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 All things on Earth only exist in different stages of becoming garbage.....

Julie Mankin

Wyoming Life

Entertainment

 annual “Daddy of ’em All” Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo that began Friday looks far different to some usual contestants.

Even the cowboy who could “still make Cheyenne” in George Strait’s 1996 country hit might not be aiming his truck “toward that Wyoming line” today.

That’s because entries at the Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo will be down by about 70%.

Morning slack competition, which drew hundreds of athletes in each timed event and made Cheyenne the world’s largest pro rodeo, has been eliminated.

Slack is for overflow competitors for events that draw dozens more entries than spots in the main performances. Slack usually happens early mornings or late nights, typically for timed events.

This week, just 72 of the sport’s winningest contestants (and champions of nine rodeos as far away as Oregon and Arizona) were invited to enter each event.

Before this year’s rodeo, it wasn’t unusual to see 200 or more contestants in timed slack event rounds.

The change was announced last winter as a way to help ease horse-trailer-parking congestion and create a more manageable schedule for the event’s thousands of volunteers.

Also announced was the Frontier Days Committee’s purse increase, bringing total prize money at the 10-day rodeo to $960,000.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Breaking Point"}]

Still, area barrel racer Kate Spaur Devore recently went viral with a simple social media post: “Goodbye to the Daddy.”

“Cheyenne closed the door on many of the very contestants who helped build its reputation as the ‘Daddy of ’em All,’” Devore said.

CFD is typically the third-richest rodeo in the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association’s regular season, behind Houston and San Antonio.

Because rodeo is a pay-to-play sport, accessibility to Cheyenne’s fat paychecks was known to provide the confidence and capital to launch a newcomer’s career, if not save a veteran’s entire season.

Cheyenne Frontier Days CEO Tom Hirsig said he understands eliminating slack competition is a huge change for the 130-year-old rodeo, but the world’s largest outdoor rodeo had simply outgrown its ability to handle the hundreds of slack riders.

“People are upset they’re not able to come,” he said. “But we simply have no room for those big rigs anymore.”

He also mentioned that rodeos have to absorb stock charges without help from contestants. The cost of fresh cattle today is sky-high and can’t be recaptured.

It’s a price that’s multiplied for every additional bovine chased down Cheyenne’s long arena.

Devore referenced the same sandy arena’s starring role in Garth Brooks’ 1995 hit song “The Beaches of Cheyenne” when she wrote, “So many dreamed of dancing on that stage. We came in droves, paid our entry fees, and took our chances.

[{"type":"text","text":"“Every year seemed to produce another Cinderella story.”"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"From Slack To Hall Of Fame"}]

Ote Berry, for instance, was 22 in July 1985 and about to go to work in a hay field when he won the bulldogging event in Cheyenne, which propelled the South Dakota native into his first National Finals Rodeo and a Hall-of-Fame career as one of the greatest of all time.

Eliminating the slack competitions at CFD is a fundamental change for the historic rodeo, many competitors say.

“Honestly, there is no more Daddy of ’em All,” said veteran barrel racer Kelly Yates, whose late father was a Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) director for eight years.

Yates turned pro at age 13 and has made as many competitive runs in Cheyenne as any contestant.

Along with her brother and father, both Hall-of-Fame ropers, she’s competed at the NFR.

But lately, she only competes at the finals of the PRCA’s Mountain States Circuit, which includes Cheyenne Frontier Days.

This year, Yates earned a coveted berth into Frontier Days via her 2025 circuit earnings. But she said it “won’t do her any good.”

Now that Cheyenne’s entries are so limited, its paychecks aren’t counted toward circuit standings, but only world standings.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Sudden Death"}]

The limit on entries comes seven years after another major shift was made to CFD’s competition format that had some athletes changing the famed rodeo’s nickname to “The Stepdaddy.”

Traditionally, each of 12 rodeo athletes advanced to Cheyenne’s lucrative finals based on his or her two combined scores or times.

In 2019, the rodeo switched to sudden-death tournament brackets as a way to make changing weather conditions fairer for contestants and make results easier for spectators to follow.

[{"type":"text","text":"Its popularity has been questionable."}]

Contestants now make Cheyenne’s finals based on money earned, with the losers able to take a mulligan and advance via the Wild Card Round. That means cowboys can make Cheyenne’s esteemed short round despite an earlier no-score or no-time.

Yates said she and her family members noticed fewer spectators in the grandstands when they competed last year. This year, there will be a lot fewer contestants.

Finally, the new format makes it impossible for athletes to trade at Cheyenne when they have scheduling conflicts at the simultaneous California Rodeo Salinas.

Thus, some pros are skipping Cheyenne for Salinas, which still accepts hundreds of competitors and offers a traditional competition format at Big Week.

“There’s no Daddy,” Yates said. “There’s just a Cheyenne rodeo, limited.”

Julie Mankin can be reached at: jm@outwestmedia.net

Cheyenne Frontier Cowboy Lifestyle Network 7 18 26

<title>Some Riders Say Cheyenne Frontier Days Isn't The Same After Eliminating Slack | Cowboy State Daily</title>

For the first time in more than a century, Cheyenne Frontier Days won’t have slack competition, which is for overflow competitors. Although some are saddened by the move, the rodeo says it has outgrown its ability to handle the hundreds of extra riders.

Some Riders Say Cheyenne Frontier Days Isn't The Same After Eliminating Slack

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Dale Killingbeck

Dale Killingbeck

Around Wyoming

Douglas photographer Mark Panasuk enjoys transforming a dark scene into something beautiful.

He’s always on the lookout for another interesting setting, and when he found an abandoned stone ranch house north of Lost Springs, Wyoming, he knew he had something special.

Unlike the famous line from poet Dylan Thomas, he portrayed the property as going “gentle into that good night.”

Digging into its history, Panasuk became even more enamored with capturing the stone walls and grounds with the Milky Way above it because it once was home to one of the most successful Back ranchers in the West — Jim Edwards.

“It was kind of a unique house in that it was big house, two story, out in the prairie here in eastern Wyoming,” Panasuk said. “It had several buildings … and he was really inventive because he put in that water tower.”

The tower was built with an opening that appeared to allow a space for a fire that would keep the water from freezing in the winter. 

The house had a bathroom with toilet, shower, and the property also featured a stone garage.

There is evidence of several other outbuildings that once were around it. Several accounts of the property state that Edwards was the first in the area to have indoor bathroom facilities.

Panasuk got permission from the current landowner to photograph the house and grounds, and the result shows the Milky Way like an arch above it framing the property.

He said he put a light inside the house, which has lost its windows, because he thought it made a better piece of art. 

Creating the final image required a combination of 35 photos and three-minute exposures to fully reveal the Milky Way.

He used a computer program to stitch the digital images together to make it one.

Panasuk said he spoke with some of the ranchers around the property and learned that a father or grandfather knew Edwards, who made a name for himself well beyond Wyoming.

Turns out that Edwards is a featured name at the Homestead National Historic Park in Beatrice, Nebraska, and Ebony Magazine once profiled him in its March 1949 issue that had Billy Eckstein on the cover. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Magazine Profile"}]

The profile was titled “The Last Days of Jim Edwards” and characterized him as a “legend” in Wyoming and a name that would remembered well beyond his death.

A history of Edwards written for the Black Past website says he was “one of the most successful African American homesteaders in the state of Wyoming.”

And “Pages From Converse County’s Past” compiled in the 1980s revealed that he was commonly known as “(N-word) Jim.”

But that word did not stop Edwards from becoming a successful rancher and business man. His coming and goings had fairly frequent mentions in the social columns of the local rural newspapers.

The Black Past account of Edwards' life says that he was born on Feb. 14, 1874, and arrived in Wyoming in 1900 with his father and a group of Italian miners responding to newspaper ads about work in a Lusk coal mine.

The miners drove Edwards out, and he walked to Lusk and found work on the Wilson Brother’s Running Water Ranch. 

Over the next 14 years, he rose to the rank of foreman and was a good sheepman, cowboy and horse trainer.

In his final years at the ranch, a dispute with the Wilson brothers led to a lawsuit that Edwards won in 1923, giving him $3,000 in back wages plus interest. The Wyoming Supreme Court increased it to $4,000.

The Lusk Free Lance on Nov. 1, 1923, reported that the dispute had been over an accounting of his share of sheep as well as his wages.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"1913 Homestead"}]

Meanwhile in 1913, the Wilsons helped him homestead acreage on Harney Creek. 

Edwards recruited other blacks to homestead on land around him, and he eventually bought their properties.

"Converse County's Past" states that Edwards married Lethel Dawson in 1914 in Denver, and that her parents cooked on a river boat on the Mississippi River

When her father contracted tuberculosis, they moved to Denver for his health.

A story looking back on Lost Springs in the Casper Star-Tribune on April 6, 1974, reports that Lethel’s father was a full-blooded Indian and her mother black. 

After her marriage to Edwards, she traveled to Denver from time to time to sing on radio stations.

The Lusk Standard newspaper on Sept. 12, 1919, reported that “Mrs. Jim Edwards” had just become the “happy” owner of a new piano.

“Now, we’ll have some jazz,” the editor wrote.

In the Ebony Magazine story a few years after his wife’s death, Edwards was still in charge of his 14,000-acre Sixteen-Bar-One Ranch. 

He had named it the Sixteen-Bar-One because it represented the ratio of white ranchers to black ones.

Edwards told the reporter that when he first arrived in Wyoming and then later set up his homestead, gunplay with neighboring ranchers and would-be outlaws was not uncommon. He was tested.

“No man will ever run Jim Edwards off of his land,” Edwards told the magazine. “Let ’em know right away that you’re going to fight for what you own. Just because a man’s colored is no reason for people to think he’s a coward.”

That philosophy likely was part of the reason for a story in the Niobrara County News on Dec. 3, 1914, when Edwards still served as herder for the Wilson Brothers and had a “mix-up” with a herder from another ranch over their bands of sheep.

Edwards had the man arrested, but later “dismissed the case and paid all the costs.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Sheep ‘Straying’"}]

Another mention of Edwards in the Lusk Herald a year earlier had him complaining that he had a lot of trouble with sheep “straying away.”

The Ebony account said that at one time, Edwards had 20,000 acres of land with oil rights, and during his normal operations had more than 1,000 head of cattle, 9,000 sheep, 200 horses, 5,000 chickens and 500 hogs.

He told the reporter that what he considered most important in his success was a “clean mind and a few years ago a pistol.”

“I didn’t have to use my pistol much, but then you don’t have to when you make your decision to stand at the outset,” he added.

Edwards built the stone house himself, helped pay for the construction of the Congregational Church in Lusk — where his wife sang in the choir — and told the reporter that Lethel had been “the guiding influence in my life.”

And it turned out that ranching was not his only interest and business success. 

A feature story in the Casper Tribune-Herald on July 16, 1945, profiled a restaurant co-owned by Mary Simms, a black woman, and Edwards that specialized in Southern fried chicken.

“In spite of rationing which has made it difficult to obtain the steaks to fill demand, the restaurant has kept abreast of the demands for the excellent fried chicken which has been its specialty,” the newspaper reported. “With the generous helping of chicken, French fries, a vegetable, dessert and the special golden brown succulent biscuits are served.”

Edwards’ love Lethel died of leukemia in 1945, according to the Converse County history, and he sold his ranch that contained 18 sections to four buyers in 1950.

The Scottsbluff Star-Herald on Jan. 7, 1951, recounted Edwards’ death at age 76.

“A Scottsbluff man died from suffocation Saturday night after water boiled away in a pot in which chicken was being cooked filling a basement room with smoke,” the newspaper reported. “The dead man was James E. Edwards, age unknown, who rented a room at 801 East Eighth Street.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"He is buried in Scottsbluff."}]

Panasuk said he was happy to get a photo of the once prosperous ranch while it still stands.

“The sad part about it is that probably about in 10 years it’s all going to be gone,” he said.

Edwards Ranch 7 18 26

<title>Douglas Photographer Captures Historic Black Rancher’s Homestead Under Milky Way | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A Douglas photographer found an old ranch building that caught his eye for a night shot. He found out it was once owned by one of most prosperous black ranchers in the West. “No man will ever run Jim Edwards off of his land,” the rancher once told a reporter.

Douglas Photographer Captures Historic Black Rancher’s Homestead Under Milky Way

Daily Smile

You don't intimidate me, you're going to be my best friend whether you like it or not!

Smile 7 18 26

<title>Daily Smile: Saturday, July 18, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Daily Smile: Saturday, July 18, 2026

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

Greg Johnson

CHEYENNE — Velma Wilson felt a wash of emotion that nearly had her in tears when she walked through the gates of the new Morning Star American Indian Village at Cheyenne Frontier Days on Friday.

A turquoise jewelry maker from the reservation in northern Arizona, Wilson said she wasn’t expecting to find a completely rebuilt, reimagined and elevated campus dedicated to Native American culture.

“When I first came in this morning, I was really moved,” said Wilson, who has been a fixture at the village for 26 years. “I got emotional, because this is so amazing and the (transformation) is almost unbelievable.”

As the new $10 million Morning Star American Indian Village celebrated its grand opening Friday on the first day of the 2026 Cheyenne Frontier Days, Wilson said that she and other Native Americans appreciate the transformation more than most visitors.

“You look around and what this is now and it’s really like, you know, it’s like somebody appreciates you,” Wilson said. “For years here, the Indian Village seemed like an afterthought, which is kind of what (American) history has been.”

She described setting up her booth in previous years “in a shed that was falling apart, so when it rained, water came through our roof. We had to put plastic on all our stuff to protect it.”

Then she made a grand, encompassing sweep of her arms and said that she's overwhelmed by the facility that includes new vendor spaces, rows of teepees and a grand centerpiece dance arbor that Wilson said honors her culture.

“It’s like, I can’t believe this is for us,” she said. “I was skeptical at the beginning when they were building this, but all my skepticism just all went away when I came in here.”

[{"type":"text","text":"It’s easy to see why."}]

Rebranded the Morning Star Indian Village, the winding walkways, brick vendor booths and meaningful artwork have created a new destination for Cheyenne and CFD.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"More Than A Tourist Trap"}]

In Native American culture, the Morning Star is a powerful force, representing new beginnings, said “Yellowstone” actor and frequent visitor to the Indian Village, Mo Brings Plenty.

He was the emcee of the village’s Friday grand opening, weaving humor and passion into his appreciation for the new Morning Star Indian Village.

“Years ago, this began with cowboys and Indians,” he said. “And today, what I love about this place is it maintains its tradition. We still have cowboys and Indians.”

The centerpiece of the village is an impressive dance arbor — a sunken, circular arena lined with 36 huge 18-inch fir posts that look like they’ll be there for another century.

It’s a fitting place for Native American dances, ceremonies and for family, said Wyoming state Rep. Ivan Posey, who’s an enrolled member of the Eastern Shoshone Tribe.

“Oh, this is beautiful,” he told Cowboy State Daily on Friday. “I walked through here this morning, and it’s impressive.”

He explained that the arbor is a circle for a reason; it symbolizes unity and family. During the grand opening ceremony, Posey performed a traditional cedar healing ceremony.

He also echoed Wilson in saying the new village “was probably a long time coming, but it’s here. This arbor is a great piece of work. It’s going to transcend those songs and dances to people … and give us an ability as tribal people to share that.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"‘You Got To Dream Bigger Than That’"}]

The vision for Morning Star began with Jackson resident and businessman B. Wayne Hughes Jr. and his wife, Molly, through their Hughes Foundation.

They came to Cheyenne Frontier Days officials and said, “What can we do to help you guys?” said CFD CEO Tom Hirsig. “So, they walked around and we said, ‘Well, there’s things we want to do.’”

Upgrading and rebuilding the Indian Village wasn’t one of those things, he added.

“Then they went to the Indian Village and they said, ‘This is what we want to help with. We want to improve this Indian Village,'” Hirsig said. “Wow, that’s exciting, because that’s something that really wasn’t in our plan, to put a lot of money into the Native American village.”

Cheyenne Frontier Days put together a $1 million makeover plan and took it to the couple.

“Wayne looked at us and said, ‘You got to dream bigger than that,’” Hirsig said.

That dream turned out 10 times bigger with a $10 million investment into the village.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"‘Felt The Need’"}]

Much of Friday’s ceremony was spent thanking the Hughes Foundation and the couple, who were visibly moved by what the new village means for Wyoming and Native American culture.

“You know, this is a hell of a time to choke up,” said Wayne, who also owns Cowboy State Daily.

Then he pulled out folded sheets of yellow paper and smoothed them with his hand while explaining how he would rather listen to speeches than give them.

“I usually wait until the last minute for this kind of thing, but this might be the last big speech I ever give,” he said as the crowd laughed. “Hopefully, it will be. I’m going to see if I can get through it.”

He told the several hundred gathered in a circle in and around the dance arbor that it’s humbling to see the results of years of planning and hard work by a lot of people.

“You know, walking into this place and seeing the dreams and the visions of everybody involved come to fruition is truly a blessing,” Wayne said. “And Molly and I are blessed to be here.

“We’re blessed to be citizens of Wyoming, and I just want to welcome all of you.”

He also recalled that day four years ago when he toured the Frontier Days grounds looking for opportunities to help.

“I was given a daylong tour of stadiums and barns and bleachers and building displays,” he said. “And along the way, (Wyoming Supreme Court) Justice Lynne Boomgaarden said, ‘Hey, take a look at Indian Village.’”

Being part Cherokee, Wayne said that he “felt the need … to recognize them in a way that they deserved. I was touched by the culture, and the culture touched me.

“Morning Star American Indian Village is now … truly a shining morning star,” he added. “And all the world can visit. It’s yours to share. Share it with your family, share it with your community and to commune with God.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"‘The Way It Should Be’"}]

Count Kathie Selden as one Cheyenne local who’s more than impressed with the new village.

She lives near the Cheyenne Frontier Days grounds and has been busting with curiosity for months as construction was underway.

“To get in here and see what all they were doing, it’s incredible,” Selden said. “I just walked in and it’s wonderful. I’ve been driving by for months wondering.”

[{"type":"text","text":"She said the village is now appropriate to what it represents."}]

“This is the way it should be, and we should have the support of our community as well as the First Nation community because the First Nations are the ones that this is about,” Selden said.

Her friend Lindi Kirkbride added that before, “the Indian Village seemed kind of stuck in the corner” of the CFD campus.

“Now it’s this kind of showcase, and that’s the way it should be,” she said. “It’s a statement of values rather than just, you know, this is outside everything else going on with the concerts and the rodeo and everything.”

The grand opening of the Morning Star village is just the beginning, Wayne said.

[{"type":"text","text":"“By the way,” he told the crowd. “There’s more to be done.”"}]

Wayne and Indian Village 7 17 26

<title>‘The Way It Should Be’: New $10M Indian Village Opens At Cheyenne Frontier Days | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The new $10 million Morning Star American Indian Village opened Friday for the first day of Cheyenne Frontier Days. Visitors said they were astonished by the transformation. "I got emotional, because this is so amazing," a Native American visitor said.

‘The Way It Should Be’: New $10M Indian Village Opens At Cheyenne Frontier Days

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

Outdoors

Activists want the famous Mollie’s Pack spared from hunters this fall and say the matter is, once again, drawing worldwide attention to Wyoming’s wolf management policy.

The Wyoming Game and Fish Commission on Tuesday followed the Game and Fish Department’s recommendation and voted to approve a 20-wolf quota for the 2026 hunting season. Most hunts run from Sept. 15 to Dec. 31.

Prior to the vote, Lisa Robertson of Wyoming Untrapped and Marke Cooke of Wolves of the Rockies called in to the meeting via Zoom and admonished the commission to carve out an exception for Wolf Hunt Area 1, where the Mollie’s Pack is.

The commission unanimously approved the wolf hunting seasons as recommended, including for Area 1.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Mollie’s Pack Leaves Park"}]

Included in the 20-wolf quota are four tags in Wolf Hunt Areas 1 and 2 (Clarks Fork, North Fork).

For most of its 31-year history, the Mollie’s Pack has lived within the boundaries of Yellowstone National Park, where hunting is prohibited.

However, the pack strayed outside the park, probably late last year.

The Mollie’s Pack is denning and raising pups on the Shoshone National Forest, in Wolf Hunt Area 1.

Wolf advocates worry that members of the pack could get shot this fall, particularly Wolf 1090F. At age 12, she’s the oldest living Yellowstone wolf and has gained a global fan base.

The Mollie’s Pack is thought to be the first pack to form in Yellowstone, in 1995, shortly after wolves were reintroduced into the park. It was originally called the Crystal Creek Pack.

In 2000, the pack was renamed the Mollie’s Pack. That was in honor of the late Mollie Beattie, the first woman director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS).

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Emails From All Over"}]

Robertson and Cooke told Cowboy State Daily on Friday that they, and many others, haven’t given up on trying to save the Mollie’s Pack.

Wyoming Untrapped is leading a social media campaign to keep pressure on the Game and Fish Commission to change its stance. Wolves of the Rockies and other groups are joining in.

Robertson said the matter will likely be brought up again at the commission’s next meeting, scheduled for Sept. 21 and 22 in Evanston.

Commissioner Carlisle "Fonzy" Haskell said he’s received "dozens of emails" about the Mollie’s Pack, including some from across the United States and other countries.

He doesn’t think the campaign will die down anytime soon but isn’t certain if, or how, it might affect any decisions from the commission.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"What Could the Forest Service Do?"}]

Robertson is encouraging people to reach out to the Shoshone National Forest headquarters in Cody.

The Forest Service could possibly order that cattle on grazing leases there be moved away from the Mollie’s Pack to avoid any possible conflicts, she said.

And she thinks there’s a chance that the Forest Service could halt wolf hunting in that area.

The Mollie’s Pack is Yellowstone's oldest wolf pack and includes the famous Wolf 1090F. The pack has strayed outside the park into a Wyoming wolf hunt area, and activists worry that 1090F will be shot this fall. They are requesting the pack be protected.

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