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[{"type":"text","text":"Dana Carvey's impersonation of Joe Biden...."}]

Bonus vid 2 8 21 24

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

<title>Bonus Video 2: Wednesday, August 21, 2024 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Dana Carvey's impersonation of Joe Biden....

Bonus Video 2: Wednesday, August 21, 2024

 Dana Carvey's impersonation of Joe Biden....

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Wyoming Life

[{"type":"text","text":"Some people buy old work vans because they're practical."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Parker Williams bought one because he wanted to turn it into a giant dog."}]

The 20-year-old Powell resident was scrolling through ideas one day when inspiration struck — "randomly," he told Cowboy State Daily. 

His favorite movie has always been the 1993 comedy "Dumb and Dumber," starring Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels. More specifically, he's always loved the hopelessly optimistic duo of Lloyd Christmas (Carrey) and Harry Dunne (Daniels).

"I wanted to make something outstanding," Williams said. "Something affordable and cool."

So why not recreate one of the most recognizable movie vehicles ever built?

He found an old electrical van "for cheap," recruited his best friend Seth Siebert, and over about three days transformed the $3,000 van into a shaggy, four-legged tribute to the 1994 comedy.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Built For Laughs"}]

Williams spends much of his free time filming YouTube videos with friends. The van was simply another ambitious project for 

Building it, he said, was more complicated than he expected.

[{"type":"text","text":"The hardest part was making the giant dog roadworthy."}]

The pair spent hours wiring custom headlights and blinkers so it could legally travel Wyoming roads.

"It took way more carpet than I thought," Williams said with a laugh. 

Constructing the oversized nose was a challenge, too. Hidden beneath the carpet is a framework built from 2x4s and plywood.

After finishing, Williams even drove it to the Powell Police Department, where officers conducted an inspection.

[{"type":"text","text":"He says it passed, and the furry creation is completely street legal."}]

Somewhat disappointingly, Williams added, he still hasn't been pulled over.

The Mutt Cutts van earned its place in movie history when Christmas and Dunne are pulled over because a state trooper suspects they've been drinking while driving.

Trying to be helpful, Lloyd hands the officer what he thinks is an open beer. Instead, it's a bottle containing Harry's urine, which Harry had been saving because they had been driving long stretches without stopping.

The trooper takes a swig before realizing what it is, spits it out, and — so disgusted — lets the pair go without pursuing the stop further.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Instant Celebrity"}]

"It gets every reaction possible," Williams said. Most are overwhelmingly positive.

Everywhere he goes, strangers stop him for photos, ask questions and smile.

Williams recently drove it as far as Minnesota for a CboysTV car show, where it drew crowds despite sharing space with far more expensive builds.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"My mother is not super fond of it,\" he joked."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"The biggest issue, he explained, isn't the attention."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"It's really just having it in her garage all the time,” he said."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Bad weather presents another challenge."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"An 8,000-pound carpeted dog doesn't perform well when wet. "}]

Williams recalled getting the van hopelessly stuck before spending hours cleaning off the mud.

"I basically had to shampoo the whole thing," he said. "It was a nightmare."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Best Friends"}]

When Williams first pitched the idea roughly two years ago, his best friend didn't hesitate.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"Sure, sounds fun,\" Siebert remembers saying. "}]

The two had recently graduated from high school and were simply looking for something memorable to do.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"Parker is about as good a friend as you can have,\" Siebert said."}]

When they aren't filming YouTube videos, the pair likes working on trucks, mudding in the woods and dreaming up their next adventure.

Siebert has been tinkering in garages for as long as he can remember, helping his father with projects.

[{"type":"text","text":"Mechanics, he said, remain more of a hobby than anything else."}]

Helping build a giant dog just happened to be one of the more unusual ones.

Siebert says some of his favorite moments have come while pulling through McDonald's drive-thrus.

"It's just cool seeing people's reactions," he said. "Them just working a normal shift and seeing some big dog come through."

[{"type":"text","text":"The friends are already brainstorming their next outrageous project."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Whatever it is, Siebert doubts the Mutt Cutts van is going anywhere."}]

He figures it's destined to remain exactly where it spends much of its downtime today.

[{"type":"text","text":"Parker's mother's garage."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"More Comedy"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"For Wyoming movie lover Kelly Eastes, none of this is surprising."}]

Eastes serves as Film Casper liaison for Visit Casper, helping connect filmmakers with locations, local resources and production support throughout central Wyoming. 

[{"type":"text","text":"He remembers \"Dumb and Dumber\" well."}]

"It seems like comedies are rarer nowadays," Eastes said. "It would be nice to have more of them."

Directed by Peter and Bobby Farrelly, the film debuted at No. 1 at the North American box office during its opening weekend and eventually earned nearly $250 million worldwide, becoming one of the defining comedies of the '90s.

More than 30 years later, Eastes believes the film continues to resonate because good stories outlive generations.

"They resonate because multiple generations understand them," he said. "I believe that the way we connect, even generationally, is through stories and films. Storytelling has been our way of educating the youth for as long as we've been on the planet."

That's why he isn't surprised two young Wyoming men who weren't even born when the movie premiered would re-create one of its most recognizable props.

Along with a lot of mindless fun, the Mutt Cutts van project also has prompted Williams to do some deep soul searching.

After checking in on some of his high school classmates and what they're doing in their young adult lives, Williams compared those achievements to making a shaggy dog van.

“I don’t know if that means I’m majorly failing in life or I don’t have my priorities right," he mused in a YouTube video while building the van.

Mutt Cutts IMG 3999 7 5 26

<title>Powell Man Turns $3,000 Van Into ‘Dumb And Dumber’ Mutt Cutts Shaggin’ Wagon | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A Powell man who built a "Dumb And Dumber" Mutt Cutts van replica with his best friend says it turns heads everywhere they drive it. Bad weather presents a challenge, he said. When the 8,000-pound carpeted dog got caught in the rain, he had to shampoo it. 

Powell Man Turns $3,000 Van Into ‘Dumb And Dumber’ Mutt Cutts Shaggin’ Wagon

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

Renée Jean

Around Wyoming

DUBOIS — When Marion Taylor talks about America, there’s a little catch in her voice that she just can’t help any more than she can help how her eyes start misting over.

That was doubly true Saturday on a flag-lined main street in a tiny Wyoming mountain town, where thousands gathered to celebrate America’s 250th birthday by watching one of the nation’s most unique parades. 

Each year, Dubois fields something few towns or cities of any size could manage — a parade of roughly two dozen military tanks and other vehicles, hand-picked by National Museum of Military Vehicles founder Dan Starks to tell a sweeping story of American freedom.

“This means something to me because I wasn’t a natural born U.S. citizen,” Taylor told Cowboy State Daily. “I immigrated from Canada as a child and we were so — I can almost cry, thinking about it.”

The memory that came flooding back was a much smaller, quieter parade when she was being sworn in as a U.S. citizen at 19 years old.

“I was living in Missouri back then, and we went to St. Louis to the big courthouse,” she said.

Taylor said she remembers Wold War veterans at the courthouse as a color guard for the ceremony.

Taylor’s eyes light up when she talks about how Dubois celebrates the Fourth of July. 

“Last year we had 3,000 people here winding the streets for the parade,” she said. “And this year, I think it’ll be the same, or maybe more. Everybody wants to come to the Dubois parade because we have the military vehicles. 

"It’s the most unique parade in America.”

That uniqueness doesn’t come without logistical headaches. Shutting down a state highway, even for a short time, takes serious coordination with the Wyoming Department of Transportation. 

“They give us a set amount of time to close the road and get the parade through,” she said. “But we still get it done.”

Last year, Mother Nature stepped in with her own deadline, splashing onlookers with a sudden storm that came blowing down the mountain. 

“The wind was blowing dirt in our eyes and taking people’s hats and chairs and everything,” she said. 

People came back anyway, she added with a proud smile. 

It’s the tanks, she acknowledges. They are just irresistible.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Rolling History Lesson "}]

For the crowd lining both sides of U.S. Highway 26 through Dubois, also known as Ramshorn Highway, the tank parade is pure spectacle — and they love it. 

The roar of the engines rumbling down the streets and echoing off the Wind River Mountains as they belch diesel smoke is what it’s all about.  

For Starks, though, the spectacle is actually a carefully chosen curation of American military history.  

“On the lineup of vehicles, the first thing I like to have is an array,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “And each year I like to include vehicles that people haven’t seen before.”

Among this year’s standouts was an M110 self-propelled Howitzer, a hulking piece of bristling Cold War history to send rolling down the street.

“It’s the biggest howitzer, the largest diameter howitzer,” Starks said. “They’re firing the largest shell of any howitzer in the U.S. military inventory, and it was capable of firing a nuclear projectile.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"\"So, that’s pretty cool.”"}]

Not all the vehicles are about shock and awe. 

Starks wants the convoy to tell a coherent story, one that teases people and encourages them to want to learn more. 

This year’s biggest teaser was a World War II halftrack named Krystyna, with a special story pulled from the shadow world of espionage.

Krystyna was “a daring Polish aristocrat,” Starks said. 

“She was Winston Churchill’s favorite World War II spy,” he said. “This halftrack was restored over in Europe by a group that had particular connections with the Polish military and knew the story of this Polish spy … and decided to name this halftrack after her.”

Dubois has but one hour for its big military tank parade. It’s an hour that turns the pages of history, with vehicles normally only seen behind museum ropes. 

Bringing them out to an American main street in a small town like Dubois is something Starks believes happens nowhere else in the country. 

“It’s not that nobody else has a military vehicle in a parade,” he said. “I’m sure there are plenty of military vehicles here and there, but nothing like this.”

It’s the depth and breadth of those military vehicles, spanning 80 years of history, that’s unmatched. 

“I haven’t verified it, but I’ve been around a long time and I’ve worked with lots and lots of people,” he said. “And I consistently hear nobody else does this.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Big Flag For Big Birthday"}]

The people who come to watch Dubois Fourth of July tank parade are just as varied as the military convoy itself. 

One family from Riverton, for example, stood out from the crowd for the unusual flag they were waving around. 

It was not just large, but also proclaimed America 250. 

Matt Burrell found the flag when he was searching around online for something special to mark the occasion. 

“I didn’t know what yet, but then I saw that right off the bat on Amazon,” he said. “And I said, ‘That’s it.’”

Burrell showed up in Dubois last year on a whim with his two young children. This year, it was not just a plan, but a full-blown getaway.

They stayed in the KOA campground, which impressed them with its indoor swimming pool, as well as activities like gold mining for the kids.

“You buy a bag of dirt and you can run it through the water and do the whole process,” he said with a chuckle. “I don’t know if you ever find anything like gold.”

But fun was the real gold he was looking for.

Not everyone in the crowd was feeling their best. 

A woman from Casper admitted she’d been sick for two weeks and was still on a mostly “bland cracker diet.”

The thought of staying home for America’s 250th, though, was unimaginable.

“I’m old enough that I can remember the 200th anniversary in 1976 and how special it was and how lucky I felt, even back then, at a child’s age, just to celebrate,” she said. “And here we are again. 

"I know America’s not perfect. I know we have our problems. But it’s still the absolute best place in the world. And Wyoming is the only place I ever want to live.”

Most years, she and her family go to Cody’s famous Stampede Parade for the Fourth of July, but this year they made a deliberate pivot to Dubois to see the tanks.

“We wanted to experience the tanks and the military display, honestly,” she said. “Dubois is absolutely just outstanding. So beautiful.”

On one corner of main street Dubois, a man named Steve Burgess offered a simple card table draped in red, white, and blue and piled with free flags, whirligigs, and mints.

“I love this country,” he told Cowboy State Daily, gesturing to the table. “This country has been good to me and my family, and I like to celebrate along with everybody else and give out flags and whirlybirds and mints and just enjoy the day.”

This was the third year Burgess offered patriotic accessories set out on what looked like a handmade, crocheted tablecloth.

“I did not make it,” he admitted. “I bought it at the Op Shop — Opportunity Shop. St. Thomas Episcopal Church runs it.”

Burgess had gone there specifically to find a tablecloth, but wasn’t expecting to find something quite so perfect. 

America’s 250th is special to Burgess because the miracle still persists, despite all the tensions and challenges.

“We’ve got a great country in spite of some of the differences we share,” he said. “Long story short, it’s the greatest country in the world and it’s survived 250 years. History says our nation should not be here, that it should have run its course in about 200 years. 

“Well, we’re 50 years over what the expectancy is throughout history. So that’s a win, and it means that a lot of people sacrificed for the freedom that we enjoy to this day, and I do not take that lightly.”

For Kevin and Josh Gentile of Casper — father and son, Navy and Marine Corps service, respectively — America’s 250th birthday is something they feel deeply. 

“Both of us have served our country,” Kevin said. “He did four years in the Marine Corps, and I did four years in the Navy. I felt it was important to serve my country if I’m going to enjoy its freedoms.”

Kevin remembers America’s 200th birthday in 1976, and seeing another one with his son is beyond special. 

The National Museum of Military Vehicles, meanwhile, is “mind-boggling.” 

“The freedom, the country … this is the greatest country in the world, as far as I’m concerned,” Kevin said. “And this (parade) is just a great event to celebrate that.”

Kevin loved what he saw in Dubois — people from all walks of life coming together.

“You hear about all the controversies that are going on,” he said. “But here we are, and people are happy, people are friendly. It’s a really great thing. It makes you feel good to be here.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The 'Genius' Of America "}]

For Taylor, who has watched both America 200 and now America 250, the real strength she sees in the country isn’t that everyone agrees all the time. It’s that they don’t, and yet still find ways to work together. 

“If you love this country, you’re going to come together,” she said. “I used to work for a lady who was very left, and we were great friends.”

Taylor’s friend made great homemade sourdough bread, while Taylor made all the fillings. 

“We never got in each other’s way,” Taylor said. “I had her do the salads and she made the bread. I made the sandwiches, and the special, and I baked the desserts. 

"We got along so well, and we were different political realms completely. I was right, she was left, but we didn’t care. We’re still friends.”

Her takeaway from that as an American is simple.

“You don’t have to get mad at people because they’re a different affiliation,” she said. “Just agree to disagree, that’s it.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Disagreement Built America"}]

Disagreement, Starks said, is part of what built the country that America is now. 

Though today, the Founding Fathers are often referred to as though they were of one mind and one body, the truth is they were men who had vehement disagreements with each other over a range of divisive issues, from slavery to federalism, he said.

Their “genius,” Starks said, was working together in spite of that and creating a new country where the principal remains all men are created equal.

“People think, ‘Oh the country is going to hell because look at all the divisiveness,'” Starks said. “But that’s just typical. That’s what happens in a country like us, that has as many different people, with so many different life experiences, different backgrounds, different values. 

"What we hold in common is the value of being Americans and the value of finding a way to thread the needle and get an acceptable path through all these differences. That’s what we’re celebrating today.”

And that’s what Starks saw on full display as he drove one of his own military vehicles in the small-town parade that shuts down a state highway every year so history and freedom can roll down a main street in America and celebrate everything that makes it great. 

It’s a spectacle that tells a story in steel and diesel and thousands of human voices, like the immigrant who still cries when she remembers a World War color guard escort when she became a citizen. 

Or a woman too sick to eat much more than crackers but who can’t miss America’s 250th birthday. Or the veterans who gathered to cheer tanks rolling down the streets of town for a country they loved enough to serve in the military.

This 250th Fourth of July, one thin slice of America in Dubois, Wyoming, offered a larger glimpse of a nation that can still come together and celebrate when it really matters.

Dubois Fourth of July 20260704 1500340 7 4 26

<title>Dubois’ One-Of-A-Kind Military Tank Parade Celebrates America's 250th | Cowboy State Daily</title>

On America’s 250th, Dubois did something few towns in America can do — fielding a parade with more than two dozen military tanks and vehicles spanning 80 years of U.S. history. "It’s the most unique parade in America,” said one patriotic-feeling parade-goer.

Dubois’ One-Of-A-Kind Military Tank Parade Celebrates America's 250th

Energy

Jeffrey City is best known for uranium and near abandonment after the yellowcake market crashed in the 1980s. 

But things are looking up for the near-ghost town in the central desert region of Fremont County. 

And that’s not because of Wyoming’s renewed uranium rush or Visionary Metals’ new nickel project nearby. 

Jeffrey City, which has about 60 residents after boasting around 4,000 during its uranium heyday, could be poised for a brand-new industry thanks to a Canadian geologist named Jean-Pierre Jutras, who said he’s on the verge of finding significant new sources of both ornamental and gem-quality jade.

“Wyoming jade is legendary in the circles of jade carvers,” Jutras told Cowboy State Daily. “Production has been curtailed for a long time, and everything’s been looked at quite a bit and picked over, but when I looked at Wyoming as a geologist, what struck me was that there was barely any information at all on the geology.”

Jutras’ company, Jade Leader, is taking a similar tack to that of 

, which is using new geological knowledge and new technology to uncover deeper veins of gold in the South Pass area and other Wyoming locations.

“We just decided to take a hard look and see if the sources of a lot of the surface material that was collected from the '30s all the way to the '70s could be identified and if we could understand if there was any significant potential for renewed production.”

At one time, Wyoming had so much jade laying around on the surface people could walk around and pluck it straight from the sagebrush.

That supported roughly 868 tons of jade production from the 1930s to the 1970s. There was even a company devoted to jewelry production that was sending 18 tons of materials into the world annually, to Taiwan, New Zealand, Europe, and Far Eastern countries.

But as the easy jade became rarer and rarer, the state could no longer support the scale anymore. 

Wyoming’s decline happened about the same time as the Canadian jade industry was starting to rise.

How A Canadian Became A ‘Jade-aholic’

Growing up in Canada, Jutras was interested in rocks and geology from a young age. A career as a geologist only seemed logical. 

In the 1980s, he was gifted some jade from a mine he was allowed to visit, which honed his interest in this semiprecious stone formed by intense environmental conditions found deep underground. 

“I took that home and I’ve been cutting and carving jade and other gemstones ever since then, alongside my geological career,” he said. “So I kind of became a jade-aholic very quickly, very early.”

It wasn’t until he was invited to a jade-carving competition in China, though, that he realized just how interesting — and valuable — jade is.

“To me, jade was like the little souvenirs and tourist shop pieces,” he said. “Once in a while there’s a historical piece that’s really nice. So I went to this festival not knowing what to expect.”

When he arrived at the Zi Gang Bei Festival in Suzhou, he witnessed a spectacle unlike any he’d never seen.

There were 550 competing jade carvers who had brought more than 1,100 pieces for judging. 

During the three-day event, more than 90,000 visitors streamed in to admire the pieces entered in the competition, as well as to buy jade. 

“I was so impressed, first, because of the quality of the carvings that were there, valued in the millions of dollars per piece,” Jutras said. “And we saw jades of all qualities. We saw carvings from Guatemala, New Zealand, Germany, Canada, the U.S., and, of course, China. And I looked at all of this and went, ‘I’m missing something here. How did I not know about this?’”

Jutras had planned to stay for just a week, but decided instead to stay longer and keep exploring this vast new world of jade, visiting all the carving towns and all of the major markets.

“In one of the towns I visited, called Shifosi, they said they had 125,000 carvers, just in that one town alone,” he said. “It was incredible, and essentially all of the businesses in China that sell jade go there because that’s the big manufacturing center. And I mean, it was display after display, buildings the size of airplane hangars, with 2,000, 3,000 vendors in them.”

It was during this time that he learned the jade the Chinese most prized came from Wyoming. It was also the jade that had disproportionately earned gold medals during the festival.

“It’s received extremely well at the highest level, in a culture highly sophisticated in the jade arts,” Jutras said.

The Chinese have been obsessed with jade for generations.

Emperors made entire suits of jade to wear on their journey to the afterlife.

“We’re talking about 7,000 little tiles of jade all connected together with gold wires that they would clothe the dead with,” Jutras said. “So they could go into the afterlife protected with jade.”

These jade tiles were often said to be too precious to steal, he added. That’s because only nobles were allowed to own it.

“They opened up a tomb and it had a sarcophagus of jade,” Jutras said. “And the thieves had gone in and stolen everything else, including the gold wire that was connecting the jade plates. But they left the jade because you just couldn’t fence jade if you weren’t a noble.”

While most jades worldwide consist of recrystallization of a previous rock, Wyoming’s jade appears to have crystalized at greater depths within the earth, resulting in a much purer, more predictable material that takes one of the best polishes found in nephrite jade worldwide. 

That is why it’s so highly prized by the Chinese.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Finding New Jade Sources"}]

Known for uranium and then near-abandonment, Jeffrey City is getting a second look from a Canadian geologist who says new science — and evolving markets — could turn Wyoming’s deposits of jade into a new industry for the tiny almost-ghost town.

Bonus Video 2: Wednesday, August 21, 2024

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