed their tortoises lettuce, their primary diet should be alfalfa, hay or other grasses to ensure healthy growth. Fruits and vegetables should be an occasional treat.

Tortoises also need dirt and heat. They’re instinctive burrowers and, because they’re cold-blooded reptiles, require a constant source of heat.

Fortunately, the renegade tortoise found in Riverside Cemetery has found a perfect home in Thermopolis. An experienced owner will know how to deal with its destructive tendencies and oversized personality.

“They’re amazing animals,” Cooper said, “But when they’re determined, they will not stop."

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<title>‘I Saw Something Moving’: Renegade Russian Tortoise Found In Thermopolis Cemetery | Cowboy State Daily</title>

So far, nobody’s claimed a renegade Russian tortoise found wandering around in Thermopolis's Riverside Cemetery. “I’m hoping someone didn’t abandon it, because that’s not cool,” said the cemetery worker who found it when he “saw something moving."

‘I Saw Something Moving’: Renegade Russian Tortoise Found In Thermopolis Cemetery

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

Renée Jean

Business & Tourism

Business

CHEYENNE — America is in a digital arms race right now with other countries, Gov. Mark Gordon told construction workers during a tour of the 

data center site this past week, and Wyoming can be part of winning that race.

“We need to have AI, we need to own that property,” he said. “We need to make sure that our data is better, stronger, and more efficient than anywhere else. You all are the vanguard of that, and I say, God bless you.”

Wind gusts punctuated the governor’s hard-hat tour of Related Digital’s facility on Thursday, kicking up little dust devils as Gordon and Cheyenne Mayor Patrick Collins walked to and from the rapidly rising concrete walls for the data center. 

Work is nearing completion on the first 184,000-square-foot phase of the campus, which is expected to be finished in late 2026. 

The tour was an opportunity for an inside look at how this $1.2 billion data center will operate, as far as fire suppression, energy use, and water cooling. 

It was also a chance for Gordon and Collins to talk about things like affordable housing, worker training, and opportunities that can keep Wyoming youths at home.

Related’s Cheyenne campus will ultimately deliver up to 420 megawatts of computational capacity for its client, CoreWeave, and they claim will generate more than $250 million in tax revenue for Cheyenne over its first 15 years of operation. 

Gordon said Related Digital is offering a model for how data centers can and should be built in Wyoming. 

“What Related has done here is absolutely astounding,” Gordon said. “I used to work for an oil and gas company, and I have a ranch, and I’ve tried to bring that same philosophy to it, too.

“But you have demonstrated it here, and that’s do the right thing, do it the right way, and do it right away.”

One challenge Wyoming faces will be affordable housing.

“One of the things that’s really important is that if you’re going to get educated, and if you’re going to have a job, we want to make sure you have a place to live that you can afford,” Gordon said. “And that’s something I know that (Cheyenne) Mayor (Patrick Collins) has put a tremendous amount of effort into.”

For Gordon and Collins, the real test of projects like Related’s won’t be just the servers humming on the prairie, but whether the jobs and housing they help create give more Wyoming families a reason — and a way— to stay in Wyoming.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"How The Power Flows"}]

A member of the Related Digital team explained how power leaves the Black Hills substation, disappearing underground in buried lines that have been tucked safely away from the wind, before rising again into two massive switchboards that feed the front and back halves of the data halls. 

Traditionally, the electrical “guts” of a data center have been assembled on site, the employee added. 

But to speed the process along, Related’s gear was built off-site and shipped in fully formed blocks. That’s allowing contractors to set and wire everything more quickly.

Such speed-to-market tactics are what the market demands right now in the race to build out a massive surge in artificial intelligence and data centers.

Row upon row of batteries stand quiet but ready outside the building. They can provide about seven minutes of battery time.

If the power dips or there’s an outage, those batteries take the load instantly while it’s passed along to backup generators. 

This approach ensures a constant flow of power to Related’s servers, which are running 24-7. 

Black Hills Energy will deliver power to Related under Wyoming’s large-load tariff, which has been designed to ensure data center companies are paying 100% of their costs, including the infrastructure required to serve them.

From there the tour filed into the Related Digital Facility itself. 

A huge concrete wall swallowed tiny humans whole and the sound of blustery wind was replaced with the light and easy hum of machinery. 

Inside the facility, the tour stopped near a wall of fans and coils which are an integral part of keeping the facility at an even 73 degrees. 

“The racks are laid out kind of perpendicular to where we are,” a Related Digital employee explained. “Each of those racks has a chimney system taking the hot air out.”

The air chillers work in combination with a closed-loop, direct-to-chip, liquid cooling system, which soaks up heat directly at the source and moves it to a heat exchanger. 

“We use the environment of Cheyenne, which has some colder temperature throughout the year,” an employee explained. “The evolution of these (systems) has gotten significantly more energy-efficient. 

"That overall kind of allows us to build a closed system and run a highly efficient animal.”

As long as the closed-loop system is kept tight and filled, there’s essentially no ongoing makeup water required, he added. 

“It’s basically set as soon as this is put in place,” he said. “It’s like your car radiator. If it’s leaking, you have a problem. Otherwise, you’re set.”

Magnetic-bearing compressors help the chillers remain efficient even when temperatures outside climb above the optimal 70 degrees. 

Those compressors will work harder, but remain highly efficient, thanks to advanced technology.

Related’s approach is about four times more efficient than past approaches, which allows the company to run its server racks more densely, creating more computing power per square foot.

Fire Protection For Billion-Dollar Building

Fire safety is not an afterthought at a facility like a data center. The strategy there focuses heavily on mitigating risk, while avoiding water damage. 

“All of our systems are pre-action systems,” a fire protection expert explained, which will remain dry under normal conditions.

A box on the wall constantly sniffs at the air to detect smoke. Only when both air sampling detection and other triggers align will water finally surge into the pipes through sprinkler heads.

That helps prevent accidental deluges on millions of dollars of sensitive equipment. 

Separate pods throughout the facility, meanwhile, each have their own shutoff valves, so that an incident in one area doesn’t necessarily have to knock the entire building offline. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Not Just Jobs, Careers"}]

It wasn’t all about the building during the tour. Gordon and Collins also had panel discussions with employees of various contractors to talk about how they came to be part of the project, as well as what kind of training was required.

One worker talked about bringing his son into the trade, and having him help with side projects and shop work, to help him learn a skill that could keep him in Wyoming.

That was a point that particularly interested both Gordon and Collins. 

Wyoming, Gordon said, has invested heavily in career and technical education (CTE), in an effort to give high school students and community college enrollees a head start on apprenticeships and technical credentials.

Staffing the projects has been a challenge, a different employee noted but, those who do come to Cheyenne are often finding there’s plenty of work to keep them in Cheyenne long-term.

Brad Harless, for example, originally came to Cheyenne to work on Microsoft data centers.

“They kept sending me to Cheyenne for work,” he said.

So he just decided to move to the area and stay.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Miles Of Pipe"}]

Related Digital broke ground in October and has since installed about 80,000 feet of chiller pipes, 40,000 feet of medium-voltage conduits to feed the data center power, which is 111 football fields long, according to Related Companies CEO Jeff Blau. 

There’s another 21,000 linear feet of underground utility pipe going in, which is 90% complete.

All of that work has been done by Wyoming businesses and Wyoming workers. 

“That’s exactly why I feel good standing here with the governor and saying that I believe this project lives up to the principles you outlined in your executive order,” Blau said. 

“The governor laid out a vision for attracting investment and creating jobs, while protecting Wyoming’s water and natural resources, respecting local communities and ensuring growth creates lasting benefits to the state,” he added.

The closed-loop system and high-efficiency air chillers mean water use will be on the order of a standard office building, said Blau.

“We’re very proud of that responsible approach,” he said. “The executive order also talks about protecting ratepayers. This project pays the full cost of the energy infrastructure it requires and then some. 

"We’re investing more than $20 million to purchase a new transformer and expand the existing substation to service this data center.”

That investment bolsters the overall energy grid in the region, and will help protect ratepayers from future cost increases.

“Gov. Gordon’s order also talks about workforce growth and opportunity,” Blau said. “Just look around this tent. We have over 400 construction workers today, and we’ll have more than 700 at peak. 

"We’re going to need another tent. Continuing to invest in infrastructure and development enables workers to have careers, not just temporary jobs.”

Related is also going the extra mile, Blau added, by contributing to organizations like Wyoming food banks and supporting regional and cultural events like Cheyenne Frontier Days. 

They’ve also made a $3.5 million commitment for affordable housing in Cheyenne, something Blau said he’s particularly proud of doing. 

“Related is building and preserving a part of Cheyenne where there’s a true need for affordable housing,” he said. “Since the very beginning, Mayor Collins and the governor provided the leadership and partnership to make this project possible. 

"That’s not to say every step has been easy. They’ve held us accountable to make sure we live up to each of these promises.”

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<title>Inside The $1.2 Billion Data Center Campus Being Built In Cheyenne | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Work is nearing completion on the first 184,000-square-foot phase of the Related Digital data center campus in Cheyenne, which is expected to be finished in late 2026. The company says because of its closed-loop system, there’s no ongoing water required.

Inside The $1.2 Billion Data Center Campus Being Built In Cheyenne

Jen kocher

Jen Kocher

A detective was about to fly to Wisconsin to arrest the lead suspect in the 32-year cold case of a woman whose nude body was dumped along I-80 when he got the news the suspect was dead. The woman's time in Wyoming led to the breakthrough in the case.

One More For The Road: Monday, August 14, 2023

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