It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming, for Wednesday, June 4th. 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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The Wyoming Democratic Party’s State Central Committee is operating at a loss and could be left with about two weeks worth of funding by the end of the year.
That’s what the party’s treasurer said during a Sunday meeting in Rock Springs, at which Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland was present. But when information was presented showing that the party has been spending more money than it has been raising each month, the Democratic State Central Committee passed a motion ordering that the press was not to air the budget publicly.
“I was taking pictures of the itemized budget slides that were being projected onto… a platform, and the former vice chair was like, Well, you know, we gotta, we gotta make a motion. You can't publish these. And I had not agreed to those terms beforehand, and they had allowed me to enter their meeting, and they have vowed publicly that their meetings will remain open, despite a members only clause in the bylaws. And so after consulting with our attorney and our editors, we did go ahead and decide to air those budget slides for their public interest and political importance.”
This year the Nellie Tayloe Ross fundraiser dinner – the party’s major fundraising event – amassed $5,000 in revenue after its $12,000 in expenses. As of the meeting, the treasurer projected the party would have just one and a third months of reserves if it stopped making revenue.
Read the full story HERE.
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The “hard hazing” of a popular Grand Teton grizzly and her three yearling cubs led to two of the cubs being killed and cannibalized by a large male grizzly.
That’s what a prominent wildlife photographer told Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz, referring to the death of two of Grizzly 1063’s yearling cubs in May. Tom Mangelsen said he thinks that wildlife officials hazing the bears away from residential areas caused 1063 and her cubs to become separated, giving a male grizzly a chance to kill the cubs.
“He is voicing very strongly the opinion that the hazing of those bears by the Park Service is what separated mom from the yearling cubs, and provided that male the opportunity to come in and kill two of them. The Park Service… have previously stated that they didn't monitor the hazing, and they did not see that occurring. You know, 1063 and her cubs had been going into some inhabited areas, and that's why they were hazing.”
Like Grizzly 399 before her, 1063 (which Mangelsen and his partner have named Bonita), likes to hang out near roadways and other crowded areas. That’s why so many were aghast when two of 1063’s cubs were killed, and the third went missing.
The third cub later reunited with its mother, apparently uninjured, much to the delight of Grand Teton Grizzly watchers.
Read the full story HERE.
Wyoming may be home to the famous bubbling geothermal features in Yellowstone National Park, but that doesn’t mean the state is a hot spot for generating electricity using heat from inside the earth.
A new federal assessment identified Wyoming as part of a massive underground geothermal energy resource that could generate electricity equal to 10% of America's current power supply. But Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison reports that state-specific research suggests only modest potential for Wyoming.
“For a state that's famous for its geothermal features, it doesn't rank really high on potential when it comes to enhanced geothermal electricity generation. That's what they found… in this recently released report from USGS, that the Great Basin area, which has a sliver of Western Wyoming in it extending all the way to California… mostly Nevada and Utah are pointed out as places where you can go in and essentially frack your way to some hot water… and then create a geothermal electricity generating supply of some kind.”
A 2022 study did identify some promising areas in Wyoming for geothermal electricity generation. The Powder River Basin, particularly the southeastern portion near Casper, emerged as one of the most promising regions.
Read the full story HERE.
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When a G4 Severe geomagnetic storm reached Earth’s atmosphere on Sunday, most of Wyoming was covered in clouds.
Photographer David Porter of Sundance was one of the few who had an unobstructed view of the Northern Lights. But he told Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi that if it weren’t for his dog, he might have missed the show.
“He was sleeping. His dog woke him up because he had to take care of some number one business outside, and so as he led his dog outside, he saw the lights on the northern horizon, got his camera and put together a really stunning panorama of the Northern Lights over Sundance. So it wasn't a complete loss for Wyoming that night. There were spots where the clouds parted and you could see the aurora, and we're still within the window where there could be heightened solar activity, and we could get more auroras, just as, if not more intense, than this one.”
The last time Wyoming experienced an aurora this intense was in May 2024, although this weekend’s aurora wasn’t as spectacular as that one. However, with the advances in modern technology, getting great photos of auroras is more possible than ever, just using a modern smartphone.
Read the full story HERE.
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Goliath and Blue Zeus are two huge mustang stallions who lived hardscrabble lives on the Wyoming range, but now enjoy freedom and plentiful forage on a 9,000-acre horse and burro sanctuary in Oregon.
They are of stately ages for horses – Blue Zeus is 24, and Goliath is 33. They live at Skydog Sanctuary for wild horses and burros near Bend, Oregon. Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz spoke to Clare Staples, who founded the sanctuary.
“She told me that she's been able to, not only, you know, bring Goliath and Blue Zeus onto the sanctuary, She's also had several of their family members, you know, their mares and offspring that have also been rounded up. She's managed to finagle with the Bureau of Land Management management to get those horses too. So basically, they're just living the good life in retirement on the sanctuary with their families in Oregon.”
Staples said the sanctuary was a passion project, driven by her lifelong love of horses. But she doesn’t think the operation could have ever reached the worldwide status it has without the charisma of the old Wyoming stallions.
Read the full story HERE.
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A Campbell County man pleaded guilty last week to trying to kill his mother one year ago by stabbing her in the back as she slept.
18-year-old Tharles Smith pleaded guilty to attempted second-degree murder, which is punishable by 20 years to life in prison. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that the injuries to his mother, Karla, were so severe that she had to be transported to the hospital via air ambulance - so the family raffled off Tharles’ pigs to help cover the cost of the flight.
“He was 17 at the time, but he was charged as an adult, a fairly violent crime, and his mother was hospitalized. Life-flighted. Struggled to move her arm for a while, and the family also struggled with her not being able to work, in addition to medical expenses like a $67,000 Life Flight. And so they did go ahead and raffle off his pigs and the time that he had been raising that summer, in order to, in order to take those costs… while mental health concerns have been factors in this case, those did not come to bear Thursday, because when you plead guilty, you're essentially saying, Yes, I knew what I was doing and I did it.”
Smith was originally charged with attempted first-degree murder, which can result in a lifetime prison sentence. He was 17 when he was arrested but was charged as an adult.
Read the full story HERE.
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For Clint Snook, the vexing mystery facing a Colorado ranch family is eerily familiar. Like the Higgs family in central Colorado, he’s had cattle die suddenly and mysteriously.
Snook, who ranches in Crook County, told Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz that two summers several years back, he had cattle bafflingly fall over dead in a particular pasture, and roughly 20 cows died each time.
“You know, we ran that story about the cattle in Colorado that earlier this month, started falling over dead, and they can't figure out why. So I got a call from a rancher… he said a couple years in a row, about six years ago, they had the same thing happen. They had a bunch of cows, he said, just pretty much die on their feet in a pasture that he runs near Devil's Tower in Wyoming… he said there was just a particular meadow where all told about 40 cattle over two years just died suddenly. His words were, I stampeded my cattle out of that pasture, and I've never put them back in there since.”
A state inspector came and investigated the pasture but couldn’t determine exactly what killed the cattle. He concluded it was some sort of plant. But Snook jokingly played off of his ranch’s proximity to Devil’s Tower, and said, quote, “maybe it was the aliens that did it.”
Read the full story HERE.
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They say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, and that certainly holds true in football when it comes to the legacies of a handful of famous families - think Payton, Eli and Archie Manning, or Deion Sanders and his sons.
Now University of Wyoming Cowboys fans will have their own familiar and famous name to cheer for — though not quite as widely known as the Mannings or Sanders, Taylor Hasselbeck has an extensive pro-football family tree, and Cowboy State Daily’s Justin George reports that Hasselbeck has committed to play for Wyoming in 2026.
“I think football fans love family legacies… and in this case, Wyoming is getting a football family of its own. Taylor Hasselbeck… is the son of Tim Hasselbeck, who is a seven year NFL quarterback and is now on ESPN as an analyst… Taylor's uncle is Matt Hasselbeck, a better known 18 year veteran who led the Seahawks to the Super Bowl in 2006 I believe it was they didn't win, but Matt and Tim's dad, and this would be Taylor's grandfather, Don was also a football player and a tight end. He played for the New England Patriots and the Raiders and won a Super Bowl. So the Hasselbeck family has been playing football for quite a while at a very high level, and the hope is that Taylor would also sort of hone his strengths there at the University of Wyoming, and maybe follow in the footsteps of Josh Allen.”
Taylor, ranked widely as a three-star prospect, stands 6-foot-2 and weighs 185 pounds. He hails from the Ensworth School in Nashville, where he led his team to an 11-1 record last season before losing in Tennessee’s Division II Class AAA playoff semifinals.
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.
