It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Thursday, November 5th. I’m Mac Watson.
–
A trucker accused of stabbing another trucker 17 times at a rest area along I-80 in Wyoming was bound over to felony-level court Wednesday for attempted first-degree murder. Cowboy State Daily’s Kolby Fedore reports Andrew Kris Bzdak could get life in prison if convicted.
“This case began shortly after 3:30 a.m. on September 13. After frantic callers were reporting that a man had been stabbed inside a rest area off of I-80 near Rock Springs. When authorities arrived, they found a Sikh truck driver who had been hauling freight. He had stumbled outside of the rest area and collapsed onto the pavement. He had been stabbed multiple times in the head, chest, and other areas of his body, a total of 17 times. This crime gained national attention. Some people were calling it a hate crime, although local authorities are saying a motive has not yet been established.”
Bzdak appeared in Sweetwater County Circuit Court wearing an orange jail uniform, his wrists secured in handcuffs attached to a chain wrapped around his waist.
Read the full story HERE.
–
The Wyoming Constitution Party chair is happy that Rebecca Bextel vaulted it to major-party status Tuesday by winning more than 10% of the vote, but says it's not a Freedom Caucus Party. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports party Chair Joshua Shimkus says, “that's not where the party is heading.”
“It is interesting as a potentially a paradox because Bexel is aligned with the Freedom Caucus politically, polled more than 31,000 votes in the governor's race, lending the party legitimacy. So whether all 31,000 of those voters are aligned with the Freedom Caucus. It's not safe to say. However, the person for whom they voted is. But yet, you talk to the Chair. He said, ‘no, that's not the direction of the party.’ So, I asked, ‘what is the difference between this party and the Republican Party?’ He said, ‘There's just more emphasis on the Ninth and 10th Amendments, and those federal amendments emphasize the individual.’”
Does this mean a mass migration of Freedom Caucus members to the Constitution Party is in the near future? State House Speaker Pro Tem Jeremy Haroldson, R-Wheatland, tells Cowboy State Daily that the caucus isn’t planning a defection to the Constitution Party.
Read the full story HERE.
–
WE Soda announced Wednesday it will cut 350 jobs and ditch underground dry mining to fight Chinese competition, leaving its 800 workers reeling. Cowboy State Daily’s Emma Jane Jackson reports that the union president says, “It feels almost like a sucker punch,” for the trona mine's workers.
“We Soda is moving from underground mining to solution mining to try to meet that competition. For the workers, though, that means a huge hit. I talked to Marshall Cummings, president of the local union, and he said that this is an earth-shattering moment for him and his membership. Ultimately, this is going to impact more than 40% of the workforce, bringing the total number of employees from over 850 down to 500 in the next two years.”
During a visit to Green River from London in September, WE Soda CEO Alasdair Warren told Cowboy State Daily that a flood of low-cost Chinese natural soda ash production has fundamentally disrupted traditional export markets.
Read the full story HERE.
–
For those wondering what’s in those industrial-looking semi-trailers with military escorts on I-80 through Wyoming, it could’ve been a nuclear missile. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports one trucker who recently passed a missile convoy says, “I was terrified.”
“When the Air Force is transporting nuclear missile components to their silos across southeast Wyoming, you can tell because the payload transporter three is very distinct. It looks like a heavily armored semi-trailer. There's an escort of armored vehicles and helicopters that are supervising it as it goes along I-80. If the U.S. Department of Energy is transporting a nuclear payload, those vehicles are designed to be as subtle as possible. You would never know it. In fact, the vehicles that they use to do that are so secretive, only three photos are known to exist, and they're kind of boring because they look like normal semi-trucks. So it's entirely possible that Wyomingites have passed components of a nuclear missile, if not a nuclear payload itself.”
The vehicle that trucker Roberto Figueroa passed near Burns was a Payload Transporter III, a $1 million semi-trailer built specifically for the U.S. Air Force. According to the F.E. Warren Air Force Base website, the semi-trailer has “the ability to load, unload, transport, emplace, or remove and replace Minuteman weapon system aerospace vehicle equipment and supporting equipment in a controlled environment.”
Read the full story HERE.
–
I’ll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.
Cowboy State Daily News continues now….
–
Brothers who ran Peak Resorts before selling to Vail Resorts for $264 million in 2019 are now negotiating to buy Snowy Range Ski Area in southern Wyoming. Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports one of the brothers, Jesse Boyd, says, “We love to ski, and we just miss being around it.”
“Jesse said he was driving around in Wyoming and saw the Snowy Range ski area, and he was like, ‘Wow, that I've never been there. I never skied there.’ There's not very many resorts where that's the case. He skied all over the country, and so you know he decided to check it out. He decided to bring his group, his other brothers, and his best friend to Wyoming to check out the snowy range. So they made them an offer basically that they couldn't refuse.”
Boyd says that he could foresee buying a couple more resorts, but they aren’t out to rebuild the 17-resort public company they once helped run before its sale to Vail Resorts. “No more empire building,” Boyd tells Cowboy State Daily.
Read the full story HERE.
–
A video from the Wapiti area appears to show hunters driving toward deer, shooting near houses and using a pickup’s hood as a rifle rest. Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that one outdoorsman who saw the video says it’s “disgusting.”
“Paul Ulrich, of course, who is in the Wyoming sportsmanship group, the Hunter Ethics groups. Paul said he was appalled by what he saw in the video. One of the retired game wardens said, ‘it's tough to tell from one video, but laying a gun across a rifle across the hood of a vehicle is according to his interpretation of the Wyoming statute – that is a violation because that is still using a vehicle to hunt big game.’ Even if you're just using it as a rifle rest, that's a no-no.”
The videographer tells Cowboy State Daily that the Wyoming Game and Fish Department told them the hunters have the landowner’s permission to hunt. But the videographer said the hunters were still shooting too close to houses and a busy highway. A request for more information sent to Game and Fish wasn’t answered by publication time.
Read the full story HERE.
–
Lincoln County was the only Wyoming county to vote in favor of Proposition 1 in Tuesday’s general election, a controversial measure to cut residential property tax by 50% for most homeowners. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that Niobrara, the state’s reddest county, rejected it the hardest.
“We reported that Prop One only survived one county, and that's Lincoln. And that is because of a quirk of the Wyoming Constitution that says, essentially, under votes and over votes count as no votes. And so, technically, part County has a narrow split to where more people voted for than against. But once you lump in those over votes and under votes, technically Prop One didn't survive Park County despite its larger number of favor than most. Wyoming's reddest county, Niobrara, which went 90 plus percent for Trump in 2024, gave Prop One its most resounding defeat of any county at 70 some percent.”
The petition-led ballot initiative sought to change state law and add the cut to Wyoming’s other property tax exemptions, such as a 25% cut on the first $1 million of home value, and a 50% exemption for long-term homeowners over 65.
Read the full story HERE.
–
Casper residents say motorcycles, cars and pickups race down East Second Street like it’s a dragway. Cowboy State Daily’s Kolby Fedore reports that one woman says the roaring engines and reckless driving has frustrated neighbors for years.
“Geraldine Henrikson lives near East Second Street, and she says that they drive like maniacs. She says these are mostly young people who are showing off. They'll park at different places like Dairy Queen, she said, and then usually in the evening hours after the sun goes down, she can hear their revving engines as they race down the street. Resident Frank Sanchez, who also lives nearby and is an Uber driver who is on those streets at night says that it is an absolute nightmare. He talks about people not wearing helmets, not wearing protective gear, driving way too fast, going up to 60 miles per hour over the speed limit.”
The complaints about East Second Street aren't new. Eight years ago, Casper police identified the city's 10 intersections with the worst crash records, using data collected by the agency and the Wyoming Department of Transportation. Half of them were on East Second Street.
Read the full story HERE.
—
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.
