It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Tuesday, May 26th. I’m Mac Watson.
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On Memorial Day, Bill Parr remembers the men he served with during a 22-year career in the Navy who never came home, but he won’t talk about them. Cowboy State Daily’s Greg Johnson reports that he spoke with Parr at the Cheyenne National Cemetery.
“Parr told me basically what veterans usually tell me, that it's a day for remembering those who died, those who paid that ultimate sacrifice for America's freedom, and that he doesn't want to talk about himself. And when I asked him if there's anyone in particular that he was at the National Cemetery to remember, he just kind of got quiet and tears kind of came to his eyes and he just said yeah but I'm not going to talk about them and so that's a pretty common pretty common response.”
Parr tells Cowboy State Daily he enlisted in 1969 at age 18 and was quickly sent to Vietnam. He served two tours on river boats providing supply interdiction coming down the Mekong River.
Read the full story HERE.
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It’s grizzly mating season in Yellowstone, and a pair of popular bears were too caught up in courtship to notice gawking crowds. But Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports that the sweet scene isn’t common behavior for bears.
“People got a lot of really adorable pictures of them cuddling together, and I did talk to a wildlife biologist, who said don't mistake any of this for like human concepts of romance. Grizzlies don't fall in love, they don't pair bond over any great length of time. In fact, it's not unusual for female grizzly to mate with multiple males over the course of a mating season, because their eggs don't start to gestate right away, they have delayed, usually the gestation doesn't start until they actually go into their hibernation den to time it, so the babies are born around January.”
The amorous grizzly scene near Yellowstone Lake caused a bear jam for at least a quarter mile in each direction for days this past week.
Read the full story HERE.
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Meteorologist Don Day says reports of a Super El Niño brewing in the Pacific Ocean are ludicrous. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports an El Niño is coming and will likely be beneficial for Wyoming.
“Why Cowboys State Daily meteorologist Don Dey is skeptical, because a lot of people are trying to anticipate what the impacts of this El Nino will be six months from now, and that's based on long-range weather modeling and we have seven months now of examples of how bad long range weather modeling can be when it comes to predicting these trends. El Nino historically has meant wetter weather for Wyoming in the late fall, going into winter, and then the next spring, and if there's a super El Nino, there's reason to believe that there would be more of that, just more precipitation.”
A Super El Niño is a stronger-than-normal El Niño, meaning the surface waters of the Pacific are warming along the equator.
Read the full story HERE.
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Kelley Marshall was on track for a violent death when eagle-eyed cops recognized she was being trafficked. Cowboy State Daily’s Jen Kocher reports that one trafficking expert says that “People think it doesn’t happen in rural states like Wyoming, but it does.”
“Kelly Marshall wants people to understand that for sex buyers, that transaction that they think is an equal financial transaction, and most cases probably isn't, probably that person is being trafficked, and secondly, she really wants under people to understand how they can help, and that's the whole point of Truckers Against Trafficking, who she works for. They want to mobilize people on the front lines to help not only recognize it but report it.”
Marshall has channeled her own experience into educating others as a training specialist and survivor leader for Truckers Against Trafficking, a national nonprofit that prepares truckers, law enforcement, truck stop employees, port workers, and other individuals and groups to identify and report human trafficking.
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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Judge Andre Rudolph grew up in Cheyenne, played running back for UW and once ran down a defendant to earn the nickname “Batman.” Cowboy State Daily’s Zak Sonntag reports that before the judge’s sudden death last week at the age of 59, he also changed the lives of lawbreakers willing to take his help and accountability.
“Judge Rudolph had a very human touch in the courtroom. He had a philosophy of justice that was more about life direction than punishment. He wanted people to be the best version of themselves, and he wanted them to see that they were not defined by their worst mistakes. As a result, his courtroom, according to his clerks and according to other witnesses, could feel a lot more like a mentorship conversation than a legal proceeding, and he had an outsized personality – just very gregarious, agreeable, sociable, but firm and intelligent.”
Raised by his grandmother and without the support of his biological parents in a Cheyenne home of meager means, he nonetheless thrived as a star athlete, honor-roll law student, and then became among the youngest judges appointed in Colorado.
Read the full story HERE.
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Wyoming’s Catholic Carmelite mountain monks are using computers, heavy machinery, and robots to build a massive Gothic monastery in the mountains of the Bighorn Basin. Cowboy State Daily’s Jackie Dorothy reports that it’s a stark contrast to the simple lives these men of faith live making coffee and raising cattle.
“The reason the monks are building their monastery in the rural mountains, far from civilization, is because they're seeking a life of prayer and solitude, but they also want to build something beautiful for God, and the way they're doing it is building the monastery in the old Gothic medieval style, and they're doing it themselves. The quote they had gotten before was for 20 million to 100 million, and they've done it for a fraction of the cost using modern technology. Another thing that comes up is why use modern technology. You're medieval monks, but that is what monks do. They seek modern technology, so that they can spend more time in prayer.”
Wyoming’s Carmelite monastery began in 2007 with $400 and a dream to build a Gothic-style monastery in the mountains of the Bighorn Basin. Today, it is estimated that the monastery’s church, located along Meeteetse Creek, will be finished in another six years.
Read the full story HERE.
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A 70-year-old tourist was killed after being thrown six feet in the air by a bull bison on a popular hiking route in Custer State Park. Cowboy State Daily’s Kate Meadows reports that the sheriff says this is the first fatal attack by a bison in the park in over 20 years.
“They were ahead of them about 1,500 feet, according to a law enforcement report. One of the bulls turned around and charged the woman. The husband called 911 from behind the tree, and help did arrive fairly quickly. However, by the time they arrived, the husband was performing CPR, according to reports, and the woman had already stopped breathing, so there was nothing that rescuers could do to save her.
Michelle McElroy tells Cowboy State Daily that she took video on the same trail of two bull bison and turned around. She adds that if her family had known someone died on that same trail just a day before, “I wouldn't have taken my 5 kids on it had I known.”
Read the full story HERE.
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Wyoming’s looser liquor laws — and higher elevations — make for memorable nights and steady business in Evanston on the state line with Utah. Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that some call it Utah’s “Sin City,” where people go for booze, to place bets, and buy fireworks.
“I was told by three different ones that they, they generally can spot the Utahns because they're the ones that are kind of looking over their shoulder as they're ordering a beer and a shot, feeling like they're doing something wrong that they're going to get in trouble for. Utah had for a long time 3.2% beer, and in 2019 they finally got rid of that requirement that beer had to be under that amount, and they actually had the Clydesdales came and did a funeral procession for 3.2% beer.”
A new Utah law that went into effect Jan. 1st that bans people convicted of DUIs with a blood alcohol content of 0.160% or greater from buying booze. That makes Evanston’s bars and liquor stores enticing for those who can’t buy alcohol close to home.
Read the full story HERE.
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.
