It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming, for Thursday, December 5th. 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.
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If you ask his son, Wyoming’s late troubadour Chris LeDoux has one more song to sing.
LeDoux was a world champion bareback rider and renowned country singer who hailed from Kaycee. LeDoux was 56 when he died of cancer in 2005. LeDoux’s son Ned, whose voice bears an uncanny resemblance to his father’s, unveiled a track on Wednesday his dad recorded shortly before his death.
Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that the song, titled “One Hand in the Riggin’,” features the voices of both Ned and his father.
“Often, you know… even in the literary world… if things are released after a person's death, it's because they weren't the best things. But this song is actually good. It has the the catchy twang of that late 80s, early 90s era of rodeo, cowboy country. Um, it's got that same dogged spirit like, I'm just gonna get to Cheyenne. I'm just going to get through one more rodeo. You can hear the voices of Father and Son, an electric guitar solo, and just a whole lot of country.”
The song tells a story of a rodeo cowboy who got bucked off at a show, didn’t make the short go, and had to drive half the night just to make it to Cheyenne.
Read the full story HERE.
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The Bureau of Land Management’s controversial Resource Management Plan is a legal document that charts the future management of 3.6 million acres of BLM land in the Rock Springs region. The plan outlines what areas can and can’t be used for mining, recreation and travel.
The plan, which is close to becoming final, has been met with serious opposition in and around Wyoming since first developed. Cowboy State Daily’s Leo Wolfson reports that while changes and compromises were made from its original version, Governor Mark Gordon and other Wyoming officials and residents continue to express serious opposition to the document that would curtail mining and increase conservation on federal lands in the southwest corner of the state.
“Gordon still is opposed to the RMP plan. He believes it does not strike a balance when it comes to mining interests related to conservation interests, and he just feels like it is not where it needs to be, as far as representing Wyoming stakeholders. Interests. He will be submitting an appeal to the BLM on this plan.”
It will be BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning’s call to decide if more modifications are made to the plan based on the governor’s recommendations, or to keep it as is.
Read the full story HERE.
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A $37 million wildlife crossing project in southwest Wyoming is on track to start construction next year - a project that is considered essential to protect drivers and two mule deer herds that were devastated by a harsh winter two years ago.
The Kemmerer Wildlife Crossing on U.S. Highway 189 is expected to benefit prized Wyoming Range mule deer, the Uinta mule deer herd and the Carter Lease pronghorn herd, according to Cowboy State Daily’s Justin George.
“It'll take couple of years to build. They're expecting all these underpasses and fences, sort of a higher fence, to keep the wildlife off the highway, to be ready by at least November 2028… this is a zone that protects two very critical mule deer herds for the state… it was very important for them to sort of have a place where they can go underneath the highway, because it has been a place where there have been so many collisions between deer and cars.”
The project on U.S. Highway 189 is being funded with a $24.3 million federal Wildlife Crossing Pilot Program discretionary grant, and will take about two years to build.
Read the full story HERE.
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The U.S. Supreme Court is considering a monumental case surrounding whether state bans on sex-change treatments for kids are inherently sexist.
The case itself, LW vs. Skrmetti, focuses on a Tennessee law that bans kids from accessing puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries for the purpose of transitioning to a different gender - this is similar to Wyoming’s law on child sex-change treatments.
The nation’s high court heard oral argument in the case Wednesday, according to Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland.
“this is a huge case… the ACLU and the federal government both arguing on behalf of transgender children, saying, Hey, if you restrict access to puberty blockers for boys and girls trying to change sex but not suffering precocious puberty, you're making a sex based distinction that makes this law harder to defend in court… so Tennessee says, oh, no, we're looking at the actual medical impact. We're not trying to draw a sex based distinction.”
President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to urge Congress for a ban on child sex-change surgeries.
Read the full story HERE.
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The Joint Minerals Committee has expressed interest in a bill that would give public utilities liability protection from fire-related lawsuits, if they create wildfire mitigation plans.
But Cowboy State Daily’s Leo Wolfson reports that the committee didn’t believe the bill was ready for consideration in the upcoming legislative session.
“What this would have done is basically, would have kind of changed the laws so that as long as public utility companies submitted a wildfire mitigation plan, they would have received significant liability protection from the state as far as people trying to recoup losses as a result of wildfires… But this bill will not be seen in the 2025, legislative session, and will be discussed probably at some point in the future.”
All of the utility companies that spoke before the committee supported the bill, with many describing it as a compromise struck between companies and their customers.
Read the full story HERE.
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A Gillette Police Department officer was arrested and jailed Monday by his own department, wanted on suspicion of having sex with a woman who was on probation in Utah, where he was also a police officer.
Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that the Gillette Police Department hired Christopher Goree in September, and he was still in his training phase when Utah authorities sent the department a warrant for his arrest.
“I went and got the court documents out of Utah… and these talk about a woman who is on felony probation divulging to her probation agent that she was in a relationship with this guy. And that's a felony in Utah for a cop to be intimate with someone who's on probation. It's one of those position of authority type things that's considered a sex crime.”
Goree faces three counts of felony custodial relations, each carrying a maximum penalty of five years in prison and $5,000 in fines; a fourth felony of tampering with a witness; and a misdemeanor count of accessing sealed records.
Read the full story HERE.
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Former Wyoming congresswoman Liz Cheney became hated by many Republicans for her opposition of Donald Trump - and now a new poll shows that she might have hurt Vice President Kamala Harris’ in her run against Trump this year.
Cowboy State Daily’s Leo Wolfson reports that poll, which surveyed voters in Pennsylvania and Michigan, found that more independent voters said they were "less enthusiastic" to vote for Harris after she campaigned alongside Cheney.
“This is significant because this was a demographic that Harris specifically needed to target if she had any hopes of winning the presidential election. It appears that there was a lot of skepticism about her team ring teaming up with Cheney, who has always been a staunch Republican and caught many people by surprise that she was supporting Harris's campaign.”
A vast majority of independent participants from both states said Cheney’s participation had no impact on their votes, and the poll indicated that it would have been more useful for Harris to have spent her time focusing on economic issues.
Read the full story HERE.
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Sheriff Walt Longmire and his adventures in fictional Absaroka County, Wyoming, has been a blockbuster hit for Netflix, even though no new episodes of “Longmire” have dropped since the series finale in 2017.
But Netflix is finally turning the popular show loose as of the end of this month, and it’s already available on Paramount+ for the continued viewing pleasure of fans, as well as a new streaming platform audience.
Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that the author of the Longmire books, Ucross resident Craig Johnson, is now musing that perhaps the wildly popular show could be revived.
“It's not like Craig has stopped writing. He's added plenty of new material out there. And so if at some point one of these networks gets the idea of, Hey, we should make another Longmire series, or hey, we should make another movie, well, there's plenty of material to draw from, and that's what fans, I think, were really responding to.”
Longmire started out on the A&E Network, and immediately rocketed to the top of viewership ratings with 6 million viewers per episode. Despite that popularity, A&E canceled the show in 2014, when Warner Brothers refused to sell the brand.
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.
