It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming, for Monday, December 9th. 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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A 23-year-old Michigan woman’s TikTok video has gone viral after she announced an at-home DNA test kit helped lead to the arrest of a grandmother in Wyoming she had never met, in a decades-old Michigan infanticide case.
In a video released in late November with more than 1.6 million views, Jenna Rose Gerwatowski said she was shocked when the Michigan State Police called her at work to say her Ancestry DNA test kit linked to a cold case dating back to 1997. Cowboy State Daily’s Jen Kocher is following this story.
“the granddaughter came forward and said it was actually her Ancestry DNA kit that linked to the grandmother… You know, she found out when she was in 14 or 15 that she actually had this grandmother who had since been living in Pinedale, Wyoming… she just did a DNA test without thinking that anything like this could possibly happen. And I think this speaks to a new generation of a the truth that will come out in families as more of these cases. You know, it's this is just the start.”
Nancy Ann Gerwatowski is scheduled to appear in Michigan court for a hearing Thursday to decide whether to dismiss the concealing a death charge. If convicted on the murder charge, Gerwatowski faces the possibility of life in prison.
Read the full story HERE.
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Wyoming House Speaker-elect Chip Neiman of Hulett said he was trying to be as fair as possible with his committee assignments for the upcoming 2025 legislative session announced Saturday.
That hasn’t stopped some from giving him heat about his selections, especially Democrats, who told politics reporter Leo Wolfson they feel they’re being left off important committees.
“There's two Democrats on the joint Education Committee currently. So that is quite a drop off to go from two to zero. However, the Democrats gained seats on certain committees like agriculture that they had not had membership on in quite some time… I spoke to House Speaker elect Chip Nieman, a Republican from Hulett, about this, and he said that he was trying to be as fair as he possibly could, and he was just trying to accurately represent the election results and the makeup of the body as best he could, which is what you're supposed to do with the committee membership.”
Members of, and people politically aligned with, the Wyoming Freedom Caucus took over a majority of seats in the House this year.
Read the full story HERE.
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A Canada wildlife preserve offers rental lodges where people can gawk at a pack of wolves just on the other side of giant ground-level picture windows and sliding glass doors.
It’s billed as an up close and personal wildlife experience. While an intriguing tourism draw, Wyoming wildlife experts told outdoors reporter Mark Heinz that trying it with Wyoming’s national parks would be a terrible idea.
“I did talk to one wolf researcher here in Wyoming… Her problem with doing something like that is it really habituates wolves into being into close proximity with humans. So she questions how much natural behavior the wolves are really going to get. And then also, that can lead to problems. Wolves are known to virtually never attack people, but if and when they do, it's usually because they become too acclimated to the presence of humans.”
In Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, the trend for many years has been to encourage putting distance between people in animals – to keep people safe and the animals truly wild.
Read the full story HERE.
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When Brian Deurloo of Sheridan got an email inviting him to be a speaker at the United Nations in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, this month, he deleted it immediately.
But it turned out the email wasn’t a scam at all. Deurloo, who is the CEO of startup Frog Creek Partners, which manufactures gutter bins and filter systems to remove pollutants from water, really was being invited to become a panelist on the world stage. Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that he’ll be one of the panelists at the 16th session of the United Nation’s Convention to Combat Desertification.
“He's already in 22 states now, and he's done projects across Wyoming, so he was really wanting to start looking at a global stage. When this email arrived inviting him to speak at the United Nations. And I mean, you know, it's just perfect, like, sounds like the perfect scam setup… but finally, you know, it came to pass that they bought him his ticket in a hotel room. He didn't have to pay a dime, and on December 10, he'll be speaking on a panel about AI and water security.”
Coming from the least populated state in America and getting to represent the Cowboy State on a global stage is another point of pride for Deurloo, one he hopes brings more opportunities to his home state.
Read the full story HERE.
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With the hunting rifle world increasingly dominated by magnum-caliber, extreme-range rifles, semiautomatics and super-powered scopes, a Sheridan gunmaker hopes to carve out his niche with compact, handy “scout rifles.”
Scott Van Dorsten told Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz that the scout is designed to be the Swiss Army knife of rifles - and he learned how to build them from a master gunsmith who was himself taught directly by the inventor of the scout rifle design.
“There's a gentleman in Sheridan who, he's a custom gun maker, and that's what he specializes in, is Scout Rifles… That's just a comp, compact, short barreled, short stocked rifle with a quick acquisition scope on it… What's interesting about this guy is, he's only one degree removed from the person who actually invented the scout rifle, Jeff Cooper.”
What Van Dorsten is really hoping for is to convince Wyoming’s cowboys to trade in their classic lever-action Winchester and Marlin rifles for his more modern bolt-action scout rifles.
Read the full story HERE.
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The bison at the Hot Springs State Park in Wyoming are semi-wild and roam freely within the boundaries of the park. Seeing them up close can make people feel like they’ve stepped back in time, watching them in what’s close to their historical habitat.
Cowboy State Daily’s Jackie Dorothy reports that fifteen of these great beasts will soon find new homes.
“The buffalo herd has actually been at the hot springs State Park for over 100 years. They were actually reintroduced in the early 1900s and the audience that received them, it was really a cool story. It was cowboys taking them off the train when they arrived, the whole town was out there to greet them, and they said the old timers were standing around almost in tears, because this was the first time buffalo had been back in Thermopolis since probably about the 1860s.”
Potential bison buyers can put in bids until Jan. 16. The remaining bison will continue to roam the bison pastures at the Hot Springs State Park so visitors can see them year-round where their ancestors once lived among the sage and red dirt.
Read the full story HERE.
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When Rawlins man Phil Bollinger’s car was stolen the week of Thanksgiving during a family trip to Denver, he just shrugged - and figured he’s still happy to be alive.
The theft happened about six weeks after the 55-year-old Rawlins resident crashed his 1800 Kawasaki motorcycle and nearly died. After dodging some deer on that ride Oct. 16, he went off state Highway 70 near Encampment, hit a rock and was thrown head-first into a culvert.
Though pinned under his ride, Bollinger did the only thing he could — he waved his boot in the air every time he heard a vehicle coming down the road. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that the incident - and his miraculous rescue - has changed Bollinger’s outlook on life.
“He went to pick up his daughter in Denver, their car got stolen and it was destroyed. I mean, the law enforcement were able to recover it, but it was destroyed. And His attitude was like, well, that's nothing, we’re alive. So that was his whole attitude and his whole lease on life. Really, just grateful.”
Bollinger’s new outlook on life is positive and filled with wonder. He’s bonded with Ben Koperski and Ben’s son, Jason, the hunters from Cody who came to his rescue after his crash. To Bollinger, the pair are new family members.
Read the full story HERE.
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Amber Elizabeth Scholz was 19 when she loaded up her car and infant son and headed from Ohio to Wyoming in 1979 to be with the man she loved. Then, less than two years after moving to Wyoming, Scholz disappeared from her Rock Springs apartment.
Cowboy State Daily’s Jen Kocher has been speaking with Det. Jennifer Saloga, who is researching the cold case.
“the Rock Springs police detective… she's got a passion for these cold cases… so she works them when she can. But in my conversations with her, I could see, you know, she's taking a look at the file. It was three huge binders, and she was planning to go back through and see what if there's anything she would miss.”
With little to go on, Saloga plans to review the file and begin reinterviewing witnesses to see if any new tips or clues emerge all these years later. Without a body or crime scene, however, police hope that some new lead or person comes forward.
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.
