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[{"type":"text","text":"Now let's all watch a baby elephant take a bath..."}]

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

<title>Daily Smile: Thursday, February 1, 2024 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Now let's all watch a baby elephant take a bath...

Daily Smile: Thursday, February 1, 2024

 Now let's all watch a baby elephant take a bath...

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

Renée Jean

Energy

Black Hills Energy faces a future where individual data centers are proposing projects that demand power on the scale of a small state. 

Project Jade, as just one example, will come into Wyoming with a “bring-your-own-power” mentality for an initial 2.7 gigawatts of power, which is nearly three times what industry analysts have said Wyoming uses now. 

Ultimately, the data center could scale to a total of 10 gigawatts, which is almost as much power as Wyoming’s existing power plants could produce at peak capacity, based on Energy Information Administration data, which lists net summer power generation capacity for Wyoming at 10.8 gigawatts in 2024.

Project Jade’s developers have promised county officials a “bring-your-own-power” model, calling its campus “very self-sufficient,” and saying its approach will ensure there’s no pressure on the existing Laramie County power grid. 

But Black Hills Energy is also a partner on the project, officials have confirmed. So, even as a “self-powered” campus, the development is still, at some point, depending on Black Hills for infrastructure and interconnection. 

Project Jade is just one of several data centers looking to build within the Black Hills service territory, but the question for each of them is essentially the same, said Wes Ashton, Black Hills Energy’s vice president of utilities for Wyoming, South Dakota, and Montana.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Cost-Causer Is Cost-Payer"}]

“Overall, the idea is to prevent any large loads or large customers from shifting any other cost to customers,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “And typically, LPCS (large power contract service) tariffs these days, I think most people (equate) it to data centers. 

"That’s certainly the hot conversation and where a lot of the customer growth around the country is coming from.”

Customers coming into Black Hills' service territory are told up front about the large-load tariff and the company’s expectation that such customers will have to pay for any and all new infrastructure required to serve them.

That applies to their shares of the grid, as well as any other enhanced upgrade to transmission, or other sides of distribution. 

“Anything like that has to be covered there,” he said. “Or the simple way to say it is, and you may have heard before out of our company, the cost-causer is the cost-payer.”

The Black Hills large-load tariff was created more than a decade ago in response to Microsoft building a data center in Cheyenne, which became Black Hills’ first commercial, large-load customer. 

Under this system, large-load customers can expect a detailed analysis of their power requirements to happen in the early stages. 

In practice, that means the data center is expected to build or contract for its own dispatchable, onsite power, which will ultimately be integrated into the wider grid. 

“It’s a highly regulated process,” he said. “The requests that come in are negotiated out and there’s a number of different agreements that take place. Those requests and those load studies are evaluated … and all load requirements — generation, transmission system impacts — are studied in detail.”

Once the detailed system analysis is completed, a plan is then developed for serving the project’s power, which will be filed with and overseen by state regulators who evaluate the plan on whether it adequately protects existing ratepayers.

Ashton argues that this approach allows the utility to welcome extremely large data-center loads while isolating the financial risk to those customers themselves, rather than spreading it across households and small businesses.

“That is a process that takes place over a number of months, if not years, to get that set up,” Ashton said. “The core principle is that the tariff keeps away or isolates any risk on behalf of the utility, and it isolates it to that customer, so that customer makes their payments for the investment, and that customer would make their payments to be integrated onto a system. 

"And then that tariff allows, through those individual negotiations, either generation that’s behind the meter, purchasing power over the open market.”

Few Rate Hikes Despite Dozen Data Centers

Black Hills already serves about 12 total data center sites across roughly eight customers, Ashton said. 

Meanwhile, in the last decade it’s only had one rate increase request, according to a statement by Black Hills representative Austin Allen during a recent Cheyenne forum about data centers.

Here, company executives are referring to base-rate cases. Separate fuel and power-cost adjustments are handled through other mechanisms on a customer’s bills.

It’s a track record that has the company confident that its large-load tariff is working as intended, and keeping the costs of scaling up power for such customers from affecting ordinary ratepayers in an undue manner. 

“We’ve probably got another maybe a dozen or so entities that we’re in various stages of conversations or negotiations with,” Ashton said. “There are always conversations and customers at various levels of maturity. 

"Some are introductory conversations, some are actively trying to work a project, and some are developers.”

So far, nothing has suggested that the company’s large-load tariff won’t be scalable to gigawatt territory. 

In fact, Ashton said the infrastructure that these companies have built out has ripple effects that have so far been positive for consumers, improving grid reliability and efficiency for everyone.

“They help by essentially funding the system enhancements that we have, and ultimately those benefits extend to all of our customers,” Ashton said, adding that new value also comes along as many of those customers continue to invest in infrastructure. 

“That system investment not only provides greater reliability to our network, but it also has benefits to all of our customers,” he said. “And that’s why year-in, year-out, our Cheyenne system is one of the best — if not the absolute best — in reliability in the country. It’s always in the top one or two for reliability, because we continually invest in that system.”

The Edison Electric Institute is the body that publishes the ratings, which includes an annual study of interruption minutes. According to that body, Black Hills Energy’s electric utility in Cheyenne has been in the top quartile for reliability for the past 10 years running.

EEI data by the company consistently show outage minutes that land in top tier utilities, a point Black Hills frequently touts when marketing its system to data centers. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Could Bills Go Down?"}]

Public concern about the power use of data centers has settled around the simple question of whether their power needs will show up on everyone else’s bill, but Ashton believes it’s actually the opposite way around. 

Because of the data center improvements, rate increases have been slower than they might have been, which is to the regular ratepayers’ advantage.

Ashton doesn’t have a specific figure to encapsulate that, but said “rates have held steady as a result.”

The LPCS tariff has frequently been touted by state regulators, consumer advocates, and even Wyoming legislators as effective. So far, however, no large customers have scaled back or left, so that’s a scenario that has yet to be tested.

“I like to say that as we continue to experience growth on that system, or our system, that has been a good thing for customers, in addition to tax base and jobs,” he said. “We have been very involved in support for being a long-term partner to growing Wyoming’s economy by bringing value to the table, by bringing expertise, and to be a trusted partner for the communities we serve by providing safe, reliable, cost-effective energy.”

As the scale jumps from megawatt to gigawatt, Ashton said Black Hills continues to believe their tariff written for large loads a decade ago is still the right tool. 

Whether that promise holds true as Project Jade and other massive data center projects move from concept to construction will help determine how much of the AI boom Wyoming can absorb — and at what utility cost to people already living on the high plains.

Substation and transmission near Project Jade 6 22 26

<title>How Black Hills Energy Is Preparing For Surge Of Power-Hungry Wyoming Data Centers | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Black Hills Energy says it’s ready for a surge of power-hungry Wyoming data centers that can each use as much electricity as a small state. The bottom line is making those projects pay their own way, said a company official. 

How Black Hills Energy Is Preparing For Surge Of Power-Hungry Wyoming Data Centers

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

Andrew Rossi

Outdoors

Public Lands

Almost a week after a semitruck carrying 

 flipped over in Yellowstone National Park and destroyed hundreds of hives, bees are still swarming around the area.

Thousands of bees are still homeless and visibly trying to survive in large groups on “bee trees” along U.S. Highway 191. 

Jim Holstein with Yellowstone Tour Guides has been passing through the area where the accident occurred. He took a photograph of one of the bee trees, where thousands of bees had completely covered a small lodgepole in a vast, buzzing swarm.

“They were still there on Monday,” Holstein told Cowboy State Daily. “It’s in the park between Big Sky and West Yellowstone. All the hives have been cleaned up, but there are quite a few bees left.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Bee Trees"}]

Cheyenne beekeeper Michael Jordan is familiar with bee trees. They’re an indication that a colony of bees is actively house-hunting.

“It’s what's called a swarming mechanism,” he said. “The queen leaves and takes about half or more of the colony and moves to a new safe location.”

Jordan said this is common behavior for honeybees when a hive gets overpopulated. The existing queen will take nurse bees and guard bees to sustain herself in a temporary location while scouts search for a permanent 

“The scouts will search until they find a permanent location,” he said. “In the meantime, you'll have groups and colonies hanging in the trees as they regroup.”

A new permanent home could be a hole in a tree, a cave, or “anywhere that’s out of the water and elements,” said Jordan. 

Bee trees are meant to be staging locations so the scouts can lead the hive to their new home.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Sugar High"}]

When the scout bees find a suitable location for a permanent hive, their next priority is

“Right now, they’re looking for a sugar source,” Jordan said. “Bees need sugar to produce wax from their glands. Once they produce the wax and form it, they'll actively engineer foam in what we call a pendulum manner to make honeycombs.”

Bees instinctively know how to build hives, and their goal is to start propagating as soon as possible after a hive-destroying incident.

Once they find a suitable spot with plenty of sugar in the vicinity, maybe a rock formation or building near a flower-filled meadow, the queen will follow the scouts to the new hive. Instinctively, all the bees on the bee tree will follow her.

Jordan didn't think there would be any bee trees for tourists to see by Wednesday.

“Those clusters will be gone within 24 to 48 hours if they find a good location,” he said. “After that, there’s nothing you can do to recover them, because tracking them is very hard.

The fact that bee trees can still be seen along U.S. Highway 191 six days after the June 16 crash might indicate the bees are having trouble finding an ideal place for a new home. But it definitely means the colonies can be safely recovered.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Get Those Bees, Please"}]

Within 24 hours of the semitruck incident, people were at the scene removing the damaged honey boxes and trying to recover whatever remained of the bee colonies that had been residing in them.

Jordan said the first 48 hours are crucial in a bee recovery situation like that.

“If you can’t get new hives set up in 48 hours, the queens will migrate and leave a pheromone trail that the bees accommodating her in that hive will follow,” he said. “That’s what the bee trees are: thousands of bees accumulating around the queen.”

That means there’s a small window to safely save these bees before they become permanent Yellowstone residents.

Jordan’s strategy would be to place a mobile swarm trap. It’s basically a column of PVC pipes with buckets attached to either end. The height can be adjusted to get as close as possible to the colony clusters.

“If the bees accumulate in the buckets as a temporary hive, you can relocate them to an apiary and manage them there,” he said. “You can even hold a bucket up to the colony and shake them inside. That’s how you can naturally collect and remove a colony.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"No Bears — Yet"}]

Commercial vehicles like semitrucks are banned in Yellowstone, but U.S. Highway 191 is an exception. It hugs the western boundary of the park and is an important 55-mile thoroughfare between West Yellowstone and Big Sky, 

"They've enacted a temporary 35 mph speed limit on the section where the bees are," Holstein said. "People have to keep their windows up, and there's no stopping until crews can get the remaining bees rounded up."

When the bee trees disappear, it means the bees have found a suitable spot to rebuild their hive. Finding and removing the colony would be difficult, if not impossible, especially in the dangerous wilderness of Yellowstone.

[{"type":"text","text":"After all, who loves honey more than bears?"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"“I haven’t seen any bears,” Holstein said. “Yet.”"}]

Jordan was more concerned about the people who lost their honey boxes and bee colonies. He knew how much money they had lost and must have spent trying to salvage whatever they could from the accident.

“From the way it looks. I’d think about 40-50% of what’s there is salvageable, maybe,” he said. “Each honey box can cost around $500 and generate around $2,000 in honey. 

"There could be two or three owners who lost their livelihood in that accident. That’s at least one whole company that has to rebuild.”

Bee tree swarm 6 22 26

<title>Millions Of Bees Swarm On Trees In Yellowstone After Hives Smashed In Semi Crash | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Almost a week after a semitruck carrying millions of bees flipped over in Yellowstone National Park and destroyed hundreds of hives, bees are still swarming on trees in the area. “It’s what's called a swarming mechanism,” said a Wyoming beekeeper.

Millions Of Bees Swarm On Trees In Yellowstone After Hives Smashed In Semi Crash

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Dale Killingbeck

Dale Killingbeck

Wyoming Life

Around Wyoming

He drove a public bus in Casper in the 1920s and also took the wheel of trucks hauling contraband booze.

By the 1930s his two-bit criminal history in central Wyoming morphed into big-time felonies that made front-page headlines. 

In 1936, Harry Campbell hit the FBI’s most-wanted list as “public enemy No. 2” just behind his friend and partner in crime Alvin Karpis, the leader of the Karpis-Barker gang.

Campbell’s crime career ended with a life sentence at Alcatraz for his role in the kidnapping of a Minnesota brewery heir in 1934. 

But before he arrived at “The Rock” he, with Karpis, successfully escaped an FBI arrest in a hail of machine-gun bullets.

When the FBI finally put Campbell in cuffs for his role in the kidnapping, the raid was led by storied Director J. Edgar Hoover. 

The Casper Tribune-Herald reminded every one of Campbell’s ties to the region.

“Former Casper Man Seized In Toledo Today,” the paper reported on May 7, 1938. “Companion of Karpis Once Drove Bus to Evansville.”

Harry Campbell began life as a New Year’s baby in a new century, on Jan. 1, 1900, in McClintocksville, Pennsylvania. 

He was the fifth of seven children born to George and Melissa Campbell. By the second decade of his life, his family moved to Oklahoma, and it was in Tulsa where his bad seeds were initially sown.

FBI documents on the Barker gang state that Campbell grew up knowing the infamous brood and their mother, Kate “Ma” Barker.

“Many of the sons of Kate Barker became associates of these boys in their later lives,” states the file dated Nov. 19, 1936. “Harry Campbell and Volney Davis matured and grew up with the sons of Kate Barker, and in later years they collectively engaged in lives of crime.”

The file states that Campbell became a prominent member of the gang.

Reflecting on Campbell’s life of crime, The Tulsa World reported on May 8, 1936, that he was first arrested for vagrancy in the city on Dec. 25, 1920, and again on June 11, 1921, for bank robbery. 

He was sent to prison, but a few months later was acquitted and released.

Within the next two years, Campbell moved to the Casper region, first working the Salt Creek oil fields and then from 1923-1924 driving a bus between Casper and Evansville.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Transporting Booze"}]

The Casper Tribune-Herald reported on May 7, 1936, about how Campbell’s wayward nature continued to find opportunities in his new state.

“He gained a livelihood, police recall, from hauling truckloads of contraband liquor. Those were prohibition days, and on several occasions he ran afoul of the law because of his rum-running activities,” the newspaper reported. “He was arrested by Detective Miller in 1924 on a possession of whiskey charge.” 

But Campbell’s criminal ways meant he was never long in one region.

In August 1932, Campbell and Fred Barker were being sought for the murder J. Earl Smith, a Tulsa lawyer who had represented both men. 

Smith had told his wife that he was going to meet men to receive some money for his services. 

Campbell made the appointment to see Smith and had a dispute with the attorney about charges for his representation on a burglary charge. 

Smith’s body and bullet-riddled car were found outside Tulsa.

In August 1933, Campbell was sought in Oklahoma along with two others for the May 11 murder of a truck driver who tried to stop a safe robbery at a trucking firm.

In September 1933, FBI files state that Campbell was recruited by the Barker gang to St. Paul, Minnesota, and he brought along his second wife, Wynona Burdette, from Oklahoma. 

From Minnesota, the gang drove to Reno, Nevada, to meet with others, gamble and drink.

By late December they returned to Minnesota, and late in the month decided to kidnap Edward George Bremer, a St. Paul bank president and son of the owner of the Schmidt beer brewery. 

The plan was tentatively called off after two members left a kidnap planning session and shot and wounded a Northwest Airways employee who was wearing a uniform and mistaken for a cop.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Kidnapping"}]

By Jan. 17, 1934, plans were back on, and Campbell and Karpis were among five gang members watching for Bremer to drop off his daughter at school. 

When his car pulled up at a stop sign a half-block away after depositing her, a gang member stepped up to Bremer’s door with a gun, told him to move over.

Asecond gang member opened the right-side door, struck him in the head several times and shoved him on the floor, FBI files state.

Bremer’s car, followed by the remaining kidnappers, took off. Hoover later claimed it was Karpis and Campbell who initially grabbed him.

The kidnapping resulted in a $200,000 ransom payment with the serial numbers of the cash recorded by the FBI and later shared with banks across the country.

In its 1936 story, The Casper Herald-Tribune reported that Campbell and Karpis had visited Casper two years earlier in summer 1934 as the heat from law enforcement for the kidnapping made life harder elsewhere in the country.

The newspaper recounted how Campbell was seated at an “inconspicuous table” in a Casper night club and enjoying a drink and music trying to avoid attention. 

A former girlfriend reportedly walked up, called him by name and asked, “Where have you been keeping yourself?”

Campbell exchanged pleasantries and quickly disappeared from the club, the newspaper reported.

“The ensuing hunt for him revealed he had a companion and that the companion was Alvin Karpis,” the newspaper reported.

After the kidnapping and subsequent manhunt, the Casper paper noted that local law enforcement had been watchful for any appearance of Campbell in the region.

“Vigilance had been especially keen in recent weeks as the dragnet closed in on him and Karpis,” the newspaper reported.

When Fred Barker and Kate Barker were killed in a shootout with the FBI in January 1935, Campbell and Karpis were tracked to a hotel in Atlantic City. 

Campbell’s wife had been released by Oklahoma authorities with a promise from her brother that she would lead authorities to Campbell.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Shootout"}]

According to news reports, Campbell’s wife Burdette, aka Louise Campbell, and Karpis’ girlfriend traveled from Florida to join them. 

Some news reports state they tipped off authorities as to who was in the room next door.

When federal agents surrounded the motel room and banged on the door, news stories declared that Karpis sent a stream of bullets through it. 

Then Karpis, wearing trousers, slippers and overcoat, and Campbell with a pistol in his underwear, ran out the door as police returned fire. 

The pair stole a car and then engaged in a running gun battle with police as they gave chase.

“The bandits jumped into a coupe owned by Mrs. Harold Brand, and with Karpis lying on the running board and pumping shots from his machine gun, they drove out Kentucky Avenue,” the Press of Atlantic City reported on Jan. 21, 1935. 

“Store fronts and small hotels on Kentucky Avenue bore marks of the battle as the guns of the fleeing mobsters and police revolvers raked the entire section,” the story addded.

Karpis and Campbell escaped, ditched the car, kidnapped a man and stole his car, and then released him.

Karpis in his autobiography told a different story, writing that he and Campbell were in rooms individually with their women.

When the cops banged on the door, it was Campbell who opened up with the machine gun. No one was on the sideboard. He drove and Campbell fired at cops out of the back window.

The pair ended up in Toledo, Ohio, under assumed names. 

They recruited a couple of other criminals to join them and robbed a mail truck in Warren, Ohio, of $72,000. Two other known criminals were arrested, charged, and convicted, the FBI file states.

But a continued investigation showed Karpis and Campbell were responsible.

Meanwhile, Campbell married a 19-year-old girl named Gertrude as he used the name Clarence C. Miller on May 29, 1935.

On Nov. 7, 1935, five armed men with two machine guns, a shotgun and automatic pistols robbed a train in Garrettsville, Ohio, as it went from Detroit to Pittsburgh. 

Once again, Karpis and Campbell were leading the group, the FBI file states.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"But the law was closing in on them. "}]

They separated and Campbell stayed in Ohio under his assumed name and Karpis went south. 

Karpis was finally arrested on May 1, 1936, in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Hoover made sure he was present.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Arrest"}]

Six days later, agents closed in on Campbell in Toledo.

The FBI file states that at daybreak on May 7, 1936, agents raided his apartment and arrested him. Under his pillow was a .45-caliber Colt automatic pistol.

Headlines across the nation proclaimed the arrest. Hoover had flown to Cleveland to be on hand to bring him in.

Oklahoma prosecutors conceded that Hoover had a stronger case linking Campbell to the Bremer kidnapping than they had linking him to the 1932 murder of the attorney Smith.

Federal agents flew Campbell to Minnesota to face charges.

Campbell’s mother told the Tulsa Tribune for its May 7, 1936, edition that her son “has been a heartbreak to us.”

His parents and other siblings were described as “law abiding” and “mighty nice people” by a local Tulsa police detective.

Once in court on May 12 in Minneapolis, Campbell pleaded guilty to driving the kidnap car that took Bremer to the hideout and for guarding him for 21 days and then taking him to the place where he was released.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported on May 13 that the federal prosecutor said Campbell’s split of the ransom money was only $6,000 to $7,000. 

The judge asked him if there was any reason that he shouldn’t sentence him that day.

“No,” the paper reported Campbell stated.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"He got a life sentence."}]

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

The Winona Daily News reported on May 15, 1936, that he was shackled and taken secretly to Leavenworth by federal marshals and FBI agents.

“Campbell, federal authorities admitted, undoubtably will be taken to Alcatraz Prison in San Francisco Bay,” the newspaper reported.

Online federal prison records for Alcatraz list him as prisoner No. 322 having been sent there from Leavenworth. 

The record describes Campbell as “of the vicious type and his past record is a definite indication that would not hesitate from using violence in order to obtain his freedom … committee recommends maximum supervision.”

The federal prison record states that Campbell had a daughter with his second wife “of whom he is very fond.”

“In all probability his asocial activities were conditioned by associates and environmental influences,” his record states. “He has always been an oil field worker but was unemployed for three years prior to his arrest.”

Campbell’s potential parole date was May 11, 1951. Where and when he was released from prison is unknown. 

A search for information about his life after prison was unsuccessful.

The website Find a Grave states that Campbell died in Amarillo, Texas, on Nov. 20, 1974. He was buried after a gravesite service in Rose Hill Memorial Park in Tulsa.

Campbell and Alcatraz 6 21 26

<title>From Casper To Alcatraz: Former Bus Driver Hit No. 2 On FBI’s Most Wanted List | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A former Casper oil worker and bus driver in the 1920s careened into a life of crime with the infamous Karpis-Barker gang that included murders, kidnappings, and robberies. He was the FBI's No. 2 most-wanted before being caught and sent to Alcatraz.

From Casper To Alcatraz: Former Bus Driver Hit No. 2 On FBI’s Most Wanted List

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's general assignment reporter, Clair McFarland.

Clair McFarland

Opinion

CSD Columnists

[{"type":"text","text":"My dad is a mechanic."}]

Clair McFarland writes, "To me, the valiant man of our world is the one who makes things run, makes things last, makes things hold their purpose under pressure. That’s my dad.”

Daily Smile: Thursday, February 1, 2024

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