You Still Here

[{"type":"text","text":"What to do when your friend falls asleep on a plane....."}]

Bonus vid 1 9 20 25

Cowboy State Daily is Wyoming’s largest newspaper with Wyoming’s most experienced journalists. 

<title>Bonus Video 2: Saturday, September 20, 2025 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

What to do when your friend falls asleep on a plane.....

Bonus Video 2: Saturday, September 20, 2025

 What to do when your friend falls asleep on a plane.....

[{"type":"text","text":"The power of teamwork...... "}]

You still here 7 4 26 no play

<title>You Still Here? Saturday, July 4, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The power of teamwork......

You Still Here? Saturday, July 4, 2026

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's Feature Reporter, Andrew Rossi.

Andrew Rossi

Wyoming Life

The Cody Stampede Parade made a big impression from the start Friday with Miss Rodeo America, Olivia Favero of Taylor, Utah, riding “Clyde McBuffalo,” 

 from the Mortenson Ranch in New Mexico.

What better way than a buffalo to kick off a parade celebrating 250 years of America in Buffalo Bill’s town?

Clint Mortenson, Clyde’s owner, was happy with how well his bison did strolling down Sheridan Avenue with an experienced rider on his back.

[{"type":"text","text":"“He did good,” he said. “So did Miss Rodeo America.”"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Big Names And Bands"}]

The Cody Stampede Parades, on July 3 and 4, attract some of Wyoming’s biggest names, bands and patriotic exuberance.

“Cody knows how to celebrate Independence Day,” said Mack Frost, a member of the Cody Stampede Parade Committee. “We wowed the hell out of the folks from Pasadena, California, who do the Rose Bowl parade. They couldn't believe that we were doing what we did.”

One sign of a parade’s prominence is its grand marshal. “The Duke” himself, John Wayne, was given the honor during America’s bicentennial celebration in 1976.

For the semiquincentennial, the Cody Stampede Parade Committee looked closer to home. Instead of one grand marshal, they had five.

A surprise last-minute addition to the grand marshal group was actor Dougie Hall. He’s had prominent roles in the series “Landman” and “1923," one of the many “Yellowstone” spinoffs and starring Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren.

After the U.S. Marine Corps Mounted Color Guard, the last one remaining in the Marine Corps, and the Cody Stampede Rodeo’s Renegade Riders and rodeo clowns, the grand marshals appeared.

While Hall was on horseback, the others rode in a wagon built for the 1990 Wyoming Centennial Wagon Train.

“It made the 260-mile trip ending in Cody on July 4, 1990, and it's back in 2026,” Frost said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Rifle And Royalty"}]

One of the most anticipated entries in the parade was 

Originally built for the 1976 bicentennial parade, it was removed from the roof on which it had perched for the last half-century, restored and returned for the nation’s semiquincentennial.

“We put it back to what it was in 1976, as best we could,” said Mike Darby, owner of the Irma Hotel and the giant Winchester. “We’re putting it right back where it was on July 5 and, hopefully, it’ll be there for the next 50 years.”

The giant Winchester was escorted down Sheridan Avenue by the Cody Gunslingers, who have been performing in front of the Irma’s porch for decades.

Since the Cody Stampede is the place to be for rodeo riders, a lot of royalty appeared in the parades. The “Miss Rodeos” of Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska were all there, along with the Rodeo Queens of Cody, Cowley, Sheridan, Meeteetse and Fremont County.

Miss Rodeo Wyoming, Kate Budge, was going to accompany Miss Rodeo America until Favero decided to lead the parade via celebrity bison.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"More Georges And Johns Than Bills"}]

For some, it’s an annual tradition to see how many Buffalo Bills appear in the Cody Stampede Parade. In 2026, the consummate showman was upstaged in his own town.

While Buffalo Bill was certainly present, he was outnumbered by multiple appearances of Betsy Ross, Paul Revere, and no less than six George Washingtons.

Abraham Lincoln appeared multiple times as well. He was even driving one of the two dozen vintage John Deere tractors, meticulously restored and making their memorably noisy appearance for another year.

Jim and Jess Brittain’s “Johnny Poppers” are always a crowd favorite. The lineup of tractors extended uninterrupted for three blocks.

No parade is complete without vintage vehicles, and the Cody Stampede Parade had more than a few.

The Big Hat Ranch has one of the 16 surviving 1925 White Model 15-45 passenger touring buses from the Yellowstone Transportation Company. It carried hundreds of tourists into Yellowstone from 1920 to 1925.

The biggest cheers were for the Team USA and Team Canada Can-Am All-Stars. The 6-Man football teams, with players from Wyoming, Colorado, Montana, Texas and Nebraska, are competing in the 28th annual Can-Am Bowl in Meeteetse on July 4.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Glorious Returns"}]

There have been many hallmarks of the Cody Stampede Parade that have come and gone over the years. For the 2026 parade, many people were delighted to see some familiar sights.

Hope Sheets, “The Pink Lady,” had been a flamboyant fixture of Cody’s parade for 40 years until she passed away May 18, 2025, at age 88. Her poignant absence was felt by many in the 2025 parade.

In 2026, Lisa Kealey honored her mother’s legacy by getting pretty in pink.

Dennis Haugen made his own mark as the stilt-walking “Long Tall Uncle Sam.” He started during the 1976 bicentennial and walked tall through Cody until he retired in 2016.

For the semiquincentennial, Haugen returned, stilts and all, to honor the nation’s 250th birthday. He stood even taller than before, riding rather than walking.

Nobody seemed more eager to be back in the Cody Stampede Parade than the Cody Volunteer Fire Department. Absent in protest in 2025, the entire fire engine fleet was the parade’s grand finale, with plenty of water for everyone.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Another 250 Years"}]

One of the biggest additions to the 2026 Cody Stampede Parade was also one of the most subtle.

A livestreaming webcam was installed on the balcony of the Irma Hotel, overlooking the intersection of Sheridan Avenue and 12th Street, offering one of the best views in town as the parade rolled through.

That was a first for one of the biggest parades in Wyoming, and a step into the 21st Century in a town seeped in the history and mythology of the American West.

For Frost, Independence Day in Cody is too fun, popular and strategically placed to pass up.

“If you plan your vacation properly, you can have one heck of a good time in Cody and northwest Wyoming in general,” he said. “If you're in Cody, it's just a short hop up the highway to Yellowstone National Park. We're just a magnet for the tourists. It's a great way to spend the Fourth of July. There's no doubt about it.”

Cody Stampede Parade 5

<title>America At 250: Thousands Pack Downtown Cody For Stampede Parade | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Thousands of people packed along the route of the Cody Stampede Parade on Friday to kick off America’s 250th birthday. There were six George Washingtons, five grand marshals and a restored 40-foot Winchester that made its parade debut 50 years ago.

America At 250: Thousands Pack Downtown Cody For Stampede Parade

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's general assignment reporter, Clair McFarland.

Clair McFarland

Government & Politics

A federal judge declined Thursday to make Wyoming and Nebraska irrigation districts open a competitive bid for the sake of a drilling company that missed out on the chance to bid a $100 million job on the Goshen County tunnel project.

But the judge also ruled that Drill Tech Drilling & Shoring Inc. 

, at this phase, in claiming that the Wyoming-based Goshen County Irrigation and Nebraska-based Gering-Fort Laramie Irrigation Districts violated their states’ public-records laws by not giving information the company had requested.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Lock In"}]

Drill Tech Drilling & Shoring Inc. filed a federal lawsuit against both districts in May.

The lawsuit asked U.S. District Court Judge Scott Skavdahl, of Wyoming, to intervene in what Drill Tech called an unlawful bidding process that cut it out of the opportunity to win a job on the massive tunnel repair.

One of the two 119-year-old tunnels suffered a catastrophic failure in 2019. The other is reportedly in dire need of a rebuild.

The districts assigned Atkinson Construction LLC as construction manager at-risk (CMAR) over the project, which means Atkinson can oversee and work with subcontractors, court documents say.

Drill Tech alleged that for the $100 million drill project it had sought to perform, the irrigation districts should have held — and didn’t hold — a competitive bidding process. The districts gave the job instead to their CMAR, Atkinson, court documents say.

[{"type":"text","text":"In his Thursday order, Skavdahl countered. "}]

He said the laws of both Wyoming and Nebraska appear to support the CMAR’s authority to self-perform this kind of work. Drill Tech has not shown substantially that it has a right to enter a competitive bidding process for this project, he added.

Skavdahl wrote that requiring the districts to pause or backtrack their work and hold that bidding process could harm the agricultural community by stalling the long-awaited repairs even longer — and he declined to do that.

The public has an interest in government entities abiding by the open bidding process, wrote Skavdahl.

“On the other hand, the Irrigation Districts are right that ensuring irrigation water to the thousands of acres of farmland served by the tunnels is also in the public interest,” he added. “In light of Drill Tech’s failures (to show it deserves court intervention) as well as the serious risks to the farmers and public from another tunnel collapse following any delay in this construction project, the preliminary injunction requested by Drill Tech is more contrary to the public interest than in support of it.”

Drill Tech had waited several months to sue, though it had reportedly learned it had been cut out of the job last summer, Skavdahl noted.

He declined to let that delay kill the case altogether, but he factored the delay into his decision not to order the open bid.

The judge’s order doesn’t end the case. It just denies Drill Tech’s request to have Skavdahl intervene in this early phase.

Skavdahl gave his early conjectures that Drill Tech isn’t likely to win on the bidding question, only for the purposes of declining to compel the districts to change course immediately.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Might Win That One"}]

Drill Tech had also accused both irrigation districts of violating their states’ open meeting laws and assigning the job in secret.

[{"type":"text","text":"Skavdahl said the company looks unlikely to win that challenge as well."}]

But, the judge wrote, Drill tech appears likely to win two of its claims: that the Wyoming irrigation district and the Nebraska one both violated their states’ public-records laws by not giving Drill Tech information it had requested.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Background"}]

The complaint says the two districts contracted Atkinson to be the construction manager at risk and provide oversight for the Fort Laramie Canal Tunnel 1 and 2 rehabilitation project.

That project is expected to benefit more than 100,000 acres of farmland across eastern Wyoming and western Nebraska.

 that the U.S. Department of Interior has chosen to use $100 million of its $889 million One Big Beautiful Bill appropriation on the tunnel project.

The tunnel collapsed July 17, 2019, cutting off irrigation water to the region and flooding fields. The infrastructure was more than a century old.

Temporary repairs restored most of the system’s capacity in time for the 2021 season, but it still needs long-term solutions. Repairs to Tunnel 2 also are in the works so that it doesn’t suffer the same catastrophic failure.

During the bidding process, Drill Tech’s complaint alleges, the two irrigation districts confirmed Atkinson would have to comply with Wyoming and Nebraska laws, and that it may be able to self-perform the construction work in the project, but would competitively bid that work.

But 18 months after Atkinson became the project manager, the districts “fundamentally changed the (manager’s) agreement to allow Atkinson to self-perform all the construction work for the Project under the guise of a contract amendment,” the complaint alleges.

This transformed the contract into a standard prime contract for the massive project “with no competition for the construction work,” says Drill Tech’s complaint. 

The project manager no longer had to open competition to the public bidding process, it adds.

Drill Tech Drilling and other interested parties were cut out of the process, the complaint says.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Asking For Documents"}]

Drill Tech didn’t ask to become the project manager because it wanted to work on the tunnel rehabilitation work packages instead, the complaint says, adding that Drill Tech has experience with the method that project requires.

On July 25, 2025, Drill Tech sent a letter to the two districts, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and one of the project designers, HDR Inc., to raise concerns that Atkinson was no longer required to bid projects competitively and in public.

Drill Tech noted in that letter that it had been monitoring the project for two years, waiting for the bid advertisement.

Nearly a month later, the Goshen County Irrigation District’s attorney acknowledged the district had received the letter and thanked Drill Tech for its “continued interest in the Project,” court documents say.

That December, Drill Tech submitted public-records requests to both districts under the public-records laws of each state, the complaint says, asking for all post-award modifications and amendments regarding the project manager’s agreement, and for a copy of the procurement plan.

The Nebraska-based district never responded to that request, the complaint says. The Wyoming-based district reportedly responded two months later, Feb. 10, 2026.

Goshen District’s public records yield was “heavily redacted,” says Drill Tech’s complaint. The district claimed those redactions were justified as trade secrets, privileged information, confidential commercial, financial, geographical or geophysical data.

The complaint disputes that. It shows a side-by-side comparison of the same page of the scope of the project manager’s services.

The page that was publicly released in the request for proposal, and the page Drill Tech received in its public records request, are vastly different, with the latter about 75% or more redacted.

“Reactions such as these were pervasive” throughout the agreement, the complaint says.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Transparency"}]

Copies of the changes to that agreement also had “pervasive redactions,” it adds.

Still, says the document, Drill Tech learned that the agreement was amended before Drill Tech’s July 25, 2025, letter requesting information about whether public bids were still required.

The complaint says the district knew the agreement had already been changed to edge out competitive bidding, but didn’t tell Drill Tech that when the company asked.

The complaint also says the district didn’t provide notice of an important public meeting.

By Feb. 20, 2025, the Goshen district board voiced concerns about HDR’s original maximum price estimate of $87 million swelling to more than $120 million, the complaint relates from the meeting minutes.

HDR proposed a confidential guaranteed maximum price proposal and non-disclosure agreements so there would be “no worry about (Atkinson) getting underbid,” the document alleges.

There was, the complaint says, no documented vote for Atkinson to self-perform the task they were discussing without publicly bidding the work packages, but the district did vote to approve changing the design plan.

It’s “entirely” unclear what role the Nebraska-based district played here because it didn’t respond to Drill Tech’s public records requests, the complaint alleges.

The document says that on July 8, 2025, the Goshen district and Atkinson signed an amendment to change the agreement, so that the latter was no longer required to advertise bids or publicly open them.

In the July 17, 2025, meeting minutes, “Atkinson was already apparently working with a vendor for the digger shield, but there was no indication that Atkinson has publicly bid or competitively awarded the subcontract for the digger shield.”

Irrigation Tunnel Gary Stone Nebraska Extension 5 4 26

<title>Judge Says $100M Goshen Tunnel Project Won’t Stop For Company That Couldn't Bid | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A federal judge declined Thursday to pause the $100 million Goshen Tunnel project for a company that missed out on a chance to bid on the work. He also ruled the company has a valid case against two irrigation districts in charge of the tunnel.

Judge Says $100M Goshen Tunnel Project Won’t Stop For Company That Couldn't Bid

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Dale Killingbeck

Dale Killingbeck

Around Wyoming

The nation’s 250th birthday celebrations around Wyoming likely won’t hold a candle to what happenewd on the dusty streets of 1899 Casper leading up to the Fourth of July 127 years ago.

That’s because a similar blowout today would lead to arrests, fines and possibly hospital stays.

Just before the turn of the past century city businessmen, a former sheriff, and other enthusiastic male residents spent a few hours on June 29 chasing and shooting each other with Roman candles — 3,000 of the fiery devices, according to a local newspaper account.

“Last Thursday night from 9:30 to 12:30 o’clock the streets of Casper were ablaze with fireworks,” The Natrona County Tribune reported on July 6, 1899. “Some of our citizens had made up their minds to give others a touch of patriotism before the Glorious Fourth came around.”

That “touch” involved grown men shooting each other with the fireworks and transforming themselves back to their “glorious” youth when rules, regulations and consequences to unsafe behavior were just empty words spoken by adults who held no fascination with the noise, light, fire and heat of the pyrotechnic device.

So, days before the nation’s 123rd birthday, store owner Hugh L. Patton, 38, fired a 30-ball Roman candle across the street at John S. VanDoren. Patton was a former Casper town marshal and Natrona County Sheriff who had resigned in 1897 to join the Teddy Roosevelt Rough Riders during the Spanish American War, where he had served as a lieutenant. 

VanDoren, an agent for a stage line to Lander and ice cream shop owner, returned fire. But instead of hitting Patton he sent his firework sputtering into the confectionary shop run by Harry G. Duhling, 33.

Just that day, the June 29 edition of the Natrona County Tribune noted on page five that Duhling in his confectionary shop “had a big supply of firecrackers and fireworks on hand.”

“Better place your order with him now for your Fourth of July supply,” the editor reported.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Pre-Fourth 'Celebration'"}]

But the Roman candles among that supply of fireworks didn’t garner a sale because the great pre-Fourth of July fireworks war was on.

The June 29 edition also carried a big ad touting the Fourth’s activities under the management of the Casper Fire Department, which included a $300 display of fireworks at the end of the day.

Where the fire department was on June 29 as more men joined the firework fracas is not clear.

The newspaper editor who obviously had an interest in the fight described Duhling just after 9:30 p.m. June 29 as going into his store stash of Roman candles and firing back at VanDoren. But the wily VanDoren had recruited reinforcements and built a fort out of egg cases as a defensive tactic.

“He (VanDoren) sent three fire balls across the street, taking in the businesses from Fred Roedde’s restaurant to the Grand Central Hotel,” the Natrona Tribune reported. “By this time at least 20 men were on each side of the street armed with 30-ball Roman candles.”

The Tribune editor described the men from both sides as running into the middle of the street and shooting each other with a Roman candle when they were three or four feet apart until their ammunition “was exhausted.”

After carrying on for some time, the warriors turned on the growing number of spectators who had been drawn to the battle.

“A volley was sent into a party who were on the porch of the Grand Central hotel,” the newspaper reported. “There were a number of ladies in the crowd, all of whom lost no time getting inside.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Burning Bystanders"}]

After chasing the hotel guests inside, the group went after some men watching from an alley behind the Cunningham store, chasing them down the alley and sending a shot that burned Robert F. Potter, a bookkeeper for C. H. King, the grandfather of future president Gerald Ford, in the ear and shooting “Uncle”Jeremiah Dain in the back, burning him “to the skin.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Dain, 68, owned a paint shop in Casper."}]

The newspaper editor mentioned “quite a number of the participants were burned” and then named some names, including John Shaffer with a burned finger, Charles Nichols with a burned front vest, Lee Culver with a burn on the front of his coat, VanDoren with a forehead burn and J. B. Bradley who was burned on the face.

“Other crowds were shot into until everybody was chased home or into the back alleys and then the fight commenced again, which was kept up until 12:30 a.m. when every Roman candle in town had been shot off. In all there were no less than 3,000 shots fired,” the Tribune editor wrote.

At Wyoming Banner Medical Center, Dr. Ben Kautza, medical director for the surgical trauma department, listened to a description of the battle and said it “would be shocking” if someone didn’t die as a result due to the burn and wound care available in the West in 1899.

“We barely had antibiotics, so, wound care back then was cleaning and frontier salves, almost native-type medicine,” he said. “It would be shocking if people didn’t have really bad kinds of complications … as far was wound issues, wound infections, skin deformities.”

Kautza said Roman candles pose a threat as a projectile to the eyes and face in addition to igniting clothing and creating third-degree burns. Other issues involve a faulty candle exploding in the person’s hand and “kind of taking your hand or arms with it.”

As a surgeon in Pittsburgh a few years ago, the Fourth of July, Memorial Dayand other holidays meant people would pull out fireworks, misuse them or have faulty ones that brought them to the hospital with “devastating hand injuries” related to an explosion in a person’s hand.

During the past two Fourth of Julys in Casper, Kautza remains thankful he has not seen a “Roman candle fight” but he’s seen a few hand injuries from firework explosions.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"If It Happened Now"}]

At the Casper Police Department, spokesperson Rebekah Ladd said if the Roman candle war happened in 2026 it would have resulted in a police response and investigation that included canvassing the area to get the wounded to care.

Any “hazardous material” would also have been removed, she said.

Officers would also interview those involved and review available evidence to determine each person’s actions and intent,” Ladd said. “The investigation would included assessing the nature and extent of any injuries, which could help determine whether potential assault charges would be classified as misdemeanors or felonies.”

Ladd said additional charges such as disturbing the peace would also likely be considered, with the ultimate charging decisions depending on the outcome of the investigation.

“Regardless, the Casper Police Department strongly discourages this type of behavior, even still, in 2026,” she said.

Patton, who instigated the whole Roman candle war, went on to become a Wyoming state representative in 1909 and was appointed U.S. marshal for Wyoming by President Taft in 1912. He was re-elected Natrona County sheriff, serving from 1915-17.

VanDoren, also an instigator, went on to become the Casper city treasurer for several years.

Potter, one of the burn victims, moved to Douglas in 1900 and in 1905 successfully established the Douglas Enterprise newspaper.

Contact Dale Killingbeck at dale@cowboystatedaily.com

Roman candle fight Historic casper roman candle inset 7 3 26

<title>Wyoming History: Casper’s Huge 1899 4th Of July Fight With 3,000 Roman Candles | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The huge blowouts planned for America's 250th birthday likely won’t be as wild as the three-hour firefight with 3,000 Roman candles that broke out in Casper in 1899. A similar celebration today would likely lead to arrests, fines and hospital stays.

Wyoming History: Casper’s Huge 1899 4th Of July Fight With 3,000 Roman Candles

Clyde “The Buffalo” will be the biggest celebrity in Cody for America’s 250th.

 was invited to participate in the Cody Stampede Rodeo and Parades on July 3 and 4.

On Thursday, the famous bison arrived. His first stop was the historic Irma Hotel. 

It might be the first time a buffalo was invited inside Buffalo Bill’s hotel. He was even served a drink at the bar.

“He likes bourbon and margaritas,” Clyde’s owner, Clint Mortenson, told Cowboy State Daily. “He drinks what I drink.”

Clyde will be first in line for the parades Friday and Saturday. He may or may not have a rider on his humped back.

[{"type":"text","text":"“We haven’t decided yet,” Mortenson said."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Big Celebrity Bison"}]

Mortenson, who owns Mortenson Silver and Saddles in Santa Fe, New Mexico, has raised Clyde since he was two weeks old. He turned his “pet” into a celebrity through the connections he made after several years in the film industry.

“I actually lived in Lusk when I went to saddle-making school, and supplied horses, saddles, and other things for movies in New Mexico,” he said. “That's how Clyde became popular."

Clyde's "acting" credentials include appearances in Paramount's "Yellowstone," the Amazon Prime science-fiction series "Outer Range," and Apple TV’s "Pluribus.”

Clyde has also appeared in commercials for Banana Republic, Bass Pro Shops and YETI.

“When the Oklahoma City Thunder made the NBA Finals last May, Clyde took on the role of "Rumble the Bison" to support the team,” Mortenson said. “He had a place of honor outside the Paycom Center in downtown Oklahoma City.”

Between acting and endorsement gigs, Clyde is a highly sought-after model for all kinds of photo shoots. In November 2025, Mortenson transported Clyde to Jackson for a western-themed wedding shoot.

Mortenson has fully embraced his role as Clyde’s chauffeur, booking agent, and personal assistant. The bison is fully halter-trained, so he’s comfortable going wherever Mortenson leads him.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Buffalo At The Bar"}]

When Mortenson and Clyde reached Cody on Thursday, they were invited inside the Irma Hotel by owner Mike Darby. Clyde eagerly accepted Darby's invitation.

Far from being a bull in a china shop, Clyde doesn’t mind small spaces. He's become a bit of a bar fly.

“We've done a lot of photo shoots in saloons," Mortenson said. "I've taken him into little bars in Aspen, Vail, Telluride, Durango, and Silverton, Colorado. I even took him into the White Elephant Saloon in Fort Worth, Texas."

Clyde entered the Irma through the back door and easily navigated the winding, narrow corridors leading to the dining room. He even posed on the front porch.

“He did great,” Mortenson said. “He was confident as we twisted and turned through the hallways to reach the bar. It was super.”

Clyde also made an appearance in front of the Buffalo Bill Center of the West. He was not invited inside.

At both places, Clyde got photo-ops with bronze sculptures of Buffalo Bill. Mortenson brought something extra special to add to the ambiance of those shots.  

“The saddle is a one-of-a-kind replica of a Buffalo Bill saddle I made in 1993,” he said. “It's based on one he used in the Wild West Show in Paris, France.”

The actual saddle is on display in the Buffalo Bill Museum at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West. Mortenson got to take his replica inside to show how closely it resembles the original. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Biggest Celebrity"}]

Clyde will be making the most of his trip to Cody. In addition to leading off the Cody Stampede Parades, he’ll be making a grand entrance during the Cody Stampede Rodeo.

[{"type":"text","text":"“He’ll be here through July 4,” Mortenson said."}]

Clyde’s other big accolade is that he’s saddle-trained. Mortenson’s son, Wyatt, an actor and stunt performer, broke into show business as “The Buffalo Rider" by sharing photos and videos of himself riding Clyde.

Clyde will be saddled up for the parades and rodeos but might go riderless for the occasion.

The secret to Clyde’s success is his temperament and his self-identity. He might be a big bull bison, but he doesn’t seem to know that, and Mortenson hasn’t tried to persuade his best client otherwise.

Clyde "The Buffalo" arrived in Cody for the Cody Stampede Rodeo and Parades, and his first stop Thursday was for a drink at Buffalo Bill's Bar in the legendary Wild West showman's historic Irma Hotel. "He likes bourbon and margaritas," said Clyde's owner.

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