It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming, for Monday, December 16th. 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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With multiple large industrial projects incoming to the Kemmerer area, a huge housing crunch is looming.
It’s estimated that between 3,500 to 6,000 new workers are on their way to the area, along with their families, which would more than double Kemmerer’s present population, which is around 2,500.
Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that one solution that’s getting some attention would be modular homes from a Colorado-based company called Fading West.
“Modular homes, which have been much maligned in the past, may be a solution for Wyoming's housing crunch in Kemmerer… And one of the companies that does this is called Fading West… According to the company, you would not know the difference if you walk through one of these between a stick house and their process. They over build them on purpose to, you know, fight that stigma that modular homes have… in Kemmerer, they're looking at between 3000 And 500 to 6000 new permanent employees in the area with their families… They need a housing solution that will work.”
Fading West has just returned from Maui, where they recently delivered more than 80 new, high-quality, factory-built homes in two months flat.
Read the full story HERE.
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Mystery drone sightings from this autumn in Niobrara County bear eerie similarities to machines flying over New Jersey and other areas recently, which are currently overwhelming the nation with theories and concerns.
But from late October and through November, people started spotting devices that looked like drones flying over the tiny community of Lance Creek. That’s what the Niobrara County Sheriff told Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland.
“I had been talking to New Jersey mayors and these military officials living in New Jersey, and so I had this, like, very locked in description of what these guys were seeing, right? Like the mayor, like they flew over the mayor's house. And so he gives me this description of how they fly, how they sound, and so the sheriff doesn't know that, but he describes them pretty much the same way. So even though the sheriff didn't get close enough to see the size like these guys did, he's describing like, oh yes, uh, locked formations. One group will do this pattern. One group will do this pattern about 400 feet altitude.”
A retired command sergeant major of the U.S. Army told Cowboy State Daily on Friday that the drones are so conspicuous and so numerous, he doubts they’re a foreign adversary or terrorist. But he pointed out that every time governmental agencies deflect, deny understanding of the drones or refuse to identify their origin, they only drive people deeper into distrust.
Read the full story HERE.
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A 39-year-old Upton man has been arrested and accused of planting a homemade propane bomb in the tool shed of a Wyoming oil field company near Upton in northeast Wyoming.
David Riggle remains in the Weston County Detention Center on Saturday, held on suspicion of possession of explosives. The jail confirmed to Cowboy State Daily’s Greg Johnson that Riggle is being held on a $10,000 bond.
“They gathered some evidence right away. The sheriff in Weston county said that they got some possible fingerprints… he was confident 11 days ago, when it happened, that they would find someone, and they did… apparently the suspect had been in in Upton for a while. And what was interesting is that the judge… didn't go for $100,000 bond, like the prosecutor asked, but went with just a $10,000 bond… saying that it wasn't clear, that this guy was a danger to the community.”
While there was potential for an explosion, the sheriff said that a preliminary inspection of the propane bomb showed that it appeared to be rigged to start a fire, not blow up.
Read the full story HERE.
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Collin Townsend has been on a mission: to collect two Weston County license plates from every year they've been issued, 1914 to present day.
Twelve years into it, the Osage native finally acquired one of the “Holy Grails” of his niche collecting quest: A 1945 County 21 plate with the original wrapper. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that the rare find represents a slice of American History.
“Back then, Wyoming got new license plates every year, they encouraged people to use their license plates and then give them back to the state so they could be recycled, and then the metal could be used to make ammunition to support the United States war effort. And what's really interesting about this plate is, not only did the collector get the plate, he got the wrapper that went with it… detailing how Wyoming was contributing to the war effort. So the tons of agricultural products, the oil and gas, all the things that Wyoming was contributing that help the Allies win World War Two.”
Even with this rare find, Townsend still networks with other license plate collectors on his mission to finish the Weston County run, still enjoying the unique hobby he’s taken up.
Read the full story HERE.
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They investigate bugs, learn that pulling bark hurts a tree, they swing on hammocks and drink hot chocolate.
Those are part of the learning and adventure that ten kids have found as part of a new preschool in Casper. The Discovery Depot Forest School represents a unique concept for Wyoming preschoolers — outdoor “forest school” learning.
Cowboy State Daily’s Dale Killingbeck paid a visit to the unique school, which meets outside all the time, even during winter.
“Seeing these little kids outside playing, having a great time, and also learning in an environment, you know, outdoors, even when it's cold out, they've got their stocking caps on, their coats on, and they're having a lot of fun… they've studied migration and hibernation, you know, with holes in the ground. And don't stick your don't stick a stick in the hole, because there could be a living thing in there. So that's the kind of thing that the philosophy behind the forest school is to get the kids curious and then build lessons on top of that.”
They plan to stay in session through the school season, as long as the temperature and windchill stays above zero. The key is just having the 4-and 5-year-old students wearing the right gear.
Read the full story HERE.
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The first thing that the uninitiated who’ve only seen guns in movies might notice about guns in real life is that they’re loud — as in, incredibly loud.
But for some, the usual ear-busting crack and concussive wallop that firearms produce on their own just isn’t enough. Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports that there’s a new trend among die-hard gun fanatics - loudeners, as in, the opposite of silencers.
“I saw some examples, you know, just stuff that people have posted online where they'll take, like a funnel-like device, and they'll just attach it themselves to the end of the gun to amplify the sound… And there's also a couple commercially produced loudeners that… they are designed in such a manner that they actually push the noise, the flash and the concussion of the gun to the absolute max. So one manufacturer said it'll make your .223, sound like a 50 caliber… I talked to a few different gun people here in Wyoming, and they kind of had the same reaction as I did. Why would you want to do that? Apparently, it's, it's just something people do because they can, you know, how human beings are sometimes.”
One firearms expert said he doesn’t think that loudeners will ever catch on with Wyoming hunters and shooters, as people are trending toward using suppressors to make their guns quieter and save their hearing.
Read the full story HERE.
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The danger of dynamite was well-known to the men who used the explosives in their search for minerals in the remote mountains of Wyoming. One cow discovered just how dangerous these sticks are after dining on them for lunch in the town of Birdseye, just a few miles north of Shoshoni. It was 1907 when the cow wandered onto a mining claim, ate 19 sticks of dynamite and exploded.
Although the infamous incident happened well over 100 years ago, Cowboy State Daily’s Jackie Dorothy was fascinated by the story that seemed too strange to be true, but for which she found a number of accounts.
“The one story I found that was really credible, it was about this cow named Venus, a beloved cow, and everyone in the town knew her. She gave the best milk… Well, she wandered into this site, picked up some dynamite. The foreman looked over and he's like, Oh no, Venus. And they started to try to stop her, but she took off running with the dynamite bit down, boom. It was over for Venus.”
Fortunately, reports of animals exploding from chowing down on sticks of dynamite have now - for the most part - become a thing of the past.
Read the full story HERE.
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Let’s go now to Cowboy State Daily’s chief videographer, Reilly Strand, for our last story of the day.
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Last week Ned LeDoux, son of late country singer Chris LeDoux released a father-son duet titled “One Hand In The Riggin.” But before it could exist, the previously unreleased vocal track had to survive 21 years of inattention, a Fedex delivery and the spite of outdated technology. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that Chris LeDoux’s vocals were recorded on an obsolete format which left Ned’s producer and songwriter unsure if the song would ever come together.
“When the songwriter Brent Hill heard LeDoux singing in February at a Cowboy Poetry Gathering, he was like, oh, we should turn this into a duet…He had to FedEx the original from Utah to Nashville, and he put all these notes on the box, like, do not lose this……They try to convert it, and it's all static. ….To hear the producer, Mac McAnally Tell it, he was able to do some tricks to find the recording under all that noise, and he actually found what he called an outstanding unheard Chris Ledoux vocal track.”
According to Mac, Ned didn’t acknowledge he could sing until his dad passed, even though they sound similar. That translates to a sentiment that, the producer says, is audible on the final product.
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.
