Daily Cartoon

Russo for jan 23

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

<title>Daily Cartoon: Thursday, January 23, 2025 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Daily Cartoon: Thursday, January 23, 2025

Julie Mankin

Crime & Courts

A Wyoming barrel racer was stunned to learn that the 17-year-old girl accused of stabbing three horses during a major rodeo event in Las Vegas over the weekend was the same rider who tried to borrow one of her horses.

“About a month ago, I got a message from a girl asking if I had a horse she could run,” said Lora Nichols of Pavillion. “I said no, and she kept asking about each of my specific horses. 

“This weekend I looked to see if it was the same girl they arrested. It was! It makes my skin crawl to realize she was stalking my horses, too. It could have been me just as easily.”

Nichols, who has earned more than $400,000 competing on the half-brother brother of one of the stabbed horses, said she’s especially horrified by the attack.

Along with Nichols, Wyoming’s rodeo community is shocked and appalled by the Tonya Harding-like violent rampage that left the three barrel racing horses stabbed multiple times.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"What Happened"}]

Las Vegas police report that the 17-year-old barrel racer was arrested in connection the attack on the horses of competitors.

The girl is accused of stabbing each of the horses multiple times inside their stalls during 

the NBHA Professional’s Choice Vegas Super Show at the South Point Equestrian Center.

The attack came just hours after one of the horses — a 6-year-old gelding named Saaul Good — had carried 20-year-old Hailey Krahenbuhl to a first-place paycheck of $1,805. 

The horse, which Krahenbuhl calls “Sully,” has shattered arena records this season and racked up $238,388 in earnings in less than four years competing. 

“Sully was stabbed multiple times last night,” Krahenbuhl posted to her Facebook page on Saturday. “I have no words. He is stitched up and in recovery.” 

The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department reports that officers received a report at around 2:07 a.m. Saturday that a horse had been injured inside a South Point barn. 

When officers arrived, they learned three horses had been “intentionally injured with a sharp object” believed to be a knife, police say.

Veterinarians reportedly cleaned and sutured deep blade lacerations to Sully’s flank and shoulder. 

Another competitor named Keira Weisbart confirmed on social media that her horse, Rocket, was stabbed three times and had other “stab attempts around his body.” 

That horse was reportedly treated and released at the scene.

A third stabbed horse, however, underwent emergency surgery to repair muscle tissue damage. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Detail’s Ordeal"}]

Southern California barrel racer Arielle Phillips owns that third horse, a mare she calls Detail was stabbed multiple times.

, Phillips described the arrested teen as “a crazy obsessed stalker who has been following me on social media for a long time, obsessing over Detail, obsessing over meeting me.”

Phillips said she’d arrived back at the South Point barn to find the suspect hosing off Detail’s wounds.

“Cameras verified her entering our stalls,” wrote Phillips. “I can’t even put into words the pain I feel for my mare and for Hailey’s Sully.”

She said the attack has also affected her horse.

“Detail is traumatized,” Phillips wrote. “Every time she runs away from the approach of my hand, I burst into tears. This is my best friend. An innocent sweet horse was brutally tortured for no reason.”

While all three horses are expected to recover, they are sidelined for the near future and aren’t able to compete.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Champion Lineage"}]

Krahenbuhl, the daughter of a Las Vegas landscaper who grew up about 15 minutes from The Strip, had plans to hit the rodeo road with Sully — whose sire Winner’s Version has produced earners of more than $7 million — and make an NFR run in 2027. 

“We were a match from the beginning and my dreams became reality, all thanks to him,” she wrote prior to the attack from Globe Life Field during the $3 million American Rodeo. 

 to help with at veterinary for all three of the horses.

Nichols said she knows those other girls and is heartbroken for them and their horses.

“I’ve competed alongside Hailey a lot, and she’s an amazing human being,” said Nichols. “I think of the raw emotion and just the blood, sweat and tears she’s put in ­— you know, how hard she’s worked to get there. 

“When I heard it was her horse, I was just sick to my stomach.”

According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, detectives located the suspect at a nearby hotel and took her into custody.

“She was transported to Clark County Juvenile Hall, where she was booked on 12 counts of willful or malicious killing, maiming or torturing of an animal and three counts of felony malicious destruction of private property over $5,000,” investigators told KTLA 5 Morning News.

Because of her age, official law enforcement sources have not identified the suspected publicly.

Veteran barrel racers have over the years heard rare rumors of winning horses being poisoned, but a brazen rash of stabbings is a first. 

Nichols said the incident makes her think of a made-for-TV movie in which the stalker ends up booked for murder. 

She’s also grateful the suspect wasn’t targeting the girls themselves.

“I just think we’re sheltered from that so much in our world,” added barrel racer and Gillette College rodeo coach racer Casey Rae Sellers. “The youth in our industry are pretty dang good kids. This is so out-of-character for the Western industry.”

Horses stabbed Krahenbuhl and Sully at The American 6 1 26

<title>Wyoming Barrel Racer Says She Was Approached By Alleged Horse-Stabber | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A Wyoming barrel racer was stunned to learn that the teen girl accused of stabbing three horses in Las Vegas over the weekend tried to borrow one of her horses last month. “It makes my skin crawl to realize she was stalking my horses, too,” she said.

Wyoming Barrel Racer Says She Was Approached By Alleged Horse-Stabber

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

Outdoors

For wolves in Yellowstone, it’s all about survival, and sometimes that doesn’t leave much room for niceness – pack members sometimes put the smack-down on each other, just to maintain order.

There can be a “constant rivalry among pack members” and only dominant breeding wolves are rarely, if ever challenged, biologist Robert Crabtree told Cowboy State Daily.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Discipline In The Wapiti Pack"}]

Willow Holm recently captured video of a member of the Wapiti wolf pack harshly correcting one of its packmates on the west side of Yellowstone National Park.

She’s not sure what prompted the episode, in which a black wolf bowls over and pins down a tail-tucking gray wolf.

“That had been all around us (for hours). This happened just as they were leaving,” said Holm, who frequently visits Yellowstone with her parents, April and Patrick Holm.

The pack had spent much of the day hunting bison, but didn’t have any success, she said.

Two top wolf biologists said the video shows the type of behavior wolves engage in to maintain discipline within the ranks, so to speak.

“I think the video is very interesting, but standard social interaction for wolf pack members. Classic straight tail for the dominant (wolf) and tucked tail for the subordinate,” said Crabtree, the founder, chief scientist and president of the Yellowstone Ecological Research Center.

Biologist Doug Smith said the gray wolf was “very submissive.”

The black wolf was clearly communicating, “I’m in charge here,” said Smith, who led Yellowstone wolf program in for nearly three decades.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"‘Who Is Calling The Shots?’"}]

Wolves aren’t always harsh with each other. Sometimes, they romp and play 

, which also help with pack cohesion and hunting skills.

But there’s a time and place for corrective measures between wolves as well.

Basic pack structure in Yellowstone hinges on a “dominance hierarchy,” Smith said.

The top dogs are usually a breeding male and female.

“They don’t fight each other and they don’t exhibit dominance with each other. But who is calling the shots? Usually the female,” he said.

When food is abundant, a second female might be allowed to breed, Smith said.

“The top positions are more fixed. The positions below the lead wolves are more fluid,” Smith said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Competition Within The Ranks"}]

The jostling for lower position is segregated by sex, he added. In other words, males compete with other males, females with females “and it doesn’t cross over.”

And as with humans, wolves’ personalities can play into their management styles.

“There’s some packs where the dominant wolf easygoing, and it’s difficult to tell who the leader is,” Smith said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"In other packs, the leaders are harsh."}]

The black wolf in the video “was quite aggressive” and might be the lead wolf,” he said.

It’s difficult to say whether the pack’s lack of success hunting that day played into the aggressive behavior, Smith said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"But hunger can be a factor."}]

“That type of behavior is personality-driven and food-driven,” he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"‘A Dominance Fight’"}]

An abundance of food helps keep things relatively peaceful within packs, Smith said.

A lack of food can cause “social tenson,” he said.

“When you’re having trouble making ends meet, everybody’s stressed,” he said.

Once in a while, there might be a “dominance fight” when one of the lower wolves challenges a leader, Smith said.

More often, the changing of the guard happens because of a death at the top.

When the dominant female dies, the formerly dominant male might get “evicted” by a new male joining the pack, he said.

The new dominant, breeding female might be the daughter of the past top pair and “wolves avoid inbreeding,” so that’s why the former dominant male, her father, has to go, Smith said.

Wolves in Yellowstone are protected and may not be hunted by humans.

In that setting, lower-ranking males are much more likely than females to disperse from the pack and try their luck at becoming a top, breeding leader elsewhere, Smith said.

Outside of the park, where wolf hunting is allowed, females and males disperse about equally, he said.

Wolf packs outside Yellowstone “are less stable” in their social order because of hunting, he said.

Wolf smackdown 2 6 1 26

<title>Wolves Putting The Smackdown On Each Other Is How Yellowstone Packs Maintain Order | Cowboy State Daily</title>

For wolves in Yellowstone, it’s all about survival. Pack members sometimes put the smackdown on each other, just to maintain order. One biologist said a video captured last week by a visitor shows one wolf clearly telling another, "I'm in charge here."

Wolves Putting The Smackdown On Each Other Is How Yellowstone Packs Maintain Order

Employee kate meadows cropped

Kate Meadows

Public Safety

A 56-year-old Centennial, Wyoming, man died after slipping on steep terrain while hiking near the Falls Overlook in Albany County.

Michael Werkeiser was descending into a narrow crevice when he fell into Mullen Creek, according to a Saturday report from the Albany County Sheriff’s Office. 

Werkeiser is believed to have suffered a head injury during the Friday fall, which resulted in him becoming unconscious. He became trapped in the fast-flowing water.

Another member of his hiking group immediately went into the creek after him in an attempt to save Werkeiser, the sheriff’s office reports.

Albany County deputies were dispatched to the Falls Overlook area on Forest Service Road 307 at 7:47 p.m. Friday after receiving a 911 text message.

Werkeiser was still alive at that time, but was unconscious and having difficulty breathing, the text said. Emergency communication continued via text message because of the remote location and lack of cellular service.

Members of the Albany County Sheriff's Office's High Angle Rescue Team, Albany County Search and Rescue, Laramie Fire Department and Centennial Volunteer Fire Department coordinated a complex rescue effort. 

Responders rappelled about 30 feet into Mullen Creek to reach and recover both Werkeiser and the hiking companion who had gone into the creek after him.

Werkeiser was pronounced dead at the scene, and the person in the water with him was released after refusing medical treatment.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'He Would Give You the Shirt Off His Back'"}]

People took to social media following the accident to remember Werkeiser as an adventurer and a “salt-of-the-earth” person.

For Teresa and Kirk Strom, memories of Werkeiser are forever tied to one of the most unusual days of their lives — their wedding atop Devils Tower in 1994.

The Stroms had met Werkeiser through a tight-knit group of rock climbers in Laramie in the early 1990s. 

When the couple decided to get married, they skipped the traditional church ceremony and opted instead for a low-budget adventure befitting a group of recent college graduates. They climbed Devils Tower and handed out flyers inviting friends to join them on the summit.

“We ended up with about 18 or 19 people on top,” Teresa Strom recalled. “Mike was one of the friends that summited Devil’s Tower with us.”

A local minister agreed to climb up and perform the ceremony, turning the mountaintop gathering into what Strom remembers as a remarkable celebration among friends. 

Werkeiser was there for all of it, along with several friends who had traveled from Pennsylvania.

[{"type":"text","text":"“It was a pretty big deal,” she said."}]

Strom described Mike as the kind of person who never hesitated to help others. 

“He was a good guy. He’d give you the shirt off his back,” she said. 

Even when years passed between visits, reconnecting with him felt effortless, she said, adding that “there could be a lapse in seeing him, but you’d never feel that distance.”

Over the years, Werkeiser joined the Stroms on numerous outdoor adventures. They fished, camped, mountain biked and snowboarded together. 

“Mostly, he just hung out with us,” Strom said with a laugh. “Mike was up for anything.”

Werkeiser originally came to Wyoming as a truck driver, but quickly found a community among the state’s climbers and outdoor enthusiasts, Stom said. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Before long, he decided to stay. "}]

[{"type":"text","text":"“I think he fell in love with Wyoming and found his home,” she said."}]

After learning of his death, Strom found herself digging through old boxes and trunks, searching for photographs from that long-ago wedding on top of Devils Tower. 

She said she plans to share them with his family — snapshots of a friend who was there for one of life’s biggest moments and who remained part of their circle for decades afterward.

Medicine bow 6 1 26

<title>Wyoming Hikers Unable To Resuscitate Centennial Man Who Died After Fall Into River | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A 56-year-old Centennial man died Friday after slipping on steep terrain and falling into Mullen Creek in Albany County. He is believed to have suffered a head injury in the fall and then became trapped in the fast-flowing water.

Wyoming Hikers Unable To Resuscitate Centennial Man Who Died After Fall Into River

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

A Torrington family is in shock after finding their mutilated dogs partially submerged in the North Platte River outside of Torrington.

Angelica Garcia told Cowboy State Daily on Monday that two rottweilers owned by her parents had gotten loose from their home Friday and hours later were found dead by a woman and her son who were walking by a popular fishing spot on the river.

Garcia said the discovery of the two dogs named Django and Hera left her stunned.

"The top of Django's head was gone and Hera's neck and chest were gone," Garcia said.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"They were family dogs. I trusted them around my kids,\" she added."}]

Goshen County Sheriff Kory Fleenor confirmed Monday that his office has an open investigation into the incident. 

He declined to comment on whether investigators have determined a cause of death, whether any suspects or persons of interest have been identified, or what evidence investigators have gathered, citing the active nature of the case.

Garcia said her parents last saw the dogs late Friday morning after letting them outside near their Torrington home.

The two rottweilers, a brother and sister who were both nearly 6 years old, had occasionally gotten loose before and were familiar to many people in town, Garcia said.

When her father realized the dogs had not returned, he began searching for them. A short time later, the family learned the dogs had been found dead near the North Platte River.

[{"type":"text","text":"Questions Remain "}]

Garcia said her family believes the dogs were unlawfully killed and wants investigators to thoroughly examine what happened.

She said relatives have searched for information, spoken with people in the area where the dogs were found and tried to learn whether anyone witnessed the incident.

[{"type":"text","text":"So far, she said, they have found no eyewitnesses."}]

"We're drawing a blank as to what happened," Garcia said. "Or why it happened." She added that on top of being concerned the dogs were shot, she's concerned "it happened in the city." 

 that accuses authorities of not doing enough to investigate the deaths.

"Whoever did this brutally murdered these dogs, took their collars and drug them off and dumped their bodies in the river," the petition reads.

"There is a lead and law enforcement is refusing to look further and do their job," it reads.

The Torrington Police Department also responded after the dogs were found, according to Garcia. 

She said city police helped direct the case to the sheriff's office because the location where the dogs were discovered fell under county jurisdiction.

Torrington Police Chief Matt Johnson did not return a request for comment.

[{"type":"text","text":"A Gruesome Discovery"}]

Garcia began to choke up when she described the condition of the dogs and added the collars on the dogs were missing.

[{"type":"text","text":"The family believes the dogs were killed with a shotgun. "}]

One question repeatedly raised online is whether Wyoming law allows people to shoot dogs under certain circumstances.

 does permit dogs to be killed if they are running livestock and the livestock has been injured or is threatened with injury. The law also shields the person who kills the dog from liability if the danger or damage can be shown.

So far, however, authorities have not publicly indicated whether livestock played any role in the deaths of Django and Hera.

The dogs were known to "get out," said Garcia, "and they would kind of roam around, but nobody ever really made a big deal about it." 

"They would just call the dog catcher or local PD, and they would tend to joke about it, like they're just really nice dogs, and you know, even when they picked them up, the dog catcher was appalled at what happened, because she knew them, you know," she said.

Garcia added that she doesn't think the dogs were bothering livestock, "They would never go after cattle or anything like that." 

Rottweilers 6 1 26

<title>Torrington Family Says Rottweilers Were Mutilated And Dumped In The River  | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A Torrington family is in shock after finding their mutilated dogs partially submerged in the North Platte River. Angelica Garcia said one dog's head was removed and the other was missing its neck and chest. "They were family dogs," she said.

Torrington Family Says Rottweilers Were Mutilated And Dumped In The River 

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

Renée Jean

Wyoming Life

Around Wyoming

EVANSTON — One of the first times Jim Davis walked into the city’s historic Roundhouse and Railyards decades ago, it was like a scene from a movie. 

There was the crumbling railroad roundhouse, with its broken windows and pigeon feathers floating on the air, spinning as his footsteps stirred little puffs of dirt.

The rusted tracks disappeared into darkness. The roof was leaking, and the smell of that decay was everywhere. 

But there were rays of sunlight shining down into that darkness, and he had the sudden sense that all was not lost here. 

This was something special, something worth saving. 

Saving Evanston’s roundhouse has taken $28 million in private money and grants, as well as decades of volunteer time and effort, Davis said. 

But that’s given Evanston something few communities in America have — a completely functioning, fully intact roundhouse that he believes could be a tourism powerhouse, if Evanston ever decides to lean into promoting it. 

Everyone he has ever taken to see the building, without fail, has the same reaction, Davis told Cowboy State Daily. 

“Every single time I open the doors and walk into the roundhouse …. the first words out of their mouth are, ‘Oh my God,’” Davis said. “Their reaction was it was so phenomenal to see that space the way we were able to fix it up.”

 is a 63,000-square-foot, 96-foot-deep curved brick-and-mortar behemoth built around a post-and-beam interior.

The walls are lined with huge banks of wood-framed windows to provide natural light. It has a two-level terraced roof, and the face of the terrace is covered with windows to provide additional natural light. 

Davis likes to go up to the mezzanine level, where there’s a small kitchen area and space for parties.

“It’s just a beautiful space,” he said. “And I really enjoy taking people up there. It’s really well-thought of and the architects were so good to work with.”

Keeping it a roundhouse, Davis believes, is key to its intrigue. 

To think that inside that cavernous, multistory space lit by sunlight still that huge train cars were driven inside on tracks and then rotated by the gigantic round wheel inside to one of 28 stalls is awe-inspiring. 

All the historical photos, meanwhile, help tell a timeless legend of how America was built.

A Roundhouse Corridor That Built Southern Wyoming

Once upon a time, there were dozens of roundhouses like Evanston’s in towns across Wyoming and the West, Davis said. 

They were positioned all along the tracks, about every 100 miles. That’s about how long trains could go in the beginning without having to stop to refuel and repair. 

Over time, they became more and more efficient and roundhouses began to close. Evanston’s was slated for closure in 1926, putting at least 100 people out of work.

“We were the first roundhouse in the state to close,” Davis said. “Engines had become more efficient and they could run from Green River to Ogden without stopping in Evanston.”

It seemed unfortunate at the time, but it set off a series of events that would ultimately help save the facility.

“The city leaders thought we need those jobs now,” Davis said. “So they got on a train to Omaha, which is the headquarters, and begged them to keep the buildings open.”

Union Pacific ultimately did listen, and reopened the roundhouse and rail yard the following year as a reclamation plant, which added 200 jobs to the former 100, making for a total of 300.

“That saved those buildings,” Davis said. “They fixed all kinds of equipment for Union Pacific.”

Other roundhouses in Wyoming shut down: Laramie, Rock Springs, Rawlins, and even Cheyenne.

But Evanston’s, as a reclamation facility, kept going until 1971, after which Union Tank leased the facility from Union Pacific, and then Union Pacific quit-claimed the 21-acre property — depot, roundhouse, machine shop, yard, and related buildings — to Evanston in 1973.

A century after Union Pacific stopped using it, decades of work has saved and restored Evanston’s historic Roundhouse and Railyards. The $28 million spent so far has made it one of the rare roundhouses in the U.S. that’s still completely operational. 

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