Wendy Corr:
Well, hey there, folks, welcome to The Roundup. We are a Cowboy State Daily podcast, and we focus on interesting people in the Cowboy State. Today is going to be so much fun. We're going to have a grand time talking to one of Cowboy State Daily's own reporters, who's got a fantastic history of his own. I'm so thrilled to be able to dive into into this background.
But first, first, I want to make sure that you all know about another fantastic podcast out there. It's called the Wyoming Business Alliance’s ‘Business from the Basement’ podcast. If you are a business person in Wyoming, if you are a manager, if you're an owner, if you are interested in being a business person in Wyoming, the Wyoming Business Alliance ‘Business from the Basement’ podcast has resources.
It has really fantastic stuff for you to just get yourself prepared and in that brain space for being a successful Wyoming business person. The ‘Business from the Basement’ podcast, check it out, but check it out after.
Stay tuned to this podcast, because today, it's going to be a great time. Mark Heinz is my guest today on the Roundup. If you watch Cowboy State daily video news, you know who Mark Heinz is. If you have been a subscriber of Cowboy State Daily's news for any length of time, you know Mark's work.
Mark's beat is the outdoors. But there's a really good reason that Mark is our outdoors guy, because he has lived this lifestyle. So I'm going to say Hello, Mark Heinz, welcome to The Roundup - in a different capacity, because you were here a couple weeks ago.
Mark Heinz:
Yep, yep. I interviewed you. So it's nice to be on this side of the table.
Wendy Corr:
Yes. Well, this is usually where it is. Once a day, folks, I get to talk to Mark about the stories that he has done. Because, again, if you watch our newscast, you'll see Mark at least once a day for one story a day on our newscast, because all of the stories that Mark does for Cowboy State Daily, or, you know, the vast majority are outdoors, and Wyoming is an outdoors type of state.
Mark, tell us a little bit about - because we're going to get into some of the things that you're covering right now. But tell us a little bit about your interest in the outdoors, which started at a very young age.
Mark Heinz:
Well, yeah, I was essentially raised by Jeremiah Johnson, my dad. He's no longer with us. He passed in in 2012, but he was - you talk about a guy who was born in the wrong century. Absolutely. He had a career with the Forest Service, but he retired early. He was, gosh, he was at least 10 years younger than I am now when he retired, because he got up high enough in the ranks that he was getting stuck in desk jobs, and that just isn't what he wanted to do.
So, you know, I'm your typical weekend warrior when it comes to the outdoors. My dad was hardcore. In fact, when he retired from the forest service, he went up to BC, British Columbia, and worked for an outfitter friend of ours. For you know, you know, the serious, serious back country.
He had some incredible stories, like leading a horse pack train, and it came around a corner and and on a steep hillside, and they came around the corner, ran into a grizzly bear, and half the horses ended up rolling down the hill. That was just another day for my dad.
So, yeah, I credit him for you know, I mean they, my folks had us out - I was the youngest of five kids, and I remember being three, four years, three or four years old, and on, you know, back country trips. So that's where it came from. Came from my old man, from my dad.
Wendy Corr:
But your childhood, listening to those stories, your parents actually picked you all up and moved you across the world for a time, which also fueled your interest in the outdoors.
Mark Heinz:
Yeah, you know, a lot of people are probably familiar with the Peace Corps. Generally, when people take Peace Corps assignments is when they're young, when they're young and single. My dad took a Peace Corps assignment when he was, you know, in his early to mid 30s, and had five kids and a wife, and he picked all of us up, the whole family of seven, and took us over to Ghana, Africa to work a Peace Corps assignment there.
So again, those are some of my very, very earliest memories. You know, being warned not to go down by the pond because of the crocodiles, seeing zebras in the wild, seeing baboons. We actually had a young baboon that we fostered for a while in our house. He used to jump up on the dinner table and steal our vitamins.
Yeah, and not so much hearing, but feeling the lions roar. When lions do their roaring or their huffing that they do when they're out hunting, you can feel it in your chest. And again, I was, you know, maybe three, three and a half, four years old, but I can still remember that. I can remember what that felt like to have a lion vocalization vibrating in your chest.
And so, so, yeah, I think I forgot to mention I was actually born in North Platte, Nebraska. But again, we picked up and moved to Africa for a while when I was still very young, and then came back to the states and settled in Colorado. Kind of picked up where we left off.
And we were in various towns. Probably the most prominent place in Colorado was Leadville. If anybody's familiar with Leadville? I mean, it's funny, I live in Laramie now, everybody brags about it being 7200 feet. Leadville elevation is over 10,000, so, and it's right at the base of - the two highest peaks in Colorado were right there, right out your window when you're in Leadville. So that was cool.
Wendy Corr:
So your childhood really is growing up in the outdoors, and with this love of the outdoors in the Mountain West, here and in Colorado, you know, North Platte, you found your way though - somehow you decided that telling stories was something that was important to you because you wanted to be a writer.
This is what you went to school for, you were an English major. Tell us about how you've then, you took this love of the outdoors and said, No, I want to go a different direction. I want to be in a classroom.
Mark Heinz:
Oh, sure, sure. No, I initially thought, after I got out of high school, I initially thought I wanted to be an English teacher. I mean, I'd always, always been into reading and writing. I read The Lord of the Rings, I think that I was 11 when I first read it. You know, my dad again, Jeremiah Johnson, he was a bit of a Luddite. We did not, for the vast majority of my time growing up in our house, we did not have a television in the house, so I read a lot.
I curled up with the encycl - This is back, you know, when they had the physical encyclopedias. I spent a lot of time on the living room floor reading encyclopedias. So anyway, always kind of a language nerd and a writing nerd. So I thought, oh, I want to be an English teacher. So I started in school. And, you know, because I grew up and finished high school in Butte, Montana, started school in Bozeman, Montana, at Montana State University.
And just came to the realization that, you know, I liked my nieces and nephews. I liked the kids in my family, but kids in general, I just didn't see myself being in charge of a classroom full of 30 other people's kids. I don't have the temperament for it. I don't have the patience for it. So, you know, this is a bad idea.
So after a few years, I completed all my general studies, and then my two minors. I got minors in political science and sociology. I completed all that at MSU. Then I transferred over to University of Montana in Missoula to go through their journalism program, and, boy, that was, you know…
English, I kind of sailed through it. I wouldn't even start my papers until the day the night before they were due. Always get A's and B's. But, man, journalism. I started getting handed C minuses and D's. Those guys were tough. I call it like, like, Marine boot camp for writers. I got my butt handed to me. I got humbled, you know, because I walked into that school thinking I was all that as a writer, and they told me different.
So, so yeah, you know. And because I had all my other credits already done, it only took me about two and a half years to get through the journalism program in Missoula, and then I was off on my career.
Wendy Corr:
So, so obviously that did not hamper you. You're getting in there and saying, Oh, this is harder than I thought. It would discourage you from continuing to say, you know, I want to tell stories. I want to write stories, and for other people, to educate other people.
And you again, you mentioned being in Butte when you were a teenager and things like that. The stories that you could tell from that, but you continued to be very involved and immersed in the outdoors. Again, you were in the Mountain West.
And so eventually, even though you have, you know, Poli Sci and sociology and things like that, the outdoors continued to be part of who you were, and you continued to hunt, you continued your hobby. If you've watched any of - was it two years ago that you did the Fourth of July, the national anthem on a chainsaw?
Mark Heinz:
I've done it a couple times, yeah, and I plan on doing it again this year.
Wendy Corr:
Yeah, yeah. So the outdoors is where your heart is when it comes to - if you're not sitting in front of a computer writing something, you love to be outside. Tell us about what draws you to the outdoors, the wildlife.
Mark Heinz:
Everything. You know, I like being by myself. 99% of what I do, I do on my own. I do solo. So, I mean, I just like the solitude. I like being out there - like, it's limited, between work and family, I don't, like I said, I get out when I can. Anybody who's got a job and a family can identify with that, so not nearly as much as I as I'd like to be out there.
But even if it's just taking my dog for a silly little walk in the hills out here outside of Laramie, just whenever I can. And I mean, again, I don't know if I can really put into words or boil it down to an elevator speech for you, Wendy, but it's just being out there among the wildlife and on the landscape, the solitude, the quiet, just, I've just always liked it.
Wendy Corr:
And so that makes you just very tuned into these outdoor stories that we do. And it's fun, folks, when we're doing our - we do an 8: 30 in the morning team call where all of the reporters get together and all of the behind the scenes staff get together and and we all share story ideas and things like that.
And it is so often that Mark will say, Well, you know, I did this once, and I was here once, and you know, the big joke is, you know, you passed through Park County a couple of times.
And even though that was part of your career, and that's where you and I met in Cody, and you worked for the Enterprise, and I worked for radio, kind of like Leo Wolfson, and I met.
Mark Heinz:
Exactly. I've had that joke that I've worked at the same news outlets with a lot of people at Cowboy State Daily, just never at the same time. Like, Renee Jean and I both worked for the Sidney Herald Leader, but 25 years apart. Leo and I both worked for the Cody Enterprise, but not at the same time. Greg and I both worked for the Laramie Boomerang, but not at the same time.
So it's got kind of the running joke. I mean, as far as my career in reporting, you know, this is the first gig I've had where I've been a dedicated outdoors reporter. I've written it all. I used to be Clair McFarland. I’m saying that jokingly, it used to be a huge part of my career. In fact, the bulk of my career previously was probably crime and court. So I have a lot of experience with that.
And then just, just anything. I mean, I've never been a full time dedicated sports reporter, but I have written a few sports features here and there. So I have a well rounded, I guess, past with newspaper reporting, and, you know, writing everything from breaking news stories to features. But Cowboy State Daily, which I started in August of 2022, this is the first time I've been dedicated to writing just about the outdoors.
And of course, I do stories. I had the wonderful opportunity to do that really inspiring story about the young firefighter in Laramie who had the terrible accident at work, and since, you know, making great efforts to bounce back. So I still love doing stories like that too.
Wendy Corr:
But this is your first opportunity to marry these two things about your life, your love for the outdoors, and your skill set in writing, to be able to put these together. So tell us, what are you writing about now? Because, obviously, this is the time of year when the earth is just coming alive and the animals are waking up, and what's taking up a lot of your attention now, this time of year, middle of May, what's happening right now that's catching your attention? Bears?
Mark Heinz:
You know, the Grizzlies, everybody, I like to say, even people that hate Grizzlies, still love Grizzlies. They're such an iconic species out here in Wyoming, and then also in Montana, and there's even quite a few in Idaho as well. You know, they're majestic. They elicit respect, even a little bit of fear.
But there it's really, you know, you have those few. It's almost always the big males that come out first. You know, we usually have the first bear of the year usually sometime in early March. But now, you know, we're getting in mid, mid May. The floodgates have opened. So all the bears are out, including the moms with their new cubs. And that really excites people.
You know, we have this whole, you know, really, whole brigade of wildlife photographers who hang out around Yellowstone and Grand Teton, and that's what they do. They follow the bears around. I mean, Tom Mangelsen is, you know, right there at the top. He's probably the most famous one. He's really the one that put 399, and all her cubs on the map. But there's a whole, whole host of people that do what he does, you know, follow the Grizzlies around as well.
You know, the other critters are showing up with their young, the moose with their calves. Elk, you know, deer having fawns. Pronghorn are going to start having fawns here really, pretty soon. So that's kind of what's going on.
Wendy Corr:
You have learned, I'm sure, so much about these animals now that you're completely focused on them - and you knew a lot before. What are some of the things that you're finding out that, boy, I thought I knew this before, and gee, I'm talking to all these experts. I'm getting to know all these people, the wildlife photographers, the people who are your sources, the wildlife biologists.
What are some of the things that you're learning as you get farther on into your career and really focused on outdoors?
Mark Heinz:
Oh gosh. Well, it wasn't that long ago that I really learned that the coyotes are truly like little wolves. They really are a pack animal. I learned that about them, and just how creative the bears can get, like Bruno, Bruno, the big male grizzly, doing some, you know, busting through the ice to get fish. There's virtually nothing they won't do to try to get food. They're very highly intelligent and really creative. They're not, they're not in these closed lanes that everybody thinks these animals are in.
So that's, you know, that's always really fascinating to me. Learn new facts along those lines, what you know, what these animals will do and what they're capable of, and, you know, their problem solving skills. You know, day to day survival for them, if they don't get creative, they starve.
Wendy Corr:
That's right. I want to switch gears here real quickly, because one of the things - just to another species - you had a huge part in making international news last year, when you broke a story for an incident that happened in Daniel, Wyoming about a man who had captured a wolf, tortured it and then killed it, and that set off in almost an international incident.
And I want you to tell us the story of how you found out about it. And did you expect this story to be this big when you first reported it? So tell us about the story of Cody Robertson.
Mark Heinz:
it started out being that there's a report that somebody had had a wolf in a bar in Daniel, it's kind of more, Oh, that's weird, maybe like a haha story. And then found out we had a really good source in Sublette County, who will, who will remain anonymous, period, but kind of gave us the inside scoop on that and what had really happened.
I had an inclination that it was going to set people off, because nobody likes cruelty to animals, that when people hurt small children or animals, that tends to set people off. I didn't expect it to go as international as it did. I thought, I mean, I knew the story was probably going to blow up around the region. But, I mean, when I got into it, I was getting emails and messages from folks in Ireland, you know, all over Europe, pretty much all over the world.
Because I get, in our previous jobs, they were pretty local, like, you know, probably the biggest audience I had prior to this in a news organization, was when I worked in Twin Falls, when I worked for the Times News, which is a regional newspaper covering all of southern Idaho.
But Cowboy State Daily being a fully digital platform, it goes out all over the world, and so that, I guess, you know, with my brain being conditioned from, you know, the 20 plus years of how things were before working for a local newspaper, I guess I wasn't able to wrap my brain around how international it was. But when it did take off, I was, again, I was a little surprised about how big that story got all over the world.
Wendy Corr:
It was a big deal. And again, that kind of put you in the crosshairs of comments and things like that, not necessarily at you, but you were kind of responsible for monitoring all of those things and following that story through. And that was a story that you followed for, for absolutely months, and still continues to reverberate now.
Is there any other story that you can think of that has reverberated even close to that much in the time that you've been working at Cowboy State Daily?
Mark Heinz:
Uh, not really. I mean, it was a pretty big deal when grizzly 399 got hit and killed. I mean, that really broke a lot of people's hearts, but to the level of, you know, what happened with the wolf in Daniel? No, nothing blew up that big.
Wendy Corr:
It was a big deal, and 399 was a big deal. Talk just for a minute about your sources and the people that you talk to and that you have gotten to know. As the outdoors reporter for Cowboy State Daily, you have this stable of wildlife biologists and wildlife photographers. Do they feed you stories? Do they call you up and say, Hey, I've got a story? Or do you reach out to them when you know that there's something happening?
Mark Heinz:
It's more the latter, more me reaching out to folks. When I have something, once in a while, I'll get tips, but usually it's me reaching out to them. And it's interesting. I mean, you know, my dad was a forester. He was in the Forest Service. So I kind of grew up around outdoor scientists. I mean, I knew a lot of biologists and people like that growing up.
But the folks I've gotten to know since working for Cowboy State Daily are really the photographers, and they, you know, they have to know quite a bit of science themselves. I mean, anybody can tell you who's a really hardcore hunter, in order to hunt animals effectively, you have to understand quite a bit of biology.
The same thing with the wildlife photographers there. They can't just be out there taking pictures of animals that they think are cool. They have to know a lot about the animals and their biology and their habits. And so that's been interesting and fun, getting to know all the photographers, because, I mean, they're living the dream. They're out there on the front lines every day.
I mean, some of these folks, they'll take their RV into Yellowstone and or Grand Teton, and they'll live there for, like, most of the year. You know, from the time there's enough snow melted off that they can get in there, until the time the snow really starts flying and they’ve got no choice, they have to leave.
They are there and, and I think, oh, that's, maybe I'm in the wrong line of work. That's, that's cool, what they get to do, but it's a lot of, I mean, they're working their butts off, and they got a lot of competition, you know. So, yes, I have to hand it to the wildlife photographers.
You know, all the outfitters, I know, all the hunters, all the the people who are currently working for the agencies and the folks that are retired from the agency. You know, I've handed to all, all my great sources I have, but, you know, a special shout out to the photographers.
Wendy Corr:
You know, you talk about the outfitters and things like that. One of the other parts of your beat, it's not just covering wildlife, it's also following the news and the trends and the issues surrounding Second Amendment rights and anything that's related to firearms.
And so you've been watching the news. You've been watching all the things happen politically. Have you been getting any indication that there's any concerns of that community, whether it's the firearms community, whether it's firearms manufacturing, things like that. What's happening in that, in that area?
Mark Heinz:
There's always a lot happening, of course, you know, Wyoming, we just passed that law rescinding the gun free zones. And, of course, there's people with very strong opinions on both sides of that, you know, and it's not my job to to tilt things one way or the other, or have my personal opinions creep into things. It's just, you know, to report what people are saying.
So that takes effect July 1. I think that's going to be a big deal, you know, as far as people just scrambling to meet the new regulations and try to craft for their individual school or whatever it is, you know, how to meet that law and also meet the concerns of the folks who aren't too wild about it.
You know, nationally, there's always stuff going on. You know, California, as you would expect, is continually trying to press a lot of strict rules. We've seen a lot of strict rules being implemented to the south of us in Colorado, but, you know, they have a much larger population than we do. They got big, you know, metropolitan centers.
And, you know, the concern around firearms in a big city are, they're going to be different than they are in a rural place like Wyoming, firearms are going to exist in a completely different context there than they do here.
So regardless of whether you think Colorado's regulations are too strict, or if you don't think they're strict enough, whatever you know, whatever opinion you have, I don't think you can deny that, that you know, their circumstances are just different there. So they're going to approach it from a different angle.
But that does affect us, because we're neighboring states, and there have been a few instances even of firearms related companies that have pulled up stakes and left Colorado and come to Wyoming, because, from their perspective, Wyoming is just a friendlier state for them, and for them, from their perspective, that's a smart business decision. So that's always interesting too, to see what's developing on that front.
Wendy Corr:
Absolutely. You know, talking about these neighboring states - you know, we are Cowboy State Daily. So the idea is, you know, we focus on Wyoming, but Mark, so much of what you cover is, yes, Wyoming, but you reach outside of Wyoming, because these things do affect us.
You've talked about wolves in Colorado, you've talked about grizzly bears in Montana. You and I have talked quite a bit, and I think this is just fascinating. It seems like you really are very interested in the idea of these prairie Grizzlies that are moving into this habitat, which we don't consider grizzly country, but which historically is.
Tell us about kind of this migration, because I think that we can probably consider you an expert at this point, because of the amount of research that you talk to him, you have, you've gotten an unofficial degree in wildlife biology because of what you do. But tell us about the grizzly bears, and how they're really having and being forced out of their - in our near history and our recent history, they've been in this little area, but now they're having to expand. Tell us about what you're learning about that.
Mark Heinz:
Yeah, that captured my imagination, and I've been kind of geeking out on it ever since, because, you know, again, growing up in Montana - it's funny because our reporter David Madison, who's in Montana, I joke with him and said, You are probably so sick every time you bring up a place or a location in Montana, I go, ‘oh yeah, David, I used to go there all the time when I was a kid.’
One of them is Freeze Out Lake, up by Great Falls. And then another one is Red Rocks, which is kind of more on the Montana/ Idaho State Line. I mean, these are places where my dad and I would go when I was, you know, young, back in the 80s.
And it would never cross your mind that there'd be a grizzly bear there. You know, you might have had a vague idea that they were there in the past, in the distant past, there'd been Grizzlies there, but never in your wildest dream, would you. But now there's Grizzlies, and there's Grizzlies at Red Rocks, there's Grizzlies in freeze out, there's Grizzlies out by Choteau, Montana, and you're right. It’s not anything weird from their point of view. They're reclaiming their natural habitat.
Elk is another species. A lot of people don't realize that elk and grizzlies really are prairie species. They were driven off the prairies in the Great Plains by the expansion of the white man westward. That's the whole reason they got pushed back up into the mountains. But naturally, they're prairie species.
In fact, I think I've heard it argued, that's the reason why Grizzlies can tend to be far more aggressive and territorial than black bears, because the black bear evolved in thickly forested areas where running and hiding in the trees or climbing a tree was always an option.
Whereas Grizzlies evolved out on the plains. Actually, their ancestors go back to the steppes of Russia, where, you know, if you're a mama bear with a cub, there's nowhere to run, there's nowhere to hide, your only choice is to stand your ground.
So I've heard that argument, and I think that's a good argument. That's why grizzlies have more of an attitude, because they still have that great plains DNA, where out there, there ain't nowhere to run. You stand and fight or you lose. That's all there is to it. So just, I mean, to me, it's fascinating, and, yeah, especially in Montana, and it's really interesting how that's affected the people there, how they've had to adjust.
And some people are, you know - rightfully so - It's like, you know, I'm a farmer out on the plains of Montana. And for the past several generations, we haven't even had to think about grizzlies, and all of a sudden there's a grizzly gorging itself in my grain silo, and my calves are 100 yards away.
Of course, these ranchers are gonna rightfully be, Hey, what's going on here? I didn't have a say in this. So it's interesting. And also the elk. I mean, there's, there's elk showing up. Nebraska, you know, is having to get used to elk. And again, the farmers there, I didn't have to worry about elk gobbling my hay, and now, all of a sudden, I do.
So it's just interesting, the dynamics of these species starting to reclaim the Great Plains and prairie habitat where they were absent long enough that people quit thinking of them as plains species, but they always have been.
Wendy Corr:
That’s so interesting. I just got an education, that was great. Mark, yeah, this has got to be a really interesting time in our modern era to be an outdoors journalist, because there are so many things happening.
We're talking again, still, about the declassifying of the grizzly bear, taking the grizzly bear off the endangered species list, and it's up for debate again, and that's something that you're going to be going to be covering and following, then this year again, I'm guessing.
Mark Heinz:
Yeah, that's a, you know, a never ending story. If you remember that movie?
Wendy Corr:
Oh, yeah, the Neverending story, exactly.
Mark Heinz:
I mean, again, there's a lot of arguments on both sides of that. You know, some folks they say, you know, the numbers have far exceeded what they were supposed to be to, you know, both the numbers and territory.
And then other people are saying they're still not there yet. They don't have the continuous habitat that they need, and the, you know, the genetic exchange between sub populations that they truly need. And so we'll see, we'll see where that goes.
You know, some folks are saying with the current administration in Washington, the folks who do want delisting are quite optimistic that it is going to go through this time. But, you know, and that would include some hunting of grizzlies, at least in Wyoming, which would be a big deal, because there haven't been, you know, there hasn't been hunting of grizzly bears on the lower 48 forever.
And so that would be a big deal. I mean, there'd be a lot of people contending for those tags if we opened a grizzly season in Wyoming. So again, that's definitely something to keep our eyeballs on.
Wendy Corr:
This has been so interesting. Mark, oh my goodness, this is a great conversation. I want to, just to kind of steer us towards, kind of the end of this conversation, talk a little bit about you and your family. You're getting ready for a big move. You've been in Laramie for how long now?
Mark Heinz:
Just shy of 12 years.
Wendy Corr:
And you're getting ready to move, and you're moving more central. It seems to be a trend with Cowboy State Daily. Everybody's in Central Wyoming?
Mark Heinz:
Yeah. Or everybody's moving to Fremont County. No, my wife, Kendy and I, we met in Powell. When you and I first met, I wasn't with Kendy, but I met her after I relocated to Powell to work for Eastman. I worked for Eastman's Outdoors for a while, with their publications.
But we have a Brady Bunch. We've got five kids. Huge age range. Huge age range. When we first got married, the age range was 19 was the oldest, and the youngest was four. Five kids in one house with one bathroom. That was fun.
Wendy Corr:
That's adventure in itself.
Mark Heinz:
Yeah, they're currently up to ages 30. The oldest is 33 and the youngest is 18 and graduating from high school. And so with her graduating from high school, and we've got so much - our oldest girl is in Riverton. My wife's parents are in Riverton. One of our granddaughters is there, so we have a lot of family there anyway.
And we figured, okay, we, you know, we got the youngest kid out of the house and graduated from high school. Now's the time to do it. So let's do it. Let's relocate to Riverton, so that that's in a nutshell. That is why we're moving to Riverton.
And of course, my job with Cowboy State Daily is remote, so it goes where I go. So isn't that right? Yeah, my wife already, yeah, Kendy's got a job at the bank there, so we're set. Again, from a family standpoint, it makes perfect sense for my job. It probably makes a little bit more sense for me to be centrally located, instead of stuck all the way out here on one of the edges of Wyoming, because when something happens on the other side of Wyoming, yeah, it's a six, seven hour drive.
Yeah, a lot of times there's stories I'd like to be boots on the ground, but I just can't, because the time just isn't there, because Laramie is a long way from anywhere else, especially up in your part of the state.
Wendy Corr:
Yes, absolutely. You'll be closer up here to Yellowstone, closer to where all this stuff is happening. You'll be able to do more about things. We're hoping to see you do some more videography with Reilly Strand and Hannah Brock, our in-house videographers. And you've got some plans to do some things - tell us a little bit about what some of the things you're planning with Reilly and Hannah.
Mark Heinz:
Oh, well, I still want to do, it didn't come together this year again, just because the time just wasn't there for any of us. But I really want to do a video story about St Patrick's Day in Butte. It's insane. A lot of people don't realize Butte is, well, I would say being from there, it is the most, it's even more Irish than Boston. It is incredibly Irish.
So St Patrick's day there is just nuts. It's awesome. So if anybody who hasn't been to Butte on St Patrick's Day, you need to go. It is, it is off the chain. It is so much fun. So that's really the big one. But of course, we're going to have to wait on that one, just because we wanted to do it this year, but our schedules just would not allow it.
So, that's kind of a, you know, and then, anything else, I mean, I'm sure we'll come up with something.
Wendy Corr:
You did the great story about, you and Reilly went to the Laramie Civic Center that was haunted. That was a great one.
Mark Heinz:
Yeah, that didn't have anything to do with the outdoors, but that was, that's one of the stories, ghost hunting in the civic center. That's right, that was a hoot. I loved that. That was a lot of fun.
Wendy Corr:
And you also did this video story with Reilly about the schoolhouse in Albany County. So this is something that hopefully we'll see you do more of. And now Reilly and Hannah are going to be nearby, so you guys will hopefully be able to collaborate on some of those things.
Mark, what do you look forward to in this next year of your career here, the next year at Cowboy State Daily, what are some of the stories? What are some of the things that you're looking forward to and that you really love when the season rolls around?
Mark Heinz:
Well, you know, right now, I'm kind of in that ‘moving’ head space. I'm looking forward to that being over, and I. You know, personally, I just, I haven't done a lot of fishing since I've been in Albany County, for whatever reason. I'm looking forward to really, really getting back into that.
You know, I'm eager to see what happens with the grizzly bears, whether they get delisted, and if they do all the interesting, you know, things that are going to come out of that. You know, the wildlife crossing projects. You know, there's a big one up by Dubois, which is, you know, going to be right in my neck of the woods, and that's fascinating, because that's so important to wildlife conservation, and that's one thing that everybody seems to be able to get behind.
I mean, I do deal with a lot of controversial subjects where there's strong opinions on both sides and sometimes people, you know, giving each other the stink eye across the aisle, because the topics can be so divisive, but wildlife crossing seems to be one that everybody loves. Everybody you know, seems to be able to get behind those because it is important.
I mean, it's a wildlife conservation thing, and it's a human safety thing too. I mean, there's a lot of, you know, horrible damage to cars, as well as people getting injured and sometimes even being involved in fatal accidents because they're hitting these big animals. So I'm really looking forward to, you know, to that, and continuing to see what keeps popping up over the summer.
There's always something interesting going, I know. A lot of time I don't try to predict or guess what it's going to be, because I'm always wrong. There's always something that pops up that I wasn't expecting.
Wendy Corr:
We're kind of hoping for a quiet bison versus tourist year.
Mark Heinz:
Yeah, yeah. Let's hope so.
Wendy Corr:
Mark, this has been just a fascinating conversation, and I know you've got a lot going on in your life, and so we're so glad you took just a few minutes and gave us an update and told us a little bit about where you're coming from.
Because I think these conversations with our Cowboy State Daily reporters are so important, because, especially now that we're doing video news, we have your faces out there. And to me, it's so great to know a little bit behind the scenes. Well, what brought this person to where they are now? Our trusted source for outdoors information.
And this is why, folks, this is why Mark Heinz is our trusted source for outdoors reporting. Because Mark has lived it. Mark loves it. This is in his heart, and we are so glad that he is here with us at Cowboy State Daily, bringing us all of these wildlife and second amendment and all of these really interesting issues and topics that are important to all of us here in the cowboy state.
Mark Heinz, thank you for your time today, and good luck with packing, because I know that's your needy bit right now.
Mark Heinz:
Yep, yep, fun stuff. All right.
Wendy Corr:
Thanks, Mark, and thank you, folks, for tuning in today. And tune in next week, we're going to have another really great guest. And if you've missed any of these previous guests, because we're, my gosh, we're a good year and a half into the Roundup. So we've got a whole bunch of previous podcasts that, if you've missed any, you want to go back and check out, because Wyoming is full of really interesting people.
So thanks for tuning in to this interesting conversation. Tune in next week. Have a great week.
