It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Tuesday, January 13th. I’m Mac Watson.
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Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder on Monday announced she is running for governor. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland Degenfelder had been "strongly considering" the move and had received an endorsement from President Trump urging her to run last week.
“We have three years of political leadership by degenfelder in this state, where she's led our public education system. And during that time, she has backed school choice, she has voted in favor of wind leasing, stating that that's a free market approach by Wyoming. She really ran in part on a campaign of blocking sexually explicit books in school libraries, or helping schools deal with that on their own, which she did end up doing. She did end up issuing guidance to school districts so that they could deal with that issue.”
The Republican incumbent Gov. Mark Gordon is at the end of his two-term limit this year. The state has court history indicating he could get the limit overturned, but not without a legal challenge. Gordon has not announced his political intentions for the 2026 election.
Read the full story HERE.
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Wyoming’s senior U.S. Senator announced Monday morning that he’s endorsing U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman to serve alongside him in the upper chamber. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that Senator Barrasso said Hageman “is going to be terrific in the U.S. Senate,” but why such an early endorsement?
“I asked him. I was like, this is early. We've not had on the state side – we've not had the legislative session yet. She doesn't really have an opponent yet. No one else has declared. Why are you so early? I asked him that point blank, and he said, Look, I want to get her out there as a front runner to get this race in the bag, so I can focus on trickier cases and hold the Republican majority in the Senate.”
Sen. John Barrasso’s current counterpart in the upper chamber of Congress is Sen. Cynthia Lummis, who announced Dec. 19 that she’s not seeking to run for a second six-year term this year. Hageman, Wyoming’s lone delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives, announced four days later that she will run to fill Lummis’ seat.
Read the full story HERE.
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A snowmobiler in the Wyoming backcountry southeast of Afton died Sunday after he and another rider triggered an avalanche that buried him about 2 feet below the surface and under his snowmobile. Cowboy State Daily’s Kate Meadows reports that despite having an airbag on his snowmobile, Nicholas Bringquist of Springville, Utah was still trapped beneath the avalanche.
“The air bag is not attached to the snowmobile. It's a piece of equipment that a rider carries, especially when in the back country. When it deploys, it is supposed to keep the rider above the surface to ride out the avalanche to keep them from getting buried. But in this case, it did not work that way…the snowmobiler was trapped under about two feet of snow underneath, and was underneath his snowmobile. So it's his, it's the snow, then his snowmobile, then he and his partner pulled him out and attempted to perform. Did perform CPR, but it was again, unsuccessful.”
Frank Carus, director of the Bridger-Teton Avalanche Center, tells Cowboy State Daily that the two snowmobilers were on a steep, ungroomed slope when the avalanche was triggered at about 8,800 feet of elevation and extremely avalanche-prone.
Read the full story HERE.
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The Wyoming legislative committee crafting a preliminary state budget voted Monday to deny the governor’s $111.8 million recommendation to give state employees raises. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that the debate is not over.
“What the judiciary committee is doing this week is the markup. So the budget, the budget is like a train that people are putting stuff on and taking stuff off of as it winds toward the station and the first iteration of that train is the governor's version of it, the governor's recommendation. And so he sent that into the legislative committee joint appropriations, which on Monday was like, we don't want this $111.8 million for raises for all state employees across the enterprise. We're going to pull that out. They later did go in and put in 5 million for some state troopers and road maintenance people, including snow plow drivers. But the train’s next stop is the state legislature.” Rep. Trey Sherwood of Laramie says wages have not kept pace with inflation, pointing to economic data that the state’s total wage growth in the past decade was 27.6% compared to the private sector’s 37.2%.
Read the full story HERE.
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I’ll be back with more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.
Cowboy State Daily news continues now…
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The Trump administration’s EPA has finalized its rejection of closing a coal-fired power plant in Colorado, drawing sharp criticism from environmental and health groups. Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison reports that the decision extends the life of a plant that burns Wyoming coal.
“Administrator Cyrus Western, who's a former Sheridan legislator. He runs the office for the EPA out of Denver, looks over about eight states, I think. And he says this is just another way that the Trump administration is trying to end the war on coal, that he says it's a false choice that we've been presented that you can have public health or you can have electricity generated by coal. That's a very controversial position to take in Colorado…Administrator Western, says he's carrying out the mandate he's received from the Trump administration and clashing with Colorado officials over that.”
At the heart of the decision is the Ray D. Nixon Power Plant, which serves Colorado Springs and has burned Wyoming Powder River Basin coal since 2003.
Read the full story HERE.
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The woman accused of absconding with her son from Wyoming, then killing the 11-month-old when authorities caught up with her, wants out of jail. Cowboy State Daily’s Jen Kocher reports that Madeline Daly will remain locked up as she faces a first-degree murder charge.
“Madeline Daley, the mom accused of killing her 11 month old boy, is currently being held in the Grant County New Mexico detention center…It was a custody hearing today, Monday afternoon in Grant County to determine whether she would remain incarcerated leading up to her criminal proceedings, which are still in process. And the judge said, Absolutely not. We are keeping you in jail. And her attorney was inaudible, unfortunately, on the meeting, so it was unclear what he was saying, what argument he was making, but the DA countered by saying, these charges are egregious, and he fears for both her own safety as well as the safety of the stoners, because she allegedly took the boy's life to keep the him from visiting Jake Stoner, the biological father and his family. That was her justification in taking his life. She told the detectives after her arrest, according to court documents.”
Daly allegedly shot and killed her son back in December rather than ceding custody to the biological father in compliance with a court order when she was confronted by New Mexico authorities in an RV park.
Read the full story HERE.
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A young black bear has caused a stir in the Jackson area, spotted still awake and running around in January. Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports that a local wildlife tour guide says it’s not unheard of, but the unseasonably warm weather may have confused the bear about when bedtime is.
“It's more like a juvenile, sub-adult black bear, who was seen kind of running around the Jackson area recently, like as recently as last week. I talked to a local, a guy who's a wilderness guide and a photographer there, and he got some good pictures of this bear on Christmas Eve. And we've had a couple articles already about how the warm weather is affecting things, and it might be keeping some bears out longer than usual. And he said because this bear, it's not a cub, but it's not, it's more like just left home age, and so since it probably just separated from its mother, and it's this weird, warm year, he said that might play in, that might factor in to why this particular bear is not running around so late.”
Soulliere told Cowboy State Daily that black bears and grizzlies typically separate from their mothers at around 2 to 3 years old.
Read the full story HERE.
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.
