Sheridan County commissioners are considering throwing their support behind an effort to name the tallest mountain in the county for Sgt. Nevada Krinkee, the Sheridan police officer killed in the line of duty in 2024.
The peak, which doesn’t have an official name, rises more than 11,000 feet into the Bighorn Mountains south of Dome Peak and near Elk Peak, culminating in a summit that former Casper Police Chief Keith McPheeters describes as a massive mushroom-shaped boulder.
McPheeters knows because he's been on top of it.
On June 28, 2025, he climbed the summit alone in Krinkee's honor as part of Cops on Top, the nonprofit McPheeters founded nearly three decades ago to memorialize law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty.
“The actual proper summit itself is very, very tricky,” McPheeters told Cowboy State Daily. “Not for the faint of heart.”
The final rock formation overhangs on every side, he said, with a seam of clear quartz crystals running through it.
McPheeters carried challenge coins to the top and recorded a tribute to Krinkee. On his way back down, he collected two rocks from the mountain to give to Krinkee's widow.
The peak is known locally as "Sheridan High Point" or "Sheridan Peak," but Elisabeth Hernandez, executive director of the Wyoming Board on Geographic Names, says it's "officially unnamed in GNIS records."
Now Sheridan police are asking county commissioners to consider supporting a permanent name for it.
County Gets A Say
The idea has reached the Sheridan County Commission, but it remains in its earliest stages.
Sheridan County Administrative Director Cameron Duff told Cowboy State Daily that nothing has been formally submitted and county officials are still figuring out what would be required to make the name official.
Sheridan Police Chief Travis Koltiska is drafting a letter seeking the county's support, Duff said.
Commissioners discussed the idea during an Aug. 17 staff meeting but took no formal action. Instead, they agreed to bring it back Monday for public discussion.
“I haven't had any in-depth conversations with the other commissioners, and so it's up for discussion on Monday,” Haswell said on Friday. “We're happy to hear from the public, and I know his family's appreciative."
She also has little doubt about what putting Krinkee's name on the county's highest point would mean to those closest to him.
“I think it would mean the world to Nevada Krinkee's family, of course,” she said.
Soldier, Officer, Father
Long before he wore a Sheridan police badge, Krinkee was accustomed to heights.
He enlisted in the U.S. Army after graduating from Bozeman High School in 2009 and spent eight years in the service, including two tours in Afghanistan with the 82nd Airborne Division as a parachutist. He rose to the rank of staff sergeant and earned four Army Commendation Medals.
Krinkee joined the Sheridan Police Department in 2017, became a corporal in 2019 and a sergeant in 2022.
He served as a firearms instructor and field training officer and was remembered as a mentor to younger officers.
He was also a new father. His daughter had been born the summer before his death.
Nearly 1,800 people filled the Sheridan College arena for Krinkee's memorial in March 2024.
At the end of the service, a dispatcher called for him over the radio three times before signing him off duty for the final time.
Five Years — Or Congress
The bureaucracy of naming a mountain is tricky.
Hernandez said that under the ordinary U.S. Board on Geographic Names process, the board will not consider proposals to name a feature after an individual who has been deceased fewer than five years.
Krinkee was killed Feb. 13, 2024, meaning a proposal commemorating him would ordinarily have to wait until Feb. 13, 2029.
That doesn't prevent Sheridan County from spending the intervening years building a case.
“County commissioners could certainly begin discussions before then, and gather input and justification for the proposal,” Hernandez said. “However a formal proposal would not be accepted until those 5 years have passed.”
Once eligible, a proposal would go first to the U.S. Board on Geographic Names' Domestic Names Committee.
If it meets federal requirements, the committee would seek input from interested federally recognized tribes, federal land agencies, local governments and the Wyoming Board on Geographic Names.
Wyoming's board would consider the justification and public input before voting whether to recommend the name, Hernandez said. The state board doesn't make the final decision; that belongs to the federal Domestic Names Committee.
McPheeters believes there's another route.
Because the summit lies within the Cloud Peak Wilderness, he said his research has led him toward pursuing an act of Congress to officially name it rather than waiting for the ordinary administrative process.
He originally thought the five-year rule stopped the effort, too.
McPheeters said the immediate goal is to build local support, beginning with Sheridan County and potentially expanding to the city, local organizations and state officials before taking the proposal to Wyoming's congressional delegation.
The county is also hoping for support from U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, Duff said.
'A Unique Opportunity'
“We kiss our spouses and hug our kids goodbye, and they never really know if we're coming home or not,” McPheeters said.
When an officer dies, thousands of people may attend the funeral. Police cars fill streets. Flags fly. An entire community grieves. Then life moves on.
“Within a year, you know, they're pretty much forgotten, and it's back to normal for everybody but the family of the fallen officer,” he said.
Cops on Top grew out of those conversations, with officers climbing mountains in memory of colleagues who didn't come home.
Krinkee left behind a wife and young daughter.
“They'd have something they could point their finger to,” McPheeters said. “‘That was our father, our husband.’”
This is a "unique opportunity," said the former police chief, who wants to see it named “so that the people in Sheridan County can know they got something they can always remember.”
Kolby Fedore can be reached at kolby@cowboystatedaily.com.
