It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming, for Wednesday, April 9th. I’m Wendy Corr, bringing you headlines from the Cowboy State Daily newsroom - Brought to you by Wyoming Community Gas. The Choice Gas selection period ends on Wednesday April 23rd – This is your opportunity to select your Natural Gas Provider for the coming year. For more information, visit Wyoming Community Gas dot ORG.”
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The UW Faculty Senate on Monday evening drafted a resolution of “no confidence” in UW President Ed Seidel’s leadership, following some departmental turnover and recent funding controversies, and allegations that he falls short involving others in major decision-making.
Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that the UW Board of Trustees considered that statement, and the concerns that prompted it, during a lengthy executive session Tuesday morning.
“The Board of Trustees descended into this two hour long executive session to discuss personnel matters. And that's usually a harbinger, like we're going to get out of the executive session and we're going to vote what to do with this person. That's generally how those go right, even though, by law, they're private. And so he he was very nervous, and gave a speech like, I am going to do better, including others in my decision making, in top decisions at this university. And he was looking just nervous. And then the Executive Session happened, and everyone came out, and the board chair said, we're going to make a committee to promote this concept of shared governance that the faculty have identified it as a weak spot. And when that was going on, Seidel. Was hands clasped, looking grateful, looking emotional. And so I did, I did confirm with the university spokesman, as of Tuesday, he is still the president.”
Seidel promised publicly in Tuesday morning’s board meeting to address faculty and leadership concerns.
Read the full story HERE.
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Wyoming’s congressional delegation Tuesday basked in the glow of a White House ceremony where President Donald Trump signed four executive orders aimed at reversing a nearly decade-long decline of coal.
It’s potentially a watershed moment to boost the economy of the nation’s No. 1 coal state, according to Cowboy State Daily’s Sean Barry.
“What these executive orders would do is be incredibly important to the coal industry. It's going to revitalize coal. And the reason this is so important is, as most Wyomingites know, Wyoming is by far the nation's number one coal producing state. No state is going to benefit from this more than Wyoming… these orders to help the coal industry by, for example, removing the moratorium on federal leases. Coal companies, like other energy companies, lease federal lands. Well, there was a moratorium on that. This scraps the moratorium. It does other things. It looks to keep coal fired. Electricity plants up and continuing to run, even though many of them were scheduled to be retired… But the most memorable moment for sure, was when Trump singled out the two US senators and Rep Harriet Hageman as well.”
The nation’s two largest coal mines by far are in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin, which extends north into Montana.
Read the full story HERE.
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An anguished father stood in Natrona County District Court on Tuesday, asking for the maximum sentence possible for the 16-year-old boy who killed his daughter, shooting her at point-blank in a southside park last May.
Evan Castaner pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the death of his former girlfriend, Lene’a Brown, in a deal with prosecutors.
At the end of Tuesday’s two-hour sentencing hearing, Judge Daniel Forgey sentenced Castaner to 42 to 75 years in prison - a move that concerned the defendant’s attorney, according to Cowboy State Daily’s Dale Killingbeck.
“His attorney, Ryan Semerad, is appealing that decision. He's arguing that on a second degree murder charge, which he pled to, which he agreed to in a plea deal, that it's not only unconstitutional, but it's illegal because he's a juvenile, and it would put him in a place where it would be technically a life sentence, because he's, you know, as young as he is, 16 years old right now.”
Brown’s father told the packed courtroom that the death of his daughter at age 17 at Castaner’s hands changed his family’s lives forever.
Read the full story HERE.
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Legal gaming has grown in leaps and bounds in Wyoming over the past few years, and the Wyoming Legislature hasn’t added much oversight on the $2 billion per year industry.
Cowboy State Daily’s Leo Wolfson reports that the Legislature’s Management Council created a new committee Tuesday that will be directed to get better control on legal gaming in Wyoming.
“I spoke to Senator John Kolb, a Republican from Rock Springs, who was one of the people who spoke in favor of this proposal, and he just believes that gaming in Wyoming needs a lot more regulation and control, and that the horse has kind of gotten out of the stall, so to speak… So what the select committee will do is look at issues related to gaming and just try to learn a lot more about how it works. Senator Tim Salazar said that he believes there's kind of a sentiment in the legislature that a lot of people don't understand how it works, so they don't even want to deal with it.”
The gaming industry in Wyoming is overseen by a citizen commission and staffed department, but only the Legislature can create new laws to reign in the industry. House Bill 85 was brought during this year’s legislative session and would’ve addressed these issues, but died before passing into law.
Read the full story HERE.
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Colossal Biosciences, the company whose goal is to genetically resurrect the wooly mammoth by 2028, rocked the world Monday by unveiling the return of a long-extinct species: The dire wolf.
Romulus and Remus, two white-haired pups, were born in October 2024 with the genetics from dire wolves that lived 11,500 and 72,000 years ago. But Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that the depth of this achievement is more nuanced than two happy, healthy, white-haired wolf pups.
“What they did was they analyzed the complete genome of dire wolves she went extinct 10,000 years ago. They found 14 to 20 unique genetic signifiers that showed how dire wolves were different from modern day gray wolves. And then they just did some tampering so that these two wolf pups, named Romulus and Remus were born with the genetic characteristics of dire wolves rather than gray wolf. So that should mean that they should be slightly larger, have stronger and bigger teeth in some respects, and they have white coats, which took one of the scientists I spoke to by surprise… Wyoming didn't contribute to the resurrection of dire wolves in this case, but they have been part of that discussion.”
In the meantime, ongoing research at Natural Trap Cave in Wyoming’s Bighorn Basin, and the famous La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, California, is trying to answer questions about the prehistoric world that left dire wolves and other prehistoric species behind.
Read the full story HERE.
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When a 16-year-old Glenrock High School student approached Wyoming lawmakers Tuesday at the state Capitol to ask for harsher penalties for adults who stalk minors, state leaders agreed to look into it.
The teenager was Gillian Holman, who was the victim of a 41-year-old woman who was sentenced last month for impersonating and bullying the girl and another teen. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that the Management Council, which is the Wyoming Legislature’s administrative arm, met Tuesday to consider whether the Judiciary Committee should research ways to bolster Wyoming’s stalking laws.
“She testified all by herself… and she talked about what she had gone through and her hopes for the new legislation. And several lawmakers commented on her courage and said that they wanted to support her, that they wanted to help her… her main point was what they what the victims in this case perceive as a weak point in Wyoming law, where a grown up stalking a minor faces a misdemeanor unless there's something like, like an injury or a protective order already in place, they just face a misdemeanor. And so she was saying, you know, like, what? We should have something harsher when grown ups, when adults stalk children.”
Marcie Smith stalked Gillian and Gillian’s boyfriend Preston Sorensen for nearly a year. Smith was sentenced to two years’ probation last month and fined less than $1,400.
Read the full story HERE.
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It’s a crime ring with a name that has a do-gooder ring to it: “Operation Homeless.”
What sounds like an initiative to help the growing number of people in Montana with no place to live is actually part of a multi-state criminal operation preying on homeless individuals - and Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison reports that one of the people responsible for this crime spree in multiple states, including Montana and Wyoming, was sentenced to nearly five years in prison Monday.
“We've heard all about cyber fraud. We've heard about the predatory phone calls on our seniors. Now comes a new category of fraud that really stoops to some low levels, and that's according to the very stern language voiced in the the charges against two men from Georgia who preyed on the unhoused on homeless men, specifically, and would recruit them, dress them up to appear as though they were coming from a specific job, and then have them cash a counterfeit check that matched the outfit somehow… they had the technology, the printers, the graphic arts skills, and somehow the intel on those numbers, those account numbers and those names, to create really believable phony paychecks. And they got away with it until the banks flagged them.”
Stanford Lightfoot, a 33-year-old from Atlanta, Georgia, pleaded guilty to bank fraud and aggravated identity theft. He was sentenced Monday to 57 months in prison and ordered to pay over $160,000 dollars in restitution. Decoriss Smith, Lightfoot’s co-defendant, pleaded guilty to similar charges.
Read the full story HERE.
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On Mar. 21, 1962, a 2-year-old black bear named Yogi had a rough day — he was ejected from a supersonic bomber at an altitude of 35,000 feet, supposedly to test the effectiveness of the bomber’s escape system for human flight crews.
According to accounts of the test, Yogi landed safely, and apparently unharmed, 7 minutes and 49 seconds after he was ejected. But Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports that despite surviving that adventure, poor Yogi’s fate was still sealed.
“They wanted to test, I guess, the viability of the ejection system. It was an actual pod that the pilot or crew members would eject out of. But instead of, I guess, risk a human the first time around, they used a bear. They put Yogi, who was a two year old black bear. They put him in there and ejected him. I think they were at 35,000 feet, going at around 800 miles per hour when they ejected poor Yogi. And he survived the ordeal. They did, unfortunately, a short while later, they put him down so they could do an examination of his internal organs to see what sort of damage had occurred.”
One retired ecologist pointed out that it’s likely that Yogi endured his ejection ordeal and later died for no reason, because using a bear to test human survivability under extreme conditions doesn’t make sense - other than the fact that humans and bears are both mammals, the physiology and anatomy are very different.
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.
