You Still Here

Feel free to post videos of yourself doing Karate moves, just be aware that there may be commenters....

Bonus vid 1 12 14 24

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

<title>Bonus Video 1: Saturday, December 14, 2024 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Bonus Video 1: Saturday, December 14, 2024

 Feel free to post videos of yourself doing Karate moves, just be aware that there may be commenters....

Daily Darwin

[{"type":"text","text":"Shocked, genuinely shocked, I have lost all faith in rotted wood…"}]

Darwin no play 6 19 26

<title>Daily Darwin: Friday, June 19, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Shocked, genuinely shocked, I have lost all faith in rotted wood…

Daily Darwin: Friday, June 19, 2026

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's general assignment reporter, Clair McFarland.

Clair McFarland

Government & Politics

Legislature

one of the most prominent members of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, has a primary election opponent.

Doug Moore told Cowboy State Daily on Wednesday that he decided to challenge the Republican House District 31 

in this year’s Aug. 18 primary election after numerous 

Moore, 55, is a business owner and a transportation manager for two coal mining companies.

[{"type":"text","text":"Bear, 60, also owns local businesses and is a Navy veteran."}]

Both men are Republicans who live in Gillette

both tout strong favor toward the coal industry and conservative ideals. Each man is married and has grown children.

“I’m not looking to make a big name for myself,” he said. "I don’t see myself being a career politician that’s going to climb the ladder and end up in D.C. someday. 

"I’m a local kid that grew up here, and I want to make sure my community is taken care of — and Wyoming in general. That’s what’s important to me.”

Bear in his own Thursday interview countered that the rebuttal to those statements is, “the proof is in the pudding.”

“I’ve had opportunities to go for higher office and I’ve declined,” Bear added. "I’m already fighting for Wyoming, and have the most conservative record possible."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Freedom Caucus"}]

The Wyoming Freedom Caucus is a populist-leaning group of Republicans in the state House that has backed property tax cuts, pro-life legislation, a reworking of the funding model for K-12 public schools and other measures.

The pro-life legislation is a mixed bag: those bills are generally popular among Freedom Caucus and non-Freedom Caucus Republicans. 

 the Legislature’s pro-life laws, while Gov. Mark Gordon has urged lawmakers to

 on the matter to voters instead of passing more bills.

Moore told Cowboy State Daily that he’s very conservative, but he will not join the Freedom Caucus because he believes the group’s members get directions from its national umbrella group, the State Freedom Caucus network.

Wyoming Freedom Caucus members discuss and coordinate their floor maneuvers via a group text with their Wyoming-based network director, 

Bear had inadvertently countered Moore’s point in a Thursday email about his bid for reelection, writing, “My family and friends are the primary reason I wish to serve the people of Campbell County.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"About Moore"}]

Moore is a licensed aviation mechanic, has an 

 degree in mining technology and has worked in the coal sector for 30 years. He was born in Michigan and moved to Wyoming with his family as a child in 1978.

[{"type":"text","text":"“I’ve got more Wyoming blood in me than anywhere else,” said Moore."}]

He said he’s a Republican because he’s conservative and doesn’t believe in high taxes or big government.

“I believe in keeping control at the lowest level of government,” said Moore.

 coal that could reinvigorate the waning industry, and said he wants to help the state guide new developments “responsibly.”

“I want to look at who wants to come (build a business in the community) and why, and make sure they’re not just looking for a lot of handouts,” said Moore.

Tech giants have been building multiple data centers in Wyoming in recent years.

With business booms come housing affordability issues, which is another concern Moore said he’d like to address, primarily by streamlining regulatory processes and “red tape.”

He said Wyoming should diversify its economy while also consider keeping more minerals for in-state use and the state’s own economy.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"About Bear"}]

a former Freedom Caucus chair and remains 

one of its most prominent voices — and one of its most powerful members.

He co-chairs the Joint Appropriations Committee, which writes the second draft of the state’s two-year budget. The governor writes the first draft, and the full Legislature writes the third and subsequent drafts until the budget becomes law in about March of every even-numbered year.

“I have been representing the hard working people of Gillette for three terms. I’m a Christian and veteran naval officer,” said Bear in a Thursday email. “I married my college sweetheart Sage. We raised two children in Gillette, and our daughter lives here with her family.”

Bear said families within his House district face inflation that cuts into their budgets every day.

“I am a proven conservative who has championed real solutions for working families,” wrote Bear, adding that, “I am the only conservative in this race.”

[{"type":"text","text":"He pointed to his work in helping to pass property tax relief bills."}]

“I firmly believe that those families know better how to spend their hard-earned money that the government does,” said Bear. “I will continue to work to limit the government's burden on families in Campbell County.”

During Bear’s chairmanship of the Appropriations Committee ahead of this past session, he was a 

During the session, Bear broke ranks to vote against several of his Freedom Caucus colleagues in opposing what he has called “corporate welfare” tax breaks or grants for large businesses.

Bear voted nay, for example, on the Energy Dominance Fund — a bill funneling severance taxes for one year into a grant and loan program to boost 

[{"type":"text","text":"Bear has lived in Wyoming for 20 years, he said. "}]

In his email he pointed to his work in passing a bill ensuring only 

citizens can vote in Wyoming, a 25% property tax cut, the elimination of most gun-free zones and a prohibition on red flag gun seizures, and pro-life bills.

“I’ve spoken to voters in House District 31 and will continue to answer questions and present my work for the people on social media, visiting at their doorsteps, as well as town halls throughout my time in office,” Bear said.

Bear and Doug Moore capitol 6 18 26

<title>John Bear, One Of The Freedom Caucus’ Most Powerful Members, Has A Challenger | Cowboy State Daily</title>

John Bear, one of the most powerful members of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, has a GOP challenger for his Gillette House district. "I don’t see myself being a career politician,” said Doug Moore. “I am the only conservative in this race,” countered Bear.

John Bear, One Of The Freedom Caucus’ Most Powerful Members, Has A Challenger

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Wyoming Life

A Montana police officer spotted the giant banana rolling through Billings on Wednesday afternoon and did what countless law enforcement officers have done before him.

[{"type":"text","text":"He turned around and pulled it over."}]

For Steve Braithwaite, owner, builder and full-time driver of the 23-foot-long Big Banana Car, the stop was less of a surprise than a tradition.

"I would see a police car going the other way and get my documents ready," Braithwaite told Cowboy State Daily from Seattle on Thursday morning. "I knew they were going to loop around and pull me over." 

After 15 years, more than 250,000 miles and enough roadside conversations to fill a produce aisle, Braithwaite has learned that driving a giant banana attracts attention.

[{"type":"text","text":"Especially from cops."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"They always find a reason to pull me over,\" Braithwaite said. "}]

in this case it was an issue with the license plate, but ultimately he was not given a ticket.  

Braithwaite figures he may have spent the better part of a decade as one of the most frequently pulled-over drivers in America.

[{"type":"text","text":"Not for speeding, but simply because he was driving a giant banana."}]

"For the first eight or nine years I was the most pulled-over man in America," he said. "It was constant."

[{"type":"text","text":"Often officers simply wanted photographs."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Other times they invented reasons to start a conversation."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"His favorite stop happened in a small mountain town in West Virginia."}]

A traffic light turned red. Braithwaite stopped. The light turned green and he made a leisurely turn through the intersection.

[{"type":"text","text":"A few moments later, flashing lights appeared behind him."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"A police officer marched up to the banana and delivered the news."}]

"'The reason I pulled you over, that light back there, you peeled out.'"

[{"type":"text","text":"For a moment, Braithwaite didn't know if he was being serious or not."}]

"He said it so straight-faced," Braithwaite recalled. "And I'm like, 'Oh yeah.'"

[{"type":"text","text":"The banana jokes, he said, are \"never-ending.\""}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Fortunately, so are the laughs."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"How It All Started"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"The whole thing began in a gas station in 2008."}]

Braithwaite, a lifelong hot-rod enthusiast, had become bored attending car shows.

Then he watched an episode of the British television show "Top Gear" featuring bizarre custom-built vehicles, including a street-legal garden shed and a drivable couch.

[{"type":"text","text":"For the next month, his brain worked overtime."}]

"Everything I looked at, I thought, 'can I turn that into a car?'" he said. "My drill, my neighbor's lawn mower, everything."

Then one day he found himself standing beside a bowl of fruit in a gas station. 

[{"type":"text","text":"On top sat a banana."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Not the curved cartoon banana he'd always pictured, but a straighter one."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Suddenly, he could see it."}]

"The windshield would go there. The wheels would go there."

[{"type":"text","text":"Then came the moment that changed everything."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"I pictured it driving down the road and died laughing,\" he said."}]

The image captivated him so completely that the checkout line moved without him noticing.

"The lady directly behind me had to tap me on the shoulder," he said. "They must have been thinking, 'Oh my God, is that the first banana he's ever seen?'"

[{"type":"text","text":"His rule was simple."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"If it makes me laugh now, I'm going to do it.\""}]

[{"type":"text","text":"It still made him laugh."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"So he built it."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"What he expected to be a parade novelty became his daily driver."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"The truck beneath the banana has now traveled more than 250,000 miles."}]

"I didn't think I'd be driving it anywhere near as much as I am," he said.

[{"type":"text","text":"Roaming In Wyoming"}]

Braithwaite didn't stop in Wyoming on this trip. He was headed west toward Washington.

[{"type":"text","text":"But Wyoming still occupies an important place in banana history."}]

Several years ago, while crossing the state, the Big Banana Car suddenly died alongside a lonely stretch of highway.

"I hadn't realized the distances between towns," he said. "I was in the middle of nowhere."

Parked beside the highway, luggage scattered around him. He "managed to get it running again."

By then he was running out of time to get to Los Angeles for a TV appearance, so he left in a hurry. 

[{"type":"text","text":"But he says there's a chance he might come back."}]

Braithwaite wants to race the famous Oscar Mayer Wienermobile, and why not in the Rockies?

He has already challenged it, but he says he thinks Kraft won't go for it. 

Sooner or later, he figures, some reporter would ask a dangerous question.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"Instead of which is the quicker vehicle, which is the healthier food?\""}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Then he laughs."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"And they're going to lose that.\""}]

[{"type":"text","text":"World Needs More Whimsy"}]

Casper car enthusiast Tom Morton says he is curious about the drag race with Oscar Mayer's wiener. 

"What's next?" Morton asks, "Asparagus street rods?" Overall, he says "I like it." 

[{"type":"text","text":"What began as a joke has evolved into something larger."}]

Braithwaite recently drove the banana into Mexico, where he was pulled over five times in three days.

[{"type":"text","text":"Every encounter was friendly, he says. "}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Now he's thinking much bigger."}]

His goal is to drive the Big Banana Car through Central America; somehow get it shipped across oceans and eventually circle the globe.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"I just want to keep going,\" he said."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"He's calling the adventure \"The World Needs More Whimsy Grand Tour.\""}]

[{"type":"text","text":"A sign mounted to the back of the vehicle carries the slogan."}]

"The world is dangerously low on whimsy," says the man hoping to make a difference. 

Banana montana highway patrol 6 18 26

<title>Giant Banana Pulled Over in Montana: Driver Says Cops Have Stopped Him 100s Of Times | Cowboy State Daily</title>

For 15 years, Steve Braithwaite has driven a 23-foot banana across the country and, on Wednesday, just like hundreds of times before, he was pulled over by law enforcement. "They always find a reason to pull me over," Braithwaite said.

Giant Banana Pulled Over in Montana: Driver Says Cops Have Stopped Him 100s Of Times

Crime & Courts

Two people died Wednesday after a two-vehicle crash unfolded in front of Riverton’s Walmart, drawing passersby from both sides of the city’s busiest road, North Federal Boulevard.

[{"type":"text","text":"The crash was reported around 8:15 p.m."}]

A white Dodge pickup with a crunched hood sat on its side in the middle of the road, while the mangled remains of what witnesses said had been a black Jeep sat upright nearly a half-block south of the pickup, on the northbound lane of the road.

Police, emergency medical personnel and the Riverton Volunteer Fire Department converged. People on the scene pulled one man out of the pickup. The man was bleeding.

“I asked him what the year was,” said Trent Hallada, who was walking in the area and felt debris, “possibly” hit his eye when the crash happened. “He couldn’t even say the date and year.”

Two more eyewitnesses, who both declined to be identified by name, said the driver of the pickup sat on the ground while personnel responded, but when the response calmed slightly, he tried to run.

Law enforcement officers tackled him and took him into custody, the two witnesses said.

The Fremont County Coroner’s office also responded with a transport truck. One person, who lay in the middle of the road under a tarp and closer to the black vehicle, was placed into the transport truck. Firefighters held red tarps around the person to shield public view.

The Riverton Police Department announced in a Thursday statement that “both occupants of one of the vehicles had serious injuries;” one was pronounced dead one the scene, and the second was taken to SageWest Health Care, “where they succumbed to their injuries.”

The RPD statement doesn’t describe the two different vehicles, calling them “one of the vehicles” and “the other vehicle.” But the statement, coupled with witness interviews, indicates that two people were in the black vehicle, and have both now died.

And the driver of the pickup was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence and vehicular homicide, plus other related offenses, the statement indicates when coupled with witness interviews.

RPD concluded its statement with a request for anyone with information on the wreck to call 307-856-4891.

Riverton crash 6 18 26

<title>Two Dead, One Tackled And Arrested in Riverton Crash | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Two people died Wednesday evening after a two-vehicle crash unfolded in front of Riverton’s Walmart. Law enforcement officers tackled a suspect who was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence and vehicular homicide.

Two Dead, One Tackled And Arrested in Riverton Crash

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's managing editor, Greg Johnson.

Greg Johnson

Courts

 multiple times last week in the tiny southern Wyoming town of Baggs had a stockpile of semiautomatic weapon ammunition and was likely planning a "large-scale act," the Carbon County Sheriff’s Office reports.

 took bullets to the neck, arm and hip when he confronted the suspect outside his apartment near the southern edge of Baggs at about noon on June 8.

Responding to a report of an active shooter in the area, Burns located the suspect driving in town and conducted a traffic stop at his apartment, the CCSO has reported.

That led to Burns being shot, while the suspect retreated into his apartment, tried to start his apartment complex on fire with numerous propane takes inside, then sped away in his car again, according to the CCSO. He was eventually killed in a shootout with law enforcement after crashing his car north of town off state Highway 789.

In the meantime, a pair of nearby Baggs residents 

, likely saving his life, CCSO Sheriff Alex Bakken has previously reported.

Now it’s been revealed that Burns may have stopped something worse that authorities believe had been the suspect’s plan, Bakken says in an update on the investigation put out late Wednesday.

“Thanks to his bravery, (Burns) saved the lives of countless first responders and community members,” Bakken says in the report. “The gunman had stockpiled hundreds of AR-15 magazines in his apartment and, by all appearances, had been prepared to initiate a large-scale act of violence.”

The identity of the suspect isn’t being released pending the completion of an investigation by the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation, Bakken told Cowboy State Daily in a text message.

As of late last week, Burns remained in critical but stable condition in a Colorado hospital.

Further updates of his condition “will be released at the discretion of the family, a condition which we should all be respectful of,” Bakken says in his Wednesday update.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Careful Who You Call A ‘Victim’"}]

Along with more information about the suspect and what was found in his apartment, Bakken also confirmed that a Carbon County deputy was involved in shooting the gunman after his final chase with law enforcement.

The Wyoming Highway Patrol also reported last week that a trooper involved in that final confrontation was fired at and his patrol vehicle was hit. The trooper wasn’t hurt.

Bakken also called out the massive response from other law enforcement agencies to assist with the active shooter situation that day.

“Numerous agencies from northwest Colorado responded to assist due to their proximity to the incident and the fact that rural law enforcement in Western states is remote, difficult and dangerous,” he said.

“I am incredibly proud of and grateful to all the partner agencies that responded during our time of need,” the sheriff added.

Bakken also bristles at the reporting of an unnamed Colorado news outlet that referred to the suspect as a “victim.”

“The victim in this incident is Sergeant Zachary Burns, a man we are proud to call a member of our team who has served our local community with the Carbon County Sheriff’s Office since 2015,” the sheriff said.

Bakken also again called out the “residents of Baggs who rushed out to render aid to Sergeant Burns (and) all of the community members who have come out in droves to support us.

[{"type":"text","text":"“It all means far more than you will ever know.”"}]

Baggs Burns and apartment 6 17 26

<title>Sheriff Says Baggs Suspect Who Shot Deputy Likely Was Planning 'Large-Scale Act' | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The man who shot a deputy in Baggs last week was likely planning something, said the Carbon County Sheriff. “The gunman had stockpiled hundreds of AR-15 magazines ... and had been prepared to initiate a large-scale act of violence," he said.

Sheriff Says Baggs Suspect Who Shot Deputy Likely Was Planning 'Large-Scale Act'

Kerry Drake

Around Wyoming

Cheyenne’s new vehicle noise ordinance was unanimously passed by the City Council to stop obnoxious motorists who drive their loud cars, trucks and motorcycles late at night, disrupting people’s sleep.

 soon after it went on the books in late September was auto mechanic Geno Stecks, who was driving a fairly unassuming 2006 Subaru with a modified muffler. 

It also wasn’t in the middle of the night or in a residential section of the capital city. Stecks said it was on a main thoroughfare at the intersection of East Lincolnway and Hugur Avenue at 2:45 in the afternoon.

“Communists. Control freaks!” is how Stecks responded when asked what he thought about the City Council members who approved the ordinance after many people opposed it during public testimony at three council meetings.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"He Wasn’t Speeding"}]

Stecks was on the job when he got busted, transporting auto parts for FM Automotive when he heard the police siren.

He told the officer that he didn’t think he’d been speeding, but was informed the stop was made because of excessive noise.

This how the encounter went, according to Stecks:

“I couldn’t hear my radio for your exhaust,” the officer told him.

Mechanic Geno Stecks got the first ticket under Cheyenne’s new noise ordinance while delivering a car part in the middle of the day. When the officer told him he couldn't hear his radio because of the exhaust, Stecks said, "Turn your volume knob up."

Bonus Video 1: Saturday, December 14, 2024

In case you missed it

More in You Still Here

Bonus Video 2: Friday, January 19, 2026

Bonus Video 1: Friday, June 19, 2026

Today In Human Excellence: Friday, June 19, 2026

Today In World Cup Fans: Friday, June 19, 2026

Most read