It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Thursday, October 9th. I’m Mac Watson, bringing you headlines from the Cowboy State Daily news center… “Brought to you by the Wyoming Business Council. Wyoming youth are our future, but they're leaving the state at ALMOST TWICE the national average. What would bring them back home? Share your bold ideas with the Wyoming Business Council at wbc dot P U B forward slash story."
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The Green River City Council has voted unanimously to abolish the use of a gas chamber for animal euthanasia, leaving just one known town in the United States to continue using the controversial practice. Cowboy State Daily’s Jackson Walker reports the vote to use a different method of euthanasia was hailed by animal rights advocates.
“Moving forward, the town is going to agree not to euthanize animals using the gas chamber and instead lean on more humane methods such as lethal injection. Advocates say, however, that sometimes these lethal injections are a little more hazardous for veterinary workers who have to have direct contact with an animal instead of being behind a barrier, such as in the situation of a gas chamber. I was also told that sometimes these gas chambers are easier on a worker's mental health because they don't have to be directly involved in the process.”
The only other town in America still using a gas chamber to euthanize animals is Evanston, Wyoming.
Read the full story HERE.
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In what started as an administrative rule discussion Wednesday in the State Building Commission, Secretary of State Chuck Gray reopened old criticisms against Gov. Mark Gordon. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that the governor was ready to rebut some of Gray’s claims and State Treasurer Curt Meier announced that he’s sick of Gray interruptions.
“This time, a couple novel things happened. The governor seemed like he was expecting to get grief over a past veto letter, and he whipped out a physical copy of the letter and said, Maybe you'd like to read this. So that tells us like he was expecting this exact critique..And that was when treasurer Kurt Meyer was like, the Secretary is always using these meetings to make political points and pontificate…They eventually did unanimously vote to advance a rule change.”
The initial discussion was on a rule change requiring Wyoming agencies to “endeavor” to negotiate concealed-carry permissions with private landlords whose buildings they lease.
Read the full story HERE.
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The Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation is looking for a rare set of all-terrain vehicle tires matching a tread pattern left in a field, hoping it could help them solve a cold case of the murder of a Cheyenne mother more than 22 years ago. Cowboy State Daily’s Scott Schwebke explains how these tires could help crack this case wide open.
“They believe they're a certain brand that they've been looking for, but they haven't been able to find the brand because it's no longer manufactured. So they're just putting out a call out to people that they have one of these tires to provide it to them …So one thing that's good about this is a tire is so rare that when they when they get it and they're able to confirm it, they'll be able to narrow the list of possible vehicles down, because not many vehicles have this kind of tire.
The badly beaten body of Shawny Lee Smith, who was 32 at the time, was discovered by a property owner on Feb. 8, 2003, in Weld County, Colorado, just a quarter mile from the Wyoming border.
Read the full story HERE.
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Sometimes accidentally flipping a letter can stir up a whole lot of controversy.
During the annual “Banned Books” week at Kelly Walsh High School in Casper someone taped a message in blood-red dripping letters on the library window that read: “Banned Books Lust Won’t Stay Buried." Cowboy State Daily’s Dale Killingbeck looked into the meaning of the sentence and found it’s much ado about nothing.
“It turns out that the school district said that “J” was accidentally flipped, and it should have said, ban books just can't stay buried. And so there was a lot of social media response to that post about banned books and sexually explicit materials, that kind of thing. But even though when she learned it was corrected, the trustee said, You know what? She asked why the school is promoting Banned Books Week…there are books that the …school parents don't want the school district to buy because they don't want their tax money going to these explicit materials.
Natrona County District spokeswoman Tanya Southerland says the intended and corrected message is “Banned Books Just Won’t Stay Buried.”
Read the full story HERE.
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Former executive library director, Terri Lesley, sued Campbell County and a private family after she was ousted from her job. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that Lesley claimed in her suit that certain commissioners and library board members violated federal employment discrimination laws, and retaliated against Lesley for her alliance with LGBTQ causes.
“First, Leslie sued the local family, the Bennetts, and that case is still ongoing. And then, like year and a half later, she's suing Campbell County officials…And they didn't match perfectly, but they did have a law in common where Leslie invoked the KKK act, basically saying that she was being discriminated against for advocating for a protected class…so in the Bennett's case, the judge kind of introduced what we could call a modernized reading of that saying, Oh, this law protects LGBTQ advocates, and it was it for Wyoming federal court, very novel reading of this old, 100 plus year law.”
Campbell County now has a month to get Lesley the seven-hundred-thousand dollars and the current and former county officials won’t admit any wrongdoing.
Read the full story HERE.
–What started as a treasure hunt for uranium in the Pine Ridge area of the Powder River Basin is now giving Wyoming a larger footprint in the nuclear industry.
Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison explains how Wyoming fits into Snow Lake Resources plans.
“Even as you consolidate and really ramp up uranium production in Wyoming, there's still a long journey that uranium has to take in order to make it, in order to make it from the mine to the nuclear reactor. I spoke to someone from Snow Lake, and he described how, you know, it would bounce through a series of steps, going from Canada to New Mexico, being processed and then finally converted and created into fuel. Now it's possible that that uranium could come back to Wyoming and maybe go to a manufacturing facility in Gillette.”
Snow Lake Resources, out of Canada, is a uranium exploration and development company that focuses on uranium mining and fuel development.
Read the full story HERE.
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I’ll be back with more news, right after this.
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Two Wyomingites who served in the military are reacting to U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s address to an assembly of military leaders last week in Virginia where he spoke on the department’s goals amid what he called a growing “moment of urgency” for the United States. Cowboy State Daily’s Jackson Walker reports that both former military members have strong opinions of Secretary Hegseth’s speech.
“I spoke to Heath Harrower, who was a Green Beret, and I spoke to Gail Symons, who was in the Navy, and they both had really long service careers, and they both had a lot to say about Hegseth’s comments. Now, Symons, being one of the first female members of the Navy to serve on a ship, she said that she had to fight through a lot of hardship during her time in the military, and therefore really benefited from some of these inclusion programs. However, on the other side, Harrower said that he was directly responsible for overseeing dei during his time in the military, and said that while it was well intentioned, the idea didn't necessarily manifest in the way that military leaders expected.”
Hegseth had traveled to Quantico, Virginia where he delivered remarks concerning the Department of Defense being made into a “woke department” by Washington D.C. political leaders.
Read the full story HERE.
– A digital revolution in deer hunting is sweeping Eastern states with hunters being given the option to report their kills, and even “tag” deer through smartphone apps.
Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports that although many things are moving to digital, it’s not coming to Wyoming anytime soon.
“Everything is going, to our phones, and back east, they're increasingly doing that with hunting. And so far as hunters can check their deer in. That's basically, that means, if they shoot a deer, they can, they can check it in with whatever their game and fish department is…some states, like New York State is they're taking that even a step further, to where you can actually tag your deer electronically…you don't even need to carry a paper hunting license anymore…So I did reach out to our Wyoming Game and Fish Department, asked them if you know if they're planning on doing this. And the answer is, don't hold your breath.”
The digital expansion into the hunting world is just the latest area where everyday licensing requirements are moving to mobile and digital mediums including transit cards, airline ticketing, and even driver’s licenses in states such as Colorado.
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 watching - I’m Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.
