One More For The Road

[{"type":"text","text":"We've all been there...."}]

One more for 4 7 24

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

<title>One More For The Road: Sunday, April 7, 2024 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

We've all been there....

One More For The Road: Sunday, April 7, 2024

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

Clair McFarland

Politics

One of the nine Republicans running for the GOP nomination to U.S. House voiced strong criticism Tuesday of the state-level Wyoming Freedom Caucus.  

Reid Rasner also said he supports a slate of non-Freedom Caucus state legislative candidates.

“The Freedom Caucus has brought division, dysfunction, and political games to our state,” said Rasner in a Tuesday statement. “Wyoming deserves strong conservatives who will fight for our energy industry, protect our freedoms, keep taxes low, and actually get things done.”

The Wyoming Freedom Caucus is a controversial group of Republicans in the state House of Representatives who are linked with a national network of similar groups.

Proponents praise the caucus for proposing bold reductions to the state budget and efforts to pass socially conservative policies into law.

Opponents accuse it of over-relying on its national network and advancing sloppy or generic legislation.

The Freedom Caucus has endorsed Secretary of State Chuck Gray in the U.S. House of Representatives race.

At a July 23 candidate forum, Gray pivoted from a question about whether he’d join any caucuses in the House, saying, “at the end of the day, I’m going to be focused on representing the people of Wyoming. That’s who I align with.”

Gray did not respond by publication to a Tuesday-afternoon request for comment on Rasner’s remarks and the Freedom Caucus generally.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"‘Plenty Of Noise’"}]

Rasner is not the only Republican U.S. House candidate with strong words for the caucus.

State Senate President Bo Biteman in a Tuesday text message responded to Cowboy State Daily’s inquiry with, “I’ve always believed the best way to deal with political noise is to turn it down and get the work done.”

“The Freedom Caucus brings plenty of noise,” Biteman continued. “I’ve ignored them when they’ve attacked me, I’ve ignored them when they’ve taken credit for work I helped lead, and I’m going to keep ignoring the distractions.”

Biteman has had a complicated relationship with the caucus over the years. He aligns often with its goals, but is outspoken about not being part of it.  

He said Tuesday that he’s focused on winning the election by discussing issues that matter to Wyoming families like lowering the cost of living, protecting public lands, strengthening the Socal Security program “and making government work for the people again.”  

“Wyoming voters are tired of political theater,” said Biteman. “They want results.”

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

State House Appropriations Chair John Bear, R-Gillette, responded to both Rasner and Biteman in a Tuesday text message on the Freedom Caucus’ behalf.

[{"type":"text","text":"Bear is a former chair and prominent member of the caucus."}]

“Reid Rasner is a failed career candidate who has brought division, dysfunction and political games to our state,” he said. “Wyoming deserves (a) strong conservative, like Chuck Gray.”

Bear said Gray would fight for Wyoming’s energy industry, “protect our freedoms, keep taxes low, and actually get things done.”

Bear also rephrased Biteman’s statement as the caucus’ own, and turned the barbs back onto the Biteman-led Senate.

 “The Wyoming Senate and Cheyenne establishment bring plenty of noise,” said Bear. “We’ve ignored them when they attacked us, we’ve ignored them when they’ve taken credit for work we helped lead, and we’re going to keep ignoring the distractions.”

Bear said the caucus is focused on real issues that matter to Wyomingites.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"What They’re Saying Out There"}]

Steve Friess, a philanthropist and House candidate, told a Riverton-based coffee group on July 29 that the national-level, congressional Freedom Caucus contained “great people” and helped hold the Republican Party to a conservative line.

[{"type":"text","text":"The state entity is something different, he said."}]

“I don’t think too many of their policies have really been out of the mainstream of conservative thought, and all of them have been worthy of a dialogue,” said Friess. “But it just feels to me like brought in a different tone. They’ve brought in an argumentative tone; they’ve excluded people, calling everybody a RINO (Republican in name only).”

“I’m hoping this is kind of a thing that passes,” he added. “And folks that want to call people names and bully people will understand that’s not the way things should be done in Wyoming.”

Friess added in a post-publication comment that he wants to unite the GOP factions and “fight the real enemy, the radical left AOC/ Mandami Socialists.”

The candidate and combat veteran Kevin Christensen said his campaign tours have revealed a growing anti-Freedom Caucus movement. He said most people attribute that to the boisterous 2026 lawmaking session.

The caucus touted control of the state House of Representatives. It sought to eliminate the Wyoming Business Council, which budget hawks have long targeted, and to cut $40 million from the University of Wyoming.

Hampered in part by a check-passing controversy, the caucus achieved neither goal but did broker a temporary cut for WBC and an understanding that lawmakers will reform it starting this year.

“(The session) was largely ideologically driven,” said Christensen. “And a lot of really important legislation seemed to fall to the wayside in favor of mostly ideologically driven efforts.”

Former Superintendent of Public Instruction Jillian Balow, the only Wyoming native in this race who’s also held an elected statewide position, said she was more diplomatic about the caucus in the race’s early phases than now.

She agrees with their platform of limited government, pro-energy, pro-life, pro Second Amendment ideals, she said.

“It’s the tactics, and the exclusiveness of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, that I don’t ascribe to,” she said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Freedom Caucus 'Very Aggressive'"}]

Candidate David Giralt, who worked in Congress as an aide to multiple delegates, said he hasn’t seen Gray explicitly running on the caucus’ support, “but that might just be a consequence of him trying to attract more people.”

As for Giralt, he said he sees both the national Freedom Caucus and Wyoming’s version as using “very aggressive culture war tactics that, at the end of the day I think, just work against what the legislative process should be: holding true to your political ideological convictions and then working to get things done.”

Two more candidates, Richard Dodson and Keith Goodenough, did not respond by publication to Tuesday-afternoon voicemail requests for comment.

Confronted with the caucus’s comment, through Bear, calling him a “failed career candidate,” Rasner volleyed by calling Bear a “joke” and saying “Wyoming is done with these so-called Freedom Caucus losers.”

Rasner pointed to a 2023 bill to set Wyoming’s minimum marriage age at 16, which many Freedom Caucus members and Bear had opposed. Some pointed to Amish and Mennonite populations and other unique groups living in Wyoming, as well as teen pregnancy situations.

Rasner also derided Gray and asserted, “his political career is finished.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Little Analysis"}]

The Wyoming Freedom Caucus has been vocal on social issues like keeping males out of girls school sports, helping the state fight illegal immigration, and abortion.

Its strategies to fight abortion have been unsuccessful so far, however: every pro-life bill Wyoming has passed since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 overturn of Roe vs. Wade has been blocked in court.

, the chance this year to put the question of abortion to the voters and overcome the courts’ injunctions. The Legislature won’t have another chance until the 2028 election.

 for lapses and other controversies associated with the state’s new school-funding package. But that was a bipartisan bill that, despite extensive debate, won overwhelming support upon passage.

The caucus often takes credit for passing a 

 cut in 2025. The conjecture may be fair: the bill sprang from a caucus-led Revenue Committee and passed with the caucus unanimously in support.

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<title>U.S. House Candidate Reid Rasner Calls For Defeat Of "Freedom Caucus Losers" | Cowboy State Daily</title>

U.S. House candidate Reid Rasner on Tuesday called for the defeat of "Freedom Caucus losers." Rep. John Bear, a prominent member of the group, said Rasner is a "failed career candidate who has brought division, dysfunction and political games to our state."

U.S. House Candidate Reid Rasner Calls For Defeat Of "Freedom Caucus Losers"

Employee kate meadows cropped

Kate Meadows

Education

A parent in Sweetwater County School District No. 1 has asked for the Board of Trustees to remove chair Cole Wright from his position, claiming the board violated her rights to free speech by amending its public-comment policy last fall.

At the school board meeting in Rock Springs on Monday, Cherell O’Driscoll presented the board with a signed petition calling for Wright’s removal on grounds that he has violated the district’s ethics policy, committed open-meeting violations and behaved unprofessionally.

O’Driscoll’s primary concern is that according to the amended policy she can’t publicly criticize personnel but can publicly praise them.

She said she began circulating the petition in April and collected signatures by reaching out on social media and talking to people around town.

“Like my dad always told me, we have to stand up for what we believe in,” O'Driscoll said.

Wright was not at the board meeting in person but attended virtually because he was out of town for personal reasons, he told Cowboy State Daily.

"There is nothing I can provide at this time other than the board will respond to the petition pursuant to statute," he said.

Once that happens, Wright said, he'll be happy to share the board's decisions "so that you can appropriately tell the full story."

Calls and emails to Superintendent Joseph Libby seeking comment were not returned before publication.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Background"}]

The school board implemented changes to its public comment policy at its August 2025 meeting.

While comments related to district operations, policy or programming are welcome, Wright said that “comments regarding employment or performance of individual staff members cannot be addressed publicly by the board due to privacy protections under the Wyoming Public Records Act and due process rights under the Wyoming Teacher Appointment Law.”

At that same board meeting, Wright reported that action regarding the superintendent’s contract had been taken in executive session two months earlier.

“I want to begin my message with transparency and accountability,” he said at the beginning of the August meeting. “At the June 9 board meeting, I stated I do not anticipate any action upon our return regarding the executive session. That statement turned out to be incorrect. When the board reconvened, we did take action. 

"All trustees present voted to extend Dr. Libby’s contract. I recognize the confusion this caused and I take full responsibility for that miscommunication.”

According to contract documents viewed by Cowboy State Daily, Libby was hired for the 2024-2025 school year with an approved annual salary of $178,000, for both the 2024-2025 and 2025-2026 school years.

An amendment to the contract, effective July 1, 2025, extended his employment contract through June 30, 2028 and raised Libby’s salary to $195,000, effective July 1, 2025, to June 30, 2026, with increases each year thereafter. 

According to the amended contract, he will be paid $205,000 for the 2027-2028 school year. 

The amendment further increased Libby's car allowance to $1,500 per month from $800, as laid out in the original contract – an increase of 87.5%.

O’Driscoll learned about the amended contract when she discovered a file marked “Confidential” that she said had been uploaded to the public Board Docs website by mistake.

The document, one page labeled “Executive Session Minutes,” is dated June 9, 2025, and references “Personnel discussion was held to discuss The Superintendent’s Contract.”

After the discovery, she reached out to the Goldwater Institute, a conservative public policy think tank and litigation organization that monitors free speech and public records issues nationwide.

The Goldwater Institute has also represented fellow Sweetwater County School District No. 1 parent Kari Cochran in lawsuits brought against her by two school district administrators. Cochran 

lost her 18-year-old son to suicide in 2023

 and has been trying to retrieve his records from the district since.

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

Five signatures are required to present a petition to a school board. O’Driscoll’s petition contained 105 signatures.

“We gave Wright the opportunity to change and he has not,” O’Driscoll told the board Monday. “I told Dr. Libby and Cole Wright in a meeting in May that if they were to keep coming and we were not going to be able to work together I was going to put my feet into the sand and come back and fight back. And here I am.

[{"type":"text","text":"“I may be as stubborn as a mule. But I am as patient as an ox.” "}]

[{"type":"text","text":"She said she was nervous as she stood in front of the board Monday."}]

“It’s confrontation,” she told Cowboy State Daily. “To go face-to-face and call somebody out, it was very stressful.”

O’Driscoll emphasized she was asking for Wright to be removed from his position as chair and not completely removed from the board.

[{"type":"text","text":"“He is failing in the position he was elected to do,” she said"}]

Wright was not present at Monday’s meeting. Board member Danielle Schumacher, who led the meeting in Wright’s place, acknowledged receipt of the petition and said O’Driscoll would receive a response within 30 days.

[{"type":"text","text":"O’Driscoll said she was not surprised by that."}]

“I would love a response to be in writing,” she said. “It’s very difficult to get things in writing from them.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Legal Side"}]

Last week, The Goldwater Institute opined on its website that the Sweetwater County School District is misusing its recently revised public comment policy to “unconstitutionally silence critics.”

According to Parker Jackson, an attorney at the institute, Sweetwater County No. 1’s Board of Trustees amended its public comment policy to prohibit any written or in-person comments that negatively address individual employee performance or employment. But comments praising individual employee performance are welcome.

He used O’Driscoll’s experience as an example, saying she was cut off by Wright and her written comments were redacted when she attempted to publicly criticize the district’s assistant superintendent in April.

“However, she was allowed to make written and in-person comments praising other school employees,” Jackson said.

This, Jackson argues, is viewpoint discrimination that violated the First Amendment.

He elaborated in an email to Cowboy State Daily: “Under the First Amendment, government officials cannot engage in viewpoint discrimination. That means that when public comment is taken on agendized matters in a public meeting, the board cannot pick and choose which opinions to hear.”

Jackson further said the school board is in violation of the Wyoming Public Records Act. When the institute requested copies of O’Driscoll’s unredacted written public comments, the district refused, claiming the comments were confidential personnel files.

“The district’s interpretation of ‘personnel files’ is so broad that it could encompass any record the district has that names or criticizes an employee or that the district chooses to place in a personnel file,” Jackson said via email.

The Goldwater Institute sent two letters to the school district asking them to reverse course. The institute has not received a response to either letter, Jackson said.

According to Jackson, the district faces possible litigation if it does not fix the alleged violations.

That could mean lawsuits in state or federal court – or both – based on violations of the First Amendment and state law.

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<title>Sweetwater Schools Parent Demands Board Chair Removal Over Free Speech Policy | Cowboy State Daily</title>

At the school board meeting in Rock Springs on Monday night , a parent presented the Sweetwater County School District No. 1 Board of Trustees with a petition calling for Cole Wright's removal as board chair. The petition was signed by 105 people.

Sweetwater Schools Parent Demands Board Chair Removal Over Free Speech Policy

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

Around Wyoming

This story was updated at 6 p.m. Tuesday.

The Weiser Knoll wildfire southeast of Lander, sparked by an overheated trailer wheel bearing Sunday afternoon, exploded to roughly 16,300 acres by late Tuesday afternoon and was 0% contained. 

The fire, the largest of the summer so far in Wyoming, prompted an evacuation order for residents in the Twin Creek Drainage area, east of Wyoming Highway 28. More than 200 fire personnel were fighting it, according to the federal government's InciWeb wildfire tracking website.

Area rancher Rhett Abernathy told Cowboy State Daily that by about noon Tuesday he and others hoped the worst was over, as winds calmed and “slurry bombers” continued to drop water and fire retardant on the blaze.

Sunday night was awful, he said, as the fire was driven by strong winds.

“That first night, the wind picked up and the fire started running down the ridges. Everybody was just waiting for their places to go up,” Abernathy said.

According to state and federal fire agency reports, the fire was sparked at about 2:15 p.m. Sunday on Highway 28 about 13 miles southeast of Lander.

The overheated bearing caused three initial fires to spring up alongside the road at a spot known as Johnnie Lee’s Corner, according to reports. 

Rancher and outdoors business owner Ron Hansen, who lives about 7 miles northwest of Lander, told Cowboy State Daily late Tuesday that he was worried about another possible wildfire. 

That blaze appeared to be growing about 5 miles southwest of Fort Washakie, he said. 

“If this one blows up, it’s going to come straight for us,” Hansen said. 

With hot, dry conditions persisting, he said he’s worried about how bad the fires might get. 

“I hate to say this because I’m in the outdoors recreation business. But I’m almost to the point of begging people to not go outside, to not go out into the hills,” Hansen said. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"‘Five-Foot Flames’"}]

Lander resident Michelle Motherway told Cowboy State Daily  she was camping with family Sunday and drove back into town after the fire started. 

“There were five-foot flames right on the side of the highway,” she said. 

The smoke in town wasn’t terrible Tuesday, but late Sunda, it was miserable, Motherway said. 

“Two nights ago, it was really reminiscent of the (1988) Yellowstone fires, where you could see that the moon was orange and the sky was orange. It was just eerie,” she said. 

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

Abernathy said that during its initial stages, the fire tore through ranchland on the Abernathy Ranches and Bureau of Land Management allotments leased by the ranch. 

It was touch-and-go for a while, he said, as they scrambled to move cattle out of the flames’ path. 

Luckily, Abernathy said, nobody was hurt and no cattle were killed. 

“We had a couple of old log cabins and old barns burn, but they were of no function,” he said. 

However, a significant amount of rangeland was rendered useless for grazing, he said.

“It will be the year after next before we can graze any of it again,” Abernathy said. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Feeding the Firefighters"}]

Motherway owns Mr. D’s Food Center in Lander, which has been helping to feed firefighters. 

“When the fire broke out on Sunday, I got hold of the fire incident command, and we arranged to get food for them,” she said. “We fed 65 people Sunday evening.” 

But as local Wyoming State Forestry and BLM crews were called in, the number of firefighters needed three meals a day delivered to them ballooned.

“We’re feeding 200 people breakfast, lunch, and dinner,” she said. 

With only three full-time staff at the store, meeting demand requires “an army of volunteers,” Motherway added. 

Codi Jorgensen, a local teacher, volunteered to help prepare firefighters’ meals, along with her 11-year-old daughter. 

“We were there (at the store) for four or five hours, putting meals together,” Jorgensen said. 

Motherway stepping up to help is “just Michelle being Michelle,” Jorgensen said. So, she and her daughter were happy to pitch in.

She added that while the smoke hasn’t been so horrible in town, the fire still has an ominous presence.

“We can see it from our back deck at my house. You can see the flames,” Jorgensen said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"‘Lookie-Loos’"}]

Motherway said there have been some “lookie-loos” showing up to try to get a look at the fire, which can impede firefighters and cause safety problems. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"The BLM concurred. "}]

“Twin Creek Rd. is closed to the public and only open to area landowners. Highways WY 28 and US 287 remain open, but please remain alert and yield to fire traffic and crews working in the area. For public and firefighter safety, the public is asked to remain out of and away from the fire perimeter,” the agency stated in a fire update Tuesday afternoon. “Red Flag conditions, characterized by strong gusty winds, low relative humidity, and elevated temperatures, contributed to heightened fire activity yesterday (Monday).” 

On Tuesday, ground crews were “constructing direct containment lines," as aircraft continued to drop water and fire retardant. 

“Coordination continues with local power companies to restore power to the area,” the BLM reported.

Fire smoke 8 11 26

<title>UPDATE: Fire Near Lander At 16,530 Acres And 0% Contained, Prompts Evacuations | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The Weiser Knoll fire near Lander, started by an overheated wheel bearing on Highway 28 on Sunday, exploded to Wyoming's largest at 16,530 acres and was 0% contained late Tuesday. “Everybody was waiting for their places to go up,” a local rancher said.

UPDATE: Fire Near Lander At 16,530 Acres And 0% Contained, Prompts Evacuations

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

Renée Jean

Growing up, Texan James Neeley had never heard of mountain man Jim Baker, who was a frontier scout, trapper and early non-Native settler with ties to both Colorado and Wyoming when the West was young.

A sister’s genealogy search changed all that a couple decades ago. On Saturday, he was among a handful of Baker descendants who gathered for a photo commemorating the Little Snake River Museum’s work to preserve the cabin Baker built when he settled in present-day Savery in 1873.

Members of HistoriCorps and other volunteers in the Savery area spent last summer hand-hewing cottonwood logs to replace water-damaged logs at the cabin. The work is not finished, Little Snake River Museum Director Lela Emmons told Cowboy State Daily. 

Efforts are already underway to raise additional funds to keep the restoration going, and to source more of the huge cottonwood logs 

“There’s still another 10 or 12 logs we need to replace,” she said. “Getting those logs is the hardest part of the whole thing.”

Large cottonwood logs aren’t simply available at Home Depot or some other lumberyard.

“We have to find the right cottonwoods, get them milled,” she said. “And they’re so heavy, you can’t just lift them up. You have to hire a guy with a big backhoe or something who can lift them.”

It’s a fuel-intensive process, Emmons added, which means the logs must be sourced as near to the museum as possible.

Once they have the right logs, they’ll also need to bring HistoriCorps back to do the work, which will cost around $40,000 for another two-week stint.

Emmons said she hopes to identify grant funding to help with that.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Best Shot In The West"}]

Neeley drove from Texas with his wife, Sandra, just to learn more about his ancestor and see the cabin where Baker once lived.

“I would be a first cousin, three times removed,” Neeley told Cowboy State Daily. “So, there’s a lot of people here who know more about him than I do.”

The work done on the cabin, which is a rare surviving structure from the mountain man era, is “wonderful,” he said. 

“It’s an important part of history and, of course, if it deteriorates, nobody can enjoy it,” Neeley said. “So it’s really nice that they have done this. A lot of people, at least in our part of the world, are not familiar with Jim Baker. They’ve heard of Jim Bridger, people like that … but (Baker) was an important character, too.”

Kit Carson, in fact, has been quoted in newspaper articles of the time saying Baker was the “best shot in the West,” next to himself, of course. When Carson sent invitations to 18 mountain men for what would be their last trapping event together in 1851, Baker was on that list. 

Bridger, when he was looking for an elite scout to help him at Fort Phil Kearney, hired Baker. Baker was also one of the scouts for Gen. John Charles Fremont’s third expedition to explore and map the American West alongside Carson, and he was part of the 1841 Bartleson-Bidwell Party, among the earliest wagon parties bound for California.

Baker’s contemporaries certainly thought he was important. But unlike them, Baker was not interested in publicity, biographer Leighton Baker wrote in his book, “The Red-Headed Shoshoni.” 

Baker loved the mountains and hated the spotlight. So, when Ned Buntline suggested writing a biography about him, Baker flat out refused. 

He did not care if the world forgot who he was.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Too Many People"}]

In fact, when Denver became too populous for his tastes, he packed up and in 1873 moved to Savery, where he built a two-story cabin with a third-story tower as his home. The tower, dismantled in 1881, was so he could climb high and see far — just in case any of the American Indian tribes who disliked him decided to come to call. 

Baker is thought to be one of the first non-Native settlers in Denver. He was later honored with a stained-glass likeness at the state Capitol, and he became one of the first settlers of the Little Snake River Valley. 

The cabin itself has lived several lives. 

Baker first built it from massive cottonwood logs felled by himself and some of his children along the Little Snake River. They squared the timbers by hand with broad axes and not much else.

After Baker’s death in 1898, there was a tussle between Wyoming, Colorado, and Savery over who would keep the cabin. 

Wyoming won the first round of that battle, and Baker’s cabin was displayed in Frontier Park in Cheyenne for 60-some years starting in 1917. Then, one year, the cabin was disassembled and stored, never to return as a display at Frontier Park. 

Savery still wanted Baker’s cabin though, and was eventually successful in convincing the state to send it back home to the Little Snake River Valley in 1976.

When it arrived, it was like a giant pile of scattered Lincoln logs, with few numbers explaining how the cabin had been put together. 

Long before he built his cabin in Savery, Jim Baker led two dozen men in an 1841 fight that gave Battle Mountain its name. Now his far-flung descendants and a tiny museum are fighting time, money and rotten logs to save the frontier scout’s last home.

One More For The Road: Sunday, April 7, 2024

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