It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Friday, September 11th. I’m Mac Watson.
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Wyoming GOP Vice-Chair Bob Ferguson says President Trump's controversial promise to give every American $5,000 if Republicans win both chambers of Congress was taken out of context. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports Ferguson says of the charges that it’s a bribe, “That is an outright lie.”
“The criticism, the backlash was scathing. Several high-profile political figures were saying, ‘This is a bribe. This is illegal.’ Political figures in Wyoming were shocked as well, many of them. But the vice chair of the Wyoming State Republican Party, Bob Ferguson, was actually at the convention in Dallas, Texas, when Trump made those comments, and he said, "No, this is this is out of context of the bigger picture of dividends he's been proposing from tariffs revenue for months, and the the implication said Ferguson is that if Democrats take Congress, they're not going to be doing these tariff dividends, whereas Republicans would.”
If the president were to make good on his claim to each American adult, it would cost the nation more than $1 trillion.
Read the full story HERE.
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The Weston County Sheriff's Office says one of their deputies was fired on while investigating a stolen gun Wednesday evening south of Upton. Cowboy State Daily’s Kolby Fedore reports that set off an overnight manhunt that ended with a suspect's capture Thursday morning.
“Authorities caught Rodney Lee Anderson Jr. at about 5:50 a.m. Thursday morning, and he was taken into custody. The DCI was quickly on the scene to investigate the shots fired. Authorities were investigating a gun theft in Newcastle when dispatch heard that shots had been fired and sent help that way. So far, the Weston County Sheriff's Office has not revealed if anyone was struck during the gunfire.”
As of Thursday morning, no charges against Anderson had been filed with the court, though he was in the process of booking into the Weston County Detention Center.
Read the full story HERE.
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With Wyoming Game and Fish facing what its interim director calls a “dire” looming budget shortfall, wildlife groups say a trust fund proposed by a legislative committee has a "juggernaut of support." Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that one advocate says, “God, I hope we dream big.”
“Some folks have come up with the idea of basically setting up a trust fund for the game and fish. Some of that money could come from the state, but probably in the forms of moving things from savings accounts or putting maybe some of the mineral and energy. Tax revenue funds into that, rather than it couldn't come from the general fund because as soon as you start taking money from the general fund, the legislature has to get directly involved. People think, okay, a savings account that generates interest, and you can pull from the interest. And Bob Budd, who actually runs a conservation-based trust fund in Wyoming told me that's really not how it works. It's more of an investment account where the money in that account is actively being used to invest in stocks or bonds and those sorts of things, and that will create a yield.”
Jessi Johnson, government affairs director for the Wyoming Wildlife Federation tells Cowboy State Daily that other ideas floated at the committee meeting included state energy severance tax revenue, private donations, and money transferred from other state savings accounts.
Read the full story HERE.
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It took six Rock Springs police officers to subdue a 6-foot, 260-pound man who threatened to stab them at a local Pizza Hut restaurant. Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports the man claimed he’d been in prison, that the “cartel” wanted him for being a “snitch.”
“They finally got him down and took six of the officers to get him down and wrestled the knife away from him after he had been tased, and it took the taser to really get him down. He was hit four times with a beanbag from a shotgun. It's a non lethal weapon, a non lethal round, where a shotgun will blast beanbags at you that are designed to to knock you down, knock the wind out of you. He not only threatened officers, he threatened to stab a canine dog that had responded with one of the officers.”
Zane T. Gavin of Phoenix, Arizona, was charged and had his initial appearance in Sweetwater County Circuit Court on Thursday with two counts of aggravated assault and three of interference with a peace officer.
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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A huge crowd of Grizzly 399 fans gathered Wednesday for the dedication of a gigantic sculpture of the world’s most famous bear at the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi was at the unveiling and reports that “Against All Odds: Grizzly 399” also features the four cubs she had in 2020.
“It was kind of cool to be part of what will probably be the last 399 Bear Jam as soon as the remarks were finished and the blue cloth had been pulled off of the statue. A crowd of people immediately surged towards it, just like crowds formed around 399 when she was alive. So the fact that we had that many people there and they all surged towards the statue was kind of cool to think that almost two years after we lost 399, there was still one more bear jam caused by her presence, and it'll probably be the last one.”
Hundreds of people attended the Wednesday evening ceremony, marking the triumphant return of “the Queen of the Tetons” to her home. Jocelyn Russell, the bronze artist who sculpted the larger-than-life grizzly, told everyone there her work now belongs to the world.
Read the full story HERE.
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A disgraced forensic scientist who was sentenced to prison on Tuesday for deleting and manipulating DNA data in Colorado criminal cases handled 462 cases at the state crime lab in Wyoming. Cowboy State Daily’s Kolby Fedore reports Wyoming crime lab director says, “We’re lucky it was pre-DNA.”
“66-year-old Yvonne Missy Woods spent 29 years with the Colorado Bureau of Investigations. On Tuesday, she was sentenced to 10 years in prison for corrupting DNA. Wood spent about five years working at the Wyoming State Crime Lab before she joined the CBI, and she handled 462 cases. But an investigation revealed that none of those cases were corrupted. Woods's manipulation affected hundreds of Colorado cases, including 53 that included false or misleading information in her lab notes.”
Woods spent about five years in Wyoming before ever joining CBI, handling 462 cases at the state crime lab between roughly 1988 and 1993.
Read the full story HERE.
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Sen. Bob Ide didn't want to say “I told you so,” because he empathizes with customers and businesses agonizing over Hilltop's cybersecurity shutdown this week. But Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that Ide says this is exactly why he's pushed bills to bring gold and silver into Wyoming's economy.
“As senator, he successfully championed a bill requiring Wyoming to invest $10 million worth of gold in its permanent mineral trust fund account, and then he also was an early champion of successfully pushing legislation that introduced gold as legal tender, so I'd I'd said, look, stuff like this is why I pushed for this in the first place because the gold isn't depending on someone else's value of it, he said he said that as a business owner, he understands the agony. He empathizes with the agony that people who are dead in the water with their business transactions are experiencing right now. He didn't want to say "I told you so, but this was why he brought that legislation in part.”
Ide acknowledged that the 2025 bill doesn’t push people to keep gold of their own. But he said it could serve as an awareness campaign for the private citizen anyway.
Read the full story HERE.
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A Casper couple said they’re saddened because a black bear that broke into their second home near Driggs, Idaho, was killed under a zero-tolerance policy for bears that enter occupied structures. Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports that homeowner Page Mamot says, “He wasn’t mean or aggressive.”
“A young black bear was up on their kitchen counter, trying to feast on a butter dish or something, and you know the husband caught it, coaxed to go outside, but it was still hanging around, and so they called the sheriff's department in the Idaho Game and Fish or Idaho Fish and Game Department, and ultimately a little bit sadly, the the decision was made to to kill that bear. So that bear was shot on site. The policy is if a bear enters an occupied structure, that's kind of it. That's they're kind of done at that point.”
Keith and Page Mamot tell Cowboy State Daily that they returned home from riding in their side-by-side UTV. Keith went to put some more fuel in the vehicle, while Page headed for the house, noticing that the retractable screen door to the kitchen area was hanging loose and assumed her husband had entered.
Instead, “there was a black bear sitting on the counter,” she says.
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.
