You Still Here

[{"type":"text","text":"Southern justice is remarkably similar to frontier justice...."}]

You still here bonus 2 7 24

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

<title>You Still Here? Bonus: Southern Justice Edition | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Southern justice is remarkably similar to frontier justice....

You Still Here? Bonus: Southern Justice Edition

 Southern justice is remarkably similar to frontier justice....

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

Clair McFarland

Government & Politics

Politics

Republicans on both sides of the pro-and anti-Freedom Caucus divide voiced critiques Monday on a 

 that dissects one of the Cowboy State’s fiercest legislative races.

“In the shadow of Devils Tower,” begins the story, “an election-year fight has erupted between Wyoming’s right and its far right, with serious implications for the state’s political future.”

The story covers the state Senate race between two Republicans: Wyoming Freedom Caucus (WFC) member and House Speaker Chip Neiman, and the upper chamber’s incumbent, Sen. Ogden Driskill.

That race is anthemic of the divide between the Wyoming Freedom Caucus and its intra-party foes, multiple news outlets and the NYT have agreed.  

[{"type":"text","text":"But it’s difficult to capture the nuance of it."}]

The story casts non-Freedom Caucus lawmakers as institutionalists, caucus members as insurgents. It touches on the caucus-led passage of a 25% residential property tax cut, and it airs both ideals of caucus leaders and grievances of their critics.

The caucus’ priorities, WFC chair Rep. Rachel Williams told the outlet, include shrinking government, tightening voting rules, and curtailing “activist” judges.

The NYT covered Neiman’s long battle for pro-life legislation and Driskill’s efforts this year to shield the University of Wyoming from a $40 million cut and the Wyoming Business Council from complete repeal.

[{"type":"text","text":"But Who Owns The Right?"}]

Former state Rep. Ember Oakley, who’s a career prosecutor and a detractor of the caucus, said the story repeats a fallacy that the Freedom Caucus is more conservative than its Republican foes.

Neiman had the inverse critique, saying though the story labels him as “far-right” he’s the normal right, and Driskill is, he asserted, a “Democrat.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Oakley responded to that barb hours before Neiman said it."}]

“This race actually does exemplify the division sowed by the Freedom Caucus, because classifying Ogden Driskill as anything but a solid conservative is ridiculous,” she said. “You can find this out by the policies he supports, his voting in the Senate, or any time you speak with the man.”

Driskill also bristled at being called a Democrat. He called it an instance of juvenile and disheartening name-calling, and described himself as a Reagan Republican.

He noted that he’s fought against both fuel and cigarette taxes throughout his 16-year legislative career.

Wyoming has produced no universal agreement about what it means to embody the political “right.”  

“I take umbrage with the continued classification (of) the Freedom Caucus being more conservative than the traditional, long-term Republican Wyomingites,” said Oakley.

[{"type":"text","text":"She gave an example."}]

While the Freedom Caucus passed the 25% property tax cut, its ally, gubernatorial candidate Brent Bien, led the effort to put another 50% residential property tax cut on the ballot this November.

Oakley stressed that because property taxes fund local governments – such as ambulance, firefighting, law enforcement, and schools – the locals of each county are funding their own services through them.

Offloading the tax burden onto another revenue structure, like the energy industry or sales taxes, shifts each local services bill from the people who are receiving the services, Oakley noted. She added that it would also shift communities’ autonomy to the bigger state government.

“Local control, instead of the bigger government – yes, even state – has always been a central tenet to Republicanism,” she said.

She called the WFC’s battle cry against “activist judges” a red herring, and said “Republicans in this state have traditionally had a respect for the rule of law and the Constitution that mandates separation of powers.”

WFC state director Jessie Rubino did not respond by publication to a Sunday text message and Monday voicemail request for comment on the NYT story.

[{"type":"text","text":"‘Ol Kitty Dog’"}]

Neiman was pleased to find his dog named for the Gunsmoke character Miss Kitty Russell in the NYT’s profile photograph of him.

[{"type":"text","text":"“That is a cool picture of me with Ol’ Kitty Dog,” he said."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"His delight ended there."}]

Neiman disagreed with the outlet calling him far-right. He said he follows the Wyoming Republican Party platform, and doesn’t believe the state party’s current candidate vetting process calling for 80% or higher agreement is a tall ask.

“Then he calls Ogden a ‘merely conservative.’ I don’t even know what that is,” said Neiman.

Of being called an “insurgent,” Neiman said with a laugh, “Jeez-oh-Pete … Sounds like we’re creating an insurrection.”

Neiman said Freedom Caucus members are “just taxpayers wanting to be involved in the conversation.”

Driskill had called the Wyoming GOP’s new platform-based vetting rule a “purity test.”

 to broad strokes and inconsistencies in the platform.

For example, it says people have a right to life from conception to natural death – wording that could alienate Republicans who support the death penalty.

The story references the Common Sense Republicans, a new PAC that warns of caucus-led deep cuts to services and education.

Neiman countered this, noting that the Freedom Caucus joined nearly the entire Legislature in passing a new school-funding bill that increased K-12 spending and teacher pay.

When the Legislature passed the 25% property tax cut, he noted, property taxes had just soared.

Neiman said Wyoming would have clearer ideas about politics if it had a strong Democratic Party.

“We fight inside the Republican Party because the Democratic Party has moved into the Republican Party,” he said.

[{"type":"text","text":"What Is A Democrat?"}]

Driskill countered, “I wish (Neiman) understood what a Democrat is, because he obviously does not.”

“I was going to Republican state conventions when he was in diapers,” added Driskill.

Driskill said he has encountered people on the campaign trail who’ve been told that he’s a leftist, and he’s spent time going over his record with people to undo what he calls trickery from his foes.

Driskill noted that the Wyoming Freedom Caucus and its members often tout as victories bills that passed with broader support by 

While the NYT story didn’t capture “the whole drift of what we’re like in northeast Wyoming,” said Driskill, the authors tried to be fair and did a reasonable job.

Oakley lodged a technical note: the story calls Neiman’s decision to leave the House and run for Senate an “unusual gamble.”

Actually, it’s tradition in Wyoming for the Speaker to serve just one term in that role, Oakley observed.

The chamber elects a House speaker every two years. Its two most recent speakers before Neiman, Albert Sommers and Eric Barlow, both ran for Senate after their terms.

[{"type":"text","text":"Nah, Says Lindholm"}]

Tyler Lindholm, Wyoming-based director of Americans For Prosperity and a side character in the NYT story, didn’t have any real gripes about it Monday.

“I don’t really think it said much at all,” said Lindholm. “For once I wasn’t very exciting, I guess.”

Neiman Driskill and Capitol 8 17 26

<title>Wyoming Politics: What The New York Times Got Right, And Wrong | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The New York Times featured the Wyoming Senate race between Chip Neiman and Ogden Driskill as an example of Wyoming's Republican Party divide. That's accurate, but no one in that race thinks Neiman represents the "far right."

Wyoming Politics: What The New York Times Got Right, And Wrong

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

Andrew Rossi

Tourism

[{"type":"text","text":"Some places just aren't a good fit for RVs and motorhomes. "}]

The Needles Highway in South Dakota’s Custer State Park, near Mount Rushmore, is one of them.

Denise Yelton and Todd Beaver discovered that during an excursion in Custer recently when a motorhome intended to thread the Needles Eye Tunnel found itself fraying halfway through.

Yelton and Beaver, who have been “full-time RVers” since April, decided to take an early-morning drive on the Needles Highway on Friday. They departed in their Jeep Gladiator, leaving their 38-foot Holiday Rambler Nautica parked at the campground.

“We left early because we knew the highway would get really crowded with Sturgis,” Yelton told Cowboy State Daily. “When we got to the tunnel, we pulled over because I wanted to record a video of my husband coming through the tunnel.”

When they pulled off the road, the Freedom Elite motorhome behind them kept going. That’s when disaster struck.

“I was sitting there waiting to see if he was going to make it through, and he got stuck,” Denise said. “I recorded it, obviously.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Aw, The Awning"}]

Drivers pass through three tunnels on the Needles Highway. The Needles Eye is the tightest at 8 feet, 4 inches wide and 9 feet, 8 inches tall.

Many people have attempted to get their RVs, motorhomes, and travel trailers through these tunnels, and many have failed. 

Yelton had seen videos of similar incidents and wasn’t keen to emulate them.

Yelton thought the Freedom Elite might have had a chance. Unfortunately for the couple pulling it, they were over-accessorized.

“The awning started scraping against the side of the tunnel,” she said. “When he realized that he wasn't going to make it, he started backing up, and that's when it was making all the noise.”

When the RV backed up far enough, the awning arm fully extended until it fell off. The driver backed out of the tunnel and parked in the pull-off to assess the damage with his wife.

Yelton and Beaver hopped in their Jeep and continued onward. Yelton assumed they conceded they couldn’t thread the Needles Eye and went back the way they came.

“I think he just thought he could get through, and maybe if it wasn't for the awnings, he possibly could have,” she said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'Don’t Be This Guy'"}]

Before Yelton posted the video of the RV incident on her 

, it had 347 followers. Three days later, it has more than 9,000 followers.

“It has blown my mind,” she said. “I’m not out there trying to get followers and stuff, but it's really blown my mind.”

When Beaver retired from the Charlotte Fire Department last year, the couple left Gastonia, North Carolina, in April and haven’t stopped since.

“We’re sharing our adventures and life on the road, one mile at a time,” Yelton said.

Yelton noticed that the Freedom Elite that attempted to scrape through the tunnel also had a North Carolina license plate. However, she figured that wasn’t a good time to chitchat.

[{"type":"text","text":"“I didn’t speak to them at all,” she said. “We just went on.”"}]

She did point out the numerous signs along the road warning drivers of the width and height of the upcoming tunnel. It seems the driver either underestimated the Freedom Elite’s width or overestimated his ability to get through the tunnel.

“He had to make it through the previous tunnel to get where he was, and that one was wider,” she said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"There’s An App For That"}]

How can RV and motorhome drivers avoid these incidents? There’s an app for that.

As she was researching full-time RV life, Yelton learned the secret to safe travels is the RV Life app.

“We put our destination in the app, and it’ll tell us what we want to avoid,” she said. “That’s what you have to do as an RVer, and we knew that because we follow a lot of them.”

That’s why their 38-foot Holiday Rambler Nautica RV stayed where it was. That’s for living and traveling the open road, not exploring routes like the Needles Highway.

“We never would have intentions of taking our camper on a mountain road,” she said. “We've researched enough about the areas that we're headed to so we know what to do when we get there.”

Yelton and Beaver have been savoring South Dakota for several days. The next leg of their trip will take them on Interstate 90 to Buffalo, then over the Bighorns to Cody on their way to Yellowstone National Park.

Thanks to RV Life, they know where they can and can’t go with their RV, lest they end up facing scrutiny on social media.

“We’ve seen a lot of videos, so we knew our RV would never make it through those tunnels,” Yelton said. “That was my first time seeing something like that.”

RV stuck 8 17 26

<title>RV Driver Tries To Scrape Through South Dakota Needles Eye Tunnel, Gets Stuck | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A couple was videotaping the Needles Eye Tunnel in South Dakota’s Custer State Park on Friday when a motorhome tried to thread the narrow opening and became stuck. "I think he just thought he could get through," they said.

RV Driver Tries To Scrape Through South Dakota Needles Eye Tunnel, Gets Stuck

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

California isn’t doing its part to avert the Colorado River crisis by upgrading its aging water infrastructure and is instead spending billions on pet projects, Wyoming Republican Rep. Harriet Hageman said Monday.

“It’s because they do stupid things like spending money on high-speed rail and don’t meet the basic needs of their citizens,” Hageman told Cowboy State Daily.

She added that California Gov. Gavin Newsom is one of the “top five worst governors in the United States.”

“How many billions have been wasted on healthcare for illegal aliens (in California)?” she asked.

, Hageman said California, with a population of 40 million, still relies on water infrastructure dating to the 1960s, when about 16 million lived in the state.  

That could saddle Wyoming and other Colorado River basin states with meeting an increasing demand for water against a dwindling supply, she said.

If the issue  escalates into a legal battle, probably before the U.S. Supreme Court, California and other downstream states might try going after Wyoming’s irrigation water, Hageman added.

Hageman was previously a water and natural resources attorney. She worked on cases related to the 1922 Colorado River Compact, the North Platte Decree limiting Colorado

’s use of the river’s water, and other interstate water agreements.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Red Lights Flashing"}]

Alarm over the condition of the river reached new levels Saturday, when Lake Powell, on the Utah-Arizona state line, reached its lowest level on record, CNN reported.

Nine days earlier, Lake Mead, on the Arizona-Nevada state line, also reached its lowest level.

Lake Powell and Lake Mead are the largest reservoirs on the Colorado River and supply hydroelectric power and other water needs to the Lower Basin states of California, Arizona, and Nevada.

The Upper Basin states are Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico.

There’s concern that Lake Powell and Lake Mead could reach “dead pool,” or levels so low their dams can no longer generate hydroelectric power.

California should have seen trouble coming and acted accordingly, Hageman said.

“The red lights have been flashing for years, if not decades,” she said.

Wyoming Irrigation Would Prevail In Court

Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon recently stated that he’s 

 that the Department of the Interior's new 10-year plan for the Colorado looks out for Upper Basin states.

However, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs said it calls for “draconian water cutbacks" for her state.

Hageman said Arizona’s water woes stem from the same problems California has: Poor planning and misallocation of funds that should have gone toward water infrastructure.

“I think it might very well be Arizona that will try to drag the other states into court over this (Colorado River) compact,” she said.

Attorneys for Arizona or other Lower Basin states would likely try arguing that meeting industrial or municipal demands would be a “higher and better use” for water than irrigation in Wyoming, she said.

However, Hageman said she’s confident that’s an argument attorneys for Wyoming and the Upper Basin would win.

“The solution to their long-term water needs isn’t shutting Wyoming off from being able to irrigate,” she said.

Moreover, irrigation is good for the environment, she added.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The 1922 Compact Stands"}]

Tensions over the Colorado River have led some to question whether the 1922 Colorado River Compact should be replaced.

Hageman said that might sound appealing at first, but drawing up a new compact could take years or possibly even “decades” in court.

And there’s no guarantee a new compact would be better for Wyoming and the Upper Basin, she added.

“It is what it is. And the reality is, we keep coming back to this compact,” Hageman said.

The best hope is for the Upper Basin states to argue for the existing compact to work in their favor, Hageman said. And she said she thinks that case can be made.

The compact calls for the Upper Basin to supply an annual flow of 7.5 million acre-feet at Lees Ferry in Arizona. 

It is viewed by some as a “delivery obligation” on the Upper Basin’s part, Hageman said.

“I would argue that it’s a non-depletion compact,” she said.

Wyoming has never used its allotted 14% of the Upper Basin’s allocation, she added. And until it does, there shouldn’t be a call for Wyoming’s supply to be depleted.

Some have suggested California wean itself from the Colorado by desalinizing Pacific Ocean water along its extensive coastline.

Hageman said she favors that option and thinks California is obligated to pursue it far more aggressively than it has.

“Israel is at almost 100% desalinization” of seawater to meet its freshwater demands, Hageman said. “It can be done.” 

However, California’s policy has been directed by short-sighted politicians who want to spend the state’s revenue on flashy projects, such as “Los Angeles-to-San Fransico high-speed rail,” rather than investing in desalinization plants and the like, she said.

“They failed all of us,” Hageman said. “They failed everybody on the (Colorado River) system.”

Hageman and Colorado River 8 17 26

<title>Hageman: California 'Failed All Of Us' And Made Colorado River Water Crisis Worse | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Wyoming Rep. Harriet Hageman says California should be accountable for the Colorado River crisis because instead of building water infrastructure it spent billions on "stupid things" like high-speed rail. In the meantime, Lake Powell has hit a record low.

Hageman: California 'Failed All Of Us' And Made Colorado River Water Crisis Worse

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

Renée Jean

Around Wyoming

In the hyper-competitive world of multi-million-dollar western real estate listings, buzzwords like “regenerative agriculture” often pad a broker’s promotional materials. But a $29.9 million ranch just listed by Hayden Outdoors near Weston in northeast Wyoming has a little more heft behind its hype than usual.

That’s because Martha Stewart traded the Hamptons for the High Plains of Wyoming last year to come study the farm-to-fork ecosystem at Steiner Ranch, which was then called Sweetgrass at Thunderbasin. 

Stewart later praised the operation on her official Instagram account, highlighting the “extreme” energy of the ranch’s owners, Rick Steiner and Deirdre Wildman. 

She was also interested in the property’s unique capacity to feed its guests almost entirely from the surrounding land, praising multi-course menus that featured on-site harvests of goose, rabbit, beef, poultry and local berries, as well as produce from the ranch’s greenhouses, orangery, and its open-air culinary gardens. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Ranch Grows Everything It Needs"}]

It was the culinary garden that got the ranch noticed by Stewart, who owns a 153-acre farm in Connecticut. 

“Last year, early in the season, we had a group of shooters here and they saw my wife’s culinary garden, which is truly an extraordinary thing,” Steiner said. “It’s a culinary garden that produces enough stuff for us to provide literally all the vegetables that 250 guests eat during the course of the fall season.”

Steiner’s wife, Wildman, gave them all a tour of the gardens, explaining their approach to a regenerative, farm-to-fork operation.

“So the guy said to me, ‘I gotta get our chief gardening officer out here to see this,’” Steiner said with a chuckle. “And we said, ‘chief gardening officer?’”

Steiner has heard all sorts of acronyms such as CEO, COO, CFO. But that was the first time hearing CGO.

“And then he said, ‘It’s Martha Stewart,’” Steiner said. “And I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s kind of interesting.’”

That Stewart visit wasn’t something Steiner thought would happen. But the following Monday morning he had a text asking if such and such date would work for Stewart’s visit.

“Sure enough, they were out here 10 days later and got the full tour of the gardens and the ranch,” Steiner said. “And we have a small animal farming operation that raises chickens and turkeys and ducks and geese, rabbits and goats, and those also, both eggs and meat, are served to guests.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"What It’s Like To Serve Martha Stewart"}]

Wildman served breakfast, lunch and dinner to Stewart. For breakfast she even used one of Stewart’s own biscuit recipes. 

“I’ll be honest with you, there’s a little bit of anxiety as to whether or not your biscuits are going to meet Martha Stewart’s standard,” Steiner said. “When my wife asked me about it, I said, ‘Well she ate several of them so …’ She passed with flying colors.”

Stewart, Steiner added, was a down-to-earth, gracious guest.

“She’s got a great sense of humor and she’s very engaging, very straightforward,” Steiner said. “She’s not shy about telling you what she thinks. I just found her delightful.”

Stewart posted several pictures about her visit on Instagram, including some standing with Deirdre and others on the ranch.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Elevation Creates Unique Microclimate"}]

The ranch’s ability to grow so much produce is a feat in arid Wyoming, one that’s helped by the ranch’s elevation, which has created a favorable microclimate.

“I would say the surrounding (Thunder Basin) national grassland is a 16 to 24 inches a year precipitation environment, and the ranch I would say is 30 to 36 inches a year of precipitation environment,” Steiner told Cowboy State Daily. “The clouds roll in from whatever direction the wind is blowing and have to rise up to climb over the hills on the ranch and the ridge lines. When they rise up, they cool down and drop some moisture.”

That’s given the ranch all kinds of trees and created great habitat not only for gardening but for wildlife as well. 

“It’s the basis for what’s going on here in every dimension,” Steiner said. “It’s great for ranching. It’s really great for the wildlife. And it just makes the place much nicer and more scenic than most other places.”

The ranch’s location in so much wild and remote territory, with above-average water resources, has made it such an exceptional wildlife haven. 

“I’ve hunted in probably 40 countries,” Steiner said. “This one of the finest hunting properties on the planet. Really big elk, fantastic mule deer, white-tailed deer, lots of turkeys. 

"And it also provides exceptional bird-shooting experiences for pheasants and chukars, which we have been offering to guests for the last four years. It’s an amazing sporting property that also supports about 100 cow-calf pairs if you want to run some cows on the side.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Time For A New Steward"}]

Steiner’s path to Wyoming started far from the Black Hills. The West Point graduate served about five years in the infantry, then spent roughly 18 1/2 in Special Forces, eventually retiring as a Green Beret colonel. 

After the military, he built a business career in Denver, but had always had it on his bucket list to own a ranch.

“My business success was sufficient that I could make my dream a reality,” he said.

Still, it took him a decade looking at ranches in multiple states before he finally found what he was looking for. 

“One of the things that this ranch has going it for that people don’t really think about when they’re looking at ranches is it’s 45 minutes from Gillette Campbell County Airport,” Steiner said. “So you can fly to visit us on United, or you can fly in privately if you have that.” 

Steiner and his wife, however, feel ready to retire. A ranch like this one, capable of attracting someone like Martha Stewart to visit, needs a new steward, Steiner said.

“It’s too much ranch for just a married couple who wants to have a lifestyle ranch,” Steiner said. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Two Mansions On The Ranch"}]

Steiner’s Special Forces career helps explain why the property has been designed to completely survive being cut off from the main grid. It has its own dual-array solar grids, industrial backup power, private gravel pits, and independent fuel caches, mimicking a military Forward Operating Base — but one that’s been built to some luxury standards.

The 5,582-acre Steiner Ranch in northeast Wyoming, a premiere spot for hunting trophy bull elk and mule deer, has just been listed for sale at nearly $30 million. Last year, Martha Stewart was at the ranch to study its farm-to-fork ecosystem.

You Still Here? Bonus: Southern Justice Edition

In case you missed it

More in You Still Here

You Still Here? Tuesday, August 18, 2026

Bonus Video 2: Tuesday, August 18, 2026

Today In Sports: Tuesday, August 18, 2026

Steve Inman: Tuesday, August 18, 2026

Most read