Daily Smile

[{"type":"text","text":"On today's episode of \"Fat and Jobless\"....."}]

Smile no play 6 13 26

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

<title>Daily Smile: Saturday, June 13, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

On today's episode of "Fat and Jobless".....

Daily Smile: Saturday, June 13, 2026

 On today's episode of "Fat and Jobless".....

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Courts

The last defendant headed for trial in one of Wyoming's most controversial wildlife-abuse cases has changed course.

For months, Justin Martin stood alone as the only man still preparing to fight charges stemming from allegations that a weakened cow moose was roped, ridden, spurred and dragged across a Uinta County ranch.

[{"type":"text","text":"Now, that trial won't happen."}]

Martin, who is listed as a Wyoming Livestock Board brand inspector for Uinta County, has entered a conditional guilty plea to one felony count of accessory before the fact to cruelty to animals, abandoning plans for an August trial while preserving his right to appeal a judge's ruling allowing prosecutors to use cellphone videos at the center of the case.

The conditional plea, filed July 22 in Uinta County District Court, is the latest development in a case alleging three men abused the sickly cow moose on the M Arrow Ranch near Evanston during a series of encounters in May 2021. 

If Judge James Kaste ultimately accepts the plea agreement, the remaining charges against Martin will be dismissed. Sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 2.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'Spur That Son Of A Bitch'"}]

The case began after Wyoming Game and Fish Department investigators seized Martin's cellphone during an unrelated investigation in 2022. While searching, investigators discovered videos and screenshots that ultimately launched the moose abuse case. 

After obtaining an additional search warrant specific to the wildlife investigation, officers recovered four videos tied to the May 2021 incidents. 

 the videos showed a cow moose that appeared emaciated, elderly or sick. She told the court one eye appeared sunken, suggesting the animal might have been blind. 

One video showed Kylan Platt climbing onto the moose's back and aggressively digging his spurs into the animal while smiling.

"He doesn't seem to have an issue in participating in this activity at all," Sterling said, comparing the scene to someone breaking a horse to ride. 

Investigators said ropes were placed around both the moose's neck and one of its hind legs.

Prosecutors further alleged Martin can be heard on the video saying, "Spur that son of a bitch" as he laughed and encouraged Platt.

Sterling testified investigators found Martin had sent the video to more than 20 phone numbers. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'Done For The Sheer Joy' "}]

Another video, prosecutors said, showed Range Martin on horseback dragging the cow moose by a lariat through chest-high sagebrush until it fell while struggling to regain its footing. 

At the preliminary hearing, Uinta County Circuit Court Judge Michael Greer ruled prosecutors had presented enough evidence for a jury to decide whether the men intended to torture or torment the animal.

"When I look at the context of what appears in the screenshots of the videos and the comments made by onlookers and the photographer there at the time, this was done for the sheer joy of dominating a wild animal who appeared to be already in poor health and possibly blind," Greer said in binding the case over to district court.

, Range Martin and Platt each accepted plea agreements, pleading guilty to felony cruelty to animals. In exchange, prosecutors dismissed wildlife misdemeanor charges.

As part of those agreements, both men acknowledged Justin Martin was the person filming the videos and making statements heard on the recordings. Their plea agreements recommend deferred felony sentences, three years of supervised probation, a $1,000 fine and a prohibition on hunting, trapping and fishing while on probation, although Judge Kaste will make the final decision at sentencing.

Justin Martin was the lone defendant preparing for trial until filing his conditional guilty plea.

His plea means every defendant charged in the case has now admitted guilt to at least one offense, avoiding what was expected to be a four-day jury trial next month.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Conditional Plea "}]

Martin's attorney, Joseph August Hampton, said the guilty plea does not end the legal fight.

Instead, it preserves a single constitutional issue for appeal: whether Game and Fish investigators exceeded the scope of a search warrant when they discovered the cellphone videos.

Hampton said investigators obtained Martin's phone during an unrelated investigation under a warrant authorizing a search of data created between September 2021 and June 2022. Because the alleged moose abuse occurred in May 2021, he argues investigators should not have been reviewing material outside the warrant's authorized date range.

Under Wyoming law, a conditional guilty plea allows a defendant to admit guilt while preserving a dispositive legal issue for appeal.

"If we're successful in the appeal, then the case would be dismissed, and the conviction would be reversed," Hampton said. "If we're not successful, then the conviction sticks."

Hampton said Martin accepts responsibility for the accessory charge and regrets how the incident unfolded.

"They were just trying to get the moose off their property," Hampton said, explaining ranchers wanted to move cattle into the pasture. "Martin agrees that he didn't do it in the right way and regrets that."

Hampton said Martin has changed how he handles similar situations in the nearly five years since the incident.

He also said the negotiated plea calls for two years of supervised probation and that he does not anticipate prison time, though he acknowledged the judge is free to impose any lawful sentence.

Cowboy State Daily reached out to special prosecutor F. Gaston Gosar for comment but did not receive a response before publication.

Judge James Kaste accepted Martin's guilty plea but reserved ruling on the parties' sentencing recommendation until the Oct. 2 hearing.

director of the Wyoming Livestock Board, confirmed Monday that Martin is still a brand inspector for Uinta County. He told Cowboy State Daily he has no further comment. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"italic"}],"text":"This story will be updated."}]

Uinta moose 2 12 9 25 2026 02 20 230834 vzcw

<title>Last Holdout In Infamous Uinta Moose Torture Case Pleads Guilty, Avoids Trial | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Justin Martin, a state brand inspector accused in the infamous Uinta County moose torture case where it's alleged a weak cow was roped, ridden, spurred and dragged across a ranch, has pleaded guilty to a felony charge and will avoid trial. But he can still appeal.

Last Holdout In Infamous Uinta Moose Torture Case Pleads Guilty, Avoids Trial

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Jackie Dorothy.

Jackie Dorothy

Around Wyoming

 in Hot Springs County that was becoming a ghost town by the time World War II broke out. 

Beginning in 1932, the once busy mines were being closed permanently and families were moving away, with only a few remaining to work in smaller private mines. Then World War II called away the young men of Gebo to serve as soldiers, many of them still teenagers.

and his friends formed the Junior Marines and

re just as dedicated as any who were serving abroad.

“We all tried to be good soldiers, and whenever any of us got out of line, you sure heard about it from the rest of the group,” Bolich, 93, told Cowboy State Daily. “I think the added discipline was good for all of us.”

Bolich said that whenever they heard of a soldier coming home on furlough, the Junior Marines would gather at the schoolhouse and march to the soldier's home to sing the Marines' Hymn.

“When the family would come outside to see what was going on, we would salute the soldier and then march back to the school,” Bolich said. “We never gave any thought to the fact that they might have been in the Army, Air Force or Navy.”

Bolich chuckled at his youthful ignorance and said that when he was older he learned the soldiers and their parents got a kick out of watching the Junior Marines perform, especially if the soldier being serenaded was not an actual Marine.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Teenage Soldiers"}]

The Junior Marines were inspired by two Gebo teenagers who had both enlisted on the same day. 

Stanley "Dutch" Wedlock, 18, had graduated from Thermopolis High School and volunteered in the Marines. His younger brother, Lee, also volunteered to the Marines although he was only 16.

“Lee lied about his age so he could volunteer,” Bolich wrote in his memoirs, “Gebo, Living in a Coal Camp”. “At that time, there was such a demand for manpower that the War Department did not take the time to examine everyone's birth certificate. In fact, many of the soldiers could not produce a birth certificate, so if you looked 18, you were accepted.”

After their boot camp, Dutch and Lee were assigned to different Marine divisions. They were not to see each other for the next three years.

A miraculous story about the two young soldiers was broadcast to the world by the Denver Radio Station KOA and picked up by The Associated Press in July 1944.

“A story of Gebo boys comes out of Saipan, Marianas Islands,” Staff Sgt. Hy Hurwitz, a Marine Corps staff correspondent, reported. “Two brothers from Gebo, Wyo., met here by accident today just as Marines were about to start a push over one of the heavily fortified Jap-held hills.”

Marine Cpl. Stanley Wedlock had run out of ammunition and turned for help from another ‘Leatherneck’ who was unloading supplies on the beach.

[{"type":"text","text":"“Got any ammunition?” Wedlock asked."}]

When the Marine unloading ammunition turned around, Wedlock discovered it was his younger brother, Pvt. Leland R. Wedlock, whom he had not seen since they enlisted together in August, 1941.

Hurwitz, one of the official correspondents for the 18th Marines

, wrote dozens of human-interest stories from Tarawa, Saipan, Tinian, and later campaigns. 

He was so impressed with this chance encounter that Hurwitz sent a press release and the story 

 the world, including as the first presented on a new Marine program airing on KOA radio in Denver the following Monday.

“It was a rare experience that two Marines from a little town in Wyoming should meet during a battle on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean,” Bolich said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Young Marines"}]

Their youngest brother, Bob Wedlock, 12, was instrumental in forming the Junior Marines, according to Bolich.

“As patriotic youngsters, we all decided that we would join this group,” Bolich said. “All of the boys in the camp wanted to join.”

Bolich was one of the youngest at age 10 and the other boys who joined he named as Jack Toth, Fritz Jurovich, Joe Bandich, Pete Cavalli, Kenny Halbert, Jack Bretthauer, Buddy Cammock, Jim Hughes, Ken Bolich and Jim Isbell.

“In order to be sworn in, you had to be able to sing the Marines' Hymn,” Bolich said. “Once you did your performance, they would allow you to be a Junior Marine.”

found Navy officer caps in a catalog for about a dollar. The boys all saved money so they would have their ‘uniform dress.’

“They weren’t Marine hats but were Navy officer hats, but we got them and wore them,” Bolich said. “Boy, we were something. We felt like we were helping because people we knew were in the war.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Rubber Gun Rifle"}]

Once accepted as a Junior Marine, the boys were required to build a rubber gun rifle they would hold against their shoulders as they marched.

The boys would draw the outline of a rifle on boards they salvaged from the houses being torn down in Gebo. Sig Nelson, the grocer in Kirby, was also recruited into their wartime efforts. He would bring them wooden boxes from his store specifically for their guns.

“We would take a small axe and chop away a lot of the wood,” Bolich said. “When that was done, we moved on to using a knife to make a nicer finish.”

When the rifle was smooth, the boys would nail a heavy piece of string to the end of the "barrel" of the rifle. Four notches 

carved on the top of part of the barrel. Their ammunitions was from old inner tubes from the inside of car tires. The Junior Marines would then cut pieces out of the rubber about an inch wide.

“One tube gave us enough ammunition for our whole squad,” Bolich said.

To fire their guns, they would place one end of the rubber across the front of the barrel, stretch it backward, and place the band into one of the notches over the string. They could pull up on the string, which released the stretched inner tube.

They used the rubber gun rifles when they played war, and if you were hit by the rubber tube piece, you were out of the fight.

“We drilled regularly in the flat area just north of the town, on the old football field, which was used by the high school before the high school was closed,” Bolich said.

They would pick teams, then head up into the hills behind Gebo Hill for their wars.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Scrap Metal Effort"}]

“Our job was to help the war situation,” Bolich said. “We were really busy.”

Aside from singing the Marines’ Hymn to returning soldiers, waging their own wars in the Gebo hills and playing basketball, the Junior Marines were salvaging iron.

“The county was directing a scrap iron drive for the war, so we, as Junior Marines, worked hard to do whatever we could to help,” Bolich said. “We always got together, and our job was to help the war effort. We went up to the mine in Gebo and started hauling stuff away.”

They got spikes out of the railroad, and would haul a rail over to the vacant lot where the old basketball gym used to be to pile up the scrap metal. Once a month, a big truck would come to Gebo to gather it all.

“Since Gebo was being dismantled as a coal mining town, there were lots of items left that people did not take with them,” Bolich said. “We went into abandoned houses, collected whatever metal was left there.”

[{"type":"text","text":"They also got the privilege of legally breaking windows."}]

“We were always aware of any house that was being torn down and obtained permission to get rocks and throw them to break windows,” Bolich said. “We would line up like baseball pitchers do and see who had the most accurate arm.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Bolich said Pete Cavalli had the best pitching arm of the Junior Marines."}]

“Since the mine was no longer working, we were very efficient in picking up pieces of metal there,” Bolich said.  

[{"type":"text","text":"They would all pitch in to carry a rail and made it a military endeavor."}]

“When we all were in position, someone would call out, ‘lift' and we would lift the rail altogether and then wait for the 'forward march, hut, hut, hut' orders,” Bolich said. “We would all march in step to take the rail to the metal stockpile. I often wonder if some Gebo people saw us and just laughed.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Proud To Be Junior Marine"}]

Bolich recalled trying to get the wheel off an ore car and being chased off by a worker who was on the tipple.

"You get the hell out of there — we use those wheels," the worker yelled. “Leave that alone!”

Bolich said he took his wagon and hurried home with what little scrap he was able to salvag

His time as a Junior Marine soon came to an end, despite the war still being fought. Bolich’s own family moved into Thermopolis when he was in the fifth grade. Despite no longer being in the Junior Marines, Bolich said their wartime efforts continued.

“When we left Gebo, my brother got a job because so many men were in the Army, Navy or Marines,” Bolich said. “Ken started washing dishes at the Manhattan Café and I shined shoes for Steve Ely because it was hard to buy shoes.

“Leather went to the military, so Steve would repair the shoes, and I would shine them up. I got a dollar a day.”

As Bolich looked back at his childhood war efforts, he said that he was proud to be a Junior Marine. He would still sing the Marines' Hymn, no matter which branch the soldier

Gebo and young marines inset 7 26 26

<title>Wyoming History: How Gebo’s Gung-Ho Junior Marines Served During World War II | Cowboy State Daily</title>

In the dying coal town of Gebo during World War II, the patriotic Junior Marines were gung-ho in their wartime efforts of gathering scrap iron, marching and singing. They were inspired by the Wedlock brothers, two teens who left Gebo to fight the war.

Wyoming History: How Gebo’s Gung-Ho Junior Marines Served During World War II

CASPER — By the time Rick Knigge died last September, he had spent decades turning 20 acres outside the city into a gearhead's paradise.

He had Camaros and Chevelles. Prewar Ford hot rods. Corvettes. A 426 Hemi-powered Plymouth GTX. Monster trucks. Speed boats. Race engines. Shipping containers packed with parts.

[{"type":"text","text":"If it was loud, fast or had the potential to be, Knigge wanted it."}]

The Casper-area oil field worker spent a lifetime hauling home muscle cars, hot rods, vintage trucks, race engines and enough performance parts to fill shelves, sea cans and storage units. 

Nearly every evening after work ended the same way: he'd settle into his chair and spend an hour combing through classifieds, searching for the next great find.

"He was obsessed with it," his wife, Stephanie Knigge, told Cowboy State Daily. "That was probably an hour process every night, just going through all the ads to see if there was anything he was missing out on." 

When Knigge died unexpectedly at 65 on Sept. 10, 2025, he left behind more than memories.

He left a sprawling automotive collection so large it drew bidders from across the country to a massive July 18 estate auction near Evansville for his "Go Fast" collection.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Born To Build"}]

Long before the rows of classic cars filled his property, Knigge was working.

He started driving trucks as a young teenager after his family launched an oilfield water service business. 

Eventually, he and his brother helped build Melco Inc., an oil tank cleaning company that took them across much of the United States. He later became vice president, a role his family said he took great pride in. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Those work trips often turned into treasure hunts."}]

"He got a lot of opportunity to drive around and see what was around and collect stuff," Stephanie said. "So that's how I think it all started." 

By the time she met him in 1989, the collecting bug had already taken hold.

"That's why he started working in the first place — because he wanted parts for cars" she said. 

As the years went on, the collection evolved with whatever captured his imagination.

Some years it was 1930s-era Ford hot rods. Other times it was vintage Jeeps, Broncos or speed boats. If it looked like a bargain, Knigge usually found room for it.

"He would kind of get on a kick every now and then," Stephanie said. "He was always looking." 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Twenty Acres "}]

Things really escalated after the family moved to 20 acres outside Casper.

"He really went crazy with it," Stephanie said with a laugh, "because he had the room to park all of it." 

[{"type":"text","text":"Before long, the collection had grown so large the county took notice."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Knigge's solution wasn't to stop buying cars."}]

It was to buy shipping containers, rent storage units and devise an organizational system only he truly understood.

"His brain was pretty intense," Stephanie said. "If I would have had all of that going on in my brain, my mind would explode." 

Eventually, the property held roughly 220 vehicles, along with countless engines, body panels, race parts and automotive memorabilia.

VanDerBrink Auctions dubbed it the "Go Fast" collection. The catalog ranged from 1932-1940 Ford, Dodge, Plymouth and Chevrolet hot rod bodies to Camaros, Chevelles, Corvettes, monster trucks, Humvees, speed boats, racing engines and shelves of vintage speed parts. 

Ironically, Stephanie said her husband rarely had time to enjoy many of his favorite vehicles.

"He didn't even really have the time to enjoy it," she said. "He just worked until he died. He had all these plans." 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'You're Burying Me Alive'"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Living with more than 200 vehicles wasn't always easy."}]

About a year before his death, Stephanie finally tried to slow the collection's relentless growth.

"I was like, 'Honey, you are kind of burying me alive with all this,'" she recalled. 

[{"type":"text","text":"It didn't work."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"He just did what he wanted,\" she said with a laugh. "}]

Despite the occasional frustration, she understood exactly why he kept collecting.

[{"type":"text","text":"It made him happy."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"And sometimes, it paid off."}]

Buying and selling cars over the years helped finance construction of the couple's home, she said. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Little Things"}]

Knigge died after complications related to diabetes and previously undiagnosed heart disease. What he initially thought was heartburn quickly became a medical emergency, Stephanie said. 

Without a will or trust, the family eventually concluded selling the collection was the only practical option.

"There just wasn't a choice," Stephanie said. "We had to be able to pay the bills, keep this place going." 

Rows of hot rods, muscle cars, speed boats, race engines, body panels and carefully cataloged parts stretched across the property as bidders wandered from lot to lot, loading trailers with pieces of a collection Rick spent decades building. 

By day's end, what had once been one man's automotive playground was dispersing across Wyoming and beyond.

[{"type":"text","text":"Watching it happen proved more emotional than Stephanie expected."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"It was the little things."}]

Pallets stacked with mirrors, headlights and decades of carefully gathered parts sold off in bulk.

"I'd just be thinking, 'Oh my gosh, he would be rolling over in his grave,'" she said. "He put a lot of time and energy into even the little details." 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"More Than Cars"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Some moments brought comfort."}]

A family friend bought one of Knigge's Camaros. Her nephew purchased a pair of racing engines she believes Rick would have wanted him to have. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Others marked the end of an era."}]

One longtime auction-goer told the family it was the biggest auction he had ever attended. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Today, much of the collection is gone."}]

A few keepsakes remain, but Stephanie hopes people remember more than the hundreds of cars that once filled their property.

Her husband, she said, was a successful businessman, a devoted husband of 36 years, a father, grandfather and great-grandfather who loved fishing almost as much as fast cars. 

Friends and family remember him as generous, quick with a joke and always willing to lend a hand without expecting anything in return.

Rick and Stephanie Knigge inset 7 26 26

<title>Finding New Homes For Casper Oil Field Worker's 220-Car Collection Of Hot Rods | Cowboy State Daily</title>

By the time Rick Knigge died last September, he had spent decades turning 20 acres outside Casper into a gearhead's paradise. The oilfield worker spent a lifetime hauling home muscle cars, hot rods and vintage trucks. Now they are all finding new homes.

Finding New Homes For Casper Oil Field Worker's 220-Car Collection Of Hot Rods

Wyoming Life

In the early 2000s, Zariah Whiteplume recalls how she would have to go to the "water hole" on the Navajo Reservation just so her family could wash dishes and have water to drink.

“I remember visiting my great-grandmother in New Mexico and we barely had any electricity,” Whiteplume said. “We had no running water, and it's so crazy that we used to go in an outhouse, and haul water.”

Whiteplume, 22, has known poverty all her life in two places: The Navajo and Wind River reservations. The experiences have led her on a quest to make life better for both her tribes, the Northern Arapaho and Diné (Navajo).

“I know there's still so many tribal members who live like that out on the reservation,” she told Cowboy State Daily. “I feel like I came a long way but when you're young you don't really realize that you are poor. It’s just the way it is.”

Whiteplume wanted to change that, so she began 

lectrical engineering degree with a focus on renewable energy. 

Members of her Diné family attended United Tribes Technical College in Bismarck, North Dakota, and persuaded her to visit. 

discovered her love for math was a strong asse

as recruited to the engineering program. 

[{"type":"text","text":"This past spring, she graduated with her pre-engineering degree."}]

“It's a very demanding degree, but I'm also proud to say that I'm one of a few of the young women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math),” Whiteplume said. “United Tribes brought me opportunities I thought I would never have.”

Thanks to her Diné connections, Whiteplume was able to intern at the Los Alamos Nationa

o summers. This year, she transferred to the Sandia National Laboratori

“I want to come back to my community and engage with the youth,” she said. “We need to introduce more of our kids at earlier ages to the sciences but also incorporate our cultural ways.”

Whiteplume said she hopes to build a bridge between h

This process is called Traditional Ecological Knowledge, or TEK, and can be used to ensure proposed renewable energy fits community priorities, respects culturally significant places, and meets local needs rather than imposing outside solutions.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Sharing Her Culture"}]

Zariah Whiteplume grew up without running water or much electricity on the Wind River and Navajo reservations. This summer, she was hoop dancing and modeling in Tokyo. “I want to come back to my community and engage with the youth,” she said.

Daily Smile: Saturday, June 13, 2026

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