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

<title>You Still Here? Monday, August 14, 2023 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

You Still Here? Monday, August 14, 2023

 Remember, using commonsense while shooting off fireworks is only for wimps...

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

Andrew Rossi

Wyoming Life

Around Wyoming

A Laramie County family has recovered from the shellshock of finding a cannonball buried in their backyard.

There was a leak in the well on the Johnsons’ property in Laramie County. As the contractor they hired to fix it was digging into the ground, Shamayam Coleman noticed something odd half-buried nearby.

“It was sticking out of the ground on the path leading to my mother’s house,” she told Cowboy State Daily. “I didn't know what it was, but it looked like it could have been an ordinance.”

[{"type":"text","text":"When Coleman told her mother, Nina Johnson, she “freaked out.”"}]

“I googled pictures of cannonballs, and it looked like a cannonball to me, so I called the Laramie County Sheriff’s Department,” Johnson said.

Members of the Cheyenne Police Bomb Squad/ Laramie County Sheriff’s Office joint explosive ordinance disposal unit (EOD) came ready to dispose of the ordinance. Fortunately, their full skills weren’t needed.

“It was solid inside, so they decided not to detonate it,” Johnson said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Always A Threat"}]

Whenever there’s a suspicious and possibly explosive item discovered, law enforcement agencies don’t take any chances. 

They deploy whatever and whoever’s needed to assess the situation and safely dispose of the object, whether it’s 

an unexpectedly excavated training device

Cannonballs might seem inert, but they can still be deadly after centuries underground. In 2006, a Virginia man was killed by a 75-pound Civil War-era naval cannonball.

That’s one of the hits Johnson found when she searched for cannonballs online. Recognizing the potential danger, she didn’t take any chances.

“I don’t want a cannonball,” she said. “I found the number, and the Laramie County Sheriff’s Office responded.”

First, the deputies used a bomb-sniffing canine to assess the situation. 

The canine would alert them if there was any gunpowder or chemicals, indicating that the cannonball might be explosive.

Most people think of cannonballs as solid projectiles, but some Civil War-era round shot was designed to carry explosive charges with complex fuses. 

Naval ordinance was designed to be waterproof, so it could theoretically still explode after being buried underground for a century.

Cheyenne isn’t a naval hub, but it does have a military history going back to the mid-1800s. However, Johnson and Coleman still don’t have an explanation for why there was a cannonball on their land.

“I don’t think this was a location, historically, for the kind of cannonballs that had explosives in them,” Coleman said. “Some people think it was like a steel mill ball or railroad bearing, but I'm not an expert in that.”

Johnson said the EOD team told her the cannonball was the type used for “destroying buildings or walls,” but didn’t have an explanation for why it was buried on her property.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"No Harm, No Foul"}]

After the bomb-sniffing canine made a pass at the cannonball, the EOD team used a machine to X-ray it. They discovered there was nothing to be concerned about.

“They determined that it was solid on the inside, and therefore it wouldn't detonate it or anything like that,” Johnson said.

So, the EOD team dug up the cannonball, and that was that. Johnson let them take it as a strange souvenir.

“They wanted it, and it’s in their line of work, so I let them take it with them,” she said. “I couldn’t imagine what my daughter was going to do with a cannonball.”

Coleman wished her mother had consulted with her before giving the cannonball away.

“I wanted the cannonball, so my friends told me I should get a metal detector and start finding things,” she said. “We haven’t lived here very long, so who knows what else we’ll find.”

Contact Andrew Rossi at andrew@cowboystatedaily.com

Cannonball and sign 6 7 26

<title>Laramie County Family Finds Half-Buried Cannonball In Their Yard, Mom Gives It Away | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A family in Laramie County was trying to fix their well when they discovered a half-buried cannonball in their yard. After being told it was non-explosive by a bomb squad, the mother decided to give it away, much to the dismay of her son.

Laramie County Family Finds Half-Buried Cannonball In Their Yard, Mom Gives It Away

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

Outdoors

Wildlife

Ripping apart supposedly "bear-resistant” containers must be a grizzly’s dream job, and that’s their main gig at the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center in West Yellowstone, Montana.

The center, which focuses on long-term care for animals that cannot go back to the wild, occasionally lets bears obliterate fake campsites too.

Tourists gawk while the grizzlies devour food that’s been carelessly left out, stomp a tent into the ground and otherwise have the time of their lives.

And it’s all for a good cause – to teach visitors what not to do while camping in grizzly country, and what can happen if they ignore the rules.

About two decades ago, the U.S. Geological Survey’s Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team reached out to the center, asking if the grizzlies there could test "bear-resistant” containers, such as garbage cans and coolers.

The center was happy to oblige. Companies pay to have their products 

The center’s staff puts food inside containers that manufacturers tout as “bear resistant” (there’s really no such thing as 100 % bear proof).

Using a combination of their cleverness and brute strength, the grizzlies starkly demonstrate just how “bear resistant” each product is.

It keeps the bears busy, Tut Fuentevilla, the center’s education department curator, told Cowboy State Daily.

“We test about 100 containers every summer,” he said.

On occasion, usually during major holidays such as Memorial Day and the Fourth of July, the center puts on its campsite demonstration.

“Basically, the idea is we try to re-create a careless, messy campsite,” Fuentevilla said.

“We make it fun, but it’s also done to show people what not to do,” he added.

There’s a tent, picnic table and all sorts of goodies to tempt the bears.

The bears are usually fed a healthy diet that includes lots of fruits and vegetables, but that all goes out the window during the campsite-trashing demonstration.

Hot dogs, marshmallows and other typical human-on-vacation table fare are left out in the open, or improperly stored.

“Every once in a while, it’s OK for them to have some treats, just like it’s OK for us to have some treats," Fuentevilla said.

During a recent demonstration, one of the bears punctured a Coke bottle, and was startled by the spray, he said.

“People love it. It’s very entertaining. They like the spectacle of it,” Fuentevilla said.

“The bears have a great time,” he added.

Grethen Heine, the center’s photographer and videographer, told Cowboy State Daily that the campsite apocalypse is a favorite part of her job.

“It’s always fun to watch them tear apart the campsite. The ultimate goal is that our visitors learn how to stay safe in bear country,” she said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"How About Polar Bears?"}]

Besides being a ball for grizzlies and human spectators alike, the campsite demolition demonstration has real educational value, human-bear conflict prevention expert Kim Titchener told Cowboy State Daily.

“It’s a great, great program,” she said.

“These bears, they have a full-time job” trying to break into bear-resistant containers, so it’s good to know they get to go bonkers on a fake campsite from time to time, Titchener said.

“I think there’s real value in showing people the strength of these animals and their ability to smell things,” said Titchener, founder of the Bear Safety and More organization.

It would be great if polar bears were given a similar opportunity at a northern facility, she added.

“We would love to see something like that for polar bears someday,” Titchener said.

Bear campsite Screenshot 2026 06 06 at 11 56 44 AM

<title>The Place Where Tourists Can Watch Grizzlies Destroy Campsites | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Grizzlies at a center near Yellowstone have full-time jobs testing bear-resistant garbage cans and occasionally a fake campsite. The goal is to teach visitors what not to do while camping in grizzly country, and what can happen if they ignore rules.

The Place Where Tourists Can Watch Grizzlies Destroy Campsites

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

Renée Jean

Business & Tourism

Business

CHEYENNE — Patricia Miller was helping another customer when a smooth-talking gentleman came in and quickly grabbed some crystals that he said were a gift for his mom. 

“He was trying to small talk with me about how wonderful of a person he was, because he’s getting them for her,” Miller told Cowboy State Daily. “And he’s going to print out information about each one of them, and all this other stuff.”

Miller thought that was sweet and said so, but what happened next was anything but sweet.

“He handed me this $100 bill, and I could feel that something was different,” she said. “And I was looking at it, and I’m like, ‘Well, maybe it’s old?'”

That prompted the man to helpfully add that the bill was from 1996.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"That’s when things clicked for Miller."}]

“Like, who knows what year the bill is that you’re handing a cashier?” she said. “So that’s what really triggered my mind to be like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is counterfeit.’”

Not wanting to falsely accuse the man — or ignite a confrontation — Miller took a different tack. 

“I said to him, ‘I”m sorry, but I don’t have change for this. You’re going to have to maybe get change and come back. Do you have anything smaller?’" Miller said. “And he said, ‘No, I’ll go to Bomgaars and get change.’”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"The man never returned for his items. "}]

Later, looking at the store’s video surveillance, Miller saw the man had several recognizable bags with him. When she visited those other stores, it confirmed her suspicion that the $100 bill had been fake. 

The same man with the same story and multiple copies of the same $100 bill, all sharing the same serial number, had hit all of the stores.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Same Serial Number All Over Town"}]

Miller’s social media post about the experience drew jeers from some skeptical online commenters who accused her of overreacting. 

She posted the bill so others would know what was happening, to prevent anyone from getting duped.

A manager at a discount store on South Greeley Highway in Cheyenne, who asked that her store not be named for corporate reasons, confirmed she’d encountered both the same man and the same $100 bill as Miller. 

The man came to the store on South Greeley between the hours of 3:30 and 4 p.m., she said, trying to buy some baby wipes and a gallon jug of water with the $100 — a classic, small-purchase, big-change tactic.

The cashier felt something was off with the bill, but couldn’t identify what. She used a traditional counterfeit detector pen. If the iodine ink, which reacts with starches in standard, wood-pulp paper, remains black, that’s supposed to indicate that a bill is real. 

But the manager has learned a different trick to identify counterfeits lately. 

“I swabbed it with rubbing alcohol, and the ink smudged,” she said. “So I told him it was fake and we were not going to accept it.”

When the cashier told the man the bill was fake, he said, “Keep it,” and walked out, by then visibly trying to hide his face from the camera.

“That confirms to me that it was fake,” the manager said. 

The bill has been turned over to Laramie County Sheriff’s Office for further investigation.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Bleached Bills Fool Counterfeit Pens"}]

The discount store manager said counterfeiters have come up with a smart strategy to fool the traditional iodine counterfeit detector pens.

What they do is bleach a $1 bill, and then print a $100 bill over the top of it. Because it’s genuine currency paper, the iodine pens won’t catch that the bill is fake. 

“The counterfeit pens are garbage,” the manager said. “You can write on that and it won’t catch it because it is in fact money paper, just not the right denomination.”

She prefers that her employees use rubbing alcohol to test the ink. If it smudges, that’s a huge red flag.

She also has them hold the bill up to the light, to look for water marks and other security features that $100 bills have that $1 bills do not.

The last check is the texture of the bill itself, which is slightly changed by the bleaching process. 

“When we held it up, it did not have a water mark in it,” she said. “It did not have a face in it, and I felt no texture on the bill itself.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"A Prop Money In Riverton"}]

In Riverton, meanwhile, funny money has taken a slightly different tack, with Hollywood-style prop bills circulating around town.

At Blossoms and Boba Cafe, owner Jesica Fritz told Cowboy State Daily a group of children roughly ages 10-13 came in for a shopping spree with what they thought was a genuine $100 bill, given to them by a friendly stranger who had encouraged them to spend all of the money in one place. 

“One of the girls who works for us thought it was real at first,” Fritz said. “It did look very realistic, unless you read it and looked closely at it.

"The other girl, my daughter, was like, ‘No, absolutely this is not real. Look, it doesn’t even say, ‘In God we trust.”

Instead the bill said, “In Prop we Trust,” and elsewhere, in tiny fine print, it identified the money as a film prop, not for legal tender.

Fritz said her cafe does use counterfeit detection pens and also trains staff to hold bills up to make sure the paper shimmers correctly, and to look closely at fine print and seals.

“If you’re slammed and super busy and someone just hands one of these to you, I can totally understand why some people would take it as regular money,” she said. “It looks very realistic.”

The children had already paid for their Boba teas before trying to use the fake $100 for extra items. When told the bill wasn’t real, they were crestfallen, but cooperative.

“The kids legitimately believed they had real money, and were super stoked about it,” Fritz said. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Staying Ahead Of Funny Money"}]

Fritz turned the bill over to the Riverton Police Department. 

The department did not return Cowboy State Daily’s request for comment, but Fritz said they told her that several other businesses in town had also seen prop money circulating.

Cheyenne police, meanwhile, said it has seven reports of counterfeit bills being passed around at local businesses so far this year. 

“The counterfeit bills we encounter the most are $20 and $100 denominations,” said department spokeswoman Alexandra Farkas. “Many of the fake $100 bills are novelty bills intended for film production and are marked with the phrase, ‘For Motion Picture Purposes.’”

That can be easy to overlook during a busy transaction, Farkas acknowledged.

“If counterfeit currency is seized and is not associated with an active local investigation, our Property and Evidence Division will send it to the U.S. Secret Service for further investigation,” she said. “For more information about identifying counterfeit bills, the Secret Service offers educational resources online at 

By policy, businesses are supposed to try to retain suspicious bills and turn them over to police. But both Miller and the discount store manager admitted they considered their own personal safety first and foremost. 

Fake 100 bill inset 1 6 6 26

<title>Fake $100 Bills Making The Rounds In Wyoming, Counterfeit Pens Don't Detect Them | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Counterfeit $100 bills are getting passed throughout Wyoming and store clerks say iodine counterfeit detector pens won't detect the fake bills. “The counterfeit pens are garbage,” said one store manager

Fake $100 Bills Making The Rounds In Wyoming, Counterfeit Pens Don't Detect Them

Jen kocher

Jen Kocher

Crime & Courts

Law Enforcement

 on the infamous "Rawlins Rodeo Murders." Part two is 

 and focuses on the suspects that have cropped up over the last 52 years.

It was the early 1970s and Rawlins was at the dawn of an energy boom. Oil and gas rigs studded the high-desert plains while Union Pacific trains hauled out coal around the clock. 

The population swelled to nearly 11,500 — many of those people transitory workers drawn to southwest Wyoming by high-paying jobs. 

New houses cropped up in the formerly empty fields around the county faster than downtown businesses could absorb the growth. It was a prosperous time. 

Then girls started to vanish before anyone could figure out what was going on. 

[{"type":"text","text":"The first two disappeared on Fourth of July weekend in 1974. "}]

They were 19-year-olds Carlene Brown and Christine “Christy” Gross, who had been visiting Rawlins from South Dakota. 

The pair had gone to the Little Britches Rodeo at the Carbon County fairgrounds, and just vanished.  

[{"type":"text","text":"Neither was seen again. "}]

Nine years later, Gross’ remains were discovered in a field 3 miles outside the neighboring town of Sinclair. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Brown has never been found. "}]

The third was 15-year-old Deborah Meyer, who disappeared on her way to the movie theater downtown. Meyer had been visiting her aunt from Red Lodge, Montana. She was last seen leaving her aunt’s house near Seventh and Spruce streets downtown.  

She told her family she was off to see a movie, but never made it to the theater. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Meyer also remains missing to this day.   "}]

Then the disappearance and death of 10-year-old Jaylene Banker at the Carbon County Fair in late August brought the community to a breaking point — the last in a string of losses that summer that the city has never fully recovered from.  

The culprit behind the disappearances and murders has never been identified, despite decades of investigation by law enforcement in what is now colloquially known as the “Rawlins Rodeo Murders.” 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Terrible Summer "}]

Ken Klouda, now 78, remembers this summer well. He was 25, fresh out of the Air Force and working in the mechanical department for Union Pacific Railroad.

[{"type":"text","text":"“The town was booming,” he said.  "}]

Klouda, who has lived in Rawlins for most of his life and is now president of the Carbon County Museum board, remembers the whirl of activity in the gas and oil field on top of coal mines with upward of five mines in the Hanna Coal Basin alone. 

The sudden 3,000-plus swell in population led to a bustling downtown that turned the once sleepy town into a thriving city. One friend fresh to town that summer told Klouda it reminded him of Las Vegas with all the blinking neon bar signs and active downtown. 

Up until that summer, they were used to bar fights and petty crimes, but not the disappearance of two 19-year-old girls. 

Klouda knew the Brown family and remembers people searching their yards and outbuildings when the teens vanished. People began paying careful attention to their surroundings, he said. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Everybody was talking about the missing girls. "}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"‘Would Have Been Right Beside Her’ "}]

Details are vague about their disappearance. It’s not clear who last saw or spoke to them. 

Their van was found parked at the fairgrounds, former Carbon County Deputy Sheriff Jeff Faycosh said in a November 1983 Casper-Star Tribune article. 

Other unofficial accounts say the vehicle was found abandoned more than 200 miles north in Worland. 

Initially, police believed the teens may have run away despite their parents' belief that something was terribly wrong.   

Some thought Brown may have gone to her mother’s house in Colorado Springs. Her parents were divorced, with her father staying in Rawlins. Brown would float back and forth between the two houses. 

After a week with no trace of her, however, the grim truth set in that she and Gross were really missing. 

Mary Kay Albrechtson, now 71, was Brown’s close childhood friend who had planned to go with her that night to the rodeo and carnival.  

“I was sick and so I didn’t go,” she said. “Otherwise, I would have been right beside her.” 

It’s a guilt — and deep pain — she still carries more than five decades later. 

“It brings great sadness to me,” Albrechtson said, as she continues to search for her friend.  

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"‘Who Is Christy Gross’? "}]

Oddly, Albrechtson said nobody knew Gross. That was the first question she and Brown’s friends asked after they vanished: “Who is Christy Gross?” 

Amateur sleuth websites offer little more, noting only that Gross was from Bowdle, South Dakota, was visiting friends or family in Rawlins at the time, and had been an active participant in high school life — band, choir, track, cheerleading. 

It’s not clear how Brown and Gross knew one another or who might have been driving that night. Albrechtson couldn’t recall if Brown had a vehicle and instead remembers her riding a motorcycle.  

The disappearances remained a mystery for nine years until October 1983, when Gross’ body was found in a field 3 miles south of Sinclair off Interstate 80.  

[{"type":"text","text":"She’d been killed by at least two blunt blows to the head.  "}]

The official cause of death was trauma to the head with the manner of death “pending investigation,” according to a docket report from Brittany Nyman, Carbon County coroner.  

Gross was identified through partial dental records and an “unusual ring” made by her uncle, stated news reports at the time.  

After Gross was found, Sheriff Faycosh was quoted by news media as saying that they “do have new leads and at least one suspect.” 

He further said that the suspect had been located but that a warrant would not be issued until more information had been gathered. He estimated it would take a month.

It’s not clear if that arrest ever came or whether that suspect was eventually cleared.  

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Not Afraid To Take Risks "}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Brown, too, is suspected to be deceased though not yet located.  "}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Albrechtson still misses her friend. "}]

After she vanished, Albrechtson had a reoccurring dream in which Brown turns up at her front door looking for her shoes.   

She described Brown as having a wild spirit who liked adventure. Brown’s “shenanigans” sometimes led the friends to getting in trouble, she said.

“We were opposites in that aspect but maybe that’s also why I liked her,” she said. “She had the nerve to venture out.” 

[{"type":"text","text":"She also wasn’t afraid to take a risk, Albrechtson said.  "}]

[{"type":"text","text":"“Unfortunately, that is also what took her life,” she said.  "}]

She believes that Brown willingly got into a car with a stranger the night she disappeared. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Lasting Pain "}]

More than 50 years after four young girls vanished in what has become known as the “Rawlins Rodeo Murders," the case remains unsolved. "We lost our innocence. That summer we lost that. We were never again the same,” said one longtime resident.

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