It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming, for Monday, November 4th. I’m Wendy Corr, bringing you headlines from the Cowboy State Daily newsroom - brought to you by 4 Wyoming Pack. 4 Wyoming Pack says, “This November, Wyoming will vote to allow residential homes to be taxed at a lower, fairer rate, even the playing field, and give families a much-needed break.” 4 Wyoming Pack wants you to Vote Yes on Amendment A.
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The Elk Fire devastated more than 98,000 acres of forest land across the eastern face of the Bighorn Mountains in northern Wyoming. As of this weekend, the fire is an estimated 88% contained.
Now Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that a team of specialists, called a Burned Area Emergency Response team, or BAER, is evaluating damage caused by the Elk Fire.
“Fire's very much a mixed bag…. it just depends on where it is and how long it burned, as to, you know, what the effect is going to be… they brought in hydrologists, archeologists, soil scientists. They have someone of every stripe that might be having something to do with this fire. Look. At you know what? What should we do in the aftermath of all this to mitigate any negative outcomes?”
Not all of the effects of wildfire are negative. Certain species, like lodgepole pine and aspen trees need fire to germinate new seedlings. The fire can also help clear out thick grasses that have become overgrown, and the burned plants do add some nutrients to the soil.
Read the full story HERE.
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When she was 26 weeks pregnant, her Colorado obstetrician urged Tasha Anderson to get an abortion. He said the little girl she was carrying was growing with her heart on the wrong side of her body, and would be born with mental or physical disabilities, or both.
But both Tasha nor her husband Sam knew they would love this baby no matter what. The Lander couple told Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland that little Jamesyn is now 18 months old, and has had 27 surgeries so far.
“It turns out, if you reroute the heart, you have to reroute a lot of other things, and so it's just been where nurses don't know where to find the veins, and the digestive system isn't hooked up right, and it's just constant. But she's a very charming baby girl. I FaceTimed her with her for a little while… she would grab the phone, give it a big old kiss, you know, and just, and she's non verbal Still, she's a year and a half, but she's, you can tell what she's thinking, and you can tell what she wants.”
Tasha said her obstetrician in Colorado was half right: there was no doubt Jamesyn would have disabilities. But neither Tasha nor Sam regret having their little girl, and can't even imagine life without her.
Read the full story HERE.
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Snowy weather and somber emotions didn’t stop more than 200 people from gathering in Jackson’s Public Square for a candlelight vigil for Grizzly 399 on Saturday night.
Some came from hundreds of miles away to remember and memorialize the world’s most famous bear, who was killed Oct. 22 when she was hit by a car in the Snake River Canyon. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi was among those in the crowd.
“The event was very poignant, very lovely. It was cold, it was wet, but people were there, and they'd come from all over the country to be there because they wanted to get a sense of closure, because they felt attachment to 399 and her story and her motherhood and all these things. And people, they didn't necessarily leave with a sense of closure. But as one of the organizers put it, it was a sense of peace. They knew that grizzly 399, had been cremated. Her remains had been scattered. She was home, and she would be home forever… So it was a wonderful thing to participate in and be a part of.”
After the speakers finished their remarks, everyone was invited to light their candles in remembrance of Grizzly 399. Once they were lit, there were 399 seconds of silence in honor of Grizzly 399.
Read the full story HERE.
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The life of a working cowboy in the 21st century is not exactly the lifestyle romanticized by John Wayne in movie Westerns. Cowpunchers need to be fence welders, irrigation pipe layers and midwives to heifers having their first calves - when it’s minus 20 outside with a blistering Wyoming wind.
Cowboy State Daily’s Dale Killingbeck spoke to an agriculture professor at Casper College, who said that there’s a shortage of people willing to commit to that kind of life.
“When ranches from Casper call him looking for somebody to help, he said they typically don't have anybody to offer, because the people in their program are either committed to a ranch that's in their family or they're going to some place that's already decided to hire them. So the cowboy pool isn't as big as we might think in these days.”
Ranch managers say there has been an increase in interest in ranch-hand jobs - the popularity of shows like “Yellowstone” may have something to do with that. But inexperienced applicants may not really know what they’re signing up for.
Read the full story HERE.
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Last December, the Wyoming Office of State Lands and Investments recommended the Kelly Parcel adjacent to Grand Teton National Park be auctioned off with a minimum bid of $80 million. Friday, it upped the ante and is now recommending the state sell the pristine, and controversial, 640-acre parcel of land directly to Grand Teton National Park for $100 million.
Cowboy State Daily’s Leo Wolfson reports that the extended saga about what to do with the Kelly Parcel may be coming to a close at the upcoming State Lands and Investment Board meeting Thursday.
“The thing that really got people up in arms about this last year was a original proposal from the Office of State Lands and Investments that this piece of land be sold in a public auction. That made people very nervous that a private buyer would pay it and potentially use it for making very, very large homes and kind of basically shutting the public off this public land… it appears that the they are not going in that direction. The the official recommendation is to sell it directly to Grand Teton.”
Rob Wallace, the former Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Fish, Wildlife and Parks, said that as part of the sale, the federal government will pay $62.4 million dollars, while the remaining $37.6 million will be paid by the Grand Teton National Park Foundation and other sources of private philanthropy.
Read the full story HERE.
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A huge crack was found in the 115-year-old LaPrele Dam upstream from Douglas, and state officials have decided to preemptively breach the dam.
Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports that the dam, which was built in 1909, was originally intended to have a 50-year lifespan.
“They found a new, really significant crack, I guess, up toward the spillway on the dam. And it's not going to last. It's doomed to fail at this point. And so preemptively, they've already drawn the water down in the reservoir behind it, so they're not really worried about it busting and causing a catastrophic flood of Douglas and I 25 and all of that. But obviously it can't stay the way it is, so they're going to go ahead and breach it this spring.”
If the dam collapsed on its own with a full pool behind it, the resulting deluge would cause catastrophic damage to downstream homes, a key bridge along Interstate 25 and the Ayers Natural Bridge Park.
Read the full story HERE.
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Visitors and scientists in Yellowstone National Park noticed a few changes when gazing into the abyss this summer. The Abyss Pool in the West Thumb Geyser Basin, that is.
Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that one of the park’s deepest hot springs has lost its (relative) cool, suggesting it could soon have a violent outburst. But then again, maybe it won’t.
“This year, the color changed from kind of a greenish black into a really brilliant blue and the water level in the pool itself rose. Now those could be signs of an eruption. The color change is a clear sign of a rise in temperature, and the Abyss pool does erupt quite violently, and it has erupted when it's hotter… n the past, it sent water up 120 feet into the air, which is nothing to scoff at, but we're not talking about the hydrothermal explosion that happened at the Black Diamond pool earlier this year wouldn't be anything like that. It would just be an unexpected splash of very hot water.”
The Abyss Pool has had its share of mysteries. In August 2022, a human foot was found floating in Abyss Pool. DNA analysis identified the remains as belonging to a 70-year-old man who was last seen in Yellowstone.
Read the full story HERE.
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Bud Daley was a Fremont County resident for 49 years.
But what many who knew him might not be aware, Daley - who died last month in Riverton at age 92 - was that Daley was a celebrated baseball player who overcame a withered arm disability and went on to pitch the final game of the Yankees' 1961 World Series win.
“He bounced around Cleveland Indian affiliates in the minor leagues for a long time, because his childhood idol was a starting pitcher for the Indians. And then he gets his big break in the major leagues at the Kansas City Athletics where he's still a record holder, I believe, for most wins by a left handed pitcher, which is a record that will remain since that team is no more. And so he eventually goes to the Yankees, and they get a World Series win with him pitching.”
Ed Daley told Cowboy State Daily that he always thought his dad had an ordinary job. He brought home a decent, though not extravagant, wage. Ed said he didn’t realize how special his dad’s career was until years after Bud Daley retired.
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.
