It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Tuesday, July 29th. I’m Charene Herrera, in for Wendy Corr, bringing you headlines from the Cowboy State Daily newsroom - Brought to you by Cheyenne Frontier Days, who thanks everyone for another record‑breaking year. Mark your calendar for July 17 to 26, 2026 for the 130th Daddy of ’em All, celebrating the Year of the American Indian.
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The race for Wyoming governor remains a wait-and-see contest as potential candidates hesitate to jump in without knowing what U.S. Representative Harriett Hageman plans to do.
Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that a combination of the Hageman effect, the earlyness of the campaign cycle and some frontrunners’ goals to consolidate under one “conservative” candidate leaves next year’s gubernatorial field with several highly tentative characters.
“She's very popular as our lone house delegate there in Congress. And so if she declared for governor, the early polling shows she would just run away with it. And so for that reason, Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray and House Speaker Chip Nieman, are like, I don't know if I would run for that seat until I know what Harriet Hageman is going to do. Hagemon is still tentative, and so are a lot of other people. Not all of them are blaming it on the Hageman effect. Some are just saying, I want to focus on what I'm doing right now, or it's too early, and so we'll just have to watch as that develops.”
The two who have declared their candidacy so far are Cheyenne resident Joseph Kibler, who runs a web development and marketing company, and 2022 candidate Brent Bien.
Read the full story HERE.
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Arrest warrants have been issued for the fire chief of Laramie County Fire District No. 1 and his wife for allegedly imprisoning and starving their 13-year-old adopted son. Darrick and Angela Mittlestadt are facing charges of aggravated child abuse and conspiracy to commit aggravated child abuse.
Cowboy State Daily’s Dale Killingbeck reports that while the warrants have been issued, the couple had not been arrested at press time.
“The details that are in the court records are really graphic. It talks about a 13 year old boy that they had adopted that weighed 50 pounds when he ended up in a hospital in Colorado, but first he was dropped off at a youth detention center in Douglas and gave a fake name and story… It was uncovered that he was an adopted child of the fire chief and his wife… the boy said that he had been blockaded in his bedroom and had been given one meal a day to eat. People that saw him said he was emaciated, and there was allegations that the boy you know had this bad behavior, but at the hospital and grandparents are saying that they never witnessed that.”
Both the aggravated child abuse and conspiracy to commit aggravated child abuse charges carry potential penalties of 25 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Read the full story HERE.
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Gov. Mark Gordon on Monday announced the Wyoming Highway Patrol had entered into an agreement to assist U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement while performing their regular duties.
Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that to date, five Wyoming sheriffs have established agreements with ICE, but this the first Wyoming statewide agency to do so.
“With Wyoming Highway Patrol signing on to that, that's significant, because that's a statewide agency. It's also under the governor's purview, rather than a sheriff elected by a county of 40,000 or so people… It's just part of, really, a domino effect… of more and more Wyoming agencies agreeing to work with ICE and the federal agency itself now has so much funding that it's seeking to expand its footprint in Wyoming in other ways.”
In a comment to Cowboy State Daily, the American Civil Liberties Union of Wyoming said this move turns the Wyoming Highway Patrol into an extension of the federal government, which they say “puts politics over the best interests of Wyoming.”
Read the full story HERE.
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Construction is about halfway done on what Colorado officials claim will be the world’s largest wildlife overpass. It’s a 200-foot-wide, 209-foot-long structure spanning six lanes of Interstate 25 south of Denver.
Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports that the project is on track to be completed in December.
“I spoke with somebody with the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Department, and they said, Yeah, it's, it's a bad problem area, because you've got quite a lot of wildlife, mostly elk, trying to migrate through that area between summer and winter range, and the interstate goes right through the heart of it…They've seen a lot of collisions and a lot of road kill there…They said they decided to go with an overpass because, number one, they're more practical. Number two, the animals, the elk, the pronghorn, the deer, seem to like overpasses a little bit more than they like underpasses”
The wildlife overpass will connect 39,000 acres of wildlife habitat on both sides of Interstate 25. The project comes with a $15 million price tag.
Read the full story HERE.
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On Monday, the FBI and ATF were called in to help the Casper Police Department investigate a “suspicious package” inside the Paradise Valley subdivision on the southwest side of town.
Cowboy State Daily’s Dale Killingbeck reports that after a four hour investigation, the suspicious package was removed from the neighborhood.
“We're not exactly sure where it was placed, but there was a picture of a package that was placed at an intersection. And police…have not yet responded to whether that was the actual suspicious package… They said that they had got the package into a container and out of the area…We're still not sure if it was a bomb, a fake bomb, we just don't know.”
As of press time, the investigation was still ongoing.
Read the full story HERE.
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A fight over whether floaters have the right to use a natural water channel connecting Pine Creek and the New Fork River near Pinedale has apparently hit a stalemate.
Floaters and anglers use the channel to move between Pine Creek and the New Fork River — both are popular for trout fishing. Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports that some locals allege a new property owner has been trying to put up new barriers across the water passage, which they believe isn’t allowed.
“I've gotten a little bit of feedback from the Army Corps of Engineers, which is the primary jurisdictional agency there. They said they're looking into it, and it would, in fact, be a violation of their policies if somebody were to deliberately block a floatable waterway…It still seems to be a kind of a stand still, kind of a stalemate there… We could see these sorts of things cropping up more in Wyoming, we're seeing a lot of people buy up more Riverside properties. At the same time, we're seeing a lot more people take to… floating just for fun, or floating to fish or however.”
The situation is further complicated by the increasing number of watercraft options to meet growing interest in floating. Smaller watercraft means the boundaries of what’s considered floatable water are being stretched.
Read the full story HERE.
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Cheyenne’s Bryan “Alf” Grzegorczyk (GREG-OR-CHICK) had planned a celebratory drink following his once-in-a-lifetime Thunderbirds’ Hometown Hero Flight to salute everyone who nominated him for the honor and made it all possible.
But all he could manage after the flight was a celebratory nap.
Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean caught up with Alf, who said the flight’s 9.4 Gs of gravitational force made him realize just how exhausting it is being a Thunderbird.
“They do it to honor…people who have really given back to their communities… He has a thing called thankful Thursdays that he started about 15 years ago, and he's raised more than $3 million for charities with that. It's pretty remarkable… What's really interesting is this idea that we can somehow get people to nine GS without passing out… 1G is what we're at when we're just sitting around right now, traveling on the earth. Two Gs is double that. Three GS is so tough that you can't pick yourself up out of the seat... So the force is just unbelievable.”
Life is always good when there are one-of-a-kind stories to tell, and this is one story Alf said he will never tire of telling.
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 Charene Herrera, for Cowboy State Daily.
