It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming, for Thursday, November 7th. 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 takes you deeper into the stories that matter - and keeps up with the news, weather and sports in your part of Wyoming. Just tune into Cowboy State Daily Dot Com and join the conversation.
For former and future President Trump, his victory speech on Wednesday morning was a short one – only 25 minutes. But in that time frame, he mentioned one industry: energy. And that mention has Wyoming oil and gas producers excited.
Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean said Trump’s remarks Wednesday go along with what he said during the campaign.
“he said things like, drill, baby drill. And he's called the climate change a hoax, and he's called the Green New Deal a scam. So I think it, it seems pretty clear that he's gonna, he's going to do some things to help oil and gas. What those things are? We'll just have to wait and see as his administration takes office and things unfold”
So far, Trump has not had many specifics about what he will do on any of these particular policy points, though his previous administration is perhaps a starting point for an idea about what actions he might take.
Read the full story HERE.
Spending money pays off is a general rule in politics, but Tuesday’s general election in Wyoming shows that’s not always the case.
Cowboy State Daily’s Leo Wolfson reports that for the most part, those who spent more in Tuesday’s general election in Wyoming were mostly successful — but not always.
“There was a number of candidates who ran campaigns that were reasonably competitive, campaigns headed into the general election that ended up outspending their opponents, but still losing the election. This was most notable in some of the Albany County elections, where every Republican House candidate outspent their democratic counterparts, and all three still lost.”
The Democratic National Committee announced Tuesday it had spent more than $550,000 in Wyoming during the election cycle to support the state party in its get-out-the-vote efforts. The Democrats only gained one seat in the Wyoming Legislature and weren’t competitive in either of the two congressional races.
Read the full story HERE.
The 17-year-old girl who was stabbed Halloween night in the National Historic Trails Interpretive Center parking lot said she initially thought the machete-like knife another teen girl was threatening her with was fake.
Willow Wagner told Cowboy State Daily’s Dale Killingbeck that she’s grateful for those in the parking lot around her who acted quickly to help save her life.
“Other people were saying, you know, stop, and the suspect put the machete in her but she grabbed it at the same time, and she said her hand got stuck on it, but that act might have saved her life, because she told me it was like 12 inch long knife, and so she stopped the knife from going further… there was a 15 year old girl from Glenrock that immediately went to help her… she told me that she knows all the people that have been involved in teen violence, the victims this year. She knows all of them. And she told me that it just has to stop.”
Wagner said the knife cut through two tendons in her hand as well as entering her abdomen. She has undergone two surgeries, one to remove 6 inches of her small intestine, another on her hand. She was told by medical personnel that she almost died.
Read the full story HERE.
A proposal to ban slaughterhouse operations within Denver city limits was killed by voters Tuesday by nearly a 3-to-1 margin, prompting a wave of relief among Wyoming sheep ranchers.
Cowboy State Daily’s Jackie Dorothy reports that nearly 51% of the lambs from Wyoming are processed at Superior Farms in Denver, and sheep producers would have been forced to go elsewhere for their processing needs.
“The thing that I found most interesting was those that wanted to defeat this ban against the slaughterhouse. We're not just talking those in the agricultural business. We are also saying the Democratic Party put it out that vote no on this ban. It's bad for our people. All of the industries and the unions came together against it. And so you had a large amount of people from all sectors of life and all parties, and that's one of those things, that this ban was something that united those in Denver.”
Had the proposed slaughterhouse ban gone through, it could have cost the economy up to $861 million - and threaten more than 2,700 jobs in the Rocky Mountain Region.
Read the full story HERE.
There’s no doubt after the presidential election that Wyoming is still “Trump Country.”
On Tuesday, Wyoming voted for former President Donald Trump with a larger margin than any other state for the third presidential election in a row. And politics reporter Leo Wolfson points out that in a few Wyoming precincts, support for Trump was nearly unanimous.
“The Hat Creek neighborhood in Niobrara County was the most supportive of Trump in the state… out of the 15 of the 23 counties that have reported precinct results so far, Trump won almost any unanimous vote in this precinct. On the flip side, the north side of Wilson in Teton County, was the most supportive for Harris, voting for her by a very large margin in that district.”
It wasn’t Trump’s best performance in Wyoming by percentage of his margin of victory, but it was his biggest in the sheer number of votes he received compared to his Democratic opponent, at 192,576 compared with Vice President Kamala Harris’ 69,508 votes.
Read the full story HERE.
A Sheridan woman’s estranged husband is facing felony charges on claims that he leveled a shotgun at her and fired it as she fled.
Alina Gaona wondered for weeks if her estranged husband Oscar had been stalking her, before the events of October 9th, when Sheridan County Sheriff’s Deputies arrested Oscar at gunpoint. Alina told Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland that she wishes she hadn’t been so nice for so long.
“As early as June, she's wanting to file for divorce, but she's kind of trying to get… his word of honor, that he's going to cooperate, that is going to be helpful, that, you know, they're going to be able to part ways. They don't have any shared children, but they're a blended family. She loves His children, so there was this whole back and forth where she kept trying to do things softly, to do things amicably, and she says, Now, gosh, I was too nice. I was too patient.”
Alina has filed for divorce and gotten a protection order, but said she still dreads the thought of Oscar being released from jail.
Read the full story HERE.
Republicans have historically dominated elections in the state of Montana since the mid-2000s, except when it came to Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, who was chosen three times to represent Montana in Washington.
But Republican Tim Sheehy overcame negative ads calling him a rich carpetbagger from Minnesota, to blow past Tester and win by 8 percentage points on Election Day. Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison reports that the victory is evidence that Montana is growing increasingly red, as GOP-leaning newcomers flood the state.
“There's also been a demographic move from rural areas and eastern Montana and other remote locations in Montana to the city… Both would be more reliably blue in previous elections. Didn't turn out that way this year. And so at the same time, he brought up that many of Tester’s original supporters from back in 2006 are getting older and are no longer with us.”
David Parker, professor emeritus of political science at Montana State University, added that the growing Republican base in Montana is voting a straight ticket, and with so many newcomers to the state, many don’t even know who John Tester is.
Read the full story HERE.
The iconic front of the historic Cody Theatre needs a serious facelift. That’s because its marquee would fall off the face of the building if it weren't wired on.
The owners of the historic building, which was built in 1937, say they’ve already mapped out structural repairs, but Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that a complete fix is more complicated, and will require permits from the city of Cody and the state of Wyoming.
“The Cody Theatre sits on Sheridan Avenue. That's also us, highway 14 a so not only do the owners of the Cody theater need to get permission from the city of Cody to fix the marquee, they have to get permission from the state of Wyoming because they're going to need to cut off some parking spots that are on a highway in order to get this work done.”
A fundraiser has been established to help cover the costs of repairing and restoring the Cody Theatre marquee. The process presents an opportunity to improve the iconic facade of the structure, but owner Ryan Fernandez said they want to preserve its unique style.
Read the full story HERE.
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.
