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[{"type":"text","text":"Now let's all enjoy a bulldog's first full year...."}]

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

<title>Today In Dogs: Monday, March 10, 2025 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Now let's all enjoy a bulldog's first full year....

Today In Dogs: Monday, March 10, 2025

 Now let's all enjoy a bulldog's first full year....

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Dale Killingbeck

Dale Killingbeck

Crime & Courts

Courts

CASPER — A 19-year-old man who held an 18-month-old child in front of him

during an armed standoff with police plans to enter a change of plea on the four misdemeanor charges he faces.

Brayden Donald Randolph appeared in Casper Circuit Court on Monday with his attorney, Keith Nachbar, for a scheduled hearing before Judge Kevin Taheri, his first court appearance to determine the status of his case.

Nachbar told the judge that his client plans to put the charges he faces behind him.

“We can do a change of plea and sentencing at the same time,” he said, telling the judge that he would need about two hours of the court’s time.

Natrona County Assistant District Attorney Kristen Strube agreed with the assessment of the time needed.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Taheri said a date would be set."}]

Charges against Randolph include reckless endangerment, child endangerment, being a minor in possession of alcohol and interference with a peace officer. 

Court records show Randolph is free on a $7,500 cash or surety bond with one bond requirement — daily drug and alcohol testing.

Randolph’s encounter with the Casper Police Department started about 9:30 p.m. on April 18, part of which was shown in the release of 

 of officers first calling for Randolph to surrender with his hands up. 

Then after a two-hour standoff, officers were shown busting into his apartment in the 1000 block of St. John Street in North Casper and bringing out a toddler.

A report from the department at the time emphasized their attempt to de-escalate the situation.

A neighbor told Cowboy State Daily that when he arrived to his home around 6 p.m. that day, he initially heard singing and yelling and a party atmosphere from the apartment.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Gunshot And Threats"}]

When he went outside after hearing a gunshot just before 9:30 p.m., the neighbor said he saw two young people fleeing in a vehicle and heard Randolph threatening to kill them.

A police affidavit on the case states an officer talked to the neighbor, went to Randolph’s apartment and knocked on the door. Randolph yelled through the door telling the officer to leave.

“Randolph yelled he had a gun,” the affidavit states. “Randolph closed the blinds of the residence to limit (the officer’s) ability to see what happened inside.”

The officer observed broken glass on the floor and a vodka bottle on the kitchen counter.

He also saw Randolph walk away from a living room and pick up an AR-style firearm with the buttstock removed and try to put the buttstock back on the rifle.

Officers were advised that a small child was in the residence, and a short time later Randolph was seen walking into the living room holding the child’s hand.

According to the affidavit, Randolph opened the door of the apartment telling officers to leave the area and at that time had a handgun in the waistband of his pants.

He then went into the apartment and reappeared holding the 18-month-old child “like a shield” while grabbing the handgrip of the handgun still in his waistband.

“Randolph told officers he had a gun and officers had guns and Randolph challenged officers to get him,” the affidavit states. “Randolph went back into the house.”

Another Casper officer contacted and spoke with a 20-year-old man who had fled the house and was told that Randolph had fired a gun during an argument, then he and another man left, the affidavit states.

Police report the child’s mother arrived at the residence around 9:35 p.m. and tried to contact Randolph several times without a response.

The affidavit states a Natrona County Sheriff’s Office negotiator was called to the scene and tried to establish contact with Randolph and was unsuccessful.

After a request for a warrant for Randolph’s arrest was received about 11:30 p.m., two Casper police officers went to the north side of the ground-floor apartment where a bedroom was located and saw Randolph sleeping on the floor, on his back.

The child was asleep on his shoulder. No weapons were visible, the affidavit states.

Officers tried to use a key to enter the apartment that was identified by the child’s mother as being in Randolph’s vehicle. 

When that did not work, they used a door ram to enter the apartment.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Resisting Arrest"}]

Officers went to the bedroom, removed the child, and Randolph “tried to resist.”

“While handcuffing Randolph, he attempted to roll away from officers and took hold of (an officer’s) foot,” the affidavit states. “(The officer) was able to break Randolph’s hold and Randolph was detained without further incident.”

Officers found a loaded firearm underneath Randolph, the affidavit states.

The reckless endangerment charge carries a potential penalty of one year in jail.

The child endangerment charge and interference with a peace officer charges also carry a penalty of up to one year in jail and $1,000 fines.

The minor in possession charge is punishable by up to six months in jail and a $750 fine.

Randolf inset 7 6 26

<title>Casper Man Accused Of Holding Toddler ‘Like A Shield’ In Standoff To Change Plea | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A Casper man accused of holding a toddler “like a shield” in front of him during an armed standoff said Monday he intends to change his plea. The man "told officers he had a gun and officers had guns and challenged officers to get him,” police say.

Casper Man Accused Of Holding Toddler ‘Like A Shield’ In Standoff To Change Plea

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Jackie Dorothy.

Jackie Dorothy

Around Wyoming

 overnight in the Wyoming Territory with canvas tents, sectional housing and buildings on wheels. It was July 1868 and the town “bred by the devil” was ready for business.

“There are perhaps, three thousand people in and around Benton,” brothers Legh and Fred Freeman wrote in the Aug. 11, 1868, Frontier Index newspaper. “To give an idea of the on-wheels movement we will mention that the office of Wells, Fargo & Co., torn down at Laramie three days before, had its sectioned shingle roof on, and stage business resumed in it that night.”

The Frontier Index, known as the “Press on Wheels,” was also a 

 business that published its paper in these overnight towns.

“Business was so lively that we telegraphed the Laramie editor of our paper, to wheel on at once to Benton,” the Freeman brothers wrote. “We since learn that our new power press is threshing out the work there.”

Benton was an end-of-track town on the construction front of the Union Pacific Railroad, about 12 miles east of present-day Rawlins and just west of present-day Fort Fred Steele.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Baddest Reputation"}]

 the worst of these Hell’s Tent Towns, with claims that 100 men had been murdered there in its short lifetime. Their reputation as a home to “bawdy women and swindlers” was earned when visitors passed through and were shocked by what they saw.

According to historians Mary Lou Pence and Lola M. Homsher, co-authors of “The Ghost Towns of Wyoming,” one 

 that portrayed Benton’s devilishness had been a misunderstanding.

Water for this new town was one of its most valuable commodities. It had to be carted by team and tank from the North Platte River two miles away. The water hauler charged an exorbitant 

Seeing a new way to advertise, a whiskey distiller paid the hauler to paste large billboards on each side of his tank that read "Tanglefoot Whisky."

A Mormon woman soon arrived by train and was waiting for a stagecoach for the next leg of her trip to Brigham's Temple. When she saw the poster-plastered wagon and women rushing from their doors with pails in hands, Pence and Homsher said she became  indignant.

 woman said. “They're buying whisky by the bucketsful!"

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Grant & Buffalo Bill Campaign"}]

To add to Benton’s reputation, even future presidents visited the tent town. Ulyssis S. Grant arrived with Buffalo Bill Cody. The Republican candidate was said to have given a stump speech at Benton to an eclectic group of people, ranging from gentlemen to railroad laborers. 

The Freeman brothers were heavily Democratic and former Confederate soldiers so the story they ran in the Aug.11, 1868, Frontier Index was a satirical attack on Grant and Buffalo Bill.

“When Useless Slaughter Grant was at Benton the other night, Buffalo Bill mounted a dry goods box at a street corner and returned thanks to the people for the splendid ovation (that was not) given the military commander in chief,” they wrote.

The editors claimed Buffalo Bill then auctioned off an old watch to pay for Grant's expenses on his campaign in Wyoming. Otherwise, Grant would be forced to “bum” his way back to Washington, D.C.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Mundane Shootings"}]

In the same paper, when the Freeman brothers shared the local gossip, usually reserved for such tidbits as who had arrived in town or who was engaging in business, the story was about the latest shootings. This time Brownsville, a construction camp not far from Benton, was the scene of several murders.   

— a criminal offense involving at least two people —

 occurred on the streets between two men employed in Creighton's telegraph outfit, the Freeman brothers reported. 

[{"type":"text","text":"As the story goes:"}]

“They had been throwing dice for a pistol, when they became dissatisfied, and the person who owned the pistol — James Williams — refused to give up the money received, which led to a difficulty in which he was shot and supposed mortally wounded. The murderer has escaped.

"A man, named John Wood, accidentally shot himself on Sunday morning while drawing his pistol to shoot a man in a gambling house. He is now in the hospital and is doing well.

"Mike Meehan was shot by a ranchman near Reynolds & Dowling's grading camp, about eight miles from Brownsville. 

"The cause of the affair was, the graders were on a strike, and passed an order amongst themselves that any ranchman who would interfere with their strike or sell liquor to drunken men, they would clean out, and after giving them warning, they still sold liquor to the men, when the graders turned out and demolished some fourteen saloons. 

"During the row, Michael Meehan was shot and instantly killed. The ranchman delivered himself up to the military authorities at Fort Steele."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Rise and Fall of Benton"}]

During its short existence, 200 framed tents and portable buildings had been erected, lots sold to the highest bidder, from $800 to $1,000, and dusty streets laid out. Benton was plotted into five wards and a mayor and one alderman from each ward had been appointed.

might become a more permanent town. A forwarding house was even established to take advantage of the active business taking place.

The most prominent building was described by Pence and Homsher as an immense canvas tent lit by imported chandeliers.

“An immense plate-glass mirror behind the corner bar reflected a strange hubbub of humanity,” Pence and Homsher wrote. “Pistol-packing mamas; lace-gowned and French-heeled dancing damsels; plaid-vested and fob-twisting come-on spielers; campaign-uniformed Indian fighters; corduroyed and buckskinned freighters; bow-tied and velvet-coated dude dandies — all taking chances with fate.”

The historians claimed  more than once during his night shift an overworked barkeep would have to change into another clean white coat to be rid of spatters of beer, bullets or blood.

By September 1868, the railroad had moved on, and so did nearly everyone else. 

The depot was moved east three miles to Fort Steele and Rawlins was designated a rail terminal. Pence and Homsher said that as tents were erected in the new town of Rawlins, former Benton residents were hesitant to buy lots and be fooled again into spending money on real estate that would not last.

Benton only existed for three months before the town was dismantled and it became one of Wyoming’s most infamous ghost towns.

Benton 1 Benton A C Hull Photo 7 5 26

<title>Wyoming History: 100 Murders In 3 Months, Lawless Benton Was ‘Bred By The Devil’ | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Of the Wyoming Territory towns that arrived on wheels along the Union Pacific Railroad, none were as tawdry, bawdry and lawless as Benton, which witnessed as many as 100 murders in its three-month lifespan. Benton, it was said, was "bred by the devil."

Wyoming History: 100 Murders In 3 Months, Lawless Benton Was ‘Bred By The Devil’

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

Renée Jean

Wyoming Life

DUBOIS — When Marion Taylor talks about America, there’s a little catch in her voice that she just can’t help any more than she can help how her eyes start misting over.

That was doubly true Saturday on a flag-lined main street in a tiny Wyoming mountain town, where thousands gathered to celebrate America’s 250th birthday by watching one of the nation’s most unique parades. 

Each year, Dubois fields something few towns or cities of any size could manage — a parade of roughly two dozen military tanks and other vehicles, hand-picked by National Museum of Military Vehicles founder Dan Starks to tell a sweeping story of American freedom.

“This means something to me because I wasn’t a natural born U.S. citizen,” Taylor told Cowboy State Daily. “I immigrated from Canada as a child and we were so — I can almost cry, thinking about it.”

The memory that came flooding back was a much smaller, quieter parade when she was being sworn in as a U.S. citizen at 19 years old.

“I was living in Missouri back then, and we went to St. Louis to the big courthouse,” she said.

Taylor said she remembers Wold War veterans at the courthouse as a color guard for the ceremony.

Taylor’s eyes light up when she talks about how Dubois celebrates the Fourth of July. 

“Last year we had 3,000 people here winding the streets for the parade,” she said. “And this year, I think it’ll be the same, or maybe more. Everybody wants to come to the Dubois parade because we have the military vehicles. 

"It’s the most unique parade in America.”

That uniqueness doesn’t come without logistical headaches. Shutting down a state highway, even for a short time, takes serious coordination with the Wyoming Department of Transportation. 

“They give us a set amount of time to close the road and get the parade through,” she said. “But we still get it done.”

Last year, Mother Nature stepped in with her own deadline, splashing onlookers with a sudden storm that came blowing down the mountain. 

“The wind was blowing dirt in our eyes and taking people’s hats and chairs and everything,” she said. 

People came back anyway, she added with a proud smile. 

It’s the tanks, she acknowledges. They are just irresistible.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Rolling History Lesson "}]

For the crowd lining both sides of U.S. Highway 26 through Dubois, also known as Ramshorn Highway, the tank parade is pure spectacle — and they love it. 

The roar of the engines rumbling down the streets and echoing off the Wind River Mountains as they belch diesel smoke is what it’s all about.  

For Starks, though, the spectacle is actually a carefully chosen curation of American military history.  

“On the lineup of vehicles, the first thing I like to have is an array,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “And each year I like to include vehicles that people haven’t seen before.”

Among this year’s standouts was an M110 self-propelled Howitzer, a hulking piece of bristling Cold War history to send rolling down the street.

“It’s the biggest howitzer, the largest diameter howitzer,” Starks said. “They’re firing the largest shell of any howitzer in the U.S. military inventory, and it was capable of firing a nuclear projectile.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"\"So, that’s pretty cool.”"}]

Not all the vehicles are about shock and awe. 

Starks wants the convoy to tell a coherent story, one that teases people and encourages them to want to learn more. 

This year’s biggest teaser was a World War II halftrack named Krystyna, with a special story pulled from the shadow world of espionage.

Krystyna was “a daring Polish aristocrat,” Starks said. 

“She was Winston Churchill’s favorite World War II spy,” he said. “This halftrack was restored over in Europe by a group that had particular connections with the Polish military and knew the story of this Polish spy … and decided to name this halftrack after her.”

Dubois has but one hour for its big military tank parade. It’s an hour that turns the pages of history, with vehicles normally only seen behind museum ropes. 

Bringing them out to an American main street in a small town like Dubois is something Starks believes happens nowhere else in the country. 

“It’s not that nobody else has a military vehicle in a parade,” he said. “I’m sure there are plenty of military vehicles here and there, but nothing like this.”

It’s the depth and breadth of those military vehicles, spanning 80 years of history, that’s unmatched. 

“I haven’t verified it, but I’ve been around a long time and I’ve worked with lots and lots of people,” he said. “And I consistently hear nobody else does this.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Big Flag For Big Birthday"}]

The people who come to watch Dubois Fourth of July tank parade are just as varied as the military convoy itself. 

One family from Riverton, for example, stood out from the crowd for the unusual flag they were waving around. 

It was not just large, but also proclaimed America 250. 

Matt Burrell found the flag when he was searching around online for something special to mark the occasion. 

“I didn’t know what yet, but then I saw that right off the bat on Amazon,” he said. “And I said, ‘That’s it.’”

Burrell showed up in Dubois last year on a whim with his two young children. This year, it was not just a plan, but a full-blown getaway.

They stayed in the KOA campground, which impressed them with its indoor swimming pool, as well as activities like gold mining for the kids.

“You buy a bag of dirt and you can run it through the water and do the whole process,” he said with a chuckle. “I don’t know if you ever find anything like gold.”

But fun was the real gold he was looking for.

Not everyone in the crowd was feeling their best. 

A woman from Casper admitted she’d been sick for two weeks and was still on a mostly “bland cracker diet.”

The thought of staying home for America’s 250th, though, was unimaginable.

“I’m old enough that I can remember the 200th anniversary in 1976 and how special it was and how lucky I felt, even back then, at a child’s age, just to celebrate,” she said. “And here we are again. 

"I know America’s not perfect. I know we have our problems. But it’s still the absolute best place in the world. And Wyoming is the only place I ever want to live.”

Most years, she and her family go to Cody’s famous Stampede Parade for the Fourth of July, but this year they made a deliberate pivot to Dubois to see the tanks.

“We wanted to experience the tanks and the military display, honestly,” she said. “Dubois is absolutely just outstanding. So beautiful.”

On one corner of main street Dubois, a man named Steve Burgess offered a simple card table draped in red, white, and blue and piled with free flags, whirligigs, and mints.

“I love this country,” he told Cowboy State Daily, gesturing to the table. “This country has been good to me and my family, and I like to celebrate along with everybody else and give out flags and whirlybirds and mints and just enjoy the day.”

This was the third year Burgess offered patriotic accessories set out on what looked like a handmade, crocheted tablecloth.

“I did not make it,” he admitted. “I bought it at the Op Shop — Opportunity Shop. St. Thomas Episcopal Church runs it.”

Burgess had gone there specifically to find a tablecloth, but wasn’t expecting to find something quite so perfect. 

America’s 250th is special to Burgess because the miracle still persists, despite all the tensions and challenges.

“We’ve got a great country in spite of some of the differences we share,” he said. “Long story short, it’s the greatest country in the world and it’s survived 250 years. History says our nation should not be here, that it should have run its course in about 200 years. 

“Well, we’re 50 years over what the expectancy is throughout history. So that’s a win, and it means that a lot of people sacrificed for the freedom that we enjoy to this day, and I do not take that lightly.”

For Kevin and Josh Gentile of Casper — father and son, Navy and Marine Corps service, respectively — America’s 250th birthday is something they feel deeply. 

“Both of us have served our country,” Kevin said. “He did four years in the Marine Corps, and I did four years in the Navy. I felt it was important to serve my country if I’m going to enjoy its freedoms.”

Kevin remembers America’s 200th birthday in 1976, and seeing another one with his son is beyond special. 

The National Museum of Military Vehicles, meanwhile, is “mind-boggling.” 

“The freedom, the country … this is the greatest country in the world, as far as I’m concerned,” Kevin said. “And this (parade) is just a great event to celebrate that.”

Kevin loved what he saw in Dubois — people from all walks of life coming together.

“You hear about all the controversies that are going on,” he said. “But here we are, and people are happy, people are friendly. It’s a really great thing. It makes you feel good to be here.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The 'Genius' Of America "}]

For Taylor, who has watched both America 200 and now America 250, the real strength she sees in the country isn’t that everyone agrees all the time. It’s that they don’t, and yet still find ways to work together. 

“If you love this country, you’re going to come together,” she said. “I used to work for a lady who was very left, and we were great friends.”

Taylor’s friend made great homemade sourdough bread, while Taylor made all the fillings. 

“We never got in each other’s way,” Taylor said. “I had her do the salads and she made the bread. I made the sandwiches, and the special, and I baked the desserts. 

"We got along so well, and we were different political realms completely. I was right, she was left, but we didn’t care. We’re still friends.”

Her takeaway from that as an American is simple.

“You don’t have to get mad at people because they’re a different affiliation,” she said. “Just agree to disagree, that’s it.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Disagreement Built America"}]

Disagreement, Starks said, is part of what built the country that America is now. 

Though today, the Founding Fathers are often referred to as though they were of one mind and one body, the truth is they were men who had vehement disagreements with each other over a range of divisive issues, from slavery to federalism, he said.

Their “genius,” Starks said, was working together in spite of that and creating a new country where the principal remains all men are created equal.

“People think, ‘Oh the country is going to hell because look at all the divisiveness,'” Starks said. “But that’s just typical. That’s what happens in a country like us, that has as many different people, with so many different life experiences, different backgrounds, different values. 

"What we hold in common is the value of being Americans and the value of finding a way to thread the needle and get an acceptable path through all these differences. That’s what we’re celebrating today.”

And that’s what Starks saw on full display as he drove one of his own military vehicles in the small-town parade that shuts down a state highway every year so history and freedom can roll down a main street in America and celebrate everything that makes it great. 

It’s a spectacle that tells a story in steel and diesel and thousands of human voices, like the immigrant who still cries when she remembers a World War color guard escort when she became a citizen. 

Or a woman too sick to eat much more than crackers but who can’t miss America’s 250th birthday. Or the veterans who gathered to cheer tanks rolling down the streets of town for a country they loved enough to serve in the military.

This 250th Fourth of July, one thin slice of America in Dubois, Wyoming, offered a larger glimpse of a nation that can still come together and celebrate when it really matters.

Dubois Fourth of July 20260704 1500340 7 4 26

<title>Dubois’ One-Of-A-Kind Military Tank Parade Celebrates America's 250th | Cowboy State Daily</title>

On America’s 250th, Dubois did something few towns in America can do — fielding a parade with more than two dozen military tanks and vehicles spanning 80 years of U.S. history. "It’s the most unique parade in America,” said one patriotic-feeling parade-goer.

Dubois’ One-Of-A-Kind Military Tank Parade Celebrates America's 250th

Energy

Jeffrey City is best known for uranium and near abandonment after the yellowcake market crashed in the 1980s. 

But things are looking up for the near-ghost town in the central desert region of Fremont County. 

And that’s not because of Wyoming’s renewed uranium rush or Visionary Metals’ new nickel project nearby. 

Jeffrey City, which has about 60 residents after boasting around 4,000 during its uranium heyday, could be poised for a brand-new industry thanks to a Canadian geologist named Jean-Pierre Jutras, who said he’s on the verge of finding significant new sources of both ornamental and gem-quality jade.

“Wyoming jade is legendary in the circles of jade carvers,” Jutras told Cowboy State Daily. “Production has been curtailed for a long time, and everything’s been looked at quite a bit and picked over, but when I looked at Wyoming as a geologist, what struck me was that there was barely any information at all on the geology.”

Jutras’ company, Jade Leader, is taking a similar tack to that of 

, which is using new geological knowledge and new technology to uncover deeper veins of gold in the South Pass area and other Wyoming locations.

“We just decided to take a hard look and see if the sources of a lot of the surface material that was collected from the '30s all the way to the '70s could be identified and if we could understand if there was any significant potential for renewed production.”

At one time, Wyoming had so much jade laying around on the surface people could walk around and pluck it straight from the sagebrush.

Known for uranium and then near-abandonment, Jeffrey City is getting a second look from a Canadian geologist who says new science — and evolving markets — could turn Wyoming’s deposits of jade into a new industry for the tiny almost-ghost town.

Today In Dogs: Monday, March 10, 2025

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