One More For The Road

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One more for 8 26 23

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

<title>One More For The Road: Saturday, August 26, 2023 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

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One More For The Road: Saturday, August 26, 2023

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Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Jackie Dorothy.

Jackie Dorothy

Agriculture

Raising show pigs can be time-consuming and, for many, a tough endeavor. From early spring to fall, 4-H and FFA kids spend one to two hours each day training and caring for their prized swine. 

Not only do the young owners have to ensure they keep their pig healthy and bring them to full weight, they also must train them.

Show pigs must learn to prance around a ring with their heads held high to show off their assets. The goal is a grand-champion title. This takes months of dedication on part of both the kid and the pig. 

The pig is then sold to the highest bidder at the annual fair livestock auctions.

“I will not deny the fact it is one of the hardest things I do every year is sell my animal and realize that I will never see these animals again,” Tymber Eckley, 19, of Hot Springs County told Cowboy State Daily at the Wyoming State Fair in Douglas. “But you have to keep it in mind, obviously, that these pigs are being raised to be eaten.

[{"type":"text","text":"“We are feeding the future of America.”"}]

A couple of years ago, Tymber’s pigs picked up a variation of "pig flu" at a jackpot and the results were devastating. Her family lost pigs and those that remained were not the champions Tymber had hoped for.

Her family now, like many others across Wyoming, raises an extra pig as a backup. If all their pigs survive, they have the option of selling the pig privately or entering a lottery to help their community.

Since 2020, these extra hogs can be given to local charities to help feed those in need through “Fair to Fork” created by First Lady Jennie Gordon and the University of Wyoming.

Each participant selected is given $750 for their hog and then picks a charity in their county to receive the meat. Tymber was selected in 2025 and her pig, Baby, was made into bacon and sausage for her food bank in Thermopolis.

“Raising a pig can be intense,” Gordon told Cowboy State Daily in a phone interview. “These kids are the cream of the crop and this program just gets kids that are already doing good work involved in their own community.”

Gordon said the reason she gives the prize money and a plaque to each winner at the State Fair every year is to honor their work.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Life of a Show Pig"}]

This year, 23 counties were represented. Sawyer Wilson, 12, was selected to give his pig to a Hot Springs County charity of his choice.

“It kind of opened my eyes about all the people that don't get food,” Sawyer told Cowboy State Daily. “It feels good. Feels like I'm helping people.”

Sawyer’s family ended up with six pigs this year. To raise a show pig, it takes more than just daily feedings.

“I feed our pigs two times a day,” Sawyer said. “And then we train them with a baby bottle taped to a little plastic pole and filled with Gatorade to teach the pig to hold its head up.”

Sawyer said one person will hold the pole and another will guide it along with two whips, training the pig how to walk properly in the ring with its nose in the air and almost prancing. They should learn to turn when tapped with the pig whip and to pop their head up on command.

Sadie Eckley, Tymber’s mom, said her kids will spend at least an hour or two each night caring for their hogs and getting their chores done.

“When you first get the pigs, you should start training them right away before they get set in their ways,” Eckley said. “My kids work their animals almost every day, and when they put in the hard work, they have success in the show ring.”

There is even a certain direction each kid needs to be able to direct their pig so they are showing properly to the judge.

Some pigs naturally do better than others, Tymber explained. Baby was a big goofball and pretty naughty in the show ring. Despite this, with persistence, Tymber gother trained and won a few ribbons.

“She earned her name by being a little dramatic baby,” she said. “She definitely liked to push her limits but she loved her treats, especially animal crackers.”

Sawyer’s had chosen his extra pig, Marshmallow, because of an “eyeball” mark on his side. 

“Marshmallow is kind of like a dog,” Sawyer said. “When you scratch him, he'll lay down.”

He was the first pig Sawyer had ever picked out himself and didn’t make weight as hoped. So now, Sawyer is keeping Marshmallow for at least a few more weeks to put on weight before his pig is taken for slaughter to make sure the charity gets the most meat possible.

His mother, Mandy Wilson, said raising pigs has been a valuable lesson for Sawyer. 

“He got the whole experience of going to the sale to learn,” Wilson said. “And then to go through the process of training his pigs to realize what makes a good pig.”

Wilson said pigs, in general, are easy to raise compared to other livestock. They each have a unique personality. 

“They're just fun,” Wilson said. “Marshmallow was always the pig that came out when you were mixing the feed and he was just a good pick.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Raised To Be Eaten"}]

When it comes time for the butcher barn, Wilson said her family keeps it mind it is their destination from the get-go and what they were bred for.

[{"type":"text","text":"It doesn’t mean that it is easy selling the pigs."}]

Gordon said she has personally gone to many sales over the years and gotten emotional watching some of the kids cry.

“It's been such a big part of their summer and they've gotten to know their animals,” Gordon said. “Their heart and soul is in the whole program and in their animals. It's a bit of a tear-jerker.”

Tymber said that over the years of her own career in FFA and 4 H it took a lot of hard work, dedication and passion behind each project. She said it has been ‘super cool’ to be in the livestock industry and she plans to continue to help out in the agricultural business.

“4-H and FFA kids work so hard,” Gordon said. “They're the future of our state and being able to work with them so closely has really been just the highlight of my career as first lady.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Hunger Aware"}]

Gordon told Cowboy State Daily one of the many reasons she began the program was because these extra pigs are Wyoming raised with the best genetics and feed. This provides great protein for those who normally don’t get it.

“Finding ways to help our neighbors that are struggling with food and security is what Wyoming does best and what we're all about,” Gordon said. “We should remember that everyone is one emergency away from being that person in need.”

The Fair to Fork program was developed in 2020 when the COVID pandemic threatened the public sale of show pigs at Wyoming county fairs.

“I thought to myself, 'Oh my gosh, what are these kids going to do that have already purchased their animals?'” Gordon said. “We started working with the UW Extension office and the 4-H team and came up with this idea of buying the pigs to donate to charity in lieu of the fairs.”

The fairs took place after all. Gordon then used the idea behind her program to raise awareness of hunger and to buy the extra hogs that the kids had raised. These extra animals are entered into a lottery and at least one pig per county is selected.

“One of the students actually went back and started volunteering at their local food pantry because of the connection that was made,” Gordon said. “It really is something that may make them lifelong volunteers and donors, and that's what we need to do is take care of our neighbors.”

Eckley encouraged Tymber to enter the lottery with their extra pig because she said is a strong believer in giving back to their community and wants to instill that in her kids.

“I think it's important for kids to learn that lesson at a young age,” Eckley said. “This was a great opportunity for my kids to help people in need.”

Tymber said the program was a good reminder that while their own freezers are full of the livestock they have raised, others are not so fortunate in Wyoming. During the process, Tymber discovered many people in her own community were not getting the proper protein she took for granted as someone raised in agriculture.

“I'll be the first to admit that I definitely kind of get blind-sided,” Tymber said. “I'm very fortunate to be able to raise livestock and fill my own freezers and I was reminded that some people don't get to do that.”

Gordon said they pay the kids for their hog to show appreciation for their hard work and then make sure the student is involved with giving away the meat.

“That way, they get to see the impact that they're having in their own communities,” Gordon said.

Pigs 2 Sawyer and his pigs 1 8 16 26

<title>Life Of A Wyoming Show Pig: Training, Tearful Goodbyes, And The Dinner Table | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Raising show pigs is a huge commitment for Wyoming 4-H and FFA kids working toward the Wyoming State Fair. Then comes the bittersweet part — tearful goodbyes when the pigs are sold to become dinner for the less fortunate.

Life Of A Wyoming Show Pig: Training, Tearful Goodbyes, And The Dinner Table

Wyoming Life

Around Wyoming

Editor's note: This story includes graphic and disturbing descriptions of torture and inhumane prisoner of war conditions. Read at your discretion. 

After more than 80 years, a 32-year-old Casper man believed to have been killed as a prisoner of war aboard one of the infamous Japanese “hell ships” during World War II may finally be close to being found. 

John Clarke Goldtrap, a young husband and father, was listed by his captors as one of the 284 Americans who died after the Japanese hell ship the Oryoku Maru was destroyed on Dec. 15, 1944.

The POW transport ship sunk to the bottom of the ocean and has remained there, virtually undisturbed, until now.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA), working with the Navy and the Philippine government, are 

Divers have recovered American military footwear, an identification bracelet, broken eyeglasses, medical equipment and material that may be human bone. 

[{"type":"text","text":"The work is expected to continue in the coming year."}]

The DPAA said that the recovery effort has significant challenges that will require its team to employ advanced underwater recovery and identification techniques to ensure the mission is conducted with the utmost care and dignity.

Modern archaeology and DNA testing may then restore names to some of those remains, correct wartime records and allow families to bury men who have been listed officially as missing for nearly 82 years. 

For Goldtrap, it could finally reveal whether he died inside one the hell ship, in the water or after reaching shore. 

It is the fulfillment of the promise made to American servicemen that those missing in action will not be forgotten.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Sinking The Oroku Maru"}]

The air strike in which Goldtrap was killed is known as the Oroyku Maru Disaster because it was Allies who sunk the ship. 

Another Wyoming solider, Staff Sgt. Joseph Henry Robertson of Rock Springs, survived by swimming to shore and enduring another hellish eight months as a prisoner of war of the Japanese.

According to the Department of the Army, on Dec. 13, 1944, Japanese forces in the Philippines began the transfer of 1,621 Allied prisoners of war to Japan.

Goldtrap, Robertson and the other POWs were to make the journey aboard transport ships whose harsh conditions and extreme overcrowding led survivors to refer to them as “hell ships.” 

These ships lacked markings that would distinguish them from any other military target and were often attacked by Allied forces who could not identify them as POW transports.

On Dec. 14, 1944, Allied aircraft attacked the first of these transport ship, the Oryoku Maru, in Subic Bay in the Philippines, killing many of Allied POWs on board. 

War crimes were committed on that day as Japanese soldiers shot many of the escaping prisoners as they tried to swim to safety, while others drowned in the attempt.  

, the officer was listed as dead by his Japanese captors, but the information was unreliable since the first number of dead was listed as “about 250.”  

As a commanding officer, Goldtrap was confined in the ship’s rear hold, although it is unknown just how he met his death.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Worse Than Bataan Death March"}]

The stories shared by hell ship survivors paint a horrific picture of human brutality and suffering.

Ben Skardon was one of these men packed into the rear hold of the Oroku Maru where Goldtrap was believed to have been kept.

In a 2015 interview with the National World War II Museum, Skardon said that it was total chaos of the worst type as they were loaded into the hold.

He had found a spot pressed against another soldier on the floor, “one in the crotch of the other.” 

All around him, men were breaking down, going crazy, yelling and pleading. Skardon passed out from lack of oxygen and others helped move him to where he could get air.

Many of the men on the Oryoku Maru had survived the Bataan Death March and described the conditions crammed into the ship a living hell, worse than the infamous march.  

First-person accounts were preserved in the book “The Rising Sun” by John Toland from men who kept forbidden journals and recorded the hell they barely survived.

Major Virgil McCollum, wrote Toland, was a veteran of Bataan who said the hell ship was “the most horrible experience imaginable and probably unprecedented in the annals of civilization.” 

As the dim light of dawn filtered through the hatch, several score bodies lay lifeless — suffocated or murdered.

“Many men lost their minds,” a colonel later wrote in his official report, “and crawled about in the absolute darkness armed with knives, attempting to kill people in order to drink their blood or armed with canteens filled with urine and swinging them in the dark.”

Major Roy L. Bodine would have been in the same hold as Robertson, packed amidships, three decks down with 300 Army and Navy medics and civilians. 

He described the constant prayers and the chaos that quickly took over as men went mad from lack of water, oxygen and sanitation.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Waiting For Rescue Or Death"}]

Another American soldier, Lt. Col. Curtis Beecher, was in the forward hold which had just recently transported horses and had never been cleaned.

Within moments, the 700 men crammed into the hold were drenched in sweat and, already weak from two years of imprisonment, began to go mad.

A dozen men, crazed by thirst, went berserk; they slashed at the throats and wrists of companions to suck blood. The panic turned the hold into bedlam. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Men began to drop dead, some silently while others thrashed wildly."}]

When the bombing from the Allies began on the unmarked ship, many of the POWs on board cheered. Over the deafening roar of the attacks, men prayed and waited for rescue or death.

As the temperature reached 110 degrees, riots again erupted, according to Toland. 

Men collided with one another in the dark, slipping and falling in their own feces. The sick were trampled, and wild, deadly fights erupted. Men dropped to their knees like animals to lap up sewage running in open drains.

When the ship was sinking, men escaped the hull by jumping into the sea. Skardon described how a bomb killed many of the men in the rear hold with him while he crawled over their bodies to reach the deck.

“Those men saved my life,” Skardon said, explaining that they had taken the brunt of the bomb and he was able to escape. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Goldtrap was not so fortunate. "}]

He was either one of those killed in the rear hold by suffocation, murder or the bombing. Another possibility is that Goldtrap made it into the sea and was one of the 55 soldiers who were either shot for trying to escape or drowned.

His life that had been so promising in Wyoming had ended brutally with an estimated 21,000 other POWs lost in the hell ships.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A West Point Graduate And Proud Casperite"}]

As a teenager, Goldtrap enrolled in the Citizens’ Military Training Camp at Fort Russel and then served in the Wyoming National Guard before heading off to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

Goldtrap had a promising military career ahead of him and often appeared with his wife, Caroline, in the social section of the Casper newspaper. They were also the proud parents of a little boy. 

Goldtrap served at Fort Francis E. Warren before heading off to Infantry School. 

On June 1940, the young officer sailed to the Philippine Islands and joined the 57th Infantry Regiment, the Philippines Scouts. His wife and son returned to live with her father in Casper to wait for Goldtrap's return home.

Then on May 7, 1942, Goldtrap was reported missing in action following the fall of Mindanao. 

He was subsequently confirmed as a Japanese prisoner of war and survived more than two and a half years in enemy hands. 

His wife received messages saying that he was well, and another serviceman saw him alive in June 1944.

Six months later, as the Japanese attempted to move him to Japan, Goldtrap was declared dead after the Oryoku Maru was sunk.

According to his personnel records, attacks on these POW transports ultimately resulted in a series of death notifications from the Japanese government through the International Red Cross, and some casualties were given up to five different dates of death at various locations during the transfer.

Witness accounts from surviving POWs offer detailed information for a handful of casualties, but the specific dates of loss or last-known locations for many of these POWs are based on the most recent reported date of death.

Although Goldtrap was reported to have died during the destruction of the Oryoku Maru on Dec. 15, 1944, no known eyewitness account has yet established precisely where or how he died, and his family was left wondering how he had met his fate.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Wyoming Survivor"}]

Meanwhile, another Wyoming serviceman was aboard the Oroku Maru in a different hold. 

Robertson, a medic, had been a captive for two years when the Oryoku Maru was bombed. Although Robertson was able to swim to shore, his torture was not over.

The Army said that survivors of the bombing were put aboard two other hell ships, the Enoura Maru and the Brazil Maru, to continue on to Japan. 

While anchored in Takao Harbor in Formosa (present-day Taiwan), the Enoura Maru was attacked by Allied aircraft from the USS Hornet (CV 8). Survivors of the Enoura Maru bombing were loaded onto the Brazil Maru, which reached Japan on Jan. 30, 1945.

As a result of these incidents, many Allied POWs, such as Goldtrap, were lost at sea between the Philippines and Taiwan, while anchored in Taiwan, at sea between Taiwan and Japan, and in Japan.

When Robertson was finally freed two years later, he gave his sworn testimony at F.E. Warren. 

It was prepared for the War Crimes Office in connection with Japanese naval medical officer Satoru Nakazawa and conditions at Nichols Field, Las Piñas and Bilibid Prison.

During his war crime affidavit debriefing, Robertson said that he was placed on another hell ship after swimming to shore. 

He suffered in the cramped conditions for two months before reaching Japan, where he was tortured and nearly went blind from lack of food.

According to his obituary, Robertson had enlisted on Jan. 30, 1940, at Ft. Douglas, Utah. He was stationed in Bataan as a surgical technician with the Army medical detachment at General Hospital No. 1.

On April 10, 1942, he and companions made their way to Corregidor, where they stayed until it fell to the Japanese May 6, 1942. 

After capture, he was sent to Bilibed in Manila and then to Cabanatuan, a main Japanese prison camp, where he was held 58 days. 

He then was sent to Nichols Field camp and was there until 1944, when he was returned to Bilibed for treatment of his eyes, as his vision was impaired because of a lack of food.

Roberston returned home to his wife, Alice, in Rocks Springs where he worked for the next 22 years as an auto body shop operator. 

The couple had three sons — Joe, Vernon and Richard — when Robertson died unexpectedly after one day of being ill. He was 52 and proud of his service to the end.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Recovering Our Missing"}]

The Department of the Army lists Goldtrap’s case as an “active pursuit.”

Official records state “that Goldtrap was reportedly killed on Dec. 15, 1944, during the attack on the Oryoku Maru; however, these reports often involve information solely furnished by enemy governments.”

With so many unanswered questions of what happened to the young Casper officer and the other Americans declared dead on the Oroku Maru, the DPAA said it will continue to search for the missing servicemen. 

[{"type":"text","text":"The latest search effort is their largest to date on the Oroku Maru."}]

“This mission represents our solemn commitment to provide the fullest possible accounting to families and the nation,” said U.S. Army Capt. Barrett Breland, DPAA team leader for the Oryoku Maru recovery on their official website.

“We carry this responsibility with compassion and integrity, and our success depends on strong partnerships and unwavering respect for the fallen.”

For his service in the Philippines, Goldtrap received the Silver Star, Bronze Star and Purple Heart. He was also promoted posthumously from major to the rank of lieutenant colonel. The promotion was an honor but not a military decoration.

Goldtrap has a marker at Arlington Cemetery in Washington, D.C., and there is now the possibility Goldtrap may have more than just a memorial as searchers look for answers of what happened to the Americans who died on the hell ship Oryoku Maru.

Hell ship inset 1 8 16 26

<title>Wyoming POW On Sunken Japanese 'Hell Ship' May Be Close To Coming Home After 82 Years | Cowboy State Daily</title>

For 82 years, Lt. Col. John Clarke Goldtrap of Casper has been in a watery grave as a POW on the sunken wreck of the brutal Japanese “hell ship” Oryoku Maru. Now his remains may finally be ID'd and brought home. Another Wyoming serviceman on the ship survived.

Wyoming POW On Sunken Japanese 'Hell Ship' May Be Close To Coming Home After 82 Years

Daily Smile

[{"type":"text","text":"You won't find a friend as helpful as this one...."}]

Smile no play 8 16 26

<title>Daily Smile: Sunday, August 16, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

You won't find a friend as helpful as this one....

Daily Smile: Sunday, August 16, 2026

Welsch mug

Jeff Welsch

Sports

Their Links of Dreams unfolded in every way they imagined: The long drive past cornfields on a lonely dirt road, a massive American flag and windsock fluttering over a clubhouse perched atop a knoll on the endless undulating terrain of northeast Nebraska, and the first religious glimpse of the No. 1 tee, fairways and greens unlike any others.

For Sheridan’s Josh Gardner and Jared Stiver, a moment coveted by golfers worldwide — but rarely experienced — was, at long last, at hand.

To secure a tee time at the Landmand Golf Club outside of Homer, Nebraska, 

Some 11,000 slots are made available each New Year’s Eve for the novel 4-year-old course; they’re gone in less than an hour.

Now here Gardner and Stiver were the first week of August, two regular guys from Wyoming, somehow entered to play Landmand in the inaugural The Heartbeat tournament, a Golf Channel creation, after Gardner took a Plan B New Year's Eve stab on the course's website. 

Soon they would be pitted against pairs from all 50 states over four days, a fortuitous practice round and three days of competition.

“Everything about it was cool,” Stiver told Cowboy State Daily less than a week after their return home. “You’re on top of a hill from start to finish, and you see forever and it’s all golf around you, and it’s all awesome.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Then the golf happens."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Course Unlike Any Other"}]

Gardner and Stiver have played courses of all shapes and sizes, in all types of environments, foreign and domestic.

[{"type":"text","text":"Nothing could prepare them for Landmand."}]

“We got there and I was just excited to be there,” Gardner recalled with a chuckle. “It didn’t really matter what was in front of us. Like, this is awesome. But by the time we got to the fourth or fifth green, I thought, ‘I don’t know if I can do this four days in a row.’

“I wasn’t prepared for how massive it all was. The scale is hard to describe.”

Landmand was carved out of the treeless Loess Hills, and at nearly 600 acres is roughly four times the size of typical 18-hole courses. Fairways are the width of football fields. Gaping bunkers swallow golfers whole.

[{"type":"text","text":"Only the tee boxes offer any semblance of flatness."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"And then ... those greens."}]

On average, they sprawl to more than double the size of typical American greens. Some are four to six times larger. At three-quarters of an acre, the 17th green ranks as one of the world’s largest, in the same league as the revered Old Course at St. Andrews in Scotland.

[{"type":"text","text":"Gradients rose to 25%."}]

“You could put seven Powder Horn greens in one there,” Stiver said of their home course in Sheridan. “Monster greens.”

Echoed Gardner: “Greens the size of Walmart. If that golf course was here (Sheridan) I’d take my kids sledding on it and they’d need a helmet. They’d be like the blue runs on a ski hill. In some spots where they placed the flag you couldn’t even see it.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Howling Wyoming-esque Winds"}]

The greens sport windsocks instead of flags, a nod to visibility and a notorious local climate. 

Winds can be so ferocious and unpredictable the course has two handicaps dedicated to them on the scorecard, one for gales howling from the southwest and the other for the nor’easters.

[{"type":"text","text":"Gardner and Stiver got a gritty taste of both."}]

“You’d think Wyoming boys would be good in a wind, but us Sheridan boys … not so good,” Stiver mused.

Agreed Gardner: “Guys from Evanston and Rock Springs, and the Casper Country Club boys, would be a better fit.”

It’s this enormity of challenge, the scale of the course, and its vistas — not to mention the modest $175 greens fees — that has golfers nationwide poised like expectant parents with their fingers hovering over their keyboards every New Year’s Eve.

[{"type":"text","text":"Then reality bites for those lucky enough to score a round."}]

But, unlike all other golfers except the locals who have the luxury of pouncing last-minute on a rare cancellation, Gardner and Stiver had four full days in the belly of this manicured beast.

Entering the final round, they were in 32nd place out of 52 teams. Five birdies and 18 holes later, they walked off their final monster green in 19th.

“The final round, I did feel better about it,” Stiver said. “I kind of knew how I could go and knock it out. By then I still didn’t know exactly where to go on the greens, but it definitely helped.”

[{"type":"text","text":"“Being in the top 20 was respectable for sure,\" added Gardner."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Giving A Wyoming-Style Gift"}]

The golf was the centerpiece of the adventure, but the experience didn’t end there.

Owner Will Andersen, Golf Channel host Gary Williams and the course’s architects were on hand to explain the Landmand concept and history. Their passion and detail gave Gardner and Stiver an entirely different perspective as they plied the course on days three and four.

Two golfers from Sheridan won the lottery on New Year's Eve when they were selected to play at the toughest place to book a tee time in the U.S. All 11,000 tee times were booked in one hour and they played last week. "It's all awesome," Jared Stiver said.

One More For The Road: Saturday, August 26, 2023

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