It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Monday, November 9th. I’m Mac Watson.
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Every Wyoming county shifted blue by an average of 21.3 points Tuesday compared to the 2024 presidential race, according to federal election percentages. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports Sweetwater swung the most, from GOP to Dem by 33.4 points in the House race and 22.5 in the Senate.
“Republicans still swept all statewide seats that were up for election this year, and the GOP also held its roughly 90% super majority in the legislature, despite a Democrat picking up one seat, so you know it's not correct to say Wyoming went blue. But if you crunch the percentage points from which voters defected from their share of Trump votes in 2024, and you also crunch the gains that Democrats posted compared to their vote for Kamala Harris in 2024, and then you combine those for a net, you do see a shift. the University of Wyoming associate professor of political science Ryan Williamson said these shifts happen, and they tend to be a reflection on the president.”
Republicans still swept the top five state-level seats and the open U.S. Senate and House seats, and kept their roughly 90% supermajority in the Legislature despite losing one seat in the state House.
Read the full story HERE.
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Andrew Mazzella builds luxury doomsday bunkers deep in the Rockies for clients preparing for nuclear war, civil unrest or whatever. Cowboy State Daily’s Kolby Fedore reports the end result is a fortified sanctuary with its own power, water, sewage, air filtration, and groceries to last a decade.
“Andrew Mazzella got his start in construction when he was a college student. At the age of 19, he was able to take money that he'd earned on crab boats in Alaska, and then start to invest that in something to start building different structures around Bozeman, Montana. Now he said some of his first clients wanted some unconventional builds. They were looking for doomsday bunkers, and he was an opportunist looking to make some money. So one of the first big constructions that he did was this giant 60-foot-long underground doomsday fortress that he built for a guy who had made a lot of money in the corporate world, and he wanted to protect it.”
Mazzella tells Cowboy State Daily he isn't terribly worried about surviving a post-apocalyptic world, but if someone is willing to pay him enough money to build an Armageddon abode in the ground, he'll figure out how to get it done.
Read the full story HERE.
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Teton County residents have a life expectancy of 94 years, easily the highest in Wyoming, according to county health department data. Cowboy State Daily’s Kate Meadows spoke to a retired doctor who says “people don’t get old in Jackson Hole.”
“I spoke to Dr. Lisa Ridgway, who is retired but still active and in her 80s. She had been a doctor in Jackson. She was in Sicily at the time that we talked and had just finished a two-mile hike with a backpack and said people don't get old in Jackson Hole. They come to Jackson Hole to live their best life. I also talked to Teton County Health Department Director Dr. Travis Riddle. He told me that individual circumstances, personal choices, and even how long someone has lived in Teton County are all factors in life expectancy and longevity.”
New data gathered for a community health assessment puts life expectancy in the county at a remarkable 94 years — about 15 years longer than the national average. The figure, recently shared with Teton County commissioners by the county's health department, even surprised some local officials.
Read the full story HERE.
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Tracy Jensen disappeared after walking out of his sister's house in Big Piney in 1999, leaving behind a young daughter. Cowboy State Daily’s Jen Kocher reports though the court has declared him legally dead, his family won't give up.
“Tracy disappeared in February 1999, and he left his sister's house in Big Piney and went to his work at Gordon's Market and he asked his boss for some traveling money, and he was given $300 with the idea that he was going to drive to Idaho to a relative's house. He never made it to Idaho, and he has never been seen again since. Every year, both the sheriff's office and the family check in, and the sheriff's office runs his information and runs the information on the car, through all the national databases. The Sublette County Sheriff's Office has not found anything to date.”
For the family left behind, the uncertainty has been its own kind of grief. Even after the court declared him legally dead, the absence remains sharp and unanswered. Jensen’s sister tells Cowboy State Daily, “Part of me believes he's still alive.”
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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Prairie dogs build elaborate underground communities, protect their families and sometimes kill their neighbors' babies. Cowboy State Daily’s Kate Meadows reports that scientists call them vital to the ecosystem, but some call them a nuisance.
“One biologist I talked to, John Hoogland, said that prairie dogs, the lives of prairie dogs and behaviors often mirror that of people. Hoogland tells me there are even deadbeat dads in the prairie dog communities, so they father these prairie dog babies and then really don't have much to do with them aside from maybe playing with them a little bit here and there.”
Hoogland tells Cowboy State Daily he never intended to spend his life studying prairie dogs. In 1974, he was a graduate student looking for an affordable research subject. For the past 45 years, Hoogland has studied the animals’ behavior, including 16 years observing prairie dogs at Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota's Black Hills.
Read the full story HERE.
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Manufacturing employment in Sheridan has doubled since 2018. Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports Wendtland Machine Works is part of the much bigger story of how Sheridan built a manufacturing community that not only supports the next manufacturer, but encourages new ones to set up shop.
“Taylor really wanted to be a Wyoming kid. So after he finished his finance degree, he came back to Sheridan, and he went back to college in a career-technical field with the idea that maybe he could start a business. And so he got a job at Weatherby. He wasn’t there very long before he opened the business like he was hoping to do, in making parts for these other manufacturers. They've got a nice little cluster of different manufacturers, and each one has a different kind of skill set or equipment, and so they can kind of support each other, provide parts for each other. Weatherby has thrown him some work. He does some work for the Balding’s Bits and Spurs, other companies that need little pieces. That's really kind of a cool thing about what Sheridan's managed to accomplish, is that they're one of the faster-emerging manufacturing sites in the state.”
Taylor Wendtland trained at Sheridan College, which helped him land the job at Weatherby. He opened his own shop in 2024 and now he estimates 80% of his manufacturing work comes from local customers.
Read the full story HERE.
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Idaho became the 12th state to approve an official state gun last week. Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports Wyoming has yet to do so but Bob Budd says the Model 1894 Winchester rifle might be a good fit.
“His family has an 1873 Winchester that's been in his family forever, and he said, ‘Ah, that's kind of a bummer. They got that one.’ So what? Some people have suggested the Sharps Buffalo rifle, which could come with a little bit of controversy because yeah, it was a common rifle, but it was also the rifle that was used to slaughter the buffalo. And then there's also the 1886 Winchester, which a state firearms historian told me that it that kind of topped the 1873 Winchester because they made it. A much stronger action, so it can handle heavier loads, and that was also one of the weapons that was prominent during the Johnson County Cattle War in Johnson County, Wyoming.”
Some lawmakers tell Cowboy State Daily they might be interested in starting the process — probably with a bill before the Legislature. Rep. Andrew Byron, R-Jackson, noted one possible snag: Wyoming has so many firearms enthusiasts, could voters narrow it to just one, or even a shortlist?
Read the full story HERE.
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A Colorado woman swears she and her husband saw a Bigfoot in the trees along a highway in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains. Cowboy State Daily’s Kolby Fedore reports Lori Bowling says they weren’t looking for bigfoot. They were looking for deer.
“On July 28, Lori Bowling from Colorado says that she's positive that she saw Bigfoot. She and her husband were driving by Colorado's San Juan Mountains, and she said she saw something with long hairy arms, about six to eight feet tall, that was unmistakably Bigfoot. I spoke to Colorado Parks and Wildlife officer John Livingston. He says that most likely he believes that she was looking at a domestic sheep herder. He said these herders often wear scraggly clothing and they're hiding out in the trees in an attempt to be unseen. A lot of them are from South America and they come specifically to herd sheep in Colorado.”
Bigfoot sightings in the Rockies aren't uncommon. The Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, an independent group that collects and investigates alleged Sasquatch encounters, maintains a public database containing 398 reports from Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho, Montana and Utah. But none constitutes scientific confirmation that Bigfoot exists.
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.
