It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming, for Friday, March 21st. 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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The Byron woman who shot her four children then herself last month had both ketamine, a drug for post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, and clonazepam — an anti-anxiety drug — in her system.
The Big Horn County Coroner’s Office released relevant toxicology results and other details to Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland on Thursday, regarding 32-year-old Tranyelle Harshman’s death.
“I knew from talking to Tranyelle Harshman’s husband last month that there would be ketamine in her system, which can be used to treat post traumatic stress disorder and depression and the other one, the anxiety med I learned about this morning when the coroner's office got me basically an investigative summary. It's a list of things that coroners have to make public by law after they finish an investigation… ketamine is a dissociative, right? So it's been used so that soldiers who are wounded in battle can stay awake and rational while not processing their pain, right? And so, so you can, you know, under its influence, people might remove themselves from the situation. And then the Clonazepam, one of the warnings on it is, if you have suicidal thoughts, contact your doctor.”
Harshman suffered what has been described as a mental health break Feb. 10 at her home in Byron. She shot her four children, then she shot herself. Three of the girls died on scene and another one died in a hospital in Utah six days later.
Read the full story HERE.
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One of the wolves that was transplanted from British Columbia, Canada, to Colorado in January was killed Friday after apparently killing sheep on private property in north-central Wyoming.
Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports that five adult sheep were killed - and after the wolf was removed from the population by USDA wildlife services, it was discovered that it had a collar from Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
“Before they even brought wolves into Colorado, when they were still even talking about it. The question that came up right away is, okay, how long is it going to take for these wolves to start coming into Wyoming? Well, we got the answer. Apparently the answer was sometime around Friday, because on Friday, there was a report of a wolf killing sheep in what they described as North Central Wyoming… So this wolf made quite a journey. It was brought in, captured in British Columbia, brought down to Colorado for reintroduction. At some point between January and Friday, made its way all the way up into North Central Wyoming… if I could put a shout out over the newscast, Wendy, if you are the rancher who lost those sheep, please get in touch with us, I would love to talk to you and get your story.”
Colorado wolf reintroduction began in late 2023, with the release of wolves brought in from Oregon. A spokesperson for CPw noted that wolves are known to travel long distances to find food or mates, including into other states.
Read the full story HERE.
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President Donald Trump signed an order Thursday to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education. Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder was among a handpicked group of state leaders in attendance.
Trump told the crowd of attendees at his Thursday afternoon press conference that the executive order depletes the department as much as legally possible. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that Trump has long promised to return education decision-making to the states, something Degenfelder has said she supports.
“In the live stream of Trump, like talking about the order and then signing the order, and then there's people milling around… You can see the superintendent milling around in a bright red blazer with her very noticeable blonde hair… rubbing shoulders in this room of hand picked state leaders chosen to witness the near the near abolition of the US Department of Education… In her view, it's going to be the elimination of bureaucracy and red tape. And she takes Trump at his word when he says the states will still be receiving vital funding for things like special needs Disability Services. And she, she told me that, you know, she went not just to represent Wyoming, but also just to show that… many of the states are in support of this.”
Degenfelder said Trump is fulfilling his longtime campaign promise, and recognizing a premise of efficiency in localized governance that the federal government has not acknowledged prior.
Read the full story HERE.
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Expansion of the Spring Creek mine in southeast Montana was recently approved by federal regulators, offering on-the-ground evidence of the President Donald Trump administration’s push to ramp up the mining and burning of coal.
Between 2010 and 2019, the federal Energy Information Administration reports that 290 coal-fired plants closed, and more were scheduled to close.
But Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison reports that times have changed.
“The drum beat coming from Washington and from federal agencies like the Department of Interior is very pro coal. There is an overt effort going on right now by the Trump administration to increase extraction and burning of coal to generate electricity, and that… is pretty good news for the Wyoming coal industry that that here you have an administration that will be on their side in more cases, perhaps when it comes to extracting coal from the ground and tying things up less with regulations. That's also what concerns activists like the one I interviewed in Montana… they're feeling some whiplash, because there's definitely been a reversal.”
Trump’s executive order issued in January titled "Unleashing American Energy" directs agencies to roll back National Environmental Policy Act regulations and streamline permitting processes.
Read the full story HERE.
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A Rock Springs tow truck operator now hospitalized in Casper is just starting a weekslong recovery, after being hit by a pickup truck Wednesday on Interstate 80. Zack Krone is at Banner Wyoming Medical Center, waiting on future surgeries and next steps as he recovers. That’s what his wife Elizabeth told Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland in a Thursday phone interview.
“He's had a kidney removed, so there's some gut problems, along with other fractures, shatters, gashes that they're going to be dealing with for a while. But his wife Elizabeth agreed Thursday to update the public. And she also said, Please, if you see operators or stalled vehicles or anything like that, slow down and move over.”
On Wednesday morning outside Wamsutter, Zack had been offloading lumber from a commercial-truck trailer onto a nearby flatbed trailer after a wreck that had happened the night before. Zack pivoted from the lumber trailer to start walking toward his truck so that he could retrieve more straps, when a red Ford pickup hurtled down a slope, lost control and smashed him between the truck and trailer.
Read the full story HERE.
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A former Wyoming man who had moved to Alabama has been busted for illegally killing a deer 26 years after the fact, and after dodging a bench warrant for 24 years.
53-year-old Kenny Craig was arrested in March 2024 on a bench warrant that had been issued in February 2000. Some retired Wyoming game wardens told outdoors reporter Mark Heinz that sort of thing occasionally happens.
“He was living in Wyoming, he shot a mule deer on the wrong tag way back in 1998 and just he was cited for it, but just kept skipping his court dates. A bench warrant was issued in 2000, they finally caught up with him, I think late last year, in 2024. And I thought that was unusual, and so I reached out to a couple retired Wyoming game and fish wardens, and they said, Oh yeah, that does happen… One guy said that in 1993 he saw a guy pulling a huge lake trout. Ice fisherman pulling huge lake trout on a Flaming Gorge while his buddy filmed that. Found out the guy had been fishing without a license, confiscated the videotape, took all that in as evidence, cited the guy, and he says, To this day, I still have that videotape. They never did find the guy because he skipped out.”
However, Heinz reports that there is no statute of limitations on game violations - so all those old warrants are still active.
Read the full story HERE.
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For at least one of the two teens accused in the bow-and-arrow ambush death of a 23-year-old Big Piney man, the death penalty is no longer on the table.
18-year-old Orion Schlesinger pleaded “not guilty” and ”not guilty by reason of mental illness” at his Thursday arraignment in Sublette County District Court. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that Schlesigner is accused of conspiring to commit first-degree murder in the death of Dakota Farley on Feb 2nd.
“We don't know yet about Rowan Littauer, the one accused of pulling the bow back, the bow string back. But for Orion Schlesinger, who's accused of helping to hatch the plan, conspiring to do this, marching over there, being by Littauer’s side, the death penalty is no longer on the table, and the prosecutor, Clayton Melinkovich said this is for a few reasons. I don't think a jury will go for it…and factor number two is there is still a statewide and in some places, severe public defender shortage that that would just, would really be exacerbated by a death penalty case right now.”
19-year-old Rowan Littauer is accused alongside Schlesinger with first-degree murder and mutilation of a dead body. Court documents say the two men, after a personal grievance with Farley, walked more than a mile to his house the night of Feb. 1, walked into his home, and shot him as he emerged from a back room.
Read the full story HERE.
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It doesn’t get much farther from the bright lights of Hollywood or the glitz and out-to-be-seen star power of Sundance, but Cody, Wyoming, wants to break in as a destination for film festival junkies.
The first Yellowstone Film Festival will show 78 films at Big Horn Cinemas in Cody from March 21-28. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that dozens of feature films, animated shorts, documentaries and other projects from local and international filmmakers will be screened.
“The primary films that they're showing are ‘Eastern Western,’ which is an American western that's been produced by a Bosnian film crew, and ‘Tokyo Cowboy,’ where the plot is a Japanese businessman goes to Montana to try to convince ranchers to ditch Angus beef in favor of wagyu… But then there's some eye raising titles, like when Santa was a communist, which is a comedy drama film about a theater troupe touring through war-torn Bosnia with a Christmas production… the whole idea is it's independent films that people in Northwest Wyoming might not get exposed to easily, and now they're being presented on the big screen for these people to take in an experience and then get the wheels turning about what they or someone they know might be able to accomplish by moving their film production to Cody.”
Festival founder Jacob Graham knows it'll take years to get the event to where he wants it to go, but his team is determined to keep going. Their goal is to use the Yellowstone Film Festival to bring more films to the screen for a week while building momentum for more full-scale productions in the future.
Read the full story HERE.
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And that’s today’s news! For a deeper dive into the people and issues that affect Wyoming, check out The Roundup, conversations with the most interesting people in the Cowboy State. We have a special episode tomorrow - a tribute to the late Senator Al Simpson, featuring some of his friends and colleagues, sharing stories and special memories. You can find the link on our website, on our YouTube channel, and wherever you get your podcasts. And of course, you'll find it in our FREE daily email newsletter!
Thanks for tuning in - I’m Wendy Corr, for Cowboy State Daily.
