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

<title>Daily Cartoon: Tuesday, April 8, 2025 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Daily Cartoon: Tuesday, April 8, 2025

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

Wildlife

A Yellowstone bull bison with a gigantic abscess on its right rear quarter probably isn’t suffering much pain and will likely survive, one of the county’s top bison ranchers says.

But the recovery process is going to be good, said Ken Klemm, past president and a lifelong member of the National Bison Association.

After seeing a photo of the bison, taken early Wednesday in Yellowstone National Park’s Lamar Valley, Klemm said a gushing rupture of the abscess is imminent.

“It looks like a 5-gallon bucketful of stuff will come out of that one,” Klemm, who has managed some of the world’s largest bison ranches, told Cowboy State Daily.

The abscess probably formed around a wound, he said.

The bison rut, or mating season, is on in Yellowstone. The bull might have suffered a puncture during a fight with another bull, Klemm said.

Lauri Foster lives just outside of New York City and loves coming to Wyoming to visit Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks.

Early Wednesday, she was on a wildlife-viewing drive through the Lamar Valley when she spotted the bull sporting a huge, bulbous mass near its backside.

Foster works with horses and is familiar with injuries to large animals, so she knew what she saw on the bison must be something serious.

“I thought it had to be a hematoma or an abscess,” she told Cowboy State Daily.

Foster couldn’t see any visible cuts or sores that might indicate exactly where it was wounded, she said.

To keep safe, Foster stayed in her vehicle to photograph that bull and other bison.

The bulls were raising a ruckus as they competed for mating rights.

“They were headbutting each other and chasing each other down,” Foster said.

The bull with the abscess was taking a break, though she surmised he had probably been recently wounded in a fight.

She added that despite how hideous that abscess looked, the bull didn’t seem sick or weak.

“He was walking along normally,” she said.

The rut has made bull bison extra agitated lately. In the most dramatic incident, a bison flipped and seriously injured Washington state resident Carl Isom-McDaniel, 65, in July.

Foster said at one point the bull walked up the middle of the road and stopped directly in front of her vehicle, giving her the stink-eye.

“I was thinking, ‘this is a little intimidating,’” she said.

Bull elk are known for getting into epic battles once their rut starts, usually in September.

Bison take it to another level, Klemm said.

“They’re worse than elk. If the loser doesn’t get away, the other bull will kill him,” he said.

The National Park Service has a general policy of letting nature take its course with animals’ injuries.

Klemm said the bull with the super-sized abscess has a good chance of making it.

“The infection is just raging in there,” he said. "The immune system is keeping that bison from dying, just from walking around with that much infectious material in its body.

“I suspect it will burst fairly soon and he’ll get over it. Bison have unbelievably good immune systems for things like this.” 

Bison abcess 8 6 26

<title>Bison Rancher: Yellowstone Bull With Gigantic Abscess Will Be OK Once It Gushes | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A massive abscess on a Yellowstone bull bison’s right rear quarter likely is the result of an infected wound from a rut battle. When it ruptures, “a 5-gallon bucketful of stuff” will gush out, a top bison rancher says, adding the bison should be fine.

Bison Rancher: Yellowstone Bull With Gigantic Abscess Will Be OK Once It Gushes

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

Renée Jean

Around Wyoming

The wave of legacy ranches for sale in Wyoming is continuing with yet another historic ranch hitting the market for the first time.

This time, it is the 1,542-acre Quarter Circle Lazy B, owned for four generations by the Wallop family, which has ties to British nobility, as well as historic prominence in both Wyoming and American politics. 

The Quarter Circle Lazy B, listed for $24.5 million and on the market for the first time in 135 years, is tucked just under the Bighorn Mountains at the mouth of Little Goose Canyon. Its sale will mark the end of an era for one of Wyoming’s best-known legacy ranches.

Owner Paul Wallop told Cowboy State Daily he and his wife, Sandra, have decided this is the right time to start a search for the ranch’s next steward because none of the children have an interest in taking over the ranch. 

“We’re not ancient,” Paul Wallop said. “But we’re in our mid-60s, and we could easily do another 10-plus years. But in that 10 years, one health event and you’re not keeping up with it.”

Sandra Wallop told Cowboy State Daily she fears it will be more difficult to be “picky” about a successor if they wait. Now is the right time so they can be selective.

“It’s important,” she said. “We want them to have good Wyoming values, be good neighbors. I hate to say it in this fashion, but we want to kind of interview them before we sell to them.”

That doesn’t mean the couple will be “hovering” over their new neighbors, she added. 

“We’re not going to be that kind of neighbor,” Sandra said. “We deeply and passionately love this place … So we’re hoping the next family has the same attitude and perspective that we do.”

The Wallop family first began assembling its ranch in 1889, when English-born Oliver Henry Wallop bought the first piece of what would become the Quarter Circle Lazy B. 

Oliver was the third and youngest son of a titled line in Britain. He took a shine to the American West after graduating from an English university, and decided that would be how he would make his way in the world.

As the youngest son of Isaac Newton Wallop, the fifth Earl of Portsmouth in Great Britain’s Victorian era, Oliver never expected he would inherit land or title. Such young men were, at the time, known as “remittance” men, because they typically left home to make their way in the world and were given a remittance from their family. 

His father’s name, Isaac Newton, does have an indirect tie to the famous physicist of the same name. A relative of Newton’s married into the Wallop family, and many of its sons were subsequently given names to honor that heritage.

Oliver came to America soon after graduating from Oxford in 1883, first buying a ranch in Montana, where he introduced the region’s first thoroughbred horses. He then migrated south to Wyoming in 1889, establishing the Canyon Ranch, which included the Quarter Circle Lazy B.

Oliver was ultimately wrong about his chances for succession. He returned to England after his second brother died, becoming the Earl of Portsmouth in 1925. 

“He had to renounce his U.S. citizenship, and then he served in the House of Lords,” Paul Wallop said. “And I don’t know if there’s any other member of the House of Lords what has ever served in a foreign government — it’s a very unique thing.”

Polo has a long history in Sheridan County, and the Wallops are integral to that story, along with the Scottish brothers William and Malcom Moncrieffe. 

“Malcom Moncrieffe had what was called the Polo Ranch, and then William had the Quarter Circle A Ranch, which is the Brinton Museum now,” Paul Wallop said. “Quarter Circle Lazy B is the neighboring ranch to the Quarter Circle Lazy A.” 

Together, these ranches got a contract with the British cavalry for horses, shipping 20,000 to South Africa for the Boer War.

“They were selling to the U.S. cavalry as well,” Paul Wallop added. “Part of their training for all the horses was just to get them started playing polo.”

Historical records show Sheridan’s first big polo match was July 4, 1893, which played to a crowd of several thousand spectators after a warmup from a military band.

The teams featured five mostly British players on each side, listed as Beckton vs. Sheridan. 

“Polo has always been a big deal here, and it’s still a big deal,” Paul Wallop said. “And that’s partly because of my great-grandfather.”

By the end of World War I, militaries were trending toward mechanical vehicles, collapsing that industry. The remount program died away, and the ranch shifted toward cattle markets.

“My grandfather began in registered Herefords, and he did really well with that up until he passed in the spring of 1980,” Paul Wallop said. 

Some of Oliver Malcom Wallop’s herd were even shipped to Japan, Sandra added, thanks to their elite genetics. 

Japan was crossing its smaller draft cattle with western breeds until about 1910 to increase their size and make them better-suited to meat production. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Royal Guest List"}]

For all its remoteness, the Quarter Circle Lazy B has long attracted an international roster of guests, thanks in part to the family’s enduring ties to British nobility. 

While Oliver Henry Wallop returned to England to serve in the House of Lords, he maintained close ties to his family in Wyoming and his ranch was a quiet magnet for many high-profile visitors, ranging from Buffalo Bill Cody and President Theodore Roosevelt — who designated the Bighorn National Forest after his visit — to Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip and, in more recent times, Princess Anne. 

Sports legend John Elway, former French President Valery Giscard D’Estaing, and American political leaders such as Vice President Dan Quayle are also among the high-profile guests.

“I mean, we’ve served tea to Princess Diana’s sister,” Sandra Wallop said. “This ranch has been host to a huge long list of princes and princesses and queens and vice presidents and senators and on and on and on.”

 a popular PBS British historical drama set at Highclere Castle, through an aunt who married the queen’s manager for thoroughbred racing, Lord Porchester.

“He became the Earl of Carnarvon and Paul’s aunt became the Countess of Carnarvon,” Sandra said. “And they owned Highclere, which Paul’s cousin now has, and is where Downton Abbey was filmed.”

The buildings on the ranch reflect its layered history. There’s the historic stone barn, constructed in the 1930s, which once served as a show barn for registered Hereford sales and which today serves as a horse barn and tack space. 

There’s the foreman’s or manager’s house, dating to around the turn of the 20th century. It has three bedrooms and two baths, and is likely the oldest building on the property. 

There’s the Orvis-endorsed fly-fishing lodge, featured in Great American Fishing Lodges, built in 1993. It’s a two-bedroom, four-bath home with a panoramic view of Little Goose Canyon and Moncrieffe Ridge.

And there’s Johnnie’s mountain cabin, a remote two-bedroom, one-bath mountain home. 

Other structures include a heated mechanics shop, a newer Morton building for horses and storing equipment, a farm shed for storage with dog kennels at the south end, a Scale House complete with a 10-ton 1965 Fairbanks Morse Scale and a 100-by-200-foot outdoor riding arena complete with lighting, advanced drainage, tack areas and wash bays.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"More Than Land, Buildings"}]

All this set in an area that boasts trophy wildlife of all kinds — moose, elk, deer, mountain lion, bear, and upland game birds. The ranch still has one of Wyoming’s original private game-bird farm licenses, and it’s also one of the first conservation easements written in the state.

Little Goose Creek offers 600 feet of trout stream to go with the property’s four mountain ponds. 

What’s for sale, the Wallops say, is more than just a collection of historic buildings and some scenic acres. To them, it’s a way of life their family has spent four generations protecting.

That’s why they’re less focused on how fast the ranch sells than on who ultimately buys it. They hope for someone who will treasure both its history and its future, helping with the next three or four generations of stewardship. 

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<title>Wallop Family’s Quarter Circle Lazy B Ranch For Sale After 135 Years For $24.5M | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The Wallop family's legacy Quarter Circle Lazy B Ranch in Sheridan County is for sale for the first time in 135 years, listing for $24.5 million. It hosted Queen Elizabeth II, supplied cavalry horses to Britain and helped build Wyoming's polo scene.

Wallop Family’s Quarter Circle Lazy B Ranch For Sale After 135 Years For $24.5M

David Madison

Crime & Courts

Law Enforcement

A viral video claims a Sheridan man suffered a massive stroke and underwent multiple brain surgeries after police arrested him for public intoxication on a freezing night in February 2021 — hours before jailers discovered they could not wake him.

Capt. Tom Ringley of the Sheridan Police Department told Cowboy State Daily that officers followed proper procedures during the encounter.

“Officers are peace officers, not doctors, therefore, we are not qualified to diagnose anything,” Ringley said. “We, in accordance with our policies and procedures, when someone complained of the medical problem, we called emergency medical services. We cleared him.”

“So once he was cleared, we took him to jail,” Ringley said. “No further information.”

Cowboy State Daily was unable to independently verify the claims made in the video. The Sheridan Police Department confirmed an incident involving the man, Rick Davis, took place that night around the 1200 block of Val Vista Street, but declined to address specific details about what happened after he was taken into custody.

[{"type":"text","text":"Attempts to reach Davis and the video’s creator were unsuccessful."}]

When asked if anything in the video was misleading, Ringley declined to comment.

Sheridan Vet In Viral Video Says He's Five-Years Sober, Rebuilding His Life

 on the department’s Facebook page after a Jan. 6 post about an unrelated mass casualty training exercise at Sheridan College. 

A video posted Jan. 13 by the online channel LackLuster brought wider attention to the incident.

The unnamed owner of the LackLuster channel, which has nearly 1.5 million followers, says he is a combat veteran who set up the page to 

"Freedom survives only when government fears the people," the channel's descriptor reads. The YouTube page boasts more than 1 billion video views.

On the Sheridan police page, angry comments started piling up. 

"Sheridan is the place to go if you have a death wish. They are more than happy to assist you with that," commenter Timothy Mackay said.

"I typically support our blue, I do, I appreciate your hard work to keep us safe. But what SPD did to my friend Rick is despicable," wrote Megan Kendrick Gresham.

"Lets face facts Sheridan, our local mafia, I mean, police, do a sub standard job most of the time," Jake Kethman wrote.

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

When asked about the social media response, Ringley said people are exercising their Constitutional rights.

“I don’t know,” he said. “They’re free to exercise a First Amendment right, and it appears that’s what they’re doing.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Ringley said he does not spend time monitoring social media commentary."}]

“I’m sure our community would prefer that their police captain spend time managing the police department,” he said. “It’s not our prerogative as police officers to try and figure out what people on social media are saying.”

“The gentleman was cleared medically by medical professionals,” Ringley said. “Police officers are not medical professionals.”

According to the LackLuster video, on the evening of Feb. 4, 2021, Davis was approximately 200 feet from his home when a concerned citizen called 911 after observing him fall. The temperature was 20 degrees and streets were covered in ice.

[{"type":"text","text":"Officers responded to the scene and asked Davis where he lived."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"“Right there,” Davis responded, according to the video."}]

Officers noted Davis was struggling to stand and asked about his condition.

[{"type":"text","text":"“Are you diabetic?” an officer asked."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"“Yes,” Davis replied."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"“You are a diabetic. Are you Type 1 or Type 2?”"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"“Type 2,” Davis said."}]

One officer radioed dispatch: “I think it’s alcohol related, but he says it’s a diabetic.”

Officers administered two breathalyzer tests. The first showed a reading of 0.062, and the second registered 0.016 — both below the legal limit to drive.

Officers noted Davis had a visible injury and expressed concern about additional falls.

“So, I noticed you got kind of a cut on your forehead there,” an officer said, according to the video. “You know how you got that?”

[{"type":"text","text":"“I fell,” Davis responded."}]

“You’re going to fall and hit your head again, man. We don’t want that,” an officer told him.

[{"type":"text","text":"Officers said they wanted medical personnel to evaluate Davis."}]

“We’re going to have EMS check you out,” an officer said. “One, we want to make sure they check that cut out, but two, if you’re a diabetic, we want to make sure there’s no issues with that. So they’ll check your blood sugar and stuff.”

When emergency medical services arrived, officers briefed paramedics on the situation.

“This is Rick,” an officer said. “He’s super incoherent. Falling down. Pants were down. Has a laceration. He said he thinks he’s a diabetic. So, we figured you guys could check him out.”

[{"type":"text","text":"“We will check him out,” the paramedic responded."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"EMS checked Davis’s blood sugar, which registered at 146."}]

“Rick, whatever your problems are tonight, it’s not your diabetes, your blood sugar is 146. That’s perfect,” a paramedic told him, according to the video.

After EMS cleared Davis, officers determined he could not safely walk home.

“Well, you’re pretty drunk,” a paramedic said, according to the video.

“You’re a hazard on the road,” an officer added. “Your pants are off on the road.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Officers moved to take Davis into custody."}]

“All right, Rick. You’re under arrest for drunk pedestrian on a roadway,” an officer said. “I know you’re almost home, but we’re kind of past that point.”

[{"type":"text","text":"As officers placed Davis in the patrol car, they noted his condition."}]

“We’ll get you warmed up. You’re super wet and it’s cold,” an officer said.

Meanwhile, another officer had followed Davis’ tracks in the snow and located a vehicle Davis said he had slept in earlier that night. The officer contacted the vehicle’s owner.

“Is there any reason anyone should have been sleeping in it last night?” the officer asked.

[{"type":"text","text":"“No,” she replied."}]

“So it looks like it is unlocked. Someone was sleeping in it,” the officer said.

[{"type":"text","text":"The officer reassured the concerned homeowner about the neighborhood."}]

“I think he was just trying to find a warm spot to sleep. I don’t think he was trying to do anything malicious in your vehicle,” the officer said. “It is a safe neighborhood. This is extremely uncommon.”

Davis was charged with intoxicated pedestrian on a roadway, criminal entry, and theft from a motor vehicle.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Medical Emergency"}]

According to the video, Davis was placed in a jail holding cell. Officers later could not wake him for his first court appearance. He was then transported to the hospital, where doctors determined he had been suffering from a hemorrhagic stroke, the video states.

Davis was airlifted to St. Vincent’s Hospital in Billings, Montana, where he underwent multiple brain surgeries and was placed in a medically induced coma for more than five weeks, according to the video. The criminal charges were later dismissed.

The video states Davis was unable to find legal representation to pursue a lawsuit and ultimately filed for bankruptcy after the hospital sought nearly $700,000 in medical expenses.

Ringley declined to confirm or discuss details about Davis’s medical condition or what occurred after he was taken to jail.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"No Complaint"}]

Ringley said Davis has not filed any formal complaint with the department.

“We have never received a complaint from Mr. Davis between the time of the incident in 2021 and now,” Ringley said.

As for the accuracy of the video footage featured by LackLuster, Ringley said, “Videos are documentation of what happened.”

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<title>Resurfaced Sheridan Police Body Cam Video Causes Outrage On Social Media | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Bodycam footage from nearly 5 years ago in Sheridan between 3 police officers and a disoriented man have created outrage on social media. The video maker says the man suffered a stroke and underwent brain surgeries and was not treated properly by police.

Resurfaced Sheridan Police Body Cam Video Causes Outrage On Social Media

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Jackie Dorothy.

Jackie Dorothy

Wyoming Life

When collector William I. Koch bought a photo of notorious outlaw Billy the Kid for more than $2 million, it caught the attention of the public and created a buzz among historians who study America’s outlaws and lawmen.

It also sparked a wave of fraudsters who suddenly “discovered” more photos of Billy the Kid and other outlaws. That includes one that has created a wave of controversy in historical circles that claims to show Billy in a sweater playing croquet.

In June 2011, Koch bought the only authenticated photograph of Billy the Kid at auction for $2.3 million, the most ever paid for a historic image of the American West. 

Billy has long been a frontier legend and the only known photograph of him has become legendary. 

Since the record sale, the New York Post, BBC News, and National Geographic have all carried stories about supposed newly discovered Billy the Kid photos. 

“Things have just kind of snowballed since the auction,” historian and Billy the Kid author Corey Recko told Cowboy State Daily. “Every year, more and more photos were coming out of the woodwork (from) people claiming was Billy or some other famous outlaw.”

When other collectors saw how much the Koch photo sold for, they started taking a closer look at similar photographs in their own collections hoping to cash in. 

The result was a wave of people claiming to be experts marching out Billy the Kid photos, and the general public would believe them when they said it was the real deal, Recko said.

National Geographic ran a story about a photo that claims to show Billy the Kid playing croquet, but many American West historians strongly doubt it’s really Billy.  

“I don't know of any historian who believes the croquet player is Billy the Kid, but it got a National Geographic documentary made about it and a coin dealer valued (it) at $5 million,” Recko said. “It never sold, but just seeing that has, I think, has inspired a lot of people to come forward with photos that they think resemble Billy or other famous outlaws.” 

When historians question these claims, they're often ignored, and the media run stories supporting the doubtful Billy photos and that of other famous lawman and outlaws such as Wyatt Earp and Jesse James. 

The claimants would give “proof" that was bogged down in terms that sounded so scientific and professional that people would believe them, said Daniel Buck, an American West historian and author who has spent countless hours disproving these types of claims.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Other Claims Of Billy"}]

Recko said that the first Billy photo to gain fame was the supposed image of him playing croquet, which caught the attention of lawyer Frank Abrams when National Geographic ran the story as fact in 2015. 

“Frank took a fresh look at a tintype he had purchased at a flea market in North Carolina in 2011,” Recko said. “From there, he decided that a man in the front looked just like Pat Garrett, while a man standing in the back looked like Billy.”

Garrett was an American Old West lawman, bartender, and customs agent believed to have killed Billy the Kid. 

Abrams then claimed that he had a picture of the two of them together. If true, it would be historically important and possibly be worth millions to the right buyer. 

Furthermore, Abrams claimed the other men in the photo were also important figures in American West history. 

He said that he had also identified Barney Mason and Dave Rudabaugh, though he was unsure who the fifth man was.

Mason was a deputy under Garrett in Lincoln County, New Mexico. He killed John Farris in self-defense at Fort Sumner, New Mexico, in 1880.

Rudabaugh was a cowboy, outlaw, and gunfighter in the Old West. Modern writers often refer to him as "Dirty Dave" because of his alleged aversion to water, though there is no proof of this distaste for being clean. 

There is no known photo of him and this would be the first if Abrams' photo could be proven to be real.

In 2014, another Billy the Kid photo claim was authenticated by a Texas forensic expert named Lois Gibson. It appears to show a clean-shaven teen in a suit. 

Like the Abrams image, a host of historians say they have the same doubts about its authenticity. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Real Deal"}]

Recko said to verify that an old photo is truly the person someone claims it is, there are several factors to take into consideration, including chain of ownership, date of the photo, and the historic content. 

None of these can be verified with the Abrams photo. 

“The way those tintype cameras worked, four photographs were taken,” Recko said. “In the case of the authenticated photo of Billy, we know what happened to three of the tintypes.”

The tintype that had sold at auction had been verified as the photo Billy had given to his friend Dan Dietrich. 

It was then passed down in his family who had the needed documentation to prove how they got it. Plus the tintype dated correctly to the right era and could be traced to a photo studio that Billy could have visited.

Another copy of the authentic Billy was destroyed in a fire in Fort Sumner in the 1920s, and a third copy was owned by Pat Garrett that is believed he used as an illustration for his own book about life as a lawman chasing down Billy.

“The photo was identified by many people who knew Billy the Kid personally,” Recko said. “What you want is contemporary documentation like that.”

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

Recko said that historians want to know the history of the photo, and buying it from a flea market like Abrams did makes this task nearly impossible to track down. 

There has only been one verified photo of Billy The Kid and it sold for $2.3 million in 2011. Since then, there have been a wave of newly "discovered" Billy The Kid photos but all have been debunked, including the one of him supposedly playing croquet.

Daily Cartoon: Tuesday, April 8, 2025

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