It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming, for Tuesday, May 13th. 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 woman living in a southside apartment complex in Casper on Sunday said she heard gunshots and a plea for someone to call 911, then opened the door leading outside her building to find the body of a masked man at her feet with a gun in his hand.
Cowboy State Daily’s Dale Killingbeck reports that two people were shot in the incident at Foxhill Apartments. One man was killed, and another was transported to Banner Wyoming Medical Center with an apparent gunshot wound.
“What we were told by an apartment resident below that apartment was they heard about 12 gunshots, and then she opened her door and she said she heard somebody say, somebody needs to call 911, so she grabbed her phone and ran out of into the hall, into the end where she opened the door and there was a body laying at her feet, and that was the individual that was deceased.”
In a separate incident that occurred at the same time in another part of the city, an apparently accidental shooting involving a 21 year old and a 16 year old has left the teenager in a Denver hospital fighting for his life.
Read the full story HERE.
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Helium is good for a lot more than fun party tricks like floating balloons and chipmunking your voice.
It’s also state of the art when it comes to coolant for rockets and semiconductors, and it’s considered irreplaceable for many medical devices, including magnetic resonance imaging machines. And Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that Wyoming, which already produces 20% of the world’s Grade A helium from one location in Sublette County, could be home to a second source of the vital gas.
“Helium is really part of our crust in general. It's a product of radioactive decay… Helium is a very lightweight molecule… that light weight makes it slippery, very easy to escape most of the time… But a few places in the world have just the right geology, the kind of rocks that helium can't find its way out, and so that helium typically will get caught up… And so when we mine natural gas, that helium could be a byproduct if it's present in a large enough amount… in Sublette County, we already know that it's economically there in an economically feasible amount. We got the right geology… so we already have one big player there, ExxonMobil… now we have another helium company looking to set up in Sublette County and take advantage of that geology.”
The company is Blue Spruce, and the project is called the Dry Piney Helium and Carbon Sequestration Project near Big Piney. The $1.5 billion project plan includes four production pads with eight wells that are expected to produce 800 million cubic feet annually of bulk liquid helium, as well as 80 million cubic feet per day of natural gas. Blue Spruce expects to begin operation in the fall of 2028.
Read the full story HERE.
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“Goring” is frequently the term used to describe what happens when a fed-up bison attacks a Yellowstone National Park tourist gets too close, conjuring up images of an enraged bison driving its horn through the victim’s torso.
Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports, though, that in reality, “bison bludgeoning” or catastrophic “bison bashing” might be better terms to describe what happens when one of the 2,000-pound beasts decides it’s had enough of somebody invading its personal space.
“I talked to an ER doctor who's in Cody, who's treated a lot of these cases… he says most of the wounds are actually blunt force trauma, crushing type wounds, like the bison will Ram Ram the people with their foreheads, and the people will go flying. So you it's kind of a double whammy. First you have the impact of being hit by the animal. You fly through the air, and then you have another impact when you hit the ground. So he sees a lot of broken bones, a lot of damage, the spleens and rivers, livers, Another bad thing to have. A lot of times, if the bison is really upset with someone, they'll stomp on him too. And that can lead to, you know, horrible internal organ damage.”
Things got off to an early start this tourism season. A 47-year-old Florida man suffered what were described as “minor injuries” May 4 when he got too close to a bison in Yellowstone’s Lake Village area and the animal turned on him.
Read the full story HERE.
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A Wyoming-based federal judge is giving the women suing their sorority for inducting a Wyoming transgender member 30 days to refile their lawsuit - or give up the case.
U.S. District Court Judge Alan B. Johnson’s deadline issued Friday comes after two years of litigation in a case in which six women are suing the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, accusing it of violating its own rules and imperiling its membership and future, for allegedly pushing University of Wyoming-based sorority members into inducting transgender student Artemis Langford in fall 2022. Crime and Courts reporter Clair McFarland has been following this story.
“Judge Johnson of the Federal Court was like, you can't, you basically can't attack this sorority for inducting a transgender member, because private organizations in America have a First Amendment right to dictate their terms of association, their terms of membership that's under your expressive Association rights… And the appeals court was like, we're not going to look at any of that, because you still have a chance for remedy in the lower court… And then there was this huge lull. Nothing happened… on Friday, Judge Johnson was like, You got to do something 30 days to amend your complaint or this case is over.”
The women’s attorney, Cassie Craven, told Cowboy State Daily in a Monday text message that they plan to reframe their allegations for the Court’s consideration.
Read the full story HERE.
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Nine felony cases connected to a game of “Crime Bingo” played by Bozeman Police Department officers will not be prosecuted.
That’s what Gallatin County Attorney Audrey Cromwell said Monday, citing a need to protect defendants’ constitutional due process rights, and to ensure procedural fairness.
Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison reports that Police Chief Jim Veltkamp revealed the “Crime Bingo” during an April 18 press conference, but at the time insisted that no arrests had been affected by the game.
“So back in April, Bozeman Police Department announced that it had discovered that two of its patrol shifts were competing in this crime bingo contest between the two shifts, and from their point of view, it was just a harmless way to pass the time, creating a crime bingo, custom bingo card that had things you might encounter on duty, and every time you encountered them, you got to put an x in that Bingo Square. Well, it's a big problem if your work as a law enforcement officer is being influenced by this game… the county attorney here, which handles all of the felony cases, reviewed and decided not to proceed with nine cases, most of them drug offenses… those are serious matters that really got hung up somehow by having a connection to this crime bingo game.”
The Bozeman Police Department reported in April that an independent review cleared BPD officers of any misconduct inspired by the bingo game.
Read the full story HERE.
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Wyoming lawmakers will consider assessing harsher penalties for public officials who don’t produce public documents upon request and other heightened transparency measures.
Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that, at a meeting in Lander on Friday, the legislative Joint Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee heard from members of the press, a mayor, a county attorney, and others about balancing the public’s right to see what government is doing and the time and cost burden of producing public documents.
“A long time newspaper man approached lawmakers on Friday like, you gotta up the penalty. It's only a $750 civil penalty. If people just, nah, I'm not gonna cough up these public documents. I don't feel like showing the public that today, and so they're contemplating that… But that was offset by Cheyenne’s mayor saying, Look, I get it. I want what's public to be public, but we have such a hard time keeping up with the constant pressure of data miners… according to him, it's just takes city staffers months to comply with requests that are actually coming from out of state.”
Some of the things data miners have requested include every building permit on solar structures; every building permit given for residential and commercial properties; every purchasing order record, despite the city’s multimillion-dollar budget; and outstanding warrants.
Read the full story HERE.
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In a social media post Friday, President Donald Trump broached the idea of a tax increase for the richest Americans. The post was far from a ringing endorsement of the notion, but with budget battles now in full swing on Capitol Hill, it did throw a wild card into the mix.
Cowboy State Daily’s Sean Barry reports that Wyoming’s U.S. senators don’t want to raise taxes on the wealthy, saying they are loath to slap tax hikes on anyone, period.
“Trump didn't endorse the idea wholesale, but Trump brought the idea up, and he said, Hey, I'm okay with this. And John Barrasso said in an interview on national television yesterday that, no, he's against it. He's against tax increases on anyone. Senator Cynthia Lummis, I asked her office, she agrees with that. Congresswoman Hagaman office didn't get back to me, but as a general rule, the Republicans do not want higher taxes on anyone because they don't want to hear about it come campaign season, especially when they're in a primary, because it is just absolutely politically toxic to be told that you've raised taxes, and what are you going to tell your constituents now?”
In Trump's post, he said increasing taxes for the wealthy might in fact be a liability for Republicans in Congress. Democrats, according to Trump, would likely seize on such a move to associate Republicans with higher taxes. However, he said, quote, “I’m OK if they do.”
Read the full story HERE.
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The Cody Volunteer Fire Department has announced its fire engines will not participate in the Cody Stampede Parade on July 3 and 4, ending several years of bombastic tradition. Their fleet of siren-blaring trucks, which usually serve as the parade's grand finale, will be noticeably absent in 2025.
The reason for their withdrawal? Water balloon fights, or the lack thereof, according to Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi.
“People across the board are disappointed that you can't throw candy or water balloons from parade floats and everything. And I think that's coming from a genuine place. But the thing about it is, when you're throwing candy and water balloons, that creates potential liability, and the Cody stampede parade committee needs to get insured, needs to get liability insurance before the city of Cody and the Wyoming Department transportation sign off on the Cody stampede parade, because it's not just a city street, it's a US Highway. So they could only find one company that would cover the parade. And if you think that anybody's going to side with water balloons and candy over not being insured and preventing future parades. I've got a timeshare on the moon that you might be interested in.”
Due to this ban on water balloons, the Cody Volunteer Fire Department will only have a historic fire engine and a hose cart in this year’s parade. Their fleet of fire trucks will not participate.
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.
