It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Wednesday, April 1st. I’m Mac Watson.
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After decades as a popular oasis on I-80 in southwest Wyoming, the Little America hotel near Green River is being torn down. Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that the general manager tells Cowboy State Daily the hotel needed "so many repairs that it’s not cost-effective.”
“The guy that started this, his last name was Covey. You know, he was a sheep herder. When he got the idea to start this, he spent a long, cold winter night in that very area and said, if I make it through this night, I'm going to build a lodge so that other people don't have to go through this like I did. And so that is kind of the history that started Little America.”
The general manager tells Cowboy State Daily that the business is shifting to an RV Park.
Read the full story HERE.
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Wyoming's most famous diesel mechanic, his techy son, and a third well-known mechanic who suffered federal prosecution all worry the EPA's new rule against "DEF" sensors could hurt engines overall. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that mechanic Cheynenne resident Troy Lake and his son say a new rule change from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could do more harm than good,
“On Friday, the Trump administration announced that it's getting rid of DEF sensors on diesel trucks and talking to some of Wyoming's most famous diesel mechanics, three of them: Troy and TJ Lake and Levi Krech, they all said just getting rid of one part of the overall emissions system like this is actually going to cause a lot more expensive and catastrophic problems. One of them, Krech said, ‘Maybe that's part of the plan to scale back emissions in a bigger way next time.’”
Citing the U.S. Small Business Administration, the EPA believes the new rule will save farmers $4.4 billion a year and Americans $13.79 billion a year.
Read the full story HERE.
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A Powell family facing the prospect of giving up two of their four dogs because of a city ordinance, made their case Monday to change the town rule. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that city residents were conflicted.
“So Powell residents were conflicted about how they feel about dogs in Powell overall, let alone the proposed change to the city ordinance that only allows people to have two household pets. A lot of people were saying that a lot of dog owners are not very responsible. They leave waste around the community. The Pittmans moved to Powell from Texas. Powell residents are only allowed two household animals, and the neighbors have called the cops multiple times to complain about their dogs, mainly for noise, but they lived next to a ranch that had a zebra on it in Texas. So they said, you know, if you think dogs are noisy in Powell, they have no idea how noisy a zebra can be. Which, fun fact, it is legal to own a zebra in Wyoming.”
The Pittman family moved to Powell from Texas in 2025 with their four dogs. After their neighbors called the Powell Police Department about a noise complaint, they were informed of the ordinance regarding the permitted number of household pets allowed in a single household.
Read the full story HERE.
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“Mommy’s dead” is one of the statements a young girl made after a woman was found shot in a Riverton motel room. Cowboy State Daily’s Greg Johnson reports that the girl’s father, Sterling Lewis Black, Jr turned himself in 9 hours after his girlfriend’s body was discovered.
“His father played some role in getting him to turn himself in. His father showed up at the scene and told the police later on that, hey, he found his son n an abandoned trailer on their property and told him, ‘Hey, you've gotta, you gotta go take care of it. You can't hide out here.’ And so he did go into the police and turned himself in.”
Black was arrested the afternoon of March 7 when he turned himself in to law enforcement about nine hours after his girlfriend was found dead in a room at the Ol’ Wyoming Motel on Federal Boulevard.
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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A wave of wetter weather will ripple across Wyoming this week, bringing colder temperatures and up to two feet of desperately needed snow in the mountains. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that meteorologists say anything we can get is a good thing.
“The weather forecast for Wyoming this week is a mix of rain and snow in the lower elevations, a heavy dump of snow in the mountains, and temperatures in the 40s and 50s, rather than the 70s and 80s. We are going through one of the warmest winters on record, and March was not as wet as it needed to be. So this moisture that we're going to be receiving, which will penetrate into the lower elevations, it will have enough strength to get some rain or snow or a mix into lower spots below 9000 feet.”
These weather systems will be carrying a large amount of moisture and cold air. Like most winter storms since November, the mountains will get the most from these weather systems.
Read the full story HERE.
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A retired Wyoming judge Tuesday refused to let abortion-rights advocates include a new heartbeat-ban challenge into their older case. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that Judge Thomas Campbell ruled the nearly trial-ready case is too far along to introduce their latest challenge.
“He'd have to go back and set a new schedule for things like evidence exchange, designating expert witnesses, anything they wanted to do to gear up toward the later stages, they'd have to go back and reset a new calendar to catch this new challenge up, and it's very different to the ones that are already ongoing in this case are restrictions, whereas this is an outright ban. So the state argued, ‘Hey, our justification in defending each of these sets of laws is completely different.’ And so the judge on those sort of pragmatic, less splashy grounds, went ahead and said, ‘No, we're not gonna lump this in.’”
On Jan. 6 the Wyoming Supreme Court declared that abortion access is a fundamental health care right under the Wyoming Constitution.
Read the full story HERE.
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Wy Fresh Farm near Cheyenne had its cooler locked and was ordered to stop selling certain meats after a state complaint over its license. Cowboy State Daily’s Kate Meadows reports that the owners argue they’re protected under the Wyoming Food Freedom Act and plan to fight the restriction.
“This complaint stems from a confusion over the Wyoming Food Freedom Act. The Department of Ag says that farms cannot sell meat without a license. However, David Kniseley, who was one of the farm's owners, said that he understood the law to be that they can have a place for these vendors to sell their meat. Wy Fresh Farms is not operating as the seller, they're only operating as the space for these other vendors to sell their meat. The vendors do have licenses so Kniseley told me that he was under the impression that why? First, farms don't need a license, because it's the vendors who have the license. However, the Wyoming Department of Ag says that the Wyoming Food Freedom Act does not apply to meat, and that places where meat is being sold also have to have a license.”
David Kniseley tells Cowboy State Daily that he’s requested a full complaint from the Wyoming Department of Agriculture to resolve the issue.
Read the full story HERE.
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A St. Louis boy didn't forget the rescue of his stuffed dog along I-80 last year. Cowboy State Daily’s Dale Killingbeck reports that the little boy was so grateful, he sent the Carbon County sheriff a hand-written note and some gooey cakes to thank them.
“The Carbon County Sheriff's Office dispatched a deputy to the site where they thought they may have lost this dog, and his name is quote, unquote dog, and they recovered him from alongside the road. And Sheriff Bakken told me that he packaged it back up, gave him some badges from the sheriff's office, a water bottle and some other things, and sent him back on his way to St Louis. And so they were rewarded with these Gooey cakes from this bakery in St Louis. And the sheriff said that he didn't partake because he's training for his 100 mile ultra marathon in June, but he said the cake was quickly dispatched.”
8-year-old William Kay wrote the department thanking them for finding his stuffed animal. The gooey cakes were shipped from McArthur’s Bakery in St. Louis where their website describes them as “award winning and famous.”
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.
