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

<title>You Still Here? Friday, March 7, 2025 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

You Still Here? Friday, March 7, 2025

 You feel confident about your new fitness routine and then life happens.....

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

Renée Jean

Wyoming Life

CHEYENNE — There’s always been something a little bit sentimental about the south end of the Cheyenne Frontier Days arena. 

The historic Chute 9 at Frontier Park has long been known as the best seat in the arena because it held court over some of the most intense timed-event rodeo action in the world. 

To the casual onlooker watching it get torn down last August, it might have appeared to be little more than a weathered wooden box, but it has always been sacred ground to the cowboys and volunteers working there. 

Now the humble wooden box has been reborn as a shiny, steel-spanned, multi-level VIP-ready cathedral to rodeo. The people who know it best say the new Chute 9 still has the same heart, and there’s a lot more polish now.

“It’s always been the best seat in the house,” longtime volunteer Kimberly Chernogorec told Cowboy State Daily. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"And, in her opinion, it still is."}]

Chernogorec has spent her entire 30-year CFD Committee career at Chute 9, starting as its first female “toe” — one of the kids under the chutes who help sort and push the cattle through — back in 1997. 

“It was a little bittersweet,” she admitted. “You always want a bigger, better thing. And then the bigger, better thing happens, and you’re like, ‘Well, now I miss the old one.’”

The old Chute 9 was, in frank terms, past its prime.

“It was not structurally sound,” Cheyenne Frontier Days CEO Tom Hirsig told Cowboy State Daily. “The Chute 9 that we had, the kind of square box up over the rope and chutes, had far outlived its life expectancy. So we had to do something.”

Fixing it was going to be a huge challenge, but a comprehensive look at long-range needs suggested a huge opportunity. 

“One of the things that we recognize is the need for VIP experiences,” Hirsig said. “Those are the fastest things that go, if there’s some sort of a VIP area.”

Cheyenne Frontier Days has a substantial amount of deferred maintenance to handle, and much of it doesn’t directly generate revenue. An expanded VIP seating area, however, will generate revenue and can help pay for the improvements Frontier Park needs.

When Chute 9 is unveiled this year, the $8 million project will offer a full-blown experience that seats around 450 people in a mix of VIP boxes and individual seats. The previous structure had a rooftop terrace area for a VIP experience that could only hold about 70.

The first two levels of the new Chute 9 are boxes, most holding 22 to 30 people, with food and beer service. Above that, a third level of individual seating gives solo rodeo fans and small groups a chance to buy into the same elevated view, without needing to fill an entire box. 

“Once you go up there, it’s going to be hard to go back to sitting in the stands,” Hirsig said. “It’s going to be one of the most incredible outdoor rodeo experiences anywhere in the country. I haven’t seen anything like this before. It’s going to be top-shelf stuff to come watch the rodeo.”

Under The Chute: Celebrities, Mud, Stories

To volunteers like Chernogorec, Chute 9 isn’t just a new build. It’s a name that has weight. It’s a legend.

She still remembers the time — and her dad still tells the story — when Tim McGraw and Faith Hill were climbing the back stairs to the old VIP deck. Faith was dressed head-to-toe in white. 

“At the same time she was walking up the stairs, my dad was standing there and I pushed a steer forward,” Chernogorec recalled. “And it splashed her with mud and muck. Dad thought it was extraordinarily funny.”

Hill, not so much. But “such is wearing white to a rodeo,” Chernogorec said with a chuckle.

Chernogorec also remembers when Reba McEntire showed up at Chute 9 to watch her brother, a steer roper. 

“She was just sitting down on the bleachers underneath the chute to watch her brother rope,” Chernogorec said. “And all of us kids kind of got wind she was around and we found that she went into the porta potty.”

When McEntire opened the door, she was greeted by a lineup of 10 “toes” hoping to get her autograph.

Chernogorec met many celebrities while working under Chute 9, she added.

“If a performer was like a rodeo type person, they generally would come under Chute 9 and we would get to meet them and just hang out,” she said.

But to Chernogorec, the real celebrities weren’t the stars who showed up at Chute 9. It was the older cowboys who would drift in to watch and sometimes talk about life.

“If you can get them to talk, they’ll tell you everything that they ever did or everything that they ever knew,” she said. “It’s really, really cool. It’s just amazing to hear the history, and it’s a lot of fun to be able to continue the history and the legacy from their end.”

Chute 9 has become an enduring legend. At first, its name was just because the arena had eight bucking chutes, so the cowboys and crew took to calling the unnumbered timed event chute, tucked at the south end, Chute 9. 

Eventually Cheyenne Frontier Days expanded to 10 bucking chutes, but no one wanted to lose the name Chute 9 for the timed events. There was just something about it. 

So, leadership made a deliberate decision not to call any of the bucking chutes No. 9. Instead, they gave the two new bucking chutes the numerals zero and double zero, leaving the legendary Chute 9 an enduring place in CFD history.

It was about protecting tradition, Hirsig said.

“It’s always been referred to as Chute 9 ever since I can remember,” he said. “It’s got a huge tradition.”

For all the glitz and glamour of the new build — stadium seating, bar service, television mounts so you never miss a second of the action — the basic layout for Chute 9 remains the same, Chernogorec said. That honors tradition and felt good to her during Thursday’s steer roping. 

“Instead of wooden chutes, we have steel chutes,” she said. “It feels new and it’s not wooden slide gates anymore, but actual spring-loaded gates and stuff. But it still functions the way it always functioned. It’s just new.”

Underneath the chute, there will still be an army of 20 or so kids and 20 or so adults, sorting the cattle and opening and closing the gates, ensuring the whole timed-event machine runs as smoothly as it ever did.

To Chernogorec, under Chute 9 is the best seat in the house. 

“You can see everything,” she said. “And there’s something about standing at the south end of the arena — when our arena is the largest outdoor arena in the world — and you stand at the south side and look to the north end and just see the expanse and how truly large our arena is.”

Everyone, she added, should absolutely get a seat in the new Chute 9 VIP areas if they have the chance at least once. 

The bet Hirsig is making is that once won’t be enough. That’s the hope for building the future of the event for generations to come.

“After people see this and experience it, I think it’s going to be tough to get a ticket,” he said.

Chute 9 20260710 102704 7 11 26

<title>From Basic Box To VIP Showpiece: New Chute 9 To Debut At Cheyenne Frontier Days | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Diehard rodeo fans say there's no better place to watch Cheyenne Frontier Days than Chute 9. Now it's even better as it's been rebuilt as a three-level VIP cathedral. “It’s the most incredible outdoor rodeo experience in the country," CFD's Tom Hirsig says.

From Basic Box To VIP Showpiece: New Chute 9 To Debut At Cheyenne Frontier Days

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Dale Killingbeck

Dale Killingbeck

Around Wyoming

A Gillette mom believes this summer and early fall likely represents the last chance she’ll have to make memories with her daughter who is battling a life-ending condition.

Plans for road trips that would allow Londen Tabor and her daughter Autumn, 20, to drive the Badlands, camp in the Black Hills, go rock hounding across the state, and travel to North Carolina to see family in their 2000 Chevy Suburban are on hold because the SUV's transmission just died.

“I was driving along and thought, ‘Are you kidding me,'” Tabor said when the vehicle broke down. “The Suburban is completely out now, and it just feels like the world is against me.”

If the transmission hadn't failed, a short camping trip using the Suburban in May to an agate festival in Montana revealed that the heat, space, and mosquitos — coupled with her daughter being in the last stage of juvenile Huntington’s disease — meant taking the Suburban across the country was not going to work.

Tabor, 43, hasn’t given up on making that last road trip happen and is 

Autumn was diagnosed with the disease in 2018 at age 12, which also is the same year that her father, Justin Fender, died from the same condition at age 36. 

Tabor and Fender never married and had broken up in 2008, but Tabor said he moved to the Gillette area to be near their children, Autumn and her brother Logan. Her oldest son, Dakota, also considered him as his dad.

Tabor married her husband Chris in 2014, and he adopted Autumn.

Seeing the disease that took Fender now gripping her only daughter “breaks my heart,” Tabor said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Disease’s Impact"}]

The website for the Huntington’s Disease Society of America says the disease affects brain cells, resulting in changes in personality, coordination, behavior, speech, or the ability to learn, according to the Huntington’s Disease Society of America.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Tabor has witnessed all of that in Autumn."}]

Tabor said her daughter went from being a cheerleader in her freshman and sophomore years of high school to a measured decline that has brought her to a place today where she is totally dependent on Tabor for care.

Young people with the disease typically decline five times faster than adults, she said.

“It’s crazy, because you go from 2018 and then 2019 and 2020, and there are these little changes,” she said. "Up until about 2021, she could still ride a bike.

"Then we got her a three-wheel bike, but it was only a year that she was able to ride it.”

 with Autumn that was meant to share their journey with the disease and educate others. Over the years, they’ve gathered 160,000 followers.

The mother and daughter in 2023 turned a journey that included a Huntington’s Disease Association event into a 6,280-mile trip from Wyoming to Arkansas, Tennessee, the Carolinas and a stop at the White House. 

They made the trip in Tabor’s small Kia Soul, stayed in hotels, and made a couple of media appearances.

But to use the Kia now would be much more difficult. 

Tabor needs to transfer Autumn in and out of the vehicle and put her wheelchair in it.

Tabor said sometimes it’s hard to look back on her TikTok posts because they show the rapid progression of Autumn’s disease. 

But the social media platform has also forged new relationships they never would have had before.

During their 2023 trip, Autumn and her mom visited and stayed with an Arkansas woman who they had connected with over the social media platform. They hope to visit her again this year.

<blockquote class="tiktok-embed" cite="https://www.tiktok.com/@londenandautumn/video/7580103755614489886" data-video-id="7580103755614489886" style="max-width: 605px;min-width: 325px;" > <section> <a target="_blank" title="@londenandautumn" href="https://www.tiktok.com/@londenandautumn?refer=embed">@londenandautumn</a> Trying to find the light through all the darkness. :broken_heart:  <a title="juvenilehuntingtonsdisease" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/juvenilehuntingtonsdisease?refer=embed">#JuvenileHuntingtonsDisease</a> <a title="huntingtonsdisease" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/huntingtonsdisease?refer=embed">#HuntingtonsDisease</a> <a title="jhdawareness" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/jhdawareness?refer=embed">#jhdawareness</a> <a title="jhdwarrior" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/jhdwarrior?refer=embed">#jhdwarrior</a> <a title="huntingtonsdiseaseawareness:blue_heart::purple_heart:" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/huntingtonsdiseaseawareness%F0%9F%92%99%F0%9F%92%9C?refer=embed">#huntingtonsdiseaseawareness:blue_heart::purple_heart:</a> <a target="_blank" title="♬ Light of the Soul - SANTANA J.L.M" href="https://www.tiktok.com/music/Light-of-the-Soul-7398942910102865937?refer=embed">♬ Light of the Soul - SANTANA J.L.M</a> </section> </blockquote> <script async src="https://www.tiktok.com/embed.js"></script>

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Agenda"}]

Tabor’s initial plans were to go on a rockhounding trip across Wyoming on their way to Salt Lake City for the National Youth Alliance’s juvenile Huntington’s disease retreat later this month. 

She’s bought tickets for a Benson Boone concert in Casper in early September. Her daughter is a big fan.

Later in September, the plan called for a monthlong road trip to the East Coast to visit her sons and Autumn’s brothers in North Carolina, Tabor’s family in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, a stop at the Omaha zoo in Nebraska, and the drive to Arkansas.

“This is like the last chance I have to do this with my daughter,” Tabor said. “I just want a couple of months with my daughter (where) I don’t have to worry and I have a climate-controlled vehicle that I could pull over and feed her.”

In the meantime, Autumn’s decline continues. Now, she's finding it harder to swallow.

to rent a camping van from late this month through October for the trips was difficult.

She did not want to have to ask for help from others, but it seemed like the only viable solution.

“I know what this disease does. I know how fast it progresses,” she said. “I know where we are at, and it’s not looking good.”

The trips are not about a “luxury vacation” on wheels, but an attempt to provide a safe environment and allow her daughter to “get out there and live life to the fullest while she still can,” Tabor wrote in her GoFundMe post.

She appreciates those who have already responded, which as of Saturday is at $3,327 of a $9,000 goal.

Tabor, who for a couple of years experienced her own health issues and had to leave a position taking care of finances at a dental clinic, stays home and looks after Autumn. 

Her daughter goes to a “day-hab” a few days a week with others who have disabilities, she said.

The hardest thing for Tabor remains thinking back to Autumn’s “normal years” before the diagnosis and having to watch her transformation under the disease.

“I don’t know what’s worse, just having something you have to face your whole life or to have this beautiful, amazing child, and then all of a sudden have her just start to be ripped away from you,” Tabor said. “To be ripped away slowly and slowly until there is nothing left and to know what she could have had.”

Contact Dale Killingbeck at dale@cowboystatedaily.com

Last trip Mother Daughter 7 11 26

<title>Last Road Trip For Gillette Mom And Dying Daughter Derailed By Broken-Down SUV | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A Gillette woman's plans for one last summer road trip with her dying daughter have been derailed by a failed transmission in their 26-year-old SUV. But she's not giving up hope. “This is the last chance I have to do this with my daughter,” Londen Tabor said.

Last Road Trip For Gillette Mom And Dying Daughter Derailed By Broken-Down SUV

Employee kate meadows cropped

Kate Meadows

Entertainment

[{"type":"text","text":"It started with a selfie."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"That's the funny part of the story, said Bradlee Skinner."}]

The remarkable part came years earlier, when the former Wyoming high school English teacher was homeless, delivering pizzas and wondering how his life had unraveled.

Today, Skinner spends his weekends DJ'ing in front of tens of thousands of screaming fans for the Savannah Bananas, the wildly popular baseball entertainment phenomenon that has become one of the hottest tickets in sports.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"It's been amazing,\" Skinner told Cowboy State Daily."}]

The job has taken him from Wyoming classrooms to iconic ballparks such as Coors Field in Denver and soon Wrigley Field in Chicago, where he rubs shoulders with performers and entertainers he once showed his students as examples of creative excellence.

It's a journey Skinner never could have imagined when life hit rock bottom more than a decade ago.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"From Rock Bottom To The Classroom"}]

In 2013, Skinner had lost nearly everything. 

He had quit a teaching job, saying, "I reached a point where if I didn't end it, it was going to end me." 

But he said his mental health was unstable then, and he found he could not land another job. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Soon, the money ran out."}]

"I had lost my job, lost my house, lost a lot of my self-identity," he said. "I was in a really, really dark place."

While delivering pizzas and doing anything he could to earn a buck, Skinner said he hadn't yet learned the importance of caring for his mental health as much as his physical health.

[{"type":"text","text":"The people around him carried him through."}]

"I could either be humiliated that I was dancing on a street corner, or I could be humbled that people cared enough to reach out," he told Cowboy State Daily.

A former student even offered him and his wife, Melissa, a place to live.  

[{"type":"text","text":"Those moments changed Skinner’s perspective."}]

Later, when he interviewed for a teaching position at Rock Springs High School, then principal Darrin Peppard recognized Skinner as someone who needed an opportunity.

"I was more than happy to give him that opportunity," Peppard said. "Almost immediately I noticed, once the school year began, he's just a kid magnet. Students are just drawn to him."

Skinner spent three years teaching in Rock Springs before moving to Green River High School, where over the next nine years he taught English while building the school's theater program.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Baseball Meets Broadway"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Outside the classroom, Skinner had another passion."}]

He DJ'ed weddings, school dances and corporate events with Melissa through their Wyoming entertainment company, Phony Stark Industries.

[{"type":"text","text":"The name came out of the blue, courtesy of one of his students."}]

One day in class, a student remarked that Skinner resembled Tony Stark from the 

Another student sitting in the back of the classroom immediately replied, "It's more like Phony Stark."

[{"type":"text","text":"The name stuck."}]

Melissa also played an unexpected role in launching Skinner's DJ career. While in college, he enrolled in a radio broadcasting class, he jokes, because "there was this really cute girl who ran the radio show."

[{"type":"text","text":"That girl was Melissa."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Discovering Banana Ball"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Skinner first heard about the Savannah Bananas in 2022."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"I was like, 'This is weird',\" he said."}]

Founded by Jesse and Emily Cole, the Bananas were created with one goal: make baseball fun again.

The organization transformed the traditional game into "Banana Ball," a fast-paced version with a two-hour time limit, no bunts, no walks and fans catching foul balls for outs. Baseball is only part of the show.

Players, all in bright yellow uniforms, dance between innings. A senior-citizen dance troupe called the Banana Nanas performs alongside the Man-Nanas, a dad-bod cheerleading squad. Even the first-base coach breakdances. Team owner Jesse Cole famously wears a bright yellow tuxedo.

The result has become one of the biggest sensations in sports entertainment.

"I think it's easier to get tickets to see Taylor Swift than see the Bananas right now," Peppard said.

As someone with backgrounds in both theater and entertainment, Skinner was fascinated.

"The preshow, the postgame party – everything is a theatrical performance," he said.

In 2024, he brought a group of Green River High theater students to Salt Lake City to watch the Bananas play the Party Animals. By then, he was teaching English and building the theater program.

He said he wanted his students to see how theatrical skills translate far beyond the stage.

“Students see you can be involved in theatre and the skills you can learn don’t always have to be on the stage,” he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"One Selfie Changed Everything"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Before the game, players mingled with fans outside the stadium."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Skinner heard music and immediately knew there had to be a DJ nearby."}]

While his students posed for pictures with players, Skinner wandered over and snapped a selfie with the DJ in the background.

[{"type":"text","text":"The DJ noticed."}]

The two struck up a conversation about their work, exchanged contact information and stayed in touch.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"No Pressure — Just 50,000 People"}]

Early in 2025, the Bananas' DJ contacted Skinner and encouraged him to audition for a DJ slot. They were adding more teams, and auditions for new DJs were being scheduled.

[{"type":"text","text":"Skinner quickly submitted a demo reel."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Interview after interview followed."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Eventually, he received a phone call inviting him to audition in person."}]

He assumed the tryout would happen at the team's home stadium in Savannah, Georgia, or perhaps another minor league ballpark.

[{"type":"text","text":"Instead, they invited him to Coors Field."}]

"Oh yeah, sure," he remembers thinking. "I'll DJ in front of 50,000 people. No pressure."

[{"type":"text","text":"The audition worked."}]

Skinner joined the organization for the 2026 season, performing with both the Bananas and one of the league's newer teams, the Texas Tailgaters.

“The opportunity just became too big and it’s too exciting (to pass up),” he said.

He resigned from his teaching post in Green River at the end of the school year.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'He's Living His Best Life'"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"When Skinner shared the news with his students, many were stunned."}]

“It was like this big ahhh moment, like, that’s pretty crazy,” former student Jeremy Neher said. “He told us with a smile on his face. He seemed to be ecstatic.”

Fellow English teacher Victoria Hemphill told Cowboy State Daily she saw the struggle Skinner had in leaving the school.

[{"type":"text","text":"“He knew he was impacting kids,” she said."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"She called the move to DJ brave."}]

“The selfish side of me says, yes, I would love to have Brad back in the school,” she said. “But seeing him see so brave, I can say, ‘Hey, I know that guy'.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Peppard said he wasn't surprised by the career move."}]

"My reaction was, obviously I am so excited for him, but in part I'm not surprised at all," he said. "He's living his best life."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Never Too Old To Chase A Dream"}]

During the baseball offseason, Skinner plans to continue DJ'ing weddings and corporate events while growing an educational speaking and consulting business.

[{"type":"text","text":"He also said he believes he'll return to teaching someday."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"He's simply following a different classroom for now."}]

His message to students remains the same as when he stood in front of a whiteboard.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"You're never too old to chase your dreams,\" he said."}]

These days, many of the performers he once showed students on YouTube have become colleagues, including Broadway star Ben Platt, songwriter duo Benj Pasek and Justin Paul of 

, and Mandy Moore, known for choreographing Taylor Swift's Eras Tour.

For Hemphill, Skinner's story sends an important message to Wyoming students.

"Those cool jobs go to somebody," she said. "I do think he inspired kids to think outside of our sometimes limited perspective in Wyoming. If you want that, go get it."

[{"type":"text","text":"Neher believes that's exactly why students connected with Skinner."}]

"He sees his students not just as another day of work but as people who care about the same things he does," Neher said. "He sees them as future world changers."

Bradlee Skinner IMG 7569 7 11 26

<title>Homeless To Home Plate: Wyoming Man's Fantastic Journey To The Savannah Bananas | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Green River's Bradlee Skinner was homeless, delivering pizzas and wondering how his life had unraveled. Now he performs before sold-out crowds with the Savannah Bananas, baseball's wildly popular entertainment phenomenon. And it all started with a selfie.

Homeless To Home Plate: Wyoming Man's Fantastic Journey To The Savannah Bananas

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

Wildlife

Human remains that were apparently scavenged by a bear, or bears, were discovered Sunday near Grand Mesa in western Colorado, officials there reported.

However, investigators haven’t found evidence that the unidentified person was killed in a bear attack before the bear(s) and “other wildlife” began eating the remains, 

Mesa County Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to a report of human remains at the Wild Rose Picnic Area of Land End Road, according to reports.

The Mesa County Coroner’s Office is trying to determine the cause of death and expected to release the person’s identity, although it’s not known when that will be, News 11 reported.

As of Friday, Colorado Parks and Wildlife wasn’t planning any further action, agency spokesman Luke Perkins told Cowboy State Daily.

Investigators don’t think a bear or bears that ate parts of a human body found Sunday near Grand Mesa in western Colorado will develop a taste for people. They likely didn’t hunt the person, but instead scavenged someone already dead.

You Still Here? Friday, March 7, 2025

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