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If someone had never heard of a chicken before, how exactly would you describe one?

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

<title>Bonus Video 2: Friday, April 4, 2025 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

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 If someone had never heard of a chicken before, how exactly would you describe one?

Coy Knobel

Don Day Weather

Mostly sunny to sunny in Wyoming on Tuesday, windy, fire watches in some areas. Partly cloudy to mostly clear, breezy overnight. Highs from the mid 70s to the low 90s. Lows from the low 40s to the low 60s.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":" "}]

Red flag fire warning from noon today until 9 p.m. tonight. Breezy, gradually becoming sunny today with a high near 90 and wind gusts as high as 31 mph. Mostly clear and windy overnight with a low near 59 and wind gusts as high as 39 mph.

Sunny and breezy today with a high near 93 and wind gusts as high as 34 mph. Breezy, gradually becoming clear overnight with a low near 57 and wind gusts as high as 34 mph.

 Sunny and windy today with a high near 87 and wind gusts as high as 40 mph. Mostly clear and windy overnight with a low near 54 and wind gusts as high as 44 mph.

 Sunny today with a high near 79 and wind gusts as high as 32 mph. Mostly clear overnight with a low near 52 and wind gusts as high as 32 mph.

  Sunny and breezy today with a high near 87 and wind gusts as high as 37 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 57 and wind gusts as high as 37 mph.

Sunny and windy today with a high near 79 and wind gusts as high as 38 mph. Mostly clear and windy overnight with a low near 52 and wind gusts as high as 38 mph.

Mostly sunny and windy today with a high near 79 and wind gusts as high as 40 mph. Mostly clear and windy overnight with a low near 44 and wind gusts as high as 38 mph.

 Sunny and breezy today with a high near 86 and wind gusts as high as 30 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 47 and wind gusts as high as 31 mph.

  Breezy, gradually becoming sunny today with a high near 80 and wind gusts as high as 37 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 46 and wind gusts as high as 37 mph.

 Sunny and windy today with a high near 77 and wind gusts as high as 47 mph. Mostly clear and very windy overnight with a low near 47 and wind gusts as high as 55 mph.

  Sunny and breezy today with a high near 84 and wind gusts as high as 30 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 45 and wind gusts as high as 37 mph.

Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park

:  Sunny and breezy today with a high near 76 and wind gusts as high as 26 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 39 and wind gusts as high as 24 mph.

Sunny and breezy today with a high near 94 and wind gusts as high as 34 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 59 and wind gusts as high as 34 mph.

:  Sunny and windy today with a high near 89 and wind gusts as high as 38 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 56 and wind gusts as high as 37 mph.

  Sunny and breezy today with a high near 91 and wind gusts as high as 30 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 55 and wind gusts as high as 38 mph.

  Mostly sunny today with a high near 85 and wind gusts as high as 20 mph. Partly cloudy and windy overnight with a low near 56 and wind gusts as high as 40 mph.

  Mostly sunny today with a high near 86 and wind from 13-18 mph. Partly cloudy overnight with a low near 53 and wind from 18-23 mph.

:  Mostly sunny today with a high near 84 and wind from 17-22 mph. Partly cloudy overnight with a low near 52 and wind gusts as high as 38 mph.

Gradually becoming sunny today with a high near 86 and wind gusts as high as 30 mph. Gradually clearing late and breezy overnight with a slight chance of rain before midnight, a low near 54 and wind gusts as high as 31 mph.

  Gradually clearing today with a high near 84 and wind gusts as high as 28 mph. Gradually becoming mostly clear overnight with a slight chance of rain after midnight, a low near 58 and wind gusts as high as 31 mph.

:  Gradually becoming sunny today with a high near 87 and wind gusts as high as 26 mph. Gradually becoming mostly clear overnight with a slight chance of rain after midnight, a low near 54 and wind gusts as high as 28 mph.

  Fire weather watch from noon today until 8 p.m. tomorrow night. Mostly sunny, hot and breezy today with a high near 93 and wind gusts as high as 30 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 62 and wind gusts as high as 30 mph.

  Fire weather watch from noon today until 8 p.m. tomorrow night. Mostly sunny, hot and breezy today with a high near 91 and wind gusts as high as 35 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 62 and wind gusts as high as 40 mph.

  Red flag fire warning from noon today until 9 p.m. tonight. Breezy, gradually becoming sunny today with a high near 90 and wind gusts as high as 31 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 55 and wind gusts as high as 28 mph.

  Fire weather watch from noon today until 8 p.m. tomorrow night. Sunny and breezy today with a high near 87 and wind gusts as high as 40 mph. Mostly clear and windy overnight with a low near 60 and wind gusts as high as 45 mph.

  Sunny and windy today with a high near 81 and wind gusts as high as 45 mph. Mostly clear and windy overnight with a low near 54 and wind gusts as high as 45 mph.

  Fire weather watch from noon today until 8 p.m. tomorrow night. Mostly sunny, hot and breezy today with a high near 90 and wind gusts as high as 30 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 59 and wind gusts as high as 40 mph.

  Sunny and windy today with a high near 83 and wind gusts as high as 50 mph. Mostly clear and windy overnight with a low near 56 and wind gusts as high as 50 mph.

  Sunny and windy today with a high near 84 and wind gusts as high as 45 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 54 and wind gusts as high as 40 mph.

  Sunny and breezy today with a high near 88 and wind gusts as high as 40 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 51 and wind gusts as high as 40 mph.

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<title>Don Day's Wyoming Weather Forecast: Tuesday, June 16, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Don Day's Wyoming Weather Forecast: Tuesday, June 16, 2026

Kerry Drake

Wyoming Life

Around Wyoming

Cheyenne’s new vehicle noise ordinance was unanimously passed by the City Council to stop obnoxious motorists who drive their loud cars, trucks and motorcycles late at night, disrupting people’s sleep.

 soon after it went on the books in late September was auto mechanic Geno Stecks, who was driving a fairly unassuming 2006 Subaru with a modified muffler. 

It also wasn’t in the middle of the night or in a residential section of the capital city. Stecks said it was on a main thoroughfare at the intersection of East Lincolnway and Hugur Avenue at 2:45 in the afternoon.

“Communists. Control freaks!” is how Stecks responded when asked what he thought about the City Council members who approved the ordinance after many people opposed it during public testimony at three council meetings.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"He Wasn’t Speeding"}]

Stecks was on the job when he got busted, transporting auto parts for FM Automotive when he heard the police siren.

He told the officer that he didn’t think he’d been speeding, but was informed the stop was made because of excessive noise.

This how the encounter went, according to Stecks:

“I couldn’t hear my radio for your exhaust,” the officer told him.

“I said, ‘Turn your volume knob up,’” Stecks said he replied. "I couldn’t hear my exhaust because of my radio, because I’ve got a kick-ass stereo in it.”

In hindsight, Stecks said he’s since thought of some other creative responses.

“I wish I had told him, ‘What are you going to tell the Hells Angels if they come roaring through town? Are you going to pull them over and cite them for having too loud exhaust? You probably wouldn’t live through it,’” said the bearded Stecks, wearing a T-shirt that depicted a full mug with the word “Beer – It’s What’s for Dinner.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Too Few Tickets"}]

A spokesperson for the Cheyenne Police Department said that after Stecks broke the ice as the first to be ticketed for driving too loudly, 43 other motorists were given noise violation citations in 2025, and 33 more so far this year.

Even those are way too few, said a council member who supported the noise ordinance.

“They should be writing 300 or 400,” said City Council Vice President Pete Laybourn. “The problem is immense, and I’m very disappointed with how it’s being handled. The ordinance hasn’t been effective at all.”

Laybourn said residents are purposely modifying their mufflers and making noise in all parts of the city, at all hours day and night, and also deliberately speeding.

“They tried to disrupt Friday Night at the Plaza last week, driving up Capitol (Avenue) and backfiring,” he said. “It was really, really bad.”

City Council President Tom Segrave was one of several councilmen who brought up the issue last summer because ​he was getting so many complaints from Cheyenne residents about excessive noise from motorists.

“I live off Yellowstone Road, and I can tell you it’s quite a sight to see a pack of people riding these loud little motorcycles down Yellowstone at night, often up until 1 a.m., popping wheelies,” Segrave said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Too Early To Tell"}]

He said it’s too early to know if the ordinance is making a difference. 

Segrave said he hasn’t been receiving complaints, but figures that will change during the summer when more people have their windows open.

The main difference between the new ordinance and a previous one is that it allows a police officer to use his or her judgment about whether a vehicle is too loud. 

The former regulation required a meter to be used at least 25 feet away, which Segrave said made it unenforceable.

Stecks said he paid the $100 fine, which would be increased to $200 if he breaks the ordinance again within a year. 

Possible jail time is on the books for a third offense, plus a $500 fine, but City Attorney John Brodie told Cowboy State Daily when the ordinance was passed last year that it’s 

“If anything, jail is maybe an imposed part of the sentence that would then be suspended,” he said.

“People told me, ‘You could have fought this,’” Steck said. “I said I’d be in worse trouble because I would have ended up in jail after I told the judge and the court how crooked they are. 

"There would have been F-bombs involved. When you’re a mechanic, F-bombs are the terminology of the trade.”

The ordinance requires all vehicles driven within city limits to be equipped with a muffler. It prohibits vehicles that bypass or cut out their mufflers to be louder and those that create “excessive smoke.”

Stecks said he agrees with the idea that people who drive small motorcycles known as “crotch rockets” up and down the street after 10 p.m. need to be ticketed. 

But he emphasized, “Not drivers who are just doing their job in the middle of the day.”

He said it would have made more sense if he’d received a ticket for a machine that he knows is really noisy: a fast 1931 Model A rat rod named “Clyde” that he built several years ago. 

Several of Stecks’ co-workers smiled and nodded their heads as he said this, because they know exactly how loud Clyde can be cranked it up.

Stecks said his main problem with the ordinance is that it relies on a police officer to make a judgment call about how loud the noise is.

“They need to measure it,” he said. “That’s the only way they should ever do this.”

Geno breaks the sound barrier 6 15 26

<title>Meet The First Driver To Get A Ticket Under Cheyenne’s New Noise Ordinance | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Mechanic Geno Stecks got the first ticket under Cheyenne’s new noise ordinance while delivering a car part in the middle of the day. When the officer told him he couldn't hear his radio because of the exhaust, Stecks said, "Turn your volume knob up."

Meet The First Driver To Get A Ticket Under Cheyenne’s New Noise Ordinance

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Crime & Courts

Courts

A Minnesota man says he was stunned to learn a stranger spent years building a life in Wyoming allegedly using his name — earning hundreds of thousands of dollars, fathering a child and leaving him to sort out the financial fallout with the IRS and owing child support.

Now, a Gillette welding worker is facing four felony identity theft charges after investigators say he used another man's name and Social Security number to obtain employment and official documents.

Jose Alfredo Guevara-Reyes, 45, made his initial appearance in Campbell County Circuit Court last week after being charged with four counts of unauthorized use of personal identifying information.

According to court documents, the case began June 8 when Gillette police received a handwritten letter from Martin Almendarez of Minneapolis saying that someone working in Gillette had been using his identity.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Child Support Surprise"}]

For Almendarez, the first signs of trouble didn't come from Wyoming law enforcement.

"I learned that the man who stole my identity had fathered a child," Almendarez said. 

Because the worker allegedly used Almendarez's Social Security number, the child's mother initially believed Almendarez was the father, he said.

The situation escalated when the state of Wyoming notified him that he was on the hook to financially support the child.

"I got a letter from the state of Wyoming saying that they were going to garnish my wages,” he told Cowboy State Daily.

Almendarez said even his employer questioned his identity as records tied to the alleged fraud surfaced. The Minnesota man said the ordeal was especially unsettling because he had never met the defendant.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"I don't even know him nor have I ever been to Wyoming,\" he said."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Welding Shop Discovery"}]

An affidavit filed in the case by Gillette Police Detective Brendan Trujillo says investigators contacted MC Welding Services after receiving Almendarez's complaint.

The company provided employment paperwork associated with the worker, including a W-4 tax form, an I-9 employment eligibility form, a Social Security card and a Texas driver's license bearing Almendarez's name, the affidavit says.

Police determined the Texas driver's license number actually belonged to another person in Texas, according to the affidavit.

Investigators then visited MC Welding and spoke with the employee using the documents.

The man then identified himself with a New Mexico driver's license as Jose Alfredo Guevara-Reyes of Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Reyes admitted to obtaining documents from a person in Texas for employment purposes but declined to identify the person.

The detective told Reyes the person who supplied the documents had essentially "set you up for failure,” the affidavit says.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"$500,000 Question"}]

Court records estimate Reyes worked at the welding company for more than four years, and a company employee told investigators that Reyes typically worked three 12-hour shifts each week and earned roughly $30 per hour.

The affidavit says he earned well above the felony threshold while allegedly using Almendarez's identity.

Almendarez believes the damage done to him may extend far beyond employment records.

According to IRS records he reviewed, he said more than $500,000 in earnings had been reported under his name.

"I heard he bought cars and put them under his name, a business in fabrication and other things like credit cards," Almendarez said.

The alleged victim also said he even worries someone might have obtained a life insurance policy using his identity.

[{"type":"text","text":"“Truthfully, it scared me to think it has gone on this long,\" he said."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Relief Call"}]

After years of trying to untangle the situation from hundreds of miles away, Almendarez decided to write directly to authorities in Gillette.

[{"type":"text","text":"The response came quickly."}]

"A week later they called me saying he was in jail, and I felt so relieved," he said.

Even with the arrest, Almendarez said he believes he still has a long road ahead clearing his name with government agencies and financial institutions.

[{"type":"text","text":"For now, though, he says he finally feels like someone is listening."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"I pray this turns out for the best,\" he said."}]

Reyes is being held at the Campbell County Detention Center on a $500,000 cash-only bond. 

He is expected to next appear in circuit court for a preliminary hearing on Thursday at 11:30 p.m.

Gillette police 5 31 23

<title>Gillette Welder Accused Of Stealing Identity, Leaving Man Owing Child Support | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A Minnesota man says a stranger spent years building a life in Wyoming using his identity — earning more than $500,000, fathering a child and leaving the man owing child support. "I don't even know him nor have I ever been to Wyoming,” the man said.

Gillette Welder Accused Of Stealing Identity, Leaving Man Owing Child Support

Jen kocher

Jen Kocher

Law Enforcement

Lt. Doug Fisher had been about a week away from flying to Wisconsin to arrest Roger Durkee when he got the news: Durkee was dead.

The cat-and-mouse game Durkee had been playing with Elko County Sheriff’s Office (ECSO) detectives for the past few years was officially over.

[{"type":"text","text":"Fisher called the news bittersweet."}]

He and ECSO Det. Alex Cox had been looking forward to finally putting the cuffs on Durkee, who had spent 32 years eluding authorities after allegedly murdering an unidentified woman and dumping her nude body at a remote desert exit off Interstate 80 in Nevada.

but both officers agree that identifying Durkee’s victim 

For decades, she was known only as “Shafter Jane Doe,” named for the highway exit where she was found in November 1993.

detectives finally identified her as Marion Hertha Alexander

, a 25-year-old German immigrant who had been living in Salt Lake City, Utah, when she crossed paths with Durkee.

The woman also had spent seven months in Afton, Wyoming, shortly before she was killed, which was determined in 2010 via a breakthrough isotope testing procedure. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Family Devastated"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Alexander’s mother was devastated, Fisher said."}]

He and Cox had driven to her California home in January to tell her in person. She had met her husband, a

She married him and returned to California with him and her children in 1972.

Alexander left home in her late teens — a free spirit, her mother told detectives, who drifted and grew distant from the family.

They had not known she was missing and were devastated 

Her mother is now working with the sheriff’s office to finalize the inscription on a new headstone 

 paid for by the Elko County Commissioners.

[{"type":"text","text":"After more than three decades, they finally has the answer."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"“We want to make sure we finally get Mary laid to rest,” Fisher said."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Little To Go On At First"}]

Many detectives have worked on Alexander’s case over the years. It was not their only cold case, Fisher said.

Along with Alexander, there are five other unidentified people in Elko County dating back to 1972, according to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs).

[{"type":"text","text":"At first, they had little to go on."}]

When Alexander’s body was discovered about a week after she was killed, it was already badly decomposed.  

She’d been shot in the chest and the back with a small

caliber firearm and had been severely beaten in the face.

There was little to no evidence left at the scene, leaving authorities to believe she’d been killed elsewhere and dumped afterward.

Apart from a partial right thumbprint that had no match in federal databases, detectives had little to go on. The only other identifiers were a tooth that was in the process of getting a root canal and a 2-by-4-inch burn scar or birthmark on her right calf.

To draw attention to the case, detectives reached out to the national media and also held a funeral for her.

Her story initially gained traction after it was picked up by the 

news program “Hard Copy.” but it ultimately yielded no results.

The sheriff’s office took advantage of technological advancements over the years, including having a forensic facial reconstruction done as well as stable isotope ratio analysis of a hair follicle that linked her to Afton, Wyoming, where it was suspected she’d spent the last seven months of her life.

Oddly, this was one detail that the detectives couldn’t track down upon finally learning her identity.

They found addresses for her in California, Oregon, Utah and southern Nevada, but nothing in Wyoming.

In fact, at the time of her murder, she had been living in downtown Salt Lake City near Durkee, Fisher said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Overlooked Evidence"}]

The biggest break in the case happened in April 2019 when detectives took a new look at existing evidence and realized they had DNA on a vaginal swab for both the victim and perpetrator.

It’s not clear how this evidence went overlooked for so long, Fisher said, but it appears to have been the result of a miscommunication between detectives and the crime lab.

still needed to figure out to whom they belonged.

Neither was found in the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) or on genetic DNA databases, still leaving them with no answers, so they kept pulling threads, Fisher said.

approved a $10,000 expenditure that allowed the sheriff’s office to contract with Identifiers International for a forensic genetic 

This led investigators to Durkee in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who reached out to the FBI for help identifying him.

The FBI agents procured some items from Durkee’s trash and determined that profile could not be excluded from the one taken from the swab.

“Not being excluded” is as close as law enforcement and science can legally get to saying it’s a likely match.

[{"type":"text","text":"“That was a good indication that this is our guy,” Fisher said."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Still, Alexander’s identity remained a mystery at that point."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Closing In On A Killer"}]

Even with Durkee’s identity as Alexander’s killer likely confirmed, it was not enough to collar him for the murder.

All it proved, Cox noted, is that the two had been intimate, but not that he killed her.

[{"type":"text","text":"So they kept digging, Fisher said."}]

In doing so, they learned Durkee moved quite a bit during the 1990s and early 2000s while working 

. This included stints in Nevada, Idaho and Colorado and Salt Lake City.

They also learned he’d been arrested for third-degree sexual assault in Wisconsin in 1978.

Along with moving frequently during this period, Durkee also changed his name, assuming aliases of James W. Kenedy and Carrol T. Hiel.

why he changed his name, he told detectives it was during a time in which he’d made bad decisions in his life and didn’t care to be known by his real name.

Then Fisher and Cox flew out to Wisconsin for the first of three interviews with Durkee in Milwaukee beginning in August 2024.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Pulling Out Teeth"}]

A couple things struck the detectives about Durkee during that first meeting. For starters, he was toothless.

This is because he’d pulled out all of his teeth over the years by himself, Durkee told them. With pliers.

[{"type":"text","text":"“That was a first for me,” Cox said."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Fisher agreed."}]

“We’ve done thousands of interviews, and I can tell you that is the first time I ever heard anybody tell me they pulled out their own teeth,” Fisher said, wondering if it would have been 27 or 28 total 

Another thing that struck the detectives as odd is that Durkee had a collection of Faraday bags and cages, which are used to block electromagnetic fields and wireless signals.

“They’re used by law enforcement primarily when we take a suspect’s phone, so it can be protected for forensic analysis, but you don’t normally see these types of things in someone’s home,” Fisher said. “It was shocking.”

A detective was about to fly to Wisconsin to arrest the lead suspect in the 32-year cold case of a woman whose nude body was dumped along I-80 when he got the news the suspect was dead. The woman's time in Wyoming led to the breakthrough in the case.

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