Cowboy State Daily Video News: Monday, July 21, 2025

Monday's headlines include: Dubois Server Gets Monster Tip Trucker Serial Killer Dies In Tennessee Why New Yorkers Love Cheyenne Frontier Days

WC
Wendy Corr

July 21, 202510 min read

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It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Monday, July 21st. I’m Wendy Corr, bringing you headlines from the Cowboy State Daily newsroom - Brought to you by Cheyenne Frontier Days! Brace for heart-pounding adrenaline with the PRCA Xtreme Bulls, July 21st and 22nd. Two nights of elite bull riders versus the rankest bulls. A fierce showdown in the legendary CFD arena. Don’t miss the 129th Daddy of ‘Em all, now through the 27th. 

A Casper family is still trying to comprehend their new reality after 18-year-old twin sisters were in a car that hit an elk at 101 mph. Hannah Brooks survived the Monday crash on Wyoming Highway 487, but her twin sister Sammantha didn’t.

Cowboy State Daily’s Dale Killingbeck spoke to the girls’ mother, Sarah, who said Sammantha’s loss has left a void in the hearts of those who knew her.

“The mom and her twin sister are grieving and also trying to pull together money for a funeral… and a coworker has started a GoFundMe to try and help them with funeral costs… The coworker I talked to, and her mom, they just said that she was somebody that you loved. She wanted to help everybody, even though she had struggles in her life. Her focus was on other people and that she just wanted to she's the kind of person that just engaged other people to try and help them and be a support.” 

The girls’ mother said Sammantha and Hannah were more than best friends, and that Hannah is lost without her sister and, quote, “figuring out how to grieve.”

Read the full story HERE.

Cheyenne Frontier Days has officially busted out of the chute of its 129th year, bringing wall-to-wall cowboy culture to the masses.

In the eyes of some, CFD is the epitome of Western values: ambition, grit, tradition and sacrifice. The event is increasingly searing its brand on a growing number of visitors who this year arrive from 31 countries and every single U.S. state. Cowboy State Daily’s Zak Sonntag spoke to some of those out–of-staters who are hooked on Frontier Days.

“For a lot of folk in Cheyenne, rodeo is in the blood… They've seen it their entire lives. But then you see folk from the east coast, from the big city, from New York, from Brooklyn, coming out to Cheyenne. And it is other worldly that is something totally exotic, totally alien, and they absolutely love it. They love the fashion, they love the culture. They love the excitement… They have rodeo at Madison Square Garden, for instance. But these New Yorkers tell me that the Cheyenne rodeo is something totally different… they said, compared to what they've seen other rodeos elsewhere, Cheyenne Frontier Days is the absolute best of the best.”  

Whether this is your proverbial first rodeo or just your first time to Cheyenne, CFD is going to leave a mark, especially if you're coming from a big city.

Read the full story HERE.

When Ian Munsick was writing his song “Cheyenne,” he was imagining what it would be like to headline the Cheyenne Frontier Days stage. Friday night, there was no more imagining. 

Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that Munsick became the first Wyoming native to headline Cheyenne Frontier Days, with a chorus of adoring cheers and whistles from fans who had come for the show.

“When Ian was talking to me about it, and he was explaining why it was so important, he actually started to choke up a little bit, talking about how he's just a Wyoming boy who wanted to go out there and make his State proud. And when he was talking about his parents being in the audience, that's what he's really nervous about, his dad's the one who taught him to play… So for him, getting to play Cheyenne Frontier Days, getting the Cheyenne headliner belt buckle, all of that meant a lot.” 

Munsick said he sees the Cheyenne stage as the biggest of his career to date.

Read the full story HERE.

Anecdotal evidence suggests bison might have specific behaviors associated with death and mourning. 

Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports about one recent incident in northern Yellowstone, in which several bison were maintaining a constant vigil around one that had died, circling around the carcass for more than an hour.

“We like to anthropomorphize or give human emotions to other animals. So we it's not really safe to say if Bisons have emotions in response to death, but I spoke to several people who observe bison doing the same similar sort of patterns when confronted with a carcass of any animal, let alone another bison, where they sniff, they circled, they held their tails erect, and they lingered in the area for a prolonged period of time… we don't think of them as particularly intelligent animals, but they might have some observable and documentable rituals associated with the concept of death or around carcasses.”  

Elephants, dolphins, whales, chimpanzees and dogs have exhibited distinct behavioral changes and reactions when confronted by death. But there is no scientific evidence suggesting bison understand the concept of death or have specific mourning rituals.

Read the full story HERE.

After a Tennessee jury convicted him of murdering a woman 34 years ago, an accused serial killer died Friday morning before prosecutors could bring him to trial for allegedly killing two women in Wyoming.

64-year-old Clark Perry Baldwin died after suffering a heart attack two days earlier. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that Baldwin was convicted May 5 for murdering a woman in Tennessee in 1991, and was slated for two different trials in Sheridan and Sweetwater County, Wyoming, to answer for the deaths of two women found dead along the state’s interstates in 1992.

“Wyoming prosecutors were waiting for him to be extradited to Wyoming. So even though there was a life sentence there in Tennessee, there's still this call for justice for two women found dead off the side of interstates in Sweetwater and Sheridan counties in the early 90s… Sweetwater County Attorney Danny Erramouspe was very disappointed, like, I wanted to air this case. I wanted to bring justice to this family, and after five years in a very lengthy prosecution in Tennessee, he's up and died.” 

Investigators were able to link Baldwin to the Wyoming murders through DNA breakthroughs using genetic material found on or near each woman.

Read the full story HERE.

Just past Sinks Canyon State Park south of Lander is Louis Lake Loop Road. Nearly 100 years old, it leads to some of Wyoming’s most beautiful places — but at a price. That’s because much of it is also a kidney-rattling washboard with whiplash-inducing potholes.

Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz recently traveled the scenic route, which he said is rough enough to make it difficult to keep a full-sized pickup from bouncing and skipping right off the road.

“It's, you know, pretty dicey going through there, a lot of really wicked washboard and potholes and the like. Road’s really narrow in some places, takes some sharp turns. But, you know, there were some hardy souls up there and little sedans and also trucks pulling gigantic campers. So people don't let that deter them. I don't think I'd want to try to get a gihootenous camper up and down that road, but people do… I guess it was originally designed for Model T's, and so that explains a lot… the width of the road and just the specs of it just aren't designed for these big rigs we're driving around today.”

Given the road’s awful condition, it takes about two hours to travel roughly 25 miles that the Louis Lake Loop Road covers.

Read the full story HERE.

It was 49 years ago this month that the deadliest flood in Colorado history came barrelling down the Big Thompson Canyon near Estes Park, Colorado. 

Cheyenne native Alan O’Hashi vividly remembers that day, July 31st, 1976. O’Hashi told Cowboy State Daily’s Dale Killingbeck that he was caught in the canyon when the wall of water hit his car.

“He's going up the highway in the canyon there, and water starts coming down, then this big flood of water just grabs his car. And so he sees trees and boulders and things coming at him, and then he saw a car, he said, come at him and be swept over the side, you know, and just kind of disappeared. And then out of nowhere, there's this portable toilet that grabs onto the front of his Ford Pinto station wagon and pulls him over to the side where the rock wall was, so he was able to get out of the car and start climbing up that wall, when a highway department truck came along and was able to pull him out of the water and get him to safety.”

Two days after the flood hit, the New York Times front page headline proclaimed that 65 people were killed - but the numbers would climb much higher in succeeding days, until ultimately reaching 144 dead.

Read the full story HERE.

And Friday was just another busy night for Amber Sessock at the Cowboy Café in Dubois when two women changed her life with a tip so unexpected, it left the young waitress in tears. The women, Brandi Macumber and Tamara Bane, gave the 25-year-old a nearly $1,500 tip. 

The two travelers told Cowboy State Daily’s Jackie Dorothy that each night, they choose a local restaurant and then surprise their server with a large tip that they have collected that day from the followers of their Facebook page, which they call, “You Can’t Be Serious.”

“I was actually eavesdropping on a conversation. These two Road Trippers were discussing their travels, where they've been, and as they left, one of them turned and said, and if you want to follow our adventures, and she rattled off her Facebook page and what they were doing. So I followed them and asked them if they would like to do an interview…So these two wonderful ladies stopped at three places here in Wyoming, Cody, Yellowstone and Dubois and the servers were all blown away, all blessed by this surprise $1,000 tip, and it's just an amazing way to give back, especially to two ladies that once were servers themselves.”

Sessock said that she just feels in awe that it happened to be her table the women were at Friday. She is putting the money toward her college fund so that she can go to graduate school and become a speech language pathologist. 

Read the full story HERE.

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.

Authors

WC

Wendy Corr

Broadcast Media Director