It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming, for Tuesday, March 18th. I’m Wendy Corr, bringing you headlines from the Cowboy State Daily newsroom - Brought to you by the Cowboy State Daily Morning Show With Jake! From 6 to 10 a.m., Monday through Friday, host Jake Nichols brings you news, weather, sports AND in-depth interviews with news-makers from across Wyoming - presented with Jake’s unique humor and lively commentary. Just click on the Cowboy State Daily homepage and join the conversation!
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Until recently, Republican U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman’s town halls were more like small rallies, attended mostly by loyal supporters.
That’s changed in the last week. Cowboy State Daily’s Leo Wolfson reports that at a town hall in Rock Springs, Democrats and those who oppose President Donald Trump and Hageman’s support of Trump showed up to protest, push back and sometimes heckle her at her town hall events.
“There was a number of people who showed up in opposition to Hageman, and some of which were holding protest signs, and she was heckled and yelled at numerous times during the event. Hageman seemed to make an effort to really keep her composure throughout the event, but there were some times she could clearly be seen, kind of going on the edge there. At one point, she told the audience to shut up. But people who were there, you know, and who support her, thought that she handled the situation very well. Some of the people heckling her were pretty outspoken, interrupting her numerous times, apparently, profanities were yelled at her from the audience, and it got kind of ugly, to say the least.”
Hageman is hosting another town hall in Laramie on Wednesday. A contingency of Democrats there are planning on hosting a rally at the Albany County Courthouse beforehand, but organizers say they plan to, quote, “respectfully and peacefully attend” Hageman’s event.
Read the full story HERE.
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A Wyoming-based social media influencer who set off international outrage after reportedly grabbing a baby wombat in Australia is firing back.
In a letter she sent to Cowboy State Daily, Samantha Strable — who sometimes goes by Sam Jones online — wrote that the anger directed toward her is hypocritical, because wombats are basically treated as pests in Australia. Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz spoke to Strable about the controversy.
“In her defense, she came back with a statement saying, look that the Australian Government kills tons of wombats and kangaroos, and I guess they've got feral horses I knew previously, believe it or not, Wendy, they slaughter tons of feral camels there… So that was Samantha Strable’s point of view, or answer. She’s like, Hey, why are you guys mad at me about picking up this one baby animal when your government kills wombats and kangaroos and feral deer and feral camels and god knows what else to protect their agriculture?”
Strable is originally from Montana, but was living in Pinedale in 2023 when Cowboy State Daily interviewed her for a feature story about her outdoors and hunting adventures.
Read the full story HERE.
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A Wyoming state trooper caught an illegal immigrant traveling through Wyoming with 18,000 rounds of rifle ammunition.
Charged on Friday with being an illegal alien in possession of ammunition, Ricardo Paez-Quinones could face up to 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, and/or deportation if convicted. Crime and courts reporter Clair McFarland has the details.
“The trooper asked Paez-Quinones, like, what are you doing with all this ammo. And he's alleged to have said, my girlfriend and I are gonna go do some target practice out on the range, which is a very Wyoming activity… But the trooper asked, Well, do you have this gun that you're going to shoot? And Paez-Quinones reportedly said no. And so in either case, whatever you want to use it for, there is a federal crime against illegal immigrants possessing ammunition.”
An evidentiary affidavit filed in the case says Paez-Quinones has been deported twice already: once in February of 2012 and again in June of 2014.
Read the full story HERE.
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After strong reaction from around Wyoming, the United States and international travelers, Devils Tower National Monument says it had an “oops” moment last week when it announced the park would no longer be open 24/7.
The sudden and unexpected bulletin posted last Tuesday said that starting Thursday, the popular monument in northeast Wyoming would change its hours from open all day, every day to 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., with the area closed overnight.
What Devils Tower officials didn’t say was the nighttime closure is temporary. Cowboy State Daily’s Greg Johnson reports that the overnight closure is in effect through March 30, and won’t impact the upcoming summer tourism season.
“The original announcement didn't say anything about why they were closing. So everybody was speculating that they were doing it… It turns out that they're what they're doing is they're doing a lot of road maintenance before the season kicks up… But yeah, they they realized they had an oops moment when, when they started getting all the feedback from everywhere, from Wyoming, from the nation, even internationally, from from the whole travel community, saying, What?... And they realized they didn't include some important pieces of information there.”
But not everybody believes the statement, that the original announcement wasn’t deliberately misleading. Some felt the announcement was a political stunt, while others complained that the Park Service could have cleared the confusion up within minutes, but chose not to.
Read the full story HERE.
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Funeral services have been announced for former U.S. Senator Al Simpson, who died Friday at the age of 93.
Cowboy State Daily’s Leo Wolfson reports that Simpson’s death was recognized by people all around the state, country and world, who noted his accomplishments during his 18 years as Wyoming’s senator and beyond, along with his impacts on his home state, and the nation.
“Simpson will lie in state at the Wyoming capitol on March 27 and March 28… It's an honor that's only reserved for a very select few of Wyoming people, and it's mostly limited to members of the Wyoming congressional delegation and Wyoming governors… His actual funeral ceremony, the actual service in church, will be held March 31 at the Christ Episcopal Church in Cody. And for that event, there also will be kind of a overflow live streaming available inside the Buffalo Bill Center of the West and Wyoming PBS will do a live broadcast that could also be watched online as well.”
Simpson will be the first person to lie in state at the Capitol since former Wyoming Treasurer Joe Meyer in 2012.
Read the full story HERE.
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Responding to a push from the administration of President Donald Trump to remove Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, or DEI, from Academia, the University of Wyoming has cut ties with a national nonprofit program for doctoral candidates.
Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports that UW severed ties with the PhD project, a nonprofit that partners with universities and companies to create networking opportunities for doctoral students, mostly from business colleges.
“They have broken ties with an organization called the PhD project, which doesn't seem to have any overt or direct connections to DEI, although in the past, some of their past postings on their website indicate that they were trying to get diverse students into business schools for PhDs around the country, but for whatever reason, as part of this investigation or part of this move by the Department of Education to get away from those programs, UW has severed ties with this PhD project. ”
Responding to a request for comment from Cowboy State Daily on Monday, the PhD Project sent a statement via email that reiterated the group’s goals, but made no mention of UW.
Read the full story HERE.
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When Jill Siggins woke up at 4 a.m. Monday, she saw sleet falling on the windows of her home along the South Fork of the Shoshone River west of Cody. But later that morning, she was alarmed that the residue left on her windows and vehicles proved challenging to clean.
Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi looked into what the funk was that covered not only the Siggins property, but most of northern Park County, from the South Fork all the way up to Clark.
“The meteorologists that I spoke to said that with the high winds that Northwest Wyoming had over the weekend, that turned up a lot of dust that just rose into the sky, and then with a huge cloud of Pacific moisture coming into the area, the dust kind of condensed into those water droplets and fell back to the ground as mud. So that's the meteorological explanation. But speaking to people on the ground, they've been saying it's really difficult to remove. One of the people I spoke to whose pictures we posted with the story, she … got the ash off of vehicles from the ‘88 fires in Yellowstone and the 1980 eruption of Mount St Helens. And she said that whatever this substance is that fell out of the sky on Monday night, it was worse than what she cleared off with the ash from these fires.”
Siggins found some success using vinegar and Dawn liquid detergent, but struggled to remove the layer of whatever it was from her home and vehicles. That's the same remedy many recommend to get geothermal mud off vehicles that park too close to Steamboat Geyser in Yellowstone National Park.
Read the full story HERE.
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The Wyoming Department of Health expects the last of a series of federal grants for pro-vaccine advertising to run out later this year – but that’s not because of the new presidential administration’s more vaccine-skeptical approach.
It's because that money was tied to a finite stream of pandemic and recovery-related federal grants and contracts. That’s what Wyoming Department of Health spokeswoman Kim Deti told Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland in an email on Monday.
“Watching the national news, I noticed that Trump chose and the Senate confirmed a very vaccine skeptical Health and Human Services Secretary, RFK Jr, and so I got to wondering, like I know, Wyoming Department of Health has spent millions since 2021 on vaccine advertising for COVID, for flu and other vaccines, and I thought, Well, are they going to lose this now that RFK is at the helm of the national department? And the answer was, well, the grants are expiring, but it's not because of Trump. It's because that was a pandemic and Pandemic recovery related series of grants that's just reached its natural end.”
Deti said the department believes it has spent about $8.4 million in federal money on pro-vaccine advertising since 2021.
Read the full story HERE.
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And in the hometown of Daniel Whitney — aka Larry The Cable Guy — the local nonprofit development corporation wants to build 25 new homes in the next five years.
To “Git-R-Done,” the town of Pawnee City, Nebraska is offering new homebuyers $50,000 in downpayment assistance. Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison reports that this is part of a campaign to revitalize the town of 878 people, located 80 miles southeast of Lincoln.
“Like a lot of small towns, Pawnee City, Nebraska is losing residents, and when they try and hire a nurse or a teacher, they run up against the same question, where's the housing? And it's a similar problem seen throughout the United States, and… the Local Development Corporation and the Chamber of Commerce and a team of folks have come together behind this vision 2030 which aspires to build 25 new homes and attract folks that are going to invest in the town, whether by taking a job at the hospital or the school or maybe even opening a business downtown. And for those folks, they even have extra grant money to fix up the storefront. And it really is a charming place. It has a very Americana Norman Rockwell Mayberry vibe going on based on the photos.”
While Wyoming borders Nebraska, it wouldn’t be practical or economical for someone considering a commute to get a good deal on a house in Pawnee City. The closest Wyoming town is Pine Bluffs, which is 475 miles away, or about a seven-hour drive.
Read the full story HERE.
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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. Thanks for tuning in - I’m Wendy Corr, for Cowboy State Daily.
