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[{"type":"text","text":"Of course, the only logical thing to do...."}]

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

<title>Bonus Video: Sunday, June 30, 2024 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Of course, the only logical thing to do....

Bonus Video: Sunday, June 30, 2024

 Of course, the only logical thing to do....

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Courts

A Colorado woman accused of rolling out of a Cheyenne fireworks store with nearly $2,000 worth of pyrotechnics — including a "State of Emergency," "Magic Dragon," and a "King Leo" — has been bound over to district court on a felony theft charge.

Sandra May Bafia, 61, waived her preliminary hearing Monday in Laramie County Circuit Court, sending the case to district court more than a year after the alleged theft.

A clerk with Laramie County District Court confirmed Tuesday an arraignment date has not yet been scheduled. Bafia is next expected to appear in district court, where she will enter a plea.

The incident unfolded June 22, 2025, at Artillery World along Interstate 25 in Cheyenne, according to an affidavit filed by Larimer County Sheriff's Deputy Jason Grover. 

The store's manager, Haley Nye, called 911 to report that two women had filled a shopping cart with fireworks and headed south toward Colorado in a gray Honda Odyssey with Colorado temporary plates.

Nye told the dispatcher the females were "white females in their 40s wearing long gray cardigans," the affidavit says. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Cashier Encounter"}]

Store employee Abdullah Al Habsi told investigators one of the women, later identified as Melissa Thompson, approached a register near the door and told the employee "she needed to go out to the car because her friend needed her," Grover wrote. 

Abdullah reportedly asked Thompson if she paid for the fireworks, "and she continued to tell him she needed to go to her vehicle." 

[{"type":"text","text":"The affidavit says she then walked out the door without paying. "}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Store employees followed."}]

Outside, employees found Bafia loading fireworks into the van, Grover wrote. 

When employee Breanna Elliott began removing fireworks from the vehicle, Bafia allegedly insisted the merchandise had been paid for and said she would produce a receipt.

[{"type":"text","text":"The situation escalated from there."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Getaway Van "}]

One person who tried to stop the suspect suffered a scraped elbow after being pushed while trying to recover the fireworks.

Another employee also reported being pushed while attempting to stop Bafia from loading fireworks into her car. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Both employees rated their pain at \"2 out of 10,\" the affidavit notes."}]

Witnesses told investigators Bafia and another woman eventually climbed into the van and drove away, leaving behind only a handful of items in the shopping cart.

According to Grover, employees reported the van accelerated through the parking lot toward several people standing nearby.

"Melissa started driving towards them at a high rate of speed," Grover wrote. "Melissa swerved and did not hit them but was approximately 10 feet away from them."

[{"type":"text","text":"The getaway was short-lived."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Jumping Jacks, Unicorns "}]

Larimer County deputies in Colorado stopped the vehicle in Wellington, where authorities recovered fireworks allegedly taken from the store.

Grover wrote that Colorado deputies later informed him that Bafia and Thompson were being arrested for possession of stolen property and narcotics.

Investigators ultimately calculated the value of the stolen fireworks at $1,908.85.

The haul allegedly included three Jumping Jacks, two Unicorns, a Magic Dragon, a USA, a Ground Bloom, two Cute Bats, seven Glow Sticks, an Amazing Para, five T Noise Makers, four Wizard Wands, 11 Neon Wands, a Mad Dog, an Ant Eater, a State of Emergency, a Space Rocket, a King Leo, three Toy Worlds and a Pyro Freak.

[{"type":"text","text":"The most expensive item was the King Leo firework, valued at $295.99."}]

Under Wyoming law, felony theft is punishable by up to 10 years in prison, a fine of up to $10,000, or both.

[{"type":"text","text":"Bafia is out of detention on a $5,000 cash bond. "}]

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<title>Colorado Woman Accused of Stealing $2,000 in Fireworks, Nearly Running Over Employees | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A Colorado woman, accused of stealing $2,000 worth of pyrotechnics at a fireworks dealer south of Cheyenne, is headed to district court. The 61-year-old woman allegedly drove toward store employees at a "high rate of speed" to avoid being detained.

Colorado Woman Accused of Stealing $2,000 in Fireworks, Nearly Running Over Employees

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

Clair McFarland

Government & Politics

Legislature

The Joint Appropriations Committee majority tried in January to defund the Wyoming Business Council, an agency that gives grants and loans to businesses and communities.

The state Senate, which ran more fiscally moderate this year than the 

, rejected the effort overwhelmingly in February. But then in March, the Legislature passed a budget that funds the Wyoming Business Council’s operations for one year instead of the traditional two-year budget allocation.

The Joint Appropriations Committee is now delving into a monthslong research project into how it can trim the business council, tether it to legislative oversight and refocus it onto what the supermajority Republican Legislature deems proper uses of government.

The committee spent around five-and-a-half hours on that topic while meeting Monday in Lander.

Its members weighed three proposed bills. They also engaged in a spicy back-and-forth with Wyoming Business Council CEO Josh Dorrell.

[{"type":"text","text":"‘Give Me A Number'"}]

“Mr. Dorrell, what do you anticipate will be your ask for the Wyoming Business Council for the supplemental budget? And 

, how much do you need to succeed?” asked Senate Appropriations Chair Tim Salazar, R-Riverton.

Dorrell said the WBC’s figures are still in flux, and he expected it to give its final budget request submission to Gov. Mark Gordon in August. But becoming “whole,” or receiving the rest of its two-year budget, would be the priority, he added.

As of now, the agency’s budget ends June 30, 2027, unless the Legislature acts to restore its second-year money.

Salazar later voiced dissatisfaction with that answer, pressing Dorrell on it again.

“Give me a number. Tell me where that fits into the supplemental budget,” said Salazar.

“I’m not going to give you a number,” 

 Dorrell. “I don’t mean to be obtuse, but I want to work it through the proper channels first.”

Besides having its funding cut to one year of operations, the WBC is slated for a potential makeover.

Both the Appropriations Committee and the Joint Minerals Business and Economic Development Committee are reviewing the WBC’s programs and underpinning laws.

Dorrell said he’s looking for information on which programs the Legislature wants to cut.

[{"type":"text","text":"He also indicated that lawmakers don’t fully understand the agency yet."}]

“I don’t think it’s appropriate for us to really discuss the exact in-and-out if you don’t understand the things that we do,” said Dorrell, adding that WBC has presented program data to lawmakers in recent months. 

“I’d advocate to at least stay whole, as a minimum, (but also) we should look at investing in our communities, and the state agency that unlocks those,” he said.

[{"type":"text","text":"Humble Ask This Time"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Rep. Ken Pendergraft, R-Sheridan, also parried with Dorrell."}]

“Honestly, I’m not trying to be confrontational, but I’m frustrated,” said Pendergraft. “You were asked what does it cost to be successful — no answer. No answer, no money.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Dorrell reiterated that he’d know the answer in August."}]

Salazar’s line of questioning is an echo of one he launched in December, but which Dorrell then handled very differently. 

At that time during the committee’s budget-planning marathon, Salazar asked how much money WBC needs to fix the economic problems facing the state.

[{"type":"text","text":"Dorrell answered $1.7 billion."}]

“Thank you for giving us the courtesy of the truth,” said Salazar at the time.

Around seven weeks later, the committee advanced two pieces of legislation — both of which later failed — that had sought to defund the agency and strip it from state law.

Ahead of next year’s January lawmaking session, the two committees are working on a plan to refocus the Wyoming Business Council and reevaluate its many programs.

[{"type":"text","text":"Neither committee has adopted any WBC makeover bills yet."}]

But the Joint Appropriations Committee on Monday discussed four in this vein.

[{"type":"text","text":"The Bill About Federal Money"}]

One of the bills would authorize lawmakers to review and appropriate federal funds seeking to pass through the WBC for capital and investment projects.  

[{"type":"text","text":"Dorrell cast that one as peculiar.  "}]

Congress authorizes federal money for governmental investments, the U.S. Treasury allocates those investments and enforces their terms, and the executive branch of Wyoming runs the program.

“And then all of a sudden, somehow the state Legislature is inserting itself into this process,” said Dorrell. “And while I am happy to report, I’m happy to bounce ideas off of, it feels like gumming up the system …  is exactly what this is going to do. It doesn’t help us act at the speed of business. I’m open to understanding why.”

House Appropriations Chair John Bear, R-Gillette, said lawmakers would consider that concern carefully so they don’t create undue burden. 

Of the 11 companies involved in this system, he said he hopes “the preponderance of them” have been traditional energy companies.

Bear referenced allegations Wyoming continues to wage in federal court litigation with other red states that large investors colluded to kill coal and other fossil fuels by banding together in green-energy compacts.

“Even though these are federal funds, they’re still taxpayer funds,” said Bear, who went on to ask about the WBC’s administration of its investment projects.

Dorrell said WBC’s investment committee can meet spontaneously to consider and authorize those projects, and 

 employee to serve as investments analyst.

[{"type":"text","text":"The Bill To Stop Feeding Airports"}]

The Wyoming Business Council’s Business Ready Community program generally involves WBC sending a grant or loan to a community entity, which then works on economic development and business infrastructure projects.

But WBC doesn’t call it that anymore. The agency rebranded the controversial program this year as the Building Resilient Communities program.

The Appropriations Committee is considering a bill that would ban airports from benefitting from the program, as well as recreational and convention facilities, and infrastructure projects of the WBC’s choosing.

That would leave the program free to fund or invest in land, buildings, facilities, telecommunications infrastructure, rights of way, sewer and water projects, roads and landscaping.

The bill also seeks to add a requirement that the WBC can’t grant or loan money for assets that the applicant owns or will own.

A lawsuit between Gunwerks and the Cody-based economic development group that secured funding for it has been 

over the allegedly dismal state of a building Gunwerks doesn’t own, but which the economic development group arranged to be built for the company with WBC money.   

The bill pertaining to the BRC program would also require WBC to send grant and loan plans to two lawmakers — one state House representative and one senator — for review and comment before sending them to the executive branch for final approval.  

The biggest bill the committee considered would eliminate 13 Wyoming Business Council programs, 

Others Dorrell hopes to keep, he indicated to Rep. Jeremy Haroldson, R-Wheatland.

He asked why the Wyoming Partnership Challenge Loan program is on the chopping block. That’s a loan program in which WBC partners with banks to secure loans for businesses.

Dorrell insisted the WBC is not competing with banks, but is helping businesses get loans on components on which banks aren’t authorized to lend, like the more speculative success prospects called “blue sky.”

Disaster loans are “a challenge,” but outside disaster loans, the program is at industry-standard or higher rates of success, Dorrell said.

[{"type":"text","text":"Pendergraft raised an ideological roadblock."}]

“My problem with this is ideological. Essentially, it sounds to me like you’re not in competition with the banks,” said Pendergraft. “But if a business goes to a bank and the bank turns them down — presumably because of risk — why is it justifiable to take public moneys and … risk public funds, which to me should be, probably, more cautiously invested?”

Dorrell said banks have to refuse certain investments due to other reasons besides risk.

Pendergraft countered again, asking why the government should be involved in the fate of businesses that don’t provide essential public services.

[{"type":"text","text":"Sen. Mike Gierau, D-Jackson, rebutted Pendergraft’s logic."}]

On the Select Water Committee, he said, lawmakers are willing to “dole out” significant 

“You want to talk about blue sky?” asked Gierau. “Oh my Lord. And we do it. And we do it because it’s right.”

Haroldson said he’d be happy to put a “question mark” next to this program, and he emphasized that this is only a draft bill set for more contemplation later this year.

[{"type":"text","text":"Here Bear answered Gierau’s rebuke."}]

“As you’re forming that ideology in your mind as to how you’ll approach this, I hope you’ll also not compare water infrastructure to helping mom and pop shops have a successful program,” said Bear. 

Small business success is “quite different from water infrastructure,” he added.

Water infrastructure serves small family farms, which are businesses, said Gierau.

“Water infrastructure,” countered Bear, “would be much similar to the road in front of the small mom and pop shop. ... It’s got a common usage.”

[{"type":"text","text":"The County Infrastructure Bill"}]

One of the bills contemplates a revival of the old budget appropriation called the County Consensus Funding program by which counties, if at least half of the governing boards of the local governments within them agree, could receive construction and infrastructure grants through the State Loans and Investment Board.

The Wyoming County Commissioners’ Association has asked the Legislature to send $75 million per year into that program. The draft bill says “XX” where the appropriation would go.

Three-quarters of the allocations to counties would hinge on population, and one-quarter on how poor their property values are.

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<title>Wyoming Business Council Chief Spars With Committee That Tried To Kill Agency | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The head of the Wyoming Business Council sparred Monday with the Joint Appropriations Committee, which has tried to kill it. "No answer, no money," was the reply CEO Josh Dorrell got when he said he won't know the WBC's budget ask until August.

Wyoming Business Council Chief Spars With Committee That Tried To Kill Agency

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

Andrew Rossi

Around Wyoming

Despite an influx of moisture-laden weather in June, data from the National Weather Service (NWS) show that the last three months have remained historically dry.

For many communities, the period between March 21 and June 20 was one of the driest in recorded history.

Riverton got 1.01 inches of total precipitation between March 21 and June 20, only 28% of its historical average. That’s officially Riverton’s driest spring since 1996.

Buffalo didn’t fare much better, with 1.91 of the 6.18 inches of precipitation it usually gets. It was Buffalo’s driest spring since 1998.

With the wettest months of Wyoming’s year in the past, meteorologists are anticipating an exceptionally dry summer.

“I'm not surprised,” Cowboy State Daily meteorologist Don Day said. “March was so bad, April was not great, May was really bad in places, and June has been a bust. Those months are so critical, and they didn’t come through for us.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Confirmation Bias"}]

None of Wyoming’s meteorologists were surprised the 2026 spring season was so dry. It’s comparable to confirming how a murder has been committed when the murderer has already been tried and convicted after a thorough confession.

“Weather systems have been going around the fringes of Wyoming all season,” meteorologist Joshua Rowe with the NWS office in Riverton said. “It affected every region differently, but it was dry across the board.”

The reason for the dry season was the same phenomenon that made the 2025-2026 winter season historically dry. A series of stubborn high-pressure ridges set up in the Arctic Circle, funneling cold, wet weather away from the western U.S.

“The same story is pretty much true everywhere you look,” Day said. “There’s no getting around that this has been a severe drought across Wyoming.”

However, even this bleak outlook has a brighter perspective. Both Day and Rowe noted that spring precipitation wasn’t that bad when looking at communities with older records.

For instance, Lander got 3.25 of the 6.21 inches it typically receives between March 21 and June 20. That’s only 52% of their seasonal average, but it's only the 19th driest spring since 1891.

Casper had its 17th-driest spring since 1939, receiving 2.99 of its average 4.93 inches.

“This is ranking high on the list of driest winters for many places, but we’ve been down this road before,” Day said. “We’ve had some very dry years in the past, and people don't necessarily realize how prone we are to drought.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Prognosis Not Positive"}]

If the wettest months of Wyoming’s year were a bust, that doesn’t bode well for the hotter, drier summer ahead. Drought begets drought, as Day described it.

“It's really, really hard to erase or take big chunks out of drought as you get into early summer,” he said. “It’s already a dry climate, and the drier the ground gets, the harder it is to get rain. It takes a while for anything to bust that cycle.”

, most of Wyoming is experiencing Severe or Extreme drought. That’s actually an improvement from a few months ago, but isn’t saying much.

Rowe sees the possibility of drought relief on the horizon, but not for a few more months.

“There is the potential for the upcoming monsoonal season to be active, but it's not a certainty and won’t happen until late summer and early fall,” he said. “We would need a prolonged period of that moisture, with thunderstorms and rain showers developing every day for several weeks, for most of Wyoming to see any real improvements.”

 can change the game in a big way, in either direction. Unfortunately, that won’t have any impact in the short term.

“The Climate Prediction Center is calling for slightly above-average moisture for the next three months,” Rowe said. “That could give us more monsoonal moisture as we get into late July, August, and September, but it would take quite a lot to make a significant change.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Day was aware of that outlook, but “wouldn’t put any money on it.\""}]

“I’ve seen years where active tropical storms in the eastern Pacific Ocean during an El Niño summer drift into the Rockies and create some really wet weather in July, August and September,” he said. “I don't want to give any impression that it's coming or that this would end the drought conditions, but there’s a historical precedent for it.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"It’s On Josh Allen"}]

Astronomical summer started with the summer solstice at 4:24 a.m. Sunday. Meteorological summer, however, started June 1.

Either way you look at it, it’s summer in Wyoming. That’s when people must be careful about what they wish for regarding moisture.

Even if there isn’t much precipitation over Wyoming, even a small amount can be enough to generate thunderstorms in the atmosphere. And with the thunder comes the lightning.

“If we're going to get rain, it's going to be likely coming from a thunderstorm,” Day said. “But thunderstorms could also cause lightning-induced fires. If you have wind coming in behind those storms, it’s a real concern.”

Day called summer thunderstorms “Catch 22s.” They’re the best chance for moisture but come with a higher risk of turning a drought-stricken landscape into an inferno.

“Do you want it to stay dry with no lightning, or do you want to take the chance to get wet and have lightning? I don’t have an answer for that, because thunderstorms are a blessing and a curse at the same time,” he said.

Now that summer’s here, the best course of action is to assume, and behave as if, the ongoing situation isn’t going to improve.

“Drought conditions are probably not going to improve much through the rest of June and into July,” Rowe said. “It'll really all depends on the monsoon as it develops later this summer. If it really sets up favorably for us, that would be very beneficial. We’ll have to see how that plays out.”

That said, there’s been a lot of active weather in Wyoming in the latter half of June. While the odds are low, Day said it's possible for June to make a noticeable dent in Wyoming’s drought.

“Getting that tropical storm activity in the Pacific and above-average precipitation in late July would be like 4th and 25 in a football game,” he said. “If you know we're going to go for it on fourth down, you have to hope Josh Allen’s our quarterback.”

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<title>Wyoming Records Driest Spring In Decades, Forecasters Expect Exceptionally Dry Summer | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Data from the National Weather Service reveals the last three months have been the driest spring on record for most of Wyoming. That's following one of the driest winters on record. And now meteorologists say they are expecting an exceptionally dry summer.

Wyoming Records Driest Spring In Decades, Forecasters Expect Exceptionally Dry Summer

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

Renée Jean

Energy

Black Hills Energy faces a future where individual data centers are proposing projects that demand power on the scale of a small state. 

Project Jade, as just one example, will come into Wyoming with a “bring-your-own-power” mentality for an initial 2.7 gigawatts of power, which is nearly three times what industry analysts have said Wyoming uses now. 

Ultimately, the data center could scale to a total of 10 gigawatts, which is almost as much power as Wyoming’s existing power plants could produce at peak capacity, based on Energy Information Administration data, which lists net summer power generation capacity for Wyoming at 10.8 gigawatts in 2024.

Project Jade’s developers have promised county officials a “bring-your-own-power” model, calling its campus “very self-sufficient,” and saying its approach will ensure there’s no pressure on the existing Laramie County power grid. 

But Black Hills Energy is also a partner on the project, officials have confirmed. So, even as a “self-powered” campus, the development is still, at some point, depending on Black Hills for infrastructure and interconnection. 

Project Jade is just one of several data centers looking to build within the Black Hills service territory, but the question for each of them is essentially the same, said Wes Ashton, Black Hills Energy’s vice president of utilities for Wyoming, South Dakota, and Montana.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Cost-Causer Is Cost-Payer"}]

“Overall, the idea is to prevent any large loads or large customers from shifting any other cost to customers,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “And typically, LPCS (large power contract service) tariffs these days, I think most people (equate) it to data centers. 

"That’s certainly the hot conversation and where a lot of the customer growth around the country is coming from.”

Customers coming into Black Hills' service territory are told up front about the large-load tariff and the company’s expectation that such customers will have to pay for any and all new infrastructure required to serve them.

That applies to their shares of the grid, as well as any other enhanced upgrade to transmission, or other sides of distribution. 

“Anything like that has to be covered there,” he said. “Or the simple way to say it is, and you may have heard before out of our company, the cost-causer is the cost-payer.”

The Black Hills large-load tariff was created more than a decade ago in response to Microsoft building a data center in Cheyenne, which became Black Hills’ first commercial, large-load customer. 

Under this system, large-load customers can expect a detailed analysis of their power requirements to happen in the early stages. 

In practice, that means the data center is expected to build or contract for its own dispatchable, onsite power, which will ultimately be integrated into the wider grid. 

“It’s a highly regulated process,” he said. “The requests that come in are negotiated out and there’s a number of different agreements that take place. Those requests and those load studies are evaluated … and all load requirements — generation, transmission system impacts — are studied in detail.”

Once the detailed system analysis is completed, a plan is then developed for serving the project’s power, which will be filed with and overseen by state regulators who evaluate the plan on whether it adequately protects existing ratepayers.

Ashton argues that this approach allows the utility to welcome extremely large data-center loads while isolating the financial risk to those customers themselves, rather than spreading it across households and small businesses.

“That is a process that takes place over a number of months, if not years, to get that set up,” Ashton said. “The core principle is that the tariff keeps away or isolates any risk on behalf of the utility, and it isolates it to that customer, so that customer makes their payments for the investment, and that customer would make their payments to be integrated onto a system. 

"And then that tariff allows, through those individual negotiations, either generation that’s behind the meter, purchasing power over the open market.”

Few Rate Hikes Despite Dozen Data Centers

Black Hills already serves about 12 total data center sites across roughly eight customers, Ashton said. 

Meanwhile, in the last decade it’s only had one rate increase request, according to a statement by Black Hills representative Austin Allen during a recent Cheyenne forum about data centers.

Here, company executives are referring to base-rate cases. Separate fuel and power-cost adjustments are handled through other mechanisms on a customer’s bills.

It’s a track record that has the company confident that its large-load tariff is working as intended, and keeping the costs of scaling up power for such customers from affecting ordinary ratepayers in an undue manner. 

“We’ve probably got another maybe a dozen or so entities that we’re in various stages of conversations or negotiations with,” Ashton said. “There are always conversations and customers at various levels of maturity. 

Black Hills Energy says it’s ready for a surge of power-hungry Wyoming data centers that can each use as much electricity as a small state. The bottom line is making those projects pay their own way, said a company official. 

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