It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Monday, August 11th. I’m Wendy Corr, bringing you headlines from the Cowboy State Daily newsroom - Brought to you by the Converse County Tourism Promotion Board! Discover Douglas and Glenrock in beautiful Wyoming, where rich history, outdoor adventure, and welcoming communities await. Feel the Energy of Converse County at www.ConverseCountyTourism.com.
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As the 85th Sturgis Motorcycle Rally wound up this weekend, one biker said he misses the old days, when ad-hoc burnouts sent smoke billowing down the road, and when there weren't enough cops to do anything about it.
He told Cowboy State Daily’s Zakary Sonntag that he laments the presence of khaki shorts and tennis shoes, and bemoans the rally’s turn toward family friendliness, evidenced by the declining numbers of topless women.
Of course, with rally attendance this year already surpassing 300,000 at its midpoint, he’s not talking about the death of an event, but rather the end of a culture.
“They said it used to be a lot crazier than this, and it's still kind of crazy, which tells you that it was probably pretty wicked wild back in the day, but it's more family friendly… You talk to some of these old timers, and they go, man, people didn't even wear clothes on Main Street for a while. We used to do burnouts up and down Main Street. Now look at this. You've got cops on every corner.”
Read the full story HERE.
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Those lawmen at the 85th Sturgis Motorcycle Rally have been busy with violations that run the gamut: assault, trespassing, weapons violations, domestic disturbance, disorderly conduct, drug possession, resisting arrest, theft and, above all, driving under the influence.
So, just like the hotels in Sturgis, Zak reports that the Meade County jail has been booked solid to “standing room only” the last eight days.
“The infrastructure gets overwhelmed. They've got an 80 bed jail, but that quickly fills up, and they need this overflow jail, which is pseudo kind of a retired little old school jail with the crankshaft bars and it's not comfortable… I talked to one of the inmates who just got out from serving a night for possession of marijuana, and he said people were stepping over each other. Not everybody had a pad. It smelled gross in there. The toilet wasn't working… that's what they have to resort to, because this is a small city only has 7000 permanent residents, and it's overwhelmed with a heck of a lot more during the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.”
The Sheriff told Cowboy State Daily that when you’ve got half-a-million people coming through, they do everything they can to be prepared, but kind of like the rally itself, they just react and, quote, “hang onto the saddle horn,” so to speak.
Read the full story HERE.
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Uranium Energy Corp.'s Sweetwater Project became the first Wyoming mining operation to receive fast-track permitting status under President Donald Trump's latest mineral production initiative.
Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison reports that it’s a milestone for a company that’s re-energizing, going from semi-dormant operations to one of America's leading uranium producers in just 12 months.
“Uranium Energy Corp is really reviving a project that was owned by Rio Tinto, northwest of Rawlins. And the person I spoke to there who's got like, 50 years experience in this industry, said that it's really rare to have so much resource ready to go at this time, and it's apparently meeting a need. You know, the Trump administration certainly has declared a priority on getting the full nuclear spectrum up and running, from mining the uranium, to creating different technologies, like the micro reactors that we've reported on.”
The restart could double operational uranium processing capacity in the U.S., addressing critical supply chain vulnerabilities.
Read the full story HERE.
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Mountain lions are associated with, well, mountains. But mountain lions have been expanding their range into the Great Plains states for more than 20 years.
However, that migration seems to be picking up steam. Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports that increasing numbers of mountain lion sightings in Kansas and verified reports of kittens born in Oklahoma show that the big cats’ range isn’t limited by their name.
“ I talked to wildlife person in Nebraska, who said, yeah, they've had mountain lions there for years. They've got, in fact, they have a hunting season.…you're not going to see them out running out across the wide open prairies. What they do is they find what they call riparian areas, areas that go along river bottoms. And of course, even even in that prairie country, they got a lot of rivers and tributaries that flow through the prairies and mountain lions, much as grizzly bears have been doing, mountain lions will follow those river channels because it has cover. It has some height. It has outcroppings. It's got places where they can hang out, where they can ambush game, where they can, you know, have dens for their babies and stuff and the guy in Nebraska told me that they are seeing a steady eastward movement of mountain lions.”
The mountain lions’ push into the prairie states is part of a larger movement of species that were driven back into the mountains as the West was settled. That includes grizzlies in Montana pushing as far east as the Missouri Breaks, and elk with Wyoming DNA reestablishing herds in Nebraska.
Read the full story HERE.
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I’ll be back with more news, right after this.
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Working on the Jim Baker cabin in tiny Savery, Wyoming, HistoriCorps crew leader Karina Burbank sometimes feels like she’s playing a giant game of Lincoln Logs, with one important difference.
It takes a whole lot more effort and sweat to place a real, hand-hewn cottonwood log into Jim Baker’s cabin than it would a toy Lincoln Log. Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean paid a visit to the site of legendary mountain man Jim Baker’s historic two-story cabin, which was built 152 years ago, and will continue to stand into the future, thanks to the efforts of a group of dedicated volunteers.
“The Jim Baker cabin has a couple dozen logs that have rotted and need to be replaced. They're probably only going to get to about half of them this time around. They're working on the highest priority, worst logs first, and then they may come back and work on the second set the next year… the volunteer I talked to, you know, she said it really makes her appreciate what our pioneers did to survive back then and now, when she sees an older building, and she knows how that's done, the old time techniques it took to do that, and the time and the care and the effort that's in that building.”
HistoriCorps travels around the country with a cadre of volunteers, many of whom return each summer to help the nonprofit preserve some of the nation’s most historic structures. The Colorado-based group has won numerous national awards and recognition for their work.
Read the full story HERE.
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A weed-control contractor drove a gigantic ATV with balloon tires, called a SHERP, through the Blackfoot River near Missoula, Montana, lumbering right past a flabbergasted fishing guide, who captured video of it.
Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks verified to outdoors reporter Mark Heinz that the video is authentic, and that what the driver did was illegal.
“A SHERP is a specific, it's a really huge, gigantic balloon-tired, all terrain vehicle. It's actually made by a Ukrainian company. They're kind of touted as, you can go anywhere with this thing. And a fishing guide on the Blackfoot River in Montana… caught video of one literally driving straight up the middle of the river, like right through what he said was some prime bull trout spawning pools, just tearing stuff up. And of course, as you can imagine, that fishing guide was pretty darned upset by this thing.”Apparently, the people who were driving it are contractors for a county weed and pest district there in Montana. But they did not inform anybody or get the permits if, even if such a permit even exists to drive the SHERP in the water.”
After contacting the operator, the agency was promised that it won’t happen again.
Read the full story HERE.
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John Lea of Powell was fast asleep after working a graveyard shift at Walmart in Cody last week, when his trailer home caught fire.
Lea told Cowboy State Daily that he likely would have died in the blaze if not for his chocolate lab Belle, who woke him up just in time to escape the growing flames.
“If you've ever worked a night shift, you know what it's like to sleep in the day. It's like a coma sleep… And that's what was happening for John Lea. He was sleeping in the middle of the afternoon in Powell in a trailer he just moved into with his two dogs… He wakes up in the middle of the afternoon with his dog Belle, this chocolate lab… jumping up all in his face, is how one person put it I spoke to, and so he had no time to do anything except grab both dogs, push them through the flames because the front porch was on fire, and get out with his underwear and his two dogs. That's it. I interviewed one of his neighbors who found him that way, kind of with the 100 yard stare, just taking it all in, watching his trailer burn and everything inside, wallet, keys, credit cards, computer, and so he was left with nothing.”
Now staying at the Super 8 in Cody with both dogs, Belle and his 15-year-old senior pup Beauty, Lea has expressed gratitude for the outpouring of support from his neighbors and strangers. A GoFundMe has been set up to help Lea and his dogs get back on their feet.
Read the full story HERE.
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When Brandon Parker was preparing to propose to his girlfriend Melissa Absher, he had a to-do list of sorts.
The Spokane, Washington, man penned a song, planned a party with Absher’s family in Montana, and he ordered 100 pounds of gravel from a sapphire mine. To the wrong person, proposing with gravel might have been met with a rebuttal to go kick rocks. But Absher told Cowboy State Daily’s Anna Jackson that Parker’s proposal was perfect.
“When they started talking about marriage, she said the only requirement she had was a Montana Sapphire. So he knew that… and then he saw there was this option through the mine to ship the gravel to you. And so he planned this party that was under the guise of a fourth of July party at her…mom's home in Great Falls, Montana, and got a lot of friends together, and then he pulled her aside, proposed, and then they started this sapphire panning party… it sounds like they'll maybe both use some of the sapphires and ring in their wedding bands. She also wants to use some of the sapphires for necklaces for some of the women in their family and their friends.”
When the couple exchange vows at a date to be determined, their rings will hold a tangible reminder of all of their loved ones who helped pan for those sapphires — and who have supported them in so many other ways.
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.
