It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming, for Monday, May 19th. 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.
The Powder River Basin’s two largest producers continue to be the canary in Wyoming’s coal mining industry.
Between them, Peabody Energy and Core Natural Resources (formerly Arch Coal) control a huge slice of Wyoming’s coal production, as shown by both companies in their 2025 first quarter earnings reports released last week.
But Cowboy State Daily’s Greg Johnson reports that while both companies paint an optimistic picture of increased coal production and projections for the rest of the year, they’re only a shadow of what the companies, and the Powder River Basin, used to be.
“Together, they produce about 60% 66% of all the coal that the Powder River Basin produces, which is a huge amount, but it's not, it's not even close to where it was 10 years ago, so or 11 years ago… those two companies still produce, their mines still produced 66% of the coal back in 2014, only back in 2014 they produced something like 250 million tons of coal, whereas… last year, you know, it wasn't even close. In fact, the entire basin last year only produced 185 million tons.”
But the executive director of the University of Wyoming School of Energy Resources points out that while there’s no denying the decline of coal, it’s still Wyoming’s dominant industry and isn’t close to extinction.
Read the full story HERE.
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The Cokeville Elementary School hostage crisis happened 39 years ago on May 16, 1986, when former town marshal David Young and his wife Doris took some 154 children and adults hostage.
After a three-hour standoff, a gasoline bomb the couple was carrying went off prematurely, injuring Doris while David was out of the room.
But that’s just the facts. Cowboy State Daily’s Jake Nichols went deeper with his story honoring the anniversary of the dramatic event, in which none of the children were harmed - something described as miraculous by those who were there.
“Anyone I talked to said it was miraculous. What I found interesting is all the side stories that have never been fully fleshed out and told what drives a madman to even do this? How does his wife complicit? How does his teenage daughter, who struggles with he's dad, he's authoritative, but he's doing bad things, and she finally turns at the last second and runs to the cops and says, You gotta intervene. He's at the school now with a bomb. Her story isn't compelling. And then finally, the hardened cop, the lead investigator, who is the last guy who would accept that angels watched over the kids and miracles happen, like he was a grizzled cop and he came to believe there's no other explanation for why that whole school didn't blow up.”
A madman tried but failed to shake the tightknit community’s bonds and beliefs. David Young is buried in an unmarked grave. But Cokeville was raised from the ashes.
Read the full story HERE.
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An 89-year-old Wyoming billionaire is being sued in a California court on claims he subjected a female employee in her late 20s to hostile levels of sexual harassment and tried to get the woman and her husband to have sexual relations with him.
30-year-old Madison Busby of California, sued Hansjörg Wyss and his business, Halter Winery LLC, last month. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that the complaint accuses Wyss and the winery of sexual harassment and retaliation, as well as wrongful termination, and alleges that Wyss inflicted emotional distress and sexual battery.
“At least one of the events is alleged to have happened at the house in Teton County. And so, you know, they're traveling a lot, they're going overseas, they're hanging out at the business in California, and they're visiting Wyoming. And the allegation is that during these trips, he was just talking about his exploits and asking them about their intimate lives and advancing himself on this couple at every chance, including exposing them to a video of a woman in lingerie with whom he was having a virtual intimate encounter.”
Wyss' media contact for the Halter Winery sent a statement denying the allegations.
Read the full story HERE.
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In Wyoming, as well as across the country, more women are buying guns and taking courses to learn how to shoot them proficiently.
Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz spoke to several firearms trainers who said students in defensive shooting classes have tipped toward the majority female in recent years - and they aren’t waiting for men to buy guns for them.
“Traditionally, sure, every girl in Wyoming had a gun, but it was usually her dad bought it for her or her husband, or her husband or her boyfriend. He's seeing more and more women going out and buying guns themselves, and it's the biggest reason is for self protection. And then I also talked to a lady who a little bit later on in life, got into firearms for that reason. And she said, you know, as long as you get the right caliber and the right gun, it's wonderful. She likes it. She likes a feeling of security and confidence that it gives her. And now her and her husband happen to own a gun store.”
A national director for Gun Owners of America added that politics and shifts in government policy could be driving increased gun ownership among women and minorities.
Read the full story HERE.
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The Mills Police Department is asking the public’s help in solving a 15-year-old mystery involving a man who walked away during a church service on Easter in 2010 and seemingly disappeared.
Seth Uptain, then 32 years old, was attending church at Salt & Light in Casper, went to get coffee but never returned. Cowboy State Daily’s Jen Kocher spoke to the detective with the Mills Police Department who has since taken over the case, and is eager to get Uptain’s story out there with the hopes of finally solving the mystery of what happened to him.
“He told his family he was going to go get coffee, and he just never came back. And he left his wallet and all of his possessions at his home. And talking to some of his friends… he was a guy who was incredibly well liked, very outdoorsy. He was described as always having a smile on his face. And these are people who still remember him all these years later, and are very worried about him… one of his sisters did say at the time he disappeared… he was having mental health issues at the time of his disappearance. And his mother also told police that he had seemed off that day… But so far, there haven't been so 15 years and this guy is a ghost.”
Despite numerous searches for Uptain in the National Crime Information Center database and other background search databases over the years there have been no hits. And his dental records and DNA, uploaded to national databases, have yet to match with any human remains in the United States or Canada.
Read the full story HERE.
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33L Swamp Donkey is a 2-year-old rodeo bull who got a $250,000 payout for winning the American Bucking Bull Inc.’s $1 Million Futurity Short Go in Fort Worth, Texas, last weekend.
It’s the biggest payday yet for the young bucking bull, and a big win for Jody Schott of Big Schott Rodeo. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi spoke to Schott, who was born in Laramie, about raising championship-caliber bulls.
“Those events are for young bulls and horses in rodeos. Basically get an idea of what they're capable of before they've actually got riders on their backs. And they're entering big competitions. So 30 3l swamp donkey entered the fortuity competition and earned the biggest payday this particular event in Fort Worth, $250,000 and I just learned that this past weekend at another event in Fort Worth, he tied for third and fourth and earned an additional $30,000 so now the career winnings of this bull who's been performing since October of last year is over $300,000 that's really promising for a young bull as it's starting to learn how to operate in the rodeo arena.”
Schott isn’t letting himself get too bullish about 33L Swamp Donkey’s prospects of becoming the world champion. The bull is still young and has a lot to learn.
Read the full story HERE.
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A $3 million Ferrari or $4 million Bugatti hypercar on the road can turn heads, and people scramble to take photos. In this part of the country, the chances are good that luxury car will have a Montana license plate.
Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison reports that under Montana law, it’s possible for car buyers to register as an LLC, purchase a vehicle anywhere in the U.S. and avoid paying sales tax — if they store the car in Montana for a set amount of time.
“There is a service called Auto concierge, and what they do is anything you want, pretty much if you have one of these ultra luxury vehicles, Ferraris, Porsches, Bugattis, you name it… What you can do in Montana is form an LLC, purchase a vehicle from anywhere, have it shipped to one of these tax jails in Montana, and there it sits for six months a year, however long your state of residence requires before you have to pay sales tax on it. So Montana doesn't have any sales tax. And if you are able to put your car in a tax jail for a certain amount of time, then it comes out tax free, you know. And you can also go to Montana and have a conjugal visit, where you can drive it around the roads of Gallatin County and Big Sky and Bozeman or Missoula.”
In 2023, Montana was home to more than 2.3 million registered vehicles, but only 879,000 licensed drivers. That stat reveals a niche that Montana has carved out as a tax haven for luxury vehicle buyers and collectors.
Read the full story HERE.
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For one Casper man, the story of a bold 1971 prison break in Mexico involving a helicopter is more than a wild story. The chopper was part of the family’s business, and the escape was made into an action movie starring Charles Bronson and Robert Duvall.
Cowboy State Daily’s Dale Killingbeck spoke to local businessman and former state Rep. Joe MacGuire, who was a 12-year-old in 1971 when his dad was handed a paper bag full of cash at the Casper/Natrona International Airport hangar he used to house the helicopter.
“I think the wildest part of this story is that this guy shows up in Casper with a paper bag filled with thousands of dollars in cash, you know, to purchase this helicopter. And then, you know, he wanted to know if he could fly at 8000 feet, and then, and then the owner of the helicopter and his son go to the bank, you know, just walk into the bank and say, Hey, we've got all this cash in this. Can you show us? Can you tell us if this is counterfeit or not, you know? So it's just, there's a lot of wild aspects to the story, but it's just crazy that, you know this fantastic prison break, the first one that we know of in history using a helicopter from a prison, is a helicopter from Casper.”
The plot of the movie “Breakout” involves an East Coast wealthy heir with alleged ties to the CIA who was wrongly convicted of murder and had been languishing in a Mexico City prison for years. A helicopter brazenly broke him out.
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.
