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Cowboy State Daily is Wyoming’s largest newspaper with Wyoming’s most experienced journalists. 

<title>Daily Cartoon 2: Thursday, June 11, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Daily Cartoon 2: Thursday, June 11, 2026

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's general assignment reporter, Clair McFarland.

Clair McFarland

Government & Politics

Politics

State Sen. Eric Barlow released poll results Tuesday showing him with a sizable lead over other Republican candidates in the race for Wyoming governor.

[{"type":"text","text":"Two of his opponents doubt that outcome. One of them doesn’t."}]

Barlow, a legislator of 13 years and former House speaker, is running for the Republican nomination against Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder, retired Marine Col. Brent Bien, and Centennial man Curt Blake.

His campaign released polling results Tuesday showing him at 42% support, followed by Degenfelder at 19% and Bien at 14% — with 22% undecided — when people were asked who they would vote for if the election were held today.

The poll was taken in the past three days by the Pulse Decision Science firm, the campaign says.

“Barlow has gained 10 points since the campaign’s previous survey and his net favorability has climbed from +19 to +34,” says a Tuesday statement by his campaign. “This comes even as he has been outspent more than 5-to-1 by Degenfelder and the outside groups supporting her.”

Barlow said he’s taken six full trips through all 23 Wyoming counties and is starting his seventh statewide tour.

[{"type":"text","text":"The primary election is set for Aug. 18."}]

“We believed from the beginning that if we showed up, listened and stayed focused on Wyoming, voters would respond,” Barlow said. “This poll is encouraging, but it does not change how we campaign.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"We will keep showing up, keep listening and keep earning every vote.\""}]

Barlow told Cowboy State Daily in a Tuesday-evening phone call that he trusts the polling, and its cross-tabulation veracity checks. He said Wyomingites' reception of him on the campaign trail is also "quite encouraging." 

His campaign has amassed 2,500 volunteers and contributions from nearly 2,000 individual Wyoming donors, with more than $1 million raised from in-state individuals, the statement says.

The statement says Barlow has focused his campaign on expanding economic opportunity, improving access to rural health care, strengthening Wyoming’s energy and agriculture industries, addressing housing challenges, keeping decisions local and keeping the state's public lands accessible to Wyomingites. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Nah, Says Degenfelder"}]

Degenfelder’s campaign manager Charlotte Jones emphasized that Barlow’s numbers are from his own campaign.

“Voters should take the Barlow campaign’s internal ‘polling’ numbers with a heavy grain of salt, which come as no surprise from the campaign of a career politician desperately trying to run from his record of opposing Wyoming Industries and Wyoming values,” wrote Jones in a Tuesday email. 

“Megan’s campaign is focused on talking to voters about the issues they care about and highlighting her record as the only candidate in the race with a proven record fighting for our mineral industries, and defending women’s sports and parental rights," wrote Jones, "which is why she has earned the support of Donald Trump and Harriet Hageman.”

Trump endorsed Degenfelder in January before she entered the race, and doubled down with a 

U.S. House Rep. Harriet Hageman, who’s running for U.S. Senate, has endorsed Degenfelder and campaigned with her in multiple locations.

[{"type":"text","text":"Not Doing That"}]

The Wyoming Republican Party Central Committee broke tradition Monday night and 

One delegate, Weston County GOP Chair Kari Drost, asked the committee to consider endorsing Degenfelder as well, but the committee cast a majority vote to end the process instead.

The Central Committee considered, but voted against, adopting an official position opposing Barlow.

Bien is not doing polling, says a Tuesday email from his campaign associate Cheryl Aguiar. She called his campaign a grassroots effort.

“As someone who taught statistics to graduate students, I would have all sorts of questions on methodology, sample size, randomness, question wording, and other aspects mainly founded in ‘who paid for the poll?’” she said.

The landline and cellphone call poll was taken from 400 likely Republican primary election voters and with a margin of error of 4.9%, according to the Barlow campaign.

The main prompt asks, “If the Republican Primary election for Wyoming Governor were held today, for whom would you vote?”

Respondents could give answers in three categories for each of the four candidates. For example, for Barlow they could choose “Definitely Barlow,” “Probably Barlow,” or “Lean Barlow.”

[{"type":"text","text":"They could also choose different variations of undecided.  "}]

“Since we don't have the poll's methodology, I would say that this poll is obviously being released by a campaign, so we would advise voters to evaluate it accordingly,” wrote Aguiar. “Our campaign is more interested in what we're hearing from Wyoming  citizens at town halls and community events across the state.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Aguiar said campaigns release internal polling “to tell a story.”"}]

“We respect that. Our campaign is focused, though, on earning votes, not headlines,” wrote Aguiar, adding that no one appears to have gathered 50% of voters and the race has room for “a lot of movement.”

A political action group (PAC) called Women For Responsible Government Action has run multiple attack ads against Barlow, and favorable ads supporting Degenfelder in recent weeks.

This PAC bears a similar name to one linked to Hageman’s campaign for U.S. Senate, “Women for Responsible Government PAC.”

But the group launching TV ads against Barlow is a 501(c)4 issue group run by Hageman’s allies, not Hageman, according to a Thursday text message from Hageman’s campaign advisor Tim Murtaugh.

Murtaugh said Hageman does not control the TV-ad-buying PAC, but it “often aligns with her views, including protecting Wyoming’s children from permanent genital mutilation and preventing coercive gender identity education for kindergarteners.”

Jones said Thursday on Degenfelder’s behalf that the superintendent isn’t aligned with either the action PAC or the PAC funding Hageman’s Senate run.

"Megan is not involved with either organization, and her campaign is not permitted to coordinate with either of them,” wrote Jones. “She is focused on her own campaign and her positive message of making Wyoming more affordable, growing our legacy industries and protecting Wyoming values."

The PAC has run ads touting Degenfelder as a “strong leader” who has stood with Trump, fought for school choice, getting “pornography out of our libraries” and keeping men out of girls’ sports.

Degenfelder has not worked as a legislator and has passed no laws toward those goals. She has backed legislation toward those ends, however.

Soon after she became superintendent she 

 sexually-explicit books out of school libraries. That issue had 

The attack ads lend credibility to Barlow’s favorable poll results, longtime politico and former Assistant Interior Secretary Rob Wallace told Cowboy State Daily in a Tuesday phone interview.

“The fact that Eric has been attacked so hard the last two-to-three weeks tells me the opposition knows that these poll numbers are valid, or similar,” said Wallace. 

He clarified, saying that with “dark money” or independent PACs, people generally don’t know who’s behind them.

Wallace also said it wouldn’t serve Barlow to dispatch bad poll numbers at this phase of the race.

[{"type":"text","text":"Barlow emphasized the ads and the PAC money behind some of them as well."}]

“Eric Barlow is winning this race and pulling away while taking five times more in hostile media spending than any other candidate,” says a Tuesday statement by his campaign.

The statement says Barlow’s campaign team has spent $80,688 on radio and TV ads – about $10,200 more than Degenfelder.

But Women for Responsible Government Action has spent $202,265 and Wyoming’s Turn PAC has spent $149,815 on TV, cable and satellite messaging either backing Degenfelder or opposing Barlow, the statement says.

“The outside groups are blanketing every media market with lies about Eric Barlow’s record reaching Wyoming, Denver, Salt Lake, Idaho Falls, and Rapid City cable zones,” the statement says, “while Barlow has held a disciplined broadcast and radio footprint.”

The statement asserts that “out-of-state dark money is not moving the race; it is hurting Degenfelder and hardening support in Barlow's favor.”

[{"type":"text","text":"What He Actually Voted For"}]

One of the PAC’s ads claims that Barlow voted to allow sexual orientation and gender identity to be taught to kindergarteners and to allow sex change procedures “to be done on kids.”

[{"type":"text","text":"The record tells a different story."}]

Barlow voted against the 2023 Senate File 111, which would have criminalized parents and doctors for their roles in transitioning children’s genders medically.

, calling the bill’s definitions ill suited for its purpose.

Barlow had nothing but praise for the 2023 bill Chloe’s Law, however, and voted in favor of it. The bill sought to strip violating medical professionals of their licenses.

[{"type":"text","text":"“This bill I find to be very precise,” said Barlow at the time."}]

The House Appropriations Committee killed Chloe’s Law that year after the Senate voted 26-5 in its favor. But a later version of it became law in 2024 — with Barlow voting aye once again.

"I absolutely believe minors need to be protected form physically altering surgeries, period," Barlow said Tuesday. He noted that the bill has exemptions allowing treatments for kids with intersex designations or conditions, and puberty blockers for kids with precocious puberty. 

Barlow had, as the ad notes in a subtext, voted against the 2023 

. It sought to ban teaching of gender ideology to public-school kids in grades through kindergarten through third grade.

But Barlow voted in favor of that bill’s 2024 successor, 

The sequel legislation bans schools from teaching sexual orientation or gender identity without prior permission, and compels schools to notify parents if their children experience psychological changes, which may include a newly-voiced transgender identity. 

He told Cowboy State Daily on Tuesday that the 2024 bill was simply written better. 

"I read the bills, right," said Barlow. "Read the bills. Not just who it protects but how it protects them."

The 2024 bill was "a much stronger bill and much more protective of Wyoming kids, which they deserve," he said. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Not Surprised At All"}]

Blake hasn’t built the name recognition of the other three candidates and in a Tuesday phone call, and said he was unsurprised to find his name left out of the Barlow campaign’s announcement.

Blake is running as a “purple” Republican, and said he’d love to keep Wyoming as it is. He cast himself as pragmatic.

“I think a poll can say whatever you want it to say,” said Blake. “With that being said, it wouldn’t surprise me if Eric is in the lead. He’s a damn good guy.”

Eric barlow 7 21 26

<title>Barlow Campaign Releases Poll Claiming Big Lead Over Degenfelder And Bien | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The Eric Barlow gubernatorial campaign released an internal poll Tuesday showing a significant lead over both Megan Degenfelder and Brent Bien. According to his internal polling numbers, 42% of voters support Barlow while Degenfelder is at 19% and Bien at 14%.

Barlow Campaign Releases Poll Claiming Big Lead Over Degenfelder And Bien

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Outdoors

Jory Thomas, 14, was absent-mindedly flipping loops with a rope while visiting his grandparents' campground on the Yellowstone River over the Fourth of July weekend when he heard someone start screaming for help.

Within seconds, the Montana ranch kid emptied his pockets, splashed across a side channel and waded chest-deep into the river.

[{"type":"text","text":"Then he did something he'd spent the past year practicing on calves."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"This time, he roped a drowning man."}]

The July 5 rescue unfolded so quickly that by the time the first Sweet Grass County Sheriff’s Office deputy arrived three minutes after Jory's father called 911, everyone was already safely on shore.

"My opinion, Jory saved the individual's life, 100%," Sweet Grass County Sheriff Alan Ronneberg told Cowboy State Daily. "Had Jory not acted, I believe the chances of this individual not making it to shore were very slim.”'

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Boat Hits A Bridge"}]

The Thomas family lives on a ranch about a dozen miles outside Big Timber, directly across from a campground where Jory's grandparents had been staying for the week.

Jory wandered over to visit with his parents and grandparents that afternoon, a rope already in his hand as he casually practiced throwing loops.

"All of a sudden he heard some yells for help," Jory's father, Jase Thomas, told Cowboy State Daily.

A boat had struck a bridge pillar, throwing its occupants into the Yellowstone River.

Three people fell in, but only two managed to get out, leaving one person alone in the swift current, desperately clinging to a cooler.

[{"type":"text","text":"Jory didn't hesitate."}]

Somehow, said his father, he convinced the drowning man to let go of the cooler. Then he threw the rope, catching the man around the neck and one arm. 

Jory and another bystander then pulled the man safely to shore before emergency responders arrived. 

In the moment, Jory didn’t think about any potential danger to himself, he just acted on instinct, the teen told KTVQ television in Billings, Montana, which first 

"This current was pretty fast then, and he was moving pretty quickly," he told the outlet. "Only thing I could focus on was helping him get out of the water because I didn't want to see anyone go in front of me.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'Let Me Have My Son Back'"}]

Jory's father has spent three decades on the Big Timber Volunteer Fire Department and immediately called 911.

Dispatch records show the call came in at 5:39 p.m. A deputy arrived just three minutes later and reported everyone was already out of the water. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Watching the rescue unfold wasn't easy for the elder Thomas. "}]

He knows that stretch of river, and that it becomes more dangerous just downstream, where swift current, deep holes and logjams create deadly hazards.

"My biggest concern was to let me have my son back," he said before taking a long pause, reflecting on the potential for Jory to also get caught up in the current.

"He understands water, but I don't think he understands what could happen,” Jase said. "I mean, he does, but he had one thing in mind, which is great, and he got it done." 

Jase believes the man his son rescued likely wouldn't have survived much longer.

[{"type":"text","text":"Sheriff Ronneberg agrees."}]

"I'm not sure how close the individual was to being 'lost,' but in my experience such things happen faster than you might guess they can," he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'He Loves Roping' "}]

Although the rescue looked almost unbelievable, it wasn't blind luck. Jory has spent the past year immersing himself in roping.

He practices on roping dummies in his spare time and started roping calves from horseback during local brandings, his father said.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"He's always had a rope,\" Jase said. \"He loves roping.\" "}]

Outside of ranch work, he's an avid hunter and is spending this week showing a steer and a pig at the county fair. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'That's Just Who He Is'"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"To his family, the rescue wasn't entirely surprising."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Jase said his son has always been the first person to help someone else."}]

"We'll be in town at the grocery store, and you'll see an elderly person," he said. "They can't pack the groceries, and he never says a word. He goes over and gets their groceries and packs them out. That's just who he is." 

Ronneberg said the rescue is a reminder that courage often appears in ordinary moments.

"Jory saw another in trouble and acted, not for himself but for another," Ronneberg said. "He didn't pull out a phone, but a lariat. He didn't watch what was happening but intervened."

"Jory is a lesson for all of us in this day and age and showed us what is courageous and right.”

Montana lasso teen 7 21 26

<title>14-Year-Old Ranch Kid Ropes Drowning Man On Yellowstone River, Saves Life | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A 14-year-old ranch kid from Big Timber, Montana, had a rope in his hand when cries for help erupted from the Yellowstone River. He sprinted into the water, threw one loop and caught a struggling man around the arm and neck, pulling him safely to shore.

14-Year-Old Ranch Kid Ropes Drowning Man On Yellowstone River, Saves Life

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's Feature Reporter, Andrew Rossi.

Andrew Rossi

Wildlife

[{"type":"text","text":"How many wolverines are in Yellowstone National Park?"}]

The National Park Service doesn’t have an easy answer for a census of these 

Neither does biologist Jim Halfpenny, but he does have an estimate based on decades of confirmed evidence — and it’s a lot more than most people think.

 seven “documented” wolverines in the region from 2006-2009. Halfpenny’s nearly 50 years of research says there are dozens more, at least 31 verified in the last five years and "83 absolute verified wolverines” since 1990.

That was the story Halfpenny shared recently at the historic Range Riders Lodge in Silver Gate, Montana. Dozens of people attended his presentation on what he calls the “elusive, sparse, and downright rare wolverine.”

“Tonight, I’m dealing with verified reports only,” he said. “No matter how much I trust somebody who says they saw a wolverine, that's not counted. This is where I have positive verification.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Bad PR"}]

The wolverine, in Halfpenny’s opinion, has a bad reputation through no fault of its own. He’s spent decades reversing their public image by fastidiously learning more about them.

“We're going to talk about the real wolverine,” he said. “The real wolverine is quite a different creature than the stories you probably grew up with.”

The wolverine has been known by many names, among them “the Devil Bear,” “the Glutton,” and “The Evil One.”

Even Peter Krott, a biologist who hand-raised wolverines alongside his own children, titled his 1959 book on wolverines “Demon of the North.”

“I hate to say it, (but) the wolverine is a plain out-and-out victim of bad PR,” Halfpenny said.

Halfpenny has been tracking and studying wolverines in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem since 1979. In that time, he said he’s seen the truth about “the curious big weasel.”

“Dave Need and I picked up a grant for $80,000, which was a lot of money then, for three years of chasing lynx and wolverine,” he said. “That was the start of the wolverine hair snagging for the United States.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Fact And Fiction"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Wolverines have long been depicted as almost mythical creatures. "}]

The earliest accounts from North American explorers depict them as fearless, vicious, and ill-tempered animals that battle bears and eviscerate anything in their path.

Halfpenny has always been focused on verification. When it comes to understanding the truth of the wolverine, everything else is pointless.

“There's two basic eras of wolverine knowledge: the natural history books and things that we read there, and the modern science,” he said.

The natural history books say a wolverine could grow up to 80 pounds. Modern science, in the form of over 700 in-the-field weighings of wild wolverines in North America, reached a much more conservative conclusion.

“The largest weight ever is 37 pounds,” Halfpenny said. “A male might hit 35, but the average weight is around 30 pounds.”

Natural history says a fully grown wolverine could be more than 6 feet long. Modern science hasn’t found a wolverine larger than 3 feet long.

Halfpenny has seen wolverines interact with grizzlies but never engage them in combat. If anything, wolverines are extremely deferential to their much larger neighbors.

[{"type":"text","text":"Wolverines were also nearly hunted to extinction. "}]

In fact, Halfpenny believes they might have been extinct in Montana by 1920, partly due to the National Park Service's early archaic anti-predator policies.

“If you read the Yellowstone superintendent’s report from 1877, which really irritates me, it says, ‘strychnine poisoning for wolves and wolverine habitats will go on in Yellowstone.’ That was the period of massive predator slaughter in the ecosystem,” he said.

Halfpenny asked his audience to make a mental note that a wolverine had been spotted in the southeast corner of Yellowstone in 1871.

“Put that in your memory,” he said. “We’re going to come back to it.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Rocky Mountain Reunion"}]

Halfpenny’s story of wolverines was simultaneously a story of how technology changed the dynamic of wildlife conservation in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

When he started studying wolverines, the first method of verification was to physically trap the elusive animals.

“We had a 12-foot-square cage with a noose inside,” he said. “We grabbed the back legs, laid them in the center of a tarp, and rolled them up like a hot dog.”

He had a special guest on his earliest trapping projects: singer, songwriter, and actor John Denver, who chronicled the adventure in the 1978 television movie “

“John pitched in just like everybody else and worked his tail end off to do that,” Halfpenny said. “It was great to be working with him.”

In one scene, Denver is carrying one end of a wolverine cage with a wolverine inside through a blizzard in the mountains. Halfpenny noted the peculiar way Denver was walking that had nothing to do with the deep, blowing snow.

“If you look at the end (of the cage), that opening's big enough for a wolverine paw to come through and get a piece of John's ass, to put it one way,” he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Science Marches On"}]

As Halfpenny continued trapping, other scientists were undertaking the first modern studies of wolverines in North America. 

The next big advancement was radio-collaring, started by Howard Hayes in northwest Montana.

Then in the 1980s, Halfpenny became acquainted with CyberTracker. It was a handheld computer program developed by Louis Liebenberg to track and study wild animals in South Africa.

“He developed a picture-icon system for PDAs,” Halfpenny said. “It was a way to manage wildlife without a budget.”

When the Wildlife Conservation Society started trapping wolverines in the 1990s, they introduced implanted trackers and DNA sampling.

“By grabbing DNA samples, we could start looking at the populations,” Halfpenny said. “With radio collars and CyberTracker, we could create a map and gather years of behavioral studies.

[{"type":"text","text":"Then in the 2000s, biologists had the money for helicopter surveys."}]

These individual studies pooled their knowledge and assembled the first comprehensive analysis of wolverine diversity and distribution in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, he said.

[{"type":"text","text":"Halfpenny had an unlikely ally in his endeavors. "}]

He regularly worked with commercial fur trackers, who diligently informed him when they trapped a wolverine and allowed him to see, study, and measure the specimen for first-hand verification.

[{"type":"text","text":"“The trappers always provided us with locations and DNA,” he said."}]

That’s why he categorized the classification and federal protection of the wolverine as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act in 2023 as “a trade-off.”

“That seems like it might be good for the wolverine, but it's poor for our knowledge,” he said. “It depends on which side of the coin you want to take.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Family Inheritance"}]

In August 2022, biologists Doug McCartney, Steve Moore, and Bill Turner were hiking in the mountains in the southeast corner of Yellowstone. 

That’s when they saw something incredible: 

13 wolverines in the same snow-covered bowl.

Halfpenny said this sighting has been “highly disputed.” After extensive forensic analysis of McCartney’s photos, pixel-by-pixel in Gaia GPS and Photoshop, he feels he has verified 12 of the 13 wolverines.

[{"type":"text","text":"“I can’t find the 13th one,” he said."}]

He could even verify that the wolverines in the photos were two adult males, three adult females, and two other adults, with the rest being younger individuals.

With no carcass in the area, Halfpenny has an incredible theory: family inheritance.

“I think one of those was an adult female with an adult male,” he said. “The other two females were daughters, each of whom had their two (offspring), and one was mated with the second adult male.”

As evidence, Halfpenny cited the sighting of a wolverine in the same area in 1871.

“This is favorable habitat,” he said. “I can’t prove it, but I'm arguing this is a family unit that's taken over that area.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"So, How Many?"}]

Then there’s the debate over just how many wolverines are in Yellowstone.

The “old park estimate,” according to Halfpenny, was six individuals. After decades of research and verifiable evidence, Halfpenny says the actual number is “much higher.”

[{"type":"text","text":"However, that doesn’t make it any easier to give a hard number."}]

“Yellowstone is 3,400 square miles, and the ecosystem is 23,000 square miles,” he said. “You want me to tell you how many secretive, elusive, 3-foot-long creatures there are in that area? Yeah, thanks.”

Nonetheless, Halfpenny has a number: 83 verified wolverines between 1990 and 2026, and at least 31 individuals verified in Yellowstone in the last five years.

A prominent biologist with 50 years of research says there are dozens more confirmed wolverines in Yellowstone than are reported by the National Park Service. He says there at least 31 verified wolverines in the last five years and 83 since 1990.

Daily Cartoon 2: Thursday, June 11, 2026

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