It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming, for Thursday, November 14th. 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.
Three University of Wyoming volleyball team players, plus student-athletes from surrounding universities and a team coach, sued the Mountain West conference on Wednesday. They claim the conference stealth-edited its rules to limit their speech, and push them into competing with a transgender athlete.
Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that four schools to date have canceled volleyball matches against San Jose State University over concerns about pitting women against Blair Fleming, the school’s transgender outside hitter.
According to the lawsuit filed Wednesday, on Sept. 27, just as the second of those four schools was canceling, the Mountain West Conference authored a rule saying those cancellations would count as losses.
“The data for this post that you can locate online indicates that it was made that day, right as the drama is unfolding, boom, here comes a rule that addresses it, that fully addresses it, allegedly. So they're saying, Oh, it looks like this rule was stealth edited on the Mountain West Conference rules and just perfectly to address ‘What to do if a school cancels on a transgender player.’”
The lawsuit follows weeks of controversy over San Jose University’s inclusion of a transgender outside hitter, Blaire Fleming, who is currently ranked as the team’s top scorer.
Although there were few surprises in the results of Wyoming’s general election last week, Secretary of State Chuck Gray claimed at the Wyoming State Canvassing Board meeting on Wednesday that “a number of issues” popped up on election night, including a major miscount of votes in Weston County.
Despite those issues, Cowboy State Daily’s Leo Wolfson reports that Gray still recommended certifying the election.
“Now it's important to note that that miscount was cleared up and that it was identified before the results in Weston County were certified at a local level. They did a hand count to get those votes correctly, but it became a major topic of discussion, nevertheless… and there was numerous Western county residents who testified virtually and requested that the board not certify the results until more investigation takes place into what occurred there, but the board still unanimously voted to certify the results.”
The Electoral College will certify Wyoming’s votes on Dec. 17.
Read the full story HERE.
The number of places in the world that have the right geology to store carbon dioxide underground are limited. One of those places is in Wyoming, and it lies far below another special place — the C.B. Irwin Ranch, where famed rodeo bronc Steamboat used to run.
Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that the owner of the CB Irwin belongs to a coalition of 20 neighboring ranches who have come together in a company called Meriden Carbon, which wants to attract companies interested in parking their carbon dioxide emissions underground for long-term storage.
“They were being approached by companies that… wanted to lease their pore space… these would be like geologic formations that have the special qualities that would allow them to not only inject carbon dioxide down there, but keep it in place so it doesn't migrate elsewhere… It is adding a secondary revenue source for these ranchers who need that to continue to be farmers.”
Geologic storage of carbon dioxide has been seen by some as one way to fight back and extend the life of coal-fired power plants, by capturing all the carbon dioxide emissions and storing them underground, making the businesses essentially CO2 emissions free.
Read the full story HERE.
After an aggressive construction schedule, the Swinging Bridge over the Snake River on Teton County Road 22-10 is open nine months earlier than anticipated.
The new double-lane bridge - which doesn’t really swing - replaced the aging single-lane steel truss bridge that crossed the Snake River south of Jackson.
Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that completing the $10.3 million project will be a welcome change for residents who’ve been using a detour to get across the river for the last year.
“It's called swinging bridge because it's on Swinging Bridge Road, and that road was named for the original Swinging Bridge, which was the first bridge to cross the Snake River in 1938. That bridge is long gone… Technically, it's the Swinging Bridge Road bridge, but it's everyone calls it the Swinging Bridge, even though it doesn't swing - it's concrete and steel, so that's not going anywhere for at least 70 years.”
Swinging Bridge Road had been closed since October 2023 so the bridge could be removed and replaced. Construction on the new bridge began in April, and while it’s open to traffic now, work will continue into 2025.
Read the full story HERE.
The school district board in Powell committed Tuesday to lobby state legislators for a law that could prevent male transgender students from using girls’ bathrooms.
Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that the passage of the Park County School District 1 resolution on student restroom use came during a Tuesday-evening board meeting in which members of the public and at least two state legislators packed the room.
“It's kind of like throwing the school district to the wolves, you know… because if the district has this policy that, for instance, butts up against Biden's interpretation of Title Nine, it would have to defend that. And so what they chose to do, instead of just make a bathroom policy, was they resolved to lobby the legislature for a statewide bathroom law.”
A group for parents in the district announced Wednesday that there had been an issue of a male using the girls’ bathroom in one of the schools. Superintendent Jay Curtis has said, however, that the district does not have evidence suggesting that transgender students are using bathrooms that don’t align with their sex.
Read the full story HERE.
Wyoming senior U.S. Sen. John Barrasso has cemented his role as one of the leading voices in the new Republican majority Senate.
Cowboy State Daily’s Leo Wolfson reports that Barrasso was elected Majority Whip on Wednesday, which is the assistant majority leader.
“This is the number two leadership position in the Senate, number two within the Republican Party and the Republican Party has the majority now in the Senate as a result of last week's election… He said there's going to be kind of a new, bold agenda that's coming to Capitol Hill, where they're going to try to lower prices and crack down on immigration and bring the number a number of other reforms that Republicans around the country have asked for.”
Barrasso was reelected in Wyoming earlier this year by landslide margins in both the primary and general elections.
Read the full story HERE.
A 15-year-old boy who is accused of shooting into two north Casper homes in August pleaded not guilty in Natrona County District Court on Wednesday.
Marquis Hayman allegedly told friends, “I hope I killed one,” after the incident on August 12th, according to Cowboy State Daily’s Dale Killingbeck.
“His family was there in support, and his brother that was sitting a couple rows behind him, told him, as he was leaving the courtroom, we love you. He told me that he was he believed that his brother was innocent, but now his brother is facing, you know, two serious, aggravated assault charges with those weapons, and the judge denied reducing his bail and his $100,000 cash was put on the second charge that he faces.”
Hayman is charged with a multitude of misdemeanors and felonies, including aggravated assault and battery, property destruction and defacement, and reckless endangering.
Read the full story HERE.
In some parts of Wyoming, elk herds have ballooned well above the Wyoming Game And Fish Department’s recommended population objectives. While that’s good news for hunters, those growing elk numbers have also attracted more mountain lions to the area.
Outdoors reporter Mark Heinz spoke to one hunter who went on his elk hunt prepared for just such an encounter.
“On the hunting forums, I've noticed a lot of folks who just went out deer hunting or elk hunting and ended up shooting a mountain lion instead, which is fine if they're if they're in an area where it's legal mountain lion hunting area and they have a mountain lion tag, why not take that opportunity? So I spoke to one gentleman who did do that last month… He did take the opportunity to shoot a nice, big mountain lion. He said once they cleared it with Game and Fish, they took it back to hunting camp, and they ate it. Fed a lot of people. So it was really good meat. You know, the larger topic here is, I mean, does our mountain lion population, does it warrant maybe higher quotas for mountain lions?”
Mountain lions are hunted on a quota system in Wyoming. That means that once a certain number of the big cats have been killed in a hunting area, hunting there is shut down, regardless of how many days are left in the official season or how many hunters are left holding unfilled tags.
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.
