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[{"type":"text","text":"Andy Williams never sounded better..."}]

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

<title>You Still Here? Tuesday, March 19, 2024 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Andy Williams never sounded better....

You Still Here? Tuesday, March 19, 2024

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

Clair McFarland

Government & Politics

Politics

Wyoming’s coal sector is startled at Republican political candidates who oppose the data center buildout.

Data centers are large warehouses full of servers that power parts of the internet and, increasingly, artificial intelligence (AI). Wyoming has between 20 and 30 operational data centers.

President Donald Trump has touted the sector’s expansion as part of a 

, and part of beating China in a technology advancement race.

Many Wyoming Republicans oppose data center construction due to the various unknowns associated with them, or doubts about the veracity of the companies’ promises, regarding water usage, pollution, noise, and the irreversible alteration of agricultural lands and vistas.

“It’s kind of frustrating from the coal side of things,” Travis Deti, executive director of the Wyoming Mining Association, told Cowboy State Daily on Monday. “The coal comeback right now is being – you know it’s being driven largely by the data center buildout nationally and the projected demand for energy.”

Yet, Deti added, “when you have politicians running around Wyoming, it’s easy for them to say, ‘We support coal, we support coal,’ but out of the other side of their mouths they want to stop the data centers.”

Deti attributed the anti-data center fad to a “wave of populism” by which politicians follow passing movements rather than concrete principles.

Wyoming's public revenues have depended significantly on coal mining over the years, even as the sector has suffered under pendulum politics from Washington, D.C. 

Coal production in Wyoming peaked in 2008, when the Powder River Basin produced nearly 450 million tons, and has trended unsteadily downward since. 

Wyoming surface coal production has fallen by 59.1% over the past 16 years. Thermal coal, which Wyoming produces, has seen lower demand in recent years.

That’s from coal-fired power plants either retiring or lowering their demand nationally as the market has shifted to both natural gas and renewable energy.

Calendar year 2024 marked the first time Wyoming coal production had fallen below 200 million tons since 1992.

The industry saw it as a dark year, as President Joe Biden’s U.S. Bureau of Land Management issued a 

Coal in 2025 yielded $134 million in severance taxes for Wyoming – the lowest since 2003.

That’s 19.5% of Wyoming’s severance tax haul, with oil generating 54.9% and natural gas yielding 21.9%.

The divide had surfaced in statewide Wyoming GOP primary election contests.

In the GOP race for the state’s lone U.S. House seat, candidate and Secretary of State Chuck Gray has opposed the data center buildout, while at least one of his opponents, Casper businessman Reid Rasner, has urged responsible, pro-business development in the sector.

“Thank you President Trump for your support of our big, beautiful coal industry! We must support our core coal, ranching and farming, oil and gas, and soda ash industries,” says a June 8 Facebook post by Gray. “And we must STOP (Gov.) Mark Gordon's nightmare of outrageously wrong woke wind and woke Big Tech surveillance state data centers.”

 calling for responsible, considerate and transparent data center development. In an inversion of the norm, Gordon is more in line with Trump’s agenda on this issue than Gray is.

Conversely, Gray and other anti-data center Republicans find themselves in a rare policy camp with Democratic U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, of New York, and Independent Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who have called for a moratorium.

[{"type":"text","text":"Gray countered Deti’s point in a Monday comment via text message."}]

“I’ve consistently been coal’s #1 defender in the Wyoming 

 Legislature and as secretary of state,” wrote Gray. “I’ve worked to get access to markets for our coal and also have worked to stop woke wind projects that are in direct competition with our big, beautiful coal industry.”

Gray criticized Gordon and Deti for not backing a bill Gray had sponsored in 2019 – which Gordon vetoed.

 set up a litigation fund and authorized the Legislature to sue over coal export access. In Gray’s telling, the bill aimed to get coal export access amid the damaged industry “when the timing was right.”

, conversely, the governor said he agreed with the need for Wyoming to export coal, but the state was already litigating for access to coal export terminals.

“Giving courts the impression that two branches of Wyoming’s government might be… potentially litigating over the top of one another – would be counterproductive to our best efforts to protect Wyoming’s interests,” Gordon wrote at the time.

Gray in his Monday text message added, “AOC (

 Ocasio-Cortez) and I have nothing in common. Any suggestion that we do is patently absurd. I’ve consistently defended coal, election integrity, and our Wyoming values.”

Gray and Rasner face eight more GOP candidates: state Senate President Bo Biteman, Teton County philanthropist Steve Friess, former Superintendent of Public Instruction Jillian Balow, military veterans David Giralt and Kevin Christensen, Moran rancher Frank Chapman, former legislator Keith Goodenough, and Richard Dodson.

In her campaign for governor, Superintendent for Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder has 

 over data centers’ potential impacts on water usage and power rates, and said responsible development, rather than an outright ban, is the answer.

One of her opponents, retired Marine Col. Brent Bien

 data center development is moving too quickly to fit within “consent of the governed,” and he wouldn’t allow any to be built on agricultural ground.

And the third major opponent in that Republican race, Sen. Eric Barlow, has urged responsible development and good information, but not fear toward the centers.

The state’s primary election is Aug. 18. Because it’s a deep-red state, the primary election is considered more decisive than the general election for statewide races generally.

[{"type":"text","text":"Head Scratching"}]

David Miller is a semi-retired uranium geology specialist and former state lawmaker who represented Riverton as a Republican.

He’s also scratching his head over the data center-driven divide in the GOP.

“I’m hearing rumors that it’s, like, China and maybe some of the other competitive countries funding the (informational) opposition to the data centers,” Miller said in a Monday phone interview.

“Frankly, I think the more electricity we have being produced in Wyoming the better,” he said. More data centers mean more coal-fired plants, he added.

[{"type":"text","text":"But Miller said it’s time to end tax breaks for data centers."}]

Wyoming crafted a sales-tax exemption for large-scale data projects starting in 2010.

One Republican, then-Rep. Clark Stith of Rock Springs, tried to remove the sales-tax exemption in 2021. At that time, Gray was one of the state House Republicans who opposed Stith and 

But at that time, Gray told Cowboy State Daily on Friday, “no one had any idea where the AI revolution was heading or the massive demands it would place on our power grid and water resources.”

[{"type":"text","text":"The Stakes Are Enormous"}]

State Rep. Steve Johnson, R-Cheyenne, doesn’t want to ban data centers outright. But like Miller, he believes Wyoming is being short-changed in the land-for-business exchange, and he wants to remove tax breaks and scrutinize the way state law treats the sector, Johnson told Cowboy State Daily on Monday.

Data center companies have delivered numerous promises, including that they’ll conserve water and mitigate impacts.

 levels and the AI revolution remain, Johnson noted.

He said he’d like to see counties respect landowners’ property rights to lease land, but also to use responsible zoning to protect closely situated neighbors.

As for whether his caution puts him in Bernie Sanders’ camp or Trump’s camp, that’s not paramount, Johnson said. He said he’d approach the Wyoming controversy according to Wyoming’s needs, as “I think D.C. has lost their minds.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Data centers feed artificial intelligence."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"That concerns Johnson too, he said."}]

“I think that AI scares the hell out of me, and it might help us a little bit; but if it takes our younger generation’s jobs away… let’s think about the end product,” he said. “I do think we need some safeguards.”

Sen. Cheri Steinmetz, R-Lingle, gave a similar answer during an 

, on the strange political camps the data center issue is forging.

Steinmetz called earlier this month for a poll of legislators to gauge interest in having a special session to address the data center boom.

She represents agricultural communities, and many Wyoming regions face a drought, Steinmetz noted.

“It’s very concerning to me the pace at which we’re proceeding down this road without credible information,” she said, referencing a state-ordered groundwater study that is expected to take four years.

Trump has cast data centers as a piece of U.S. national security, for the tech advances they can fuel.

“But we have to recognize, our water, our food supply, our communities are a matter of national security too,” she said. “Agriculture is a huge national security issue.”

Black thunder coal mine trains 6 15 26

<title>Coal Industry Frustrated With GOP Candidates Who Want To Kill Data Centers | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Wyoming’s coal sector is startled at Republican candidates who oppose data centers. Industry leaders say the revival of coal is driven by demand for energy from data centers.  "It's frustrating," said Travis Deti, of the Wyoming Mining Association.

Coal Industry Frustrated With GOP Candidates Who Want To Kill Data Centers

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

Outdoors

Wildlife

A pair of young Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep rams that wandered into Cheyenne were killed by game wardens out of concern that they could catch pneumonia from domestic livestock and transmit it back into wild sheep herds.

The rams, thought to be between 1 and 2 years old, were killed last week, Game and Fish spokeswoman Amanda Fry stated in a Monday email to Cowboy State Daily.

Meat from the rams was donated to Wyoming first lady Jennie Gordon’s Food from the Field program through the Wyoming Hunger Initiative.

Bighorn sheep can pick up diseases from domestic stock and spread them back into their herds with devastating effects, according to Game and Fish.

Pneumonia is the disease of greatest concern, Fry said.

“We do not know which area/herd these two came from,” she said. "The closest two wild sheep herds to Cheyenne are west of Scottsbluff, Neb., and in the Iron Mountain area (in southeast Wyoming)."

Biologist and wildlife researcher Jack States lives near a bighorn sheep herd in Sinks Canyon in the Lander area.

He told Cowboy State Daily that he doesn’t agree with the Game and Fish policy of killing bighorns that might have come into contact with domestic sheep or other livestock.

“My opinions are contrary to the current management policy,” he said, although he’s willing to consider whether or not long-term data reveals “that management policy actually works.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Spotted The Day Before"}]

Cheyenne resident Valarie Grace told Cowboy State Daily that she spotted the rams late on June 7 in the yard of her parents’ house on the outskirts of Cheyenne.

“We have no idea where they came from. They took off after we spotted them and they were still going when we last saw them,” she said.

She said that at the time, she was worried that the rams might run out onto Pershing Boulevard and get struck by vehicles.

States said that young bighorn rams can have a propensity to wander, usually because they’re seeking to stake out new territory.

It’s unlikely that the rams were planning to stay in Cheyenne, Fry added.

“Suitable habitat for bighorn sheep tends to be steep, open, higher elevation, rocky slopes,” she said. "While there have been occurrences in the past of young sheep showing up in lower elevation municipalities in southeast Wyoming over the last couple of decades, it is not common.

“These sheep were likely traveling on a stream corridor seeking out suitable habitat and reached Cheyenne city limits."

While bighorn sheep are hardy enough to survive Wyoming’s worst weather in its roughest terrain, they are highly susceptible to disease.

Pneumonia outbreaks, sometimes transmitted from domestic sheep, can be bighorn conservationists’ worst nightmare. In some cases, entire herds are nearly wiped out.

The legendary Ramland Whiskey Mountain bighorn herd near Dubois is a fraction of what it once was, having 

 with pneumonia infections that just won’t go away.

Game and Fish and others have concluded that letting potentially infected wandering bighorns return to the wild isn’t worth the risk, Fry stated.

“If suspected commingling has occurred, Game and Fish will euthanize the wandering bighorn sheep to protect the rest of the wild herd from disease, as is outlined in the statewide Bighorn Sheep/Domestic Sheep Working Group Plan,” she stated.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Is There Another Way?"}]

States admires the Sinks Canyon bighorn herd and was a huge fan of 

, who gained a legendary reputation for his love of people, peanut butter and ramming visitors’ vehicles.

States recalled an instance of bighorns from the Sinks Canyon herd being euthanized after suspected exposure to domestic sheep.

"I did complain about that, because their (Game and Fish’s) policy was to euthanize first and test later,” States said. “I really wanted them to test first and then euthanize, if those diseases were present in those wild sheep."  

In some instances, wandering bighorns could be quarantined, States said.

He thinks that “capturing them until agents could determine their origin and health status” might be better than killing bighorns.

Katie Cheesbrough, executive director of the Wyoming Wild Sheep Foundation, told Cowboy State Daily that the policy of euthanizing sheep that might have had close contact with livestock was “based on the best available science” when it was implemented.

Newer technology, such as GPS wildlife tracking collars, might not make that necessary in every instance, she said.  

However, Game and Fish made the right call with the Cheyenne rams, Cheesbrough said.

“Game and Fish can’t know the travel path they took along the way and they can’t know where they were headed,” she said.

So, euthanizing the rams “was the prudent thing to do,” she added.

Bighorns sheep 2 6 15 26

<title>Wyoming Game And Fish Kills Bighorns That Wandered Into Cheyenne | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A pair of young bighorn sheep rams that wandered into Cheyenne were killed by Wyoming wildlife officials. However, one biologist and wildlife researcher says it's not necessary. He said they should be quarantined instead.

Wyoming Game And Fish Kills Bighorns That Wandered Into Cheyenne

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Dale Killingbeck

Dale Killingbeck

Crime & Courts

Law Enforcement

CASPER — A north-side Casper man and roommate are without a home after a fire Friday evening that is being investigated as a “suspected arson.”

Casper Police spokesperson Rebekah Ladd said Monday there was “no additional public information available” on the fire in the 100 block of West J Street other than a Sunday statement reporting the investigation in conjunction with the Casper Fire Department.

Ladd said the department would likely do another statement when information becomes available.

Casper Police officers were at the property Monday and led a man from the garage area at the back of the property to one of their patrol vehicles.

The home showed smoke damage to the front door. An upper window appeared to have been broken as part of firefighters' efforts to stop the blaze.

Natrona County Assessor records list Daphne Andrade of Spring, Texas, as the property owner.

Andrade, who works as a hospital nurse in the Houston area, told Cowboy State Daily that it was her father who police assisted off the property.

“I have an insurance adjuster going to check on the property today,” she said. “He was there when the cops came to get my dad. … So he lived in the house and obviously he is displaced.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Asked To Leave"}]

Andrade said her father had a man in his 20s as a roommate who helped him around the property.

“There was a woman coming around and I don’t know how much residence she had taken up, but my dad had asked her to leave,” she said. “That may the reason that they are saying there is an arson involved because of that person.”

Andrade shared the name of a 55-year-old woman who also happens to be listed in the Natrona County jail log as having been arrested by Casper police at 7:42 p.m. Friday. The listing states the woman is in jail on two criminal warrants.

Andrade said she will wait to hear back from her adjuster about the fire damage before determining what will be done with the home.

“I need to talk to my dad to find out what is going to be the best next move,” she said. “I am still in the beginning phases of getting information.”

Casper Deputy Fire Chief Kevin Ross said the department was dispatched to a fire at 5:34 p.m. Friday and updates from the caller indicated someone might be inside.

“After a thorough search of the structure there was no one inside the house at the time of the fire,” Ross said. “Units arrived to find a fire on the back side of the residence spreading. … There was a good amount of smoke.”

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

Ross said more than 20 firefighters and five trucks responded to the 1 1/2-story home and were able to knock down the fire without it spreading to adjacent property and homes.

Ross said the cause had not been determined as of Monday morning.

“The investigation is still underway,” he said. “But they have narrowed it down to the kitchen as where the fire started.”

Ross said his department was investigating the fire cause part of the investigation and the police were handling the collection of evidence and interviews related to the blaze.

He said the investigation into the cause likely will take a couple of weeks.

Casper fire Police Escort 6 15 26

<title>Two Left Homeless After ‘Suspected Arson’ Of North-Side Casper Home | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Casper's police and fire department report they are investigating a "suspected arson" at a north-side home on Friday evening that left two people homeless. “My dad had asked her to leave,” then the fire started, said a woman about someone staying at the house.

Two Left Homeless After ‘Suspected Arson’ Of North-Side Casper Home

Courts

After the state of Wyoming and a group of young men suing the Wyoming Boys' School sifted through several hours of testimony, video, and evidence, it now falls to a federal court judge to decide whether school staffers violated multiple boys’ rights.

They’re accused of restraining, confining, and using force on them — or if the staffers’ actions are protected by qualified immunity and other safeguards in the law.

 Blaise Chivers-King, Charles “Rees” Karn, and Dylan Tolar 

sued the Wyoming Department of Family Services

, the Wyoming Boys’ School in Worland, and 10 former and current employees in 2024.

The school is a facility to which courts send boys judged delinquent in Wyoming. 

The plaintiffs, all boys who had been committed to the school in 2018 and afterward, alleged that school staffers confined, beat, humiliated and abused them. More plaintiffs joined the case later that year: Haiden Willis, Koby Cranford, and a minor identified by the initials “DH.”

In the months that followed, parties on both sides of the case sifted through several hours of depositions and other evidence.

After that, the boys decided against continuing to sue two of the staffers: Margaret Dahlke and Clark Les Urbin.

U.S. District Court Judge Scott Skavdahl dismissed Dahlke and Urbin from the case on April 8 of this year, at the plaintiffs’ request.

Karn is serving a life sentence in the Wyoming Department of Corrections for 

[{"type":"text","text":"End This, State Says"}]

The government agencies and boys’ school staffers argued in a May 14 brief that Skavdahl should judge the case early in their favor.

The brief largely blames the boys’ behavior for the aggressive interactions between boys and staffers, and for the time some of the boys spent in restraint chairs, solitary confinement, or other disciplinary statuses.

It invokes qualified immunity, which is a legal principle shielding government officials who act reasonably and in good faith from being sued. 

The brief also says two of the defendants, Karn and DH, didn’t do enough to plead their grievances with school authorities before resorting to civil litigation, and that that nullifies their claims.

D.H. has failed to show he suffered physical injury, and the boys haven’t proved they suffered excessive force, deliberate indifference to their medical needs, undue punishment or discrimination based on certain disabilities, the state’s brief alleges.

The former inmates fired back in their own filing Friday, urging the judge to send the case to trial rather than judge it early in favor of the state and staffers.

Their response filing leads with an allegation that school security guard Thad Shaffer said, “The best part of the chair is watching the kids cry and scream like a f***ing child … that’s what makes it worth it.” 

The exhibit from which this quote reportedly stems is not yet open to public viewing, the case file says.

However, the Friday filing includes a photo that claims to show one of the plaintiffs lashed to a chair with a mask over his head and a caption that says he would be placed in the restraint chair “for up to 8 hours a day."

The boys’ counter-argument casts doubt on the records the boys’ school is using to make its case.

“The (staffers’) logbooks had large gaps in documentation, inaccurate entries, uncertain authorship, and no verification mechanism,” the filing says. “For example, the Dorm 3 detention logbook has no entries between Apr. 7, 2024, and May 9, 2024, despite DH being in solitary confinement during that time.”

Karn and DH did fulfill the grievance requirements, as their parents submitted complaints on their behalf, the filing argues. Also, the school didn’t provide the boys methods to file grievances once they were no loner housed there, says the document.

The boys’ filing calls the state’s claims for qualified immunity inadequate. It says, “Defendants’ legal analysis on these four claims consists entirely of 

[{"type":"text","text":"All These Differences"}]

The state’s brief in favor of early judgment and the boys’ counter-brief tell different stories.

[{"type":"text","text":"Karn was placed at WBS in 2018. "}]

He was placed on detention status numerous times, including for throwing personal items, breaking glasses, disclosing thoughts of hurting others, the state’s brief says.

He was detained for seven days in December 2018 after assaulting a student with a shower head. Court documents dispute whether staffer John Schwalbe shoved Karn’s face into broken glass at that time.

Schwalbe testified that he did not; while the boys’ argument says Schwalbe did restrain Karn on broken glass, and that Schwalbe said, “if you’re going to break shit, then this is pretty much what you’re going to get.”

Karn was restrained numerous times for hitting things in his room, harming himself, hurting others, being disruptive and damaging property, says the state’s brief.

During a second stay at the facility Karn was placed on detention for misbehaviors including acts of violence, pretending to shoot people, damaging property, trying to run away, threatening staff and making terroristic bomb threats on Facebook, says the document.

He was restrained during the second stay, allegedly after punching a staffer, trying to flip or throw a desk, “spinning around to face staff when they entered to clean the detention room camera,” damaging cameras, smearing feces on the detention room, and other misbehaviors.

[{"type":"text","text":"The plaintiffs deny many of these characterizations."}]

The brief points to staffers’ deposition testimonies, in saying that the facility didn’t have safeguards in place to ensure the accuracy of incident reports.

The boys’ brief admits that Karn was placed in solitary confinement after making threats on Facebook, but adds, “(We) Deny that 13 days in solitary confinement for alleged threats was appropriate or that he received meaningful social stimuli, exercise, or education.”

In response to the boys’ school claim that Rees was restrained for trying to harm himself with a sock, the boys’ counter-argument says, “The video shows Rees playing with a sock, not tying it around his  neck or refusing staff instructions. Indeed, one sock appears on his foot the entire time.”

To another claim that  Karn was moved to a vacant dorm after threatening to assault staff and hitting a camera, the response parries that, “The video does not show Rees hitting the camera or threatening to assault staff.”

While the state alleges Karn was restrained in April 2021 after tearing a pillow apart and trying to hit staffers who entered to retrieve the pieces, the boys’ argument counters that a staffer initiated force “without provocation because Rees withheld a piece of pillow stuffing.”

Where the state asserts that Chivers-King was placed on detention status in May of 2020 for threatening and cursing at staff, throwing a chair, kicking his door and punching his window and lights — the boys’ response says Chivers-King toppled, rather than threw a chair. 

The boys’ response denies that Chivers-King continued to escalate, and says there was no reason for a staffer to use force on him, “as the video depicts Blaise (Chivers-King) standing with arms crossed when WBS staff forced him to the ground.”

Where the state asserts that DH continuously refused to follow instructions or engage in programming, the boys’ response says, “The behaviors for which DH was punished were obvious symptoms of his disabilities.”

When DH was in solitary confinement, says the boys’ brief, it was “lonely, depressing, and I had a few bugs for company.”

The state had asserted, conversely, that staffers gave DH “highly individualized attention” during that time to get him on track with the programming.

[{"type":"text","text":"The Clash Continues"}]

Disagreements between what prompted restraints and other punishments pervade the state’s argument and the boys’ counterargument.

In the segment pertaining to how staffers treated DH, the boys’ argument relates from another staffer’s deposition that Coronado called DH a “retard” nearly every day.

The boys’ argument contends that they had known disabilities and staffers didn’t accommodate them, while the state’s argument says of the boys, they “did not request any accommodations for any mental health diagnoses or physical conditions, nor was it obvious (they) needed any.”

A group of young men suing the Wyoming Boys’ School claim they were attacked, confined in a chair and made to wear a mask. “The best part of the chair is watching the kids cry and scream,” a security guard is alleged to have said.

You Still Here? Tuesday, March 19, 2024

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