It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Tuesday, July 28th. I’m Mac Watson.
This newscast is brought to you by the Wyoming State Fair. Wrap up your summer at the Wyoming State Fair, August 11th through the 15th in Douglas!
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Just hours after news broke Monday that a Uinta County brand inspector had pleaded guilty to helping torture a moose, the state livestock director fired him. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that Gov. Gordon had strong words about the situation.
“Governor Gordon said this is absolutely irresponsible behavior unbefitting a brand inspector, and he said that Martin is no longer working for the state, and you know hours earlier, the Wyoming Livestock Board director Steve True had said that Martin was a brand inspector. So I called True back, and he said, "Yeah, in the couple hours since this story broke, I fired him. True said that it was his decision to fire Martin. The governor didn't influence that decision.”
Martin has not been sentenced and he reserves the right to appeal how law enforcement pulled evidence from his phone. At the preliminary hearing, Evanston Circuit Court Michael Greer said, “this was done for the sheer joy of dominating a wild animal who appeared to be already in poor health and possibly blind.”
Read the full story HERE.
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Retired Wyoming employees of Peabody Energy say they feel betrayed by its decision to end a medical retirement benefits program. Cowboy State Daily’s Kate Meadows reports that the company says the program no longer fits “market competitive practices.”
“Letters from Peabody Energy started showing up in mailboxes of retirees a couple weeks ago, announcing the termination of their retired medical program, and Peabody Energy is saying that they're doing this because they're terminating this program. Peabody Energy is saying that they're terminating this program because it no longer aligns with the market and the competition. They did not give any more specifics, nor did they answer our questions about how many retired employees does this affect?”
In 2020, the company cut health benefits and terminated life insurance for retirees older than 65 as part of a cost-cutting strategy. Retirees younger than 65 could maintain their coverage.
Read the full story HERE.
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Charges on a stolen credit card tracked a Wyoming man wanted on 72 child sex abuse charges to Colorado last week. Cowboy State Daily’s Greg Johnson reports that His former landlord reported to the Converse County Sheriff’s Office on July 20 that John Smallbone was using his credit card without permission
“When a charge came through from Expedia for hotel rooms down in Colorado. The first thing that hit his mind is he running? Is he running from these charges? And he texted the guy and said, ‘Hey, are you running?’ And he says that the guy texted back to him and says, ‘No, I'm I'm here in town.’ This is what put Wyoming law enforcement on the radar that he wasn't in the state anymore, which is not allowed according to the $250,000 bond that he posted.”
The $250,000 question now is will John Smallbone show up for his arraignment in Converse County District Court on Tuesday afternoon? A call to a phone number linked to Smallbone in his court file went to voicemail. His former landlord isn’t holding his breath.
Read the full story HERE.
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Scenic boat tours on Jackson Lake in Grand Teton National Park have shut down two months early due to low water levels as southern Idaho agricultural users draw from the lake. Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports that according to park authorities, large boats are unable to get out of Colter Bay Marina onto the main lake.
“They're going to feel it this year because you know they had to quit two months early, and then the Bureau of Rec guys said for folks with like average size motorboats and smaller motorboats, you should be okay kind of until that September timeframe, and then after that, it's going to be pretty much canoes and kayaks. Pretty much by then, the water will have dropped far enough. You're not going to be able to use boat ramps. So, long story short, the boating season on Lake Jackson is coming to an end.”
The natural lake, fed by the Snake River, was already one of the largest in the West when it was enlarged by a dam in 1911. That dam was enlarged in 1916 and rebuilt in 1989. In its current state as a hybrid lake/reservoir, Jackson Lake is 438 feet deep at its deepest point.
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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In reflecting on Wyoming's U.S. house race, departed candidate Frank Chapman on Monday said both Chuck Gray and Steve Friess haven't had significant careers. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that Chapman says, “We’re being given choices of people that haven’t really achieved anything in life.”
“He said that the candidate that peels votes away from Gray is Beau Biteman, a conservative legislator currently president of the Senate. He casts Friess’ and Gray's professional legacies as unimpressive. He said that Jillian Baylow is doing well, and he also waited on the governor's race, which he said he took pull in for earlier in his own race, and said Eric Barlow is doing well.”
Chapman announced Thursday he’s bowing out of the race, leaving nine Republican candidates still vying for the GOP nomination to the U.S. House seat Rep. Harriet Hageman is leaving to run for U.S. Senate.
Read the full story HERE.
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A man accused of triggering an hourslong standoff outside the Casper Police Department refused to appear in court Monday. Cowboy State Daily’s Kolby Fedore reports that the judge set William Randall Patricelli’s bond high at $50,000 because his “effect and danger to the community is significant.”
“This was near the police department, just adjacent to it, in David Street in downtown Casper, on Monday he refused to appear before the judge for his first hearing. The sheriff's deputy from the jail said that Patrice Celly was being uncooperative. The judge said she would see him on Tuesday, and declined to tell reporters what his two misdemeanor charges are until he has been formally charged.”
Patricelli was arrested Saturday evening after Casper police responded to what they described as an active incident involving a barricaded subject in the 200 block of North David Street. The response closed multiple streets and intersections for several hours as officers worked to resolve the situation. Police ultimately took Patricelli into custody.
Read the full story HERE.
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A Wyoming eagle called Aurum was barely a year old and suffering from lead poisoning when she was hit by a car near Meeteetse. Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that she somehow survived both and is now beating the odds by raising her young in the Bighorn Basin.
“So I went to Ironside Bird Rescue in Cody and that lady Susan who runs that place she's been for over three decades The bird was in pretty bad shape but fortunately as it been hit by a car but it was bruised nothing was broken so that was a huge plus and then yes it had a serious lead poisoning infection. Like it was, it needed to be treated. But it wasn't so bad that they had to take it all the way to injections. Like the counter, the counter agent. They were able to treat this eagle with pills in the way she did. He said, "I just took a dead rat, cut the belly open, tossed a pill in there, and then fed that to the eagle." That's how you get pills to an eagle.”
Wyoming is prime golden eagle habitat, both for resident eagles and those that migrate in from the north during the fall to spend winters here. Golden eagles prefer small game such as prairie dogs and rabbits, so they’re drawn to open prairies or vast sagebrush steppes.
Read the full story HERE.
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How do you get vehicles stuck up to their axles in mud on the bottom of a lake bed? You call a tow company that has remote-controlled winches, a custom-built winch foot, and hundreds of feet of tow straps. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that the owner of Alpine Redneck Rescue says, “This is a normal situation for us.”
“What they did was they set up their truck pretty far away and used these long 1000, like 30,000 pound capacity tow straps to get the Jeep out using one of the other stuck vehicles as an anchor because you need an anchor in these things, they haul the Jeep out, and then with a custom rig that they have that distributes the energy, they use a 1994 F250 to get those much larger, heavier pickup trucks out of the mud. So I spoke to Jim Cummings, who's the owner of Redneck Rescue, and he said that on every call you have to get creative.”
Redneck Rescue has “yet to be unsuccessful” with any of its calls, Cummings tells Cowboy State Daily. He chalks a lot of that up to being over-prepared with the right equipment but anticipates the inevitable call that won’t go according to plan.
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.
