It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming, for Monday, January 13th. I’m Wendy Corr, bringing you headlines from the Cowboy State Daily newsroom - brought to you by Visit Casper. Visit Casper invites you to come enjoy the Casper International Film Festival, January 31 through February 2. A broad range of films from local and international filmmakers will be shown. Learn more and get your tickets at visitcasper.com.
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Cheyenne firefighters were dispatched to a structure fire at a familiar address Saturday night, just north of the city limits. The corrugated steel three-bay garage is the Laramie County Fire Authority’s Station 74, a non-operational facility that’s home to the department’s mechanic and wildland firefighting team.
Cowboy State Daily’s Greg Johnson drove to the firehouse that was completely gutted by the blaze.
“All the doors were off, and it looked like … this nuclear… Apocalypse landscape inside… these trucks were totally burned out. They were ash. They were gray, they were half melting… it's right across the street from a nursery, a popular nursery here in Cheyenne, and the owner of the nursery… described watching it burn and was just worried and concerned that it was going to jump over the road… Luckily, no one was there. It's not a manned station anymore. They use it to store their wildland fire firefighting gear, and the mechanic is based out of there, so they do some work. So there's nothing there that affects day to day responses.”
An investigation into what caused the fire is still underway. It’s being handled by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the Laramie County Sheriff’s Office.
Read the full story HERE.
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In late 2022, a San Diego couple began construction on a three-story mountain getaway on the banks of Lower McDonald Creek just inside Glacier National Park.
Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison reports that a federal judge is now weighing arguments in a lawsuit over the house, and her decision could invite more unregulated development inside national park boundaries.
“this couple did not get approval from the state of Montana, which regulates these kinds of things through local conservation districts. So now it's turned into this fight between this couple and the Flathead Conservation District. It's gone all the way up to federal court. We had a hearing on Wednesday, and now a judge has to decide, does the state of Montana have jurisdiction on private land inside Glacier Park, or is that jurisdiction reserved solely for the park?”
If John and Stacy Ambler prevail in this federal case, the court could grant them immunity from a longstanding state law, which is meant to prevent costly damage to Montana’s streams caused by developing in the streambed or too close to the water along the banks.
Read the full story HERE.
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The Wyoming Supreme Court is considering whether and when it’s appropriate for law enforcement agents to search a criminal defendant’s lawyer.
Attorney Jason Gay of Evanston filed a petition last week to the state’s highest court, asking it to decide if it’s unreasonable for sheriff’s deputies to search a lawyer and his office – and potentially his home – when the attorney isn’t suspected of a crime, according to Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland.
“Mr. Chet Walker of southwest Wyoming was like, Hey, I'm charged with violation of protection order, but I have some evidence that my wife violated a protection order and did some other bad things, and those are in videos on my phone… And so law enforcement… tried working with Walker's attorney Jason Gay to get the phone… but ultimately, the sheriff's office obtained the judge granted a warrant to search the lawyer's person, property, premises and his firm… So the attorney Jason gay is telling the Wyoming Supreme Court like you have to intervene, because when cops start searching criminal defendants offices, there's a risk that they'll stumble on other client files or other incriminating things or sensitive things that are supposed to be attorney client privilege.”
Gay told Uinta County authorities that he could hand over the needed data – but he wanted them to specify the scope, or just what they wanted, from the phone first, so only some evidence from the phone would be made available to law enforcement.
Read the full story HERE.
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As if hunting elk in Wyoming’s high country isn’t already tough enough, Cade Cole took it up several notches by venturing into the mountains without food or water to live off the land.
The 30-year-old hunter from Crowheart told outdoors reporter Mark Heinz he was able to kill a five-point bull with a 15-yard shot, and returned home after five days in the backcountry with only two horses and a mule for company. He said that bare-bones, primitive approach is all about getting back to the roots of hunting.
“Over the past few years, he's kind of been pushing himself to more and more primitive extremes… he took his bow, his knife, the clothes on his back, and that's all he took… In other words, he forced himself to live off the land. He started fires with the old fashioned friction method… it's just a cool experience of someone you know, taking their skills and their knowledge of of the of the wilderness to to, you know, to the. Utter extreme and challenging himself as hard as he could.”
Cole makes a living by guiding hunting trips, and also offers wilderness survival courses. But he said he doesn’t expect his clients to go to the extremes that he did.
Read the full story HERE.
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U.S. Highway 20 was thoroughly immersed in darkness when Winnie Molnar left Worland last Saturday night. That’s why she was surprised to have her route illuminated by several beams of light shining up into the sky. Molnar stopped to take photos of places where the light stretched like skyscrapers into the starless sky.
The phenomenon, called light pillars, aren’t all that unusual, reports Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi, but they only appear under certain atmospheric conditions.
“We're not talking like 32 or 30 degrees, but in the teens or single digits or lower the ice in the air forms into hexagonal crystals. And then when the light of the surrounding landscape, whether that be your car or street lights or refinery, is off in the distance, they the light refracts or reflects into these giant pillars that extend up into the heavens as far as you can go, and they reflect the color of the light, so they're a very beautiful phenomenon to witness.”
Light pillars are more common in “low spots,” like river valleys and basins where conditions can get colder and calmer.
Read the full story HERE.
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It’s not yet ready for market, but a little robot gadget will be a game-changer for agriculture safety - and could save lives by preventing grain-bin accidents.
The device, called a Grain Weevil, is a 50-pound remote-controlled robot created by a Nebraska family, which could help prevent the roughly 25 grain-bin engulfment deaths that happen every year.
“A family friend who kind of knew their expertise, said, Hey, why don't you make some kind of robot to where I don't have to go into a grain bin ever again? And so they did a little research. And you know, when they found out how dangerous it really is to go in a grain bin. They said, Heck yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna do that. And they they did get a $1.1 million in total grant from National Science Foundation to develop this… you know what looks like a solid pile of grain really isn't. And if you collapse one of these air pockets, which can sometimes be quite large, it just sucks you in kind of inexorably. If you fall in over your knees, you will struggle to get out by yourself. If it's up to your chest, it's like an emergency situation, it's literally crushing the life out of you.”
The Grain Weevil can do just about anything a person with a shovel might need to do in a grain bin, like tamping down air pockets, scooping stuck grain off the walls and breaking up surface crust so that the grain will dry properly.
The device has already caught the eye of at least one Wyoming farmer, who said he hopes it will be available soon.
Read the full story HERE.
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Imagine a future when self-driven 18-wheelers navigate the most infamous mountain highways in the West, such as Teton Pass and Gallatin Canyon.
Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison reports that when that future arrives, a Bozeman company built partially on research done in Big Sky could be at the forefront of this bold new reality for the trucking industry. In December, Aurora — a self-driving technology company — announced the opening of its new office and testing facility on Montana State University’s Innovation Campus in Bozeman.
“The technology is called LIDAR, and it uses laser pulses to measure things and detect things and respond to things. It's super eyesight. And the scientists that I spoke to at Montana State University said that they trust LIDAR more than they trust themselves driving in a snowstorm, that that at night, especially this LiDAR… it can detect things far down the road, and then, using software, stop or slow down a vehicle headed in that direction.”
Aurora’s driverless trucks are equipped with LiDAR that is designed and built in Bozeman. They expect to launch their driverless trucks in Texas in April of this year.
Read the full story HERE.
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The state of Wyoming received no advanced warning on Jan. 12, 1995, when wolves were released in Yellowstone National Park.
Then-Wyoming Gov. Jim Geringer told outdoors reporter Mark Heinz that then-U.S. Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt didn’t even offer the professional courtesy of a phone call - he called Gerninger after he landed with the plane that carried the wolves from Canada.
“They had no idea that the wolf introductions were supposed to be happening that day. They flew in, landed the planes, and it was only after the planes were on the ground and the trucks with the crates were headed toward Yellowstone. Oh, hey, by the way, we're going to release the wolves today, so that's really 30 years later that still leaves a bad taste in our mouth.”
Wildlife biologists agree that the reintegration of wolves into Yellowstone has been a resounding success, but Geringer maintains that the way Babbitt started the reintroduction was disingenuous and dismissive of Wyoming’s concerns and perspective.
Read the full story HERE.
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Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd have one of the most iconic rivalries in Hollywood history. And one of the earliest cartoons to feature the two characters facing off was set in a familiar-ish landscape - Jello-stone National Park.
Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that although “Wabbit Twouble” was released in 1941, it’s taken on a new life, thanks to the eclectic humor of the internet.
“There's an internet meme called Big Chungus, which is just a fat Bugs Bunny that's become incredibly popular in the 21st century. Now it's just happened about what's the origin of that, and it came from a 1941 cartoon… Wabbit trouble was set in Yellowstone National Park, which is a West bull we tweet for Elmer Fudd… it's a really interesting cartoon from the nascent period of the bugs and Elmer rivalry, where both the characters are recognizable, but they're not, they're established selves… And the fact that it's set in a Yellowstone, but not is just their clever way of being funny back in the 1940s but the fact that you can get a Big Chungus out of it today is a sign that these cartoons have a timeless quality that a lot of media lacks, and people are still enjoying gags and elements of those cartoons nearly a century later.”
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! Thanks for tuning in - I’m Wendy Corr, for Cowboy State Daily.
