It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Tuesday, March 31st. I’m Mac Watson.
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Decades after being shunned and spat upon, Vietnam veterans packed the National Museum of Military Vehicles for Wyoming Welcome Home Day on Sunday. Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that the museum's owner says, “We have a chance to help veterans heal and give them the honor and recognition they didn’t get.”
“It's an immersive experience. The owner, Dan Starks – he wants people to go in there and see it and understand it, and really connect with other veterans, to understand what they went through to support America. But in particular, he spent the most money on the Vietnam exhibit. He particularly wanted people to understand that war to see what veterans faced. But it's a little too immersive for some of the Vietnam veterans, who told me they went through it once, and they won't go through it again, because it just brings back too many memories.”
Museum owner Dan Starks particularly wanted the Vietnam exhibit to be an immersive experience and spent the most money on that portion of his museum, which he says is the largest private collection of military vehicles in the world.
Read the full story HERE.
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Wyoming leaders and tech giants like Google, Meta, and Amazon will discuss whether the state can capture a share of the exploding AI data center boom at a closed-door Jackson summit this week. Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison reports that Governor Gordon is saying this is a big deal for Wyoming.
“He wrote to Cowboy State Daily, giving us a preview of some of his comments, and he compared it to some of the biggest moments in American history. He says Wyoming is poised to deliver the nation's needs on Wyoming's terms. One of the hosts of economics professor from the University of Wyoming, he's saying this is this summit is part of what is probably going to amount to the largest mobilization of human and financial capital in the history of the planet.”
A March 2026 report from Blackridge Research identified Wyoming among the states where the Stargate AI infrastructure project — a joint venture of OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank — might expand beyond its initial Texas base. That mention put Wyoming alongside Michigan, Wisconsin, New Mexico, Georgia, Ohio and Pennsylvania in the emerging data center sweepstakes.
Read the full story HERE.
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Retired Navy Master Chief Mike Archer has a message for whoever stole a trailer holding a collection of military medals from in front of a Cheyenne VFW Post last week. Cowboy State Daily’s Greg Johnson reports that Archer says the collection is valued at between $30Kand $50K.
“It was actually a pretty incredible collection, every medal, every decoration, for every branch of the military, for every war, going back to the Civil War, 1000s of pieces. They even have this collection even has four medals of honor, one for each branch of the service. But this whole really impressive collection that took them, like 25 to 30 years to gather all of these, all these ribbons and metals and everything.”
Archer calls the theft of the fully-loaded white 16-foot cargo trailer “the ultimate stolen valor,” because each of the decorations for the group’s exhibit — which takes 50 tables to display — represents a veteran’s sacrifice.
Read the full story HERE.
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Bull sales in the Wyoming/Montana region are up 30% from a year ago as the trend in high cattle prices continues. Cowboy State Daily’s Kate Meadows reports that most bulls are selling anywhere from $1,000 to $2,000 more than last year.
“Bull prices are up in Montana and Wyoming. That is really good news for producers, for ranchers, for genetics companies. It also points to a
constricted market for cattle. Cattle have seen a 75-year-record low in population. So the demand is high and appetite is high for beef. Kurt Kangas, with the American Angus Association tells me we love our burgers. That partly explains why the demand is up. But another piece of the puzzle is that bulls, because it's the 30% increase in bull prices that we're focused on here, bulls are wanted for their semen, for their genetic capabilities. So you have these genetic companies that are paying top dollar to buy these bulls to harvest their semen, so that the heifers that they impregnate will have these will give birth to these amazing calves.”
Driving the prices is a tight supply combined with America’s big appetite for beef. As producers rebuild their herds, genetics are also becoming increasingly important, which drives prices up as well.
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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Idaho Fish and Game Commissioner Brody Harshbarger faces seven charges for taking two bull elk in December 2025. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that court documents say he was firing shots, across a public highway, from the driver’s seat of his pickup truck to take one of the elk.
“The commissioner pled not guilty to seven misdemeanor violations, all related around the taking of two bull elk in December 2025 according to the court documents, this guy shot an elk from the driver's seat of his pickup truck and fired those shots over a public highway. So he's facing some pretty serious charges, and the scrutiny comes because he's one of the seven commissioners of the Idaho game and the Idaho Fish and Wildlife Department.”
Commissioner Brody Harshbarger, one of Idaho’s seven commissioners, has been charged with seven misdemeanor violations. They include multiple counts of unlawful taking of game animals, one count of hunting without an appropriate tag, one count of hunting from a motorized vehicle, one count of shooting across a public highway, and one count of trespassing on private property to hunt.
Read the full story HERE.
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Whether backing Trump makes a person a true Republican in Wyoming is a key point in the defamation case two lawmakers are waging against Wyoming Freedom Caucus' campaign group. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that the group falsely claimed the lawmakers voted to keep Trump off the ballot.
“A key assertion in their suit is that whether you back Trump in Wyoming signifies to Republicans whether you're a true Republican. And so the fact that they're arguing this to support their case. They're trying to have it go toward the harm that they suffered, right? They're trying to have it go toward how harmful, allegedly, these mailers were.”
State Reps. Cody Wylie and JT Larson, both Republicans from Rock Springs, sued the Wyoming Freedom Caucus’ campaign arm for defamation in 2024 after the political action committee had mailers distributed claiming the pair had voted against keeping Trump on the ballot.
Read the full story HERE.
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A Casper woman is facing arraignment after being charged with putting a knife in her husband’s neck as he fed their young son. Cowboy State Daily’s Dale Killingbeck reports the mother of two also allegedly hit herself with a sledgehammer to make it look like she was physically abused by her husband.
“According to a police affidavit this past December, her husband was sitting on a couch, feeding their baby, and she took a knife and put it in his neck.
She said it was self defense. According to a police affidavit he turned, he got up, felt a pain, turned around, and she took the knife at him again. Missed him. He went outside, called 911 she called 911 and the result is an investigation found that she had taken a camera from outside into her bedroom, and she had hit herself with a sledgehammer, a little sledgehammer, and scraped herself with a chisel and said that her husband had abused her, and according to the affidavit, police aren't buying that, so she is now facing the aggravated assault and battery charge and potentially 10 years in prison.”
Court records show that Richardson is free after posting 10% of her $30,000 cash or surety bond.An arraignment date has not yet been set.
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.
