It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Monday, March 30th. I’m Mac Watson.
A top Department of Energy official says the nuclear industry is finally at a tipping point after decades of stagnation. Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison reports that as federal regulators are clearing the path for nuclear power projects, Wyoming is positioned to be a leader in a U.S. nuclear boom.
“When this Under Secretary of the Department of Energy said that he's been waiting for the nuclear industry to hit a tipping point, and he feels like it's tipping. It's tipping in the direction of Wyoming in that camera is happening in that we can develop the uranium resources that the state has, and then we have things like this energy dominance fund, where there's going to be millions of dollars available to assist in the development of different energy capacities, and one of them could be the enrichment of uranium on its way to creating fuel.”
According to Bloomberg NEF analysis, global electricity demand is projected to increase 4.5% in 2026 and grow at least 2.8% annually through 2030. The jump is driven by expansion of electric vehicles, industrialization, greater demand for cooling in developing countries — and the rapid growth of U.S. data centers, which has upended years of flat demand.
Read the full story HERE.
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When Wyoming’s most-decorated soldier returned to Vietnam as part of a Wyoming PBS documentary, Lee Alley did not expect to meet a man who witnessed his actions at a battle that led to a Medal of Honor nomination. Cowboy State Daily’s Dale Killingbeck reports that the words his former foe spoke changed his life.
“He got a Distinguished Service Cross, many more medals, and then went on to a life after the service here in Wyoming, but struggled with nightmares, and then returned to Vietnam, just in the past year, and met a former foe who knew exactly what happened that day. He said, They hug. They hugged one another. And the man asked him, ‘Do you have nightmares?’ And he said, ‘Yes, I have nightmares.’ And he said this, a Vietnamese ex-soldier said to him, ‘Let's say from this point on, we're not going to have nightmares. Let's bury the past.’”
With his 80th birthday coming in a couple of months, Alley can now go to sleep at night without nightmares that have plagued him since returning from a year on the jungle front lines and finding the university he left a foreign place.
Read the full story HERE.
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A Navy veteran thought his dream of being a farmer has passed. Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that then Lonnie Frericks moved to Buffalo, Wyoming, where the veteran and a tiny runt goat named Tenacity crossed paths.
“She was so tiny, she should have been a stillbirth, but somehow she lived. And there was just something about her, her spunk, the spark in her eyes. He could tell she was still fighting to live. And so he decided to save this little goat, and kind of, in a way, save himself. He's been in the military, seen a lot of terrible things, holding this little life in his hand, he didn't want it to die. Sometimes you do things because you're human, right, instead of because they make sense economically and not everything's about economics.”
Frericks is a relatively new Cowboy State resident, though an old hand at farming.
Read the full story HERE.
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After one of the warmest winters in Wyoming's history, trees in southern Wyoming are starting to bloom. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that one expert Shane Smith, former director of the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens, says it's the earliest bloom he's ever seen.
“The trees are responding to conditions as they are interpreting them. It's warmer now and it's also drier. So they might not only be blooming because they sense it's consistently safe enough of bloom, safe enough to bloom. but they also might be in survival mode, anticipating drought ahead or already experiencing drought to the extent that they want to survive at whatever cost. So they're blooming early and trying to do what they can to propagate themselves while it's safe.”
Although trees and plants follow the same seasons as humans, they keep their own calendars. They tend to flower at specific times, but that’s highly dependent on the environment, particularly temperature.
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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“Sovereign citizens” in Wyoming challenge traffic laws and court authority with fringe legal theories, and rarely, if ever, work. Cowboy State Daily’s Dale Killingbeck reports that criminologists and sheriffs say the movement persists mostly online but sometimes there's a tense roadside encounter.
“They like to go without driver's license insurance on their cars. There's lots of videos of them on social media, of them being pulled over by police, and then it's not ending well for them. Usually, a bunch of police show up and pull them out of the car, and they go to jail, and then they fight it in court. And this professor that I talked to from the East Coast that has studied them said that basically they're people that just don't want to follow the government, and they don't believe in licenses, even marriage licenses.”
Social media is full of videos of people who claim they don’t need to have a driver’s license, car registration, insurance, or other legal documentation because of their Constitutionally protected rights.
Read the full story HERE.
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Wyoming Rep. Abby Angelos is running for the Gillette-area Senate seat now held by Eric Barlow — which means House Appropriations Chair John Bear will not. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that Bear doesn’t like it when conservatives run against each other.
“So Abby Angelos and John Bear both are in that district, both in the House, both on the most powerful committee in the House Appropriations, which of them is going to run? And then representative Angelos declared early last week. So I asked Representative Bear. I said, ‘So what about you? Are you going to run?’ He said, ‘No, I wouldn't run against Angelos. I resent when conservatives split the vote.’”
When Bear was asked by Cowboy State Daily if he would run for his House seat again, he said he wasn’t ready to declare his intentions yet.
Read the full story HERE.
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Rock Springs’ new solar sludge-drying system will start drying out human waste year-round starting in the summer. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that Mayor Max Michelson says the system will take care of the waste byproducts of humanity without stinking up Rock Springs.
“It'll be a big enhancement for the community, while providing them with a class, a grade of fertilizer that they can use that is certified for human consumption. So they are using human waste to grow agricultural products in Rock Springs, because that's what this new facility will allow them to do, and produce a high volume of it year round without any smell.”
The project's centerpieces are the two Huber Solstice Sludge Turners, manufactured by Huber Technologies in Germany. When finished, it will be the first solar-drying facility in the State of Wyoming and only the fourth of its kind to be built in the United States.
Read the full story HERE.
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Wyoming has 13 100-year-old dude ranches, half of the 26 centennial ranches in the West, according to the Dude Ranchers' Association. Cowboy State Daily’s Anna-Louise Jackson reports that they're all featured in "100 Years of Dude Ranching," which documents the industry's century of Western hospitality.
“So a couple years ago they were talking about what they could do to celebrate this anniversary, and Jaye Wells, who owns a portfolio of dude ranches, asked a pretty simple question, you know, how many dude ranches have been around for that 100 year period? And no one knew. So that kind of started this rabbit hole of research to find out how many dude ranches have been around for 100 years. And they decided to put together a book. So 100 Years of dude ranching is the book, and Jay Wells is the publisher.”
The team behind the book was strict about the criteria it established: To be included in the book, a dude ranch must have been accepting guests in 1926. Had they expanded their criteria, the list would have been even longer.
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.
