It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming, for Thursday, February 27th. I’m Wendy Corr, bringing you headlines from the Cowboy State Daily newsroom - Brought to you by the Wyoming Senior Olympics, thanking the participants, volunteers, supporters, and sponsors of the February winter games in Pinedale. Visit Wyoming senior olympics dot com!
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The Wyoming Senate dropped a bombshell Wednesday evening, announcing it will not pass a supplemental budget in this year’s legislative session, something that may be unprecedented for the Legislature.
Cowboy State Daily’s Leo Wolfson spoke to several members of the Senate leadership, who concluded that, quote, “now is not the time to increase spending needlessly.”
“That's really a historic move… What it means is they're not gonna make any changes to the current biennium budget. The supplemental budget serves as an update, a mid year update to the two year biennial budget. It allows for cost increases for certain programs and things emergencies as they arise. The Senate leadership has basically said they're going to do those things such as wildfire mitigation and external cost adjustments in other standalone pieces of legislation… but I spoke to Senator Charlie Scott, the longest serving member of the Wyman legislature. He's been in there since 1979 he said there has never been a time that this has ever occurred to his knowledge.”
The Senate said the 2025-2026 biennium budget provides the necessary money to run the state. In eight months, budget discussions for the next biennium will begin.
Read the full story HERE.
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The FBI on Tuesday arrested an illegal immigrant from Mexico with probable ties to a transnational drug cartel, suspected of dealing large quantities of methamphetamine around Wyoming’s Wind River Indian Reservation.
Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that agents arrested the Mexican national, who is in the U.S. illegally, in Fremont County on Tuesday. He was found with about one pound of meth and multiple guns when arrested.
“1:24 He wasn’t nabbed on the reservation, but the allegation is that he was dealing large quantities of meth there, that he’s affiliated with a drug cartel, and that he’s an illegal alien out of Mexico… 1:47 This was, it looks like, a joint operation involving the FBI, ICE and other agencies… 2:03 Drug activity has been an issue on the reservation for years, it’s been addressed in memos before congress, and so I feel like this story has taken off as much as it has already because people are always eager to find the source.”
At the same time as this arrest, authorities took two more people into custody, one of whom was in the country illegally.
Read the full story HERE.
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President Donald Trump’s first cabinet meeting on Wednesday included calls for an energy boom, with the nation’s leader calling for doubling — or even tripling — the nation’s electric capacity.
Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that that would be an astounding increase to the nation’s electric grid, and Wyoming, as the nation’s No. 3 energy exporter would have a huge role to play.
“Trump said, we're leading right now with AI. We're leading with everything right now. But we … need resources. We have to … really triple, if you think of it, the electrical capacity from what we have right now, if you can believe it, and so it's significant for Wyoming, because we are the nation's number three energy exporter… We are only behind Texas, and I think it's Pennsylvania in the number two spot… there are some hurdles, one of them being transmission lines. They're hugely expensive to build. You know, they need federal permits. Typically they can take a decade to get through the current system.”
Wyoming’s Congressional delegation applauded the president’s remarks, and said Wyoming is ready to meet the challenge.
Read the full story HERE.
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Word that U.S. Forest Service Chief Randy Moore is retiring in the midst of cuts to the agency’s workforce was greeted with a “don’t let the door hit ya’” response by Wyoming’s congressional delegation.
Cowboy State Daily’s Sean Barry spoke to Wyoming’s congressional delegation, who expressed no remorse over Moore’s departure.
“Certainly critics of the Trump administration are going to point to this as more chaos in the land use agencies and so on and so forth. These lawmakers from Wyoming, us, Senator John Barrasso, us, Senator Cynthia Lummis and us, rep Harriet Hageman, they were basically indifferent to it. Although Rep Hagaman in particular was happy to see him go. She pointed out that, in her view, he's mismanaged federal lands, and part of that has involved hiring with no plan in place for the long term.”
Eight national forests are located in whole or in part in Wyoming, totaling more than 9 million acres in the state. Bridger-Teton, which is entirely within Wyoming’s borders, is the third-largest national forest in the Lower 48 and fifth-largest altogether at 3.4 million acres.
Read the full story HERE.
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A man accused of sending a bomb to his ex-wife’s new boyfriend’s house in Green River in 1982 has been caught in New Mexico after more than 40 years.
The Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Office says that 76-year-old Stephen Campbell was captured Feb. 19 after a dramatic standoff with New Mexico and federal authorities.
He’d been living under an identity he stole from a dead college classmate, according to Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland, who recounted the allegations around the bombing.
“2:50 You can almost picture it, reading the court documents. Because it’s her boyfriend’s house, and she sees the package, and all the trappings to her indicate that, oh, this is my husband’s writing, this how my husband wraps things, this is the way he puts packages inside bags. And so you can imagine that her curiosity was piqued, why is this package from my husband on my new boyfriend’s porch? And as she opens the latch, it just blows… 3:40 He was caught right away and held on a surety bond, and bonded out, and vanished. And it’s 3-4 years later, there’s a court filing… it’s addressing the bondsman, it’s like, I’m sorry to do this at Christmas time, but you’ve gotta give this up.”
Campbell appeared in federal court early Wednesday in New Mexico on a charge of fraud relating to using a stolen identity. If convicted on that charge, he faces up to 10 years in federal prison, then would be extradited to Wyoming to stand trial for the bombing.
Read the full story HERE.
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The 2024 election season in Wyoming was an active time for out-of-state groups spending an unprecedented amount of money on certain candidates. It appears this has to at least some extent mutated into this year’s legislative session.
A Texas-based conservative Libertarian group called the American Action Fund has been sending a high quantity of text messages and mailers out during this year’s legislative session. Cowboy State Daily’s Leo Wolfson reports that the group is asking Wyoming voters to pressure lawmakers on certain bills like property taxes and universal school vouchers.
“They're definitely pushing for a very aggressive stance on the school vouchers bill, basically a no compromises type approach on that and similar goes for Senate file 69 the big property tax bill as well. Um, they've been sending these, these messages out to people all around Wyoming, and they even have postcards that allowed them to be resent to the governor. I spoke to the governor's office, and he said that they've received about 1000 of these postcards, but the support has been split, with a lot of people saying they don't agree with what the postcards say… it's definitely raising eyebrows to see a Texas Group spending so much time and effort in the Wyoming Legislature.”
American Action Fund did not respond to numerous requests for comment from Cowboy State Daily. It does not appear the group has any lobbyists based in Wyoming or attending the legislative session in-person.
Read the full story HERE.
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Wyoming could be only days away from the first sighting of a grizzly to emerge from hibernation this year – but nobody knows when, or even if Grizzly 399’s cub will show.
Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz spoke to several experienced Wyoming wildlife photographers, some of whom predicted that the first grizzly could be spotted in just a couple of weeks.
“Usually, large lone male bears are the first ones that come out, and then gradually, younger bears will start coming out. And then, usually, the females with the cubs are the last ones. So this, course, will be the first spring in a long time that the world won't be awaiting the emergence of grizzly 399, because … as we know, she was struck and killed by a car last fall, but some folks are wondering if her cub, which they named spirit, Spirit hasn't been seen … since the accident that that … killed 399. But folks are hoping that maybe Spirit will pop back up somewhere that managed to survive hibernation, made it through the winter and will re emerge.”
Last year, the first official grizzly sighting was on March 13 in Yellowstone National Park. The first grizzly of the season in the Teton area was seen and photographed on March 23rd.
Read the full story HERE.
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And Cowboy State Daily has received a huge honor. The National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City has selected The Roundup, our weekly podcast that focuses on interesting people in the Cowboy State, as the recipient of this year’s Western Lifestyle Award.
Known as the Oscars of the Western world, the award, now in its 64th year, honors those who have made significant contributions in literature, music, television and film who embody the spirit of Western culture and life. The episode that won this year’s Western Lifestyle award was my conversation with Longmire author Craig Johnson.
Cowboy State Daily Co-founder and Executive Editor, Jimmy Orr, said he is pleased to see the podcast receiving national recognition.
“If you are familiar with the podcast, then you know it really stands out. It stands out because it is fun and it is just miles ahead of so many completely boring podcasts. Wendy has fun. Wendy has major market talent… it's indicative of what Cowboy State daily is. You know, our audience is gigantic, and it continues to grow. We just hit our best month ever… And, you know our audience is, is more than Wyoming… not only you know, our our website, but our radio show and our newscast, our major market newscast that Wendy also does… So congratulations to Wendy and all of us at Cowboy State daily.”
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, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app. And remember 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.
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