It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming, for Tuesday, October 8. 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! From 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. Monday through Friday, Cowboy State Daily’s Jake Nichols brings to life the latest news, weather, sports and in-depth conversations that matter to you.
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For the first time since the Elk Fire literally blew up overnight more than a week ago, prompting a laundry list of evacuations and threatening the rural northern Wyoming towns of Dayton and Parkman, firefighters are preparing to attack the 73,000-acre wildfire rather than react to it.
Cowboy State Daily’s Greg Johnson reports that the weather conditions that had spurred on the blaze backed off enough Sunday to give the Rocky Mountain Incident Management Team more opportunity to get control of the situation.
“Last report, they were 10% contained with it. And best of all, Monday afternoon, some of the evacuation orders were lifted for some of the areas where people had been told to go. Not all of them, but some of them, which is a good sign when you start letting people go back home and they've been gone for a week, some of them.”
Holding at about 73,000 acres, the fire remains very active. There are 680 people working to build breaks and lines around the fire, as well as clear out or burn any fuels within where safe to do so.
Read the full story HERE.
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Central Wyoming’s only dedicated cancer center is at risk of having to shut down over a nearly $2 million dispute with an insurance company.
Cowboy State Daily’s Leo Wolfson reports that the Rocky Mountain Oncology Center is claiming that health insurer Mountain Health Co-Op is refusing to pay for $1.9 million in patient coverage, saying it overpaid that amount last year and is attempting to balance the books.
“This is a huge hit for Rocky Mountain Oncology, so much so that they filed a lawsuit against mountain health on Friday to try to get a judge to force an injunction requiring that mountain health resume paying for its patients at the facility. Most importantly, in the lawsuit, Rocky Mountain oncology argues that this could put them out of business, which would remove the only dedicated Cancer Center in Central Wyoming.”
The oncology center claims Mountain Health has committed breach of contract, breach of implied duty of good faith and fair dealing.
Read the full story HERE.
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A Gillette man is in jail after police say he repeatedly stabbed a 30-year-old woman before eluding police for a day.
Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that 31-year-old John Bosh has been charged with violent crimes before, as well as failed to appear for court, prompting the judge to set bail at three quarters of a million dollars.
“What there is is a prior felony conviction for strangulation of a household member. And so the rest of the criminal history that the prosecutor, Nathan Henkes, rattled off, wasn't as violent. It was like DUI property destruction. There was an unlawful contact, which can be, oh, I slapped you… speaking for himself, he said, Well, I actually turned myself in, you know, whereas the prosecutor countered, pointing to this strangulation and pointing out that he had fled in the first place and also pointing to the violence of the crime alleged, which was a repeated stabbing of a woman's arms and torso.”
His preliminary hearing is set for Oct. 15.
Read the full story HERE.
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Jaron Fry of Evanston is one of the many truck drivers who have responded to Hurricane Helene-affected areas to bring in much-needed fuel.
To find his truck amid the hundreds if not thousands of relief trucks that are flowing into the South, all you have to do is look for the Wyoming state flag. Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that how Fry came by that flag while in South Carolina is one that shows the Cowboy State’s generous and giving spirit.
“He's looking for places that have Wyoming flags. They're all closed. It's the weekend… Someone from Wyoming in Evanston called them to check on him… and as he's talking to her, he finds out her daughter lives a couple hours north of where he's stationed. So he gives her a call to check on her… And he asked her, Oh, hey, by the way, is there a flag store where I could go buy a flag? Next thing he knows, he's getting the text from her up, I ordered one from Amazon for you. It'll be here tomorrow.”
Fry said several of the other truck drivers are quite jealous of his Wyoming flag. They’re wishing they had the kind of network from back home that would lead to someone local bringing them a state flag to fly.
Read the full story HERE.
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The massive Elk Fire in the Bighorn Mountains near the towns of Dayton and Parkman is aptly named, because it’s roasting some of Wyoming’s best elk habitat.
Prominent Wyoming outdoorsman Guy Eastman told outdoors reporter Mark Heinz that while the elk themselves should be fine — they bailed down off the mountains ahead of the blaze - the fire has likely ruined the season for hunters.
“It sounds like hunting seasons are pretty much done, at least in those couple of elk hunt areas and deer hunting areas that are affected that are within that 73,000 acres… they come down to the lowlands anyway during the normal year. But they're just doing it two to three weeks early this year because the fire pushed them down. Then what that means is the elk are all down low on private land, so the hunters aren't going to be able to get to them… from a habitat perspective, it's actually good news, because the the burn areas should see some rich new growth in the spring, so the elk will have plenty to eat.”
Hunters who drew tags for the affected elk and deer hunting areas might be able to get refunds, or have those tags rolled over into the 2025 seasons, according to Wyoming Game and Fish.
Read the full story HERE.
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Former Casper Police Department detectives Shannon Daley and Keri Patrick sued Casper Police Chief Keith McPheeters and the City of Casper two years ago.
On Monday, a lawsuit settlement agreement was released to Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland, awarding $200,000 to the two female detectives who accused their boss of failing to fire a male detective, whom they called sexually inappropriate and retaliatory.
“They sued in 2022 alleging that Chief McPheeters had allowed a hostile workplace to to foment essentially, and They blamed this on a detective who actually wasn't sued, but was a huge part of the allegations, Detective Chase Nash. They said that he would comment on his own genitalia and brag about the size and that sort of thing… I did talk to Chase Nash today, and he said, this is not true. I actually wasn't the problem. They took my comments out of context, and he said that Daley, conversely, was the one who was inappropriate.”
Neither McPheeters nor the City of Casper admitted to any wrongdoing, saying that they merely settled the case to save the taxpayers money, avoid the delay and expense of trial and prevent future litigation.
Read the full story HERE.
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Advances in technology have developed at a rapid rate over the last few years - but not so much that it gives humans the ability to control the weather.
U.S. House Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, however, seemed to suggest she believes the U.S. government has that capacity. Cowboy State Daily’s Leo Wolfson spoke to Wyoming meteorologist Don Day, who said humans are a long way from being able to create the sheer energy and scale needed to instantaneously spawn a hurricane or tornado.
“Green was making these comments in response to the recent hurricane that swept through the southeast of the United States, causing extreme devastation as a result, and she was alluding to the fact that she believes that this was a cause by the federal government as a way of influencing the upcoming 2024 presidential election day… there's kind of always a grain of salt to almost every conspiracy theory or almost anything you hear. And in this case, the grain of salt is that there are lab experiments and research projects underway, seeing how humans can affect the weather, and you know what they can purposely do to cause weather events.”
Day said he often gets people on both sides of the aisle reaching out to him to try and push him to push a political narrative within his weather reports.
Read the full story HERE.
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The classification of jackrabbits in Wyoming as “predatory animals” — the same classification as coyotes and wolves in most of the state — might cause some to do a double-take.
Don’t worry, that doesn’t mean there are vicious carnivorous hares lurking in the sagebrush and devastating livestock herds. Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports that the term “predatory” is essentially a catch-all classification for animals that might become a threat or nuisance, particularly to agriculture.
“They're big. They eat a lot. They like to gobble up a lot of crops. They can procreate prolifically… I talked to people that said, in time, times past, jackrabbits used to be really bad, like, you know, like, if you can imagine a swarm of jack rabbits gobbling up your crops, we haven't seen that in recent years, but they remain a predatory animal in Wyoming, and that basically means that they can be shot anywhere, anytime, no license, you know, you know, no bag limit, because they have that Potential just come in and gobble everything up.”
To add another layer of complexity, jackrabbits and cottontail rabbits are also classified differently. Jackrabbits are hares, not true rabbits, as cottontails are.
Read the full story HERE.
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And Cowboy State Daily’s ever-expanding newsroom includes two new members who are making immediate impacts - behind the scenes.
Justin George has been named our News Editor, coming to us from the Washington Post. Justin - who was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize while working for the Baltimore Sun - says he’s glad to be back in the mountain west, where he was born and raised.
“It's a completely different perspective. I mean, when you've been covering things like the Baltimore Police Department, crime there, and the Department of Justice, and very serious, you know, sort of weighty matters, you know, it's kind of fun to read stories about wildlife, about grizzlies, about, you know, things like that… I think it's important for journalists to have a different perspective, you know, living in different places… you get a better understanding of America overall.”
Cowboy State Daily’s new chief videographer is Reilly Strand. Besides editing the daily newscast, Reilly will be telling stories of Wyoming through the lens of a camera. He says working for Cowboy State Daily offers him exciting opportunities.
“I think what excites me most about working for Cowboy State Daily is one, just being able to tell visual stories in a state that has kind of an abundance of really great visual stories. And two, being part of an organization, a media organization, that's really pushing the limits of what modern journalism looks like, which is really needed right now in places like the state of Wyoming.”
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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! And don’t forget to drop in on the Cowboy State Daily morning show with Jake Nichols, Monday through Friday from 6 to 10 a.m.! Thanks for tuning in - I’m Wendy Corr, for Cowboy State Daily.
