Daily Smile

[{"type":"text","text":"It's Saturday, let's go dancing..."}]

Smile 2 3 24

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

<title>Daily Smile: Saturday, February 3, 2024 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

It's Saturday, let's go dancing...

Daily Smile: Saturday, February 3, 2024

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Courts

The criminal case against a Shoshoni Senior Center assistant director 

 one of the people she was supposed to help is headed to district court.

The alleged victim, 93, lives alone and relies on the Shoshoni Senior Center for meals, transportation and other daily assistance.

Jeannie Kroenke was bound over Tuesday after a preliminary hearing in Fremont County Circuit Court on a single felony count of exploitation of a vulnerable adult.

A week after Kroenke's arrest, the Shoshoni Senior Center's Board of Directors publicly acknowledged the allegations, saying it understood the concern they created among seniors and their families.

[{"type":"text","text":"They added that Kroenke has been placed on leave. "}]

"We take these allegations seriously and will continue to do everything within our authority to ensure the Senior Center remains a safe, welcoming, and trusted resource for the people we serve," they wrote. 

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

Long before she depended on others for help, the Shoshoni woman at the center of this case spent decades caring for her family and running a Wyoming cattle ranch.

After her husband died in 1990, she stepped into a larger role managing the family's Fremont County ranch.

Now, prosecutors allege that a woman who devoted much of her life to caring for others became vulnerable to exploitation by someone she had come to trust.

An affidavit shows the woman, in the last ten years, used a wheelchair, lived alone, and "became confused easily." 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Nine Checks "}]

The case began after Wyoming Community Bank contacted the Shoshoni Police Department for a recently deposited check that looked suspicious.

[{"type":"text","text":"Investigators allege the check had been altered from $5,000 to $15,000."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"That discovery prompted detectives to look deeper."}]

Police say they uncovered nine checks totaling $33,400, all allegedly deposited into Kroenke's personal bank account between April 17, 2025, and June 23, 2026.

According to the affidavit, investigators determined the woman was unable to manage her finances independently because of her age, physical limitations and confusion.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'Go Have Fun'"}]

Kroenke acknowledged receiving the checks but told investigators they were gifts.

According to the affidavit, she said the woman wanted to help pay expenses related to her daughter's mental health treatment and would sometimes hand her $1,000 while saying, "Go have fun."

Kroenke said she used the money to pay rent, travel expenses, medications for her daughter, and other household bills. Investigators also say she acknowledged using $10,000 of the money to repay a debt she owed her son.

[{"type":"text","text":"Police say another check, this one for $6,200, was also disputed."}]

Investigators wrote that the woman believed the money was being donated to the Shoshoni Senior Center's historical preservation project. Kroenke told detectives she had confused that check with a different donation.

Near the end of her interview, investigators say Kroenke acknowledged that accepting money from a client looked inappropriate because of her position at the senior center. She also admitted no one else knew the woman had been giving her money, says the affidavit.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"More Than Lunch"}]

The allegations have shaken a place many people in Shoshoni consider the heart of the community.

The senior center serves meals, provides transportation, hosts community events, and gives older residents a place to socialize and stay connected.

"It's a really important part of our whole town," Shoshoni Mayor Joel Highsmith previously told Cowboy State Daily.

Highsmith said seniors travel from surrounding rural communities — and even Riverton — to eat there, attend events and spend time together.

He urged residents not to judge the organization by the allegations against one employee.

"If the allegations are true, it was an act of one person and not an act ... of the senior center as a whole," Highsmith said. "It's one individual, it's not the senior center."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Board Responds"}]

Shoshoni Senior Center Executive Director Rikki Neale said the center remains committed to the people who depend on it.

"The Shoshoni Senior Center is and always will be dedicated to the care, dignity, and safety of our seniors," Neale said. "We are grateful for the trust our community places in us, and we remain focused on providing the support, services, and companionship that our participants depend on every day."

The board said it would not comment further while the criminal case is pending.

Kroenke previously posted a $10,000 cash bond after her initial appearance on July 13. Court records show she is represented by public defender Valerie Schoneberger.

Chief Deputy Fremont County Attorney Timothy Hancock asked the court to set an arraignment date, where Kroenke will enter a plea.

Shoshoni senior center 7 24 26

<title>Case Against Shoshoni Senior Center Worker Accused Of Exploiting 93-Year-Old Advances | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A judge has sent to district court the case against a Shoshoni Senior Center assistant director accused of taking more than $33,000 from a 93-year-old woman who lives alone. "We take these allegations seriously," the senior center's board wrote.

Case Against Shoshoni Senior Center Worker Accused Of Exploiting 93-Year-Old Advances

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

Clair McFarland

Government & Politics

Politics

Gillette Fourth of July Parade participants not being allowed to hand out Bibles and copies of the U.S. Constitution has prompted a complaint to the Campbell County Commission. 

State House Appropriations Chairman John Bear, R-Gillette, asserts in 

 that community groups “were barred by Campbell County Parks & Recreation officials from handing out U.S. Constitutions and Bibles during the Independence Day 250 parade.”

Campbell County Parks officials say they were merely enforcing a rule against handing out paper products at the parade, adopted around 2021 to curb trash cleanup after the event.

Bear wrote in the same column that a few towns away, Lander’s local LGBT advocacy group handed out condoms to parade-goers and kids.

“Since when are free condoms protected by the Constitution while Bibles are not?” asked Bear in the column.

Organizers of the Lander parade’s Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) float adamantly deny handing out condoms.

Carol Smith in an open letter to Bear, which she sent to Cowboy State Daily, says she was on that float, and no one on it handed out condoms.

“We handed out candy to children and celebrated inclusion with the community, just as we have in previous years,” wrote Smith, who reiterated the point in a phone interview this week.

Sarah Reilley, who said she’s driven the float for three years but couldn’t attend the parade this year, told Cowboy State Daily she would never have handed out condoms.

“Absolutely not,” said Reilley in an interview. She wrote in a Facebook post last week that doing that would have been both expensive and “WILDLY inappropriate.”

"It's important for leaders in our state and elected representatives to do the work to fact-check for themselves, instead of taking fake images and spreading lies in order to create division," said Reilley. 

Bear told Cowboy State Daily that a “solid” witness had alerted him to the alleged Lander incident. The witness said no to being interviewed by Cowboy State Daily, said Bear.

According to Reilley and a screenshot she posted, the image Bear dispatched of two hands holding what appears to be a condom returned a Google Reverse Images result of a viral SnapChat screenshot.

Cowboy State Daily’s own Google Reverse Images search, days later, did not replicate that result. That could be because SnapChat doesn’t retain images, Reilley said.

The rest of the controversy is now a complaint that is pending before the Campbell County Commission.

[{"type":"text","text":"First, The Church"}]

Kurt Siebenaler applied for a permit to run a float on behalf of his church, Church at the Barn, in Campbell County’s Fourth of July parade, he told Cowboy State Daily on Thursday.

[{"type":"text","text":"It was a fun task before all the drama, he said."}]

“The theme was, our country was founded on Biblical principles,” he said. 

Congregants decked out the float with Bibles, a big USA sign and a liberty bell. They’d planned to hand out pocket versions of the U.S. Constitution and New Testament volumes, he added.

When Siebenaler applied to be in the parade, the application said fliers, stickers, paper products, brochures, paper handouts, and leaflets weren’t allowed in it, he recalled.

Siebenaler went to check with a Parks and Recreation staffer, Darla Cotton, and she said the volumes would not be allowed under that rule, he added.

“She said because if people don’t want them, they’re just going to throw them on the ground when they leave,” Siebenaler said. 

He countered that they weren’t going to hand them out to “a half dozen kids or whatever” but would be more targeted.

Cotton maintained her veto but said the churchgoers could sign up for a booth at the later hot dog feed at Bicentennial Park and hand out Bibles and Constitutions there, Siebenaler said, adding that the church approved that plan.

Cotton contacted Siebenaler ahead of the hot dog feed to say the department had run out of room for booths and needed to give political candidates priority to be fair across races, he recalled.

Siebenaler told the church, and “word got out to a couple (county) commissioners.”

Then Cotton reportedly told Siebenaler that if the church could find a political candidate willing to share a booth, it could hand out its volumes from there.

Ira Shober, a county commission candidate who attends the church, agreed to share, Siebenaler said.

[{"type":"text","text":"The Monday Meeting"}]

Commission Chair Bob Jordan and Commissioner Jerry Means met with Campbell County Parks and Recreation Director Dwayne Dillinger, superintendent Adam Gibson, Bear, Republican state Rep. Abby Angelos, at least one attorney representing the county and other stakeholders to discuss the issues on the Monday before July 4.

Dillinger and Angelos are both Republicans running against each other for a Gillette-based seat in the state Senate.

[{"type":"text","text":"Bear is running again for his seat in the House."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"The primary election is Aug. 18."}]

In Bear’s telling, Dillinger wasn’t aware of the dustup, “but he defended it when the time came.”

“I keep telling him if you have a conflict, you can’t err on the side of trampling people’s inalienable constitutional rights,” Bear told Cowboy State Daily.

Dillinger was reticent in his interviews with Cowboy State Daily, saying he had to be careful not to campaign in a story told from his professional post because of the Hatch Act.

That federal law bars people working for agencies that receive federal money from using their positions to campaign.

He said the parade rules on which Cotton relied were implemented long before he became the director.

Bear said that county personnel said Gillette city officials didn’t want the trash, but that a later call to the city debunked that.

Cotton sent Cowboy State Daily the PDF copies of the rules for each year from 2021-2026. Those show the ban on “flyers, stickers and other types of materials” starting in 2021, with the warning that “they end up everywhere as trash rather than in the hands of the parade attendee.”

“They’re the same (rules) for everybody,” said Cotton in a Thursday interview. “We’re not restricting what they can say; just how they deliver it because of the trash issue.”

[{"type":"text","text":"In 2024, that rule expanded to all paper products."}]

Cotton said Parks and Recreation staffers have had recurring conversations with city officials about the trash problem, and main discussion driving that rule happened in 2021.

And in 2021 the streets division contact was a different person, she said. “Back then it was different people (voicing these concerns) than are there now,” said Cotton.

[{"type":"text","text":"The City Council Candidate"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Ben Decker is a Gillette City Council candidate.  "}]

Cotton is managing campaigns for two other candidates, Heidi Gross and Eric Scott. She said she’s received permission since these are nonpartisan campaigns and she works for the county, not the city.

She said she’s helped with social media work for legislative campaigns, but doesn’t manage any legislative campaign.

Decker in his own interview referenced a 

Vomhof defied the Parks and Recreation director that year and ran a float highly critical of the city’s then-mayor, whom 

 over the sudden resignation of now-mayor, then councilman Shay Lundvall.

[{"type":"text","text":"That was before Dillinger ran the Parks and Recreation department."}]

Vomhof said in a Thursday interview that both the Parks and Recreation director of the time and county commissioners tried to shut him down.

But he ran the float — which showed a jail cell and signs reading “fire the mayor” — after what he described as a conversation in which the police chief noted that running a parade float without a permit isn’t an arrestable offense.  

Decker told Cowboy State Daily that the war between some residents and “tyrannical” officials started with Vomhoff’s protest float and continues today.

Decker asserted that Cotton, who is his second cousin, has tightened the rules each year based on whatever he did the prior year.

[{"type":"text","text":"Cotton denied that assertion, pointing to the largely stagnant rules."}]

Decker said an early version of the hot dog feed rules required candidates to stay at their tables and prohibited them from handing out fliers and Bibles. 

The rules were later changed so that booth holders could hand out paper products and no longer had to stay at their booths, he said.

The rules were acceptable but their earlier, tougher version “created a chilling effect” on attendees, who “self-censored,” said Decker.

Decker ignored the rules altogether by leaving the designated area for political candidates and handing out fliers to people standing in line at the hot dog feed, he said.

Decker said the flier contained the political group Coal Country Conservatives’ list of preferred candidates for various offices. That flier included an endorsement of Bear and Angelos.

In Decker’s telling, Dillinger called the cops on him for campaigning outside the designated area. Decker calls the move unconstitutional. His complaint to the commission asserts a First Amendment rights violation. 

[{"type":"text","text":"In Dillinger’s telling, he did not call the cops on Decker."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"So The Cops Weigh In"}]

Gillette Police Department Deputy Chief Brent Wasson clarified in a Thursday interview.

Dillinger didn’t call the police department. He contacted an officer directly.

“I’m assuming he had seen (the officer) working the parade and … spoke with him about the concern at the park,” said Wasson.

Gillette officers patrolled the parade on bicycles then ride over to the park.

[{"type":"text","text":"All this happened just after midday July 4, the deputy chief said."}]

The encounter was brief. Officers told Decker they didn’t want to interfere with his campaigning, though he was outside the designated area. 

[{"type":"text","text":"“And that’s pretty much it,” said Wasson."}]

“That’s what we do when we have big events. We make sure there’s security. We bring in different security people for fireworks, and that’s what we do,” said Dillinger. “I was just doing my job. … It was a simple call: ‘Are you guys heading out to the park after you get done at the parade on your bikes?’ That’s all there was to it.”

He theorized the original fallout over the Bibles involves political fervor. "Now that I'm a candidate, it's an issue." 

[{"type":"text","text":"The Bible Ladies Venture Out Too"}]

Siebenaler wasn’t paying close attention to all that, but recalled that women from his church booth were emboldened by Decker’s move. They also verged toward the hot dog line, he said.

“They were just outside the fence and holding up Constitutions and Bibles, and asking politely, or just showing people, ‘Would you like to have one?’” Siebenaler said.

The rules seemed practical at first, Siebenaler said. But looking back on it, he’s not as sure.

“That would be in their mind or heart to what their motive was,” said Siebenaler of the involved county officials.

Campbell County Commissioner Scott Clem wasn’t involved in this situation, but knows about Decker’s complaint now pending at the county’s human resources department level, he said in a Thursday interview.

That complaint will likely be handled in executive session since it involves personnel, he noted. That’s a provision of state law.

“Something will come out of this so that we avoid problems like this in the future, and we’ll try as much as we can to correct things now,” said Clem.

Jordan, who chairs the commission, told Cowboy State Daily he's shaking his head at how the saga unfolded. 

"It’s not good optics to have yourself and your employee making it hard on somebody else," said Jordan of Parks and Recreation management. "I personally wouldn't ban Bibles and Constitutions." 

Gillette Fourth of July parade 7 23

<title>Unpacking The Campbell County Parade Fallout Over Bibles But Not Condoms | Cowboy State Daily</title>

When a state lawmaker asked why Campbell County parade floats couldn't hand out Bibles but a Lander float could hand out condoms, the Lander float organizers said they did no such thing. Campbell County's Bible saga is much more complicated.

Unpacking The Campbell County Parade Fallout Over Bibles But Not Condoms

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily political columnist, Rod Miller.

Rod Miller

Opinion

CSD Columnists

In 1986, Democrat Ed Herschler had occupied the governor’s office for an unprecedented three terms. 

That created a 12 year backlog of Republican lust for Wyoming’s highest elected office and, when Herschler announced that he wouldn’t seek another term, the logjam burst.

The '86 GOP primary field was crowded with Republican heavy-hitters, all intent on reclaiming the governor’s chair for their party. 

The primary ballot looked like a Who’s Who of GOP luminaries that had been waiting in the wings for more than a decade to assume power.

Candidates included Pete Simpson, Bill Budd, Dave Nicholas, Russ Donley, Fred Schroeder, John Johnson and Jim Bace. 

This was a formidable line-up, including legislators, a former Speaker of the House, U.S Senator Al Simpson’s brother and a state GOP chairman. Heavy-hitters.

Anyone like me, with a few years under their belt, will remember these names, and the smart money said that one of them would be Wyoming’s next governor. 

After all, what Democrat would stand a chance against this A-Team of Republicans?

[{"type":"text","text":"Pete Simpson won the primary with a razor-thin margin over Bill Budd. "}]

But the primary was a bruising donnybrook, as the GOP candidates tore into each other and tried to claw their way into the governor’s office. 

I use “bruising” in the 20th century meaning of the term, certainly nothing like the scorched earth, take-no-prisoners politics practiced by today’s GOP.

Nevertheless, the primary left everyone exhausted – candidates, donors, volunteers, party apparatus, and most importantly the voting public. Everyone had a bellyful of partisan infighting.

A political newcomer, Casper lawyer Mike Sullivan, won the Democratic primary, and he beat Simpson in the general election. Sullivan went on to serve two terms of his own.

[{"type":"text","text":"I remember watching coverage on network TV for the general election."}]

When the talking heads got to the Wyoming election, before all the votes were tallied, the pundit said, “In Wyoming, we have Republican Pete Simpson, brother of Sen. Al Simpson, son of former governor and U.S. Senator Milward Simpson running for governor against Mike Sullivan who has as much business in this race as a moose in a phone booth.” 

[{"type":"text","text":"Pretty much a direct quote."}]

Flash forward forty years to 2026, and today’s crowded and cantankerous GOP primary streetfight for the U.S. House reminds me a lot of 1986.

Make no mistake, the political landscape today is waaaay different than '86. 

The advent of the internet, social media, Citizens United, a state GOP that has gone off its rocker. hyper partisanship, Super-PACs, Trump and many other factors make this election a different equation. 

[{"type":"text","text":"But one thing has not changed...voters’ fatigue."}]

The intervening years have not increased our tolerance for bullshit, or made us more welcoming to the Chinese water torture of modern political campaigns. The 2026 GOP House primary is testing that premise.

I’m sure the Republican candidates all have out-of-state media experts on staff who say, “More gnarly mailers, more social media vitriol, bigger doses of bullshit,” and expect Wyoming to buy it. So the candidates reject the genteel collegiality of yesteryear in favor of what we see from them today.

The shame is not on them for trying it, the shame is on us if we buy it. That is the stark line between politicians and voters.

With less than a month until the primary, four of the GOP contenders have each pushed a million of their own dollars into the post. Money like that was unheard of in '86. 

Regardless who wins the GOP nod, we can expect the flash-flood of dough to continue, as the national GOP big pockets raise the ante. 

That means we can predict the constant water torture to morph from an irritating drip of mailers, ads, Facebook posts etc. into a frog-strangler of a cloudburst, worthy of five-buckle overboots. 

Our tolerance for political bullshit and our voters’ fatigue will be sorely tested until November, by folks who are masters of the game. 

It will be interesting to see if the nastiness of the GOP primary couples with our frayed political nerves to drive voters toward the Democrat contestant in the U.S. House race. 

If the goofiness continues all fall, Wyoming may just vote for the candidate who annoys us the least...like in “86. Deja vu, anyone?

(Author’s note: immediately prior to publication of this column. U.S. House candidate Frank Chapman withdrew from the race. To which news the author responds, “Well, there’s a million bucks pissed away.”)

Rod Miller can be reached at: RodsMillerWyo@yahoo.com

Rod miller headshot scaled

<title>Rod Miller: The '86 Election, Voter Fatigue & Deja Vu | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Columnist Rod Miller writes, "Today’s crowded and cantankerous GOP primary street-fight for the U.S. House reminds me a lot of 1986. Make no mistake, the political landscape is waaaay different than '86. But one thing has not changed — voters’ fatigue."

Rod Miller: The '86 Election, Voter Fatigue & Deja Vu

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

Wildlife

Hunting

Yellowstone National Park's famed oldest wolf pack, the Mollie

s, was just following its stomachs when it left the safety of the park's boundaries recently and denned on the Shoshone National Forest, a Wyoming Game and Fish Department biologist says.

"They're looking for food," Ken Mills told Cowboy State Daily during an online interview Thursday.

The Mollie's have made brief forays out of the park previously. But this year, they made an unprecedented move, said Mills, a large carnivore biologist and wolf management specialist, and in doing so have created a tempest of controversy.

The Mollie's settled down east of Yellowstone — and within the boundaries of Game and Fish's Wolf Hunt Area 1.

That's prompted an outcry from conservation groups and wolf advocates, who want wolf hunting shut down there, at least for this year, to spare the Mollie's.

. She's a member of the pack and, at age 12, is thought to be Yellowstone's oldest wolf. The average life expectancy of a Yellowstone wolf is about 4 years and the oldest known animal was Wolf 478F of the Cougar Creek Pack, which lived to be 12 1/2.

Game and Fish Director Angi Bruce and Game and Fish Commission member Bill Mai told Cowboy State Daily that Wyoming wolf management should be based on science, not "emotion" over one wolf or one pack.

Bruce and Mai said they and other officials have been flooded with emails calling for hunting to be suspended in the Mollie's denning area.

Among the groups opposing hunting the Mollie's is the Western Watersheds Project.

Erik Molvar, a wildlife biologist and the group's executive director, said wolf hunting isn't based on sound science but rather amounts to needless "trophy hunting."

The famed Mollie’s Pack was just “looking for food” when it left Yellowstone to den on the Shoshone National Forest, a biologist says. But in doing so, the wolves kicked off a tempest of controversy over whether they should be hunted.

Daily Smile: Saturday, February 3, 2024

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