It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming, for Tuesday, June 17th. 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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Two of Wyoming’s top three industries — agriculture and hospitality — have long had national reputations for relying on undocumented workers.
Just how many undocumented workers are in Wyoming’s agriculture and tourism/hospitality industries isn’t something the state has been tracking, according to Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean. But she says Wyoming’s chief economist estimates the number could be as high as 4,800.
“I talked with Chris Brown with the travel and hospitality coalition. He says they're not waiting for executive orders from President Trump. They are taking a proactive stance now, making sure that businesses know how to access those programs that allow them to bring migrants here legally… Jim Magagna with the Wyoming stock growers, he doesn't think this is more of a Wyoming issue probably more of a California issue… I think the agriculture associations by and large, have really worked with their members to teach them how to use those h2 a visa programs to bring in people legally. But again, you know, if half of agriculture workers are foreign migrant workers who are undocumented, then we could still have a pretty significant contingent here in Wyoming.”
Across the United States, half of 2 million agriculture laborers are estimated to be undocumented. For hospitality, the national figure is 7.1%.
Read the full story HERE.
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The central Wyoming town of Bar Nunn, and some state legislators, are divided about a plan for Radiant Nuclear to build its micronuclear plants here. That’s because the plan includes accepting and storing spent nuclear fuel from the company’s reactors.
Radiant officials got an earful about that Saturday during a public input meeting, and Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison reports that the company is going to do a poll to gauge local support for its proposed facility.
“There were some opponents that showed up at this meeting and were pretty vocal. There's also a lot of support for this among legislators. However, the legislator that actually represents Bar Nunn believes that the community is steadfastly against this… Radiant announced that it's going to do a formal opinion poll to really, in their words, truly gauge the amount of public support or lack thereof. And so we'll see. It's just one little chapter, actually, in a really big unfolding story about nuclear in Wyoming.”
Despite the opposition, Radiant continues to view Wyoming as its preferred location for manufacturing a new generation of microreactors.
Read the full story HERE.
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A 22-year-old man shot by an 85-year-old homeowner, after Riverton police said he broke into a home last August, pleaded no contest Thursday to unlawful entry.
Jeremy Merta of Riverton made the plea Thursday in Fremont County District Court. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that Merta was too intoxicated that night to remember enough to give an in-court confession required when pleading guilty.
“Remember in August when there was a older man in Riverton that shot a home intruder in the torso, and then shooter … didn't appear in court for a long time because he had this gunshot injury. So he went ahead and pleaded no contest on Thursday… I asked the top prosecutor of the county, Michael Wyatt, you know what this was about, and he indicated that if you can't remember what happened, you can't give a truthful confession. And we do know that Murta had been drinking all night and was uncoordinated, according to the homeowner, who ultimately shot him.”
Merta declined to comment on the case on Monday. His sentencing hearing is set for Aug. 28.
Read the full story HERE.
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Kyle Hamilton counts himself as extremely lucky after he plowed into a deer while riding his motorcycle near Hulett, but managed to keep the bike upright and on the road.
But it wasn’t just luck. Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports that skill and riding experience played a key part, as evidenced by a jaw-clenching video caught by a camera mounted on his friend’s motorcycle.
“His buddy had a road camera, a dash cam, mounted on his motorcycle right behind this guy, and it shows the very moment where he plows into a white tail deer right outside a Hewlett. They're going about 55 miles an hour… he manages to keep the bike on the road and keeps it from keeps it from going over or flipping… the guy who's had the camera on his bike, you can see at the end of the video, it goes sideways because… he carcass clipped the second bike. So just a crazy, thing that just they managed to catch that on video… Both men came through uninjured.”
As brutal as the impact was, Hamilton said it would have been worse. Because it was a “straight-on” hit, that made it easier to recover from than a sideways hit would have been. And he’s thankful that the deer was a small doe, instead of a huge buck.
Read the full story HERE.
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I’ll be back in just 15 seconds with more news.
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The 15th and last Chris LeDoux Days drew a record crowd of 4,000-6,000 people to Kaycee, on Saturday.
The annual event has honored one of the West’s most legendary cowboys —world champion bareback rider, country music star, and a fierce advocate for the cowboy way of life, Chris LeDoux. And Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that many waited an hour in the rain to hear Chris LeDoux’s son Ned sing.
“I will tell you what I've never seen so many people in Casey Wyoming. It was crawling with tourists. They were everywhere. The stores, the shops, the museum, all overflowing. Every little nook and cranny in that town had a car in it somewhere… They were all happy to be in Kaycee to hear Ned Ledoux sing some of his dad's songs and some of his own songs too. He did do his duet, One Hand in the Rigging, and I felt a little misty eyed, and I think he was too when he introduced the song… they have this on Father's Day, and that that wasn't an accident, that was part of a plan and a fitting tribute to their favorite dad… and a favorite son of Kaycee, Wyoming.”
The end of Chris LeDoux Days marks the end of an era for his many fans across America, who are still buying his records and singing his songs.
Read the full story HERE.
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Throwing out the “California EV mandate” was only the beginning for Wyoming’s congressional delegation and fellow Republicans in the nation’s capital.
Now, Cowboy State Daily’s Sean Barry reports that they hope to pass a bill that would strip the Golden State of the power it has had since 1967 to make auto emissions rules in the first place — rules that 17 other states have, over time, wholly or partly copied in favor of electric vehicles.
“The Clean Air Act generally forbids states from making air quality rules, but California has had an exception since 1967 here's why this is huge. California is a big state. The population, the car buying public, has a lot of influence about the national car market, because manufacturers build cars with California's large population in mind… All these rules point to the phase out of the internal combustion engine, all gasoline and diesel powered engines out the window if these regulations are allowed to stand… The oil companies are lined up against these rules and for this legislation advocated by Wyoming's members of Congress, this fight is nothing less than the entire future of auto manufacturing in the US, and with it, a large measure of the fortunes of the oil companies are at stake here.”
Wyoming’s lone House Representative, Harriet Hageman, called California's environmental mandates, quote, “a direct threat to the practical realities of states like Wyoming.”
Read the full story HERE.
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It was likely curiosity, not viciousness, that caused a German shepherd to leap from its owner’s vehicle and briefly chase a juvenile wolf in Yellowstone National Park on Friday.
That’s what a park tour guide told Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz, referring to an incident that was caught on camera, and has drawn quite a bit of criticism on social media.
“The person who got photos of that whole thing, he kind of stuck up for the dog owner. He said to his understanding, what happened was, apparently these newer vehicles, they have a safety feature, where if something is sticking out of a window and you go to roll it up, it will stop and then go back down… so this guy was pulling up on a wolf jam, saw what was going on, went to roll his window up, didn't realize German Shepherd in the back seat still had it snout out the back window. So of course, unbeknownst to the driver, the window went back down. So the first chance the German Shepherd got, it jumped out of the car and went after the wolf… the photographer, who also happens to be a retired park ranger, so he has lots of experience, he said it didn't seem as if the dog was trying to be vicious. The dog was more like, Oh, hey, another big dog. Let's go see what that is.”
The two canines apparently never made direct contact with each other, and both emerged unscathed.
Read the full story HERE.
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And a Sheridan photographer went out to Clear Creek near Clearmont on Saturday to shoot photos of lightning.
Instead, Kevin Palmer spotted lightning bugs, or fireflies, in a northeastern corner of the state Saturday - and told Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland that he took a long-exposure photograph to prove it.
“Kevin Palmer shoots kind of nature, darkness, stargazing, storm photographs, largely in Wyoming… on Saturday night … he saw lightning bugs near Clearmont, and so he shot this kind of exposure photo… And so I talked to… entomologist um Doug Smith at the University of Wyoming, and he was like, what? That's awesome. Smith said he has not seen any in Wyoming with his own eyes, but his fellow entomologists tell him that there's kind of a holdout community of lightning bugs in the Glenrock area… it's a holdout community that he's heard of but not seen.”
Palmer shot about 400 photographs over the course of 38 minutes and stacked those images together to make a dusky wetland scene blotted with neon, yellow-green tapers. And lightning flashed in the distance.
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.
