It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming, for Wednesday, June 18th. 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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Carbon County Sheriff Alex Bakken had just finished a meeting Monday night with emergency dispatchers in Saratoga, Wyoming, when he jumped in his car and saw an alert for three 17-year-old hikers lost on Medicine Bow Peak.
The mountain, the highest in the Snowy Range, lies about 35 miles west of Laramie. It also was 35 miles southeast of where Bakken was. Knowing his deputies were busy, the sheriff told Cowboy State Daily’s Justin George that he decided to drive out to the mountain, set up a command post and wait for search and rescue members to show up.
“The Carbon County Sheriff at the time, Alex Bakken, was at an emergency dispatch meeting in Saratoga. He saw the call, and he decided to respond to it… and it was just him and another person, and they decided to hike up themselves at 830 so in full uniform, He went up with this, with the flashlights, pretty steep trail, lots of snow, and it took them about, you know, well, over an hour, but they found them and they reached them. The stranded teens were apparently using their flash or their cell phone in order to sort of create a signal that they were able to see, and so the sheriff and this other volunteer then hiked down the mountain with them and were able to sort of get them into search and rescue vehicles to get them back safely.”
The teens had started their hike at about noon but had drifted far off the trail trying to detour around deep snow. Bakken said they had been smart enough to not hike alone but had not planned to be out on the mountain at night. All three were wearing shorts and the temperature was dropping into the 40s.
Read the full story HERE.
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When pro-wolf activists on the second annual Hogs For Hope ride arrived in Daniel, Wyoming, on Saturday morning, they were greeted by a large banner across the front of the Green River Bar declaring “Cody Roberts Days.”
Daniel-area resident Roberts has been at the center of a worldwide controversy that exploded over reports that he ran over a wolf with a snowmobile and then captured the animal in February 2024. So the banner was an in-your-face moment for this small town to those protesting Wyoming’s wolf management policies, according to Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz.
“Hogs for Hope… that's that motorcycle rally that the gentleman from Texas, he organized one last year. And they ride their motorcycles up and then go through Daniel kind of in protest to what happened with the wolf there, as well as trying to push for reforms in Wyoming's wolf policy… last year we were there, it was got kind of raucous… this year it was a lot quieter. They kind of buzzed through town, and it sounded as if there were only 15 or so people gathered at the Green Room. River bar there, the caravan didn't stop… Somebody did put a banner on across the top of the Green River bar saying, you know, Cody Roberts days… it's kind of a snub or a burn or a push back against, you know, what, what the people in the caravan were trying to promote.”
Jonas Black, the organizer of the rally, did say he wore a bullet-proof vest while riding his motorcycle through Daniel because of numerous death threats that he’d gotten leading up to this year’s Hogs For Hope event.
Read the full story HERE.
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When Wyoming lawmakers met Tuesday in Casper for the first of four meetings to recalibrate the way the state funds public education, in light of inflation and school districts’ needs, some of the most vocal attendees urged Wyoming to train up plumbers, welders and tourism industry workers.
Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that some speaking for Wyoming’s blue-collar sectors said schools aren’t filling employers’ “massive” needs for workers.
“Some people involved with Career and Technical Education testified to the legislative Select Committee on recalibration Tuesday, like, Hey, you guys need to work on building accommodations and funding for welding education, or, you know, electrician or things like that, because the the blue collar sector of this state is hungry. And one of the people speaking to this end just rattled off like hundreds, in some cases, 1000s, of jobs needed in construction and welding and all of these areas… we're under this constitutional mandate in Wyoming to have basically unparalleled education system, and yet we cannot connect the people with the jobs, because we need hundreds of welders and and we don't see those.”
The educators who attended those panels also spoke of inadequate funding and the need for career and technical education, or CTE, resources at the middle school level, as much of that kind of learning starts at that age.
Read the full story HERE.
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The Jackson Town Council on Monday approved the town’s largest ever hotel and condo complex, a massive 244,000-square-foot development by Mogul Capital.
Even slashing its initial plans by about a third, the new mixed-use hotel and condo project will be the largest development in Jackson town history. Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that the complex will take up an entire city block of the high-dollar community’s prime downtown real estate.
“Mogul Capital had proposed that 366,000 square foot mega hotel, and that sparked a little bit of a furor in Jackson… It's twice the size of Wyoming State Capitol, for just reference… so Mogul Capital has gone back to the drawing board… instead of one big, huge building, it's actually five separate smaller buildings… And rather than vacating that alley that was a bone of contention with the City Council… what the plan will do is improve it and add around about to which could help ease some congestion on North cache. And then, I guess another key part of the plan Wendy is moving the required workforce housing, affordable housing, to the loop on South Park Loop Road.”
The new design includes 109 hotel rooms, 19 long-term residential units, 22 workforce units, 155 parking spaces, as well as a spa, fitness center, restaurant and two rooftop decks.
Read the full story HERE.
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The U.S. Senate overwhelmingly passed a landmark cryptocurrency bill Tuesday in a big win for Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis, who has been nicknamed the “Crypto Queen” for her yearslong work on digital assets legislation.
Cowboy State Daily’s Sean Barry reports that the bill would regulate a category of cryptocurrency called stablecoins, which are fixed to government currencies like the U.S. dollar.
“Today, the US Senate, for the first time ever, has passed cryptocurrency legislation, and she's a big reason why this is huge. It is literally a new system of payment. If this stuff goes through, you might be buying everything that you buy now with money, with stable coins… It is a parallel economy, a parallel financial system, Walmart, Amazon, they are looking to get involved in stable coins. All the banks, they're looking to get involved in stable coins… US currency would still exist. It would be just fine, but stable coins would be an alternative payment.”
This is the first major cryptocurrency bill of any kind to ever pass the Senate. It now goes to the House after a bumpy ride to get across the Senate’s finish line.
Read the full story HERE.
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A surge of supercell thunderstorms over the last week have pummeled Wyoming, Montana and Colorado with golf ball- to baseball-sized hail that obliterated windshields, tore pieces off of homes and killed wildlife.
Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that a thunderstorm in southeast Montana caused widespread destruction Monday, but that was after a major hailstorm Saturday put even wildlife in harm’s way.
“The photo that we use in the story, which is that poor hawk that was grounded with broken feathers after a hail storm, that was in central Montana on Saturday. And then on Monday, southeastern Montana got up to eight inches of hail. So we're talking like a heavy snowfall that covered their streets. And then in Colorado, there are reports of baseball sized hail that destroyed windshields and windows and cars…But this is hail season, June, July and August are the months where the frequency of hail increases. And as Cowboy State daily meteorologist donde put it, hails like wind, we're just in an area that's geographically and climatically inclined to have a higher frequency of these things in high amount.”
Day said there was a significant amount of 1- to 2-inch hail reported in Douglas and Converse counties northeast of Cheyenne this weekend, as well as in parts of Goshen County near Torrington.
Read the full story HERE.
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An angler shot and killed a cow moose that he claimed charged him on the North Tongue River near Bear Lodge Resort this weekend.
The fisherman said he had encountered the moose at close range in thick willows. Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports that the cow had two young-of-the-year calves, which game wardens had to euthanize because they couldn’t survive without their mother.
“Apparently early Saturday, there was an angler who was charged by a cow moose and shot and killed the moose and at least, claimed to the game wardens that it was done in self defense… So I talked to a couple people with different perspectives… they both said, Yeah, moose, especially cow moose, are nothing to trifle with in wrong set of the circumstances, they can be extremely dangerous… they both said it's just, it's really too bad, you know, that the loss of those calves was really a terrible thing.”
Experts say fishing in moose country, particularly going solo, requires keen situational awareness, as moose can be the most dangerous creature on or near the water right now.
Read the full story HERE.
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The 2025 National Pony Express Association re-ride this year from Sacramento, California, to Saint Joseph, Missouri, galloped across Wyoming on Tuesday, spending much of the afternoon on Oregon Trail Road through ranch country in Natrona County.
Cowboy State Daily’s Dale Killingbeck spoke to riders who had to weather a little rain and hail along the way — just like those who rode 165 years ago.
“I was able to connect with some riders along the Oregon Trail west of Casper. And so it was kind of cool, because there was a big thunder cloud coming in, a little rain, a little hail. And so the riders were able to experience, you know what the riders did back in 1860 to 61 when they actually carried the mail along that same route… There was a woman from Colorado that was all excited about being able to ride, especially along the Oregon Trail, and she was saying that it was very touching to her, more touching than she thought it was going to be.”
The annual re-ride, a tradition that began in 1980, tries to trace the same 1,966-mile route young male riders of the historic Pony Express took between the Missouri and California cities from April 1860 to October 1861.
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.
