It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Monday, June 15th. I’m Mac Watson
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Wyoming lawmakers Friday vowed to rework the Food Freedom Act after months of controversy at small-time food producers and family-owned shops. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that business owner Mark Nelson who owns the Hippy Cow Creamery says he was ordered to stop selling raw milk lattes.
“He was describing these Catch-22’s, where he could get a commercial food license, but then he'd still have to pasteurize milk, and he can create raw milk lattes in his home kitchen, which is a few feet away from what they consider his commercial kitchen, because it's a professional grade latte machine, and so he was talking about all these just weird little catches in the law were with some inconvenience and some trouble, you could sell these lattes under very similar circumstances. Several lawmakers talked about wanting to perfect and discuss and develop bills that Representative Steve Johnson brought to expand the Food Freedom Act.”
Nelson tells Cowboy State Daily that to survive the huge setback in business from losing the latte sales include installing a $20,000 ADA-compliant bathroom at the shop even though there’s another ADA-complaint bathroom “literally 65 feet away.”
Read the full story HERE.
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Wyoming business owners say they are leaving a lot of money on the table because they can’t fill open jobs, forcing them to turn away customers and reduce hours. Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that one owner says he keeps banging his head against the wall, trying to come up with a solution.
“The labor crunch is so tight in Wyoming, people are doing things that are unheard of, you know. This guy with Ranch Eats, he's not only got health insurance for his employees, that's 100% employer paid, but he's also offering a 401 k plan with a 4% match on top of that, and then you know he has an employee of the quarter program, you get a $250 bonus, plus a limousine trip. Wyoming loses 70% of its of the people who are in their 30s. They've lost 70% of those by then. By the time people reach 30, 70% will leave the state and go somewhere else. That's the highest, pretty much in the country.”
With too few workers to go around, businesses have been quietly curtailing their hours on what seem like odd days — Tuesday and Wednesday — and billing that as “new summer hours.”
Read the full story HERE.
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The Wyoming Game and Fish Department is investigating a graphic video where an alleged Wyoming man tortures a seemingly wounded coyote. Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that the video was sent to Cowboy State Daily by a private investigator who says he also sent it to Game and Fish.
“There's allegations that a person who is reportedly from Wyoming was videoed grabbing what appears to be a wounded coyote by a tail, pulling it out from underneath a bush, throwing it, the thing tries to run, but can't really run, because apparently it's been wounded. Guy runs up to it, kicks it in the head, pulls out a knife, stabs it. A private investigator sent this information out to Cowboy State Daily, to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, to agencies and animal rights groups. Game and Fish did confirm that they are investigating something in connection to that incident, because it's an active investigation, they can't offer any information.”
Game and Fish Spokeswoman Amanda Fry confirms that the department is investigating the alleged incident.
Read the full story HERE.
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A detective was about to fly to Wisconsin to arrest the lead suspect in the 32-year cold case of a woman whose nude body was dumped along I-80 when he got the news the suspect was dead. Cowboy State Daily’s Jen Kocher reports that authorities zeroed in on Roger L. Dirkey as the alleged killer, but they were too late.
“Investigators believe that Roger L Durkee is responsible for murdering the former Jane Doe Shafter Jane Doe, who has since been ID as Marion Alexander. so the investigators from the Elko County, Nevada Sheriff's Office were a week or so away from flying out to Milwaukee to actually arrest Dirkey. While they're making their travel plans to go out there, they learned that he had died. For all practical purposes, they thought he was alive because he wasn't showing up dead in the databases, so there was some glitch between when he died and his getting entered in the Wisconsin Vital Services, so as they're making these plans, they learned that he actually had died, and they got it confirmed. His DNA was the likely match of DNA found on her body. And then they had other evidence too.”
Authorities say during the investigation, they found that he had searched nearly 90 Google searches for Shafter Jane Doe, that was one strong piece of evidence in the investigators' minds.
Read the full story HERE.
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I’ll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.
Cowboy State Daily News continues now….
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Steer wrestlers raised money last week for the Montana woman who lost her hand in a rodeo accident. Cowboy State Daily’s Kate Meadows reports that the woman’s husband, who is the Montana State rodeo coach, says, “It’s pretty neat that a college kid could organize something like that.”
“Jaden Whitman and his older brother were driving home from a rodeo in Washington state when they started talking about what they could possibly do to help the Whitaker family. So he texted his coach to see if that would be okay, and Coach Kyle Whitaker responded and said yes. He told Cowboy State Daily that he was just almost choked up that he couldn't believe that a college student would come up with an idea like that.”
The Presley Whitaker Benefit Steer Wrestling Jackpot happened last weekend in Whitehall, Montana, raising nearly $40,000, mostly to help cover Presley’s mounting medical bills.
Read the full story HERE.
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Sgt. Zach Burns remains in critical condition after being shot multiple times by a gunman in Baggs on Monday. Cowboy State Daily’s Greg Johnson reports that the mayor says people reacted immediately and like heroes.
“This deputy was already around town, so as soon as the call came in. He was there and got shot several times, and it seems that he probably owes his life to a couple of local business owners who have businesses right close. They rushed over, and from what the mayor was telling me, there was a lot of blood, and that they acted quickly to try to stop that, to slow that down until EMS got there, and EMS also got there very, very quickly.”
A deputy being shot, coupled with a high-speed chase and shootout with the suspect, is enough to make Monday one of the darkest days in the 116-year history of the tiny town of 411 people.
Read the full story HERE.
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Divers who plunge the depths of the Colorado River and Flaming Gorge Reservoir find all kinds of treasure, from antique six-shooters to cellphones. Cowboy State Daily’s Dale Killingbeck reports that one woman burst into tears when given her phone back that had her grandchild’s birth video on it.
“He found this part of a two-mile stretch on the Colorado River below the Hoover Dam. He said that he just happened to dive one time, and he started finding wallets and different things, and so he said, ‘Hey, this is great, you know? It makes diving exciting.’ So he started talking it up with others, and now every Saturday, pretty much they go and dive that stretch of the river. And like three years ago, he found a six shooter that was in its holster, rusted, and he believes it was down there for at least 10 years.”
Tony “Gunner” Pierce of Provo, Utah and his diving partner, Ken Wige, who is from Las Vegas, are advocates for diving in the West and enjoy rallying people to different spots from Wyoming to Utah and Idaho year-round to explore what is going on underneath the surface of reservoirs, rivers, and lakes.
Read the full story HERE.
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Longtime Yellowstone RV travelers David and Jennifer Sinclair were leaving a gas station in Canada when the front bumper of their truck tore off while being towed. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that a video of them dragging the bumper down the road has been viewed millions of times.
“They were driving the RV when the incident happened. No one was in the pickup truck, but someone else spotted them going down the highway, and it went viral based on that, because they were dragging a bumper down the highway and nothing else. But they said that they were aware of what happened. Within a minute, someone flagged them. I think the same person who took the video flagged them, they pulled off, they recognized what happened, they recovered their pickup truck, and nobody was harmed, and thankfully they were at a stoplight when the whole thing happened.”
Fortunately for the couple, the motorhome was stopped at an intersection when the tow base broke off. Sinclair said it “could have been much worse if it failed in motion.” Unfortunately, they didn’t notice and kept driving, leaving their front bumper-less truck sitting in the middle of the road.
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.
