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[{"type":"text","text":"Very smart dog....."}]

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

<title>Daily Smile: Tuesday, November 5, 2024 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Very smart dog....

Daily Smile: Tuesday, November 5, 2024

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

Clair McFarland

Government & Politics

Politics

State Sen. Eric Barlow released poll results Tuesday showing him with a sizable lead over other Republican candidates in the race for Wyoming governor.

[{"type":"text","text":"Two of his opponents doubt that outcome. One of them doesn’t."}]

Barlow, a legislator of 13 years and former House speaker, is running for the Republican nomination against Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder, retired Marine Col. Brent Bien, and Centennial man Curt Blake.

His campaign released polling results Tuesday showing him at 42% support, followed by Degenfelder at 19% and Bien at 14% — with 22% undecided — when people were asked who they would vote for if the election were held today.

The poll was taken in the past three days by the Pulse Decision Science firm, the campaign says.

“Barlow has gained 10 points since the campaign’s previous survey and his net favorability has climbed from +19 to +34,” says a Tuesday statement by his campaign. “This comes even as he has been outspent more than 5-to-1 by Degenfelder and the outside groups supporting her.”

Barlow said he’s taken six full trips through all 23 Wyoming counties and is starting his seventh statewide tour.

[{"type":"text","text":"The primary election is set for Aug. 18."}]

“We believed from the beginning that if we showed up, listened and stayed focused on Wyoming, voters would respond,” Barlow said. “This poll is encouraging, but it does not change how we campaign.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"We will keep showing up, keep listening and keep earning every vote.\""}]

Barlow told Cowboy State Daily in a Tuesday-evening phone call that he trusts the polling, and its cross-tabulation veracity checks. He said Wyomingites' reception of him on the campaign trail is also "quite encouraging." 

His campaign has amassed 2,500 volunteers and contributions from nearly 2,000 individual Wyoming donors, with more than $1 million raised from in-state individuals, the statement says.

The statement says Barlow has focused his campaign on expanding economic opportunity, improving access to rural health care, strengthening Wyoming’s energy and agriculture industries, addressing housing challenges, keeping decisions local and keeping the state's public lands accessible to Wyomingites. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Nah, Says Degenfelder"}]

Degenfelder’s campaign manager Charlotte Jones emphasized that Barlow’s numbers are from his own campaign.

“Voters should take the Barlow campaign’s internal ‘polling’ numbers with a heavy grain of salt, which come as no surprise from the campaign of a career politician desperately trying to run from his record of opposing Wyoming Industries and Wyoming values,” wrote Jones in a Tuesday email. 

“Megan’s campaign is focused on talking to voters about the issues they care about and highlighting her record as the only candidate in the race with a proven record fighting for our mineral industries, and defending women’s sports and parental rights," wrote Jones, "which is why she has earned the support of Donald Trump and Harriet Hageman.”

Trump endorsed Degenfelder in January before she entered the race, and doubled down with a 

U.S. House Rep. Harriet Hageman, who’s running for U.S. Senate, has endorsed Degenfelder and campaigned with her in multiple locations.

[{"type":"text","text":"Not Doing That"}]

The Wyoming Republican Party Central Committee broke tradition Monday night and 

One delegate, Weston County GOP Chair Kari Drost, asked the committee to consider endorsing Degenfelder as well, but the committee cast a majority vote to end the process instead.

The Central Committee considered, but voted against, adopting an official position opposing Barlow.

Bien is not doing polling, says a Tuesday email from his campaign associate Cheryl Aguiar. She called his campaign a grassroots effort.

“As someone who taught statistics to graduate students, I would have all sorts of questions on methodology, sample size, randomness, question wording, and other aspects mainly founded in ‘who paid for the poll?’” she said.

The landline and cellphone call poll was taken from 400 likely Republican primary election voters and with a margin of error of 4.9%, according to the Barlow campaign.

The main prompt asks, “If the Republican Primary election for Wyoming Governor were held today, for whom would you vote?”

Respondents could give answers in three categories for each of the four candidates. For example, for Barlow they could choose “Definitely Barlow,” “Probably Barlow,” or “Lean Barlow.”

[{"type":"text","text":"They could also choose different variations of undecided.  "}]

“Since we don't have the poll's methodology, I would say that this poll is obviously being released by a campaign, so we would advise voters to evaluate it accordingly,” wrote Aguiar. “Our campaign is more interested in what we're hearing from Wyoming  citizens at town halls and community events across the state.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Aguiar said campaigns release internal polling “to tell a story.”"}]

“We respect that. Our campaign is focused, though, on earning votes, not headlines,” wrote Aguiar, adding that no one appears to have gathered 50% of voters and the race has room for “a lot of movement.”

A political action group (PAC) called Women For Responsible Government Action has run multiple attack ads against Barlow, and favorable ads supporting Degenfelder in recent weeks.

This PAC bears a similar name to one linked to Hageman’s campaign for U.S. Senate, “Women for Responsible Government PAC.”

But the group launching TV ads against Barlow is a 501(c)4 issue group run by Hageman’s allies, not Hageman, according to a Thursday text message from Hageman’s campaign advisor Tim Murtaugh.

Murtaugh said Hageman does not control the TV-ad-buying PAC, but it “often aligns with her views, including protecting Wyoming’s children from permanent genital mutilation and preventing coercive gender identity education for kindergarteners.”

Jones said Thursday on Degenfelder’s behalf that the superintendent isn’t aligned with either the action PAC or the PAC funding Hageman’s Senate run.

"Megan is not involved with either organization, and her campaign is not permitted to coordinate with either of them,” wrote Jones. “She is focused on her own campaign and her positive message of making Wyoming more affordable, growing our legacy industries and protecting Wyoming values."

The PAC has run ads touting Degenfelder as a “strong leader” who has stood with Trump, fought for school choice, getting “pornography out of our libraries” and keeping men out of girls’ sports.

Degenfelder has not worked as a legislator and has passed no laws toward those goals. She has backed legislation toward those ends, however.

Soon after she became superintendent she 

 sexually-explicit books out of school libraries. That issue had 

The attack ads lend credibility to Barlow’s favorable poll results, longtime politico and former Assistant Interior Secretary Rob Wallace told Cowboy State Daily in a Tuesday phone interview.

“The fact that Eric has been attacked so hard the last two-to-three weeks tells me the opposition knows that these poll numbers are valid, or similar,” said Wallace. 

He clarified, saying that with “dark money” or independent PACs, people generally don’t know who’s behind them.

Wallace also said it wouldn’t serve Barlow to dispatch bad poll numbers at this phase of the race.

[{"type":"text","text":"Barlow emphasized the ads and the PAC money behind some of them as well."}]

“Eric Barlow is winning this race and pulling away while taking five times more in hostile media spending than any other candidate,” says a Tuesday statement by his campaign.

The statement says Barlow’s campaign team has spent $80,688 on radio and TV ads – about $10,200 more than Degenfelder.

But Women for Responsible Government Action has spent $202,265 and Wyoming’s Turn PAC has spent $149,815 on TV, cable and satellite messaging either backing Degenfelder or opposing Barlow, the statement says.

“The outside groups are blanketing every media market with lies about Eric Barlow’s record reaching Wyoming, Denver, Salt Lake, Idaho Falls, and Rapid City cable zones,” the statement says, “while Barlow has held a disciplined broadcast and radio footprint.”

The statement asserts that “out-of-state dark money is not moving the race; it is hurting Degenfelder and hardening support in Barlow's favor.”

[{"type":"text","text":"What He Actually Voted For"}]

One of the PAC’s ads claims that Barlow voted to allow sexual orientation and gender identity to be taught to kindergarteners and to allow sex change procedures “to be done on kids.”

[{"type":"text","text":"The record tells a different story."}]

Barlow voted against the 2023 Senate File 111, which would have criminalized parents and doctors for their roles in transitioning children’s genders medically.

, calling the bill’s definitions ill suited for its purpose.

Barlow had nothing but praise for the 2023 bill Chloe’s Law, however, and voted in favor of it. The bill sought to strip violating medical professionals of their licenses.

[{"type":"text","text":"“This bill I find to be very precise,” said Barlow at the time."}]

The House Appropriations Committee killed Chloe’s Law that year after the Senate voted 26-5 in its favor. But a later version of it became law in 2024 — with Barlow voting aye once again.

"I absolutely believe minors need to be protected form physically altering surgeries, period," Barlow said Tuesday. He noted that the bill has exemptions allowing treatments for kids with intersex designations or conditions, and puberty blockers for kids with precocious puberty. 

Barlow had, as the ad notes in a subtext, voted against the 2023 

. It sought to ban teaching of gender ideology to public-school kids in grades through kindergarten through third grade.

But Barlow voted in favor of that bill’s 2024 successor, 

The sequel legislation bans schools from teaching sexual orientation or gender identity without prior permission, and compels schools to notify parents if their children experience psychological changes, which may include a newly-voiced transgender identity. 

He told Cowboy State Daily on Tuesday that the 2024 bill was simply written better. 

"I read the bills, right," said Barlow. "Read the bills. Not just who it protects but how it protects them."

The 2024 bill was "a much stronger bill and much more protective of Wyoming kids, which they deserve," he said. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Not Surprised At All"}]

Blake hasn’t built the name recognition of the other three candidates and in a Tuesday phone call, and said he was unsurprised to find his name left out of the Barlow campaign’s announcement.

Blake is running as a “purple” Republican, and said he’d love to keep Wyoming as it is. He cast himself as pragmatic.

“I think a poll can say whatever you want it to say,” said Blake. “With that being said, it wouldn’t surprise me if Eric is in the lead. He’s a damn good guy.”

Eric barlow 7 21 26

<title>Barlow Campaign Releases Poll Claiming Big Lead Over Degenfelder And Bien | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The Eric Barlow gubernatorial campaign released an internal poll Tuesday showing a significant lead over both Megan Degenfelder and Brent Bien. According to his internal polling numbers, 42% of voters support Barlow while Degenfelder is at 19% and Bien at 14%.

Barlow Campaign Releases Poll Claiming Big Lead Over Degenfelder And Bien

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Outdoors

Jory Thomas, 14, was absent-mindedly flipping loops with a rope while visiting his grandparents' campground on the Yellowstone River over the Fourth of July weekend when he heard someone start screaming for help.

Within seconds, the Montana ranch kid emptied his pockets, splashed across a side channel and waded chest-deep into the river.

[{"type":"text","text":"Then he did something he'd spent the past year practicing on calves."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"This time, he roped a drowning man."}]

The July 5 rescue unfolded so quickly that by the time the first Sweet Grass County Sheriff’s Office deputy arrived three minutes after Jory's father called 911, everyone was already safely on shore.

"My opinion, Jory saved the individual's life, 100%," Sweet Grass County Sheriff Alan Ronneberg told Cowboy State Daily. "Had Jory not acted, I believe the chances of this individual not making it to shore were very slim.”'

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Boat Hits A Bridge"}]

The Thomas family lives on a ranch about a dozen miles outside Big Timber, directly across from a campground where Jory's grandparents had been staying for the week.

Jory wandered over to visit with his parents and grandparents that afternoon, a rope already in his hand as he casually practiced throwing loops.

"All of a sudden he heard some yells for help," Jory's father, Jase Thomas, told Cowboy State Daily.

A boat had struck a bridge pillar, throwing its occupants into the Yellowstone River.

Three people fell in, but only two managed to get out, leaving one person alone in the swift current, desperately clinging to a cooler.

[{"type":"text","text":"Jory didn't hesitate."}]

Somehow, said his father, he convinced the drowning man to let go of the cooler. Then he threw the rope, catching the man around the neck and one arm. 

Jory and another bystander then pulled the man safely to shore before emergency responders arrived. 

In the moment, Jory didn’t think about any potential danger to himself, he just acted on instinct, the teen told KTVQ television in Billings, Montana, which first 

"This current was pretty fast then, and he was moving pretty quickly," he told the outlet. "Only thing I could focus on was helping him get out of the water because I didn't want to see anyone go in front of me.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'Let Me Have My Son Back'"}]

Jory's father has spent three decades on the Big Timber Volunteer Fire Department and immediately called 911.

Dispatch records show the call came in at 5:39 p.m. A deputy arrived just three minutes later and reported everyone was already out of the water. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Watching the rescue unfold wasn't easy for the elder Thomas. "}]

He knows that stretch of river, and that it becomes more dangerous just downstream, where swift current, deep holes and logjams create deadly hazards.

"My biggest concern was to let me have my son back," he said before taking a long pause, reflecting on the potential for Jory to also get caught up in the current.

"He understands water, but I don't think he understands what could happen,” Jase said. "I mean, he does, but he had one thing in mind, which is great, and he got it done." 

Jase believes the man his son rescued likely wouldn't have survived much longer.

[{"type":"text","text":"Sheriff Ronneberg agrees."}]

"I'm not sure how close the individual was to being 'lost,' but in my experience such things happen faster than you might guess they can," he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'He Loves Roping' "}]

Although the rescue looked almost unbelievable, it wasn't blind luck. Jory has spent the past year immersing himself in roping.

He practices on roping dummies in his spare time and started roping calves from horseback during local brandings, his father said.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"He's always had a rope,\" Jase said. \"He loves roping.\" "}]

Outside of ranch work, he's an avid hunter and is spending this week showing a steer and a pig at the county fair. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'That's Just Who He Is'"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"To his family, the rescue wasn't entirely surprising."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Jase said his son has always been the first person to help someone else."}]

"We'll be in town at the grocery store, and you'll see an elderly person," he said. "They can't pack the groceries, and he never says a word. He goes over and gets their groceries and packs them out. That's just who he is." 

Ronneberg said the rescue is a reminder that courage often appears in ordinary moments.

"Jory saw another in trouble and acted, not for himself but for another," Ronneberg said. "He didn't pull out a phone, but a lariat. He didn't watch what was happening but intervened."

"Jory is a lesson for all of us in this day and age and showed us what is courageous and right.”

Montana lasso teen 7 21 26

<title>14-Year-Old Ranch Kid Ropes Drowning Man On Yellowstone River, Saves Life | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A 14-year-old ranch kid from Big Timber, Montana, had a rope in his hand when cries for help erupted from the Yellowstone River. He sprinted into the water, threw one loop and caught a struggling man around the arm and neck, pulling him safely to shore.

14-Year-Old Ranch Kid Ropes Drowning Man On Yellowstone River, Saves Life

Zakary Sonntag

Jen Kocher - Headshot CSD

Jen Kocher

Crime & Courts

FREMONT LAKE — High up on the western flank of the Wind River Range in a pontoon boat at an elevation of 7,400 feet, Bill Dohse is searching for dead bodies encased in old barrels on the stark black bottom of the state's deepest lake.

He’s got top technology, a determined team — and a fat chance.

Dohse, president of the nonprofit Organized Search and Rescue (OSAR), is looking for the bodies of Virginia Uden and her two sons — Richard, 11, and Reagan, 10 — who were murdered in 1980 by her ex-husband, Gerald Uden.

Uden claims he put their corpses in barrels and sank them here at Fremont Lake. The problem is he’s claimed a lot of things, and they haven't all added up.

“A lot of people say Uden’s full of BS, and he's just playing games,” said Dohse, a sun-browned man with a buzzcut, looking out on the glassy morning surface of Fremont Lake this past week.

“But our new technology is superior, and I’m hopeful we'll find what we’re after,” he added.

It’s day one of a privately funded mission dubbed Operation Cold Current, the first major search effort for the Uden bodies in more than a decade. Depending who you ask, it may be the biggest fool’s errand in as many years, too.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"‘I Think I’ve Got Something Here'"}]

Previous searches produced nothing save major costs and frustrations as dark as the lake itself, which with a maximum depth of 610 feet is known by locals as “The Deep.” 

Officials were certain the killer had put them on a goose chase. But Dohse’s intuition has been blaring like a smoke detector that won’t shut off. 

Lo and behold, it suddenly looks as though that gut feeling is dead on.

“Guys, I think I’ve got something here,” said Carter Sinclair, the mission’s drone operator, eyeing a blip on the sonar readout coming from a remote operated vehicle (ROV) on the lakebed below. “It’s about the right size. Let’s go take a look.”

There it is, 388 feet deep: a ribbed and rusted oil drum.

Dohse’s face went slack when he saw the image on the ROV’s controller screen.

Short of breath, sounding both amazed and afraid, his response seemed to channel nearly half a century of wondering.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"“You're f***ing shitting me,” he said."}]

Within the hour, members of Sublette County Sheriff’s Office Tip Top Search and Rescue (TTSAR) were racing across the lake. 

Just like that, a decades-old missing persons case was shocked back to life. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"What Happened In 1980?"}]

The murders of Virginia, Richard and Reagan went unsolved for more than three decades until investigators finally got the lead they needed in 2013. 

Uden testified that he shot his ex-wife and adopted children in their heads with a rifle on Sept. 12, 1980, at a rural crossroads near Pavilion, Wyoming, where he’d lured them under the pretext of going on a hunting trip.

“Richard was standing beside the tailgate of the station wagon, and I shot him behind the ear,” Uden confessed in court in 2013, adding that he shot 10-year-old Reagan behind the ear as well, Cowboy State Daily 

"That took approximately 10 seconds. Reagan saw what was happening, and he ran, and he tripped and he fell in the ditch,” he added.

His reasons for the killings were that Virginia and the boys had become a nuisance in his subsequent marriage to Alice Uden, a woman of kindredly morbid regard. Alice was later found guilty for the murder of her previous husband, Ron Holtz, who she’d killed before meeting Uden. 

Uden said he concealed the bodies of Virginia and the boys in a nearby mine until postmortem gasses dissipated. 

He claims that he then transferred them to barrels, Virginia in a 55-gallon drum and the two boys together in a larger galvanized trash canister. The drums were sealed and punctured with bullet holes to ensure they’d sink in water.

Yet subsequent sonar-based search efforts in 2013 and again in 2014 turned up nothing.

“I thought he was full of shit,” said John Linn, water search team leader at Sublette County TTSAR. “The barrels were definitely not where he said they were.”

Once onboard the OSAR vessel this past week, however, with a live image of a corroded drum before him on the lakebed, Linn is rethinking a lot.

“You’ve really got something, boys,” he said.

The following day, the TTSAR water search team was back on the lake dragging a towfish sonar in search of additional clues around the area

They discovered something, but it wasn’t another barrel.

What they found was the depth of the case’s emotional and psychic hold, as old memories dredged up, like Linn’s one-on-one interaction with Uden in the very vessel where he sat now.

“It was quite an experience to be sitting here across from a triple murderer,” Linn said, describing the excursion in which Uden, under the watch of sheriff deputies, guided TTSAR to the location where he’d dumped the drums.

“I asked him point blank: ‘You've been lying about this for 35 years. Why in the world would we believe you after that length of time?” Linn said. "I know you don't have anything to lose, but why would you tell us where this is now?’”

Uden, wearing a survival suit and sitting close enough they’d have smelled one another's breath, alluded to the sky overheard. 

“I got to get right with God,” Uden said to Linn. “And this is the only way I can do it.” 

Linn accepted the answer as earnest and set to work scouring the lake. 

“There was a time when I would eat, drink and sleep this thing,” he said, explaining that it exacted a toll he didn’t expect. 

“It’s physically and emotionally draining, because with every (sonar) pixel that comes in, you're so anxious for something to show up, and after that long you just get numb,” Linn said.

Linn felt certain Uden was lying. He’s less certain now.

“You spend that much time on a search you get attached, in a sense,” he said, eyes glued to a sonar screen mounted on the dash. “Part of the reason I felt so giddy is because I never dreamed they would come back on this search.”

While his excitement is shared by Sublette County law enforcement, officials are urging patience.

“It’s amazing that they went out into a lake this big, this deep, and were able to find a barrel,” said Sublette County Sheriff K.C. Lehr. “But as of right now, it’s still just a barrel.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"What About The Depth?"}]

One aspect that needs to be reconciled is the depth of the drum.

Uden had told Linn he’d measured the depth of the drop location using a 450-foot rope with a weighted end. He said the weight never touched the bottom, leading to the assumption the drums were likely resting at 450 feet or deeper.

OSAR and TTSAP both believe drums of this sort might drift significantly from a drop point. They also point out how 35 years had passed between the time Uden dumped the barrels and the time he told officials in 2013, meaning he may have misremembered details.

“There’s really no reason for a barrel to be out here,” said Dohse. “My gut feeling is that this is the barrel we’re looking for.”

Much of that feeling stems from a recent letter written by Uden in prison, even if there is still reason to question his truthfulness.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Letters From Prison"}]

 to withdraw his three guilty pleas to first-degree murder, claiming his 2013 confession was elicited under duress. 

The court denied his petition, but he continued to claim innocence. 

Then a private citizen began a correspondence that led to new revelations.

Stacy Koester, founder and president of 

, a Gillette-based missing person organization, contacted Uden in prison through letters and asked for his help finding Virginia and the two boys.

Uden initially denied having a role in their killing or disappearance. But Koester kept pressing, and eventually he admitted to killing them.

He also gave her new information about the location of the bodies in Fremont Lake.

That information made its way to Dohse, who then had long conversations with the OSAR board before committing to a search mission on the organization’s time and dime. 

“We put a lot of trust in Stacy and the fact that she had trust in what was in the letters,” said Dohse. “And finally we said, 'Let's do this, let's pull it off, let's do something that hasn't been done before, and then let's try to bring those two kids in.'"

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"From Discovery To Recovery"}]

OSARs extraction plan for the barrel will rely on a custom underwater recovery rig soon to be developed with partners in Utah. 

It will also depend on cooperation from the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation and the governor’s office, which are reviewing the group’s incident action plan.

Triple-murderer Gerald Uden says he put the bodies of his 1980 murder victims in barrels and sunk them in Fremont Lake, Wyoming's deepest. Officials were skeptical — until they found a barrel 388-feet deep last week. “You're shi**ing me!” a searcher said.

Daily Smile: Tuesday, November 5, 2024

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