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[{"type":"text","text":"He was hoping there was an audience....."}]

Bonus vid 1 11 1 24

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

<title>Bonus Video 1: Friday, November 1, 2024 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

He was hoping there was an audience.....

Bonus Video 1: Friday, November 1, 2024

 He was hoping there was an audience.....

Employee kate meadows cropped

Kate Meadows

Government & Politics

A controversial flood mitigation effort that brought 150-200 goats to graze along Bitter Creek in Rock Springs is on hold, at least for now.

After spending about $200,000 over three grazing sessions since the spring of 2025, the Rock Springs City Council chose not to budget additional money for the project in the coming fiscal year, instead directing funding toward cemetery lighting.

"This will be the last we see goats, at least for the next fiscal year of operations," Councilman Dan Pedri told Cowboy State Daily.

The decision at least temporarily halts a program that has generated equal parts criticism and curiosity.

Some residents questioned whether taxpayers should spend tens of thousands of dollars to have goats eat weeds. Others regularly stopped to watch the herd quietly graze along Bitter Creek.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"It's a little source of entertainment,\" Pedri said."}]

During the latest grazing session, which began April 1 and ended June 30, the goats removed roughly 35 tons of vegetation, according to mayor Max Mickelson.

“This does not meet the creeks are ‘fixed',” he said. “It means one more piece of the long-term flood mitigation work was completed.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Different Approach"}]

Rock Springs has struggled with periodic flooding for decades, Mickelson said, dating to alterations made to the creek channel by the former Union Pacific Coal Company.

"The goal was simple," Mickelson said of the Bitter Creek project. "Reduce noxious weeds, brush and fuel load along the creek corridors so water can flow more freely, fire risk is reduced, and our intermittent creek system is in better condition before the next major storm event.

"Our broader work is about protecting homes, businesses, infrastructure and development opportunities from recurring floodplain impacts."

The city brought in goats in the spring of 2025 on a trial basis, paying a Cheyenne operation $50,000. Mickelson said the goats “performed better than expected.”

Council member Randy Hanson had asked the council to look into goats, pointing to other Wyoming communities such as Cheyenne and Gillette that were using them successfully for targeted grazing.

[{"type":"text","text":"“We aren’t pioneers of this process by any means,” Pedri said."}]

Farson land and livestock owner Josh Skorcz caught wind of the project “through the Rock Springs grapevine” and pitched himself as a local solution to the flood-risk problem.

[{"type":"text","text":"Skorcz was the only person who bid."}]

“I provide a service,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “I saw an opportunity where we could supply a service to a local entity that needed it.”

In the fall of 2025, the city paid $58,000 to Skorcz’s LS 5 Livestock for eight weeks.

Then, in April, the Rock Springs City Council voted 6-2 to use goats for a third year for $92,000 – a 59% cost increase.

The increase was largely due to more acreage and longer duration, Skorcz said.

"The city did not pay $34,000 more for the same amount of work," Mickelson said. "The scope, timing, staffing and logistical burden increased in relation to the scope of the project."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Why Goats?"}]

Skorcz said goats can reach steep, brush-choked areas where heavy equipment struggles to operate, reducing vegetation that can create debris dams during high-water events.

[{"type":"text","text":"The work, however, is labor intensive."}]

Under the city's contract, the herd had to be supervised around the clock. Workers also installed and repeatedly moved roughly 10,000 feet of portable electric fencing by hand.

"We're trying to see that incremental decrease over time of the amount of noxious weeds and thick vegetation," Skorcz said. "You're always going to have vegetation, but the type is what's important."

Mickelson said alternatives such as mechanical removal, herbicides, prescribed burning or major construction each come with significant limitations, permitting requirements or environmental restrictions.

Despite reaching stated goals, the project’s growing price tag remained a sticking point.

Pedri and Councilman Rick Milonas – a vocal critic of Mickelson and a contender for this year’s mayoral seat – voted against approving this year's $92,000 contract, saying many constituents questioned the expense.

"That's why I opted not to do it," Pedri said. "My vote was based on the constituents that reached out to me and my promise to be the voice of the majority."

The cumulative cost — roughly $200,000 over three projects — has also become an issue in the mayoral race.

Candidate Katherine Phelps has repeatedly criticized the program on social media. She did not respond to Cowboy State Daily's request for comment.

[{"type":"text","text":"Pedri said the debate ultimately came down to competing priorities."}]

Like many cities, Rock Springs faces a limited budget while weighing other costly needs, including long-term repairs to its civic center.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Could The Goats Return?"}]

Although the goats won't return next year, Mickelson said the city is awaiting a vegetation study from LS 5 Livestock evaluating the project's effectiveness.

That report will help determine whether targeted grazing is included in future budgets after the 2027 fiscal year.

"We intend to make it an annual tool," Mickelson said, "based on council deciding to allocate funds for it."

[{"type":"text","text":"He acknowledged the program's cost can be difficult to justify."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"Nobody likes spending $92,000,\" he said."}]

But he said he believes prevention is ultimately less expensive than recovering from flood damage.

"A community pays one way or another," Mickelson said. "We can pay in steady, boring maintenance before the storm, or we can pay in emergency response, damaged property and regret after it.

"I would much rather answer hard questions about prevention today than stand in front of flooded homes and explain why we didn't use a cost-effective tool we had available."

For now, the city will continue monitoring the Bitter Creek corridor. If conditions create an immediate flood or fire risk, Mickelson said, the council could consider a future budget amendment.

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<title>Rock Springs Ends Controversial Goat Grazing Program After Spending $200,000 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

After spending about $200,000 in goat grazing for flood mitigation since 2025, the town of Rock Springs is putting an end to it for now. One council member said residents say it’s too expensive. "This will be the last we see goats,” he said.

Rock Springs Ends Controversial Goat Grazing Program After Spending $200,000

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's general assignment reporter, Clair McFarland.

Clair McFarland

Crime & Courts

Courts

Fourteen months after a man was found in an abandoned red truck in a remote region of the Wind River Indian Reservation with two gunshots in his head, prosecutors have no ongoing, public murder cases in the December 2024 death of Riverton man Rex Lofts.

Lofts, 72, died of what the autopsy report called a homicide with two gunshots in his head around Dec. 2, 2024, but his body 

Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation agent Kingston Cole’s investigation affidavit

Cole, DCI Team Leader Brady Patrick, and others investigated the case. The result was a 12-page affidavit by Cole, which Fremont County Chief Deputy Attorney Tim Hancock filed alongside a felony murder charge in Riverton Circuit Court on Oct. 24, 2025 – against Fort Washakie man Jose Gonzalez.

[{"type":"text","text":"Gonzalez wasn’t the only person implicated."}]

Cole’s affidavit, drawing from confidential informant and identified source interviews, alleges that Gonzalez, Luke Evan Engavo Sr. and his son Luke Evan Engavo Jr., Skeeter Engavo, Zackary Witt, and Fabian Tarness were all present and involved when Lofts was shot.

Gonzalez, whose DNA was reportedly found on Lofts’ truck steering wheel and on the dead man’s out-turned pockets, was the only one formally charged – at least as far as the public case file shows – in this case. He was charged with felony murder on that basis: a charge theorizing that he was committing the felony of aggravated burglary, and Lofts died in the process.

[{"type":"text","text":"Hancock dropped that case early last month."}]

“The fact that we have some co-defendants over which we do not have jurisdiction and only one over which we had jurisdiction creates a lot of complications in prosecution,” said Hancock.

[{"type":"text","text":"He declined to go into detail on the jurisdictional challenges."}]

But the way felony-level prosecution on the Wind River Indian Reservation works in general, the federal government through its Wyoming-based U.S. Attorney’s Office would prosecute defendants who are tribal members. And 

Fremont County Attorney’s office would prosecute non-tribal members implicated in crimes on the reservation.

Past court filings for each man list them all as “American Indian,” but call Gonzalez “white.”

As of Monday, Wyoming’s federal court file showed no current charges for any of the suspects.

“The feds are the only ones that have jurisdiction over (Gonzalez’s) codefendants,” said Hancock. “It’s just – it’s a prime example of where jurisdiction gets difficult.”

Hancock added, “They have a different way of doing their prosecutions than we do.”

Fremont County Attorney Micah Wyatt, who shared the phone interview with Hancock on Monday, said the federal U.S. Attorney’s Office in Wyoming “has always been a system where their discretion often outweighs the public’s expectation.”

Wyatt was appointed by the Fremont County Commission when his predecessor left mid-term, but normally the Fremont County Attorney is elected – whereas the top federal prosecutor of each region is appointed by the president and confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

DCI had compiled a case and presented it to the Fremont County Attorney’s Office.

The federal U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to say whether DCI did the same for it.

“As you know, I can speak in general terms that cases are brought to us by a variety of law enforcement agencies - federal, tribal, state, and local - for possible prosecutorial consideration following their investigation into a suspected violation of federal law,” said the federal office’s spokeswoman Lori Hogan in a Monday email exchange in which Cowboy State Daily also included U.S. Attorney Darin Smith.

“We consider each case based on the evidence and what can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law,” wrote Hogan. “However, we cannot comment on the existence or lack thereof of any potential investigation or case that is not part of the public court record.”

DCI commander Ryan Cox said he was out sick, and that DCI Director Ronnie Jones, whom Cowboy State Daily also emailed, was out as well.

[{"type":"text","text":"Cox deferred comment to the U.S. Attorney’s Office."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Finding The Truck"}]

Lofts was found dead in the back seat of his red 1998 GMC pickup in a remote area on the Wind River Indian Reservation on April 21, 

– more than four months after his phone reportedly shut off. That was also more than four months after his family wanted to register him as a missing person, and more than three months after authorities agreed to list him as a missing person Jan. 12, 2025, the affidavit says.

The autopsy indicated he was shot twice with what Cole believed was a 

 projectile, and his cause of death was listed as a homicide.

Investigators started visiting with confidential informants that, Cole attested in the affidavit, he’s found to be reliable.

One informant told FBI Special Agent Luke Williamson that Luke Evan Engavo Jr, whom the affidavit calls “E Engavo,” had said Lofts beat up his girlfriend sometime in November 2024.

E Engavo came to give the girlfriend – who was bleeding and bruised – a ride to a reservation parcel cluster that law enforcement and locals known as “The Farm,” says the document.  

One confidential informant described Lofts arriving days later in his red GMC truck at The Farm with Skeeter Engavo in the passenger seat. Skeeter exited the truck and walked downhill, where he met with Zackary Witt, E Engavo and Fabian Tarness, the source account says.

[{"type":"text","text":"Skeeter wanted to “scare” Lofts, the source reportedly said."}]

Witt, E Engavo, Tarness and Skeeter Engavo confronted Lofts after that, says the affidavit.

[{"type":"text","text":"Lofts was still in the driver’s seat of his red pickup."}]

E Engavo opened the driver’s side door and stood between the door and Lofts. Tarness stood behind E Engavo and Skeeter stood behind those two men, the document says.

Lofts pulled what one confidential informant called a “bird gun,” or a low-caliber gun.

Witt drew a gun and emptied the magazine in Lofts’ direction, the affidavit relates from the source interview. Tarness, Skeeter and E Engavo were also downrange when Witt opened fire, the document alleges.

The informant reportedly described Skeeter running for the river, then Witt, Tarness and E Engavo moving Lofts, “who had been shot down while in the front driver’s seat,” to a different location in the truck.

The men took about $90, some jewelry, the bird gun and about three grams of meth from Lofts, the informant reportedly said.

Tarness got into the driver’s seat, while Witt and Engavo got into Witt’s vehicle

The affidavit says Witt and Engavo followed Tarness across the river to the location where Lofts and his red truck were found nearly five months later.

Luke Engavo Sr. was also involved in this scene, according to the account of Lofts’ girlfriend, as rendered in the affidavit. But the elder Engavo reportedly told her that Jose Gonzalez and Skeeter Engavo are the ones that “caused this shit, you know.”

The elder Engavo reportedly said it’s odd that Jose and Skeeter convinced Lofts “into coming up to the house when they knew (E Engavo) was going to beat his ass.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"DNA Swabs"}]

Investigators took DNA swabs from the scene where they found Lofts, and from suspects, says the affidavit.

[{"type":"text","text":"During the DNA investigation Patrick reportedly interviewed Gonzalez."}]

Gonzalez said he’d been in the passenger seat of Lofts’ truck when Lofts arrived at The Farm looking for his girlfriend, the affidavit says.

“I don’t know if Rex was able to pull his gun or not, uh, I know he had one,” Gonzalez reportedly told Patrick. “But all of a sudden the shooting just started and I … rolled out of the truck.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Gonzalez said the elder Engavo blocked him and Lofts into the property."}]

The other men “come flying in and they all jumped out of the vehicles,” Gonzalez said, according to the affidavit. Then Witt “pulled out his gun and tapped it on the window, and then fired a shot to the ground and uhm, and then (Lofts) had his gun down besides him. So I don’t know who shot first or if (Lofts) even got a shot or what.”

Gonzalez said the elder Engavo was there along with E Engavo, Skeeter Engavo, Tarness and Witt, reportedly.

In a separate interview between Patrick and E Engavo, Patrick asked if the men wanted to rob Lofts.

[{"type":"text","text":"No, came E Engavo’s answer, allegedly. They had wanted to scare him.  "}]

“Why’d you wanna scare him?” asked Patrick. “Or why did, why did everybody wanna scare him?”

E Engavo answered, “because he kept putting his hand on my auntie,” the affidavit says. The affidavit had identified E Engavo as Lofts’ girlfriend’s nephew.

Jose A Gonzalez 7 6 26

<title>No Charges From Feds 14 Months After Man Found Dead On Rez | Cowboy State Daily</title>

No Charges From Feds 14 Months After Man Found Dead On Rez

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily State Government and Politics reporter, Leo Wolfson.

Leo Wolfson For Cowboy State Daily

Outdoors

Looking up at Colorado's Aspen Snowmass Ski Resort, you'll see large, white tarps covering a mysterious mass two to three stories high. No, the circus isn't in town — it's a matter of snow security.

As unusually warm, long fall seasons become more frequent — like 

 — ski areas across the West and around the world are seeking new ways to guarantee they can open on time. 

One solution is pushing together snow left over from the previous winter, storing it in enormous piles, and reusing it the following season.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Harvesting the Snow"}]

Known as "snow harvesting" or "snow farming," the practice is now catching on at resorts across Idaho, Montana, Utah and Colorado. 

By securing snow piles under thermal mats, blankets, tarps or even hay bales, resorts keep their snow in a giant cooler of sorts, shielded from the heat, sun and rain. 

That means they no longer have to anxiously watch the thermometer for temperatures cold enough to make snow, or wait on natural flakes from the sky.

Antti Lauslahti, CEO of the snow-storage company Snow Secure, believes these efforts will follow the same path as snowmaking equipment did in the 1970s. Most mountains were impressed by the technology at the time, he said, but skeptical that anyone actually needed to make snow.

"Then they started to do it for just the early season, and little by little it just took off," he said.

Lauslahti said Big Sky Resort in Montana — a favorite of many northern Wyoming residents — is running a small-scale test of Snow Secure technology to use on its slopes next season. 

Snow Secure makes white polystyrene thermal mats that fold out like an accordion and can stretch as long as a football field while keeping snow insulated, much like the insulation in a house, at near freezing temperatures.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The New Snowmaking"}]

In recent years, warm weather has repeatedly kept ski areas from meeting their traditional opening dates, sometimes pushing openings past Christmas or forcing seasons to be canceled altogether. 

Early season skiing is one of the industry's most profitable stretches, when public enthusiasm runs highest — especially among casual skiers. The Christmas holidays alone can account for 20% of a mountain's annual revenue, Lauslahti said.

"The beginning of the season is becoming more unpredictable," he said. "A bad start means you lose season-pass sales. If there's at least a minimum amount open in the early season, people accept it better."

Bogus Basin in Idaho and Aspen Snowmass have both recently invested in Snow Secure's mats to guarantee a solid snow base for next season. 

In Aspen, the mats now cover piles on Buttermilk and Snowmass mountains — the equivalent of 3.5 million gallons of water, mostly man-made snow left over from the previous season. 

Beyond saving the snow itself, the practice preserves the money already spent making it and can cut the cost of snowmaking for the season ahead.

Having snow ready to go also gives mountains flexibility to time their snowmaking for the most efficient conditions. 

Snowmaking machines work better the colder it gets, so instead of blowing snow in marginal early-season conditions out of desperation, resorts can draw on their stored supply for a usable base. 

Others are preemptively making a deep base of snow during winter's coldest stretches, either to extend their seasons into May or to save it for the next one.

"It's economically really, really viable," Lauslahti said. "It's really fast, really cost efficient. You need snowmaking, you need groomers, but the point is, you have a new tool."

Lauslahti noted that Levi, a Finnish mountain that traditionally hosts the season's first FIS World Cup race each November, relied entirely on snow stored inside the Snow Secure mats to host the event this past season. 

The mountain itself opened a few years back on Oct. 6 thanks to their snow-storage efforts.

Chris Miller, senior vice president of sustainability at Aspen Snowmass, told the Aspen Times saving snow expands the resort's climate-resilient toolbox for navigating volatile weather.

Snowmass Mountain's relatively low base elevation of 7,870 feet leaves it especially vulnerable to warm, dry early-season spells. 

As host of the Winter X Games, Snowmass produces enormous amounts of snow each fall to build the massive terrain-park features the globally televised event requires. By piling up and covering the leftover snow for the following year, the mountain saves significant money.

Soldier Hollow Nordic Center in Utah has joined the trend too, preserving a 15,000-square-foot mound under the Snow Secure mats. 

At just 5,600 feet of elevation, the venue is slated to host cross-country events for the 2034 Winter Olympics, though that may not happen naturally if Utah sees another winter as poor as this past one.

Luke Bodensteiner, Soldier Hollow's general manager, told NBC News he views the effort as a contingency plan, and hopes that snow farming plus new snowmakers could make Soldier Hollow the first Nordic venue in the country to open this coming fall.

"If we get the results that we think … in the summer of 2033, we'll probably have three to four of these piles going around the venue," he told NBC.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Heat Resilient"}]

Back in Aspen when interviewed last month, Miller said temperatures beneath the Snow Secure blankets were registering at 32.6 degrees. 

Even when outdoor temperatures top 100 degrees, the insulated barriers keep the snow between 35 and 37, Lauslahti said, and can limit melting to about 20% of the original mass over an entire summer.

The mats were put to the test last summer at Bogus Basin, a mid-sized ski area outside Boise, where temperatures outside the piles hit 119 degrees. The snow held up fine, and despite recording its warmest November on record, the resort still managed to open that month.

Snow Secure isn't just for the biggest resorts with the biggest budgets. Lauslahti argues the tarps offer even more value at smaller areas with shorter runs, where every saved inch counts — pointing to a small Wisconsin resort that’s invested in the product. "The first chairlift isn't so long, so you don't need so much material," he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Other Snow-Storage Efforts"}]

Copper Mountain in Colorado stores snow for its summertime private Woodward camps and public hike park. At each season's end, the mountain pushes 

thousands of cubic yards of leftover snow

 from its runs, terrain parks and superpipe into huge piles; months later, it spreads the snow back out into a short run with a roughly 25-foot base, letting the public ski all summer.

Trollhaugen in Wisconsin insulates its snow with 

hay bales and a large tarp weighed down by car tires

 for a terrain-park event it hosts each fall.

Snow farming Ruka 15 Snow Secure 7 5 26

<title>Save It For Later: 'Snow Farming' Is Keeping Ski Seasons Alive Across Rockies | Cowboy State Daily</title>

As temperatures soar in the summer, ski resorts in the Rocky Mountain West are "farming" snow, storing it under giant thermal mats as insurance for the upcoming season. Snow stays close to freezing in the summer even in triple-digit temperatures.

Save It For Later: 'Snow Farming' Is Keeping Ski Seasons Alive Across Rockies

Daily Darwin

[{"type":"text","text":"Usually the strategy is to stay on the ATV...."}]

Darwin 7 6 26

<title>Daily Darwin: Monday, July 6, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Usually the strategy is to stay on the ATV....

Daily Darwin: Monday, July 6, 2026

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Jackie Dorothy.

Jackie Dorothy

Around Wyoming

 overnight in the Wyoming Territory with canvas tents, sectional housing and buildings on wheels. It was July 1868 and the town “bred by the devil” was ready for business.

“There are perhaps, three thousand people in and around Benton,” brothers Legh and Fred Freeman wrote in the Aug. 11, 1868, Frontier Index newspaper. “To give an idea of the on-wheels movement we will mention that the office of Wells, Fargo & Co., torn down at Laramie three days before, had its sectioned shingle roof on, and stage business resumed in it that night.”

The Frontier Index, known as the “Press on Wheels,” was also a 

 business that published its paper in these overnight towns.

“Business was so lively that we telegraphed the Laramie editor of our paper, to wheel on at once to Benton,” the Freeman brothers wrote. “We since learn that our new power press is threshing out the work there.”

Benton was an end-of-track town on the construction front of the Union Pacific Railroad, about 12 miles east of present-day Rawlins and just west of present-day Fort Fred Steele.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Baddest Reputation"}]

 the worst of these Hell’s Tent Towns, with claims that 100 men had been murdered there in its short lifetime. Their reputation as a home to “bawdy women and swindlers” was earned when visitors passed through and were shocked by what they saw.

According to historians Mary Lou Pence and Lola M. Homsher, co-authors of “The Ghost Towns of Wyoming,” one 

 that portrayed Benton’s devilishness had been a misunderstanding.

Water for this new town was one of its most valuable commodities. It had to be carted by team and tank from the North Platte River two miles away. The water hauler charged an exorbitant 

Seeing a new way to advertise, a whiskey distiller paid the hauler to paste large billboards on each side of his tank that read "Tanglefoot Whisky."

A Mormon woman soon arrived by train and was waiting for a stagecoach for the next leg of her trip to Brigham's Temple. When she saw the poster-plastered wagon and women rushing from their doors with pails in hands, Pence and Homsher said she became  indignant.

 woman said. “They're buying whisky by the bucketsful!"

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Grant & Buffalo Bill Campaign"}]

Of the Wyoming Territory towns that arrived on wheels along the Union Pacific Railroad, none were as tawdry, bawdry and lawless as Benton, which witnessed as many as 100 murders in its three-month lifespan. Benton, it was said, was "bred by the devil."

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