One More For The Road

Frustrated that a giant pole crushed his latest car, Bill Sniffin decides walking is his best strategy...

One more for 12 5 23

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<title>One More For The Road: Tuesday, December 5, 2023 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

One More For The Road: Tuesday, December 5, 2023

 Frustrated that a giant pole crushed his latest car, Bill Sniffin decides walking is his best strategy...

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

Renée Jean

Wyoming Life

Entertainment

A casual favor turned into a lifelong fascination for Glenrock’s Mike Cushman, owner of the much-in-demand Powder River Percherons, who have become a regular sight at many of the state’s largest and most popular parades.

“I used to lease a ranch back in the late '80s, and the guy who owned had a hitch of Belgians,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “And one day he just asked me if, in my free time, I could help him with that.”

Once he’d learned how to handle Belgians, he started his own team, but the popularity of the large draft horse was driving up prices. That led him to give two dapple-gray Percherons a try. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"It was like love at first sight. "}]

“We were trying to create something that had a little flair,” he said. “So those two just escalated from a team of four to six, and before we knew it we had 11 or 12 dapple-gray horses, and we were doing work all over Wyoming, anywhere from Jackson to Cody to Sheridan and Cheyenne and most all the towns in between.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"The War Horse Of France"}]

Percherons are conversation starters everywhere they go.

The war horse of France, these animals are massive and athletic, while also being uncommonly beautiful and stylish.

They are actually bigger than the more well-known Clydesdales, standing at 6 feet from the withers and weighing up to 2,600 pounds. Their hooves are the size of dinner plates, which help support all that weight. 

Their actual origins have been lost to time, but the oldest known record goes back before the Crusades, when mares of the Le Perche region of France were mated with Arabian stallions. 

The result was a breed more athletic than most horses. In Cushman’s opinion, they’re among the most fearless breeds of horse anywhere.

“I suppose if I needed to, I could probably drive them through a fire,” he said. “They would trust and believe in me.”

To be clear, Cushman has never tried to drive any of his Percheron teams through a fire. 

He has, on occasion, put them through a bit of a commotion while testing them for parade readiness.

“I know if there was a protest line with a bunch of PETA people standing there waving flags and everything, I could put these horses right over the top of them,” Cushman said. “They would do that for me.”

Percherons are also super intelligent creatures, and full of personality. That’s led to some funny escapades over the last 24 years. 

Like the horse that managed to get itself captured in a bog. 

The poor fella had to wait until morning for rescue, but all was well in the end. 

One year at Don King Days in Sheridan, after the team finished its exhibition round on the polo field, Cushman remembers tying the team to the trailer while he and the crew went to lunch.

When they returned, a big gray gelding named Sarge was somehow standing out in the middle of the vast green field, enjoying a tasty snack of fresh polo field grass.

“I hollered at him and he jerked his head up and ran back to the trailer and put himself right back into the slot where he came from,” Cushman recalled, laughing. “Like a milk cow going into a stanchion.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"What had happened was a loose buckle. "}]

“The neighbor horse and Sarge would fiddle around with each other all the time,” Cushman said. “So the neighbor horse had grabbed the tongue of Sarge’s halter and pulled on it. He pulled that strap through and unbuckled it.”

Sarge knew just what to do then. With no humans around, it was time for play.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Turning Up The Volume"}]

Budweiser is famous for its advertisements featuring long, shimmering lines of large draft horses in their glittering harnesses, clopping down the street. 

It’s a classic six-up hitch — three teams of two, one pair in front of the next.

Percherons can do the same thing, but Cushman has his own idea of how to turn the volume up for parades.

Instead of the six-up, what he likes to do for a “wow” factor is a four abreast setup. 

Picture four massive Percherons side by side across the front of the wagon, rolling shoulder to shoulder down a parade route. It’s a wall of horse flesh coming at you, with a team that stretches nearly 14 feet wide.

“We get a lot of compliments on it,” Cushman said. “There’s a ‘wow’ factor in it.”

Cushman did that last Saturday in Thermopolis  because it fit the theme of the event. For the Fourth of July in Cheyenne, meanwhile, he plans to go with the classic six-up.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Small Town To Big Time"}]

Cushman’s Powder River Percherons have performed for small Wyoming towns like Kaycee and Thermopolis to much larger venues like the Denver National Western Stock Show Parade, where the crowds range up to 100,000 people. 

They’ve been as far away as Tucson, Arizona, on up into Montana, and over to Deadwood, South Dakota. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Most of the venues, though, are Wyoming."}]

“Wyoming is home,” Cushman said. “We just try to take care of our own.”

The horses have carried three Wyoming governors, including Gov. Mark Gordon, as well as former U.S. Sen. Mike Enzi. 

They’ve also carried several celebrities, like actor Cole Hauser, known to millions as Rip from the popular television series “Yellowstone;” and Robert Taylor, who played Sheriff Walt Longmire, the hero of Craig Johnson’s Longmire universe, in the television hit series of the same name.

The Percherons have also carried a number of Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association world champions, including legends like Donnie Gay and Larry Mahan. 

They’re popular in parades and weddings, but have also been tapped for funerals to carry someone’s loved one to a final resting place.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Training Each Other"}]

The horses might seem to naturally take everything in stride from parade to funeral, but there’s quite a bit of training that goes into that even temperament.

That training effectively starts before Cushman ever buys a horse with the Amish families who raise them. 

“We buy them usually when they’re 3 years old,” he said. “And we prefer the Amish horses, because they have good manners and they just haven’t seen the big city life or anything.”

Amish horses also seem to work harder, Cushman said, making them a better value than other options. 

“I mean, the Amish make their living with horses,” Cushman said. “Even the carpenters and the craftsmen will have a saddlebred horse, or will be riding a horse around back and forth to work or to the store or whatever.”

Cushman puts his new horses in a pasture near the interstate, which he believes helps desensitize them to big vehicles and unexpected noises — things that are common in parades.

He will also blend his new horses in with older, more experienced animals as he’s training them for parades.

“They learn from each other,” he said. “They go, ‘Oh well, this is not bothering these guys, why would it bother me?’”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Not A Good Wall Street Bet"}]

For all their popularity, celebrity passengers and big-stage appearances, the Powder River Percherons would not be a good Wall Street bet. 

By the time Cushman figures in hay, feed, farrier work, veterinary care, equipment, fuel, hotels, and wages for a crew of five to six people, the retired rancher knows he’s not necessarily breaking even with these horses.

“We aim to at least cover expenses for our travel and whatnot,” he said. “If we took in all the feed and care and the shoeing for these horses and charged that back to the customer, we’d be out of business pretty quickly.”

He likes to think of his horses as a kind of rolling ambassador for the draft horse tradition. The team is a labor of love, everywhere he goes, one where the real payoff is the gee-whiz-cool expressions he sees on the faces of young and old alike. 

His Percherons have rolled under flags and fireworks, past squealing children with grocery bags full of candy. 

When the show is over, they go home and wait for the next call, ever-ready to channel that eternal sense of Americana that every parade needs.

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<title>Up To 2,600 Pounds Each, Powder River Percherons Are Huge At Wyoming Parades | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Anyone who’s been to a parade in Wyoming in the past 25 years knows the Powder River Percherons, teams of dapple-gray draft horses that tower over crowds. Also called the "war horse of France," they're 2,600 pounds each and 6 feet tall at the withers.

Up To 2,600 Pounds Each, Powder River Percherons Are Huge At Wyoming Parades

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

Andrew Rossi

Around Wyoming

David and Jennifer Sinclair have been driving across North America for years, 

 along the way on their Sinclair Trail blog. Their latest adventure in Canada went viral for a different reason.

The Sinclairs were on their way to Alaska in their RV when they made a fuel stop in Fort St. John, British Columbia. He was towing his Chevy Colorado pickup truck via a tow base plate attached to the back of the RV.

“As we were leaving, the front frame of our truck failed,” Sinclair told Cowboy State Daily. “The tow base plate broke off, with the tow base plate separating from the truck frame.”

Fortunately for the couple, the motorhome was stopped at an intersection when the tow base broke off. Sinclair said it “could have been much worse if it failed in motion.”

Unfortunately, they didn’t notice and kept driving, leaving their front bumper-less truck sitting in the middle of the road.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Yup, That’s Us"}]

A video of Sinclair’s RV dragging the Chevy's bumper down the road has been viewed millions of times, with the all-encompassing deadpan caption, “I think you lost something.”

The same person who took and posted the video flagged Sinclair down to let him know he was missing most of his truck. The response to this motoring mishap, according to Sinclair, has ranged from sympathetic to incorrect, irrelevant, and “a lot more trolls showing a lack of empathy.”

“We caught it within about a minute of it happening,” he said. “Yes, we have a rear-view camera which shows the truck, but we don’t stare at it all the time when merging onto a highway and navigating traffic. We didn’t drag it for lots of miles. We’re not rich Boomers.”

Sinclair has been posting videos and blogs online for years. He had a simple summation of the feedback he’s received since the video went viral.

[{"type":"text","text":"“Disappointing, but not surprising,” he said."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Sinclair Travels"}]

Sinclair and his wife, Jennifer, have been full-time travelers in a Tiffin Allegro Bus Class A motorhome since September 2021. They call their luxury motorhome “Bill the Pony,” while the Chevy Colorado is named “Samwise.”

“We used to have a 5-acre homestead with chickens, ducks, bees, and feral cats,” Sinclair said. “We sold it to travel full-time.”

Since then, they’ve crisscrossed the United States several times. They even took a detour for a campervan travel trip across New Zealand.

The couple works remotely while on the road. Sinclair is an app developer through his company, Dejal, and his wife is a technical writer. 

While on the road, they share stories of their adventures on their personal blogs and post videos on YouTube.

That means the Sinclairs have been through Wyoming multiple times. David called the Cowboy State “one of their favorite states.”

“Wyoming has some of the best freeways, Yellowstone is our all-time favorite national park, and we enjoy Buffalo and Devils Tower amongst other areas,” he said.

The Sinclairs were hoping to reach Alaska when their truck made a break for it. That’s scuttled their plans, at least for the moment.

“Yes, we considered continuing to Alaska with or without our truck, but decided to return home and try Alaska again another year,” he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Choices Of Master Samwise"}]

After a 950-mile drive, the Sinclairs have gotten Bill the Pony and Samwise home. They drove the vehicles separately to ensure they both made the trip without further incident.

“After sleeping on it, we decided to head home,” David said. “We considered driving the truck separately (to Alaska), or storing it in Fort St. John and renting a car in Alaska, but either would impact the enjoyment of our trip.”

By then, Bill the Pony might be put to pasture. The motorhome mishap has restarted the couple’s conversation about their vehicle of choice.

“We’re thinking about downsizing to a van or B+ anyway, which might work better,” he said.

[{"type":"text","text":"They might be momentarily immobile, but the journey will continue."}]

“We decided we’d rather come back again in a year or two and do it right,” David said. “We’ll be back to see the rest of Alaska in the next year or two, and would like to explore more of Canada too.”

And if they ever decide to pump the brakes and find a new home, they might indulge in their growing fondness for the Cowboy State.

“If we settle down again in the future, Wyoming is high on the list for where we’ll end up,” David said.

Truck Bumper Mix Collage 13 Jun 2026 08 26 AM 1813 6 13 26

<title>Oh No! Full-Time RV Couple Lose Truck When Front Bumper Tears Off While Towed | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Longtime Yellowstone RV travelers David and Jennifer Sinclair were leaving a gas station in Canada when the front bumper of their truck tore off while being towed. A video of them dragging the bumper down the road has been viewed millions of times. 

Oh No! Full-Time RV Couple Lose Truck When Front Bumper Tears Off While Towed

Kerry Drake

Business & Tourism

Business

LARAMIE — The closure of any rural Wyoming hospital is “an economic earthquake” in a rural state that already has huge holes in its access to health care.

That’s the message Natrona Collective Health Trust (NCHT) CEO Beth Worthen had Friday during a statewide Healthcare Policy Summit at the Hilton Garden Inn.

If that’s true, Wyoming could have up to six tremors — three within the next two to three years — if hospitals now at risk of closure actually shut their doors.

“It doesn't just mean patients drive farther. It means the employer anchoring that town's economy disappears,” said Worthen. "The payroll that sustained the main street, the school funding, the housing market — gone.”

Worthen said she’s worried that the future of these institutions may be impacted by an initiative Wyoming voters will see on their ballots in November’s general election, when they will be asked to exempt 50% of a primary residence’s assessed value from property taxes.

Worthen noted that many of Wyoming’s rural hospitals and the 18 hospital districts statewide depend on local property tax revenue to operate.

They are already dealing with the loss of 25% of property tax revenue that the Legislature approved in 2025, she said.

"That (property tax) revenue is part of what keeps emergency departments open, labor and delivery wards staffed, and the lights on in communities where no private operator would stay,” said Worthen. 

NCHT, Wyoming’s largest private foundation, is not taking a position on the ballot initiative.

But Worthen said voters need to understand that a significant reduction in property tax revenues in a community where a hospital is already operating on thin margins “isn’t a separate question from rural hospital sustainability. It's the same question.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Thin Margins"}]

To understand how thin hospital margins really are, Jeff Sollis, CEO of St. John’s Health in Jackson, shared how much his hospital receives in payments.

Sollis said 60% of the payer mix is from Medicare and 6% from Medicaid. A total of 29% is from health insurance payments, and 5% is self-paid by patients.

"We get paid around $90 million from Medicare and our costs are $120 million,” he said. “Medicaid reimburses us $2.8 million for $10 million of work. We lose about $43.7 million a year from providing services.”

Sollis said it’s only when private insurance pays that St. John’s is able to make up some of the difference, which annually leaves the hospital 5% in the hole.

“We have to figure out how we get to a 5% gain so we can reinvest in our people, our facilities, and technology,” he said. “So, it’s a very challenging set of circumstances.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Maternity Desert"}]

About 22% — more than one-fifth — of Wyoming is considered a “maternity desert” where communities don’t have birthing facilities or an obstetrical physician, the 

Since 2022, hospitals in Evanston, Rawlins, Kemmerer and Wheatland have closed their labor and delivery wards, Worthen said.

Wyoming now has 16 birthing hospitals across 97,000 square miles, she said, adding that hospitals find it exceptionally difficult to recruit and retain OB-GYNs.

Casper, a regional hub for health care services, had six OB-GYNs 18 months ago. Now there are two.

Marguerite Herman of Healthy Wyoming, which has long advocated for Medicaid expansion that the Legislature has repeatedly elected not to do, attended the summit and addressed the maternity desert issue.

“It’s one of those things where you have high fixed costs and low volume,” she said. “It’s just not going to pencil out for a hospital in Rawlins to have a full maternity ward.

“But at the same time, is this something that the state owes its residents, to not have to travel more than 100 miles to deliver a baby in the freezing winter?

Herman said the state may need to find supplemental money, whether it’s from the state or federal governments, to provide critical birthing centers in rural areas.

Worthen openly wonders if Wyoming officials have the political will to do that.

“Other states, like Alaska, are doing things better than we are, and they actually have more challenging geography than we have,” Worthen said. “We need the will to put the pieces together to keep our children here.”

Worthen, a sixth-generation Wyomingite, said her son Connor is a game warden in Saratoga, and his wife Kylie just graduated from the University Law School.

She said they want to have children, which fills Worthen “with a combination of joy and dread.”

The nearest obstetrician to Saratoga is in Laramie.

Worthen said that in the summer, it’s a lovely 45-minute drive over the Snowy Range, but in winter the trip must be made on Interstate 80, and the drive time at least doubles.

“A woman in her ninth month is not calculating that drive in ideal conditions,” Worthen said. “Two of my three children have left Wyoming for opportunities they couldn’t find here. I want to see my grandchildren born here."

Evanston Regional Hospital 6 12 26

<title>Six Wyoming Hospitals Are At Risk Of Closure, Wyoming Health Official Warns | Cowboy State Daily</title>

At a healthcare summit in Laramie on Friday, one health official said six Wyoming hospitals are at risk of closure. Natrona Collective Health Trust CEO Beth Worthen said closing rural Wyoming hospitals would be “an economic earthquake."

Six Wyoming Hospitals Are At Risk Of Closure, Wyoming Health Official Warns

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

An Albany County couple who lost most of their possessions in a fire that left their house unlivable say their insurance company’s mishandling of the situation has left them essentially homeless for nearly 18 months.  

At about 8:30 p.m. on Feb. 27, 2025, Sandy Crawford was relaxing and watching television in one of the rooms of the spacious home she and her husband Jack own in a rural neighborhood near Laramie, when Jack entered the room frantically.

“He came running in and said, ‘The house is filling up with smoke, call 911,'” Sandy told Cowboy State Daily.

Apparently, a fire had started somewhere in the massive stone chimney in their home’s living room.

Firefighters arrived quickly and battled the blaze for hours. 

At about 2:30 a.m. on Feb 28, a huge stone chimney chase in the living room collapsed, 

crushing Laramie firefighter Dylan Schilt

, who was left temporarily paralyzed. One of his colleagues also suffered a knee injury.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Living In A Hotel"}]

The Crawfords made it out unharmed, but say they haven’t been back home since. 

As they see it, the Laramie Fire Department and other agencies that responded could have had the fire out much sooner, with far less damage to their home.

A request for comment from the Laramie Fire Department wasn’t answered by publication time.

The Crawfords say they lived in a fifth-wheel camper trailer for a time.

Then Jack had to get double hip replacement surgery and was unable to climb the stairs to get into the camper. So, they started living in a hotel room in Laramie, dependent upon a living expenses payout from their State Farm Insurance.

The couple claims that State Farm has dragged its feet and made an offer that doesn’t nearly match the value of the damage to their home and lost possessions.

Meanwhile, their living expense account is running dry and Jack said a contractor recently told him that “the house is at least four to five months away from being livable again.”

State Farm responded to a request for comment with an email to Cowboy State Daily from the company’s corporate communications office.

“To respect our customer’s privacy, we can’t discuss specific claim details,” the company statement says. "Every claim is reviewed with care, based on the facts of the loss and the coverage in the policy. 

"We’re continuing to work with our customer and their representative to pay all benefits available under the policy. Customers with questions, concerns, or additional information are always encouraged to reach out."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"‘Let Burn’ Order"}]

The Crawfords said that on the night of the fire, they were convinced that the blaze was inside the chimney, but firefighters took hoses into the house and sprayed water in several interior rooms, causing wall and floor damage.

After the chimney chase collapsed and Schilt was injured, firefighters cleared the house.

Sandy said several firefighters gathered on the back porch and when she approached to ask whether they could spray water down the chimney, one of the firefighters yelled that “we’re going to let your house burn.”

A sheriff’s deputy at the scene ordered them to leave, she and Jack both said.

Apparently, because of difficulties fighting the blaze and the injury suffered by a firefighter, a “let burn” order had been issued and the deputies were ordered to clear out non-essential personnel, in case the entire structure became engulfed, Jack said.

However, a ladder truck arrived about an hour later, he added.

“Luckily, the ladder truck poured enough water on the roof (that) the house didn’t become fully engulfed” and the fire was finally put out, Jack said.

The Crawfords claim they also had trouble with ServiceMaster restoration company after the fire.

They say they admonished the Cheyenne ServiceMaster franchise owner and his employees to let them monitor what was being taken out of the house. 

The also wanted to help assess what could or could not be salvaged because of smoke and water damage.

The Crawfords claim those requests were ignored, and ServiceMaster crews packed and removed things without their supervision or approval.

“I lost control of my house and all my possessions,” Jack said.

When a delivery of clothing was returned to their home, it included the wrong clothing, Sandy said.

“There was clothing for minors, kids’ clothes and what looked like go-go girl clothes,” she said. “I’m not a minor, I don’t have kids and I’m not a go-go dancer."

The couple claims that other items, including firearms, have gone missing and can’t seem to be located.

“A lot of stuff was broken or missing. They threw away things that they weren’t authorized to,” Sandy said.

The ServiceMaster franchise owner told Cowboy State Daily that he couldn’t comment because of possible litigation over the matter.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Lowballed Paintings"}]

Jack said initial insurance payout estimates included roughly $800,000 for damage to the house, $500,000 for their possessions, plus roughly $200,000 in temporary housing expenses.

He said State Farm paid roughly $500,000 for the house, which still needs at least an additional $100,000 in repairs.

He added that the couple has received about $200,000 for possessions and roughly half of the initially agreed-upon living expenses.

Jack also is pushing back on the value of three 5-by-8-foot original oil paintings by famed artists Ralph Oberg and Taylor Blaylock.

The paintings came from the Riverbend mansion in Saratoga, and a professional art appraiser placed their value at about $233,000 each, Jack said.

State Farm has tried to place their value at about 10% of that, he added.

“State Farm has those appraisals (on the paintings), and they don’t want to pay on them. They’ve had those appraisals since Christmas,” Jack said.

Tyler Spalding is a desk public adjuster for the Panama City Beach, Florida-based Noble Public Adjusting Group.

The company specializes in advocacy for people with allegedly mishandled insurance claims, Spalding told Cowboy State Daily.

"We’re basically their voice when they have none,” he said.

Spalding recently reached out to alert Cowboy State Daily about the Crawfords’ situation.

An Albany County couple who lost most of their possessions in a fire that left their house unlivable say that their insurance company’s mishandling of the situation has left them essentially homeless for nearly a year and a half.  

One More For The Road: Tuesday, December 5, 2023

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