It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Tuesday, February 24rd. I’m Mac Watson.
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Wyoming troopers and their families say low pay, lost overtime, and short staffing are driving burnout and resignations. Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison reports that the Wyoming Highway Patrol Association's first-ever social media blitz — run by a 25-year veteran who doesn't use Facebook — has gone viral.
“There's one titled, ‘Why I want my husband to quit the Highway Patrol,’ because they've gotten down to the point where they can't pay overtime, and so patrolmen are called out in the middle of the night. They don't earn overtime, and so they are paid in Flex Time, which gives them more time off, which only aggravates the staffing shortages. And so there's a lot of issues facing the Highway Patrol.”
Currently, the Wyoming Highway Patrol has experienced a 56% attrition rate among sworn officers over the past five years, with 178 troopers voluntarily resigning.
Read the full story HERE.
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The University of Wyoming on Monday said it disagrees with a House budget tweak that lawmakers framed as a negotiation. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that UW is adamant: No cuts are appropriate, period.
“On Saturday, what happened was the House said, ‘Okay, we'll only cut you 20 million, but then there's another 20 million that we will also cut if you don't find $5 million in savings.’ And there was all sorts of debate on the House floor, like this is the result of negotiations. ‘We had a really good meeting. Haven't you heard of ‘Art of the Deal?’ The University came out loud and clear Monday and said, ‘We are not okay with any cuts, including this one.’ So what happens next is the Senate, which has funded the university fully proposed to fund the university fully, will enter negotiations with the house which has proposed the cut.”
The Wyoming legislative Joint Appropriations Committee’s majority in January advanced a proposed $40 million cut, or about 10%, to the state’s portion of UW’s two-year operating budget.
Read the full story HERE.
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Breaking up a fight between two women at a Laramie bar led police to discover the 2-year-old child of one had been left home alone for hours. Cowboy State Daily’s Greg Johnson reports that court documents say police found the child in a dark, 90-degree room wearing a soiled diaper.
“So, in the bar fight revealed a potentially much worse situation that could be going on. They go to the place, and what they found was pretty disturbing. A two year old in the home by itself, shut in a room, and it was like 90 degrees in the room, there's a space heater turned up the max in there, which could be potentially dangerous as a fire hazard. She was charged with child endangerment, and she also got two charges of interference with the police officer, one for not being cooperative at the bar and another, when they arrested her and took her to jail, she backhanded one of the deputies at intake, apparently pretty hard. And so that actually was a felony.”
According to court documents, 25-year-old Kayla Marie Clark is still in jail in Laramie County on an $80,000 bond.
Read the full story HERE.
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The Wyoming House passed a bill Monday to kill Jackson and Teton County affordable housing policies. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports it’s the bill pushed by conservative activist Rebecca Bextel, who’s at the center of legislative probes for handing out checks on the House floor.
“That is House Bill 141, and what it does is it curbs housing mitigation, affordable housing mitigation policies like those that are just everywhere in Jackson and Teton County, and it, you know, it's been controversial in the past because Rebecca back still championed it. And you know, was witness handing out checks on the House floor, which garnered concerns about optics. But on Monday, when they advanced the bill to the Senate side, the house didn't really discuss that at all, but really focused on the merits of the bill's economic policy and how this fits together in an ultra wealthy region. It pretty easily, it cleared the House, and then it now heads to the Senate for consideration.”
At the time there was no rule against handing out campaign donations in the Capitol. The House, Senate and governor have since adopted rules banning the practice. The House has since launched an internal investigation for possible bribery or misconduct.
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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Sec. Chuck Gray told a Senate committee that a 15-month pursuit of a county clerk proved the system was broken. Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison reports that Sen. Cale Case said the bill was feeding a political dispute between the state's top officials and called the animosity “very disappointing.”
“It was House Bill 86. It went down in committee today…It would grant the Secretary of State's office more authority in filing complaints and moving against clerks at the county level who do things like the Weston county clerk is accused of doing. Opponents of the bill said, ‘Hey, we don't need to give the Secretary of State more control to meddle with a locally elected official.’ And from the point of view of the chairman of the committee today, it was really more about animus and the political rivalry that has developed between Governor Gordon and Secretary Gray that thought that, look, current state law fixed the problem.”
The bill ultimately failed by one vote 2-3.
Read the full story HERE.
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Born with cancer, toddler Dorothy Pontillo suffered months of pain before an MRI found a massive tumor. Cowboy State Daily’s Jackie Dorothy reports that her parents’ persistence to get answers helped Dorothy survive.
“One of the lessons that you learned walking away from this story is that even the Denver specialists need a little nudge. And this is what happened in the case of Dorothy. She was born with cancer, but no one knew what was going on until her mother kept asking questions and asking for answers. When they finally got the answer, the tumor itself had grown into a grapefruit size mass, and this mass was cancerous. Fortunately for Dorothy, surgery, chemo, it has taken out the cancer. She's cancer free and enjoying the life of a toddler.”
Dorothy took her first steps in the midst of chemotherapy just after she turned a year old. Her dad, Riley Pontillo, would get the little push walker from the hospital toy room and encourage her every day to walk.
Read the full story HERE.
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Uinta County rancher Jack Sims says there are new signs of life in Evanston thanks to the horse racing industry. Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that Sims says “There’s over 300 brood mares in the Wyoming breeding program around Evanston.”
“So these are high dollar horses that we're talking about here.This is growing in that community so much. This is going to continue to grow in Evanston that is having ripple effects in other areas. New restaurants are opening, the feed store that are all busier than usual. People who sell hay, they have more customers now. It's kind of injecting some new life in the agricultural sector there in Evanston Wyoming.”
Wyoming Horse Racing owner Eugene Joyce tells Cowboy State Daily that economic studies project that the horseracing industry could top over $300 million dollars for 2026.
Read the full story HERE.
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An Idaho man allegedly shot a deer on an elementary school lawn after dark, left for about two hours, and then came back and loaded the deer’s carcass into his pickup. Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports a wildlife officer described it as “a first for me.”
“They knew who the suspect was almost immediately, but it took a long time to put the case together. They actually had to do like the CSI DNA testing the guy ended up taking, going to a residence in Washington State and staying there and taking the carcass with him. So they went and they got DNA, blood samples of deer blood there in Washington State, gathered some at the scene where the deer had been killed to cross check the two and that's how they proved it was the same deer.”
Lars Nelson of Peck, Idaho, was sentenced on Feb. 18 on charges stemming from killing a white-tailed deer buck on the front lawn of the Orofino Elementary School in Orofino, a small town in northwest Idaho. According to Idaho Game and Fish, Nelson was sentenced to a $1,000 fine ($500 suspended).
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.
