You Still Here

[{"type":"text","text":"Note to self: The queen does not like to be dropped..."}]

You still here 1 1 24

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

<title>You Still Here? Monday, January 1, 2024 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Note to self: The queen does not like to be dropped...

You Still Here? Monday, January 1, 2024

 Note to self: The queen does not like to be dropped...

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Dale Killingbeck

Dale Killingbeck

Outdoors

Public Lands

Finding treasure and beauty underwater does not require a trip to one of the nation’s coasts.

Divers in the Mountain West may not get to see sharks, colorful fish and coral reefs, but they pull out antique six-shooters or older Coors cans with no pop tops out of the Colorado River.

They also get views of the rock layers below the surface at Flaming Gorge Reservoir that few every see.

For Las Vegas’ Ken Wige, diving a stretch of the Colorado River below the Hoover Dam has become an ongoing treasure hunt involving recovering lost cellphones for people, wallets, a wedding ring, and even a couple of weapons.

One of those weapons he pulled from the river he can’t talk about except to say that it belonged to someone involved in “national defense,” but the other found about three years ago appeared to be a Western-style six-shooter in a holster that was covered in rust.

“If I were to guess, it probably was down there a good 10-plus years to be able to be stuck in the holster,” Wige said. “It was just an old Western revolver, it looked like. I was dying to get it out of there, but it would not come out.”

Fellow diver Tony “Gunner” Pierce of Provo, Utah — aka Tony “Nitrox” on social media dive pages — plans to join Wige this weekend on the river. 

Like Wige, he is an advocate for diving in the West and enjoys rallying people to different spots from Wyoming to Utah and Idaho year-round to explore what is going on underneath the surface of reservoirs, rivers, and lakes.

Both men have enjoyed more traditional diving hotspots such as Florida or the Mexico coast, but they have stories to tell about the adventures much closer to home and cheaper for those who have the gear and want to enjoy a weekend under the water.

Pierce, a dive instructor, said he became interested in scuba nine years ago after taking his daughter Carly to a dive shop just to do a “discover” dive in a pool to see if they liked the sport. 

That led to certifications and a trip to Florida for an open water dive.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'Hooked'"}]

“We’ve been hooked ever since,” he said. 

Pierce went on to get advanced certifications and not only become a dive instructor, but an advocate for dives that don’t cost a lot of money and bring divers together.

He said he wants to counter the criticism that in Utah and the West, there are no good places to dive and that new divers have trouble finding a dive buddy.

“A long time ago, I pretty much said if anybody wants to go dive with me for free ( they can go),” he said. “It’s just the love of diving and being able to connect with new families, new friends.”

He started posting on social media and now he schedules a year’s worth of dive events in advance, gets the permissions or whatever else is needed, and invites other divers to meet him on location.

A dive in May had him and others at Sulphur Creek and Woodruff Narrows reservoirs in the Evanston, Wyoming, area looking to see if any snowmobiles, four-wheelers or other craft were on the bottom left by ice fishermen. 

He was recruited by the city of Evanston to do the dive.

Pierce said he talked with Wyoming Game and Fish and local law enforcement agencies, which told him they had no open cases related to missing equipment, but they were interested in him taking a look at what was below.

“We got there with other divers and except for the fishing pole, shoe, or hat or sunglasses — some trivial things — the bottom of both reservoirs were spotless,” he said. “There’s no leaking gas, no leaking oil, there’s no rubber in there.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Flaming Gorge"}]

Pierce said his favorite place to dive is Flaming Gorge Reservoir south of Green River.

“When you dive off Flaming Gorge by the visitor dam it’s a sheer cliff,” he said. “The original timbers cut down to help build Flaming Gorge are still there, the ropes are there, the cables are there. It’s just absolutely mind-blowing.”

A long-haul trucker during the week, Pierce said a typical weekend dive for him involves maybe five or six divers. 

They typically meet on a Friday and do a day dive, night dive, and another day excursion on Saturday. 

Dives are kept to 100 feet and above, and the deeper dives will require some decompression stops before surfacing.

In Nevada, Wige, also a trucker, said he started diving seven years ago and is now a master diver. 

A few years ago, he discovered the 2-mile stretch between Willow Beach and Emerald Cove downstream from the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River.

He immediately came across cellphones, fishing lures, and other treasures to return to people. Wige said the current as water is released from the dam constantly uncovers items that he and other divers find along the bottom.

Since the waters are part of the National Park System, he has worked out a protocol with rangers that allows him to take cellphones pulled from the bottom to try and find their rightful owners. 

Every dive, members of his team pull out trash as well as items such as old bottles fishing lures, wallets, and anything else that might fall out of a raft or kayak.

During the past four years, he and his associate divers have found two guns, three boat engines, 15 Apple Watches, 20-30 GoPro cameras, and 254 phones — 50 of which were returned to owners.

“It’s just amazing diving when you find something and can return it to someone,” Wige said. “A lady, I found her cellphone, and I contacted her and she wouldn’t stop crying. I’m like, ‘Ma’am, you phone is working.’ 

"She’s like, ‘No, you don’t understand, I came to Las Vegas to film my daughter giving birth. … You’re telling me I’m getting all that back.’”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Soaking Phones"}]

When they recover phones, Wige takes them home and soaks them in rubbing alcohol for a week and then tries to power them up to see if he can determine the owner. 

If the phone owner cannot be determined within a year, he destroys the phone.

Wige said they’ve also pulled out Coca-Cola bottles from the 1920s and Coors beer cans that need a V-can opener.

Under federal rules, any firearms pulled out of the river as well as suspected historic items must be turned in to National Park Rangers. 

He said the six-shooter pistol that he pulled out of the water was turned over to rangers.

Other old stuff they’ve seen below the water include railroad-like ties that appear they may have come off a sternwheeler or similar boat from the late 1800s.

“The wedding ring, they lost it jumping off cliffs,” he said. “They told us where it was and three weeks later, we made it up there with them. One of my divers found it and returned it.”

Wige said he does not try to sell anything he finds. The valuable recoveries are meant to be given back to owners. Some of the bottles his divers keep. 

He has an ongoing list of people that he gifts the fishing lures to for free.

A typical outing involves maybe eight to 10 divers and Wige uses his powered rubber raft to go out in the river and drop four on five on location. 

He then returns to the beach to get the others and when the first divers air is used up, the next set jump in.

Most of the time they are swimming in 20-40 feet of water, he said.

While he enjoys diving in Cozumel, Mexico, for a couple of weeks a year, finding lost treasures and returning them to others gives him the most enjoyment from the sport, Wige said.

“It just brings a whole new level of experience,” he said.

Colorado river and diver inset Will Eye via Alamy 6 13 26

<title>Six-Shooters And Cellphones: Divers Find All Kids Of Treasure In Colorado River | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Divers who plunge the depths of the Colorado River and Flaming Gorge Reservoir find all kinds of treasure, from antique six-shooters to cellphones. One woman burst into tears when given her phone back that had her grandchild’s birth video on it.

Six-Shooters And Cellphones: Divers Find All Kids Of Treasure In Colorado River

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 it 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.

Percherons 1 6 13 26

<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.

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."

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