It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming, for Thursday, June 5th. 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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Sublette County commissioners and leaders of the Sublette County Hospital District are locked in a dispute over the county’s withholding of $2.7 million that had been pledged to help build a new long-term care facility, a component of a larger project to give the rural county a hospital.
The Sublette County Commission says its withholding of money is temporary and meant to secure “adequate assurances” that the hospital district will hold up its end of the two entities’ agreements.
But Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that the hospital district says it didn’t breach any agreements — and the county government’s move, even if it’s temporary — could have a “catastrophic” effect on health care services in the county.
“It's a big controversy… So the county, on the one hand, is saying, Okay, this is temporary. We just gotta work out these assurances, whereas the hospital district is saying temporary or not, this is hurting us now, because we need these funds now to keep people on the payroll, so we're not pulling from payroll accounts and then get through that rocky startup phase where we have to show the federal government that we qualify for special rural hospital reimbursements under Medicare.”
Sublette County voters in 2020 approved the formation of the Sublette County Hospital District. The county currently has two clinics but no hospital, making it the only county in Wyoming without a hospital.
Read the full story HERE.
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A Wyoming hunter says he plans to be in Daniel on June 14 to offer a different point of view during the “Hogs For Hope” motorcycle rally, organized in protest of the alleged torture and killing of a wolf in February of last year.
Gillette-Area resident and outdoorsman Mitch Gilliam said that he wants to push back against what he says is the unjust demonization of Daniel resident Cody Roberts, who has been at the center of a firestorm of controversy, based on allegations that he ran a wolf down with a snowmobile, injuring it, and then kept the animal alive for hours before finally killing it.
Gilliam told Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz that he’s talked with Roberts about what happened on Feb. 29, 2024, and is convinced that the widely-reported narrative of events that day isn’t accurate.
“He's a friend of Cody's, and says many of those details are inaccurate. He said the wolf was actually a young male, not a young female. He says that, according to what he understands, Cody did not run it over with the snowmobile. He used the snowmobile to catch up to it and then captured it physically, and sort of had the idea of keeping it as a pet. He wasn't trying to torture it. He wanted to keep it as a pet. But then other people who knew him said, Look, Cody, that's a terrible idea. And so that's ultimately the decision was made to kill the wolf, which is perfectly legal to do in that part of Wyoming. So, you know, make of that what you will.”
Gilliam said he’s concerned that Hogs For Hope, and others who share the organizer’s views, want wolves put back on the Endangered Species list in every state.
Read the full story HERE.
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Wyoming loves its history, but right now, three of its longstanding, influential history organizations do not love each other.
Since February, accusations have been flying between the Wyoming Historical Society and what used to be its longtime fundraising arm, the Wyoming Historical Foundation. Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that the situation has reached a boiling point, though, more recently.
“The Wyoming historical foundation asked for an audit. They were getting a lot of questions about fundraising… But it seemed like things just continued to deteriorate from there with lots of accusations back and forth over different things that the questions about the audit. Then there came cease and desist letters being sent to members, which they took, as you know, an effort to kind of try to silence them and stop them from asking questions… They actually had so many resignations that they lost their quorum… accusations of toxic leadership. I mean, it just runs the gamut, really.”
The fracture of history groups, however, does not stop with the separation of Wyoming Historical Foundation and Wyoming Historical Society. WyoHistory.org, which has operated under the Wyoming Historical Society umbrella, is taking steps to remove itself from those associations as well, and within a year intends to become a separate 501c3 of its own.
Read the full story HERE.
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The replacement of $1.78 million in lighting and concrete pavement is underway, as part of the initial work needed to reopen the Green River tunnel since a fiery, fatal, multi-truck accident closed it down four months ago.
Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that the repairs are among the first steps to restoring the tunnel on Interstate 80, which serves as a major transcontinental east-west highway that stretches from California to New Jersey.
“The lighting and electrical systems in the westbound Green River tunnel were a complete loss as a result of that fiery crash that happened back in February. So in order to get it open again, they're going to need to replace all of the electrical and the lighting. So right now, they're tearing down the old infrastructure in anticipation of installing the new infrastructure… the big project of actually restoring the tunnel, and that's making sure it's structurally stable, getting everything in place so it can reopen… the plan for that hasn't been fully formulated yet, and that's going to be released later this summer. What WYDOT’s doing in the meantime is the small stuff that they need to do anyway, pavement repair, getting that old electrical infrastructure out of the tunnel so that the new stuff can go in immediately.”
The westbound tunnel has been closed since the explosive 26-vehicle crash on Feb. 14 that resulted in the deaths of three people. An extensive amount of repair and reconstruction remains before the tunnel can reopen to traffic, state highway officials said.
Read the full story HERE.
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A 78-year-old Gillette woman at a local convenience store on Saturday narrowly avoided being taken for $22,000 at a bitcoin ATM.
She was far luckier than a Jackson man, who was scammed out of $7,500 at the Bitcoin Depot ATM at a Loaf ’N Jug store in Jackson. He was, in turn, luckier than a woman who was scammed out of $18,000 at the same ATM in March.
Like a traditional ATM connected to a bank, bitcoin ATMs are legal and allow people to buy and sell cryptocurrencies. But Cowboy State Daily’s Greg Johnson reports that, as more bitcoin ATM devices pop up around the state, people who want to scam others of their money are going to use them more.
“There are Bitcoin ATMs… They look exactly like another ATM but instead of accessing your regular bank… you can buy bitcoin, you can transfer it… And so this is now a new way that people can scam people. Instead of asking them to go and buy a bunch of gift cards and give them the information the cash them in, they will instruct them to go to the Bitcoin ATM and basically put money into it… convert it to Bitcoin and transfer it to them, and it's pretty much gone.”
Bitcoin Depot reports that it has nearly 18,000 of its ATM-like machines around the United States, Australia and Canada. Of those, 45 are in Wyoming, including one each in Jackson and Gillette, while Cheyenne has the most with 11.
Read the full story HERE.
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A Rock Springs woman and her boyfriend have both agreed to plead no contest to charges that they included a teenage girl in their group sex acts for more than a year.
An affidavit filed in 40-year-old Jennifer Fahrney’s case says she incorporated a teenage girl into sex acts with her boyfriend, 57-year-old Richard Turner, over the course of more than a year.
Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that the Sweetwater County Attorney’s office filed a plea agreement Tuesday in Fahrney’s case which could result in her spending up to 35 years in prison. The agreement follows another that was filed in May in the case against Turner, whose charges are more serious.
“Jennifer Fahrney … has agreed to plead no contest, looking at that 25 to 35 on a few of the charges with which she was originally charged, I think a third of the many, many, 66 original charges, which you rarely see as sentencing… it's much more common for those to end in a plea deal on this felony level… Whereas Turner, he cut a plea agreement that's like life in prison, because there's that subsequent, subsequent first degree, uh, sexual abuse. So if you're a repeat at first degree sexual abuse of a minor, you could face the life in prison.”
Investigators found text messages on Fahrney’s phone implicating her in the crimes, and found numerous child pornography files on Turner’s phone.
Read the full story HERE.
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Just as summer is hitting and ratepayers across Northern Wyoming are burning less natural gas, the utility serving several cities and towns wants to charge more for delivering gas to homes and businesses.
Montana-Dakota Utilities has negotiated a settlement agreement that would increase natural gas rates for residential customers by 15%, or about $8.12 on average for residential customers. The increase would result in a $2.12 million annual increase for the power company, according to Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison.
“With this rate increase, what Montana-Dakota utilities is trying to do is recoup costs that it incurred while upgrading the pipes that get to your house to keep you warm with natural gas in Sheridan and Powell and the other communities they serve. And so they're going through the process, and you're going to see a bump in your bill if it passes.”
The Wyoming Public Service Commission will consider the settlement at a public hearing on June 24.
Read the full story HERE.
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An early elk migration out of the National Elk Refuge might be partly to blame for a plunge in revenue from this year’s elk antler auction in Jackson.
The national and worldwide demand for antlers might be temporarily waning, as well - that’s what auction organizers told Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz.
“It's a 58 year old tradition in Jackson, the scouts, the Boy Scouts, are allowed exclusive access in the spring to the National Elk Refuge there to go gather antlers, which they then they bundle them up and they put them for auction in the town square. This is a yearly event, and it has, typically the last several years, raised in the neighborhood of $200,000. This year, revenue plummeted all the way down to about only $109,000. So I talked to some organizers… there was, you know, upwards of 1000 pounds less antlers than there usually is, because the darned elk, it got warm early, and a lot of those bulls migrated off the refuge before they shed their antlers. So they're kind of shaking their finger at the elk for blowing the scene early. And then also, the organizers are saying the bids just weren't as vigorous this year.”
Elk antlers generally sell by the pound and are desired by buyers for numerous reasons. Some people use them to make decorations or furniture. Others cut the antlers into chunks, which can be sold as dog chews. Proceeds from the antler auctions are split, with 75% going to the elk refuge and 25% going to the Scouts.
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.
