Daily Smile

[{"type":"text","text":"He had an almost perfect plan, if not for the cameras....."}]

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

<title>Daily Smile: Monday, January 13, 2025 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

He had an almost perfect plan, if not for the cameras.....

Daily Smile: Monday, January 13, 2025

 He had an almost perfect plan, if not for the cameras.....

Anna-Louise Jackson

Business & Tourism

Business

With clear skies and temperatures flirting with 90 degrees, it’s a perfect weekend to enjoy a private island on Montana’s Flathead Lake. 

The only problem is you’ll still need $72 million to snatch it off the market.

While a lot has changed in the past four years, that’s not the case for 

 for Cromwell Island, a 350-acre island that’s home to an unfinished 45,000-square-foot French-style villa described as “reminiscent of Versailles” on the west side of the lake.

As anyone who has some experience in the real estate market knows, most sellers will entertain serious offers.

Whether one of those offers will strike the fancy of this particular owner, however, is a different matter.

“I guess time will tell where we make a deal, but the asking price is $72 million and that has not changed,” said Bill McDavid, the listing agent for the property with Missoula-based Hall and Hall.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"New Neighbors"}]

One thing that has changed is that the future owners of Cromwell Island could have some jet-set neighbors in the future.

That’s because Discovery Land Co., the developers behind the swanky Jackson’s 3 Creek Ranch and the Yellowstone Club in Big Sky, Montana, have proposed a 359-unit subdivision on 1,800 acres in Lakeside, less than 20 miles as the crow flies from the island.

But that proposed development — dubbed Territory 1889, a nod to the year Montana became a state — has run into some issues.

A local judge paused the water permitting process last month and some locals are fighting the development through the nonprofit Citizens for a Better Flathead.

Still, if that development proceeds as planned, it could help move Cromwell Island off the market for its $72 million asking price.

McDavid said it’s common for some people who buy into those sorts of enclaves to eventually decide they’d like a little more space and privacy, so they start looking for property nearby while continuing to enjoy the perks of a club membership.

“I could see the same thing happening here,” he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Languishing On The Market"}]

Another thing that admittedly has changed in the past four years is that Montana’s once-high-flying real estate market has come back to earth somewhat, and it’s taking longer for homes to move. 

As of May, Montana homes were on the market for a median of 85 days before going under contract, according to Redfin. That’s about a month longer than it was taking to move the median listing back in 2022.

While the Cromwell Island property is admittedly an outlier in so many regards, its extended stay on the market is actually not so abnormal.

One of Wyoming’s luxury home listing, the 

 in Teton County, has been on the market for $65 million for about 700 days, or just shy of two years.

Meanwhile, it’s been almost a year since the country’s most expensive listing hit the market — a 74-acre property with a private lake in Aspen, Colorado, that’s listed for a cool $300 million.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"No Changes To Property"}]

Whoever does, eventually, buy Cromwell Island will be able to boast that they own the largest privately held island in freshwater.

They also can see out the vision of its prior owner, Bob Lee, a famous collector, conservationist and explorer who founded Hunting World in the 1960s and bought the island more than 40 years ago with his wife, Anne Brockinton Lee.

Nothing about the island or structures has changed in the past year since Cowboy State Daily 

The island is accessible year-round thanks to a custom-built barge and underwater agitators that ensure a less than 10-minute journey to nearby Dayton, even during periods when parts of the lake might freeze over.

In addition to the unfinished villa, there’s another structure on the island, a boat dock that can accommodate a 70-foot yacht, a shooting range, plenty of wildlife neighbors, and a front row seat to nearby Wild Horse Island, the largest island on Flathead Lake.

And in what’s thus far been a smoke-free and sunny summer, owners can enjoy what McDavid did on his most-recent visit.

“It was gorgeous,” he said. “It was a great day to be out there.”

Cromwell Island 7 25 26

<title>Maybe This Is The Year Someone Will Finally Buy $72 Million Montana Private Island | Cowboy State Daily</title>

It's been four years without a buyer for Montana’s most expensive luxury estate, a 350-acre private island with a huge unfinished 45,000-square-foot villa. The $72 million property also features a boat dock that can accommodate a 70-foot yacht.

Maybe This Is The Year Someone Will Finally Buy $72 Million Montana Private Island

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Around Wyoming

[{"type":"text","text":"Some people collect souvenirs."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Rick Bonander collected adventures."}]

The 74-year-old Casper businessman has spent a lifetime following whatever lay beyond the next ridge, whether that meant getting lost in the Montana mountains as a boy, building one of Wyoming's most successful pipe companies, or tracking elephants, lions and Marco Polo sheep across six continents.

[{"type":"text","text":"The adventures now surround him."}]

Bonander is difficult to miss. Tall and broad-shouldered with a barrel chest, bright blue eyes and a neatly trimmed white mustache, he greets visitors with an easy smile and the confidence of someone who's seen enough of the world to know that almost everything eventually becomes a good story.

He settles into a hand-carved chair as thousands of glass eyes stare back from every direction.

Outside his home's picture windows, Wyoming stretches toward the horizon.

Inside, a crocodile lounges across the stone floor on a wooden peg leg Bonander built after discovering the reptile had lost one of its own. A leopard crouches from an upper ledge. A rhinoceros stands nearby. Cape buffalo from Zimbabwe and antelope from Africa fill every corner.

[{"type":"text","text":"Elephant feet have become leather-covered stools. "}]

"My trophy room doesn't mean anything to anybody else," he said. "But to me, I could sit out here with a drink and just daydream about each and every animal and the hunt. Every one of them I can replay in my mind."

[{"type":"text","text":"For Bonander, the room isn't about what he killed."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"It's about where life took him."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Adventure Calls"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Bonander was raised to wander. "}]

Growing up in Bozeman, Montana, he spent weekends hunting, fishing and camping with his two younger brothers. He shot his first deer at 8 years old and, by 14, was hunting on his own.

One snowy afternoon, after following a wounded deer farther than he realized, he became hopelessly lost in the Montana backcountry. Darkness settled in. Panic followed.

Sit down. Think. Figure out where you are. 

He found his bearings and walked himself home, carrying a lesson that would stay with him for the rest of his life.

That same willingness to venture into the unknown has followed him since. 

After earning a construction engineering degree from Montana State University and serving as a military police dog handler at a nuclear missile site in Washington, Bonander moved to Casper.

[{"type":"text","text":"Five years later, he gambled on himself."}]

In 1982, armed with just $260 and a willingness to outwork everyone around him, he started Intermountain Pipe. Delivering casing to drilling rigs around the clock, he built what would become one of Wyoming's premier oilfield pipe companies.

His son now runs much of the business, but Bonander still comes to the office most days.

[{"type":"text","text":"Fifty years of experience, he says, is hard to replace."}]

Building a successful company satisfied the engineer in him, but it never quieted the explorer.

For years, he devoured books about Africa before finally deciding to take "just one" safari.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"I thought I'd get it out of my system,\" he said."}]

Instead, he was planning the next trip before the airplane carrying him home had even landed. He returned to Africa more than 30 times. 

Over three decades, Bonander has hunted in countries stretching from Zimbabwe and Botswana to Tajikistan, Australia, Argentina, Scotland, Croatia and New Zealand.

[{"type":"text","text":"What keeps drawing him back?"}]

"The adventure," he said. "Getting to see new people, new places, new things."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Killer Elephant "}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Bonander never planned to hunt an elephant."}]

In 2002, he traveled to Zimbabwe hoping to pursue Cape buffalo and plains game when camp received word that a villager had been killed by a rogue bull elephant.

Years earlier, someone had tried to kill the animal with an AK-47. Instead, the bullets shattered its shoulder, destroyed much of its trunk and left it crippled. The elephant survived, but according to Bonander, it had become dangerously aggressive.

"It was missing a foot and a half of its trunk, and it was mean," Bonander said. "He wanted to kill people."

Zimbabwe wildlife officials asked whether Bonander wanted to help remove the elephant.

Trackers followed fresh prints through thick brush until they found the bull drinking from a sandy riverbed. Carrying a borrowed century-old .470 Nitro Express double rifle, Bonander eased to within about 35 yards.

[{"type":"text","text":"His first shot struck the elephant's shoulder."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"The bull spun."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"His second shot hit the opposite shoulder."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"The elephant staggered another 20 yards before collapsing."}]

For Bonander, it underscored something many Americans don't often see: in parts of Africa, hunting is also wildlife management. Dangerous animals, crop raiders and aging bulls are sometimes removed under government authority to protect both people and habitat.

[{"type":"text","text":"Nothing went to waste."}]

Villagers butchered the elephant where it fell, carrying the meat home to feed their families.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Accidental Giraffe "}]

By then, Bonander had hunted hippos, rhinoceroses, lions, elephants and more antelope species than he can easily count.

[{"type":"text","text":"One animal never interested him much."}]

The giraffe towering over his living room today wasn't his idea, he says, but his brother's.

"Mean old giraffes," as Bonander describes them, can become a problem too. As they age, dominant bulls sometimes attack and kill younger males competing for mates, making them candidates for wildlife management hunts.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"He talked me into it.\" "}]

The brothers stood shoulder to shoulder, counted to three and squeezed the triggers together.

[{"type":"text","text":"Later, they discovered their bullets had landed barely an inch apart."}]

Now the giraffe's head is neatly mounted in his house. Its feet, meanwhile, hold up an end table.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"High Elevation "}]

Bonander has stalked lions through tall African grass, fully aware "they can hunt you back."

He has also hunted hippos and crocodiles, animals responsible for thousands of human deaths across Africa each year and capable of turning a quiet riverbank into chaos in an instant.

[{"type":"text","text":"He's stood within yards of elephants."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"But the closest he ever came to dying wasn't because of an animal."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"It was because there wasn't enough air."}]

While pursuing Marco Polo sheep in Tajikistan's Pamir Mountains, Bonander climbed above 17,000 feet, where every breath felt thinner than the last.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"It just about killed me,\" he said with a laugh."}]

Hours of climbing over loose rock left him exhausted. Every step demanded more effort. Every breath came harder.

[{"type":"text","text":"Coming back down proved worse."}]

At one point, he collapsed beside the trail, struggling to breathe as his guides urged him to keep moving.

Eventually, he reached camp carrying one of the world's most coveted mountain sheep — and a newfound respect for high altitude.

[{"type":"text","text":"Ask him what he remembers most, though, and he'll tell you: The view. "}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Jagged mountains stretched to the horizon, untouched and impossibly wild."}]

The hunter later celebrated with a glass of Scotch around the campfire, replaying the day's adventure beneath a sky crowded with unfamiliar stars.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Before It's Too Late"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Bonander knows he has lived an uncommon life."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"He also knows time is catching up."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"More friends are gone than he'd like to admit."}]

His knees and shoulders have been replaced. His body carries the miles of mountains climbed, rivers crossed and continents explored.

[{"type":"text","text":"Still, he swims four mornings a week."}]

He still reads, still plans the next trip, and wonders what adventures will come next. 

"You better live life because you don't know when it's going to end," he said. "I've made a lot of money in my business, and I've been able to go enjoy life and do trips and do things. But I went and done it. I know lots of people got money, but they don't do anything. I don't understand it."

[{"type":"text","text":"At 74, Bonander isn't slowing down."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Australia is next."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Then another trip to South Africa."}]

Back home in Casper, there will eventually be another story to tell — and with any luck — another trophy. 

Rick Bonander IMG 6250 copy 7 25 26

<title>Casper Hunter Has Chased Lions, Rhinos, Elephants & Crocodiles Around The World | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Casper's Rick Bonander went to Africa once "to get it out of his system." Thirty-two trips later, the 74-year-old has tracked lions, hunted a man-killing elephant, took on a three-legged crocodile, and filled his home with memories from six continents.

Casper Hunter Has Chased Lions, Rhinos, Elephants & Crocodiles Around The World

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's business and tourism reporter, Renée Jean

Renée Jean

Time was when ding-dong ditching — the 2 a.m. knock and dash — was seen as an annoying, mostly harmless prank. But in an era of doorbell cameras, social media and jumpy homeowners, that has been changing. 

A Lander teenager learned the hard way that such pranks come with real-world consequences — including a public real-world apology to the community. 

, told Cowboy State Daily it was a case of giving in to peer pressure. 

“My friends had been, like, begging me to sneak out for a week,” the teen said. “And last time, I got into a lot of trouble, so I was just kind of trying to stay out of that. But they kept begging me to go out, so I finally just said, ‘Yes.’”

Kirk figured she would get her friends off her back by just going out briefly with them. But she hadn’t reckoned on the amount of peer pressure she was about to face.

“They kind of jokingly blocked my way home,” she said. “They were grabbing my shirt and trying to keep me from going back to my house.”

Tired and sore from playing Five vs. Five earlier that night, Eden made a decision that was about to have public consequences.

She went on the porch of the nearest home and touched the door. When that didn’t satisfy her friends, she went back to finish the job. She hesitated for a moment, however, and then dogs in the home woke up and began barking.

“I didn’t even knock or ring the doorbell,” Kirk said. “I was looking for a dumb loophole.” 

But now that the dogs were barking and there were no loopholes to be had. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"The jig was up. "}]

“They were mad I still hadn’t done it,” Eden said. “But we ran away.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"The homeowner didn’t let it go."}]

Camera video from the incident soon appeared on the “Happening in Lander” Facebook page, where other residents had been posting about a rash of such incidents all over town. 

By the next morning, what had started as a teenage prank had turned into a full-blown pile-on, aimed squarely at Kirk. Not only had the victim posted pictures from the Ring Camera, but they’d gone looking for pictures from Kirk’s social media profiles, too.

“I’m old school,” Josh Kirk told Cowboy State Daily. “I don’t approve of her having TikTok. I don’t approve of her having social media. I don’t even like thinking of her having a cellphone.”

Kirk was unhappy with what Eden had done, but even more shocked by comments claiming they would have shot his daughter dead, right through the door, without even looking first. 

He let Eden know just how dangerous the game she was playing could have become. 

“We had no clue she was out,” he said. “That’s problematic. That’s how we have kidnappings and all this other crazy stuff that goes on.”

Remote wilderness — a place where no one is likely to hear someone screaming — is less than 30 minutes away, he pointed out to Eden. He also stressed just how dangerous a turn the prank could have taken if, as commenters suggested, a homeowner decided to shoot first and ask questions later. 

“She’s a minor, but I told her that because I wanted her to understand,” Josh Kirk said. “If we don’t know where she’s at, there’s no way for us to find her. Then what’s fun and games is no longer fun and games.”

Eden’s late-night escapade wasn’t an isolated case.

For months, Lander residents have been venting on the “Happening in Lander” page about late-night knocks, pounding on doors, and doorbell camera clips of kids sprinting away into the dark.

Lander Police Chief Levi Martson says it happens just about every summer.

“Schools out, right?” he told Cowboy State Daily. “So kids are out later than they should be.”

The past weekend, there was a string of ding-dong ditch incidents three nights in a row. 

“The third night, it resulted in rocks being thrown at a vehicle,” he said. “So it’s kind of escalated from ding-dong ditching to property damage. So we are seeing, for some reason, it starts out small, then they get more brazen.”

Martson sees inherent risks with the activity for everyone involved.

“A lot of people have these doorbell cameras, so they can see people at their door, and they don’t know what they’re up to,” he said. “So there is that fear which can create some need for self-defense.”

So far, no one has been shot as a result of ding-dong ditching, Martson said. 

“But certainly, something could happen by a homeowner who feels threatened,” he said. “They don’t know the difference between a juvenile playing a prank and somebody trying to break into their home.”

Such cases would be taken on a case-by-case basis, Martson said. But the key is, if there’s a shooting, even if it’s justified, there’s going to be an investigation.

“No matter what the reasoning is, it will always be investigated,” he said. “It’s illegal to discharge a firearm in Lander. So if we get a call for service and somebody’s reporting that a firearm was discharged, we’re definitely going to investigate that. 

“And if someone is seriously injured or even killed, we will not just say, ‘Oh, sorry, we can’t respond.’ That’s a critical event in our world. That’s something that requires a lot of resources, and it would be all hands on deck.”

For Eden Kirk and her family, these risks didn’t feel hypothetical any more. They were being spelled out in angry comments online.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"First A Private Apology"}]

Kirk’s own family has been among the targets of recent ding-dong ditch incidents, which further deepened his own disappointment with his daughter. 

“We got hit, probably, I would say eight to 10 times,” he said. “And one of the times, my mom was visiting from Georgia. It scared my mom half to death.”

It was ultimately that fact which opened Eden’s eyes to how her prank felt to the homeowner who had caught her and her friends in the act.

“When she mentioned that she had her 81-year-old mother there with her, it kind of just dawned on me, like I remembered how terrified my grandma was,” she said. “And I don’t think she’s one to have, like, heart failure and that, but there are definitely a lot of older people who, if they get shaken up enough, they could totally have like a heart attack or something.”

Eden realized then what she’d done wasn’t just a harmless prank at all. It could cause real distress, even terror. 

She knew she had to apologize to the woman and her family in person.

Knocking on that door by the light of day was hard. 

“Even though it was peer pressure, that’s not an excuse,” Eden said. “It was my decision. I still did it. And I don’t blame it on any of my friends either. I know they were just trying to get me to have a fun time.”

The woman ultimately accepted Eden’s apology, Kirk said, and decided not to press charges.

“We were thankful for that,” he said. “And the reason she did is because Eden’s personal apology, when Eden went to her house. She said her apology was so sincere, and she realized that Eden was just caught up in peer pressure.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Then A Public Apology"}]

Kirk and his wife, Bonnie, didn’t excuse Eden. But as they watched the anger build online — and saw commenters posting TikTok photos of their daughter and accusing her of every unsolved ding-dong ditch and act of vandalism in town 

 they decided more than a personal apology was required.

First, Bonnie pushed back on Facebook, asking that posts featuring their minor daughter be taken down and calling out what she saw as a dangerous mob mentality.

“Eden will see you at 5:30 p.m. to apologize,” she wrote on social media. “In the meantime, I ask you to please remove this post. You have, unintentionally, I hope, incited a mob mentality amongst the Lander people. You have also posted photos of a minor without parental consent … I don’t condone being awakened and startled in the night by roaming kids, but for all you quote unquote intelligent keyboard warriors of Lander, stay in your lane, go water your grass, take a swim, get off Facebook for everyone’s sake, or move to New York or California.”

She added that her own family had been targeted by whoever was doing all the ding-dong ditching as well, but said that the threat level being turned toward the community’s children was uncalled for.

The Kirks also told Eden in no uncertain terms that it was not enough to apologize to her victim personally. This apology needed to be made in public, to the entire Lander community.

For that apology, Kirk hit the record button on his phone and told his daughter to speak from her heart, without a script. 

In the video, she owned up to sneaking out, explained the peer pressure she’d felt, then apologized directly to the homeowner and the town. She also urged other kids to think about what they’re doing, and not make the same choice she had made.

“I actually didn’t realize my child was that well-spoken,” Kirk said. “She spoke her heart, and it evidently touched a lot of other people as well.”

The video has spread quickly, between the homeowner’s Facebook page and Josh’s account, it has already racked up tens of thousands of views. But this time, the comment section looks much different.

“It sent from that first post that as attacking — it was evil — to just an overwhelming outpouring of good people,” Kirk said. “There were so many people saying, ‘We forgive you. Thank you for apologizing. Thank you for being accountable.’ It was such a beautiful thing.”

For Eden, the entire episode is a hard-won lesson in how “harmless” pranks can spin out of control. And how public the fallout can be. 

“I’m getting back to painting and reading,” she said. 

Kirk, meanwhile, is taking to heart words in Eden's apology, as well as what he heard a couple of children he caught ding-dong ditching his home say.

“There’s nothing to do in Lander at night for these kids,” he said.  “I mean you can’t hunt, you can’t fish, you can’t rock climb, you can’t hike at nighttime, and these kids — they’re kids.”

Kirk hopes to get a coalition to create more wholesome opportunities for teenagers. 

“Nothing good happens after midnight,” he said. “And these children need to be made aware. But it’s also brought an awareness to me of what can I do for the community? 

"What can I do to get a coalition together to create something better for the community and give the kids something do? We need to, as a community, band together and let’s figure something out.”

History Channel's "Mountain Men" star Josh Kirk wan't going to let his teen daughter get away with ding-dong ditching homes in Lander, so he made her own up to her actions and issue a public apology. “Even though it was peer pressure, that’s not an excuse,” she said.

Daily Smile: Monday, January 13, 2025

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