You Still Here

[{"type":"text","text":"Now let's all enjoy some misspelled labels...."}]

Bonus video 5 21 24

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

<title>Bonus Video: Tuesday, May 21, 2024 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Now let's all enjoy some misspelled labels....

Bonus Video: Tuesday, May 21, 2024

 Now let's all enjoy some misspelled labels....

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

Renée Jean

Outdoors

Public Lands

John Merwin showed up 45 minutes early for the 18,800-acre Belvoir Ranch’s grand opening Wednesday afternoon at a trailhead about 8 miles west of Cheyenne. 

He just couldn’t resist the chance to sneak in a 7-mile bicycle ride before all the speeches began.

“I worked for the Board of Public Utilities when they bought this back in the early 2000s, and I knew there was a master plan to have bicycle trails out here,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “I’ve looked forward to this ever since then, and I know this has been in the works for several years.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"The short ride was great, Merwin added."}]

“It’s nothing real technical,” he said. “But it’s some open, flowy trails.”

The trails roll up and down gentle hills with just enough curve and rock features to be fun without being intimidating, he added. There are also accessible trails for those using wheelchairs or walkers. 

Merwin was one of 40 to 50 mountain bikers and hikers who showed up not only to hear all the speeches, but to break those trails in properly the minute all the speeches ended.

The opening marks the first time Cheyenne residents can freely access the city-owned Belvoir Ranch for recreation since the city bought the sprawling property west of town in 2003.

The new trailhead and roughly 13 miles of singletrack and shared-use paths give hikers and cyclists a long-promised playground in the city’s backyard, turning what was once mainly an insurance policy for future water and landfill needs into a full-fledged outdoor destination.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Remembering A Champion"}]

Wednesday’s opening of the Belvoir Ranch also tugged at heartstrings for everyone who knew former Cheyenne City Councilman Scott Roybal, 

 in September and was the project's longtime champion.

“He saw the recreational side of it right from the start,” said Councilman Pete Laybourn.

While the ranch was officially acquired for water and landfill options, Roybal “really understood” the solitude, the beauty, and the recreational opportunity, he said.

Roybal faced a skeptical public, but never backed down, Laybourn added.

“We wouldn’t be here today if he wouldn’t have just consistently kept working on it,” he said. “He had to be patient. A lot of patience went into it, and everyone remembered him. It just felt like, ‘Man, we wish you were here with us.’”

Roybal’s absence was the emotional undercurrent of the day for Mayor Patrick Collins as well.

“Scott had a deep love for this community, and he had a genuine passion for the ranch and making the Belvoir Ranch (a place) that would one day be open to the public, where everybody could enjoy it,” Collins told a crowd of close to 100 gathered for the occasion. “He understood that protecting the land wasn’t enough. 

"We needed to open it up so residents and families, children, and future generations would experience its beauty firsthand. I know he would have taken great pride in seeing this ribbon cutting today.”

Belvoir Ranch’s trailhead and trail system were paid for through a combination of a $486,000 grant from the Wyoming Office of Outdoor Recreation and money from windmill leases on the ranch. 

The total price tag for the recreational project came to $1,230,736.93, said Collins. 

“Now, I would have rounded that up,” he added. “But I’ll never do that again, because … Scott, when he was on the finance committee on the City Council, the first thing (he) would ask is, ‘Mr. Mayor, what do I get for that 93 cents?’”

On Wednesday, Collins said he finally has an answer for that question. 

“Scotty, today what you get for that 93 cents is the last piece of the puzzle to open up this beautiful 13 miles of trails, the trailhead and all that we have today,” he said. "So, Scotty, that 93 cents was the last piece, and brother, we miss you.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Big Hole Still The Dream"}]

Even with the ribbon finally cut, city officials stressed that Wednesday’s opening is only the first phase of plans for the ranch. 

Still to come is the dramatic “Big Hole” on the south side of the Union Pacific tracks — a landscape Roybal and other early champions long dreamed of opening. That remains off-limits for now.

Collins said the city has spent five years trying to negotiate 

 beneath the railroad, but safety and flooding concerns have stalled those plans.

“I call the railroad tracks the Great Wall of China,” he told the crowd. “We can’t get under it, we can’t get over, we can’t get across it.”

It was Cheyenne City Engineer Tom Cobb who suggested the city pivot from waiting on that piece of the project and instead build trails on the north side. 

“His pivot got us started,” Collins said. “But this trailhead is perfectly located so that when the day comes that they allow us to build a trail to the Big Hole — which is the most beautiful place, I can’t wait to get there — this trailhead will be able to service that also.”

Beyond local riders and hikers, tourism officials believe the Belvoir Ranch has great economic potential.

Visit Cheyenne CEO Jim Walter told Cowboy State Daily the ranch fits neatly into how the city already markets itself to visitors.

“When we market the Cheyenne area, I call it our three-legged stool,” he said. “One is our Western heritage, one is what we call ‘downtown chic’ — our bars, our breweries, our restaurants — and then the third leg of that stool is outdoor recreation. 

"This gives us another opportunity to promote coming up to Cheyenne and hiking and mountain biking and having access to this open space.”

He added that Belvoir knits together other recreation opportunities, such as Curt Gowdy State Park and the trails around Pole Mountain and Vedauwoo. 

The idea that Belvoir Ranch will one day link all the way to Colorado’s Soapstone Prairie and Red Mountain open spaces will be tremendous and something else to look forward to, he said.

Roybal’s family — his mother, brother, sister and niece — had all come to stand where Roybal had long hoped to be when Belvoir Ranch finally opened to the public.

His brother, Jon Roybal, told Cowboy State Daily the occasion was a “real tribute” to Scott’s years of work.

“He’s a piece of Wyoming and now this commemorates it,” Jon said. “So we’re super proud.”

His sister, Chris Dittmar, liked that Mayor Collins highlighted the 93 cents anecdote, saying it had captured Scott in a “nutshell.”

“He always had a little something to say about something like that,” she said. “That was just his personality.”

The repetition of the joke, with the $20.26 cost of the stone monument, was also perfect, she and Jon said, capturing both the year of the dedication and Roybal’s personality. 

“This was a big, big project for him,” his mother Mary Roybal said. “He’s looking down from above. It’s emotional.”

Belvoir 20260701 belvoir ranch 0209 7 2 26

<title>After More Than 20 Years, Cheyenne Opens Belvoir Ranch To The Public | Cowboy State Daily</title>

More than 20 years after buying the Belvoir Ranch west of Cheyenne, the city opened 13 miles of trials on Wednesday. “He’s looking down from above,” said the mother of Councilman Scott Roybal, who championed the project and died suddenly last year.

After More Than 20 Years, Cheyenne Opens Belvoir Ranch To The Public

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Crime & Courts

Courts

For nearly a year, the man known only by his scattered bones on a remote Wyoming mountainside remained a mystery.

Investigators found pieces of his skeleton spread across rugged country near the Sweetwater Gap Guard Station, along with a tent and personal belongings. 

An identification card hinted at who he might be, but proving it would require an investigation stretching from Sublette County to Scotland, involving Interpol, foreign police agencies and DNA collected half a world away.

On Thursday, the Sublette County Sheriff's Office announced the mystery has finally been solved.

The remains belong to John Gillies, a Scottish man who would have been 69 years old this year.

"This case is a testament to the dedication of everyone involved and the strength of partnerships that extend well beyond our county and even our nation's borders," Sheriff K.C. Lehr said in a statement.

"What began as the discovery of unidentified remains in a remote area of Wyoming ultimately brought together local, state, federal and international partners with one shared goal — to give a family answers,” he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'Very Remote'"}]

The investigation began Sept. 6, 2025, when Wyoming Game and Fish personnel 

discovered scattered human skeletal remains

 in a remote section of the Wind River Mountains near the Sweetwater Gap Guard Station.

Authorities later described the location as "very remote," in an area that sees little traffic outside of occasional search-and-rescue missions.

Deputies found disarticulated skeletal remains, a tent, and personal belongings. At the time, authorities said foul play did not appear to be a factor.

Four days later, a 14-member search team made up of deputies, detectives, Sublette County Search and Rescue volunteers and U.S. Forest Service personnel combed roughly 20 miles of rugged terrain, recovering additional skeletal remains.

By late December, a forensic anthropologist estimated investigators had recovered about 85% of the skeleton and concluded the remains had likely been in the wilderness for about six years.

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

Among the items recovered at the scene were personal effects that eventually led investigators to believe the man could be Gillies.

With no immediate next of kin in the United States, detectives contacted Gillies' ex-wife on Sept. 16, 2025.

Although she had not yet received confirmation that the remains belonged to her former husband, she provided photographs, medical history and details about his life.

[{"type":"text","text":"One message stayed with investigators throughout the case."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"I wanted you to know he was more than bones\" she had said. "}]

The sheriff's office called her compassion and willingness to help "a powerful reminder that every unidentified person is someone's loved one."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Investigation Crosses An Ocean"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"The investigation soon expanded across the Atlantic."}]

Detectives contacted Saint Mary's Church in Kirkintilloch, Scotland, which helped locate Gillies' surviving relatives and assisted with an international death notification.

Through Interpol, Police Scotland and the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement International Bureau, investigators obtained DNA reference samples from Gillies’ family, the Sublette County Sheriff’s Office reports.

Those samples arrived in Wyoming on Feb. 10. The following day, investigators personally transported the family DNA and the recovered skeletal remains to the Wyoming State Crime Laboratory in Cheyenne for comparison.

On Tuesday, the lab confirmed the remains were biologically related to Gillies' surviving family members, bringing the nearly yearlong investigation to a close, along with six years of limbo overall for the family.

[{"type":"text","text":"Investigators immediately notified his family in Scotland."}]

At their request, the Sublette County Sheriff's Office and the Sublette County Coroner's Office are now working with Interpol to return Gillies' remains home for burial.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Questions Remain"}]

The sheriff's office did not say how Gillies came to be in the isolated Wyoming wilderness or whether he had been reported missing before his remains were discovered.

[{"type":"text","text":"Authorities also did not announce a cause or manner of death."}]

Instead, investigators focused Wednesday on the collaboration that ultimately restored a name to a man who had spent years missing and unidentified.

"We are grateful to everyone who played a role in helping bring John home," Lehr said.

The sheriff's office specifically thanked the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, Sublette County Search and Rescue, the U.S. Forest Service, the Wyoming State Crime Laboratory, Interpol, Police Scotland, the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement International Bureau, Saint Mary's Church in Kirkintilloch and, most importantly, Gillies' family "for their patience, trust and assistance throughout this investigation.”

Missing man found inset

<title>Scattered Bones Found In Remote Wyoming Wilderness ID'd As Missing Scottish Man | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Scattered human bones found in Wyoming's rugged Wind River Mountains nearly a year ago have been identified as a Scottish man. "I wanted you to know he was more than bones,” his ex-wife said when contacted by investigators.

Scattered Bones Found In Remote Wyoming Wilderness ID'd As Missing Scottish Man

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

Clair McFarland

Government & Politics

Politics

It’s campaign flier season, which means 

 with messages about political candidates, which can range from 

The two biggest-spending out-of-state groups in the state’s 2024 primary election cycle  — Make Liberty Win and Americans For Prosperity — are at it again this year.

Make Liberty Win backs Wyoming Freedom Caucus-aligned candidates, 

 Americans For Prosperity backs a variety of GOP hopefuls, generally on libertarian-leaning or business-friendly credentials.

Lander residents in late June received Make Liberty Win door hangers showing the town’s incumbent Republican legislators, Sen. Cale Case and Rep. Lloyd Larsen, dressed in sheep suits with little hooves raised.

“Don’t let Rep. Lloyd Larsen and Sen. Cale Case in Sheep’s Clothing Fool You On Election Day August 18th!” says the door hanger.

The back of the flier says both voted against banning sexually explicit government funded events, “endangered children by voting against a ban on gender transition surgeries for minors” and “exposed women to their radical transgender agenda by voting against protecting women’s sports.”

Larsen and Case both said this is an inaccurate and clumsy account of their voting records.

 tracked down the “young man” handing out the door hangers to tell him so, the legislator told Cowboy State Daily in a Wednesday phone interview.

“I kind of started driving around town and found the young man who was passing them out,” said Larsen. “He inquired if I was going to vote, and he commenced to tell me about the evils of me and Senator Case.”

[{"type":"text","text":"The man had “no idea who he was talking to,” said Larsen."}]

Larsen visited with the man, but soon held the flier up to his own face, and the young man said, “Oh. This is uncomfortable,” Larsen recalled.

[{"type":"text","text":"‘He’s Just Trying To Make A Living'"}]

In Larsen’s recollection, the young man had graduated from a Colorado university with a bio-engineering degree and hadn’t been able to find work. He was able to secure work passing out door hangers for Make Liberty Win.

“It was hard to get mad at him, you know?” said Larsen. “He’s just trying to make a living.”

But Larsen said the fliers are frustrating, because they distill a person’s voting record onto a few flashy, sometimes inaccurate talking points on a flier.

For example, in 2024 when Larsen voted against a ban on sex-change treatments for kids, he found it overbroad because it would have stripped medical professionals of their licenses even in more nuanced situations, he said.

Larsen said that under the bill, a medical professional who intervened to help a kid who’d had a sex-change surgery elsewhere, but needed help with surgery complications while passing through Wyoming, could lose his license.

Larsen had sponsored his own bill that same year to ban child sex-change surgeries. His bill didn’t call for specific penalties, but left enforcement to the discretion of the Wyoming Board of Medicine.

[{"type":"text","text":"Larsen’s bill did not pass, the other bill did."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Women’s Sports"}]

Sen. Wendy Schuler, R-Evanston, sponsored the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act in 2022 to ban cross-sex participation in girls’ interscholastic sports.

Larsen and 36 other House members voted against resurrecting it from then-House Speaker Eric Barlow’s drawer, and it died.

That amounted to a time management concern for Larsen, he said, since it was a busy budget session.

Schuler brought her bill back in 2023 and it passed, with Larsen voting aye.

[{"type":"text","text":"Different Creature"}]

Case doesn’t fall into lockstep with Larsen and displays contrarian tendencies.

These break with and against the popular Republican movements. For example, in 2010 he was a rare opponent of a tax break for large data centers — putting him far ahead of the current anti-data-center hype within a wing of the Wyoming GOP

Case generally votes against involving government in social issues and abortion.

[{"type":"text","text":"He voted against Schuler’s sports bills in both 2022 and 2023."}]

“I just thought the Wyoming (High School) Activities Association was doing a good job, and we didn’t really need to interfere,” said Case in a Wednesday phone interview, referring to the administrative entity that handled cross-sex participation requests on a case-by-case basis prior to Schuler’s bill.

Gov. Mark Gordon announced in March 2023 that Wyoming had four transgender athletes in its public schools at that time.

“We’re always trying to be the god-on-high,” said Case of the state Legislature. “I sort of like to have local people figure that out.”

Case voted with two other Republican senators and two Democrats against child sex-change ban legislation of both 2023 and 2024. He didn’t get the chance to vote on Larsen’s sex-change bill since it didn’t’ clear introduction in the House.

Issues of sex and identity are incredibly nuanced, said Case, as are patient-doctor interactions.

As for the cartoonish fliers, Case said, “I think the whole thing will help us, not hurt us.”

He added with a laugh, “It’s a good likeness. I looked younger than Lloyd, though we’re the same age.”

[{"type":"text","text":"‘Spicy Times’"}]

Tyler Lindholm is a rancher, former state representative and now Wyoming director for Americans For Prosperity.

[{"type":"text","text":"He lives in Sundance."}]

Americans For Prosperity is ratcheting up its 2026 flier campaign in Wyoming by casting Sen. Ogden Driskill’s campaign opponent, House Speaker Chip Neiman, as anti-energy, which Neiman calls a mischaracterization of his record.  

[{"type":"text","text":"AFP backs Driskill."}]

 is also vastly different from Make Liberty Win, said Lindholm. He said the Wyoming AFP wouldn’t depict candidates in sheep’s clothing and doesn’t need to.

“No, no, no. We don’t even apply filters over folks’ faces or anything like that,” said Lindholm. “Their votes speak for themselves. We don’t need to dress them up as sheep.”

[{"type":"text","text":"He added: \"Spicy times.\" "}]

[{"type":"text","text":"AFP is an out-of-state group based in Virginia."}]

But Lindholm emphasized that it has a known presence in Wyoming, starting with him and extending to other full-time staffers.

Make Liberty Win did not respond by publication to an email request for comment.

[{"type":"text","text":"‘That Is All B.S.’"}]

While AFP has backed numerous non-Freedom Caucus candidates, it’s not exactly an anti-Freedom Caucus outfit. The group has supported the Freedom Caucus-aligned Rep. Daniel Singh, for example.

[{"type":"text","text":"But it’s an anti-Chip Neiman outfit."}]

Lindholm said people can expect more fliers deriding Neiman's voting record. 

The Neiman-versus-Driskill Senate race is an allegory of the larger struggle between Freedom Caucus and non-Freedom Caucus Republicans across numerous races heading into the Aug. 18 primary election.

AFP dispatched fliers in recent weeks saying Neiman, who is a Wyoming Freedom Caucus member, “Voted Against Wyoming Energy” and supported “legislation that would drive up energy costs,” bring “burdensome regulations that destroy energy jobs” and that he stood with “out of state interests over Wyoming families.”

Neiman has launched a series of Facebook videos to combat AFP’s statements.

[{"type":"text","text":"“I got my new mailer for Ogden,” said Neiman in a June 25 video post."}]

The bill referenced under the “would drive up energy costs” claim, House Bill 257 of 2023, was actually about giving private landowners influence over reclamation work done on their property, said Neiman.

[{"type":"text","text":"“So that was protecting a private property right,” he said."}]

The bill died for lack of a committee hearing. It would have required surface landowner approval before the state Department of Environmental Quality could approve a mine permit or reclamation plan revision.

The other bill AFP cited, House Joint Resolution 3 of this year’s session, would have barred the storage of any spent nuclear fuel or high-level radioactive waste in Wyoming, unless the people voted for that at the ballot box.

[{"type":"text","text":"“This is all B.S.,” said Neiman in the video."}]

He echoed that in his Wednesday phone interview. He also theorized that Lindholm is waging a vendetta since Neiman defeated Lindholm in the latter’s 2020 bid for reelection, and since Lindholm and Driskill have worked together on business projects.

Lindholm denied both charges. He and Driskill worked together to save a radio station during the COVID pandemic, but Lindholm hasn’t received a check from that organization, he said.

Another project on which the pair worked together, a pairing of blockchain tech and beef tracking, fizzled around five years ago, said Lindholm.

[{"type":"text","text":"‘Anyone Who Supported It Was Wrong’"}]

Travis Deti, executive director  of the Wyoming Mining Association, said his group opposed both the bills AFP referenced and has endorsed Driskill.

He said House Bill 257 would have stalled mining projects for years, overlooked the split estate ownership giving the mining sector “seniority in situations like that,” where “permits get modified all the time.”

“That was a terrible bill. Anyone who supported it was wrong,” said Deti.

Regarding the nuclear waste bill, Deti said his group opposed that as well, and it would have shifted a local community’s decision about welcoming nuclear projects within it to the entire state.

[{"type":"text","text":"And This Is Rippling"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Neiman fired shots at Driskill.  "}]

For example, Neiman emphasized in a video that left-leaning group Better Wyoming has “come out and endorsed Ogden.”

[{"type":"text","text":"“That ought to tell you something,” said Neiman."}]

Better Wyoming director Nate Martin told Cowboy State Daily that the group has derided Neiman, but not specifically endorsed Driskill. 

But Driskill had launched the first barbs of this campaign, deriding Neiman and the Freedom Caucus in his 

Driskill said that Neiman has vowed to run a clean campaign, but that Neiman’s videos pose direct attacks over fliers and endorsements Driskill says he didn’t coordinate at all.

“If this is what he calls clean, I’d like to know what dirty is,” said Driskill.

As for AFP’s work and Better Wyoming’s endorsement, “The truth is, candidates have no control whatsoever on who endorses them, who helps them and who doesn’t,” he added.

Neiman countered, asking in his own interview if Driskill is going to reject Better Wyoming’s endorsement.

“He just needs a hug,” said Neiman with a laugh. “That’s all it is.”

This story has been corrected to show Eric Barlow was House Speaker in 2022 and Better Wyoming says it hasn't endorsed Driskill. 

Mailers and capitol 7 1 26

<title>Out-Of-State Campaign Fliers Launch Attacks On Wyoming Candidates | Cowboy State Daily</title>

It’s campaign flier season, which means Wyoming voters are being inundated with attack fliers about political candidates. One flier targeting Lander incumbents claim they “endangered children” and “exposed women to their radical transgender agenda."

Out-Of-State Campaign Fliers Launch Attacks On Wyoming Candidates

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's managing editor, Greg Johnson.

Greg Johnson

CHEYENNE — A former fifth-grade teacher who had faced nearly 30 charges relating to sexual abuse of children was sentenced Wednesday to 27-30 years in prison.

The sentencing comes after he pleaded guilty in April to two counts of sexual abuse of a minor and one of third-degree sex abuse of a child in an agreement with prosecutors.

Brian Wrhel, 56, was given three 9-to-10-year sentences to be served consecutively, the Cheyenne Police Department reports.

A former Cheyenne fifth-grade teacher who had faced 27 charges relating to sexual abuse of children was sentenced Wednesday to 27-30 years in prison. Without his plea agreement, Brian Wrhel, 56, could have faced 395 years.

Bonus Video: Tuesday, May 21, 2024

In case you missed it

More in You Still Here

Bonus Video 1: Thursday, July 2, 2026

Bonus Video 2: Thursday, July 2, 2026

Steve Inman: Thursday, July 2, 2026

You Still Here? Thursday, July 2, 2026

Most read