It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming, for Wednesday, March 26th. I’m Wendy Corr, bringing you headlines from the Cowboy State Daily newsroom - Brought to you by the Cowboy State Daily Morning Show! From 6 to 10 a.m., Monday through Friday, we bring you news, weather, sports AND in-depth interviews with news-makers from across Wyoming - and this week we’ve got a fantastic guest host, Charene Herrera, who will keep the conversation lively! Just click on the Cowboy State Daily homepage to join in.
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Wyoming’s lone congressional representative, Harriet Hageman told Cowboy State Daily last week she had no plans to cancel any of her town halls after a raucous forum held in Laramie last week, but escalating threats of violence have changed her plans.
Hageman announced Tuesday that she’s canceling in-person access to two of her upcoming town halls in Cheyenne and Torrington. Cowboy State Daily’s Leo Wolfson reports that she will only host the events virtually because of, quote, “Democrat threats of violence.”
“This comes in response to some of the events that occurred and some of the very raucous behaviors she was greeted with at some of her two recent town halls, specifically in Rock Springs, Laramie and Wheatland. The Laramie one was a town hall held last week where she experienced a lot of very aggressive people in the audience screaming profanities at her and things of that nature. There wasn't any physical conversations or anything like that they're aware of, but it was kind of a very aggressive night, yet she stayed on the stage for more than an hour and dealt with it. But after that, there was a town hall held in Wheatland that was, for the most part, a pretty tame affair, but a woman who the Platte County Sheriff told me was about 60 to 70 years old tried approaching Hageman after the event, and was kind of approaching in a kind of somewhat aggressive manner.”
The woman never actually made physical contact with Hageman’s staff, but police were forced to intervene to make sure that didn’t happen. Hageman said her town halls will be conducted virtually until it seems safe to resume in-person events.
Read the full story HERE.
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The human remains found by a game warden on Sunday in rural Washakie County have been identified as those of Breanna Mitchell who disappeared nearly two years ago.
Cowboy State Daily’s Jen Kocher reports that the then-28-year-old Worland woman has been missing since July 2023 after her vehicle was found stuck on a rugged, two-track road in rural Washakie County.
“She was driving in the back country in Washakie County, and it appears that her car got… high centered. And she left the car and went off on foot. It's not clear if she was wearing shoes or barefoot, because they did find barefoot tracks around the car, and so who knows? You know, perhaps she went to get help, to try to get out of there. It's just not known at this point… I think the temperatures were in the low hundreds. It was quite hot, from what I understand. So she may have, you know, with the elements and with that type of terrain, so … I will be following up with the coroner to see what the cause of death is.”
Mitchell was identified through dental records her dentist had on file. She was one of 81 missing people in Wyoming dating back to 1974 who are listed on the Division of Criminal Investigation’s missing person database.
Read the full story HERE.
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A judicial nominating commission tasked with helping Wyoming's governor fill a seat left vacant by the state Supreme Court’s chief justice has nominated three candidates for his consideration, the high court announced Monday.
Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that one of the three is Gov. Mark Gordon’s appointed state attorney general, Bridget Hill.
“The nominating Commission, which is lawyers, non lawyers, and the Wyoming Supreme Court Justice, sent three nominees to Governor Gordon for consideration to fill a soon to be vacant Wyoming Supreme Court seat. And they, you know, there's, there's judge Stewart Healy, the third, and there's Anna Reeves Olson, private litigator out of Casper, who recently served as Wyoming State Bar president. And then there's also Wyoming Attorney General, Bridget Hill, who has been Gordon's top counsel throughout his tenure… Chief Justice Kate Fox is retiring may 27 so we gotta have a new justice by then.”
Wyoming does not elect judges. Commissions have nominated candidates to be appointed by the governor since 1972 – a process the late, former U.S. Sen. Al Simpson put forth, successfully, as a ballot initiative when he served the Wyoming Legislature.
Read the full story HERE.
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Democrats claim President Donald Trump’s administration wants to dismantle Social Security. Republicans including Wyoming’s congressional delegation say otherwise, and the war of words ramped up Tuesday in a Senate committee.
Cowboy State Daily’s Sean Barry reports that the latest salvos were fired as the Finance Committee held a confirmation hearing for Frank Bisignano, a longtime banking executive whom Trump has nominated to lead the Social Security Administration.
“Today's hearing was not so much about him, but about Social Security and the future of this program… Some in Congress think the Trump administration is trying to undercut social security through staffing cuts, closures of offices, and that eventually he might want to do away with the whole thing. Maybe privatize it… Wyoming's three members of Congress say, No, your benefits are legally protected. Senator Cynthia Lummis does think there's understaffing in Wyoming field offices. So the question is, at what point does the search for efficiency turn into, oh, wait, I'm a Social Security recipient. I can't get anybody on the phone. I can't go to an office. The Trump administration has pledged efficiency across government. Fine, but what happens when somebody doesn't get their check and needs to put food on the table? Wyoming's congressional delegation is aware of these concerns, but I think that they feel that the critics are just fear mongering, and that Social Security, on the whole is perfectly okay. They are not worried about reductions in payments, for example.”
Barrasso said some media reports about Social Security are, quote, “just plain wrong,” including an Associated Press story saying the Rock Springs field office is on a list to be cut.
Read the full story HERE.
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U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s last day turned out to be Monday, with the embattled chief administrator unexpectedly leaving before his replacement has been found.
DeJoy’s early departure does not signal the end for the controversial Delivering for America plan, however, which has attracted widespread criticism in Wyoming. Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that It's still not clear if afternoon pickup for Wyoming mail will be impacted under the plan, which starts April 1.
“On April 1, when this regional transportation optimization plan rolls out, Wyoming may lose afternoon pickups under this plan at some point. It's not clear exactly what's happening. I've sent numerous emails trying to understand what's going on. I get responses back that say nothing's changing. Well, obviously something is changing, because we have this regional transportation optimization plan, if you look at their website under that, regional transportation optimization means any post office that's 50 miles or more from a regional processing and distribution center won't get afternoon mail pickup anymore. So Wyoming doesn't have any of those under delivering for America.”
U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman on Monday said she is not stopping her fight for rural postal service in America, indicating she believes there is still a concern for mostly rural Wyoming.
Read the full story HERE.
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A semitruck pulling a pump and a belly dump trailer full of bentonite smashed through the side of a storage shed and a vehicle, then continued to tear halfway through a house Monday in Upton.
Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland spoke to locals who say The semitruck had come into town headed north on Highway 116, and instead of stopping at the main thoroughfare of Highway 16, the truck drove through it and smashed into a storage shed, then a vehicle, then plunged into a nearby home.
“I talked with Mickey Remington, who owns that diner that's in that area, and she owns the shed that got smashed and she owns the home she rents out the shed and the home that got smashed through. And she said everything was just a little off that morning, she was running late to work. The people who use the shed for electrical equipment didn't happen to be in it, and the man who rents the home from her when he'd normally be in the shower or starting up his truck for the day, he actually chose to go and lie back down in bed. And even though the truck shoved him in bed against the wall, it would have taken him out had he been in the shower.”
Remington added that the driver is a local man whom she knows. She said the man was taken to the hospital but was back on the site within two hours. He walked into Remington’s business, apologized, and gave her his insurance information.
Read the full story HERE.
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A 41-year-old Casper man was in Circuit Court on Tuesday on charges related to stealing a truck idling in a driveway Saturday night. He then somehow escaped a hail of bullets from the truck’s owner.
Cowboy State Daily’s Dale Killingbeck reports that Casper police arrested Angelo Arvizo shortly after 9 p.m. Saturday after receiving a call from the owner of a GMC pickup that his truck had been stolen.
“There was a casper man that had started his truck up and left it idling in his driveway, and then he looked out, he said, five minutes later, and saw that it was missing. And so he apparently grabbed his pistols and went out to see what was going on, and he sees his truck going down the street, so he proceeded to fire. Initially told police. He didn't tell police that he fired at the truck, but when they caught the truck at Smith's grocery in Casper, they found bullet holes in the windshield. So then the owner said, Yeah, I fired five times at the truck. Well, they actually found 11 casings in the road outside of the truck owners house. So and the to complicate the story, the truck owner grabbed his car, took off after his truck, and then proceeded to bang into the truck with his car to prevent the truck from being driven.”
The Natrona County District Attorney’s Office requested that charges against the pickup’s owner for shooting at the alleged truck thief also be submitted for review.
Read the full story HERE.
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Preparations for Yellowstone National Park’s summer season are underway. And one area of Yellowstone that the park’s managers and scientists are monitoring closely is Biscuit Basin. The thermal area near Old Faithful has been closed since July 23rd of last year, after a massive hydrothermal explosion of Black Diamond Pool destroyed the boardwalk, scattering tourists and sending refrigerator-sized rocks hurtling through the air.
Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that the thermal feature has been closed since, and will remain closed for now - because it’s still active and could erupt violently again.
“I spoke with Mike Poland, who's a scientist in charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, and he told me that… after the hydrothermal explosion under Black Diamond pool, the pool is readjusting itself… there might have been some changes in the subterranean plumbing that changed the behavior. So the pool is basically try and sort itself out… there have been several smaller hydrothermal explosions since then that the park is monitoring, and that's informing the National Park Service, because they don't know what this thermal feature is going to do in the future. There could be more of these explosions. There could be bigger explosions. So they're not going to rebuild the boardwalk and reopen biscuit basin to the public until they know for sure, at least have a handle on what Black Diamond pool's behavior is going to be now and moving forward.”
There is currently no way to forecast hydrothermal explosions in Yellowstone or anywhere else in the world. However, the ongoing activity at Black Diamond Pool could reveal patterns and signs of an imminent explosion, which could potentially save lives.
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.
