CSD Staff

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[{"type":"text","text":"Instant CARma, as narrated by MMA announcer, Steve Inman....."}]

Inman 8 4 26

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

<title>Steve Inman: Tuesday, August 4, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Instant CARma, as narrated by MMA announcer, Steve Inman.....

Steve Inman: Tuesday, August 4, 2026

 Instant CARma, as narrated by MMA announcer, Steve Inman.....

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Around Wyoming

[{"type":"text","text":"The room Roman Parra left behind still looks much the way he left it."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"His Bible remains on the coffee table at his home in Worland. "}]

His truck still needs a suspension repair he never got to finish with his father.

And in the days since the 20-year-old former Worland athlete died from injuries suffered in a northern Colorado rollover crash, family members say those ordinary reminders have become priceless.

, Colorado State Patrol said Parra was critically injured July 25 when the Chevrolet Tahoe he was driving rolled on Weld County Road 80 near Eaton, ejecting all five occupants. Three Colorado passengers died at the scene. A fourth passenger survived with minor injuries. Parra remained hospitalized for eight days before dying Sunday. 

Cowboy State Daily requested the official crash summary from the Colorado State Patrol but had not received the report before publication. 

 that the State Patrol said that speed and impairment contributed to the crash, though a cause hasn’t yet been determined.

Now, those who knew Roman best say they hope he is remembered not for the crash but for the life he lived.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Mother's Worst Call"}]

Roman's mother, Alyssa McDonald, said Saturday had been an ordinary summer day.

She had taken Roman's younger sister to the fair parade before returning home to surprise her oldest son by cleaning his bedroom.

[{"type":"text","text":"Roman had driven to Colorado the night before for a concert with friends."}]

As she folded clothes and straightened his room, she expected him to walk back through the front door the next day.

[{"type":"text","text":"Instead, at about 5:15 p.m., her phone buzzed."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"The Life360 app she used to keep track of Roman showed a collision."}]

"I texted, called, panicked when I saw there was no movement," said McDonald. 

She hoped his phone had simply fallen to the floor or been tossed across the vehicle.

[{"type":"text","text":"When the location never changed, she called police and waited."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Nearly two hours later, the hospital called."}]

"They told me there had been a bad accident and my son was involved," she said. "Three had passed away at the scene, but Roman had survived."

[{"type":"text","text":"Doctors rushed him into emergency brain surgery."}]

"The chance of him making it off the table was very unlikely," she said.

[{"type":"text","text":"For over a week, his family remained by his bedside before Parra died."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Faith Before Football"}]

Long before he became one of Wyoming's top linebackers, Parra was the little boy who wanted one thing more than anything else.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"He just never wanted to let me down,\" McDonald said."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"His faith grew naturally alongside him, she added. "}]

As a second-grader, teachers noticed he signed the bottom of school assignments with the words "God is Good." 

Near graduation, one of his teachers asked what he wanted to do with his life.

"My first priority is my relationship with Christ," he replied, according to his mother.

Looking back, McDonald said she believes that answer explained the way he lived.

"I think that was probably his purpose in life — to spread that kindness, that joy and Christ's love," she said.

[{"type":"text","text":"His aunt, Daniela Parra, saw the same thing."}]

If someone challenged Roman's beliefs, she said, he didn't argue emotionally.

"He would fight for God all the time," she said. "If somebody said something, he could back it up with Scripture."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Competitor On Every Field"}]

In his final high school football game in the fall of 2024, McDonald said Parra tore his meniscus.

[{"type":"text","text":"Coaches wanted to pull him from the game."}]

He finished the game and scored the final touchdown of his high school career.

In the spring of 2025, he again played through the same injury during the state soccer tournament because he didn't want to leave his teammates behind.

When football ended, Roman spent the summer working construction alongside his father while preparing to attend Laramie County Community College this fall to study automotive technology.

Asked what his son had taught him over the past 20 years, Armando Parra paused.

"He taught me peace and patience," he said. "As much as you raise a kid, a kid raises you."

[{"type":"text","text":"He credits Roman with helping him become a better man."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"He changed my life,\" Armando said."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'He Was That Loved'"}]

The waiting room rarely emptied during Parra's eight days in the hospital.

[{"type":"text","text":"Friends drove from Cheyenne after work."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Football families stopped in."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Strangers from Eaton, Colorado, brought food, water and supplies."}]

One mother loaned the family a wagon so they could haul meals through the hospital.

[{"type":"text","text":"For Daniela, none of it came as a surprise."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"I expected it,\" she said. \"He was that loved.\""}]

She remembers her nephew as the young man who encouraged everyone around him.

[{"type":"text","text":"His father said Roman never limited his friendships to teammates."}]

"He was friends with everybody," Armando said. "He fit in everywhere. He talked to everybody."

 to help cover Roman's medical and funeral expenses.

Armando also asked for prayers for the lone survivor of the crash, saying he believes the young man now faces an unimaginable burden.

"I feel worse for him than I feel for anybody," he said. "That poor boy that has to live through this is going to need more guidance than anybody I know."

Roman Wesley Parra and new Colorado crash location 8 3 26

<title>Worland Man Dies Sunday, Eight Days After Being Ejected From Car In Colorado | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Worland athlete Roman Parra died Sunday, eight days after being ejected from his vehicle in Colorado. His family said Roman's greatest gift wasn't in sports, but making everyone feel loved. "His purpose in life was to spread kindness," his mom said.

Worland Man Dies Sunday, Eight Days After Being Ejected From Car In Colorado

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

Andrew Rossi

Wyoming Life

For many Wyoming cities and towns, July was the hottest month on record, going as far back as 1891. 

With another month of record-breaking temperatures, day after day, 2026 is on track to be the hottest year in Wyoming’s recorded history as well. And, at this point, there’s no end in sight as we move into August.

“The consistency and intensity of the heat, especially for northern and northeastern Wyoming, was really remarkable,” said Cowboy State Daily meteorologist Don Day. “I fully expect that if it's not the hottest July in many areas, since records have been kept, it will certainly be in the top three.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"In Record Heat"}]

Throughout July, Wyoming was under a stubborn heat wave that refused to let up. 

Jason Straub, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service (NWS) in Riverton, said seven communities either set records or tied for the hottest July on record.

“Big Piney, Buffalo, Casper, Lander, Riverton, Rock Springs, and Worland have set year-to-date records,”  Straub said. “We're well into first-place all-time rank for those sites.”

Historically, Riverton has a day with temperatures over 100 degrees three times every five years.

There were six days with highs at or over 100 during July. That’s around 10 times the five-year average in a single month.

Lander, which has the oldest climate records in Wyoming, usually has one 100-degree high every six years. It had two 100-degree days in July, which is 12 times the average going back to 1891.

Meanwhile, Cheyenne set its own record in July: the longest streak of days where temperatures stayed above 60 degrees, even overnight.

“Temperatures didn’t drop below 60 degrees for 13 days, between July 18 and July 30,” said meteorologist Shelby Fuller with NWS Cheyenne. “Our previous streak was eight days. That’s very unusual for Cheyenne and Wyoming as a whole.”

Average temperatures in July ranged from 3.9 degrees to 6.3 degrees above normal across Wyoming. Between 69% and 77% of the days in July had above-average temperatures.

Even places prone to heat during the summer, such as Worland, set record highs in July. Worland's 110-degree high on July 12 broke the town's record for that day by 3 degrees and was the hottest in Wyoming last month.

[{"type":"text","text":"It also ranks among the hottest days ever recorded in Wyoming."}]

For the record, the hottest temperature ever recorded in Wyoming is 115 degrees at the Wind River Diversion Dam on July 15, 1988.

It’s all really hot, but Day noted that some historical records are longer than others.

“Nobody’s saying this is the hottest July since the dawn of time,” he said. “

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Heat Under Pressure"}]

The primary source of July’s record-setting heat was a high-pressure ridge with a “bull’s-eye” over northeast Wyoming, according to Day.

However, Wyoming’s humidity was also high throughout July. That typically means more moisture, but that didn’t happen.

“What we were fighting for the month of July was moisture being drawn into Wyoming, but the high-pressure ridge over the Northern Plains was so strong, it was making it harder to rain, even though we had that moisture.”

Straub added that another high-pressure ridge set up over the Four Corners region. That means Wyoming spent July sandwiched between two ridges that kept everything hot and dry.

“That ridge stretched well into Wyoming for most of the month,” he said. “That blocked moisture and let the heat dominate and repeat, day after day.”

High-pressure ridges, and the heat domes they create, are expected to set up somewhere in North America during the summer. In July, Wyoming got the short end of the stick.

“When these ridges set up, there's not a whole lot to push them around,” Straub said. “It needs the jet stream to push them around, but the jet stream's well into Canada at this time of year, so it's not influencing any heat domes that set up.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Monsoon Too Soon"}]

The unrelenting heat of July also meant the monsoonal moisture many people were hoping for never showed. The moisture-rich air from the Pacific Ocean arrived, but it couldn’t beat the heat.

“That's the thing with the monsoon,” Fuller said. “Even when there are increased chances for heavy rainfall across the area, that doesn't mean every single place is going to see and/or benefit from it.”

For the few places that got some monsoonal moisture, it was a decent month for precipitation.

According to Day, thunderstorms were much more active in western Wyoming in July, explaining the 

. The disparity between western and eastern Wyoming, due to the high-pressure ridge, was “quite remarkable.”

“Any time a thunderstorm really wanted to build up, or it looked like there could be multiple days of thunderstorms, they were running into that high pressure east of the Continental Divide,” he said. “That’s how much it influenced the eastern side of the state.”

[{"type":"text","text":"High humidity is also what kept overnight temperatures high."}]

“High humidity keeps those temperatures warmer at night, and makes it more uncomfortable in the heat,” said Day. “That’s one thing that sticks out to me, and a lot of people probably noticed that nighttime temperatures stayed elevated all month.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Stuck In The Middle Of It"}]

Straub said the NWS Riverton office was still compiling data from stations that malfunctioned in July. He expects that data would only add more confirmation to what’s already known.

“If it wasn’t the hottest July on record for those places, it’ll be pretty close,” he said. “They had the same heat as everybody else.”

No relief is expected anytime soon. Monday and Tuesday were to be significantly cooler, with daytime highs in the 70s, but the heat will be back.

“Once this cold front is through, we're back into hotter temperatures, upper 80s and 90s, by the end of the week,” Fuller said. “Unfortunately, it looks like August is probably going to be another hot one.”

Day expected the first half of August to feel like July, with above-average temperatures and stubborn heat. After that, he’s “cautiously optimistic” that Wyoming will get cooler.

“For the first 10 days of August, don't expect too much different,” he said. “When you go through the second half of August, we normally start to see things subtly change. Days are getting shorter, nights are longer, and it gets harder to get prolonged periods of that kind of heat.”

Those subtle changes could give monsoonal moisture a chance to manifest and fall as precipitation across Wyoming. 

The critical thing to remember, even if August eventually gets cooler, Straub said, is that it’s still the peak of summer. Wyoming’s summers are always hot, but this record-breaking streak seems poised to continue, keeping 2026 on track to be the hottest year in Wyoming’s recorded history.

“We're still in the middle of summer,” Straub said. “That area of high pressure can reestablish itself pretty quickly, so we're not out of the heat quite yet. Hopefully, everyone can stay cool until then."

Worland temperature 7 13 26

<title>July Was Wyoming's Hottest Month On Record — And 2026 Is On The Same Pace | Cowboy State Daily</title>

For most of Wyoming, July was the hottest month in recorded history. Worland's scorching 110 degrees on July 12 was the hottest, while many towns saw as many 100-degree days in one month as they usually see in several years.

July Was Wyoming's Hottest Month On Record — And 2026 Is On The Same Pace

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

Outdoors

The removal of a placard mentioning a massacre of Native Americans from the Grand Teton National Park's Craig Thomas Discovery and Visitor Center is an example of censorship by the Trump administration, says a former Park Service ranger who quit in protest over similar decisions across the country.

In April, Melissa Dalley left her job at the Martin Van Buren National Historic Site in New York and joined the Resistance Rangers, a group of current and former Park Service personnel opposed to Trump’s policies related to sites managed by the Park Service.

She also helped form America 443+, an anti-censorship group named in reference to the Park Service's 433 sites around the country.

She was in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks July 21-27 on a family vacation but also to spread her message.

“We’re not advocating for any action or any political candidate; we’re saying (to park visitors), ‘You deserve to have the whole story,’” including parts that the Trump administration apparently doesn’t like, she said.

Richard Jones, a rural Park County resident and retired Forest Service and Park Service ranger, has a different view of the administration’s actions.

He said he thinks Trump and U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum are trying to set right the Park Service’s historical mission after years of “woke” misguidance.

“I’m certainly happy to see the Trump administration ask for these things in parks, look at them with another eye, and maybe get rid of things that aren’t really part of the story,” Jones told Cowboy State Daily.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Controversial Order"}]

The controversy traces back to Trump’s March 2025 executive order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.”

It called upon the Park Service to remove or revise exhibits, signs and educational materials that the administration deemed negative toward the United States by promoting “false revision of history.”

Burgum followed up in May 2025, directing implementation of the policy. That included reviews and QR codes calling for public complaints about “negative” material.

On June 12, U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley blocked the administration’s policy and ordered the restoration of dismantled signs and exhibits within 21 days.

The administration filed an appeal shortly after the ruling to block the mandated restoration.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Chilling Effect"}]

Dalley said that while she was still working for the Park Service, personnel were ordered to document displays or signs that might be deemed inappropriate under the executive order and send that information up the Interior Department chain of command.

She said that was mostly done quietly until somebody leaked the database of inappropriate material.

Dalley said she started tracking the censorship herself and noticed a chilling effect among Park Service employees.

She said when it got to where she felt she was being asked to lie to the public, she quit in protest.

“I do hope to go back, and plan to go back to the Park Service after this administration,” she said.

She said current employees have reached out to her and reported terrible morale in the Park Service.

She added that when she was in Yellowstone and Grand Teton, she didn’t pry into park employees’ feelings and opinions because she didn’t want to put them in an “uncomfortable position.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"‘Ghost Of The Sign’"}]

Dalley said that, to her knowledge, when the call went out to the Park Service for an inventory of problematic material, Yellowstone “had nothing to report.”

However, the placard in the Grand Teton visitor center was deemed inappropriate and removed, she said.

It mentioned 19th-century explorer and U.S. Army officer Gustavus Cheyney Doane.

Doane was remembered for the 1870 Washburn-Langford-Doane expedition to the Yellowstone region, which helped lay the groundwork for the national parks.

The placard also mentioned Doane’s involvement in the massacre of Piegan Blackfeet people near the Marias River in Montana on Jan. 23, 1870. Soldiers killed 173 to 200 Native Americans.

Doane is said to have bragged about his involvement in the massacre.

“In the visitor center, you can still see the ghost of the sign,” or the place on the wall where the placard was mounted, Dalley said.

During her visit, Dalley said she handed out printouts depicting the placard before it was removed and invited people to have conversations about it.

“The Blackfeet are still around, they are active and they are American citizens, they deserve to have their story told along with everyone else,” she said.

She hopes that her actions can “inspire other people” to start pushing back against censorship.

Jones said he doesn’t consider actions such as removing the Doane placard to be censorship.

Rather, the Trump administration is trying to restore the Park Service’s mission of preserving history directly relevant to national parks and other sites.

“The Park Service was always one of the best agencies for interpreting the history of each area,” he said.

However, he said he thinks that over the past decade or so, other material has been added to historical accounts to push a “woke” narrative.

Materials such as the Doane placard added details that were “minor, irrelevant and derogatory to the story that was being told,” he said.

Trump former ranger and Grand Teton sign headquarters MN via Alamy 8 3 26

<title>Ranger Who Quit Over Trump Policies Calls Removing Grand Teton Placard Censorship | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A Park Service ranger who quit over Trump's policies says removing a placard at the Grand Teton visitor center about a massacre of Blackfeet was censorship. A retired ranger from Wyoming says Trump's just doing away with years of “woke” misguidance.

Ranger Who Quit Over Trump Policies Calls Removing Grand Teton Placard Censorship

Employee kate meadows cropped

Kate Meadows

Big Horn County Search & Rescue has become one of Wyoming's busiest volunteer emergency organizations at the same time its funding has been cut nearly in half.

Last year, the team responded to 55 rescue calls – almost four times its historical average of about 15 – making it second only to Teton County in call volume. This year, volunteers have already answered 40 calls and are on pace to surpass last year's record.

Yet the organization's county funding dropped from about $106,000 to $50,000 after property-tax reductions squeezed county budgets.

"We lost a lot of money," Big Horn County Search & Rescue Coordinator Jeff Schmidt told Cowboy State Daily from Colorado, where he was helping fight a wildfire.

Additional property-tax reductions being debated by Wyoming lawmakers could tighten those finances even further, he said.

"As call volume goes up, we just have to have more people doing these things," Schmidt said.

Big Horn County Sheriff Jason Beal said county leaders are doing what they can despite increasingly difficult financial realities.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"We're navigating a very tight, very critical budget,\" Beal said."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Small County With Big Demands"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"The challenge facing Big Horn County is unique."}]

Although only about 12,000 people live in the county – which ranks among Wyoming's lowest for median family income – nearly 1 million visitors travel to or through it each year.

Search and rescue volunteers cover more than 3,100 square miles that range from desert badlands to towering alpine peaks, caves and swift mountain rivers.

Three major highways – U.S. Highways 14, 14A and 16 – cross the Big Horn Mountains, carrying thousands of tourists to and from Yellowstone National Park each summer, Beal said.

That variety means volunteers never know what type of rescue they'll face.

One call might involve recovering an injured horseback rider deep in the wilderness. Another could require rescuing stranded climbers from vertical cliffs, navigating caves or performing swift-water rescues during spring runoff.

"We run high-risk missions all the time," Schmidt said. "We have to have tons of training."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Training Comes At A Price"}]

Big Horn County certifies volunteers in high-angle rope rescue, swift-water rescue, cave rescue and other specialized disciplines.

The foundational wilderness rescue course alone requires about 80 hours of training on volunteers' own time and costs roughly $2,000 per person.

Ideally, Schmidt said, the organization would spend $30,000 to $40,000 annually on training alone.

Instead, it has to fund its training from the $50,000 yearly operating budget.

The county also contains more than 200 known caves, adding another layer of technical expertise many search-and-rescue teams elsewhere never need.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Tourism Changes The Mountains"}]

Schmidt said he has watched the backcountry transform over the past several years.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, he said it was unusual to encounter more than a couple dozen people above 11,000 feet in the Big Horn Mountains.

[{"type":"text","text":"Now, he routinely sees hundreds."}]

He attributes much of that increase to outdoor recreation becoming more popular during the pandemic, combined with social media showcasing spectacular mountain scenery.

Big Horn County Search & Rescue is second only to Teton County in calls due to booming tourism and uniquely rugged and remote terrain leading to the high-risk missions. But as demand for rescues have quadrupled, the agency's budget has been cut in half.

Steve Inman: Tuesday, August 4, 2026

In case you missed it

CSD Staff

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Steve Inman: Tuesday, August 4, 2026

In case you missed it

Authors

CSD Staff

Writer

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Bonus Video 1: Tuesday, August 4, 2026

Today In Parenting: Tuesday, August 4, 2026

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