It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Monday, April 6th. I’m Mac Watson.
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The family of a Rock Springs college student who vanished without a trace two months ago is desperate for answers. Cowboy State Daily’s Jen Kocher reports that a longtime friend of Steven Sanches says, “It's like he’s a ghost,” “Stephen Sanches disappeared two months ago, and he was last seen leaving Western Wyoming Community College on February 5, at about noon. That was the last trace of him, his family or friends saw he did not return home that night. He did not return to campus later that day, his family has absolutely no idea what has happened to him. The Rock Springs police have attempted to ping his phone, and they're theorizing that it's either dead or turned off because they're getting no activity, they will continue to ping it with his carrier,and the carrier will alert them if there's any activity. His family said this is extremely uncharacteristic of him to be out of touch for three days, let alone two months, and they fear something has happened to them.”
His family does not believe Sanches willingly left on his own volition, nor do they think he would have stayed out of contact for this long, and they fear for his safety. Elizabeth Coontz, PIO for the Rock Springs PD tells Cowboy State Daily that so far, there’s no indication to suggest that Sanches is a victim of foul play, but the investigation is ongoing.
Read the full story HERE.
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From Wyoming to Maine, residents are demanding answers to concerns about the construction of data centers. Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison reports that citizens aren’t just concerned about technology..
“I spoke to some folks in Cheyenne, spoke to a utility in Laramie County. The concerns range from using a lot of water to raising utility prices to what if suddenly these million square foot buildings are full of obsolete equipment, these kind of ghost buildings.”
Last week, on the same day a closed-door Data + Power summit convened in Jackson to pitch Wyoming as a destination for data center investment, the Maine Senate was considering an 18-month freeze on any new data center construction.
Read the full story HERE.
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The University of Wyoming has hired a new president. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that incoming U.W. President Brigadier General Shane Reeves says he’s ready to roll his sleeves up and get to work.
“I said, look, the Wyoming Legislature, particularly in the House, has been having disputes with UW for around three years. Proposed budget cuts and this pronouncement that there's this culture clash, that UW spends a lot of time on social things. And he said, ‘There may be excesses in the narrative that we got to correct. There may be bridges that we got to build. We got to avoid drama and silos.’”
Reeves graduated from Rock Springs High School in 1992 then enrolled at West Point, earning a bachelor’s degree in European history in 1996, says UW’s statement.
Read the full story HERE.
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Desperation had overwhelmed Gillette resident Bruce Brown until he found himself on the side of a road thinking of using the .40-caliber Ruger in his car. Cowboy State Daily’s Zak Sonntag reports that’s when the tough-raised Wyomingite heard a voice that saved his life.
“It was the voice of then Representative Tom Lubnau, and he was a Republican from Gillette who was a trusted voice in the community. And he heard that voice, and he said, ‘Wow. That just hearing it from somebody that I know and trust makes all the difference.’ He went through his entire life, Bruce Brown, and it was a classic cowboy-tough kind of upbringing where you didn't talk about your struggles. It was a community that valued resilience, grit, and physical endurance over introspection and emotional quotient.”
These days, Brown is looking backward to better understand the forces that led to poor mental health, and certain early memories have been rendered with new clarity, including his first major encounter with despair, which happened long before he had language for it: his mother’s attempt to end her life.
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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An explosion of data centers across the U.S. has created an explosion in the need for electricians — and their pay can reach as much as $260,000 a year in some parts. Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that in Wyoming, big six figure salaries are available too, but it comes with tradeoffs.
“The people who make those kinds of salaries are sacrificing some things. They're living a lifestyle that's got a lot of overtime in it and not a lot of time for anything else. That's not a lifestyle everyone wants or needs to pursue, but salaries in Wyoming are topping six figures. It's a great opportunity to stay in Wyoming. If that's what you want. You can also go anywhere in the country with this career.”
IBEW Local 415 Business Manager Fred Morrow tells Cowboy State Daily that making over $200,000 as an electrician means working basically every hour. Most people, Morrow added, don’t want to live the nomadic lifestyle it would take — chasing premium jobs across states and living out of a fifth wheel.
Read the full story HERE.
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Even 30 years after the arrest of Ted Kaczynski, aka the infamous “Unabomber,” his Montana recluse cabin is still intact. Cowboy State Daily’s Anna-Louise Jackson tracked it down and the FBI had it deconstructed and stored in a warehouse.
“The FBI told me the reason they keep these things is because they are an important part of the history of both the FBI and the country and so, you know, there is that concern sometimes about people collecting things. There's whole thing around murder-abilia, but having these within the FBI possession and allowing the FBI to sort of control the narrative about these artifacts from murders or other cases that it's been involved in, they feel like it's an important way to inform the public about the role that, say the news media, or just the general public, can play in solving some of these cases.”
Dr. John Fox, an FBI historian, tells Cowboy State Daily that after Kaczinski was convicted in 1998, the cabin sat in storage in the Sacramento area for more than a decade until it was dismantled by a company that specializes in such things and shipped east to the museum in Washington, D.C. When it was returned to the FBI in 2020, the cabin was once again taken apart and reconstructed in a warehouse in the Sacramento area where it remains today.
Read the full story HERE.
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A Utah investigator turned over new evidence to police, on top of a report by a team of forensic experts who say Kurt Cobain’s death wasn’t a suicide, it was murder. Cowboy State Daily’s Jen Kocher reports that the private investigator says Cobain the rock star was assaulted.
“Jason Jensen, who is a private investigator in Utah and also in Washington, has been looking into the Kurt Cobain death for two years. He, in the course of his investigation, he found nine witnesses that police had never interviewed who say they were there that night and that Cobain was assaulted. So, the police had never interviewed those nine witnesses, so these are nine new names that he turned over to them. He also analyzed the Kurt Cobain suicide note, and two forensic experts said the last four lines of that note are not Kurt Cobain's writing, so he believes there's enough evidence for the police to reopen that case.”
Kurt Cobain, a founding member of the band Nirvana, died in 1994 and upended a generation of youth who related to the disillusionment expressed by his raw vocals and edgy guitar.
Read the full story HERE.
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A couple moving from San Francisco to New York lost their cat 2 1/2 years ago near Cody. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that they lost all hope until they received a text last month from someone in Wyoming who caught the cat and noticed there was a number on its collar.
“The thing that's remarkable is that the time between losing the cat and when they picked up the cat is two and a half years. This family lost a cat in July 2023 and they just were able to collect it within the last few weeks. The moral of the story here is to always have some kind of identification mark on your animal. Many people microchip their animals. In this case, the cat had a collar with its name and the phone number of the owner.”
Annie Rosales tells Cowboy State Daily that her family was so excited that their cat, Lily, had been found, they flew out the next day to reunite with their beloved pet.
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.
