It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming, for Tuesday, October 15th. 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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A construction crew found a dead body Monday morning on private land south of Cheyenne.
Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that Laramie County Sheriff’s personnel are still investigating the discovery of the body, which appears to have spent “a substantial amount of time” among weather and wild animals.
“This is private land they were mowing, getting ready to install some infrastructure, like possibly a water pipe, and they found at least one piece of it… according to a chief deputy for Laramie County Sheriff's Office. The challenges in recovering all portions of the body. It's been out there long enough that there's been a little scattering, potentially due to weather or wildlife… but I asked, you know, is this, is this an artifact? Is this something that's like, 200 years old? He said, Nope. This is not a historic find. This is a current investigation.”
Sheriff’s agents are working with the Laramie County Coroner ’s office to recover the body, with hopes of identifying who they are to get closure for their family.
Read the full story HERE.
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The Elk Fire is not the largest wildfire going right now in the United States - it’s the fourth largest.
But the fire management team has had unprecedented access to aerial assets for the 90,000-acre fire, which is threatening several rural northern Wyoming towns that lie at the foot of the Bighorns. Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that there are at least 13 aircraft assigned to the fire, which have delivered 3.9 million gallons of water and 527,000 gallons of retardant - so far.
“It's unprecedented, in some ways, how much air power is being brought to this and then… how much water they've dropped, you know, 4 million gallons, a half a million gallons of retardant, and it's barely making a dent in the fire. So if you think about that, over 90,000 acres here how much it would really take to put it out completely clearly, it's going to take a Mother Nature ending event, a season Ender, to get this fire completely out.”
Read the full story HERE.
One of the towns being threatened is the fairy-tale-setting town of Story. It’s a small, wooded town about 20 miles south of Sheridan nestled amidst pine and other trees at the foot of the Bighorn Mountains.
But for firefighters, all those extra trees, which are now shedding pine needles and pine cones, look extra challenging when it comes to fighting off fires. Jean reports that with the Elk Fire relentlessly pushing south at 90,000 acres and growing, a group of local residents are helping each other out, cleaning debris - which is potential fuel for the hungry fire.
“This guy, John… he started this Facebook group called the Elk Fire Volunteers group, and through that, he's been able to coordinate all kinds of amazing support and help for the people who live in these communities, as well as firefighters. The latest project they did was in Story, about 30 volunteers went and picked up debris, cleared, brushed from around homes to try and get them fire ready.”
Read the full story HERE.
Because Story is a mountain town, residents are used to being surrounded by wildlife.
But even before the Elk Fire moved in close, mountain lions started killing their pets and small livestock animals. That’s what local hunter, Logan Wilson, told Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz.
“Off and on, they've had problems with mountain lions. Just recently, they had a whole spate of, I guess, a cat. I've heard a dog, at least one dog, and some ducks being killed and four goats being killed by a mountain lion… if mountain lions are drawn into a certain area and they see something easy to get that, you know, they're opportunists, they'll get what they can take.”
The massive Elk Fire in the Bighorns has displaced some wildlife, such as elk herds. But Game and Fish says that probably wasn’t the case with this mountain lion, as the domestic animals were killed before the fire began creeping closer to Story.
Read the full story HERE.
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Wyoming’s first real taste of winter is expected later this week, but it comes a month late for the more than 1,500 firefighters working to put down the pair of huge Wyoming wildfires - the Elk Fire and the Pack Trail Fire - that have burned nearly 170,000 acres total in the northern part of the state.
Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that this is an eagerly awaited seasonal change after a warmer and drier-than-average fall overshadowed by the wildfires.
“Snow is going to start falling in the high elevation passes Thursday night into Friday, and then the system is going to shift eastward towards southern and eastern Wyoming on Friday night going into Saturday…. So for anyone who's planning an outdoor activity, particularly hunters, because we know there are a lot of them out there right now, they've had pretty nice weather to contend with for up to this point in the season, that is going to abruptly change… and they need to be prepared for it.”
Wyoming meteorologist Don Day wasn’t sure if the incoming weather would be enough to extinguish either fire, but expected snowfall and a significant drop in temperature should help firefighters. And there’s more to come after that.
Read the full story HERE.
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A Fremont County man accused of shooting his wheelchair-bound landlord to death last year has announced he’s no longer using an insanity defense in court.
59-year-old Burdick Seminole still has a not-guilty plea in place in a case where he’s accused of shooting Michael Standing Elk to death last August. That’s according to crime and courts reporter Clair McFarland.
“So in Wyoming, you can plead not guilty and not guilty by reason of mental illness… he dropped the insanity defense here late last week… he had asked to be evaluated to see if he was even competent to be prosecuted, and the court said he was competent.”
Seminole’s trial is set for Nov. 12 in the Casper post of the U.S. District Court for Wyoming.
Read the full story HERE.
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As useful as they can be, political polls are often only reflective of the people that were surveyed for them. But when a large number of polls are considered together, it can paint a much more accurate picture.
And Cowboy State Daily’s Leo Wolfson reports that so far, that picture isn’t pretty for Vice President Kamala Harris, who is losing ground to Former President Donald Trump in most national polls.
“It's a really neck and neck, very close race right now, Harris does technically have the national lead in pretty much all polls, but despite an extremely small about 1% margin, a lot of the battleground states are nearly pretty much tied or only a slight advantage for Harris, which also based off those historical trends, is not necessarily a good sign for her campaign.”
Trump has chipped away at a small lead Harris has had in several battleground states, with the two candidates now essentially tied across the battlegrounds. They are separated by less than a percentage point in five of the seven states that are expected to swing the election.
Read the full story HERE.
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The State of Wyoming asked the Uinta County assessor not to charge property tax on a piece of land in Evanston that the state leases to a truck stop.
The assessor charged the state over $8,000 anyway, so the state challenged the bill all the way to the Wyoming Supreme Court. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that the high court ruled last week that the county CAN tax the state of Wyoming - if the state is hosting non-governmental ventures on its land.
“I called Senator Cale Case, who's got a PhD in economics, and he said, No, the reality of this is that the state as the landlord now has to think about passing that cost on to the people renting from it, and who then think about passing that cost on to the consumer. So if anything, people in the county with the benefit, if you can still call it that, of having the state as a landlord, are footing the extra bill locally.”
Going forward, Case said the Legislature may need to build a special budget line item for paying property taxes to counties.
Read the full story HERE.
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Mirroring recent events in Washington state, a gang of raccoons mobbed a woman in a downtown Casper hotel parking lot - but they did not injure her.
In a video shared with outdoors reporter Mark Heinz, an unidentified woman seems baffled and bewildered as one of several of the furry masked bandits milling underneath her truck, grabbed at her leg.
“They're not being aggressive, but apparently there's something in that truck that they really like. And she seems a little apprehensive, as I think any of us would be in that situation… I did talk to an employee the hotel, and she said, You know, there's raccoons around… every every night when she leaves work, she'll see a raccoon or two running around. But to have a whole mob like that show up was unusual. The only other time she's known that it happened was when a guest was actually feeding raccoons on purpose, which, of course, is a huge no no.”
Fortunately, things ended well and all the humans got to their hotel rooms unscathed.
Read the full story HERE.
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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.
