It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Monday, August 31st. I’m Mac Watson.
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A barrel lifted from Wyoming’s deepest lake Saturday night may finally solve at least part of a 46-year-old triple murder. Cowboy State Daily’s Jen Kocher reports that authorities believe it may contain the body of Virginia Uden who, along with her two boys, was killed by her ex-husband in 1980.
“It was rain all day Friday. So they were battling waves. They go out Saturday. Same situation. Saturday night they got some still calmness, and after they decided also to try to keep the weights, the boat still. They got 1,200-pound cement blocks to keep one of the boats still. That proved to be the key. They were able to pull, put the claw over the barrel around 9p.m.-ish, and bring it up to the surface. It was just a monumental effort. They're out there in thunder and lightning. These were some committed people. In fact, they said on Saturday, ‘We are not coming back until we have that barrel.’ They were going to spend the night out there. They were 100% in.”
Virginia and her sons — Richard, 11, and Reagan, 10 — of Rawlins were killed in September 1980 by her ex-husband Gerald Uden, who confessed to the murders in 2013.
Read the full story HERE.
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At least five Wyoming senators walked out of a joint legislative meeting Friday claiming it was a waste of taxpayers’ money and time. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that Sen. Tara Nethercott and Rep. John Bear sparred over whether the meeting was appropriate.
“The management council had tasked the appropriations committee, our budget planning committee, with devising the funding mechanisms for some economic development legislation. The minerals committee went ahead and adopted legislation that it wanted to work with in this session. and so then they meet jointly that Friday after the Minerals Committee basically finishes homework early, or on time, depending whom you ask. And Appropriations Committee was gathering with them. Senator Tara Nethercott, a member of the Minerals Committee, asked, ‘Why am I here? We've done our part. This is a waste of taxpayers' time.’ Basically, she called it an absurd process. Representative John Bear, who chairs the House side of the Appropriations Committee, said this is a good conversation. We'd still like your input as we go forward with this legislation.”
Nethercott walked out after a brief rebuke of what she called a wasteful meeting. The spat stems from efforts to reform Wyoming’s economic development laws.
Read the full story HERE.
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A South Dakota woman who gave a Weston County deputy on a traffic stop the finger while blowing by him at 112 mph faces the potential of more than 50 years in prison. Cowboy State Daily’s Greg Johnson reports that Sonja Halverson from Sturgis, is also accused of telling cops to “shoot me” after getting caught.
“Finally somebody got some stop sticks under one of her tires. That stopped the car, but it didn't stop her from being belligerent, apparently. They had their weapons drawn, telling her to get down, get on the ground. She wouldn't comply, kept advancing on them, and got out. And apparently, when she got out of the car, was telling the officers to ‘just shoot me.’ She finally complied, but continued to fight them the whole way. She was kicking them, and unfortunately for the Weston County under sheriff, she bit him twice, including once behind the ear that required him to go to the hospital to get attended to. Kneed him, also bit him on the hand, so he took the brunt of the damage there.”
Halverson faces 11 criminal charges, including five counts of felony interfering with a peace officer causing injury. Halverson also faces misdemeanor charges of interference, possession of marijuana, attempting to elude, reckless driving, speeding and having an open container of alcohol.
Read the full story HERE.
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Hunting season has begun in Wyoming and two women from Wisconsin are leaving the state successful. Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that Sarah Eloranta and Jessie Wilson say they had a successful “Girls Only” Wyoming elk hunt and hope their experience high in Wyoming's Snowy Range inspires other hunters.
“It's one lady and her sister-in-law that came out here from Wisconsin to hunt elk up above Centennial, and they said it was awesome. They got a lot of help from Wyoming people, a lot of advice, and then they came out here and did some scouting. They actually ended up shooting their elk like one right after the other from 60 yards because they were hunting in such thick timber.”
Traveling more than a mile each way, much of it scrambling over fallen timber, they traversed between the kill site and their camp three times before all the meat was secure. Eloranta adds, “It’s a way for us to bond.”
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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Interesting feature we ran this weekend. As many as 50,000 glass negatives that captured Cheyenne's early history landed in the city dump in 1935 when nobody was willing to pay $10,000 for the massive collection of photos. Cowboy State Daily’s Kerry Drake reports that about 60 years of Cheyenne history chronicled in those images were lost.
“How many wound up in the dump is not known because they're lost, they're gone. So those are gone and definitely never came back. Some people still have glass natives in their collections that they paid for from the studio. The sad part of it is for the archivists. I talked to Susie Taylor at the archives. Is it just unknown what was lost? The guy got mad because it's the middle of the Depression. He wanted what he thought was full value for it, which was $10,000. People in Cheyenne wanted to keep it, and the city wanted to keep it, but they didn't have the money. So he just got mad. He said, "I'm going to move into Fort Collins anyway, and just took him to the dump.”
Billy Walker was a photographer and owned the studio whose photographs documented the first six decades of Cheyenne’s history, including the mansions on “Millionaire’s Row,” legislators, and visiting entertainers and a few murderers, including the infamous Tom Horn.
Read the full story HERE.
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Tourism season is going strong in Wyoming and that means one Worland man is seeing a lot of traffic and people who want to stop and chat about his collection. Cowboy State Daily’s Dale Killingbeck reports that Pete Smet’s collection of John Deere tractors is so impressive that tour buses along U.S. Highway 20 make regular stops.
“He's always been in love with John Deere tractors. He said, ‘People he said from all over the world stop and want to wander among his John Deere collection,’ which he has the AB series, he has he said the 10 and 20 series working on the 30 has a couple of 40 series tractors, so if there's a John Deere tractor that somebody is looking for, he probably has that.”
Smet tells Cowboy State Daily that people from all over the world come to see his tractor collection. Even though they speak different languages, he adds, “They knew how to say ‘nice collection.’”
Read the full story HERE.
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It's a dirty job, but somebody's gotta do it. Cowboy State Daily’s Kolby Fedore reports that a Cheyenne man makes extra cash cleaning dumpsters and garbage bins of maggots, spoiled meat juice, and even dog poop.
“A Cheyenne physical therapist named Michael Addelman started a cleaning business called 307 Bin Cleaning, where he is power washing people's outdoor garbage. In the city of Cheyenne, according to their sanitation manager, it is up to homeowners to make sure that their bins are clean. During Cheyenne Frontier days, they had let me say they noticed that there were more filth flies. So the city started prompting people to clean their own bins, or they would pick them up for a fee and clean them themselves. However, the scale is enormous, so it prompted Addelman to start a service as a side hustle to make extra money, making sure that people's garbage bins are clean.”
Addleman tells Cowboy State Daily that he’s only been at it about a month and a half, but what started as an experiment to make some extra money has taken off faster than he expected.
Read the full story HERE.
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And finally, features reporter Zak Sonntag has filed another Drinking Wyoming report. This time he went to the Old West Bar in Medicine Bow where there were 7 people in the bar. The bartender said that’s busier than usual.
“I'm just trying to get a sense of the bar, so I approach the bartender and I say, "Hey, I'm curious of what life is like in Medicine Bow. And she's just this funny person. Her name's Shayna. She's leaning on the ice box. She's got a pair of reading glasses with a missing temple piece. She's listlessly scrolling her phone. I just love everything about her. And it's an old ranch community, so a lot of those stories are about ranching lifestyle, including what it's like to eat livestock testicles. I had a fun conversation with a guy named Bill Fredericks, and he was more than happy to share all the visceral details and experience of what it's like on branding days. As you cut them off quick, you put them in a salt bucket, toss them on the branding iron, and then right in your mouth. Easy as that.”
One of the distinctive features of the Old West Bar is its front door. It has no hydraulic closer, so the wind blows it shut with the sound of a gunshot. You can tell who is a regular because they don't flinch.
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.
