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

<title>Daily Darwin: Saturday, May 17, 2025 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Daily Darwin: Saturday, May 17, 2025

 Man films himself getting bashed in the shins with various objects. Why? We have no idea....

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's general assignment reporter, Clair McFarland.

Clair McFarland

Politics

Government & Politics

U.S. House candidate Chuck Gray’s recent campaign poll contained subjective attacks, 

images of the poll questions provided to Cowboy State Daily, coupled with an interview,

 that Gray sent a poll by high-profile pollster Fabrizio, Lee & Associates, which worked with President Donald Trump’s campaigns.

The poll showed Gray leading at 21% support, with nine other candidates trailing at 14% and less. There also were 33% who registered as “strong undecided."

The poll also contained a push phase, where recipients received “information” about Gray and two of his opponents, Casper-businessman Reid Rasner and Teton County philanthropist Steve Friess, according to a methodology breakdown included in the poll memo Gray sent Cowboy State Daily.

After the “information” dump, Gray’s percentage points doubled, while Rasner’s and Friess’s sunk.

The “information” comprised bizarre and subjective campaign attacks, a survey recipient told Cowboy State Daily soon after the 

Former state Rep. Ember Oakley, a Republican and former legislator who now lives in Kemmerer, was one of those who took the poll. She sent Cowboy State Daily screenshots she said she took while answering the May 13 survey.

[{"type":"text","text":"'His Family's Wealth'"}]

“Steve Friess is a Jackson Hole elitist who has never held a real job and has lived his entire life off his family’s wealth,” one screenshot says. “The same out-of-touch privilege that leaves him completely disconnected from the struggles of working families in Wyoming.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Friess told Cowboy State Daily prior that he’s worked in finance."}]

He has been active as a philanthropist, and helped form executive order drafts to offer to Trump upon the president’s first inauguration in 2017.

Friess and his wife also founded a Christian school, Jackson Hole Classical Academy, in 2014.

[{"type":"text","text":"Oakley said she found the push poll’s information laughable."}]

“That was straight irony,” she said. “Chuck Gray, as far as I know, and I’ve asked, hasn’t had a career or a real, legitimate job before he got into Wyoming politics."

Gray, who is 36, told Cowboy State Daily prior that he worked in his father’s radio business. He has been in Wyoming politics since at least 2017, when he joined the Wyoming House of Representatives.

“His campaign money and everything, his finances, have been 

,” said Oakley. “To write that Friess is out of touch because he’s lived off his family’s wealth and hasn’t had a real job is, like, describing Chuck.”  

[{"type":"text","text":"Oakley then laughed. "}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Friess’s campaign manager declined to comment Monday."}]

The “information” the poll reportedly dispatched about Rasner contained more objective information, but at least one subjective theory and some loaded framing.

“Reid Rasner married his gay husband in New York, hyphenated his name like a Hollywood celebrity, then divorced him in Wyoming and hit him with a strict gag order — banning his ex-husband from using his name mentioning his job, or even referring to details of their marriage on podcasts or social media,” says one of the screenshots.

While many of those facts are correct, nothing in the court documents that underpin them accuses Rasner of behaving “like a Hollywood celebrity.”

Rasner had married a man in New York, New York in 2012, and the pair divorced in 2020, Wyoming court documents show.

 the pair not to make derogatory comments about one another. After the ex-husband took to his podcast and the Internet to talk about Rasner, the judge ordered the 

 man to show cause, then issued a stipulated order in 2022 containing numerous specific bans.

“Defendant shall never insinuate any facts about plaintiff that would negatively impact his type of employment as a financial planner” or say other, certain salacious things about him, the judge ordered.

Rasner’s campaign spokesman did not respond by publication to a text message request for comment.

[{"type":"text","text":"‘Propaganda’"}]

Gray told Cowboy State Daily on Monday that the “information” in the poll included “different points on our records.”

Later when confronted with the screenshots, Gray didn’t outright confirm the content, but he said that the initial ballot test — from which he scored 21% 

 from the 400-person hypothetical election the poll posits — was given “before any prompts.”

“The initial ballot test is the key,” he said. “This is the standard in all polling.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Oakley called it propaganda.  "}]

“I think the technical term is called push polling,” she said. “It’s just done for propaganda and for campaign reasons.”

In the prompts, said Oakley, “they clearly were just writing things that were inflammatory.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Too Early Anyway"}]

Rob Wallace, a longtime Wyoming politico, cast skepticism on a poll conducted so early in the race even before the screenshots with the bizarre prompts surfaced.

Wallace served as assistant secretary to the U.S. Department of the Interior during the first Trump administration and years prior worked multiple political campaigns as an advisor for the late U.S. Sen. Malcolm Wallop. 

He also ran for Congress in 1994 and finished second in a crowded primary to Rep. Barbara Cubin.

“Polling this early in the campaign is like endorsements,” he said. “It’s good to have favorable information, but the real part of the race isn’t going to get going until probably after the Fourth of July.”

The filing period for candidates ended Friday, and the primary election is Aug. 18.

Wallace also hesitated to attach significance to the poll since the “information" the Fabrizio team gave voters was unknown.

“Without really understanding all the pieces of the poll, it’s hard to give a complete assessment of what it means,” he said.

Now that the filing period has ended, the other nine candidates in the Republican U.S. House primary race are going to burst into public view as much as they can, Wallace said.

Between the poll and the filing deadline, two more candidates registered: Keith Goodenough and Richard Dodson.

[{"type":"text","text":"That puts the primary race at 10 contenders."}]

Whoever wins that race will have to face the Democratic candidate, plus the Libertarian nominee Shawn Johnson, who 

“There are a couple reasons for putting a favorable poll out” at this phase, said Wallace. One reason could be to dissuade others from running; and another could be to reassure one’s base and supporters.

“It’s like a good-news story for the people you want to attract,” he added.

[{"type":"text","text":"The big unknown, said Wallace, is what Trump will do."}]

The president has endorsed Megan Degenfelder for governor over her GOP opponents.

[{"type":"text","text":"He has not endorsed anyone in the crowded U.S. House primary race."}]

Friess, Rasner, Gray, Balow, and Biteman all have dispatched messaging indicating alignment with Trump.

[{"type":"text","text":"Rasner and Gray tout themselves as MAGA-style candidates."}]

Biteman has for years had a collaborative relationship with the president, he’s told Cowboy State Daily prior.

Christensen is a strong outlier there: he condemned the president’s April social media post of an AI-generated image depicting Trump as a Jesus-like figure, healing an ailing man while others circle him in gestures of prayer.

A Trump endorsement, said Wallace, “could be a game-changer if he decides to do it. And maybe he won’t — maybe he won’t endorse anybody.”

Chuck gray 6 1 26

<title>Chuck Gray’s U.S. House Poll Leveled Disparaging Remarks Against Rasner, Friess | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The poll U.S. House candidate Chuck Gray touted Monday leveled disparaging claims about opponents Reid Rasner and Steve Friess. It claimed Friess "never had a real job" and Rasner acted like a "Hollywood celebrity" during a marriage to "his gay husband."
 

Chuck Gray’s U.S. House Poll Leveled Disparaging Remarks Against Rasner, Friess

Julie Mankin

Crime & Courts

A Wyoming barrel racer was stunned to learn that the 17-year-old girl accused of stabbing three horses during a major rodeo event in Las Vegas over the weekend was the same rider who tried to borrow one of her horses.

“About a month ago, I got a message from a girl asking if I had a horse she could run,” said Lora Nichols of Pavillion. “I said no, and she kept asking about each of my specific horses. 

“This weekend I looked to see if it was the same girl they arrested. It was! It makes my skin crawl to realize she was stalking my horses, too. It could have been me just as easily.”

Nichols, who has earned more than $400,000 competing on the half-brother brother of one of the stabbed horses, said she’s especially horrified by the attack.

Along with Nichols, Wyoming’s rodeo community is shocked and appalled by the Tonya Harding-like violent rampage that left the three barrel racing horses stabbed multiple times.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"What Happened"}]

Las Vegas police report that the 17-year-old barrel racer was arrested in connection the attack on the horses of competitors.

The girl is accused of stabbing each of the horses multiple times inside their stalls during 

the NBHA Professional’s Choice Vegas Super Show at the South Point Equestrian Center.

The attack came just hours after one of the horses — a 6-year-old gelding named Saaul Good — had carried 20-year-old Hailey Krahenbuhl to a first-place paycheck of $1,805. 

The horse, which Krahenbuhl calls “Sully,” has shattered arena records this season and racked up $238,388 in earnings in less than four years competing. 

“Sully was stabbed multiple times last night,” Krahenbuhl posted to her Facebook page on Saturday. “I have no words. He is stitched up and in recovery.” 

The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department reports that officers received a report at around 2:07 a.m. Saturday that a horse had been injured inside a South Point barn. 

When officers arrived, they learned three horses had been “intentionally injured with a sharp object” believed to be a knife, police say.

Veterinarians reportedly cleaned and sutured deep blade lacerations to Sully’s flank and shoulder. 

Another competitor named Keira Weisbart confirmed on social media that her horse, Rocket, was stabbed three times and had other “stab attempts around his body.” 

That horse was reportedly treated and released at the scene.

A third stabbed horse, however, underwent emergency surgery to repair muscle tissue damage. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Detail’s Ordeal"}]

Southern California barrel racer Arielle Phillips owns that third horse, a mare she calls Detail was stabbed multiple times.

, Phillips described the arrested teen as “a crazy obsessed stalker who has been following me on social media for a long time, obsessing over Detail, obsessing over meeting me.”

Phillips said she’d arrived back at the South Point barn to find the suspect hosing off Detail’s wounds.

“Cameras verified her entering our stalls,” wrote Phillips. “I can’t even put into words the pain I feel for my mare and for Hailey’s Sully.”

She said the attack has also affected her horse.

“Detail is traumatized,” Phillips wrote. “Every time she runs away from the approach of my hand, I burst into tears. This is my best friend. An innocent sweet horse was brutally tortured for no reason.”

While all three horses are expected to recover, they are sidelined for the near future and aren’t able to compete.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Champion Lineage"}]

Krahenbuhl, the daughter of a Las Vegas landscaper who grew up about 15 minutes from The Strip, had plans to hit the rodeo road with Sully — whose sire Winner’s Version has produced earners of more than $7 million — and make an NFR run in 2027. 

“We were a match from the beginning and my dreams became reality, all thanks to him,” she wrote prior to the attack from Globe Life Field during the $3 million American Rodeo. 

 to help with at veterinary for all three of the horses.

Nichols said she knows those other girls and is heartbroken for them and their horses.

“I’ve competed alongside Hailey a lot, and she’s an amazing human being,” said Nichols. “I think of the raw emotion and just the blood, sweat and tears she’s put in ­— you know, how hard she’s worked to get there. 

“When I heard it was her horse, I was just sick to my stomach.”

According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, detectives located the suspect at a nearby hotel and took her into custody.

“She was transported to Clark County Juvenile Hall, where she was booked on 12 counts of willful or malicious killing, maiming or torturing of an animal and three counts of felony malicious destruction of private property over $5,000,” investigators told KTLA 5 Morning News.

Because of her age, official law enforcement sources have not identified the suspected publicly.

Veteran barrel racers have over the years heard rare rumors of winning horses being poisoned, but a brazen rash of stabbings is a first. 

Nichols said the incident makes her think of a made-for-TV movie in which the stalker ends up booked for murder. 

She’s also grateful the suspect wasn’t targeting the girls themselves.

“I just think we’re sheltered from that so much in our world,” added barrel racer and Gillette College rodeo coach racer Casey Rae Sellers. “The youth in our industry are pretty dang good kids. This is so out-of-character for the Western industry.”

Horses stabbed Krahenbuhl and Sully at The American 6 1 26

<title>Wyoming Barrel Racer Says She Was Approached By Alleged Horse-Stabber | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A Wyoming barrel racer was stunned to learn that the teen girl accused of stabbing three horses in Las Vegas over the weekend tried to borrow one of her horses last month. “It makes my skin crawl to realize she was stalking my horses, too,” she said.

Wyoming Barrel Racer Says She Was Approached By Alleged Horse-Stabber

Jen kocher

Jen Kocher

Courts

The family of a woman killed by a distracted driver in downtown Sheridan a year ago said they feel slighted by what they call a lenient sentence handed down to the driver.

David Vincent Johnson, 34, was sentenced to 60 days in jail and two years of supervised probation and fines in Sheridan County Circuit Court on Friday after a nearly four-hour sentencing hearing.

The sentencing happened a year and a day after Johnson 

, who had been legally crossing in the crosswalk when Johnson hit her with his pickup.

Fitzsimmons had been visiting her daughter Kate Gladdin and husband Nate, from Australia, when she was struck.

She died of blunt force trauma to her head after being thrown more than 7 feet by the vehicle.

Johnson, who was not impaired at the time of the accident, was charged with vehicular manslaughter, which is punishable by up to a year in jail, a fine of up to $2,000, or both.

In Wyoming, vehicular manslaughter can be either a misdemeanor or felony, which carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison.

To be considered a felony, the driver has to be driving recklessly or be under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

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

Since Johnson was sober, as Gladdin explained in an earlier interview, meeting the standard of “reckless” is a high bar.

Johnson’s sentence was in accordance with the plea deal he agreed to, as did Gladdin and her father, Vince, to avoid the pain of a trial and to protect her mother’s dignity, Gladdin said.

However, Gladdin said she hoped that Sheridan County Circuit Court Judge Sheryl Bunting would have punished Johnson to the full extent of the law, as is her discretion given his past criminal history related to his driving.

At the time of the accident, Johnson was on probation for domestic battery and evading police in 2024, according to court records.

He pleaded no contest to the charges and was sentenced to 90 days in jail with 88 days suspended and a year probation with six months supervised, as well as under $1,000 in fines.

Johnson also had a DUI in December 2023 in which he crashed his vehicle, and a handful of other driving violations that warranted his designation as a high-risk driver by the state of Wyoming, requiring him to carry SR-22 insurance.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"‘Only Deeper Grief’"}]

Gladdin and Vince felt their impact statements during the hearing largely fell on deaf ears, and they expressed their thoughts in a statement to Cowboy State Daily.

Vince, in particular, feels his words were taken out of context by Bunting’s comments in her closing statement.

"In the closing remarks at the end of the sentencing, I was quoted as saying there is no penalty that will compensate our family for our loss,” he said. “That is true. But the request that came after it was left out.

“My statement asked the court to 'impose the maximum penalty possible against this perpetrator, both for his deep and extensive record, that he abused his grant of parole when he killed my wife, and to make an example to other drivers that they must respect, be cautious and aware of pedestrians.’

He concluded that, “Life is too precious to be cavalier about the safety of others.”

Taking him out of context implies that the sentence did not matter to the family. It did, he clarified.

Gladdin said that the 60-day sentence does not bring them comfort, only “deeper grief.”

“She lived by the rules and was killed by a man with a long history of breaking them, right up to the moment he killed her,” she said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Hopes To Close Gaps In Law"}]

Gladdin and her family are using their experience as an opportunity to change what they consider to be gaps in Wyoming laws when it comes to charging vehicular manslaughter as a misdemeanor.

The Legislature’s Joint Judiciary Committee voted unanimously in May to ask the Legislative Service Office draft perfunctory legislation based on the points raised to discuss at their next committee meeting in Casper on Aug. 10-11.

This includes amending distracted driving to include texting or phone use that results in deaths, driving on a suspended or revoked license, fleeing law enforcement that leads to a fatality and to consider repeat traffic offenses such as prior reckless driving convictions for those who kill a person while behind the wheel.

Gladdin said she feels like strengthening the laws will hopefully prevent other families from experiencing similar tragedies.

“We are left to wonder how this can be what the court called a teaching and learning moment for everybody, when the perpetrator once again avoids any real accountability for his crimes,” she wrote in her statement. “This time for killing a beloved wife and mother- and shattering our family forever.

Johnson’s attorney, Anna Malmberg with the Sheridan County Public Defender’s Office, did not respond to a request for comment by the time this story was published.

Run down Fitzsimons and intersection 5 16 26

<title>Family Says 60-Day Sentence For Driver Who Killed Woman Brings Them ‘Deeper Grief’ | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The family of a woman killed by a distracted driver in downtown Sheridan a year ago said they feel slighted by the 60-day sentence he got Friday. It brings “deeper grief,” not closure, said the woman’s daughter.

Family Says 60-Day Sentence For Driver Who Killed Woman Brings Them ‘Deeper Grief’

Update: A poll recipient told Cowboy State Daily on Monday that the "information" phase of the Chuck Gray poll leveled disparaging, inflammatory comments against candidates Steve Friess and Reid Rasner. Cowboy State Daily also 

In the first significant poll of Wyoming’s primary election season, Secretary of State Chuck Gray leads a crowded GOP U.S. House race with 21% support.

Casper businessman Reid Rasner is second at 14%, Teton County philanthropist Steve Friess at 10%, former Superintendent of Public Instruction Jillian Balow at 8%, and state Senate President Bo Biteman at 7%, according to a poll memo Gray sent to Cowboy State Daily.

The poll also shows 33% of those surveyed are “hard undecided.”

Fabrizio, Lee & Associates, a survey and research firm that ran polls for President Donald Trump’s campaigns,

 compiled the poll of 400 Wyoming Republican voters from May 13-16.

Casper-based veteran Kevin Christensen followed at 5%, with Moran rancher Frank Chapman at 1% and David Giralt at less than 1%.

The poll lists former state Rep. John Romero-Martinez at less than 1%, but Romero-Martinez did not register to run for the seat by Friday’s 5 p.m. deadline. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"But What ‘Information’?"}]

The pollster’s methodology says the survey 

 gave voters “information” about Gray, Rasner and Friess. 

Gray told Cowboy State Daily on Monday that the “information” included “different points on our records” but upon inquiry, he did not list those points by publication time.  

 jumped to 48% over “hard undecided” at 22%, with Rasner and Friess falling to 3% and 6% respectively.

Balow, whose record was apparently not included in the “information” discussion with each voter, rose to second place in the post-information survey at 8%.

“Chuck Gray is currently best positioned to win this race,” the pollster’s memo asserts.

Half the survey recipients were male, half were female, and 90% were white, says the poll memo.

“This race is about focusing on the truth — my track record of advancing the America First, conservative priorities of the people of Wyoming and my record of getting those priorities to the finish line,” wrote Gray in a statement. 

“I do not back down, even in the face of false attacks from insiders and the radical Left. That is what the people of Wyoming want, and that is why we are in a strong  lead,” he added.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Kinda Early"}]

Rob Wallace, a longtime Wyoming politico, cast skepticism on a poll conducted so early in the race.

Wallace served as assistant secretary to the U.S. 

nterior during the first Trump administration and years prior worked multiple political campaigns as an advisor for the late U.S. Sen. Malcolm Wallop. 

Wallace also hesitated to attach significance to the poll since the “information" the Fabrizio team gave voters is unknown.

Now that the filing period has ended, the other nine candidates in 

 are going to burst into public view as much as they can, Wallace said.

Whoever wins that race will have to face the Democratic candidate, plus the Libertarian nominee Shawn Johnson, who gained momentum when his party selected him unanimously at its Sunday convention.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Hey, Trump"}]

Rasner and Gray tout themselves as MAGA-style candidates. Biteman has for years had a collaborative relationship with the president. And Friess reportedly helped Trump formulate executive orders ahead of his 2017 inauguration.

Chuck Gray 6 1 26

<title>Chuck Gray Leads U.S. House Poll With 21%, Followed By Rasner And Friess | Cowboy State Daily</title>

In the first significant poll of Wyoming’s primary election season, Secretary of State Chuck Gray leads a crowded GOP U.S. House race with 21% support. Casper businessman Reid Rasner is second at 14%, and Teton County's Steve Friess is third at 10%.

Chuck Gray Leads U.S. House Poll With 21%, Followed By Rasner And Friess

Employee kate meadows cropped

Kate Meadows

Outdoors

Wildlife

A 70-year-old woman from Canada is dead after being attacked by a bison on a popular hiking trail in Custer State Park in western South Dakota, marking the first fatal bison attack in the park in at least 21 years.

The name of the woman has not been released at the family’s request, Custer County Sheriff Marty Mechaley told Cowboy State Daily.

 were on vacation in the park, the sheriff added.

The attack happened Monday afternoon on the Grace Coolidge Trail, about 1½ miles from Center Lake. 

According to the sheriff, the woman and her husband saw five bull bison walking along the trail an estimated 1,500 feet ahead of them. 

The bulls continued down the trail and out of sight ahead of the couple. Mechaley said the couple stopped every now and then to give the bison space.

 first reported Wednesday that the couple came around a corner and saw the bulls standing about 50 yards away. 

A 70-year-old tourist was killed after being thrown six feet in the air by a bull bison on a popular hiking route in Custer State Park. “As they got closer to the bulls, one of them turned around and came at her,” the sheriff told Cowboy State Daily.

Daily Darwin: Saturday, May 17, 2025

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