It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Monday, March 9th. I’m Mac Watson.
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The Wyoming Legislature overrode four of Gov. Mark Gordon's 25 line-item vetoes to the budget Friday. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that the governor says everyone is calling his budget a win.
“So, while the House maybe had more qualms with Gordon's line-item vetoes to the budget, the Senate only sent seven overrides, and the Senate had pretty much no debate, no issue. Overrode those – sent them on. The House had debates, and then ultimately only overrode three. And the big one was
the budget footnote. Gordon, when he was talking to Cowboy State Daily’s Jake Nichols on Friday, was saying, ‘Wow, this budget, everybody's claiming a win.’ He said that more than 90% of his recommendations were ultimately adopted. So yeah, he was happy with the budget. Had some qualms about separation of powers, and wanted to give business-ready communities back its money and give UW more flexibility. And he succeeded at both of those vetoes.”
The budget no longer hinges $10 million of the University of Wyoming’s $40 million block grant on UW crafting a road map to $5 million in savings by Dec. 1st.
Read the full story HERE.
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An Evanston couple is celebrating the latest additions to their family — fraternal twins who together weighed more than 18 pounds. Cowboy State Daily’s Dale Killingbeck reports the big babies were brought into the world naturally by an 82-year-old midwife.
“When they went for their 20 week ultrasound, they found out that they were going to have twins, fraternal twins. And so she wanted to have, still wanted to have the babies at home, but in Wyoming, there's a law that says you can't do that. You can’t have twins at home with a midwife. And so she looked to a friend in Utah that she had mentored under, and called her and that that midwife, Chris Miller, helped her through prenatal time, and when it came time for the babies to come to birth, they went over to Ogden, Utah, and the babies were born. They were both over nine pounds, and according to the Wyoming Department of Health. They set a record with their weight together being over 18 pounds. So two new babies in the world, both of them very healthy, and both of them pretty hefty.”
Hope and Raleigh Henderson welcomed the twins, a boy and a girl, into the world on March 3rd, — weighing 18 pounds, 10 ounces combined.
Read the full story HERE.
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It’s been nearly 60 years since Doug Chamberlain, a Marine veteran and later a Wyoming legislator, came home from Vietnam. Cowboy State Daily’s Zak Sonntag reports that the war changed him, as he’s still haunted by the soldier he was ordered to leave behind.
“He was commanded to bury one of his fellow Marines, which was totally against the protocol of never leaving a fellow Marine behind. And he did so. And it got worse because he organized a follow up rescue mission to get this marine, and he would discover that some of the higher ups on the chain of command had also attempted to cover up the fact that they made this order, which was very much against everything that every Marine was told.”
Long before he was a rancher, a rural postman, or speaker of the Wyoming House of Representatives, Chamberlain was a Marine Corps captain in Vietnam who survived firefights, landmines, leeches, and cobra snakes.
Read the full story HERE.
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A Triceratops named “Trey” has been a popular exhibit at the Wyoming Dinosaur Center in Thermopolis for 30 years. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that the dino is now on the auction block and has a pre-sale estimate of $5.5 million.
“The reason why the Triceratops skeleton, which was previously on display at the Wyoming dinosaur center for almost 30 years, is on the auction block is because it's private property. It's the property of the owner and the founder of the museum. And if that dinosaur could be sold, that raises the possibility that others could be sold as well, as long as they have that potential price tag on there. And let's not forget, it was just about two years ago that a stegosaurus sold for $44 million.”
A nearly-complete 150-million-year-old Stegosaurus skeleton named "Apex" sold for a record-breaking $44-and-a-half million dollars at Sotheby's auction in New York back in 2024. Purchased by billionaire Ken Griffin, the 11-foot-tall and 27-foot-long specimen is the most valuable fossil ever sold at auction.
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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Wyoming author C.J. Box drew a huge crowd in Cheyenne for his new Joe Pickett book, “The Crossroads," which debuted at No. 1 on The New York Times bestseller list — Box’s sixth in a row. Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean was at the signing and reports one fan brought 30 books, the most he's signed for a fan in one sitting.
“There was kind of that little, momentary bug-eyed look. He just kind of laughed and shook his head and started signing. If you're an author, that's a good problem to have, somebody liked your book so much that they wanted every one of them signed.”
Not only did “The Crossroads” debut on the New York Times bestseller list, it also topped Apple's list and the Associated Press’ list. That's the first time CJ has ever had a book sweep.
Read the full story HERE.
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Artist and fish taxidermist Allen Darlington grew up in Upton, said he majored in going to the Buckhorn Bar at the University of Wyoming, and learned his craft from a master fish taxidermist in Rawlins. Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports that for Allen, fish taxidermy is more of an art than science.
“He actually wanted to be an artist. He was like, one class short of an art degree from UW, and got some kind of job at the state archeology office, and walked into a taxidermy shop one day and was like, Hey, this is art. I want to do this. And then a fish taxidermist came in and said, came into the shop one day and said, ‘Hey, I'm looking for someone to mentor and fish taxidermy, and I think you'd be a good candidate, because you're essentially an artist.’”
Darlington tells Cowboy State Daily that he gravitated toward fish taxidermy because it involves his two favorite mediums as an artist: sculpting and painting.
Read the full story HERE.
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Frontier cowboys, coal miners, buffalo hunters, prostitutes, saloon keepers and lawmen did dangerous, dirty work in the frontier West. Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that dynamite, disease, stampedes, and shootouts made death an everyday occupational hazard.
“Think about being a cowboy back then. Nobody's your friend out there on the open range: wolves, bears, American Indians, cattle rustlers. You work a 15 hour day. At the end of it, you don't even get a hot shower, because they don't exist yet. But probably the most dangerous job would have been working in a coal mine. You know, they sent those guys down into the dark, basically, you had headlamps, but they were open gas flame. You think a town job might have been better? I don't know. Think about being a saloon keeper. There you are with rowdy ranch hands and traveling merchants, quote, unquote, who knows? Who might have just been bank robbers, all of whom have drank enough whiskey to make really poor decisions.”
Life in the Wild West was, as Buffalo Bill Center of the West historian Paul Hutton puts it, “tough, grim work” in a frontier world where everything was inherently dangerous and there wasn’t much in the way of either cleanliness or comfort to soften life's harsh edges.
Read the full story HERE.
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Cowboy State Daily's Anna Jackson joined the cast of “Sharktana,” a shark horror-comedy filmed in snowy Montana, and landed a role. Anna says it was fun being on the set with so many actors who were extras from the popular television series “Yellowstone.”
“So the main scene I'm in, my daughter – her name is Alice – she's playing with a snowman, and a shark is coming to attack, and I'm frantic. I'm looking for her. One of the leads is telling everyone to get off the mountain. I rush toward my daughter as the shark is coming out, you'll see it in the photo on the story. What happens to me? You'll have to wait and see when the movie comes out.”
Anna says that the movie should be coming out in 2027. No word on where we can stream or watch Sharktana.
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.
