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

<title>You Still Here? Thursday, November 21, 2024 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

You Still Here? Thursday, November 21, 2024

 "Putting a real bear in my house & hiring an exterminator to catch it....."

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

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Dale Killingbeck

Dale Killingbeck

Wyoming Life

Around Wyoming

For a man in the 1950s, the little 10-by-13-foot wooden jail house in Kaycee, Wyoming, that held some of the West’s most notorious outlaws proved to be an escape from the law.

In the jail was the last place he figured anyone would look for someone trying not to get caught.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"It was not always that way."}]

Laurel Foster, director of the Hoofprints of the Past Museum in Kaycee, said the wooden jail that served the area well during the years of the Hole-in-The-Wall Gang and and other Western outlaws was built to keep the bad guys from breaking out.

The jail now sits behind the museum next to a wooden schoolhouse that once served as Johnson County Deputy Sheriff Leonard Beard’s home. 

It was Beard who who enforced the law there from the late 1890s until his resignation halfway into the next century.

“He was known as being a very tough character and very good at his job,” Foster said. “He actually chased down a lot of rough outlaws. He captured some of them. 

"Tom O’Day was one of them he chased in pursuit (as well as) Kid Curry.”

The jail was built with 41 layers of 2-by-6-inch boards that were laid flat to make up the walls of a jail that was outlaw resistant from the inside and out due to knives or other instruments trying to whittle holes in the building.

Foster, a native of Kaycee, said the jail would have been used to house more significant prisoners for a short time before they could be transported to the Johnson County jail in Buffalo.

The interior of the jail has a hole in the ceiling for a stove and the museum now displays it with a small bed to one side.

Foster said Beard used five kegs of nails to put together his jail.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Full House"}]

According to local historian J. Elmer Brock who collected oral histories and other material that was part of the 1982 book “Our Powder River Heritage," the little jail on one occasion was filled to capacity.

“He wrote that at one time there were 13 people thrown in there after they were drinking too much and being too rowdy,” Foster said, noting how small the tiny jailhouse was. “The last one was thrown on top.”

In his account of Leonard, Brock, who lived and ranched in the area during Leonard’s tenure, called the deputy “a man with unlimited courage.”

He dealt with Hole-In-The-Wall outlaws and others when the growing community, businesses were starting — and recovering from the impact of the 

Brock wrote of Leonard arresting a man named Razor Dick Hale who had a $1,000 bounty on his head. 

The lawman shot the outlaw’s horse and Hale in the arm. The outlaw never made it to the jail because while trying to get a vehicle to transport the wounded prisoner, he escaped.

The Natrona County Tribune on Sept. 11, 1902, reported about Johnson County Sheriff Kennedy returning from a chase after Hale.

“Mr. Kennedy has a close call in Powder River canyon being kicked by a horse, thrown down and being rolled over by another horse until he saw stars by the millions,” the newspaper reported.

Beard also chased Wild Bunch outlaws associated with the Wilcox train robbery in 1899, getting in a shootout that left one outlaw wounded as well as Beard’s horse.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Stolen Horses"}]

During an encounter with noted outlaw Tom O’Day and another character named Earl Shobe, Beard caught them with several stolen horses from South Dakota.

“He shot it out with them and took the horses, and the men’s pack horse as well,” Brock wrote. “O’Day later said that, ‘Beard’s bullet cut off a lock of my hair.’”

According to Brock, Beard’s jail housed several rough criminals and was the scene of just one escape.

The schoolhouse that sits next to the jail at the museum has a history with Beard as well.

The deputy lived in the building, but whether that was after it was moved to town or before is not clear. 

The building was the first home on the Kaltenbach family homestead, Foster said. 

After the family built a more substantial home it was moved to into the town area and, according to Brock who wrote his article, in the 1950s had a trap door built in it and a tunnel to a gulch.

Kaltenbach had no knowledge of the trap door.

Brock speculated that it likely was there to give him an edge on any criminals trying to ambush him.

The building also saw use as a school in addition to a stint as city hall.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Sheep-Shearer"}]

In 1903, the jail was likely overnight housing to a Dr. Norris Potts, who reportedly shot and killed a sheep-shearer outside a Kaycee bar in May 1903.

“Early last Monday morning a telephone message from Kaycee announced that a sheep-shearer known as Box-car Jackson had been shot and instantly killed in Jack Toddy’s saloon during the previous night,” the Savannah Democrat in Missouri published on May 29, 1903. 

“Potts had been on a drunken spree at Kaycee for some two or three weeks and was very boisterous and disagreeable,” the account reported.

Jackson had been shot through the chest and was unarmed. 

The newspaper, reprinting a Buffalo Voice story, stated that the doctor was arrested by the deputy sheriff in Kaycee. Potts had been brought to Buffalo and denied that he had shot Jackson.

“So far as The Voice has been able to learn, the doctor has always born a good reputation,” the newspaper reported. “Samuel Jackson, the murdered man, was about 45 years of age and has been engaged in sheep-shearing and ranch work in this country for the past three years.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Drunken Bartender"}]

Foster recounted another story about the jail and how Jack Toddy himself apparently became too drunk and unruly one night and Leonard put him in jail.

“The next day he was yelling and yelling for someone to come that he was thirsty,” Foster said. “Apparently, it was unlocked and he could have walked out an anytime.”

For those who were locked in, the jailer used a strong iron bar that was positioned across the front of the door along with a lock to secure prisoners inside.

Beard left his role with the county in 1905. 

An article in the July 8, 1905, Buffalo Bulletin said the lawman had put in his resignation and was headed to Oklahoma.

“Deputy Beard has made a good officer and his resignation will be regretted by the people generally,” the newspaper reported.

A more modern story associated with the jail involves a man who robbed a saloon and grocery store somewhere outside of Kaycee in 1950. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"The thief then made a beeline for town."}]

Foster said the story was not clear where the thief came from.

“They just came up here and hid out in the jail for several days,” she said. “It depends on the time of year, I guess, but I don’t know the timing. 

"I don’t know if it would be in a newspaper or if it was just one of those things and nobody wrote it down.”

In his account of the story, Brock characterized the thief as “living the ‘Life of Riley’” for a few days, alluding to an old TV comedy show from the 1950s. 

“When finally discovered and taken to the county jail in Buffalo, the man complained bitterly, claiming he much preferred the Kaycee jail and its stock of drinking whiskey and food,” Brock wrote.

The jail was sold in 1952 and moved to the museum location in the 1990s, Foster said. It originally sat on Nolan Street just more than a block north of the museum’s location.

Kaycee Jail Inset and Interior 7 19 26

<title>Wyoming History: How A Thief Once Tried To Hide From The Law In The Kaycee Jail | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The 125-year-old jail in Kaycee, Wyoming, once housed outlaws from the Wild Bunch era It was also where a thief hid from the law for several days. In the jail was the last place he figured anyone would look for someone trying not to get caught.

Wyoming History: How A Thief Once Tried To Hide From The Law In The Kaycee Jail

Wendy

Wendy Corr

Business & Tourism

Business

In Wyoming beef country, many small ranchers now raise alpacas. Their fleece is great and their poop is exceptional for growing vegetables. Plus, their temperament is unmatched. “They're the easiest livestock animal we have ever dealt with," one owner said.

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