You Still Here

[{"type":"text","text":"Last man standing, as narrated by MMA announcer, Steve Inman....."}]

Inman 1 31 26

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

<title>Steve Inman: Saturday, January 31, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Last man standing, as narrated by MMA announcer, Steve Inman.....

Steve Inman: Saturday, January 31, 2026

 Last man standing, as narrated by MMA announcer, Steve Inman.....

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

Clair McFarland

Government & Politics

Politics

Make Liberty Win targeted former House Speaker Albert Sommers hard this year, with $5,824 and mailers featuring crying children.

The political action committee (PAC) that has spent $549,144 on Wyoming’s Republican primary election since Jan. 1 also attacked Republican Sens. Cale Case and Evie Brennan, Reps. Lloyd Larsen, Bob Nicholas, Elissa Campbell and Jr Riggins, and the former senator and now candidate RJ Kost.

It backs candidates who are members of or aligned with the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, as well as U.S. House candidate Chuck Gray and governor candidate Brent Bien.

Make Liberty Win spent more money attacking Case than any other Wyoming candidate, at $14,177.

The group leveled $13,220 against Larsen, $10,932 against Kost, $7,415 against Nicholas, $6,592 against Campbell, $1,472 against Riggins and $38.14 against Brennan, Wyoming campaign finance records show.

It spent far more money, a collective $489,474, backing its favored candidates.

Make Liberty Win is among Wyoming’s top-spending state-level PACS and traces all this year's contributions for Wyoming races to Virginia, 

It made headlines in 2024 for printing inaccurate information 

[{"type":"text","text":"The One With The Crying Child"}]

Sommers is running to win back the Pinedale-based House seat he forsook to run unsuccessfully for the state Senate in 2024. He faces Republicans Bill Winney and Matt McGinness in the Tuesday primary election.

Sommers reviewed multiple attack fliers featuring him, in an interview last week.  

“That one on child abuse was nasty,” said Sommers. “That was just beyond the pale.”

The flyer shows a girl, roughly kindergarten age, apparently crying and covering her eyes with her overlapping hands.

“When the Wyoming Legislature voted to stop the violation of children’s innocence, Albert Sommers voted to abuse our kids,” the flyer claims. “Don’t rehire Albert Sommers on August 18th!”

The QR code on the flyer leads to a site referencing Senate File 117 of 2023, which sought to forbid public school teachers from teaching sexual-orientation and gender-identity themes to children from kindergarten through third grade. It also sought to compel school district to tell parents of changes in students’ mental, emotional or physical health.

Sommers was House Speaker that year, and 

 at the time that he kept the bill in his drawer because he believed releasing it would violate his oath to follow the state Constitution.

[{"type":"text","text":"The Wyoming Constitution bans multi-topic bills.  "}]

The 2023 bill died. At the time, both Sommers and the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Dan Dockstader, R-Afton, said the issues it covered weren’t unfolding in Wyoming’s K-3 grades.

The parental-rights topic exploded into controversy later that year, via an incident that unfolded at the high school level.

A Rock Springs couple filed a federal lawsuit alleging school district personnel hid their daughter’s transgender identity from them.

In 2024, Sommers voted in favor of a tighter version of the 2023 bill, which passed. It requires health notifications to parents and written permission from each parent before schools can give any sexual-orientation or gender-identity teaching. He voted in favor of another parental rights bill that year, expanding the parental right already in Wyoming law to the education sphere.

[{"type":"text","text":"‘Because It Works’"}]

Larsen and Case told Cowboy State Daily in a past interview that the group skews its records, and casts as leftist maneuvers some nay votes that stemmed from structural or procedural issues with bills.

Make Liberty Win Director Barrett Young told Cowboy State Daily he doesn’t buy those arguments.

“Procedural votes still count,” said Young. “This is the biggest lie, the biggest sham these incumbent politicians love to pull.”

“A vote to kill a bill is a vote to kill a bill,” said Young. “I can promise you, when Albert Sommers was speaker of the House, if he wanted a bill to pass, he pulled procedural levels to pass it.”

Young called candidates’ protests of textual or procedural issues “political doublespeak.”

“This isn’t just Wyoming, by the way. We engage state legislative races all across the country,” he said.

Young said he doesn’t believe the negative, edgy mailers are backfiring.

“The truth of the matter is, the reason you see negative mail in every single race – you look at (gubernatorial candidates Megan Degenfelder and Eric Barlow) outside groups beating the crap out of each other,” he said. “The reason you go negative, is because it works.”

Degenfelder weathered an ad characterizing her as dirty for her past lobbying work.

Barlow has weathered multiple false claims alleging he pushed for fuel tax hikes when in fact he fought against them.

Make Liberty Win ventured money to support Rep. Joel Guggenmos, R-Riverton, who didn’t file to run after he was found to be living outside his district.

It also endorsed Rep. Scott Smith, R-Lingle, in his run for state treasurer before Smith had publicly declared.

[{"type":"text","text":"Smith’s run wasn’t a well-kept secret, said Young."}]

“It’s a really interesting election,” he continued. “I think the voters in Wyoming, they have a pretty important decision to make.”

Young pointed to the Wyoming Freedom Caucus’ backing of the 25% property tax cut and bills on social issues, which he called “every conservative’s dream agenda item.”

[{"type":"text","text":"For Case, the pressure is real."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"“(The flyers) are really character assassinations,” he said."}]

Case said he’s counted at least three times a Make Liberty Win staffer has canvassed Lander and dispatched door hangers.

[{"type":"text","text":"Typically the canvassers are young adults from other states, he added."}]

“They’re like, here in Lander, saving my people from themselves,” said Case. “It’s kinda sad.”

Case said he’s also fighting Lander-based WCFL PAC, which counts a $5,000 donation out of Jackson among its contributions.

Anticipating the target on his back, Case spent more than ever – he estimates $20,000 by the election’s end – and took PAC money for the first time in his 34 years of legislative campaigning, he said.

Case said he doesn’t believe the PAC money will affect his character at this “senior” phase of his life.

“I mean, the mold of Cale Case is kinda locked in,” he said with a laugh.

[{"type":"text","text":"More About Sommers"}]

Other MLW flyers this cycle have accused Sommers of welcoming illegal immigrants into the state “with open arms!” and voting against preventing terrorist states from owning land in Wyoming.

He calls them misrepresentations of more nuanced votes on bills that were unconstitutional, problematic, or already ill-fated in the rushed budget sessions of even-numbered years.

“And a lot of people are just getting really tired of the negative ads,” said Sommers. “That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have an effect on people. But I’ve heard more this cycle that people are just tired of the negative politics than I ever have before.”

The charge that he supported terrorists’ buyout of Wyoming stems from the 2023 House Bill 116, which Rep. Bill Allemand, R-Midwest, sponsored.

More Republicans voted against that bill than for it, and it died on a House roll call vote after its first full-chamber debate.

“The bill was very broad and in my opinion it violated the Wyoming Constitution,” said Sommers, referencing Article 1 Section 29:

“No distinction shall ever be made by law between resident aliens and citizens as to the possession, taxation, enjoyment and descent of property.”

That clause is in Wyoming’s Bill of Rights because of the European farmers and ranchers who bought land in the Cowboy State during its territorial days, said Sommers.

The bill would have banned anyone from Russia or China, or any designated sponsor of terrorism, from buying land in Wyoming except less than one acre and for a personal residence.

Had it passed, the bill would have forced any person from one of those countries to “divest” of the land within two years unless that person completed certain registration requirements.

“I don’t want to see China and Russia and other bad actors, you know, or their corporations or their surrogates, come and buy up land in Wyoming,” said Sommers.

But, he added, “That bill I think, was unconstitutional, and that wasn’t the route to get it done.”

In 2024, with Sommers’ aye vote, the Legislature passed a law authorizing more scrutiny and investigation of land transfers around critical infrastructures.

Yard signs 8 17 26

<title>Virginia PAC Backing Freedom Caucus Spends Nearly $550K In Wyoming Primary | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The Virginia-based PAC Make Liberty Win, which favors the Freedom Caucus, spent nearly $550,000 on Wyoming's primary election and more than $60,000 attacking specific candidates. "The reason you go negative is because it works," said the group's director.

Virginia PAC Backing Freedom Caucus Spends Nearly $550K In Wyoming Primary

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Food

A so-called "prank caller" left a Cheyenne pizza shop holding 18 hot pizzas and a roughly $300 bill Friday.

[{"type":"text","text":"So L'Osteria Mondello did the only thing that seemed right."}]

The whole order was sent to the Cheyenne Regional Medical Center Emergency Room. 

What began as a costly prank Friday afternoon turned into an unexpected meal for health-care workers after the caller who ordered the pizzas never showed up — and the phone number used to place the order apparently belonged to someone who knew nothing about it.

For L'Osteria Mondello owner Dave Agovic, the episode was particularly frustrating because those weren't the only pizzas flying through his ovens.

At almost the same time, the restaurant had another order for 12 or 13 pizzas and yet another for seven or eight.

"I had like over 40 pizzas in the same time," Agovic told Cowboy State Daily.

The kitchen was so slammed the restaurant temporarily stopped taking  orders, telling callers it could be an hour and a half to two hours before they could accommodate them.

[{"type":"text","text":"And the people ordering the 18 pizzas wanted them fast."}]

They told the restaurant the food was for some sort of children's wrestling club, Agovic said. His crew hustled and had the order ready in roughly 40 minutes.

[{"type":"text","text":"Then nobody came."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Something Isn't Right"}]

The pizzas sat above L'Osteria Mondello's ovens, where the restaurant keeps orders warm until customers arrive, but space was disappearing.

Agovic still had legitimate orders coming through the kitchen, and 18 unclaimed pizzas take up an awful lot of room.

[{"type":"text","text":"Eventually, he called the number that had placed the order."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"The person who answered said they hadn't ordered any pizzas."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"That's when Agovic realized what had happened."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"I figure out it's a prank,\" he said."}]

In about 3 1/2 years running the restaurant, Agovic said something like this had happened only once.

The restaurant generally doesn't require customers to pay in advance because Agovic doesn't want to operate that way.

"We trust people," he said. "Cheyenne is a small place, and Cheyenne is the place with wonderful people. And we really try to make sure we have that trust with the local community."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Now What?"}]

Agovic looked at the mountain of food and asked his employees what they should do with it.

[{"type":"text","text":"The staff tossed around possibilities."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Then Agovic had an idea."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"Why don't we deliver it to the hospital?\""}]

The crew agreed the emergency room sounded right, but he needed help getting the pizzas there. 

At the same time, a former L'Osteria Mondello employee who  worked for Agovic for more than 2 1/2 years stopped by to say hello. 

Ryan Lemley, 18, wasn't scheduled to work, but when he saw what was happening, he volunteered.

[{"type":"text","text":"Ryan loaded up the pizzas and headed for the ER."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"He was my hero that day,\" Agovic said."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Little Piece Of Italy"}]

For Agovic, feeding people is about considerably more than getting a pizza into a box.

He's originally from Montenegro, a small Mediterranean country in the former Yugoslavia.

He had lived in New York before coming to Cheyenne during the COVID-19 pandemic, initially expecting to stay only a couple of months.

[{"type":"text","text":"Then he met a woman from Cheyenne and \"fell in love.\" "}]

[{"type":"text","text":"She also introduced him to L'Osteria Mondello. "}]

"Actually, this place was way better than most of the places I try pizza in New York City," he said.

He became friends with longtime owner Joe Mondello, who was looking toward retirement but worried about what would happen to the restaurant he'd spent decades building.

[{"type":"text","text":"Eventually, Mondello asked Agovic if he'd like to take it over."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Agovic told him he couldn't afford it."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Mondello offered to finance him."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"There was a condition: Don't mess with the recipes."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Today, Agovic runs the restaurant with his wife, Anika Williams."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"And Joe Mondello hasn't disappeared."}]

Agovic said Mondello still stops in, sometimes every week or every few weeks. Occasionally, he'll make pizzas and visit with customers.

"I feel this is still his place because that's his baby," Agovic said. "He built it for last 40 years. I'm just keeping tradition, and we are just one big family."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Food Is A Lifestyle "}]

That idea of food bringing people together is part of what Agovic brought with him from Montenegro.

In Mediterranean culture, he said, a meal isn't supposed to be something people inhale before rushing out the door.

"Food is just not quick bites," he said. "Food is more about lifestyle."

[{"type":"text","text":"Meals stretch out. Families gather. People talk."}]

At L'Osteria Mondello, Agovic said he wants customers to have some version of that experience.

"Many people can't afford to go to Italy that often or ever," he said. "So they can try a little bit of Italy in our restaurant."

And rather than letting hundreds of dollars worth of food go cold because of somebody's joke, the people at L'Osteria Mondello found another table.

“They are very hardworking people and they help save a lot of lives around. And I was like, let's donate, let's reward them.”

Pizza 8 17 26

<title>Cheyenne Pizza Joint Gets Stiffed With $300 Order, Donates 18 Pizzas To Hospital | Cowboy State Daily</title>

After a so-called "prankster" left a Cheyenne pizza joint stuck with 18 pizzas and a $300+ bill, the restaurant donated them to emergency room workers at the Cheyenne hospital. “Let's reward them,” said Dave Agovic, owner of L'Osteria Mondello.

Cheyenne Pizza Joint Gets Stiffed With $300 Order, Donates 18 Pizzas To Hospital

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

Renée Jean

Around Wyoming

In the hyper-competitive world of multi-million-dollar western real estate listings, buzzwords like “regenerative agriculture” often pad a broker’s promotional materials. But a $29.9 million ranch just listed by Hayden Outdoors near Weston in northeast Wyoming has a little more heft behind its hype than usual.

That’s because Martha Stewart traded the Hamptons for the High Plains of Wyoming last year to come study the farm-to-fork ecosystem at Steiner Ranch, which was then called Sweetgrass at Thunderbasin. 

Stewart later praised the operation on her official Instagram account, highlighting the “extreme” energy of the ranch’s owners, Rick Steiner and Deirdre Wildman. 

She was also interested in the property’s unique capacity to feed its guests almost entirely from the surrounding land, praising multi-course menus that featured on-site harvests of goose, rabbit, beef, poultry and local berries, as well as produce from the ranch’s greenhouses, orangery, and its open-air culinary gardens. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Ranch Grows Everything It Needs"}]

It was the culinary garden that got the ranch noticed by Stewart, who owns a 153-acre farm in Connecticut. 

“Last year, early in the season, we had a group of shooters here and they saw my wife’s culinary garden, which is truly an extraordinary thing,” Steiner said. “It’s a culinary garden that produces enough stuff for us to provide literally all the vegetables that 250 guests eat during the course of the fall season.”

Steiner’s wife, Wildman, gave them all a tour of the gardens, explaining their approach to a regenerative, farm-to-fork operation.

“So the guy said to me, ‘I gotta get our chief gardening officer out here to see this,’” Steiner said with a chuckle. “And we said, ‘chief gardening officer?’”

Steiner has heard all sorts of acronyms such as CEO, COO, CFO. But that was the first time hearing CGO.

“And then he said, ‘It’s Martha Stewart,’” Steiner said. “And I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s kind of interesting.’”

That Stewart visit wasn’t something Steiner thought would happen. But the following Monday morning he had a text asking if such and such date would work for Stewart’s visit.

“Sure enough, they were out here 10 days later and got the full tour of the gardens and the ranch,” Steiner said. “And we have a small animal farming operation that raises chickens and turkeys and ducks and geese, rabbits and goats, and those also, both eggs and meat, are served to guests.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"What It’s Like To Serve Martha Stewart"}]

Wildman served breakfast, lunch and dinner to Stewart. For breakfast she even used one of Stewart’s own biscuit recipes. 

“I’ll be honest with you, there’s a little bit of anxiety as to whether or not your biscuits are going to meet Martha Stewart’s standard,” Steiner said. “When my wife asked me about it, I said, ‘Well she ate several of them so …’ She passed with flying colors.”

Stewart, Steiner added, was a down-to-earth, gracious guest.

“She’s got a great sense of humor and she’s very engaging, very straightforward,” Steiner said. “She’s not shy about telling you what she thinks. I just found her delightful.”

Stewart posted several pictures about her visit on Instagram, including some standing with Deirdre and others on the ranch.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Elevation Creates Unique Microclimate"}]

The ranch’s ability to grow so much produce is a feat in arid Wyoming, one that’s helped by the ranch’s elevation, which has created a favorable microclimate.

“I would say the surrounding (Thunder Basin) national grassland is a 16 to 24 inches a year precipitation environment, and the ranch I would say is 30 to 36 inches a year of precipitation environment,” Steiner told Cowboy State Daily. “The clouds roll in from whatever direction the wind is blowing and have to rise up to climb over the hills on the ranch and the ridge lines. When they rise up, they cool down and drop some moisture.”

That’s given the ranch all kinds of trees and created great habitat not only for gardening but for wildlife as well. 

“It’s the basis for what’s going on here in every dimension,” Steiner said. “It’s great for ranching. It’s really great for the wildlife. And it just makes the place much nicer and more scenic than most other places.”

The ranch’s location in so much wild and remote territory, with above-average water resources, has made it such an exceptional wildlife haven. 

“I’ve hunted in probably 40 countries,” Steiner said. “This one of the finest hunting properties on the planet. Really big elk, fantastic mule deer, white-tailed deer, lots of turkeys. 

"And it also provides exceptional bird-shooting experiences for pheasants and chukars, which we have been offering to guests for the last four years. It’s an amazing sporting property that also supports about 100 cow-calf pairs if you want to run some cows on the side.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Time For A New Steward"}]

Steiner’s path to Wyoming started far from the Black Hills. The West Point graduate served about five years in the infantry, then spent roughly 18 1/2 in Special Forces, eventually retiring as a Green Beret colonel. 

After the military, he built a business career in Denver, but had always had it on his bucket list to own a ranch.

“My business success was sufficient that I could make my dream a reality,” he said.

Still, it took him a decade looking at ranches in multiple states before he finally found what he was looking for. 

“One of the things that this ranch has going it for that people don’t really think about when they’re looking at ranches is it’s 45 minutes from Gillette Campbell County Airport,” Steiner said. “So you can fly to visit us on United, or you can fly in privately if you have that.” 

Steiner and his wife, however, feel ready to retire. A ranch like this one, capable of attracting someone like Martha Stewart to visit, needs a new steward, Steiner said.

“It’s too much ranch for just a married couple who wants to have a lifestyle ranch,” Steiner said. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Two Mansions On The Ranch"}]

Steiner’s Special Forces career helps explain why the property has been designed to completely survive being cut off from the main grid. It has its own dual-array solar grids, industrial backup power, private gravel pits, and independent fuel caches, mimicking a military Forward Operating Base — but one that’s been built to some luxury standards.

There are not one but two mansions on this turnkey ranch. The flagship, called The Lodge, is 7,100 square feet and includes four bedrooms with five bathrooms and a central living area anchored with a double-sided fireplace. 

The kitchen is chef grade, with premium appliances, custom cabinetry, and a large center island. 

There’s a whiskey lounge as well as a private office and a large covered back deck, the better to view the surrounding beauty of the Black Hills. An oversized garage means plenty of room for vehicles, whether practical or pleasure.

The second mansion, called the Berm Home, is 6,200 square feet designed for energy efficiency. It, too, features a high-end kitchen and a large great room that’s designed for gatherings. 

The Covey Conference Center, meanwhile, includes a spacious dining hall, full-service bar and kitchenette, as well as a climate-controlled wine cellar. A large elevated deck looks out over the property’s creek and its pond.

And then there’s the Rendezvous, a commercial-grade facility for larger culinary events, hosted gatherings, and large-scale entertaining. It's surrounded by the ranch’s culinary gardens. It also includes laundry facilities, dry storage and utility areas that keep the ranch and its many operations running smoothly. 

The Rendezvous is where Steiner has placed a 150-year-old cherry wood bar he found in a hotel in Anaconda, Montana.

“It was in the hotel in Anaconda by the early 1880s, and we have photographs of the bar in operation,” Steiner said. “The mid-1880s was when Anaconda and Butte were the copper mining capital of the country. Enormous amounts of money were put into that area at the time, but when the copper played out the hotel went into decline, and the bar ended up here.”

The property, adjacent to the national grasslands, gives it expansive vistas that make it feel much bigger than its 5,582 acres.

“It’s not a big flat open thing or a big sagebrush grassland,” Steiner said. “The fence lines of the ranch on the south side of the ranch and the north side of the ranch, you stand there and look at a grassland that unfolds for miles and miles and miles.”

Steiner Ranch DSU08404 2 22 8 17 26

<title>5,500-Acre Wyoming Ranch And Hunting Destination Hits Market For Nearly $30M | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The 5,582-acre Steiner Ranch in northeast Wyoming, a premiere spot for hunting trophy bull elk and mule deer, has just been listed for sale at nearly $30 million. Last year, Martha Stewart was at the ranch to study its farm-to-fork ecosystem.

5,500-Acre Wyoming Ranch And Hunting Destination Hits Market For Nearly $30M

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

Andrew Rossi

Public Safety

Someone’s truck flipped in Yellowstone National Park’s Hayden Valley on Sunday, requiring a massive crane to come retrieve it.

Bozeman photographer Mike MacLeod was driving through Hayden Valley around 11 a.m. Sunday with his wife, Barbara, when 

. The truck, which appeared to be a red Ford F-150, was upside down in Alum Creek along the Grand Loop Road.

“From what I could see, the cab was at least partially submerged by the time we got over there,” MacLeod told Cowboy State Daily. “They had a couple of ambulances there, the road was cordoned off, and they were controlling traffic through there.”

A Ford F-150 was recovered by a giant crane in Yellowstone National Park after it veered off the road and landed upside down in a creek in the Hayden Valley on Sunday. "The cab was at least partially submerged by the time we got over there," said a witness.

Steve Inman: Saturday, January 31, 2026

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