It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Friday, April 10th. I’m Mac Watson.
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Weston County Clerk Becky Hadlock resigned on Thursday one day after she was charged with two felonies. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that the chair of the local Republican party, Kari Drost, confirmed the resignation.
“Her attorney declined to comment on the resignation, but said he was looking forward to fighting her criminal cases, one's a felony, one's a misdemeanor. Meanwhile, the civil removal case where the Attorney General was going to try to have her removed from office is no longer valid because she's resigned that office. So that was set to start Monday. That's done but the criminal cases are still ongoing.”
The resignation averts a civil trial that had been set for Monday.
Read the full story HERE.
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The parents of a 4-month-old Cheyenne boy who died of severe brain injuries made their first court appearances Thursday. Cowboy State Daily’s Greg Johnson reports that the parents are charged with first-degree murder. “There's a lot more about the mother, and that doesn't point to any one particular person's guilt or not, but they talked about some things found on their mother's cell phone. When they got a warrant to look at it, apparently her phone made searches of different terms related to Shaken Baby Syndrome. There also were 58 text messages from the hour right up until they went to the hospital with the boy that was missing the phone.”
Joseph Hanson, 24, and Juliette Martinez, 23, were taken into custody without incident Wednesday and booked into the Laramie County Detention center on charges of first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse, the Cheyenne Police Department reported. Cheyenne police say the boy died after a month on life support.
Read the full story HERE.
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A Denver energy analyst says the cancelled Keystone XL pipeline isn't entirely dead. It's being resurrected in a new form, with Canadian segments feeding a proposed Bridger pipeline to Guernsey. Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison reports that the first Wyoming public meeting is on April 13 in Newcastle.
“It's a huge logistical task, and so it's not a done deal, but they have filed the paperwork to move forward Wyoming company going to link Guernsey with Canadian crude. It comes at a time, according to the sources I spoke to, at a time when the capacity in the Canadian pipelines is nearing a point where it's going to run out of capacity. And so this could answer that. This could solve that problem. Interestingly, it also picks up where the old, infamous Keystone XL Pipeline left off.”
Matthew Lewis, founder of the Denver-based independent research firm Plainview Energy Analytics tells Cowboy State Daily that a piece of pipeline could be stitched into a new 36-inch crude oil line that would help get more Canadian oil to refineries along the Gulf Coast — but first passing through Wyoming.
Read the full story HERE
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Yellowstone’s Blacktail Pond is a death trap for bison when they fall through ice or get stuck in mud there. Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that wildlife photographer Pete Bengeyfield thought for sure that one unfortunate bison was doomed but was thrilled to see her escape.
“If it's a cold spring, they might walk on the frozen pond and fall through and then get stuck in the muck that's under the ice and drown. And if it's a warm spring, they might fall into, or try wading into the water, gets stuck in the muck and drown. It kills a fair number of bison every year. But one guy got a photograph of a photograph or two of a cow bison that actually fell in and managed to drag herself out.”
Bison don’t pass through the Blacktail Pond area because they’re stupid or have a death wish, a biologist said. Instead, the topography funnels them into the boggy stretch.
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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Despite being in the Freedom Caucus together, neither Rep. Pendergraft nor Rep. Haroldson is shocked to find they're endorsing different candidates in the governor’s race. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that Pendergraft is behind Brent Bien while Haroldson supports Megan Degenfelder.
“There's a dispute about who's the most conservative and who's the most viable, right? Representative Ken Pendergraft said, ‘Yeah, Brent Bien, super conservative. Let's do this.’ Jeremy Haroldson said, ‘Megan Degenfelder’s more electable. Let's get her to the finish line as the Conservative candidate.’ So there's this dispute about strategy and Haroldson and Pendergraft both said, ‘Hey, we're not clones. We're allowed to endorse two different people, even though we're in the same caucus.’”
Pendergraft said he’s not surprised at Freedom Caucus members who are endorsing different gubernatorial candidates.
Read the full story HERE.
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Although a green meteor was spotted in five states on Wednesday night, it entered the atmosphere in Converse County and exploded over Wright, Wyoming, in Campbell County. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports the American Meteor Society says the fireball was flying sixty miles a second.
“This meteor entered Earth's atmosphere over Wyoming and exploded over Wyoming, and none of the pieces were able to reach the ground, and that's a good thing. Overall, the fireballs that are large enough to reach the ground can be pretty destructive. And some people reported that they heard a boom associated with this fireball, which indicates that it exploded in the atmosphere before any of it reached the ground.”
The AMS defines a fireball as “a very bright meteor, generally brighter than magnitude -4,” making it brighter than anything else in the night sky except a full moon. Hundreds of fireballs fall to Earth every day, but most are too small to be seen or cannot be seen during daylight hours.
Read the full story HERE.
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A man accused of injuring his wife with a bomb in Green River and then eluding authorities for 44 years is expected to plead guilty in an identity theft case. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that after the bombing, 77-year-old Stephen Craig Campbell allegedly stole the identity of a dead college classmate.
“Court documents say that he was using his dead classmate's identity while hiding out in New Mexico, while living in New Mexico. And then, if you bootstrap that to the court documents that were filed 44 years ago in Wyoming, he's also accused of sending a bomb to his estranged wife's new home.”
The Sweetwater County and federal court documents allege that Campbell sent a bomb to his ex-wife’s new boyfriend’s house in Green River, Wyoming, in 1982. The blast blew off one of her fingers, and injured her hand, chest, legs and feet. He later bonded out of jail and stole his dead classmate’s identity as he settled in New Mexico.
Read the full story HERE.
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A bighorn sheep ram destroyed a sliding glass door in Yuma, Arizona, last week after seeing his own reflection and mistaking it for another ram. Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports that a former Wyoming Game and Fish wildlife supervisor wasn't surprised.
“This Ram was wandering around. It looks like a suburban neighborhood. Saw his reflection in a plate glass sliding door. Assumed it was another ramp, tried button heads with it, and shattered the door and ran off. I talked to a couple, you know, wild, cheap experts here in Wyoming, and they said, Yeah, that's not surprising. It reminded him of a famous ram we had here in Wyoming, up in Sinks Canyon by Lander, called Bam Bam. And Bam Bam was known to be really, really friendly, like he didn't mind people. He liked peanut butter was his favorite treat, but he had a thing for cars, like going after cars.”
Video from a security camera on the property shows the ram aggressively grunting at his “rival” before giving the reflection a couple of tentative taps with his horns. Then, deciding it was go time, the ram put real force behind a headbutt and obliterated the plate glass.
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.
