It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Monday, June 1st, I’m Mac Watson
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In a setback to the Wyoming Republican Party’s long mission to gain independence from state law, a Uinta County judge Friday upheld multiple Wyoming election laws, dismissing the state Party’s claims that its rights trump them. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that Uinta County District Court Judge James Kaste’s Friday ruling gives a concrete, but appealable, answer.
“What we had was a hot springs county Republican party spat that exploded into a much bigger debate about whether the Wyoming Republican Party and its counterparts are private groups that have associational rights that trump the restrictions that state law places on them, and at least for this struggle, which pertains to some county membership and voting criteria, and the involvement of this basically the state party's arbitration committee, the judge said, ‘No, the party's associational rights aren't that burden. The state does have a legitimate electoral public interest in keeping these processes orderly, and the laws are constitutional.’”
If it so chooses, the party can appeal to the Wyoming Supreme Court challenging the judge’s decision.
Read the full story HERE.
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Trucker Riaz Ahmad Noori is now facing homicide charges, accused of triggering a 26-vehicle crash in the Green River Tunnel in 2025 that killed three people. Cowboy State Daily’s Kolby Fedore reports that an affidavit says “human error was the primary factor contributing to these crashes.”
“Investigators say that Noori was going over the speed limit when he ran into the back of a pickup, setting off a multi-vehicle collision and pile up. He was going about 10 miles per hour over the illuminated posted speed limit. Despite snowy conditions, there was also ice on the road. So he's also facing litigation from a lawsuit that was filed in September, saying that he was driving recklessly and caused the fatal crash.”
The Feb. 14, 2025, initial crash ballooned into a 26-vehicle catastrophe that filled the westbound Interstate 80 tunnel near Green River with fire, explosions, and thick, black smoke.
Read the full story HERE.
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Living homeless in a Las Vegas wash, hooked on meth, and surviving by the reflexes of his past gang life, Rusty Rawson turned to his adolescent son for guidance. Cowboy State Daily’s Zak Sonntag reports that the answer brought them back to Casper and a path toward recovery.
“So they've been back in Casper 18 months, and they're going through the rescue missions discipleship program, and that has been a big change for Rusty specifically. But just having a bed to sleep in, a place to get a hot meal, and a community has provided the stability that they need to start thinking about the future again. And for Sterling, who is now 14-years old, the improvements are just monumental. I mean, here's a kid who didn't finish sixth grade, didn't attend a single day in seventh grade, and then he comes back, jumps into the end of eighth grade, and here he is graduating his freshman year from Kelly Walsh High School this week with a 3.8 GPA, and that's just because he has the support of this community.”
For the last 18 months, Rusty and Sterling have been staying in beds at the Mission, where Rusty has joined its Discipleship Program, and getting back to being a truck driver.
Read the full story HERE.
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Halle Crozier of Buffalo is inspiring Wyoming’s high school rodeo community as she fights to recover from a vaccine reaction that destroyed her body. Cowboy State Daily’s Julie Mankin reports that Halle says she could’ve chosen to not get better, or choose to be positive and work hard to get better.
“Rodeo is something that has allowed Halle to heal, and it makes her feel alive, and honestly, she has the heart of a cowgirl, it's been in her blood her entire life. Halley's grit and determination is so inspiring, and fans have gone so nuts to watch her, that the Wyoming High School Rodeo Association changed their rules after decades to allow this timed event star to partner with her as his second partner. It's usually only one partner, but they love Hallie and what she's done for the culture of rodeo.”
Despite limitations with lifting her arms and lingering balance and coordination problems, things are looking up for Halle. The 16-year-old got her driver’s license last year.
Read the full story HERE.
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I’ll have more news from the Cowboy State Daily newsroom right after this.
Cowboy State Daily News continues now….
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Despite a series of bizarre, controversial, and sometimes outrageous campaign videos, Wyoming politicos say Reid Rasner’s campaign for U.S. House is not a parody. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that state Rep. John Bear says, “Why would somebody spend this much money on a joke?”
“You find commenters piling up in an ever-increasing mountain, asking, is this a parody? Is this satire? Because some of the videos are zany. I talked to people from both ends of the political spectrum in Wyoming, serving in offices or that have run statewide campaigns, and they said no. No one's going to spend $1.3 million ish, on a joke, and so, which is, you know, as of April 1, that's about the size of the Raisner campaign. His spokesman said that they reach people through social media, but they do also take hard policy stances and forward-thinking positions. I also spoke to one drama coach, Michael Stadile, out of Casper. He coached drama for 45 years. He said, ‘If this is satire, this man gets an A.’”
Rasner was among the earliest to declare for what’s now a 10-person GOP primary contest for the House seat, which incumbent Rep. Harriet Hageman is vacating to run for U.S. Senate.
Read the full story HERE.
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A century after Union Pacific stopped using it, decades of work has saved and restored Evanston’s historic Roundhouse and Railyards. Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that $28 million has been spent so far but it’s one of the rare roundhouses in the U.S. that’s still completely operational.
“It's all part of the vision of a guy named Jim Davis. He was hired as the urban renewal manager, worked for the city for many, many years. His charge was to revital. He happened to meet and befriend an architect along the way, and that guy knew how to do historic preservation, and so you know by teaming up with people in the community they were able to forge a path forward to save the depot. That became a springboard for the larger project, the Round House; he built a core of people who could see the value in saving these old buildings, which there aren't many of them left in the country.”
The Roundhouse is a 63,000-square-foot, 96-foot-deep curved brick-and-mortar behemoth built around a post-and-beam interior.
Read the full story HERE.
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FBI files from 1933 reveal that $90,000 in ransom loot from a Machine Gun Kelly kidnapping scheme ended up buried somewhere around Cheyenne. Cowboy State Daily’s Dale Killingbeck reports about $25,000 is still unaccounted for.
“According to FBI documents I found in a newspaper article at the time, the money supposedly they turned out the money to the FBI, but there's only of their take, there was $75,000 apparently in that suitcase, and the FBI accounted for like 38,000, but so there's like $25,000 that has never been recovered, whether that’s remained in Cheyenne, was it taken to the West Coast. We don’t know for sure.”
FBI documents from the time are not clear about whether all of that money was removed or recovered; however, the ground somewhere around the Wyoming Capitol in those months played a part in one of that decade’s notorious gangster sagas.
Read the full story HERE.
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New research published by the Geological Society of America has revealed that Devils Tower is actually constantly moving. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that an international team of geologists determined that it's perpetually and ever-so-slightly swaying, twisting, and turning in the wind.
“Now, the thing is, you'd never know that, because the amount of movement is less than a micro meter, that's 1,000,000th of a meter, so it's not happening on a scale that humans can see. They put two sensors at the base of the tower and one sensor at the top of the tower, and then they had the climb up, put the sensor up, then climb up the next day to collect it and analyze that data, and what they found were the signatures of vibrations that have a definite movement to them.”
Devils Tower is a giant, eroded plug of volcanic rock. It was an intrusive body of magma that cooled under the surface and was gradually exposed by millions of years of erosion.
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.
