It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming, for Monday, April 21st. 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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When Matt Cundy of Casper took his own life at age 27, the family he left behind was devastated. The kind, outgoing young man had given off few signs of the depression that would eventually take him from his family forever.
But DNA later revealed that he had also left them with something special — a 5-year-old daughter they never knew he had. Cowboy State Daily’s Jen Kocher spoke to the family which found unexpected joy out of their profound grief.
“I was so glad I met them in person. Because one thing I think people need to understand is how close this family is and how devastating the death of their son was… he had sudden onset Depression hit him hard in his late 20s, and they scrambled to try to find him help… and unfortunately, he ended up taking his life. So what was astounding to them is the devastation they felt, you know, waiting through those months following his death, and then to find out five months later, actually, on Good Friday, I learned today they learned that they had a granddaughter. So I think, and Jan calls them her God wink moments. And I think this is very just a god wink moment for sure.”
Despite the pain of losing their son, the miracle of their granddaughter Taylee is a blessing that the Cundy’s never imagined would emerge from the tragedy. Jan said she feels her son smiling down on them, knowing that they’ve found her.
Read the full story HERE.
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The son of a late motel owner in Jeffrey City is sorting through the unexpected inheritance his father left behind, with memories scattered everywhere.
But Randy Robinett returns almost every weekend to fix and clean up the Green Mountain Motel, despite the painful memories of his dad’s unexpected death in May 2024. Cowboy State Daily videographers Reilly Strand and Hannah Brock spent time with Robinett as he sifted through the remains of his father’s life.
“I mean, I don't have to go through my dad's stuff to know my dad, but it brings back memories, you know, if anybody had to do this, they understand. You go through it and some things, you're just like, what's the story behind this? You know, like, why? Kind of the pack rat mentality? And that was definitely my dad. But not all of it was just junk, like he felt a purpose for every thing that he had, anything and everything, there was nothing that he wouldn't at least attempt to do. You know, he enjoyed doing everything. We've actually worked together a couple times through the years. I thought my dad and I had a good relationship.”
You can watch the full video at Cowboy State Daily Dot Com, or on our YouTube channel.
Read the full story HERE.
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Momentum behind the push to split up one of the largest utility companies in the country continues to build.
Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison reports that Wyoming, Idaho and Utah are rallying around the idea of forming what they call an “interstate compact for regional energy collaboration,” and breaking PacifiCorp into two separate electricity providers.
“Utah passed a resolution this past legislative session that says, Okay, it's official. We want to form a three state compact that basically takes the constituency of those three states, Wyoming, Utah and Idaho, and creates a new energy entity to be determined that can set policies that reflect the priorities of those three states, and those three states want to prioritize, according to the leaders who are involved fossil fuels. Well, the opposite has happened on the West Coast, you have California, Oregon and Washington prioritizing clean energy, renewable energy, hydro energy. And from the perspective of folks in Utah and Wyoming, that's not the way to go.”
PacifiCorp is already divided into its subsidiaries — Rocky Mountain Power and Pacific Power. The company reports it has about 2 million customers, with about 1.2 million of those in Rocky Mountain Power’s red states, and another 800,000 in the West Coast states.
Read the full story HERE.
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Yellowstone National Park has just one entrance that’s open year-round, the North Entrance. That makes real estate in the surrounding area particularly choice, given that people can just drive into the park all year long.
Now just think about owning an entire town near it with convenient access to one of the most popular parks in the nation. Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that the town of Pray, Montana, is on the market, listed at $2.6 million dollars.
“It was formed at the turn of the 1900s… The real estate agent … he's the tenant of the general store. This town still has its old General Store, and he told me that once upon a time, they would weigh the babies at the meat counter to get their birth weights. So this is a town with a lot of kind of cool history… it's got about 300,000 a year in rental, vacation rental income. There's already a plan that the current owner did to add like, nine cabins to that… And so, you know, maybe you're also tripling the income that's associated with it, which would be attractive, given the price is around $3 million.. it could be a really nice business opportunity for someone, but it could also just be a nice little personal retreat.”
Pray is well-situated for other adventures besides Yellowstone, as it’s a comfortable 27-mile distance away from Livingston, and just 48 miles from Bozeman, Montana. It’s ideally situated in a little slice of a valley they already call Paradise.
Read the full story HERE.
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Local health officials alerted the public Thursday that it’s investigating five confirmed cases of measles in a group of children and adults who were exposed while traveling outside Montana. The five people are either unvaccinated, or their vaccine status is unknown.
Montana health officials told Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison that all the people infected live in Gallatin County and are currently isolated at home.
“The one road connecting Gallatin County, Montana to Wyoming is highway 191 and this week, two businesses on Highway 191 about 80 miles from the Wyoming border, were identified as potential measles hot spots… I asked one of the four medical professionals we interviewed today… Is this a concern to Wyoming residents, and he said, So far, no, there is no evidence that, even though there is this proximity to where identified measles infections happened in Montana, it doesn't appear that they've left the state or have entered Wyoming. However, it's still a big However, it's still a big deal. And here, the local officials here said they've been having flashbacks to the pandemic.”
The measles virus spreads through airborne droplets and remains infectious in the air for up to 2 hours after an infected person leaves an area. Around 90% of unvaccinated close contacts contract the virus.
Read the full story HERE.
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While the rest of Wyoming is fast asleep, there’s a secret world in Lander filled with thousands of green and growing things that are all wide awake, bathed in bright LED sunshine.
These green beings live in a most unlikely space - an 80-by-40-foot shipping container that a casual visitor could easily mistake for a storage unit. But Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean went behind the closed doors to reveal an amazing George Jetson-style farm.
“You’ve got all these walls of plants growing, and you can just kind of move them back and forth. And you got this computer that's controlling the output of water and nutrients. It's monitoring the nutrients to make sure that it's the right concentration all the time… it really is kind of space age, I think… the thing about these shipping containers is basically all you need is power and water, right? And you can hook them up, and you can grow in any climate, any environment it's going to it's controlling the environment inside for you… This is located that the Central Wyoming College, they have this regenerative, small scale farming AAS degree, and they told me that is the first of its kind in Wyoming.”
Shipping container greenhouses are costly. CWC’s unit cost $150,000, not including water and power hookups and a solid concrete pad on which to place it. However, the shipping container is highly efficient, cranking out between 2 to 4 acres worth of produce from its tiny space.
Read the full story HERE.
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Nearly 30 years ago, an 18-year-old freshman at Northwest College in Powell was murdered by a fellow student.
Ryan Bryant never imagined he would find anything about his sister Berry’s murder to laugh about until he heard the story recently featured on the Wondery podcast “Small Town Murder,” in episode 584, “Killer Homecoming King,” that aired in late March.
Cowboy State Daily’s Jen Kocher had a chance to talk to Ryan about the tragedy, and finding lightness in such a dark event.
“I was talking about this story in advance on Jake's show one morning, and Ryan, Berry Bryant's brother, happened to hear me, and he reached out to me and said, Hey, I they I love the podcast. They got it right… after Ryan had reached out to me, I felt slightly uncomfortable because I thought, how does that podcast, you know, the humor of that podcast, hit a family member? So when I asked him that, he said he thought it was hysterical. He said it was the first time that he had been able to laugh. He appreciated because, you know this podcast, they don't make fun of the murder victim, and they're very careful not to do that. And he really, in particular, appreciated the way they recounted how quickly Levi Collen confessed and how quickly it went to trial. He liked their humorous take on that in particular.”
All these years later, Ryan is still eager to share his sister’s story, despite the pain.
He told Kocher that it was such a senseless thing to happen to such a good person, and he doesn’t want anyone to forget her.
Read the full story HERE.
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The author of “Ocean’s 11” was also one of the most revered and provocative storytellers of “The Twilight Zone,” and was the screenwriter who introduced the world to “Star Trek.” This was George Clayton Johnson, a middle school dropout who escaped a lonely childhood in Cheyenne, only to become one of the most imaginative minds of Tinseltown. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi spoke to a fellow screenwriter about Johnson’s remarkable career.
“George Clayton Johnson was an incredibly bright, imaginative guy who had a really rough childhood in Wyoming, and he decided that he wanted to rise above that… He had a great mind and a great way with words and speaking to the people who knew him and who knew his work, they think that is his harsh upbringing in Wyoming really informed the themes that he would translate into fictional works, the ideas of loss, of sadness, of what you're missing out on In life, the choices you make… And just watching anything that he's written, you can see that pouring through in the dialog. … one of the most re watched Twilight Zone episodes ever is ‘Nothing in the Dark,’ which stars Robert Redford as Death… he points out that it's not scary, just sometimes you're what you're afraid of is the unknown.”
Johnson was inspired by visionaries and inspired others to become visionaries. But the irony is that the elation he evoked in so many others came from a determination to overcome the depths of lonely desperation in the Cowboy State.
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.
