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[{"type":"text","text":"The problem with Enrique, the pool boy....."}]

Bonus vid 1 3 19 25

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

<title>Bonus Video 1: Wednesday, March 19, 2025 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The problem with Enrique, the pool boy.....

Bonus Video 1: Wednesday, March 19, 2025

 The problem with Enrique, the pool boy.....

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

Andrew Rossi

Tourism

[{"type":"text","text":"Some places just aren't a good fit for RVs and motorhomes. "}]

The Needles Highway in South Dakota’s Custer State Park, near Mount Rushmore, is one of them.

Denise Yelton and Todd Beaver discovered that during an excursion in Custer recently when a motorhome intended to thread the Needles Eye Tunnel found itself fraying halfway through.

Yelton and Beaver, who have been “full-time RVers” since April, decided to take an early-morning drive on the Needles Highway on Friday. They departed in their Jeep Gladiator, leaving their 38-foot Holiday Rambler Nautica parked at the campground.

“We left early because we knew the highway would get really crowded with Sturgis,” Yelton told Cowboy State Daily. “When we got to the tunnel, we pulled over because I wanted to record a video of my husband coming through the tunnel.”

When they pulled off the road, the Freedom Elite motorhome behind them kept going. That’s when disaster struck.

“I was sitting there waiting to see if he was going to make it through, and he got stuck,” Denise said. “I recorded it, obviously.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Aw, The Awning"}]

Drivers pass through three tunnels on the Needles Highway. The Needles Eye is the tightest at 8 feet, 4 inches wide and 9 feet, 8 inches tall.

Many people have attempted to get their RVs, motorhomes, and travel trailers through these tunnels, and many have failed. 

Yelton had seen videos of similar incidents and wasn’t keen to emulate them.

Yelton thought the Freedom Elite might have had a chance. Unfortunately for the couple pulling it, they were over-accessorized.

“The awning started scraping against the side of the tunnel,” she said. “When he realized that he wasn't going to make it, he started backing up, and that's when it was making all the noise.”

When the RV backed up far enough, the awning arm fully extended until it fell off. The driver backed out of the tunnel and parked in the pull-off to assess the damage with his wife.

Yelton and Beaver hopped in their Jeep and continued onward. Yelton assumed they conceded they couldn’t thread the Needles Eye and went back the way they came.

“I think he just thought he could get through, and maybe if it wasn't for the awnings, he possibly could have,” she said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'Don’t Be This Guy'"}]

Before Yelton posted the video of the RV incident on her 

, it had 347 followers. Three days later, it has more than 9,000 followers.

“It has blown my mind,” she said. “I’m not out there trying to get followers and stuff, but it's really blown my mind.”

When Beaver retired from the Charlotte Fire Department last year, the couple left Gastonia, North Carolina, in April and haven’t stopped since.

“We’re sharing our adventures and life on the road, one mile at a time,” Yelton said.

Yelton noticed that the Freedom Elite that attempted to scrape through the tunnel also had a North Carolina license plate. However, she figured that wasn’t a good time to chitchat.

[{"type":"text","text":"“I didn’t speak to them at all,” she said. “We just went on.”"}]

She did point out the numerous signs along the road warning drivers of the width and height of the upcoming tunnel. It seems the driver either underestimated the Freedom Elite’s width or overestimated his ability to get through the tunnel.

“He had to make it through the previous tunnel to get where he was, and that one was wider,” she said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"There’s An App For That"}]

How can RV and motorhome drivers avoid these incidents? There’s an app for that.

As she was researching full-time RV life, Yelton learned the secret to safe travels is the RV Life app.

“We put our destination in the app, and it’ll tell us what we want to avoid,” she said. “That’s what you have to do as an RVer, and we knew that because we follow a lot of them.”

That’s why their 38-foot Holiday Rambler Nautica RV stayed where it was. That’s for living and traveling the open road, not exploring routes like the Needles Highway.

“We never would have intentions of taking our camper on a mountain road,” she said. “We've researched enough about the areas that we're headed to so we know what to do when we get there.”

Yelton and Beaver have been savoring South Dakota for several days. The next leg of their trip will take them on Interstate 90 to Buffalo, then over the Bighorns to Cody on their way to Yellowstone National Park.

Thanks to RV Life, they know where they can and can’t go with their RV, lest they end up facing scrutiny on social media.

“We’ve seen a lot of videos, so we knew our RV would never make it through those tunnels,” Yelton said. “That was my first time seeing something like that.”

RV stuck 8 17 26

<title>RV Driver Tries To Scrape Through South Dakota Needles Eye Tunnel, Gets Stuck | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A couple was videotaping the Needles Eye Tunnel in South Dakota’s Custer State Park on Friday when a motorhome tried to thread the narrow opening and became stuck. "I think he just thought he could get through," they said.

RV Driver Tries To Scrape Through South Dakota Needles Eye Tunnel, Gets Stuck

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

Government & Politics

California isn’t doing its part to avert the Colorado River crisis by upgrading its aging water infrastructure and is instead spending billions on pet projects, Wyoming Republican Rep. Harriet Hageman said Monday.

“It’s because they do stupid things like spending money on high-speed rail and don’t meet the basic needs of their citizens,” Hageman told Cowboy State Daily.

She added that California Gov. Gavin Newsom is one of the “top five worst governors in the United States.”

“How many billions have been wasted on healthcare for illegal aliens (in California)?” she asked.

, Hageman said California, with a population of 40 million, still relies on water infrastructure dating to the 1960s, when about 16 million lived in the state.  

That could saddle Wyoming and other Colorado River basin states with meeting an increasing demand for water against a dwindling supply, she said.

If the issue  escalates into a legal battle, probably before the U.S. Supreme Court, California and other downstream states might try going after Wyoming’s irrigation water, Hageman added.

Hageman was previously a water and natural resources attorney. She worked on cases related to the 1922 Colorado River Compact, the North Platte Decree limiting Colorado

’s use of the river’s water, and other interstate water agreements.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Red Lights Flashing"}]

Alarm over the condition of the river reached new levels Saturday, when Lake Powell, on the Utah-Arizona state line, reached its lowest level on record, CNN reported.

Nine days earlier, Lake Mead, on the Arizona-Nevada state line, also reached its lowest level.

Lake Powell and Lake Mead are the largest reservoirs on the Colorado River and supply hydroelectric power and other water needs to the Lower Basin states of California, Arizona, and Nevada.

The Upper Basin states are Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico.

There’s concern that Lake Powell and Lake Mead could reach “dead pool,” or levels so low their dams can no longer generate hydroelectric power.

California should have seen trouble coming and acted accordingly, Hageman said.

“The red lights have been flashing for years, if not decades,” she said.

Wyoming Irrigation Would Prevail In Court

Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon recently stated that he’s 

 that the Department of the Interior's new 10-year plan for the Colorado looks out for Upper Basin states.

However, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs said it calls for “draconian water cutbacks" for her state.

Hageman said Arizona’s water woes stem from the same problems California has: Poor planning and misallocation of funds that should have gone toward water infrastructure.

“I think it might very well be Arizona that will try to drag the other states into court over this (Colorado River) compact,” she said.

Attorneys for Arizona or other Lower Basin states would likely try arguing that meeting industrial or municipal demands would be a “higher and better use” for water than irrigation in Wyoming, she said.

However, Hageman said she’s confident that’s an argument attorneys for Wyoming and the Upper Basin would win.

“The solution to their long-term water needs isn’t shutting Wyoming off from being able to irrigate,” she said.

Moreover, irrigation is good for the environment, she added.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The 1922 Compact Stands"}]

Tensions over the Colorado River have led some to question whether the 1922 Colorado River Compact should be replaced.

Hageman said that might sound appealing at first, but drawing up a new compact could take years or possibly even “decades” in court.

And there’s no guarantee a new compact would be better for Wyoming and the Upper Basin, she added.

“It is what it is. And the reality is, we keep coming back to this compact,” Hageman said.

The best hope is for the Upper Basin states to argue for the existing compact to work in their favor, Hageman said. And she said she thinks that case can be made.

The compact calls for the Upper Basin to supply an annual flow of 7.5 million acre-feet at Lees Ferry in Arizona. 

It is viewed by some as a “delivery obligation” on the Upper Basin’s part, Hageman said.

“I would argue that it’s a non-depletion compact,” she said.

Wyoming has never used its allotted 14% of the Upper Basin’s allocation, she added. And until it does, there shouldn’t be a call for Wyoming’s supply to be depleted.

Some have suggested California wean itself from the Colorado by desalinizing Pacific Ocean water along its extensive coastline.

Hageman said she favors that option and thinks California is obligated to pursue it far more aggressively than it has.

“Israel is at almost 100% desalinization” of seawater to meet its freshwater demands, Hageman said. “It can be done.” 

However, California’s policy has been directed by short-sighted politicians who want to spend the state’s revenue on flashy projects, such as “Los Angeles-to-San Fransico high-speed rail,” rather than investing in desalinization plants and the like, she said.

“They failed all of us,” Hageman said. “They failed everybody on the (Colorado River) system.”

Hageman and Colorado River 8 17 26

<title>Hageman: California 'Failed All Of Us' And Made Colorado River Water Crisis Worse | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Wyoming Rep. Harriet Hageman says California should be accountable for the Colorado River crisis because instead of building water infrastructure it spent billions on "stupid things" like high-speed rail. In the meantime, Lake Powell has hit a record low.

Hageman: California 'Failed All Of Us' And Made Colorado River Water Crisis Worse

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

Renée Jean

Around Wyoming

In the hyper-competitive world of multi-million-dollar western real estate listings, buzzwords like “regenerative agriculture” often pad a broker’s promotional materials. But a $29.9 million ranch just listed by Hayden Outdoors near Weston in northeast Wyoming has a little more heft behind its hype than usual.

That’s because Martha Stewart traded the Hamptons for the High Plains of Wyoming last year to come study the farm-to-fork ecosystem at Steiner Ranch, which was then called Sweetgrass at Thunderbasin. 

Stewart later praised the operation on her official Instagram account, highlighting the “extreme” energy of the ranch’s owners, Rick Steiner and Deirdre Wildman. 

She was also interested in the property’s unique capacity to feed its guests almost entirely from the surrounding land, praising multi-course menus that featured on-site harvests of goose, rabbit, beef, poultry and local berries, as well as produce from the ranch’s greenhouses, orangery, and its open-air culinary gardens. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Ranch Grows Everything It Needs"}]

It was the culinary garden that got the ranch noticed by Stewart, who owns a 153-acre farm in Connecticut. 

“Last year, early in the season, we had a group of shooters here and they saw my wife’s culinary garden, which is truly an extraordinary thing,” Steiner said. “It’s a culinary garden that produces enough stuff for us to provide literally all the vegetables that 250 guests eat during the course of the fall season.”

Steiner’s wife, Wildman, gave them all a tour of the gardens, explaining their approach to a regenerative, farm-to-fork operation.

“So the guy said to me, ‘I gotta get our chief gardening officer out here to see this,’” Steiner said with a chuckle. “And we said, ‘chief gardening officer?’”

Steiner has heard all sorts of acronyms such as CEO, COO, CFO. But that was the first time hearing CGO.

“And then he said, ‘It’s Martha Stewart,’” Steiner said. “And I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s kind of interesting.’”

That Stewart visit wasn’t something Steiner thought would happen. But the following Monday morning he had a text asking if such and such date would work for Stewart’s visit.

“Sure enough, they were out here 10 days later and got the full tour of the gardens and the ranch,” Steiner said. “And we have a small animal farming operation that raises chickens and turkeys and ducks and geese, rabbits and goats, and those also, both eggs and meat, are served to guests.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"What It’s Like To Serve Martha Stewart"}]

Wildman served breakfast, lunch and dinner to Stewart. For breakfast she even used one of Stewart’s own biscuit recipes. 

“I’ll be honest with you, there’s a little bit of anxiety as to whether or not your biscuits are going to meet Martha Stewart’s standard,” Steiner said. “When my wife asked me about it, I said, ‘Well she ate several of them so …’ She passed with flying colors.”

Stewart, Steiner added, was a down-to-earth, gracious guest.

“She’s got a great sense of humor and she’s very engaging, very straightforward,” Steiner said. “She’s not shy about telling you what she thinks. I just found her delightful.”

Stewart posted several pictures about her visit on Instagram, including some standing with Deirdre and others on the ranch.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Elevation Creates Unique Microclimate"}]

The ranch’s ability to grow so much produce is a feat in arid Wyoming, one that’s helped by the ranch’s elevation, which has created a favorable microclimate.

“I would say the surrounding (Thunder Basin) national grassland is a 16 to 24 inches a year precipitation environment, and the ranch I would say is 30 to 36 inches a year of precipitation environment,” Steiner told Cowboy State Daily. “The clouds roll in from whatever direction the wind is blowing and have to rise up to climb over the hills on the ranch and the ridge lines. When they rise up, they cool down and drop some moisture.”

That’s given the ranch all kinds of trees and created great habitat not only for gardening but for wildlife as well. 

“It’s the basis for what’s going on here in every dimension,” Steiner said. “It’s great for ranching. It’s really great for the wildlife. And it just makes the place much nicer and more scenic than most other places.”

The ranch’s location in so much wild and remote territory, with above-average water resources, has made it such an exceptional wildlife haven. 

“I’ve hunted in probably 40 countries,” Steiner said. “This one of the finest hunting properties on the planet. Really big elk, fantastic mule deer, white-tailed deer, lots of turkeys. 

"And it also provides exceptional bird-shooting experiences for pheasants and chukars, which we have been offering to guests for the last four years. It’s an amazing sporting property that also supports about 100 cow-calf pairs if you want to run some cows on the side.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Time For A New Steward"}]

Steiner’s path to Wyoming started far from the Black Hills. The West Point graduate served about five years in the infantry, then spent roughly 18 1/2 in Special Forces, eventually retiring as a Green Beret colonel. 

After the military, he built a business career in Denver, but had always had it on his bucket list to own a ranch.

“My business success was sufficient that I could make my dream a reality,” he said.

Still, it took him a decade looking at ranches in multiple states before he finally found what he was looking for. 

“One of the things that this ranch has going it for that people don’t really think about when they’re looking at ranches is it’s 45 minutes from Gillette Campbell County Airport,” Steiner said. “So you can fly to visit us on United, or you can fly in privately if you have that.” 

Steiner and his wife, however, feel ready to retire. A ranch like this one, capable of attracting someone like Martha Stewart to visit, needs a new steward, Steiner said.

“It’s too much ranch for just a married couple who wants to have a lifestyle ranch,” Steiner said. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Two Mansions On The Ranch"}]

Steiner’s Special Forces career helps explain why the property has been designed to completely survive being cut off from the main grid. It has its own dual-array solar grids, industrial backup power, private gravel pits, and independent fuel caches, mimicking a military Forward Operating Base — but one that’s been built to some luxury standards.

There are not one but two mansions on this turnkey ranch. The flagship, called The Lodge, is 7,100 square feet and includes four bedrooms with five bathrooms and a central living area anchored with a double-sided fireplace. 

The kitchen is chef grade, with premium appliances, custom cabinetry, and a large center island. 

There’s a whiskey lounge as well as a private office and a large covered back deck, the better to view the surrounding beauty of the Black Hills. An oversized garage means plenty of room for vehicles, whether practical or pleasure.

The second mansion, called the Berm Home, is 6,200 square feet designed for energy efficiency. It, too, features a high-end kitchen and a large great room that’s designed for gatherings. 

The Covey Conference Center, meanwhile, includes a spacious dining hall, full-service bar and kitchenette, as well as a climate-controlled wine cellar. A large elevated deck looks out over the property’s creek and its pond.

And then there’s the Rendezvous, a commercial-grade facility for larger culinary events, hosted gatherings, and large-scale entertaining. It's surrounded by the ranch’s culinary gardens. It also includes laundry facilities, dry storage and utility areas that keep the ranch and its many operations running smoothly. 

The Rendezvous is where Steiner has placed a 150-year-old cherry wood bar he found in a hotel in Anaconda, Montana.

“It was in the hotel in Anaconda by the early 1880s, and we have photographs of the bar in operation,” Steiner said. “The mid-1880s was when Anaconda and Butte were the copper mining capital of the country. Enormous amounts of money were put into that area at the time, but when the copper played out the hotel went into decline, and the bar ended up here.”

The property, adjacent to the national grasslands, gives it expansive vistas that make it feel much bigger than its 5,582 acres.

“It’s not a big flat open thing or a big sagebrush grassland,” Steiner said. “The fence lines of the ranch on the south side of the ranch and the north side of the ranch, you stand there and look at a grassland that unfolds for miles and miles and miles.”

Steiner Ranch DSU08404 2 22 8 17 26

<title>5,500-Acre Wyoming Ranch And Hunting Destination Hits Market For Nearly $30M | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The 5,582-acre Steiner Ranch in northeast Wyoming, a premiere spot for hunting trophy bull elk and mule deer, has just been listed for sale at nearly $30 million. Last year, Martha Stewart was at the ranch to study its farm-to-fork ecosystem.

5,500-Acre Wyoming Ranch And Hunting Destination Hits Market For Nearly $30M

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Crime & Courts

Editor's note: This story has been updated to include a statement from the Goshen County attorney.

Nearly five years after a nighttime crash killed two young people on a rural Goshen County highway, Wyoming prosecutors are now pursuing a criminal charge against the Colorado truck driver involved.

Conan Dean Ferguson, 54, of Briggsdale, Colorado, is wanted on a Goshen County warrant stemming from the Nov. 17, 2021, crash that killed 18-year-old Korey Bowers of La Grange and 19-year-old Emma Nelson of Nebraska.

The criminal case follows an investigation by the Wyoming Highway Patrol that stretched through much of 2022.

Wyoming Highway Patrol Trooper Samuel Szott was assigned to investigate the crash in March 2022 and completed his work that October, WHP spokesman Aaron Brown told Cowboy State Daily.

"Keep in mind troopers on the crash team do not do crash reconstruction full time, so it is fairly normal for a crash investigation, especially those involving a fatality, to take several months," Brown said.

[{"type":"text","text":"WHP then forwarded all of its evidence to prosecutors."}]

Multiple Cowboy State Daily inquiries to Goshen County prosecuting attorney Eric Boyer since early July about the criminal charge were not responded to by publication time.

Shortly after the story was published, Boyer responded that "pursuant to applicable ethical rules ... and in the interests of justice, my office has no comment on this pending matter."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Fatal Night"}]

A crash report released after the wreck shows it was just before 10 p.m. Nov. 17, 2021, when Bowers and Nelson were traveling on U.S. Highway 85 south of Hawk Springs.

[{"type":"text","text":"Bowers was driving a Ford Taurus with Nelson in the passenger seat."}]

Near milepost 69.5, Bowers slowed or stopped with his left turn signal on as he prepared to turn onto Wyoming Highway 313, according to the Wyoming Highway Patrol's account of the crash.

[{"type":"text","text":"Behind him, Ferguson was driving a northbound Volvo tractor-trailer."}]

As Ferguson attempted to pass the Taurus on the right shoulder, Bowers turned right.

The semi T-boned the Taurus, striking it in the side with enough force to overturn the car.

Bowers was wearing his seat belt and survived the initial impact. An ambulance rushed him to Banner Health Community Hospital in Torrington, where he died from his injuries.

[{"type":"text","text":"Nelson died at the crash scene."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Ferguson and a passenger riding in the semi were not injured."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"The deaths marked Wyoming's 100th and 101st traffic fatalities of 2021."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"More Than Numbers"}]

Bowers and Nelson had come to southeastern Wyoming to attend the same small Bible college.

They were freshmen at Frontier School of the Bible in La Grange, and their families described them as dear friends.

[{"type":"text","text":"Bowers died on his 18th birthday."}]

He had spent the previous five years with his family doing missionary work in Beardmore, Ontario, Canada.

Bowers was so determined to attend Frontier with his older brother, Caleb, that he finished his final three years of high school in two.

[{"type":"text","text":"Nelson traveled to Wyoming from Nebraska."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"She grew up in Cedar Bluffs and Juniata before enrolling at Frontier."}]

In her obituary, her family remembered a young woman who was fiercely loyal to her friends and protective of her younger siblings. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Families File Lawsuit"}]

The families of Bowers and Nelson filed a wrongful-death lawsuit July 29, 2022, in U.S. District Court for Wyoming as representatives of their children's estates.

The lawsuit named Ferguson, McLane Company Inc., Transco Inc. and Manos Zouridakis, the passenger in Ferguson's truck, as defendants.

[{"type":"text","text":"The families demanded a jury trial."}]

McLane and Transco filed an answer Sept. 13, 2022, denying allegations and asserting a series of affirmative defenses.

Ferguson was served with the lawsuit Aug. 27 and filed his own answer and affirmative defenses Sept. 19, court records show.

Maren Chaloupka, an attorney who represented the Nelson family in the lawsuit, later discussed the case while testifying before the Nebraska Legislature in February 2025.

Chaloupka told lawmakers the litigation uncovered what she characterized as lax hiring practices and repeated warnings involving dangerous driving. She said the families were determined to push the motor carrier to make changes.

"Money alone was not going to make this case go away," Chaloupka testified.

She said the families were prepared to take the case to trial if the motor carrier would not change its practices.

"In the end, that motor carrier agreed it would make changes," Chaloupka said.

Her testimony did not specify exactly what changes the motor carrier ultimately made.

[{"type":"text","text":"The civil lawsuit was separate from any criminal proceedings."}]

Nearly five years after a semi T-boned a car in Goshen County, killing two young students from a Wyoming Bible college, the Colorado trucker involved is wanted on a homicide-by-vehicle charge. One victim was killed on his 18th birthday, the other was 19.

Bonus Video 1: Wednesday, March 19, 2025

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