It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming, for Monday, September 30th. I’m Wendy Corr, bringing you headlines from the Cowboy State Daily newsroom - brought to you by the Cowboy State Daily Morning Show with Jake! Launching October 1st at 6 a.m., Cowboy State Daily’s Jake Nichols is making morning radio cool again. Tune in from wherever you are for the latest news, weather, sports and in-depth conversations that matter to you.
When Cowboy State Daily meteorologist Don Day isn’t trying to predict the Wyoming’s weird weather, he’s battling the elements internationally.
Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi spoke to Wyoming’s weather guy about his most recent excursion, which saw him helping other Americans soar as long and as far as they could across continental Europe in a balloon.
“He's done the Gordon Bennett Cup before, which is the oldest aviation race in the world, but this was the first time he went international for it. So they launched from a town in Germany, and his job was to stay on the ground, giving weather updates to three USA teams that were in the air. And the goal of the race isn't necessarily to reach a finishing point. It's to get as far as you can while staying airborne as long as you can… it's just one of the many things that Don day does when he's not giving us Wyoming weather forecasts.”
Day has been involved in ballooning — gas and hot air — for over 25 years. He’s a recognized international expert.
Read the full story HERE.
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It took six years of wrangling with the courts and lobbying the Wyoming Legislature, but finally a new one-room schoolhouse has opened in an area two hours north of Laramie so remote ranchers call it "Little Siberia."
Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz visited the rural school at its grand opening last week.
“The reason they wanted a schoolhouse out there for their kids and other ranch kids is it's on a good day, it can take an hour and a half just to get back to Rock River, and that's on a good day when there's no snow or rain or anything like that… they they fought and fought and fought for for over six years. Claire McFarland, our courts reporter, reported in January that the Wyoming Supreme Court turned them down for the proposal, get this school. But they kept going. They got some legislators behind them, and they got a budget item attack attached to the 2024 budget. And so it was a go.”
It’s Albany County School District No. 1’s most remote school, a modern iteration of the one-room schoolhouse that was the hallmark of American and Western education until just a few decades ago.
Read the full story HERE.
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Along with hundreds of firefighters on the ground, Wyoming’s huge summer wildfires have been attacked from the air.
Cowboy State Daily’s Dale Killingbeck interviewed a pilot who drops water and slurry bombs like they're at war with the fires.
“At the Natrona County International Airport, this past week, we were able to talk to a pilot who actually flies one of these air tanker jets. It's actually a jet that he uses to dump fire retardant on forest fires all across the region… he told me that, you know, they always look for the heel of the fire, and then they look along the flanks and and if there's a structure on one side of the flanks that's going to be where they're going to put it down, that's if they're the first ones to the fire. Otherwise they're, they're following direction from controllers on the ground or another controller in the air.”
Challenges for pilots who fly fire missions include the terrain, smoke, obstacles such as power lines, towers or anything that could represent an impact threat as they swoop in to dump fire retardant from just 150 feet while flying at 160 mph.
Read the full story HERE.
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Claustrophobia isn’t a problem for Juan Laden. In fact, he craves being in small, cramped spaces.
That explains why the Lander man doesn’t just explore caves as a hobby - Cowboy State Daily’s Jackie Dorothy explains that it is a passion and a lifestyle Laden has lived for nearly 50 years - a lifestyle that has taken him to all corners of the world.
“To an outsider, it's like, why do you want to go into these deep, dark places? I mean, he talks about turning off the light and it being pitch black. He's even talked about how one caver lost his life because he lost his light. I mean, light is essential when you're in these caves. And it's not, it's not for the faint of heart. It is a dangerous occupation. And he does caution, and this is one of the things that he really wants people to know, is you need to take care of these caves, conserve them, but also respect them.”
Laden encourages anyone interested in caving to contact the National Speleological Society and find a mentor.
Read the full story HERE.
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Typical of rural and small-town Wisconsin residents, Chase Melton loves fishing and hunting, and he’s used to seeing wolves in his state’s great outdoors.
So he was completely unprepared for what happened last weekend. He and two other duck hunters were surrounded by a pack of wolves in northern Wisconsin, and told outdoors reporter Mark Heinz he had to shoot and kill one in self-defense.
“This kid was telling me… they're coming into towns. They're getting bolder. They hadn't had any problems previously, but he said on this morning, they were actually surrounded by a small pack of wolves, and he got in a situation where he felt he had no choice… it seems as though he's gonna, that's gonna get cleared as a clear case of self defense.”
Unlike in Wyoming, wolves remain federally protected in Wisconsin and can’t be hunted. Killing a wolf illegally can come with heavy penalties, including possible felony charges.
Read the full story HERE.
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In the mid-1950s, Dr. George Myron Harrison was a small-town doctor in rural Sweetwater County. This meant Dr. Harrison had to do it all, from delivering babies and taking out spleens to making house calls in coal mining camps with his young son in tow.
Cowboy State Daily’s Jen Kocher said she first heard about the kind doctor while researching an unsolved homicide.
“In March, I wrote a story about an unsolved homicide involving DeVita Peterson that occurred in Rock Springs 30 years ago or so, and I, through the course of my interviews, I met a gentleman who said, You really need to write about this. Dr Harrison. He was a longtime doctor, and he was beloved, and he was absolutely right… so many people wanted to talk about how beloved he was, and he was just a tough guy of a generation that doesn't exist anymore.”
For the longtime residents of Sweetwater County, Dr. Harrison’s memory lives on as a kind man and doctor who genuinely cared for his community and patients.
Read the full story HERE.
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Hunters take heed: Bears with huge appetites are roaming the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem eating everything and anything they can get.
Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that it’s more than just the bears being gluttons - not bulking up enough this time of year can mean life or death for the bruins.
“Hyperphagia is the term for just the heightened hunger in bears, grizzly bears and black bears throughout Wyoming, during this time of year when the days get shorter, in July, their mind triggers, and they're seeking out as much food as possible. Yellowstone National Park said that they can eat as much as 20,000 calories a day, especially at this time of year when they're trying to build up their reserves for winter.”
Hyperphagia is a crucial element of bear survival in Wyoming, and it comes with a heightened risk for people visiting their habitat. Nobody wants to run into a hangry grizzly in the fall.
Read the full story HERE.
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Chester’s a huge roan packhorse from Utah that might have thought he really showed his owner up by slipping out of his halter and going on a four-day, five-night solo adventure in the wild Wyoming backcountry.
But Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports that Chester was found alive and well early Wednesday, trotting around on a county road near Bondurant in western Wyoming.
“They kind of tied him up as they went into this area that was too rough to take the horses… they got back down to and Cheshire was gone. He'd managed somehow to slip out of his halter, which was buckled… One of the guys rode all the way down out to where they'd park the trailer. He wasn't there, and so they went back up the mountain all day. The next day, they searched for him… after four days and five nights, somebody spotted Chester, you know, trotting around on a county road down there.”
With an insurmountable language barrier between horses and humans, Chester’s solo adventure in the Wyoming mountains will forever remain a mystery to Major and his family.
Read the full story HERE.
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And based on the success of Cowboy State Daily’s morning video newscast, we are launching something new - a morning radio/video talk show.
The show will air every Monday through Friday from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. and will be anchored by Cowboy State Daily’s Jake Nichols, a longtime broadcaster who has been on the air for decades in Wyoming.
“We have all the elements of a morning show. We'll talk about news of the day, weather, roads, sports, politics, the whole bit, but it's going to be very much Wyoming. You know, I'm not terribly interested in the stories of the world and of the United States… And I also want to, you know, really explore some of the stories that Cowboy State Daily news team brings in every day. We shouldn't miss these.”
The show — which can be viewed on Cowboy State Daily’s website, YouTube, and podcasting platforms — premieres on Tuesday, October 1.
And that’s today’s news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel.
I’m Wendy Corr, for Cowboy State Daily.
