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[{"type":"text","text":"When liberal neighbors bump into each other...."}]

Mix Collage 10 Mar 2025 06 34 PM 1444

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

<title>Today In Global Warming: Tuesday, March 11, 2025 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

When liberal neighbors bump into each other....

Today In Global Warming: Tuesday, March 11, 2025

 When liberal neighbors bump into each other....

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's general assignment reporter, Clair McFarland.

Clair McFarland

Government & Politics

Politics

A federal agency has an agreement with Wyoming's two tribes to run license plate reader cameras on the reservation, authorities confirmed Thursday. 

Cowboy State Daily has observed license plate reader cameras already installed on roadside posts at the north entrance to the reservation abutting Riverton, and the south entrance from the Lander side.

The license plate readers are put up by DEA (the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration) through an agreement with the tribe, said U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs spokesman Joshua Barnett in a Thursday email. Barnett added that the BIA is "not part of that agreement." 

Wyoming Highway Patrol (WHP) Lt. Col. Karl Germain told lawmakers during a Tuesday committee meeting that the WHP was working with the BIA to put up the cameras. 

But Germain clarified in a Thursday phone call, saying he misspoke and was trying to highlight the cameras can be a good tool in crisis situations. 

"Highway Patrol doesn’t have any LPRs," said Germain. "We have no mechanism to purchase those or put them up." But the patrol's umbrella agency, the Wyoming Highway Patrol, manages the highway right-of-way and is responsible for authorizing camera installations, he said. 

The Select Committee on Tribal Relations, which is a state legislative panel,

discuss how state law interacts with the two tribal governments of Wyoming: the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone

There, Germain said, “Those (cameras) are obviously helpful for a number of reasons, and you know I fully recognize some of the privacy concerns of with that."  For missing person cases or Amber alerts, those cameras “can be invaluable to help recover that person in a timely manner,” said German. “There aren’t a lot of cameras in Wyoming right now. If the reservation is able to put those up, it’s just another tool at the disposal of law enforcement.”

Committee Co-Chair Sen. Cale Case, R-Lander, voiced concern, calling the cameras a facet of “big surveillance.”

“It’s a big step in our surveillance society,” said Case. “Not quite as far as England where they have facial recognition all the way through London but … it feels that way a little bit.”

 the controversy surrounding the cameras. 

License plate readers are cameras, generally facing roadways, that capture images of vehicles and license 

 and log dates and times for those images. The devices can also capture images of drivers and occupants of vehicles and passersby.

Case amplified his comments in a Thursday interview, saying the license plate readers, government-accessible DNA databases, facial recognition technology and other government surveillance measures now in play would have been "appalling" to the Founding Fathers. 

"All this stuff is somewhat '1984'-ish," said Case, referring to George Orwell's dystopian novel about an authoritarian surveillance state. 

[{"type":"text","text":"This Drug Trafficking"}]

The cameras have been posted for "months" Wyoming Department of Transportation public relations specialist Cody Beers told Cowboy State Daily. 

An advocate of the license plate readers, Nicole Wagon touted them as useful and important during a Jan. 27 meeting of the Tribal Relations Committee. 

Wagon, who lost one daughter to murder and another to hypothermia amid suspicious circumstances, is an advocate for better safety measures for indigenous people.

“It’s a component to stop the violence. It’s a component to make it safe for all the community members,” said Wagon of the cameras, 

She said the Wind River Intertribal Council, which comprises executive-branch governments of both tribes, signed a resolution in 2024 to work with license plate reader efforts on the reservation.

Neither the Eastern Shoshone Business Council nor the Northern Arapaho Business Council responded to Cowboy State Daily’s 

requests for comment, however the ESBC’s spokeswoman requested more information on the topic, which 

Cowboy State Daily inquired of the BIA at that time, and the agency said on Feb. 3 that it “does not have license plate readers on the Wind River Indian Reservation” and to check with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). 

The agency’s spokesman Joshua Barnett said Thursday in a follow-up exchange that the DEA puts up the license plate readers “through an agreement with the tribe,” of which BIA is not a part.

While he did not confirm the cameras’ presence or use, DEA Public Affairs Officer Stephan Tubbs wrote in a Jan. 28 email that, “The key trafficking routes for the Mexican Cartels across our Rocky Mountain Field Division are the I-25, I-70, and I-80 corridors in Colorado and Wyoming.”

“These highways are arteries for the cartels to bring their poison — namely fentanyl, methamphetamine, and cocaine — into and across our nation,” Tubbs said, adding that targeting cartel routes is “vital.”

“Any and all tools available need to be utilized to save American lives from the continuing deadly impact the cartels and their dangerous drugs inflict on our communities,” said Tubbs. He referred back to that statement when Cowboy State Daily sent a follow-up inquiry in May. 

The FBI, which also performs law enforcement functions and investigations on the reservation, declined in a Feb. 2 email from FBI public affairs officer Vikki Migoya to comment “about investigative techniques or law enforcement tools we might or might not use.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Criminals Or 'Complete Morons'"}]

Erick Blackburn, former chief of the Wind River’s BIA outpost, discussed the cameras on a public Facebook exchange last month.

 map showing two of the cameras stationed at the reservation’s Riverton entrance.

, they’re license plate readers,” wrote Blackburn in a comment, 

referring to AI-powered license plate technology used by several Wyoming municipalities. 

“Law enforcement can search specific license plates for ATL — attempt to locate — for Amber alerts and vehicles reported to be trafficking narcotics,” Blackburn continued. "Everyone against them is criminal themselves or complete morons!!”

Blackburn said in another comment that was the BIA chief who “oversaw the project in an attempt to apprehend the narcotics coming into Fremont County and the reservation.”

He said both tribes are “heavy in favor” of the technology and “we had to have their full approval.”

“They were sick and tired of their people senselessly dying,” Blackburn added.

Blackburn, who later confirmed he’s now retired, said the cameras are working and fentanyl overdoses have declined.

 drug dealing POS, or snatching children and trying to drive away with them, you have nothing to worry about,” Blackburn wrote.

Blackburn did not immediately respond to a message request for further comment.

Barnett said Thursday that he was told a former BIA chief may have helped the tribe with the project, on the tribal side, but the project is still a DEA and tribal venture. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Obey The Constitution"}]

Robert Frommer, senior attorney at the Institute for Justice and one of the attorneys urging stronger Fourth Amendment protections in this area, told Cowboy State Daily he’s not in favor of eradicating the cameras.

But they should be subject to the same Fourth Amendment restraints as other law enforcement tools, he said in a Thursday phone interview.

The Fourth Amendment generally bars entry into a person’s home without a warrant, for example, but has exceptions for “exigent circumstances” 

 indications that someone is being harmed inside the home.

On hearing about the cameras stationed at the reservation’s entrances, Frommer said that’s a common method across the nation so that law enforcement can track who enters and leaves a given region. 

When he reviewed Cowboy State Daily’s photographs, he said they’re not Flock brand cameras, but some other brand.

“It’s hard to feel secure and to go about your daily life when you’re always knowing that the government is looking over your shoulder,” he said. “And that’s what these ALPRs (automatic license plate readers) allow. This, kind of, pervasive monitoring of individuals.”

 on this issue would require officers to get a warrant before accessing a person’s historical location information, unless an emergency makes getting a warrant impractical. 

It would restrict the data gatherers’ conveyance of people’s historical location information to third parties.

It would require that a record is created every time someone’s historical location information is accessed, and it would require training for officers accessing that historical information.

The proposed legislation would specify that authorities can’t use unlawfully obtained camera data to prosecute someone, but they also can face civil consequences for violating someone’s rights.

[{"type":"text","text":"The technology can be easy to abuse, said Frommer."}]

“Without any kind of warrant requirement or even internal procedures, it often means that the person deciding whether to search or not is just the bored officer in the patrol car,” said Frommer. “We’ve seen abuses where police have been stalking former romantic partners, wives, ex-boyfriends; other situations where it’s been used to keep tabs on people who are engaged in political activity.”

[{"type":"text","text":"This spreads to the immigration debate, he said."}]

Frommer and his co-counsel in an April 15 lawsuit complaint against the city of San Jose, California, wrote that that city’s massive AI-enhanced surveillance camera system has cameras near immigration lawyers’ offices and health care facilities.

As for the Wind River, Frommer said that, “I understand there might be drug problems in Wyoming and the reservation. There are drug problems all over the country.

“But you can’t let the worries of the day blind you to the long-term constitutional problems of what you’re doing.”

He added, “We want people to obey the law. And if we want people to obey the law then we have to, with just as much vigor, want our officers and government officials to obey the Constitution.”

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<title>License Plate Cameras At Entrances To Wind River Reservation Spark Controversy | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The Drug Enforcement Administration has installed license plate cameras on or around the Wind River Reservation, authorities confirmed Thursday. "All this stuff is somewhat '1984'-ish," Sen. Cale Case said. "It’s a big step in our surveillance society.”

License Plate Cameras At Entrances To Wind River Reservation Spark Controversy

Guest Column

Guest Columnists

The following is a guest column from the Jackson High School Speech and Debate Team

 Lights blaze as the top placers walk up. Finally, gold is announced. The crowd erupts in cheers, and the winner is in tears, having just won their event at the Wyoming State SkillsUSA Convention. 

This scenario repeats annually. It is a very real situation for many Wyoming students, including Nadia Bear, a senior from Cheyenne South High School, who got to live that dream during the 2026 State Leadership and Skills Conference.

“When they called my name, I was shocked, excited, and really proud at the same time,” Bear said. “It felt rewarding knowing that all my hard work paid off and that I was able to use something meaningful from my own life to help educate others about healthcare.”

This feeling is not exclusive to SkillsUSA. Champions in every event the Wyoming High School Activities Association sponsors get to revel in their achievements. From soccer to FFA to speech and debate to All Northwest Musicians, Wyoming has a long history of excellence. Besides outstanding students, these activities all have something else in common: WHSAA proposed financial changes that would fundamentally rewrite the way that students are able to participate.

“[The budget cuts] will directly impact students by limiting what they can participate in, underclassmen could have JV programs cut, other activities like drama, speech and debate, FFA programs will lose funding,” Cody High School senior Wade Bower said. “Cutting these things won’t just have an effect on students, but on the whole community because our sports and activities allow our community to come together.”

The budget cuts Bower mentions are currently only proposed; however, if passed as written, as Bower said, Wyoming students will suffer. Students across the state fear losing the opportunities high school activities provide to pursue their passions.

“I have learned to use my voice, to be a leader, to manage my time, to travel, and I have made so many friends,” Natrona County High School sophomore Tayler Zanolli said. “If these opportunities are taken away or limited, I may not be able to keep advancing these skills, or worse, other students may not get the opportunities I did.”

Zanolli references the variety of activities that she participates in, which describes the perfect example of a Wyoming Student. Of each student polled, almost every single one was involved in more than one activity, which only adds to the students' fears about losing their communities.

“The activities this targets is a community that has grown together,” Hot Springs County High School Sophomore Clayton Lee Keller said. “These activities are a safe space for some people, so targeting these activities hurts the connection and takes away the safe space that has been formed.”

One of the communities that will be significantly damaged would be Wyoming’s Career and Technical Student Organizations, specifically SkillsUSA and FFA. In the proposed changes, these organizations would be required to “eliminate overnight travel.” The primary concern with this is centered on where these activities host their events. SkillsUSA’s state conference is in Casper, Wyoming, and FFA hosts theirs in Cheyenne.

“Cheyenne is six hours away,” Powell High School sophomore Rylan Gillette said. “Without overnight travel, this would deeply affect state FFA, as FFA is multiple days long. Northern students cannot travel back and forth.”

In the same realm of travel, another proposed change removes students' ability to travel to national contests. Specifically, student council, Speech and Debate, All-Northwest Music, SkillsUSA, FCCLA, and FBLA travel face major changes. 

“The only thing that can possibly stick out as much as other applicants that are blessed with overwhelming opportunities like national competitions, regional competitions that are nationally recognized, regional awards programs, national level workshops that you qualify [for], access to in-person lessons/coaching, etc., in well-populated states… is competing on a national level,” Cheyenne Central High School junior Royce Madayag said. 

“I know many other people in theatre, speech and debate, music, and athletes that want to compete or pursue this in college or even have a career in it. Cutting funds and stripping us of the already little opportunities we have as Wyoming residents will be detrimental to our futures and competitiveness we have as college applicants.” 

This theme resonates with many students across the state. They are scared that these cuts will affect their scholarship applications and their ability to attend college. And statistics lend credence to their concerns. The Afterschool Alliance released a study in 2024 about this. 

The report said, “After-School All-Stars, a nationwide program with 19 chapters serving 78 cities in 13 states, providing free comprehensive afterschool programming to children from low-income families, reported that during the 2021-2022 school year, 100 percent of 12th graders participating in their program graduated. Additionally, more than 8 in 10 of these seniors (83 percent) were enrolled to take part in college, vocational/technical school, or the military after graduation.” And Wyoming students agree.

“Opening college classes, scholarship opportunities, and school-funded programs help keep students on track of graduating and going to college,” Worland High School junior Alayna Moore said. “With less trips being accessible to the schools, that leads to a decrease in opportunities for students to be sought out by colleges or make their names known to colleges to better their futures, ultimately taking away from the very principles that the school had worked towards.”

And beyond future impacts, there could be some immediate impacts on communities. According to the United States Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, “Violent crimes by youth occur most frequently immediately following the close of school on school days.” Where are most students at the end of school on school days? After-school activities.

“I can confidently say that by taking away these opportunities, there will be more behavioral issues within our district, and more crime reports,” Natrona County High School junior Izzey Lloyd said. “Sports are sometimes kids' only reason to keep good grades and behave well, and even just stay in school. I know many kids who, the minute their sport is done, they begin to get in fights and grades drop, and their behaviors turn from good to bad.”

Wyoming has a legacy of champions. Our students are smart, kind, a strong future workforce and good current and future leaders of this great state. By limiting what they can achieve, we limit who they are. However, despite the major proposed losses, they are still appreciative. When asked what she wanted to say to legislators, Cheyenne Central High School sophomore Martha Hoover said this:

“This bill hurts the people who want to be sitting in your seats someday. We appreciate you for the effort that you put in, and want you to know that we are so much more than high school students. We are the future.”

Jhsdt 6 19 26

<title>Guest Column: The Cost Of Cutting Champions | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The Jackson Hole Speech and Debate team writes, "From soccer to FFA to speech and debate to All Northwest Musicians, Wyoming has a long history of excellence. Besides outstanding students, these activities all have something else in common: Proposed financial changes to the Wyoming High School Activities Association would fundamentally rewrite the way that students are able to participate."

Guest Column: The Cost Of Cutting Champions

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's Feature Reporter, Andrew Rossi.

Andrew Rossi

Business

Agriculture

There's a big bee emergency in Yellowstone National Park after a semi-truck carrying dozens of beehives crashed Tuesday.

Dalton Broadus of West Yellowstone, Montana, was driving north along U.S. Highway 191 around 9 a.m. Tuesday when he drove past the scene.

Damaged and destroyed beehives were scattered across a quarter-mile stretch of road. Bees were swarming his vehicle, several tow trucks and a Yellowstone ambulance were at the scene, and someone in a beekeeping suit was already assessing the area.

“It happened about an hour before I got there, I believe,” Broadus said.

The Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office, Hebgen Basin Fire/EMS, the Montana Department of Transportation, and the Montana Department of Agriculture responded to the scene.

James Peterson, dispatch manager for Eaton Road Solutions, told Cowboy State Daily his company received a call from the National Park Service to recover the flipped semi-truck. He wasn’t sure what caused the accident.

“We brought three recovery trucks and two traffic-control trucks from Idaho Falls,” he said. “It took us about three hours to get it back up.”

Peterson said Eaton’s crews were heading back to the scene Wednesday night to start recovering the damaged hives and, hopefully, the bees that had been residing inside.

“We’ve been working one-on-one with the company (that owns the hives), and they’re trying to save what they can,” he said.

The crews will require bee suits while on the scene. Fortunately, Eaton already had some at the ready.

“We haven’t dealt much with bees,” Peterson said. “This was our second bee call in 15 years, and we still have the beekeeping suits we got for the first call."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Bee Catastrophe"}]

After viewing Broadus’s video, Cheyenne venture capitalist and beekeeper Michael Jordan said that, from what he could see, the incident was “a devastating loss” for all involved.

“From the way it looks. I’d think about 40 to 50 percent of what’s there is salvageable, maybe,” he said. “It’s a big dump across a long section, so I’d say they’ve got a three-day ordeal ahead of them.”

According to Jordan, an average honey box can hold between 75,000 and 125,000 bees. Each box costs around $500 and generates $2,000 in profit from honey production.

A semi-truck like the one that crashed can carry 250 to 500 honey boxes, and potentially double that if they’re trying to save space.

[{"type":"text","text":"“There could be up to 1,000 of those boxes in one load,” he said."}]

That’s easily millions of bees and hundreds of thousands of dollars lost in Yellowstone.

Jordan has been involved in similar incidents. He helped coordinate a salvage effort after a beehive-carrying semi-truck was involved in an incident on I-80 near Arlington.

“The first four hours are critical,” he said. “The truck drivers, the insurance company, and the owners of the colonies have to work together and approve everything. Somebody on-site is going to be the manager, and they’ll figure out how to fix the problem, so there’s a lot of communication that needs to happen.”

In this incident, all parties will have to coordinate with the Park Service. They’ll need to have a lot of input, given the accident happened in Yellowstone, and fines could be assessed.

“When your boat sinks in Glendale Lake, they charge you for littering, not to mention salvage,” Jordan said. “It’s going to be a pretty big loss, and that’s just the property damage. The owners will need approval from the insurance companies, and then there’s whatever liability the trucking company will have with the NPS. If the mitigation takes too long, they could lose everything."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Bee Recovery"}]

Jordan wasn’t sure how the NPS would manage a 500-hive bee recovery in Yellowstone.

In a high-traffic area, such as a highway through Yellowstone during the summer, the first step in a successful recovery might be to call the fire department, he said. That’s potentially the worst-case scenario for the bees and the beekeepers, but the quickest solution for the NPS.

“If the bees are deemed a hazard to traffic, the fire department might go ahead and foam the whole area,” Jordan said. “That kills everything in the area, but you can go in and clear everything out without having to close down the highway.”

As for the bees, Jordan said everyone involved in the salvage operation must make critical moves within 48 hours. That’s how long they have before the surviving bees move on.

“The queens are going to be looking for locations where they feel safe,” he said. “If you can’t get new hives set up in 48 hours, the queens will migrate and leave a pheromone trail that the bees accommodating her in that hive will follow.”

Tracking down and individually placing the queens in new or rebuilt honey boxes is the best strategy, assuming the surviving queens can be located. Otherwise, there might be a big bee population in northwest Yellowstone.

“If the queens are in Yellowstone, they’re going to migrate into Yellowstone’s forests,” he said. “You can prevent that if you find the queens and put them in individual hives, but you have 48 hours to do it.”

When Jordan helped salvage the scene near Arlington, they successfully recovered 70% of the bees that had been on the semi-truck. They accomplished this by quickly setting up new honey boxes in a safe spot near the scene.

“Bees are very communal,” he said. “They work on a swarm mentality, and they can migrate and integrate into a new colony pretty easily. Once the new housing is set up, they’ll typically migrate to those locations within 24 hours.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Busy As Bees"}]

Jordan imagines the companies that owned the damaged honey boxes are coordinating a large response and rushing new housing to the scene.

“I’d say salvaging those colonies and hives will be a three-day ordeal, working 18 hours a day,” he said. “It depends on who’s managing the cleanup. The owners will want to keep as much product as they can, and there are many factors that go into that.”

That already complicated and urgent effort will likely become even more complex, given that it all needs to happen within a national park. The NPS might implement its own strategy to ensure the safety of visitors, traffic and the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem.

, a Yellowstone spokesperson said there were no reported injuries.

"Although the highway remains open, expect delays and traffic control measures as cleanup and mitigation work continue at the site of the accident,” the statement reads.

Broadus had the same takeaway from the incident as he’s had for years driving that 55-mph section of road in Yellowstone's northwest corner: slow down.

“I’m surprised there aren’t more accidents like this,” he said. “I drive from West Yellowstone every day during the summer. People speed quite a bit and pass within tight margins of oncoming traffic. They need to slow down.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Any way you look at it, it’s not good."}]

“I feel bad for all the people involved,” Jordan said. “There could be two or three owners of those hives, and that’s a lot of money. That’s their livelihood. That’s at least one whole company that has to rebuild.”

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<title>Semitruck Carrying Millions Of Bees Crashes In Yellowstone National Park | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A semitruck carrying millions of honeybees flipped over on U.S. Highway 191 in Yellowstone National Park on Tuesday. Cheyenne beekeeper Michael Jordan called the scene "a devastating loss" of hundreds of thousands of dollars to the owners of the bees.

Semitruck Carrying Millions Of Bees Crashes In Yellowstone National Park

[{"type":"text","text":"And now an important public service announcement from winter......"}]

Mix Collage 17 Jun 2026 12 44 PM 5187

<title>Today In Towing: Thursday, June 18, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

And now an important public service announcement from winter......

Today In Towing: Thursday, June 18, 2026

Daily Darwin

[{"type":"text","text":"With that footwork, ballet is likely out of the question too…"}]

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<title>Daily Darwin: Thursday, June 18, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

With that footwork, ballet is likely out of the question too…

Daily Darwin: Thursday, June 18, 2026

[{"type":"text","text":"Golf is hard. Although, the kid ultimately has the right attitude...."}]

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