It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming, for Wednesday, August 14th. I’m Wendy Corr, bringing you headlines from the Cowboy State Daily newsroom - brought to you by Outrider PAC. According to a new survey, 79% of Wyoming Voters support Freedom in Education. Learn more about Educational Savings Accounts in Wyoming at OutriderPAC.com
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A Virginia man allegedly stole a Yellowstone National Park heavy wrecker truck Saturday while drunk, plowed through a fence, fled on foot and when he was caught, pretended to be a U.S. marshal.
57-year-old Alan Rawlings Bowling has pleaded not guilty to nine criminal charges in the U.S. District Court for Wyoming, according to Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland.
“There were these reports that a man had tried to buy beer at the Old Faithful General Store, and his card was declined, and he goes out and he allegedly steals this heavy wrecker that Yellowstone service workers use and took off, you know, going the wrong way down one way roads and off roading, crashing through a fence that's property of the federal government, so they chased him through bison territory, which you know, bison sightings are frequent in that area. So that adds a whole other element to a normal crime scene.”
If convicted, Bowling faces a potential maximum of 4 and a half years in jail and $45,000 in fines if convicted on all counts.
Read the full story HERE.
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About 40 people crowded into a dim basement room in the Laramie County Courthouse on Tuesday afternoon to watch the county clerk test voting machines for the second time in eight days.
A second test of Laramie County’s vote tallying equipment was performed at the request of the Laramie County Republican Party, which filed a complaint with the local district attorney over the first test to certify the voting machines Aug. 5. Politics reporter Leo Wolfson said the second test ran smoothly.
“The test was held in the basement of the Laramie County Courthouse. There was about 40 people who showed up to watch. Everything appeared to go rather smoothly. I spoke to Laramie County GOP committee man, Dallas Terrell, and he said that it really eased his concerns, and he feels fully confident in the voting machines for the upcoming elections. This was a result of a first test on the voting machines that did not go accordingly as they would have liked.”
Responding to the lawsuit last week, Laramie County Clerk Debra Lee called it an effort to disrupt the current primary election and force her office to provide alternative means for counting ballots.
Read the full story HERE.
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Passengers aboard an Alaska Airlines flight bound for Jackson Hole were miffed last week after the pilot explained over the intercom that he could not land the plane at their destination.
Cowboy State Daily’s Jake Nichols reports that the pilot instead diverted the flight to Salt Lake City - because he wasn’t qualified to land the plane in Jackson.
“It appears to be weather related. He didn't have enough hours in that particular aircraft, I think, at a complex airport to land in. The weather conditions were not ideal, and I think when they took off, they were hoping for better weather, and he just didn't feel comfortable. Bottom line, it underscores the integrity built into the airline industry. Pilots are not hot shots. They're not aces. If they don't feel comfortable with the landing, take a 40 minute flight to Salt Lake, divert, get a pilot who is qualified to land, maybe better experience.”
Once at Salt Lake, passengers reportedly remained on board about 90 minutes until a replacement pilot could be found. The flight then continued on to Jackson Hole, landing about three hours later than planned.
Read the full story HERE.
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Uranium Energy Corp., which had mothballed its uranium mining operations in Wyoming in a “care and maintenance status” nearly a decade ago, is the second major uranium producer in the state to restart mining and processing of the critical ore.
The Corpus Christi, Texas-based company announced Tuesday that it restarted its past-producing Christensen Ranch in-situ recovery operations in Wyoming where it is currently permitted to mine 2.5 million pounds of uranium annually, according to energy reporter Pat Maio.
“Uranium Energy Corp. producing uranium out of its Christensen Ranch, which has some real historic background in the State of Wyoming from the Powder River Basin. So they're the second company here in State of Wyoming to have resumed, or restarted, or in various stages of starting, a production of uranium in the state of Wyoming. The other one is, UR energy in the red desert. And there's a third one probably going to be starting up here shortly too, called Strata, which is owned by Peninsula energy out of Australia… Brent Berg with Uranium Energy Corp. Big picture, he says, is that this is all putting Wyoming on the map for its uranium, all these startups in our state.”
Uranium Energy’s first shipment of yellowcake is expected to happen in November or December.
Read the full story HERE.
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A South Dakota ranch couple is fighting federal indictments served to them by a U.S. Forest Service agent who allegedly showed up unannounced on their front steps — armed and in tactical gear.
Charles Maude and his wife Heather, who is a Wyoming native, were served with separate federal grand jury indictments for alleged theft of government property. According to outdoors reporter Mark Heinz, the government claims the fence put up by the ranchers is over a boundary with federal grasslands.
“They first got noticed, I think, back in March that they put a no hunting sign on their fence line. Somebody complained about it. The Forest Service said, Well, that's public land. You have to take the sign down. So they went ahead and did that, and then they met with the district ranger about possibly having to re survey the line so they could get a really crystal clear picture of where the boundaries were between the private property and the National grasslands property, and they thought everything was settled by then and then in June, Forest Service agent in full tactical gear, arm shows up on their their front steps.”
The Maudes’ South Dakota ranch is “a direct-to-consumer beef and pork operation,” and the meat is processed in Sheridan.
Read the full story HERE.
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On Monday, 108-year-old Hazel Baumberger sat on the edge of a lounge chair that workers at the Peaceful Pines senior living center in Fort Pierre, South Dakota, had dragged out to the front porch.
A couple dozen bikers, friends and family came to the “Rally to Hazel,” a special drive-by motorcycle rally held just for South Dakota’s oldest living woman. Justin George - who covered the Sturgis Rally for Cowboy State Daily - says Baumberger is possibly the last living person to have attended the first Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in 1938.
“She was there when it was called the Black Hills motor classic. She remembers about, you know, five to nine motorcycles that were up there. They were competing in skills contests, things like that. And then since then, she's attended several of them over the years. Now, the last time she went, apparently, was when she was 99 which is pretty remarkable considering.”
Peaceful Pines Executive Director Heather Janes, who organized the Rally to Hazel, said the spunky lady loved hearing those motorcycles roar.
Read the full story HERE.
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A Montana man who was riding his motorcycle through Idaho with friends has been missing since Sunday, and authorities had reported no new leads on the man’s whereabouts Tuesday afternoon.
24-year-old Zachary DeMoss was riding his Kawasaki Vulcan 2000 near Kooskia, Idaho, on Sunday afternoon before he went missing, according to Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland.
“He was riding with two friends, and they were headed through Idaho, back to Montana, and he said, Go ahead of me, because he's a more experienced writer. And he said he was going to catch up. They go ahead. He doesn't catch up. They circled back to a pull out. They passed his bike at a pull out at some point. So they wait and they wait, and then they circle back to that same pull out, and the bike's gone and he's gone now. That was on on Sunday afternoon, and there has been reportedly no sign of him since.”
A life flight network flew a helicopter over the region Tuesday morning and didn’t see anything. Foot searchers are scouring the area with a drone, and several civilian searchers - including DeMoss’s parents - have joined the effort.
Read the full story HERE.
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The family of a missing 76-year-old Rock Springs woman with dementia are relieved after she was located safely in Colorado on Monday night after going missing for nearly three days.
Martha James was located in Fort Collins at about 7:45 p.m. in the parking lot of a retail store. She’s safe but very disoriented, said James’ sister-in-law, Suzanne James, who told Cowboy State Daily that James thought she was in California.
James was taken to a hospital in Fort Collins, where she’s resting and being treated for low potassium.
Read the full story HERE.
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Three Laramie men are accused of duct-taping a woman’s mouth, hands and ankles, then cutting her with a knife, beating and threatening her because she was “disrespecting” them.
Brandon Warden, Brenceis Jimenez and Felix Carrera, each face two kidnapping charges, three aggravated assault charges and one felonious restraint charge — which altogether carry a chance of life in prison, according to crime and courts reporter Clair McFarland.
“The narrative says that they wanted her to help with some sort of a breakdown, like the Durango was breaking down, and she didn't go out and help out, and so she was chastised for that, and then pretty soon, the men are allegedly duct taping her wrists and her ankles and her mouth with white duct tape, and then saying she disrespected them, and then punching her.”
While Jimenez and Warden were arrested late last month, Carrera has not yet been arrested.
Read the full story HERE.
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If Sheridan state House candidate Gail Symons hadn’t gone to the voter’s house, the woman said she would have almost certainly taken a political mailer that she received at face value - a mailer blasting Symons as supporting higher taxes and San Francisco’s voting policy - and would have voted against her.
Politics reporter Leo Wolfson says the mailers were sent out by the campaign arm of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, the Wyoming Freedom political action committee.
“Symons asked her if it was, did you get a mailer by chance? And the woman said, Yes. And the two started conversating, and it allowed Symons the opportunity to address what was said in the mailer. And the woman basically completely changed her mind about the issue, but it only would have occurred because of the results of that conversation, and it appeared that the woman really took kind of carte blanche what was said in the mailer to heart. So it was kind of concerning thing for Symons to see when considering that she basically disagreed with everything that the mailer said, and believes that it was kind of stretching truth or just making outright lies.”
The Freedom PAC claims Symons’ support for ranked choice voting was reported in a March 12, 2024, Cowboy State Daily story. Cowboy State Daily did not publish a story on or near that day referencing ranked choice voting.
Read the full story HERE.
