It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming, for Tuesday, April 29th. I’m Wendy Corr, bringing you headlines from the Cowboy State Daily newsroom - Brought to you by the Wyoming Community Foundation, who asks you to give back to the place you call home. “5 to thrive” is YOUR opportunity to leave a legacy for generations to come. Support the community nonprofits you care about with a gift through the Wyoming Community Foundation. Visit wycf.org to learn more.
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A 37-year-old Casper woman was shot and killed in an officer-involved shooting during a response to a residential burglary in progress just after midnight Monday.
The Natrona County Coroner confirmed that Jody Cobia was killed in the early morning incident on McKinley Street in Casper. Cowboy State Daily’s Dale Killingbeck spoke to Cobia’s estranged husband, who confirmed that his wife was shot by police.
“Apparently there was a call, according to the police, a call that there was a burglary in progress. They got there, and then we don't really know exactly what happened after that. Police are not giving details, but a woman that lived at the house was shot, and the news release that Casper police put out said that the person they encountered was armed.”
An autopsy is pending and next of kin have been notified. And because the shooting involved Casper police officers, the investigation has been turned over to the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation.
Read the full story HERE.
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Interstate 80 stretches over 2900 miles from New Jersey on the East Coast to California on the West. That’s made it a superhighway - not just for transporting goods, but also for information. In the past year, $24 billion in data centers were announced across 15 projects, all somewhere along I-80.
While Cheyenne has attracted a healthy cluster of eight of the state’s 11 data centers, including Microsoft and soon Meta, there aren’t any notable data center clusters along I-80 after that. Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean wanted to know why.
“And so looking at why they're in Cheyenne, I learned about the I 80 corridor being kind of co located with this transcontinental optic fiber optic line, which is perfect for data centers… The people I talked to said it's largely a power issue. Rocky Mountain Power is the one that serves those communities, Rock Springs, Rawlins, Green River, Evanston… And I was just told that Black Hills energy has just been a lot more proactive and easier to deal with when it comes to building out the power these data centers need.”
One of the other issues for areas outside of Cheyenne could be not enough redundancy. Data centers want to know that if the main route to Chicago is interrupted, for example, that there’s an alternate route to get data where it’s going.
Read the full story HERE.
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A Rock Springs man was sentenced to 55 years to life in prison on Monday for the brutal stabbing death of a man in July of 2023.
William Brewer had pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the death of his friend, 30-year-old Colter Watsabaugh, whom Brewer stabbed more than 30 times after a meth-fueled argument about a woman with whom they were both involved.
Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland was in the courtroom Monday for the five-hour sentencing hearing.
“It was grisly, the five hour long sentencing, the family clutching each other, weeping, and there were graphic photos shown… the defense had this huge mitigation argument about the development of a brain, particularly in someone like Brewer, who has spent his whole life in traumatic and dire circumstances. And the prosecutor side, they showed these just graphic photos of the stab wounds, one of which was through the cheek and you could see all the way into the mouth.”
Brewer’s sentence began immediately upon the completion of Monday’s hearing.
Read the full story HERE.
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The implementation of a 25% residential property tax cut has local governments around Wyoming, large and small, nervously eyeing their upcoming budgets.
And Cowboy State Daily’s Leo Wolfson reports that some of the smallest governments in Wyoming are bracing for the largest impacts.
“Smaller cities and counties are probably bearing some of the hardest brunt of all. I spoke to Weston County, where they're expecting basically a $1.3 million cut. That may not seem like an extraordinary amount of money, but when considering that their general fund only had $12.8 million in it for the budget last year, it's actually pretty substantial. It represents nearly a 10% hit there. Park County also is experiencing a large hit as well… They're projecting a $2.5 million loss in Park county government. Spoke to Dossie Overfield about that. They're not projecting making any cuts, necessarily, but they're definitely not going to be a growing government in any way for the foreseeable future.”
Mayor Patrick Collins said he isn’t planning any cuts thanks to revenue growing in other sectors, but sees the hit as more of an opportunity lost. With Cheyenne growing fast as a result of new companies and data centers coming to town, Collins said there’s a need for a larger law enforcement and emergency response staff.
Read the full story HERE.
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How much coal is left to mine in Wyoming and who wants to buy it? Those are a couple of the foundational questions the Wyoming Energy Authority is tackling with a new in-depth study.
Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison reports that the study will deliver targeted recommendations for regulatory and policy reforms designed to maintain viability in thermal coal supply and demand markets.
“The research will build on what's already happened at the University of Wyoming. The University in Laramie is renowned for its expertise in the coal industry, and so this comes on top of the research that's already happened there, and given all the changes in Washington, DC and a seemingly renewed appetite for coal, it'll be interesting to see what this study uncovers. So far, research has shown that demand for Wyoming coal is down, and there's a variety of factors behind that. I guess one of the goals of this study is to see… what is causing the downside on demand for Wyoming coal, and perhaps what can be done to increase it?”
Work on the study could begin as early as May 9 and be completed by November or December this year.
Read the full story HERE.
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Six international students at the University of Wyoming who had their visa registrations revoked by President Donald Trump’s administration have had those documents reinstated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The Justice Department announced the wholesale reversal in federal court Friday after weeks of intense scrutiny by courts and dozens of restraining orders issued by judges across the country. Cowboy State Daily’s Leo Wolfson spoke to several international students at UW about how these events have affected them personally.
“I spoke to one international student who is from Jordan. Her name is Aseel Abu Tarboush, and she said it's a very kind of frightening situation that these international students are in right now. She has concerns that not only are they under the target, but they're not really she feels like they're not really allowed to have free speech right now… I also spoke to Sophia Gomelsky, who's an International Studies major and A as UW Director of Government at UW, and she said many of her international student classmates are very nervous about the current situation. She even knows American students who kind of look like they're possibly ethnically from somewhere else. And she said even these students are kind of on edge about the current situation.”
Chad Baldwin, UW spokesperson, said the school has no information yet on how the move impacts visa revocations. He also didn’t know whether or not the students who had had their visa registrations temporarily revoked were still on campus.
Read the full story HERE.
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A run-in between a grizzly bear and two anglers who reportedly scared the bear off with gunfire in a popular wildlife refuge in southwest Montana is the latest incident in an already-busy year for bear conflicts.
No humans were hurt in the April 21 incident in the Red Rocks Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in southwest Montana, and it was unknown if the bear was injured. But Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports that this type of human-bear conflict is not typical in this part of the mountain west.
“This is an area, it's actually familiar to me personally from from my youth, from growing up, and it's another one of those areas where nobody dreamed there were ever going to be grizzly bears, but they're there now… we're just seeing Grizzlies reclaiming more and more habitat… I also talked to Jim Zumbo, who's a prominent outdoor writer, and he says he was in that Red Rocks area when I was, you know, kind of in the 80s and early 90s. And he said, Yeah… Grizzlies didn't cross anybody's mind back then, but now, I guess they're pretty thick in there.”
In response to the incident, officials have closed part of the refuge through May 5.
Read the full story HERE.
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Logan Dafoe’s dream of attending the U.S. Military Academy was realized this month as he became the first Hot Springs County high school student in 30 years to earn an appointment to West Point.
But the dream wasn’t complete, because his father Bill died Sept. 11, 2024, following months of battling brain cancer. However, Cowboy Logan told Cowboy State Daily’s Jackie Dorothy that despite that adversity, he was determined to follow his dad’s advice to never give up.
“When Logan Dafoe's dad was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and he knew that his time was short, Logan kept going. Two days after his dad died, he was playing football because he had to be there for his team, but he also was there for his dad with his dad's number on his helmet. So this is the kind of spirit that we do need in our military. And I think. He'll be a perfect candidate for West Point.”
Logan is focused on his new opportunities and is most excited to try out for the football team. He plans to get a degree in engineering like his dad before him.
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.
