Daily Darwin

[{"type":"text","text":"Still the greatest July 4 video ever recorded....."}]

Darwin 7 5 26

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

<title>Daily Darwin: Sunday, July 5, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Still the greatest July 4 video ever recorded.....

Daily Darwin: Sunday, July 5, 2026

 Still the greatest July 4 video ever recorded.....

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's business and tourism reporter, Renée Jean

Renée Jean

Wyoming Life

It wasn’t the fanciest Harley-Davidson on the lot when the 95th anniversary Dyna Wide Glide edition motorcycle caught the eye of retired Torrington lawman Randy Giles.

“It was just something that I thought a person my size would enjoy, so I bought it,” he said. “Nothing special attracted me to it. It was just a good, suitable bike for me, for my size and my riding capabilities.”

The used bike was also priced just right. Not too expensive — even if the dealer still got his fair share.

Giles didn’t do anything special to the bike, at least not at first. He bought some leather saddlebags for weekend rides with his friends. It was just a good, solid practical ride.

Then one day he rear-ended a police car in Cheyenne, totaling the bike. 

Bent handlebars, damaged exhaust, smashed forward controls — the motorcycle was done for. Or so the insurance company said.

But Giles was a former auto body repair man before he was a lawman. He knew his way around metal and paint. So that was the beginning of a new journey for him and his Harley.

“I decided to buy it back from the insurance company and built it the way that I wanted to,” he told Cowboy State Daily. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"From Totaled To Wanted"}]

Now the motorcycle is more than just a ride. It’s an iron horse that an Old West lawman might ride today, all duded up with air-brushed posters of famous outlaws like Butch Cassidy and Billy the Kid with a leather saddle ringed by bullets. 

There’s also a picture of a lawman who has just pulled two pistols, one of them smoking, with Devils Tower in the background. 

It’s a rolling gallery of Western outlaw history now, turning heads and starting conversations everywhere he goes. It’s also won awards in various motorcycle shows, beating out some of the big names on the circuit.

“I was in a show at Deadwood Mountain Grand, and I took People’s Choice,” Giles said. “And there were people like Paul Yaffe, Corry Ness, and Donnie Smith in that show, so I feel like I got a little bragging rights there.”

Giles’ outlaw bike, which he calls "Wanted Dead Or Alive," has been through several transformations since it was wrecked in 2006. First came bright yellow with purple flames, then orange, and then a deep blue show-bike look that was starting to win awards every now and then.

“I’d win some and I’d lose some,” he said with a chuckle. “Well, nobody likes to lose, so I just had to do better.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Harley As A Canvas"}]

Better, he ultimately decided, would be to lean into what has meaning to him. 

He had a 30-year career in law enforcement, including time spent as the chief of police in Lingle, where he learned some Wyoming towns still have an old city code that referred to his position as the town marshal.

“I thought that was just Old West,” he said. “I am interested in the Old West lawmen, Native Americans, cowboys, and all that kind of stuff. Lawmen and outlaws, so that’s where I got my idea.”

Growing up in Wyoming helped deepen that fascination. He was surrounded most of his life by landscapes tied to real frontier legends — Powder River country, the old territorial prison where Butch Cassidy once famously stayed, and areas where Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were said to have robbed a few trains.

Giles had been diving into books and television documentaries about the West since his 40s. So that became his theme and his Harley became a canvas.

Giles started his concept with a cherry-maroon paint color, which he did himself. Then he hired an artist to layer intricate airbrushed “Wanted” posters of iconic outlaws such as Jesse James and Butch Cassidy on the bike. 

The portraits look aged and weathered, as if peeled from an 1800s-era sheriff’s office wall. Chains and iron handcuffs are painted draped across the tank in the “trompe-l’oeil,” fool-the-eye tradition that is a hallmark of so many Renaissance painters. 

On the rear fender, a lone gunfighter stands with two pistols drawn, one of them smoking, with Devils Tower rising in the background.

“Devils Tower ties it into Wyoming,” Giles said. “That and the gunfighter are the two features I like the most.”

But he also cherishes the custom-tooled brown leather saddle seat with its crossed revolvers and vintage “Wyoming US Marshal” star badge. And it’s not long before he’s named it as his favorite feature as well. The saddle has a sharp, braided leather edging around it as well as a shiny bullet belt that completes the look. 

The bike that has emerged is part Western shrine, but it also harkens to Harley history as a part vintage “Frisco chopper,” a minimalist, tall and narrow custom Harley-Davidson meant for aggressive side-street riding and lane-splitting. The style emerged in the San Francisco Bay area in the 1960s.

Giles also swapped out the bike’s front end for a vintage Springer front, which has exposed chrome springs, rather than modern, telescopic fork shocks. And he used tall, ape-hanger handlebars, giving the bike a sleek silhouette with a commanding, arms-up riding stance.

The engine is the classic Harley V-twin with straight pipes, loaded with aftermarket chrome covers and paired with the long, unbaffled chrome straight-pipe exhausts. 

All of which to say, this is a motorcycle that definitely makes an entrance when the engine starts. It’s meant not just to be seen but to be heard, and talked about.

Giles doesn’t just plop this bike in the parking lot when he takes it to a show. He builds a miniature frontier world around it.

“I put ropes around it and a display that I made with some pilings, some ropes, and some Wanted posters and lamps,” he said. “It just went well with the theme that I had.”

Giles has other bikes he’s duded up for shows as well, but this is the one that starts the most conversations.

“They’ll stand there and just look it over really good for a long time and take pictures,” he said. “And that’s what makes me happy, to see somebody enjoying something that I’ve done.”

Giles is living firmly inside what people call the “Harley lifestyle,” but he’s doing it in Wyoming style.

He’s been taking bikes to Sturgis every year since 1990, trailering up multiple bikes, some to ride and some to show. Then he spends the week doing what Harley culture is famous for — people-watching, checking out vendors, and soaking in all the craziness.

It’s the latter, he’ll admit with a laugh, that he likes about Sturgis. But there’s also camaraderie, meeting new people, and looking at all the vendors, scoping out new ideas for the next Harley project.

No bike is ever truly finished, Giles said.

“I’ll accessorize this bike if I see something I like,” he said. “But I’ve got two other bikes now that I’m working on, so I’ve got to make financial room for those.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Next Up: A Gold Digger"}]

One is a 1998 Softail he’s rebuilding from the frame up around a $4,000 Evolution engine he won as a prize at Sturgis.

He’s sandblasted the frame and covered it and the swingarm in gold leaf. Its theme will be another Western archetype. He’s going to call it Gold Digger.

“Not so much the girl who tries to take money from a rich guy,” he said. “But the guy who goes out and pans for gold.”

Right now this project is living in his half of the family garage — much to his wife’s occasional frustration.

“I try and squeeze her out, and then she gets mad,” he admits with a laugh.

Recently he’s been imagining clever peace offerings. Like when his green bike “Slow Poke” won a trophy, he sent her up to collect it in his stead.

“She thought that was neat,” he said. “So maybe I’ve got her in my corner now.”

When he’s finished with “Gold Digger,” he’s thinking that bike might become hers. 

“She’s been mad at me ever since I bought that one,” he said. “So if I give her that one, maybe she won’t be so mad at me anymore.”

Gold Digger has a good chance, he believes, of beating his outlaw Harley, and winning more awards. 

But regardless, he plans to keep the old outlaw that started the Harley hobby he enjoys so much. It’s the perfect iron horse for a former town marshal with its vintage badge on a custom leather seat and its Wanted posters of the West’s most famous outlaws on the tank.

Outlaw Harley 20260620 123548 6.28.26

<title>Retired Wyoming Lawman’s Outlaw Harley Turns Heads Across West | Cowboy State Daily</title>

After retired Torrington lawman Randy Giles totaled his Harley, he didn’t walk away from it. The former auto body repairman turned it into a Western-themed town marshal’s show bike. His outlaw Harley has been beating big-name builders in shows across the West.

Retired Wyoming Lawman’s Outlaw Harley Turns Heads Across West

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Dale Killingbeck

Dale Killingbeck

ALTA — Seeing the sun rise over Grand Teton and the lesser peaks in the national park definitely is a perk for those in Alta.

They live on the back side of the mountains photographed and inundated by summer tourists in Jackson Hole.

The 429-resident community sits in the Teton Valley along the road to Grand Targhee Resort ski area. There are no bumper-to-bumper traffic lines that back up as tourists vie for views of a bison in Grand Teton National Park or the mountain scenes around Jackson Hole.

“It’s always been interesting living in a part of Wyoming where you couldn’t get to any other part of Wyoming unless you drove through Idaho,” said Jim Wilson, a fourth-generation farmer on the north side of Teton Creek. “Unless you hike or ride horses over the mountain, which many of us have done, you have to drive through Idaho to get to us.”

That hike over the Tetons involves 21 miles and 4,000 feet of elevation from Teton Canyon to Jenny Lake in Jackson Hole. Make sure to bring bear spray.

As a resident of Teton County, Wilson, along with fellow residents Steve Green and Hunter Christensen, knows that to get his license plates or go to the county clerk’s office involves at least a 40-mile drive with 20 miles through Idaho before re-entering the state over Teton Pass. 

And shopping — well, you do what you need to do.

“I’ve always claimed Wyoming,” said Green, a fourth-generation farmer on a 160-acre homestead in Alta. “(But) the only thing we do in Wyoming is pay taxes and license vehicles.”

Green, 70, who grows barley and hay on his farm south of Teton Creek and a few other leased properties, understands that having a view of the Tetons in his backyard is something to appreciate. But it’s also all he has ever known.

He characterizes his community and view as “the better side of Idaho.”

Christensen, 36, senior vice president at Hughes Foundation based in Jackson, grew up in Alta and went to school in the little elementary building that still serves students off of Ski Hill Road and then spent his middle school and high school years in Driggs, Idaho.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Driving Teton Pass"}]

Unlike Green and Wilson, he drives Teton Pass most work days in his front-wheel drive Toyota Camry through all of its seasons, and characterizes the commute as just the way of life for many who live in Alta.

“It’s a beautiful drive every day,” he said. “You never go over that pass and think, ‘Oh, this is terrible.’”

Christensen said there are days when traffic backs up entering Jackson in the morning or leaving in the afternoons. Commuters plan for it. The winter weather in recent years has not been as heavy as when he was growing up, but there are days when he might have to work from home.

Christensen said he knows Alta residents who work in Wyoming and others who work in Idaho. But their identity, though a border community, remains rooted in Wyoming.

“Sometimes they call it ‘Wydaho',” he said. “We have a lot of wonderful neighbors in Idaho, a lot of good heritage and community with our neighbors across the border, and then we still get to be part of Wyoming.”

Christensen, Wilson, and Green all agree that shopping for the vast majority of people who live in Alta takes place in Idaho. Driggs offers a well-stocked supermarket and gas stations as well as a few other services.

To find the box stores, such as Walmart or Costco, residents travel to Rexburg or Idaho Falls, rather than pay the “resort town” prices at stores in Jackson, Christensen said.

Green, who worked at a lumberyard in Driggs for several years in addition to farming, said he contracts with Great Western Malting in Blackfoot, Idaho, to sell his barley. Much of his hay is sold to livestock owners in the Teton Valley and some to horse ranches in Jackson.

The farm he works was homesteaded by his great-grandfather and he has a son who might take it over as a sideline when Green is done. Making money off the farm is more difficult than ever due to the costs of fertilizer and the taxes on his home and barns as part of Teton County, Wyoming.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Paying Taxes"}]

“I suspect there is always some kind of benefit to living in Wyoming versus Idaho, or Idaho versus Wyoming,” Green said. “For years, our property taxes and stuff were quite a bit higher than Idaho. Now Idaho, about 10 years ago, caught up. They kind of figured out they could charge more money, just like they do here.”

Green said he sold his cow herd about 25 years ago, but in recent years has purchased a steer or two in the spring to fatten up the family freezers. Predators have not been a problem.

Wilson works on the family farm run by his brother. They have the 160-acre homestead and have leased several properties to farm 1,500 acres of alfalfa, grass hay, barley, and a heritage wheat that has unaltered seed genetics from the wheat planted in the 1800s.

“We sell the wheat online or at farmer’s markets,” he said. The barley is sold in Idaho and the hay in Jackson and Teton Valley.

Wilson said he's often asked if he resents people moving into the community from other areas of the country to enjoy the scenery, skiing, hiking, or just walking their dog up the canyon.

He tells them he’s enjoyed the valley and the view for his entire life and certainly is willing to share it.

“I would describe it as heaven,” he said. “What I do resent is if they come in and try to change it to be like where they came from.”

Christensen said the community has elk on the outskirts, an occasional moose wandering through, and many black bears in recent years. During the winter, the traffic on Ski Hill Road to Grand Targhee picks up on the weekends.

On a recent weekday, Grand Targhee was hosting a mountain bike gathering that had cars going up and down the mountain and past an off-duty 

 Teton County Sheriff’s patrol car parked at the end of a driveway as if waiting for speeders to exceed the 25 mph limit.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Deputies In Community"}]

Teton County Sheriff’s Office Operations Lt. Mark Priest said he has two deputies who live in Alta, and other deputies live in Idaho. They typically drive through the community as part of their shifts before heading over the pass to do law enforcement in the more populated Jackson Hole region and other parts of the county.

In addition to Alta, the department is responsible for covering the popular hiking destination in nearby Darby Canyon as well as other remote spots on the west side of the Tetons. Those require deputies to traverse the pass and drive Idaho roads before crossing back into Wyoming and the county to respond to any issues.

Priest said his department has strong relations with the Idaho counties. If needed they sometimes secure a scene or provide an initial response to an incident if his department can’t get there immediately.

“Recently we have asked them less and less because of the fact we have two guys living (in Alta) and then our guys in Idaho who are able to respond from home as well,” he said.

Wilson said residents receive good service from the county and even in the winter the roads will be plowed while Idaho communities experience closures due to snow.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Good Neighbors"}]

All three of the Alta residents spoke of a community that looks out for one another and helps in time of need.

“The people who live here are by far salt-of-the-earth-good people that have a lot of love for their neighbors,” Christensen said. “That’s what makes living in Alta, for sure, and Wyoming in general, wonderful for me.”

Wilson said he recalled a time in the 1960s when an Idaho senator wanted to annex Alta.

A story in the Casper Morning Star on Feb. 13, 1965, stated that the senator had advocated that “many residents of Wyoming’s Teton Valley would like to be come Idahoans because the mountains cut their communication with Wyoming business centers.”

It apparently was more fancy than fact. Residents voted it down, the newspaper reported.

Wilson said there is no other place on Earth that he would rather be and made clear there is no identity crisis in the community. In the 1990s, Alta successfully lobbied to get its own ZIP code to distinguish it from the Driggs-based rural route that defined the community for years.

Now the Driggs Post Office serves two ZIP codes: 83422 for the Idaho side and 83414 on mail that carriers deliver across the state line.

“We have considered ourselves citizens of Wyoming since the day I was born, and my dad was born, and my grandpa was born and my great-grandpa homesteaded up there,” Wilson said.

Steve Green 1 7 4 26

<title>Alta, Wyoming: The Town Cut Off From The Rest Of The State By Idaho & Mountains | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Residents of remote Alta, Wyoming, say they don't feel disconnected even though the only way to get to the rest of Wyoming (outside of riding a horse or hiking over the mountain) is a 20-mile drive through Idaho and over Teton Pass.

Alta, Wyoming: The Town Cut Off From The Rest Of The State By Idaho & Mountains

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

Outdoors

Wildlife

A rancher in central Montana told Cowboy State Daily she suspects a grizzly inflicted ghastly wounds on one of her horses last month, although wildlife officials have yet to confirm it.

Leah LaTray posted photos of the horse and its severe injuries on social media, showing a large gash on its face, a massive open wound on its flank, and other injuries.

LaTray and her family run a cow/calf ranch near Lewistown, Montana, and she’s also a professional horse trainer.

LaTray said the horse apparently attacked by a grizzly is an 8-year-old quarter horse mare (female), and one of the ranch’s working horses.

She suspects the mare was attacked while in a pasture with four other horses on June 16 or 17.

The pasture is in a “wooded area” and also has a creek running through it, with willows along the bank.

LaTray said she didn’t find the mare until the following Tuesday.

“She was standing alone in the willows, with maggots in her wounds,” LaTray said.

The horse was examined by a veterinarian and is expected to live, she said. She added that her veterinarian, and another veterinarian who saw the horse, told her they think its injuries were suffered in a bear attack.

The horse is recovering well, LaTray said. 

The veterinarians could not be reached for comment by publication time.  

agent responded to the scene, but disputed the claim the horse’s injuries resulted from a bear attack.

LaTray said somebody reported seeing a “young grizzly bear” crossing the highway onto her property June 12.

She added that if her horse was, in fact, maimed by a bear, there’s no way of knowing if it was that same grizzly.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Was It A Bear Attack?"}]

LaTray said her bear-attack claim was investigated by Kraig Glazier, the USDA Wildlife Services West District supervisor, based in Helena, Montana. 

She said Glazier visited her ranch, inspected the horse, and disputed her claim.

Glazier’s assessment was that the horse might have run into or become entangled in something sharp, she said. 

Glazier could not be reached for comment by publication time. 

LaTray said Glazier told her that by his reckoning, the horse would have had “bite wounds on her withers if it had been a bear attack."

“Withers” refers to the prominent bony ridge just at the base of a horse’s neck, between the shoulder blades. 

That would have tracked with bears’ usual method of attacking a prey animal. They to get atop the animal while biting its back. The bear uses its immense strength and weight to drag down the animal. 

LaTray said her response to that point is that “horses are more athletic than sheep or cows,” and her horse “could have managed to wheel around and kick the bear in the face before he managed to get on top of her.”

She said Glazier also noted bears don’t typically claw their prey. So, grizzly claws might not account for the gashes on the horse’s face. 

LaTray said she wonders if the bear’s attack was actually predatory. But rather, if “the bear and the horse had a surprise encounter at very close range in the willows.”

If that was the case, the bear might have responded by lashing out with its claws, she said. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Increased Bear Activity"}]

The ranch sits between the North and South Moccasin mountain ranges, along Montana Highway 81, she said.

Grizzly activity has been increasing there in recent years, LaTray said, even though the area more than 100 miles from the Rocky Mountains, where most of the state’s grizzly population lives.

Grizzlies are naturally a Great Plains species, but they’re not being deliberately introduced to prairie country in northern and central Montana.

Instead, they’re moving back into those areas on their own.

The LaTray ranch is also near property owned by the American Prairie conservation group. 

American Prairie welcomes the return of grizzlies to the area, and hopes the bears start settling in on their property.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"LaTray doesn’t like that idea."}]

She said that along with the suspected attack on her horse, neighboring ranches have been reporting trouble with bears. And there’s concern grizzlies could take heavy toll on cattle and threaten human safety.

Danny Kinka, senior wildlife restoration manager for American Prairie, told Cowboy State Daily there are ways to balance ranchers’ concerns with bear conservation.

He said he didn’t know specifics about what might have happened to LaTray’s horse, but agreed it must have been devastating to find the animal so terribly wounded.

“I saw the pictures (posted online), and man, I would be upset if that were my horse. I wouldn’t wish that on anybody,” he said.

When it comes to living alongside grizzlies, “the first order of business is keeping you and your family safe,” he said.

He added that American Prairie has programs to help ranchers mitigate the risk of attacks on their cattle, sheep and horses.

One effective way is to “put a human presence on the landscape,” with working cowboys and range riders staying near cattle, he said.

“The goal is to convince predators that livestock isn’t worth messing with,” he said.

Horse v bear blur 7 4 26

<title>Montana Rancher More Than 100 Miles From Rocky Mountains Says Grizzly Mauled Horse | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A Montana rancher who lives more than 100 miles from grizzly territory says a bear mauled her quarter horse. Grizzlies aren't deliberately being reintroduced to prairie country. Instead, they’re moving back into those areas on their own.

Montana Rancher More Than 100 Miles From Rocky Mountains Says Grizzly Mauled Horse

Jen kocher

Jen Kocher

Crime & Courts

Belynda May Grantham was a 20-year-old single mother still finding her footing when her partially clothed body was recovered from the bottom of the North Platte River outside of Glenrock, a rock tied to her neck, in August 1982. 

Grantham had been strangled. She lay submerged for days before a passing bicyclist spotted her.

It would take nearly a month and a newspaper sketch before anyone could identify her.

[{"type":"text","text":"Her murder has never been solved."}]

For her only remaining sibling, Rebecca Grantham, her sister’s death remains a source of pain. At 67 and in ailing health, she’d like to see someone brought to justice.

“She was a really good, smart girl who could have literally done anything with her life if given the chance,” Rebecca said of her younger sister.

[{"type":"text","text":"Her hope is to get answers before she dies."}]

The investigation remains active and ongoing, according to Ryan Cox, a commander with the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation who also oversees the agency’s cold-case team.

Cox, too, said he believes it’s not too late to finally solve this crime and asks anyone with information to come forward.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Push For Answers"}]

The murder has never stopped haunting her. Now living in Sacramento, California, Rebecca has teamed with Amanda Patterson in her quest for answers.

Patterson is the daughter of Bonnie Jones, Grantham’s best friend from their teenage years in Casper.

The two women were each carrying their own unresolved grief when they first connected on Facebook. Patterson had been helping her ailing mother type messages online and, through that, formed a bond with Rebecca.

After Jones passed away in February, they remained in touch. In early June, the two created 

the Facebook page “Justice for Belinda May Grantham

At some point during her teens, Grantham began spelling her first name “Belinda,” though never had it legally changed. For this reason, her name appears both ways in news stories about her murder.

The page shares news articles about the murder and the long-unidentified body, along with pleas for anyone with information to reach out to authorities.

Their hope was to renew interest in Grantham’s case and to invite people who knew her to share their memories and photographs — something Rebecca is especially eager for, as she has only one of her sister from childhood.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Putting Together Pieces"}]

Much like her death, the details of Grantham’s life in her final years remain a mystery to those who loved her. 

She was born in Washington state and her family moved through the Pacific Northwest before settling in Casper in 1963.

When Grantham and her siblings were teenagers, their mother, Jeanette, died, upending their lives. According to her obituary, Jeanette died after a lengthy illness at age 36 in November 1974.

Before her mother’s death, Grantham had been a straight-A student. She competed in the Future Farmers of America and took home ribbons for her homemade clothing at the 1977 Central Wyoming Fair. She made the honor roll at East Junior High School.

After losing her mother, Grantham struggled to find her bearings and ran away from time to time.

Their father remarried quickly, and the children, unable to get along with their new stepmother, scattered to relatives’ homes. They drifted in and out of group homes and foster care.

[{"type":"text","text":"There she met a tight group of friends, including Bonnie Jones."}]

Grantham and Jones had an instant connection, Patterson said. In fact, they were so close that Jones gave Grantham a friendship ring, which would be used to help identify her later.

Somewhere around 1978 and 1979, Grantham left Casper to work with a traveling carnival headquartered in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She did that for two years before returning to Wyoming.

It’s been 44 years since a young Casper woman was found dead in the North Platte River with a rock tied around her neck. The murder has never stopped haunting her older sister Rebecca. In failing health, Rebecca is hoping to find answers before she dies.

Daily Darwin: Sunday, July 5, 2026

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