It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Friday, February 6th. I’m Mac Watson.
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The State Land Board on Thursday voted 3-2 to begin a legal process that could cancel two controversial state wind leases in Converse and Niobrara counties. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that Secretary Chuck Gray, Superintendent Megan Degenfelder, and Auditor Kristi Racines all voted in favor while Gov. Gordon and Treasurer Meier voted against.
“In the Constitution, there's language suggesting that for state trust lands, you gotta promote projects that are going to help fund the Wyoming school system. And so they often talk about their fiduciary duty, that's their duty, to make these lands profitable to support our schools. And so that was the reasoning last April, when they voted in favor of these projects. But as the months dragged on and wind became just this flash point controversy. A couple of them, auditor Kristi Racines and Superintendent of Public instruction, Megan Degenfelder, were like, ‘Yeah, this is clearly more important to people than was apparent earlier on, and we're gonna go ahead and reflect that.’”
The reversal follows 10 months of controversy and passionate public debate over the two projects, which are slated to cover several thousand acres of state and other lands.
Read the full story HERE.
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WY Fresh Farm has been in the same location for 20 years, with a farmstead added about four years ago. Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that now the couple faces a forced annexation by the city of Cheyenne that they say threatens their business.
“This farm is among some of the last properties that the city is planning to annex. The couple just have a lot of questions about what that will mean for their operation. The devil's always in the details, right? They're, quote, ‘grandfathered in’, but if they're the wrong zoning, if for one year, they have a disaster and they can't do their chickens, well, then it's not a continuing use anymore. This farm is among some of the last properties that the city is planning to annex. The couple just have a lot of questions about what that will mean for their operation.”
Kniseley told Cowboy State Daily she started asking questions in 2022, when she inadvertently learned their farm might be in the pathway of the city’s annexation plans. They were attending a city council meeting on an unrelated matter, when she happened to see the city’s plans for their farm’s future hanging on a wall.
Read the full story HERE.
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The Joint Appropriations Committee on Thursday voted to shield two more institutions from its proposed $40 million budget cut to the University of Wyoming. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that one of those institutions shares a financial backer with the campaign arm of the Freedom Caucus.
The majority of the Joint Appropriations Committee on Thursday voted to shield the high bay Research Center and the WORTH Institute, a tourism school, under the University of Wyoming from a proposed $40 million cut to the university. So if you say that these two schools, these two centers, can't suffer from the cut, then the other schools under the university will get cut deeper, right, because they have to sustain the whole 40 million but where it it got interesting was the $5 million backer of the WORTH Institute, one of the centers that they want to rescue is also, in recent months, a top contributor to the wide freedom pack, which is the campaign arm of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, at least two of whose members voted Thursday for the shield.
The WORTH Institute and the campaign arm of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus — some members of which voted to protect the institute — share a financial backer.
Read the full story HERE.
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A makeshift crack-cooking station on a baby changing table at a gas station has prompted a warning from the Teton County, Idaho, Sheriff’s Office. Cowboy State Daily’s Greg Johnson reports that even a Cheyenne gas station worker said that he wouldn’t change a baby on one of those.
“It doesn't seem like people should need to be told this. But apparently people are not using the baby changing stations in public restrooms for changing babies only in Teton County, Idaho. I talked to a truck stop. I talked to a convenience store, and especially the community store, they had some horror stories. They say that it's almost impossible to keep them clean. Even though they go in twice an hour, every 30 minutes to clean those things, they still have people who do really disturbing things in those bathrooms, and they find drug paraphernalia there.”
The plea by the Teton County, Idaho’s Sheriff’s Office was accompanied by a photo of the baby changing table laid out with baking soda, a syringe, a lighter, tin foil packets, and a carrying case that held the paraphernalia.
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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State Sen. Ed Cooper is retracting a statement he made last week, accusing the national Freedom Caucus network of hinging campaign donations to its local members on their voting records. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that the state senator says that he cannot substantiate the claim.
“The original quote was that the state Freedom Caucus network was infusing money toward candidates based on how they voted. And he didn't go so far as to say, you know, that's outright incorrect, but he did say he could not substantiate it, and so it was incorrect to say it. I talked to Andy Roth, president of the National Network, who said that the original statement was false, and then it was either a liar or a rumor. Cooper told me is that he had a source, but that he wanted to own the statement, since he's the person who said it publicly, and not reveal his source, and that still he could not substantiate the claim.”
Though he believes he spoke “incorrectly” because he wasn’t able to verify the information, Cooper did not go so far as to call the claim incorrect.
Read the full story HERE.
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Two Wyoming ranchers say diversification of their land is key to their survival and that property owners should have the freedom to decide what to do with their land. Cowboy State Daily’s Kate Meadows reports that the ranchers say that includes allowing wind farms and other energy development.
“In a letter to the editor to Cowboy State daily, Rob Hendry and Scott Sims say that the guarantee a land owner can develop their property as they see fit has always mattered, and that private property rights are not an abstract political talking point in Wyoming. These two ranchers are saying that Wyoming's energy industries are vital. We have to protect them, and we have to support them, and the decision to support energy development through leasing of private property should be the sole decision of the private property owner.”
In an editorial letter shared with Cowboy State Daily, Rob Hendry and Scott Sims say a landowner's right to develop their property as they see fit has always mattered. Private property rights, they argue, are not an abstract political talking point in Wyoming.
Read the full story HERE.
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A misstep left a wildlife photographer with a broken leg in a remote area of Yellowstone National Park. Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports that Marcela Herdova made it back to her car, but it wasn’t easy.
“On Sunday, she was on a quote, unquote, routine hike to get a better angle on some wolves that they were watching in about a mile and a half in from the parking lot where she and one other person had started, and she just stepped in a snow covered hole and ended up breaking her leg. And okay, so that, in and of itself, isn't that big a deal, but there wasn't any soul service where they were. And so what ended up happening is the other person she was with went and retrieved a branch, and they kind of made a makeshift crutch out of it, and she said it took over three hours to get back to the parking lot. Finally, some other people came up after him, and she said she got carried out the last half mile.”
Cade Cole, a backcountry adventurer, tells Cowboy State Daily that Marcela’s story is a “spooky” example of how quickly things can go wrong in the wild.
Read the full story HERE.
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The world-famous Grizzly 399 and her four cubs will be honored with a bronze sculpture at the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that the piece will be dedicated on Sept. 9, 2026.
“So Jocelyn Russell has sculpted everything from a herd of life size elephants to larger than life animals for a variety of different institutions. And she was approached by the Grizzly 399 legacy of love project to make a larger than life sculpture of Grizzly 399, and the quads, which are the four cubs that she emerged with in May 2020. The sculpture is well underway. Russell told me that it's been sent to the foundry, where it's being basically carved out of foam at the scale that it's going to be based on the 18 inch clay Mac cat that she's been tinkering with for the last year. That'll be cast in bronze, and then ultimately shipped from Washington State to Jackson for the dedication at the National Museum of wildlife art.”
Grizzly 399 was a world-famous grizzly bear from Grand Teton National Park whose calm roadside presence captivated thousands of tourists annually before she was struck by a car and killed in 2024.
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.
