Daily Darwin

[{"type":"text","text":"Taking a shortcut when taking out the trash....."}]

Darwin 10 19 25

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

<title>Daily Darwin: Sunday, October 19, 2025 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Taking a shortcut when taking out the trash.....

Daily Darwin: Sunday, October 19, 2025

 Taking a shortcut when taking out the trash.....

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

Clair McFarland

Politics

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"GREEN RIVER--Yes, Libertarians organize. "}]

They did so Sunday, in a state party convention at the Eagles hall in Green River. The demeanor was relaxed, the attendees were few. 

But the indie-brand IPAs sat untouched and the punch-up jokes fell silent when Shawn Johnson, who sought and later unanimously won the party’s nomination for U.S. House, delivered a speech that left attendees electrified. 

“The Democrats promise to manage your own life for you and your own good. The Republicans promise smaller government, and when they have the power, they grow it,” said Johnson. “The American people are left with the bill, the debt. With fewer choices, fewer freedoms, less trust in the system.” 

He cast this moment as historic, as a moment in which faith in the two-party system is crumbling, leaving only frustration for the “political establishment,” but opportunity for a revival of the Founding Fathers’ policy ethics. 

“We’re told that freedom is dangerous, speech must be dangerous, and privacy is outdated. We’re told economic choices belong to the bureaucrats and corporations,” Johnson said. “We’re told our rights are conditional. They’re rights to be restricted, granted, rationed - and suspended whenever the power decides they need to be suspended.

“But rights do not come from politicians or government agencies. They don’t come from the president. They belong to the individual,” he said. “They’re rights from being, inherently, human. And it’s the duty of the government to protect them, not to ration them.” 

Johnson urged Americans to heed what he called modern warning signs of encroaching fascism and authoritarianism: a growing demand for censorship, expanding surveillance, and “political leaders who increasingly view dissent as a threat” instead of a cornerstone of this nation’s system of governance. 

“We see government agencies exercising powers never imagined by our founding fathers,” Johnson said. “Authoritarianism does not announce itself. It arrives piece by piece: one emergency at a time. One exception at a time. One expansion of power at a time.”

Authoritarianism grows, Johnson continued, when people are told to trade their “liberty for security, freedom for convenience, and individual rights for political promises.”

Johnson cast the American governmental power as centralizing in an unprecedented volume. He said it falls to each generation to decide whether to tolerate that. 

And he launched a stark policy stance of his own. 

“The answer is not a stronger ruler. It’s not a more powerful bureaucracy. It’s not putting people in charge of the machinery,” said Johnson. “The answer is dismantling that machinery. Because the problem isn’t necessarily who holds the power. The problem is how much power exists to be held.” 

Johnson isn’t messing around, he indicated. 

While the Libertarian Party hasn’t been a major party in Wyoming since 2014-2015, it’s maintained a quiet influence. 

Former state Rep. Marshall Burt, L-Green River, held a seat in the House for one term from 2021-22. 

Riverton-based Libertarian candidate Bethany Baldes has run two close races for House District 55. She lost to two different Republican opponents, by a mere 53 votes in 2018 and 32 votes in 2020. 

Johnson told the convention delegates it’s time to get serious. 

While the Wyoming Legislature is around 93% Republican, multiple members have evident Libertarian streaks - such as Sens. Bob Ide (Casper), Evie Brennan (Cheyenne) and Cale Case (Lander), and Rep. Daniel Singh (Cheyenne). 

Democratic legislators in Wyoming often break Libertarian on issues as well - as a means to stave off Republican social policy overtures. 

“Now is not the time for the Libertarian Party to think small,” he said. “We’re often seen as a protest vote. Someone who can throw a wrench in the system. I think it’s the time to win.” 

He said Wyoming’s rugged, courageous, hardworking, independent cultural temperament makes the state the perfect planting ground for a liberty revival. 

“Wyoming doesn’t wait for Washington (DC) to get permission. We didn’t build our destiny on government programs. We built it on grit. On courage. On self-reliance,” he said. “And the people who settled this land did not ask bureaucrats how to live. They weathered blizzards, droughts, isolation and uncertainty.”

He added: “They endured. Because they believed in something more powerful than just comfort. They believed in freedom - and that spirit still lives here.” 

On Nov. 3 Johnson will face Lisa Kinney or Elena Del Reel - whichever wins the Democratic nomination in the U.S. House race, as well as whoever wins the 10-way contest for the Republican nomination. 

The GOP contenders are state Senate President Bo Biteman, Teton County philanthropist Steve Friess, former Superintendent of Public Instruction Jillian Balow, Secretary of State Chuck Gray, Casper-based veteran Kevin Christensen, David Giralt, Casper businessman Reid Rasner, former legislator Keith Goodenough, Moran rancher Frank Chapman, and Richard Dodson. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Who Is Johnson?"}]

Johnson, formerly of Casper and now of Thermopolis was an Army combat medic for 21 years and was deployed to Iraq in 2003-2004. He served as a Natrona County Sheriff’s jail deputy for 13 years, and a Casper city councilman for two terms including one year as vice-mayor in 2019.

Then he went to law school and earned his J.D. He’s been a practicing attorney in Wyoming in the areas of family law and criminal defense for two years. 

He ran for state House in 2020 and for Natrona County Commission in 2022. 

On Sunday, no one challenged Johnson for the party nomination, but the vote system offered a vote for “no one” as an option. Meaning, the delegates could have chosen not to have a nominee rather than nominate Johnson. 

“We’ve got a legitimate candidate this time,” Richard Brubaker, a major-office Libertarian candidate of numerous past election cycles, told Cowboy State Daily after the meeting.

Brubaker told the convention he’s not running for office this year. His ballot presence has in the past kept the party above the required vote minimum for minor party status. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Other Votes"}]

The convention delegates also nominated three state House candidates to run under the Libertarian Party banner. Those are: 

Ryan Shollenberger for Cheyenne-based House District 11, which incumbent Republican Rep. Jacob Wasserburger is vacating in January;

Carrie Satterwhite for Cody-based House District 50 - which incumbent Republican Rep. Rachel Rodriguez-Williams is leaving to run for Secretary of State;

and Joe Porambo for Midwest-area House District 58 - currently held by the Republican Rep. Bill Allemand. 

While the highly decisive Republican and Democratic primary election falls on Aug. 18, the general election - where the Libertarians can test their electoral favor - is set for Nov. 3. 

The party also elected Shollenberger to its executive board, and the board in turn reelected prior chair Zachary Padilla to serve as chair once again. 

Rather than adjourn, the party recessed at the end of Sunday’s convention. The convention will reconvene for its second half June 17 at 6 p.m.

Until then, the Libertarian Party has an open call for its convention delegates to nominate political candidates to run on its ticket. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Statehouse"}]

Shollenberger has a very busy campaign season ahead. 

He’s slated to face whoever wins the two-way GOP primary race between Dan McIntosh and Paul Wing, along with Democratic contender Britney Tennant. 

He told the convention he’s a longtime Libertarian originally from South Florida. He joined the Air Force in 2009, spent 12 years as an active-duty weather forecaster, traveled the world and was deployed twice: to Afghanistan and Colombia. 

He joined the Air Force Reserve for one year about five years ago, then joined the Wyoming National Guard, where he serves in Lander as a field artillery officer. 

He is a substitute teacher in the Cheyenne-based Laramie County School District No. 1, and he became a wildland firefighter as of last year. 

He promised, if elected, to uphold individual rights, pursue school choice-friendly policies, protect and expand the free market, seek health care freedom, reduce unnecessary regulation and put “trust back into the hands of the people.”

Porambo also delivered a speech, via virtual link.

He ran without success for House District 58 in 2016 and 2020 against then-Rep. Pat Sweeney, R-Casper.

Allemand holds that seat now, and has a primary challenger in Bar Nunn Mayor Peter Boyer.

Porambo criticized both of them, casting Allemand as a bully and Boyer as tone deaf to the people. 

Porambo also derided the Legislature’s repeated increases in government spending. The Legislature increased spending yet again this year, he noted. 

Shawn johnson 5 31 26

<title>Libertarians Nominate Combat Medic, Attorney Shawn Johnson To Run For U.S. House | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Shawn Johnson won the Libertarian Party’s nomination for Wyoming’s U.S. House seat Sunday, after giving a speech that electrified attendees. "We’ve got a legitimate candidate this time,” said longtime leader of the Libertarian Party Richard Brubaker.

Libertarians Nominate Combat Medic, Attorney Shawn Johnson To Run For U.S. House

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Dale Killingbeck

Dale Killingbeck

Wyoming Life

Around Wyoming

A corrupt Cheyenne mayor and his chief of police ran a protection racket in 1944 that extorted money from black bar owners and encouraged prostitution, leading to their own criminal convictions.  

A new book about how their criminal operation unraveled because of a sting operation is coming out soon.

While working at the University of Wyoming’s American Heritage Center as its associate director, now-retired Rick Ewig remembers longtime Laramie County Attorney Byron Hirst mentioning his prosecution of Cheyenne’s former mayor in 1944.

Hirst, who served as county prosecutor from 1943 to 1947, was filing his papers with the American Heritage Center around 2000 or 2001 and Ewig helped him with the project. 

The topic about the mayor came up more than once.

“I thought, that’s really kind of interesting,” Ewig said. “I thought, when I retire, I should write something on that.”

After retiring in 2016, the historian came back to the idea around the time of the pandemic and, once he started digging into the story, found that there was a “lot more to it than just corruption.”

Four years later he is coming out with his book titled “We Are In Charge Now, The Story of Corruption & Intrigue in World War II Cheyenne.” 

The 200-page history delves into the election of Ira L. Hanna and how after arriving in office, along with his police chief and two officers, they attempted to extort “protection money” from black businesses in the city.

Ewig’s research sent him into Hirst’s papers that were at the American Heritage Center and the Old West Museum in Cheyenne as well as through the daily newspapers to get the context of wartime Cheyenne in 1943 and 1944.

“It turns out that Cheyenne was segregated at that time,” Ewig said. "If you were African American, you lived on the west side and that’s where Lola West ran the Black and Tan Club (Cafe), and there was another African American bar owner, Pop Grimes.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"“He ran the Porters and Waiters Club.”"}]

Hirst had kept the information he compiled for his prosecution case, although there was not a trial transcript, Ewig said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A New Mayor"}]

Hanna, who had served as the Laramie County treasurer and then was elected as the county assessor, ran for the mayoral office in 1944. 

After becoming mayor he appointed Jesse Ekdall to be his police chief.

Shortly after coming to power, he and Ekdall approached the two black club owners to sell them protection as well as encourage prostitution, gambling, and illegal liquor sales, Ewig said. 

They were told they would be protected from the Cheyenne Police Department and the military police at Fort F.E. Warren.

“Hirst had kept all those documents related to that,” Ewig said.

The “most fascinating” one he found was related to West and Grimes going to Hirst after being instructed by the mayor and police chief to “not tell anybody” about his protection offer. 

A sting operation was set up between Hirst, two federal IRS agents, and the club owners.

Hirst and the feds were able to obtain a dictaphone device and place a microphone under Pop Grimes’ desk at the Porters and Waiters Club and recorded a meeting between the two black club owners, Hannah, Ekdall, and the two officers in his department.

During the hours-long meeting, Hanna and Ekdall were recorded saying that: “This is what we are going to do. We are in charge now. You have to pay us. If you don’t pay us we are going to shut down your business,” Ewig said.

Ewig said there is no evidence showing that the mayor or police chief attempted to strong arm any white business in town. 

Due to the war and the soldiers at Fort Warren in addition to the other war-support efforts that brought workers to town, prostitution was an issue.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Money Changed Hands"}]

Newspaper trial accounts show money was paid by West and Grimes to the mayor and police and the serial numbers of the bills were recorded.

Fort Warren was putting pressure on the city to get rid of all prostitution due to issues with venereal disease among the troops that hampered training, Ewig said.

But Ewig said the mayor and new police chief were trying to “open up” the city to more prostitution and illegal money to bring in funds despite the city’s stance against it.

His research found newspaper ads from Hanna as he ran for office that promised voters “good, clean government.”

Although all he had was the old newspapers to go by, Ewig did not find any evidence of any election manipulation that may have brought Hanna to power. 

Hanna’s record of public service to that point as the county assessor appeared above board.

“I didn’t find anything that really explained why after 20 years of not any issues at all, all of a sudden, he sees an opportunity to extort money from a certain group in Cheyenne,” Ewig said. 

“In the last part of the book, I do provide answers to what other people thought, but I never found anything that explained it directly,” he said.

During the trial of the quartet, the Casper Tribune-Herald reported on May 5, 1944, that Hanna testified that the money collected were “fines” for illegal activities and were destined for the city’s park and recreation fund.

Hanna said he and Ekdall decided to make the black business owners “pay fines” if the Fort Warren military police allowed prostitution, gambling, and the sale of liquor in the businesses, the newspaper reported. 

Hanna testified he received $340 from his police chief and put it in an envelope with other funds collected and a list of “from whom for what.”

Hanna testified he was found with three $5 bills that had been paid by West on his person because he wanted to “get a $5 bill to contribute to the Red Cross.” 

He exchanged a $20 bill for four fives that were in the envelope, he said.

West’s daughter testified at the trial and said she paid $100 on two different dates to police for protection. 

One of the officers on trial told her that if she received a phone call and “told us to wash our necks, there was going to be a raid,” the newspaper said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Ewig said all four men were convicted."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Sentenced And Commutation"}]

The Casper Herald-Tribune reported on May 7, 1944, that both Hanna and Ekdall were sentenced to not less than seven or more than 10 years in prison on charges of soliciting and accepting a bribe. 

The officers and E.K. Violette received a sentence of two to three years, and officer G.J. Morris a one to two years.

However, on Oct. 4, 1945, the Casper Tribune-Herald reported that both Hanna’s and Ekdall’s sentences had been commuted by a state board of pardons and they would be eligible for parole on Dec. 15, 1945, and discharged from parole on Dec. 15, 1946.

The newspaper reported the board of pardons had received more than 200 letters encouraging the commutation of their sentences. 

While in prison, both men quickly obtained trustee status with Hanna keeping the books for prisoner accounts at the prison and Ekdall serving as a caretaker for the governor’s mansion.

Ewig said his research did not corroborate something that Hirst had told him a couple of decades ago about mafia from Denver and Chicago being involved with criminal activities as well. 

He said there is a chapter devoted to one individual who may have had ties to the mafia, but he could not prove it.

The book is about more than the corruption of the mayor. 

Ewig said he tried to portray the whole atmosphere of Cheyenne during that time in the war.

“I’ve done a lot of Wyoming history, and this one was so Cheyenne specific that it was fascinating about life in World War II Cheyenne,” he said. “It’s not only the story about Ira Hanna and Lola West, I also look at what Cheyenne was like during World War II. 

"It was a boomtown, and there was a housing shortage, and all these issues come up.”

The book, Ewig’s third, is published by WordsWorth Publishing of Cody and will be available in bookstores in the next week or two, he said. It can be ordered now from 

A bonus from his research led to a friendship with Lola West’s grandson, Leon Reed of Cheyenne, Ewig said.

“He allowed me to use some of the family photographs in the book,” he said. “I’m going to sit with Mr. Reed and do and oral history with him because he would like the story of the African American community in Cheyenne to be better known, and to be explored more. So, that is going to come out of this research as well.”

Black and Tan Cafe inset 5 31 26

<title>Wyoming History: Cheyenne's Mayor, Police Chief Convicted Of Extorting Black Bar Owners | Cowboy State Daily</title>

It was 80 years ago that Cheyenne’s mayor and police chief were convicted of running a protection racket and extorting black bar owners. "You have to pay us. If you don’t pay us we are going to shut down your business,” federal agents recorded them saying.

Wyoming History: Cheyenne's Mayor, Police Chief Convicted Of Extorting Black Bar Owners

Employee kate meadows cropped

Kate Meadows

BLACK HAWK, S.D. — Six years after a massive sinkhole opened in a residential neighborhood in the South Dakota Black Hills about 55 miles from the Wyoming border, homeowners are still living in financial limbo.

The 85-foot-deep sinkhole — and roughly 100 feet wide and 650 feet long — revealed a sprawling abandoned underground gypsum mine beneath the Hideaway Hills subdivision near Black Hawk, South Dakota.

In the years since, dozens of homes have sat abandoned and deteriorating while property owners wait for answers, compensation and accountability.

Their homes are essentially worthless. Many families are still making mortgage payments on houses they can’t safely live in while a lawsuit over who bears responsibility inches through the court system.

A pending South Dakota Supreme Court decision could determine whether affected residents have any path forward financially.

“We do not yet have an opinion from the Supreme Court,” said Kathy Barrow, an attorney with national law firm Fox Rothschild, who represents the homeowners in the case.

“There is no timeline, unfortunately,” she added. “It could be six months, next year sometime.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"What Lies Beneath Hideaway Hills"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"The disaster traces back decades."}]

For more than 50 years, gypsum mining operations carved a network of underground tunnels beneath the area. ‘

In the mid-1980s, the state of South Dakota bought land there for gypsum mining activities connected to a nearby cement plant.

The state later reclaimed roughly 16 acres of mined land and reseeded it for rangeland use before selling the property to a developer in 1994. The land was eventually sold again to other developers, who built the Hideaway Hills subdivision in the early 2000s.

[{"type":"text","text":"Residents began moving into the neighborhood around 2005."}]

Just a few years later, homeowners started noticing cracks in foundations and shifting ground.

[{"type":"text","text":"Then in April 2020, the earth gave way."}]

The sinkhole opened near where resident Albert Reitz had been mowing his lawn.

Authorities initially evacuated residents from 13 homes because of concerns about ground instability.

Subsequent testing revealed the problem was far more extensive than initially believed.

Studies later determined all 153 homes in the subdivision were uninhabitable because of underground instability tied to the abandoned mine workings.

A study led by geological engineering professor Mohammad Sadeghi of Montana Technological University found additional underground tunnels beneath the subdivision and warned of continuing geologic risk. 

Researchers also raised concerns that mine workings could extend beneath Interstate 90.

[{"type":"text","text":"Meanwhile, property values collapsed."}]

“The ground is continuing to deteriorate,” Barrow told Cowboy State Daily.

She said the instability reaches far deeper than anything tied to subdivision construction.

“What the developers did was not the cause,” Barrow said. “The ground instability goes deeper than any ground the developers would have touched.”

In 2024, Hideaway Hills homeowners filed a class-action lawsuit against the state of South Dakota seeking more than $60 million in damages.

The lawsuit argues the state bears responsibility because of its mining activities and because homeowners were never informed about the risks lurking underground.

Barrow argued the land was originally intended for pasture use — not residential development — and said residents had no warning about the underground dangers.

[{"type":"text","text":"The state disputes those claims."}]

South Dakota argues it is not liable because it did not conduct underground mining operations at the site and says the mine collapse would have happened regardless of the state’s activities.

South Dakota Circuit Court Judge Eric Stawn ruled in favor of the state in September 2024, finding the state immune from tort liability claims.

Barrow argues the case was never framed as a tort claim in the first place.

A year after the circuit court ruling, victims asked the South Dakota Supreme Court to hold the state accountable. That decision is pending.

[{"type":"text","text":"Meanwhile, the subdivision remains largely frozen in time."}]

A chain link fences surrounds the sink hole. The concrete is cracked and pale with weeds growing up in the cracks. Uncut grass is brown and long.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Why Wyoming Is Different"}]

The Hideaway Hills disaster highlights a major difference between South Dakota and Wyoming when it comes to abandoned mine reclamation.

Wyoming participates in the federal Abandoned Mine Land program, an initiative designed to protect public health, safety and the environment by identifying, reclaiming and restoring lands and waters degraded by historic mining practices.

The program is funded by fees collected from every kind of coal that is produced, according to Keith Guille, outreach manager for the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality. 

Wyoming, a coal-producing state, maintains a state-administered Abandoned Mine Land program through its Department of Environmental Quality.  

Because South Dakota is not a coal-producing state, it does not administer such a program, according to the South Dakota Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

Guille said Wyoming’s abandoned mine reclamation work is funded through fees collected from current coal production.

“Obviously it’s about public health and safety,” Guille said. “That’s why we do abandoned mines.”

Wyoming’s AML division routinely performs underground reclamation work by grouting abandoned mine tunnels with concrete slurry to stabilize the ground above them.

Some of those abandoned mines lie hundreds of feet beneath existing communities, Guille said.

Rock Springs is one example where underground mine reclamation has continued for years. Similar abandoned mine concerns also exist beneath parts of Gillette and the Hanna area, Guille said.

Because abandoned mines predate 1977, before modern mining regulations existed, maps are often incomplete or inaccurate, making underground reclamation especially difficult.

“It’s a moving target when you talk about underground abandoned mines,” Guille said. “It’s a long work in progress.”

Wyoming residents also have access to the Wyoming Mine Subsidence Insurance Program, which allows homeowners to purchase insurance coverage against ground collapse caused by abandoned underground mines.

South Dakota has no comparable state-administered abandoned mine land program because the federal AML system is funded through coal production fees, and South Dakota is not a coal-producing state.

For Hideaway Hills residents, that distinction has become painfully clear.

Six years after the sinkhole opened, many are still waiting to learn whether anyone will ultimately be held responsible for the ground beneath their homes giving way.

Sinkhole 4 5 31 26

<title>Six Years Later, Black Hills Sinkhole Victims Still Waiting For Relief | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Six years after a massive 85-foot-deep sinkhole opened in a residential neighborhood in the Black Hills, homeowners live in financial limbo. Dozens of homes have sat abandoned and deteriorating while property owners wait for answers, compensation and accountability.

Six Years Later, Black Hills Sinkhole Victims Still Waiting For Relief

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's business and tourism reporter, Renée Jean

Renée Jean

EVANSTON — One of the first times Jim Davis walked into the city’s historic Roundhouse and Railyards decades ago, it was like a scene from a movie. 

There was the crumbling railroad roundhouse, with its broken windows and pigeon feathers floating on the air, spinning as his footsteps stirred little puffs of dirt.

The rusted tracks disappeared into darkness. The roof was leaking, and the smell of that decay was everywhere. 

But there were rays of sunlight shining down into that darkness, and he had the sudden sense that all was not lost here. 

This was something special, something worth saving. 

Saving Evanston’s roundhouse has taken $28 million in private money and grants, as well as decades of volunteer time and effort, Davis said. 

A century after Union Pacific stopped using it, decades of work has saved and restored Evanston’s historic Roundhouse and Railyards. The $28 million spent so far has made it one of the rare roundhouses in the U.S. that’s still completely operational. 

Daily Darwin: Sunday, October 19, 2025

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