Wyoming Sunrise

Don Day Weather

Daily Darwin

Same Guys Dancing

Daily Cartoon

Daily Smile

One More For The Road

You Still Here

Daily Features

Bonus 2 11 3 24

Bonus Video 2: Sunday, November 3, 2024

Bonus vid 1 11 3 24

Bonus Video 1: Sunday, November 3, 2024

"And Ginger sends him down to the chocolate river of death," as narrated by MMA announcer Steve Inman.....

Inman 11 3 24

Steve Inman: Sunday, November 3, 2024

Larry decides not to give trick or treaters candy.....

Extra 11 3 24

One Last Halloween: Sunday, November 3, 2024

Bonus vid 2 11 2 24

Bonus Video 2: Saturday, November 2, 2024

Bonus vid 1 11 2 24

Bonus Video 1: Saturday, November 2, 2024

You still here 11 2 24

You Still Here? Saturday, November 2, 2024

Extra 11 2 24

Today In Politics: Saturday, November 2, 2024

Outrunning a taser is tough to do, as narrated by MMA announcer Steve Inman.....

Inman 11 2 24

Steve Inman: Saturday, November 2, 2024

A magic trick we can all try at home.....

You still here 11 1 24

You Still Here? Friday, November 1, 2024

It's like trying to stop a car. Good luck....

Inman 11 1 24

Steve Inman: Friday, November 1, 2024

Bonus vid 1 11 1 24

Bonus Video 1: Friday, November 1, 2024

Dave Simpson

Opinion

CSD Columnists

[{"type":"text","text":"I once saw two young men sentenced to death."}]

I was in the courtroom in Laramie in August of 1974 when Judge Vernon Bentley sentenced Billy J. Cloman and Julian P. Turner to death in the gas chamber for the murders of Laramie County ranchers Lloyd Witt and Ray Davis.

Cloman tried to look tough as the sentence was read, but a sudden case of the hiccups belied the tough guy act.

[{"type":"text","text":"“Man (hiccup),” he said, “we been RAILROADED (hiccup)!”"}]

There was little sympathy for the two young men.

An Albany County jury found that they had murdered the two ranchers - good Samaritans - who were asked by the two strangers, on a cold night, to drive them to Cheyenne. 

Instead, Witt and Davis were stabbed to death, loaded in the back of Witt's pickup, then disposed of as Cloman and Turner drove east, ultimately arriving in Chicago in the stolen pickup, with a pool of blood clearly visible in the pickup bed.

They were stopped after making an illegal U-turn in front of the main police station in Chicago. Cops noticed the blood in the back, Wyoming plates, Witt's name crossed out on the registration, and Cloman's name penciled in.

“These guys belong on Death Row for being so stupid!” longtime Cheyenne police reporter Kirk Knox leaned over and whispered to me as the details of the crime emerged.

I asked Judge Bentley if it was difficult sentencing the two men to death. He said he found it more difficult sentencing young men to the penitentiary in Rawlins, given the things that could happen to them there. With Cloman and Turner, he felt the sentence was warranted.

Cloman and Turner were not executed, however, as their death sentences were overturned, along with every death sentence at the time, by the 1972 Supreme Court decision declaring the death penalty, as applied at the time, unconstitutional. Their sentences were reduced to consecutive life terms.

According to prison records, Cloman remains in prison in Rawlins. Turner apparently died in 2018.

Recent brutal crimes in the news have brought back memories of Cloman and Turner.

Death penalty laws were revised after the Supreme Court decision, and today you would think that a young man in Idaho knifing to death four young college students would be a slam dunk for the ultimate penalty. 

Such was not the case, however, as a plea bargain netted the murderer life in prison without parole.

Since then, a young man shot an insurance executive in the back in New York City, killing him. 

That case is working it's way to trial, but he has been charged with second-degree murder in a state that does not have the death penalty. 

This, when the premeditated murder was captured on video. He's also facing federal charges, so there's a possibility he could face the death penalty under federal law.

Meanwhile, the defense lawyers – doing their jobs - drag the process out as long as possible.

Then there was the cold-blooded murder of Charlie Kirk, witnessed by millions on video, allegedly by a young man who admitted the killing to his boyfriend. 

Again, the defense lawyers are dragging it out as long as possible, and nine months after the murder, the defendant has not yet even entered a plea.

I agree with those who believe that death sentences should be extremely rare. But it should remain an option. 

Killing those two ranchers east of Cheyenne, four young college students butchered for no apparent reason, an insurance executive brazenly shot in the back, Charlie Kirk murdered for all to see, and a four-year-old girl tortured and murdered in Texas by a delivery driver in 2022 – it's the brazenness, the brutality, and the incredible cruelty that justify the ultimate penalty.

The last man executed in Wyoming, Mark Hopkinson, received life sentences for killing three members of the Vincent Vehar family in Evanston. 

But his jury, I believe wisely, invoked the death penalty for Hopkinson ordering -

from behind bars - the torture and murder of a key witness against him. 

Talk about a bridge too far. Some crimes cry out for the ultimate penalty.

Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously said this of pornography in 1964:

[{"type":"text","text":"“I know it when I see it.”"}]

Likewise, I think we know true evil when we see it. And we undervalue life when we accept as normal plea-bargained sentences for crimes that richly deserve the ultimate penalty.

[{"type":"text","text":"Let's see how these recent, horrible crimes are dealt with in the courts."}]

I know prosecutors have tough decisions to make, but at a certain point the death penalty has to remain very much on the table.

Dave Simpson can be contacted at DaveSimpson145@hotmail.com

Dave simpson head 10 3 22

Cowboy State Daily is Wyoming’s largest newspaper with Wyoming’s most experienced journalists. 

<title>Dave Simpson: When Is The Death Penalty The Only Option? | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Columnist Dave Simpson writes, "I once saw two young men sentenced to death. I was in the courtroom in Laramie in August of 1974 when Judge Bentley sentenced Billy Cloman and Julian Turner to the gas chamber for murders of two Laramie County ranchers."

Dave Simpson: When Is The Death Penalty The Only Option?

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's business and tourism reporter, Renée Jean

Renée Jean

Energy

Black Hills Energy faces a future where individual data centers are proposing projects that demand power on the scale of a small state. 

Project Jade, as just one example, will come into Wyoming with a “bring-your-own-power” mentality for an initial 2.7 gigawatts of power, which is nearly three times what industry analysts have said Wyoming uses now. 

Ultimately, the data center could scale to a total of 10 gigawatts, which is almost as much power as Wyoming’s existing power plants could produce at peak capacity, based on Energy Information Administration data, which lists net summer power generation capacity for Wyoming at 10.8 gigawatts in 2024.

Project Jade’s developers have promised county officials a “bring-your-own-power” model, calling its campus “very self-sufficient,” and saying its approach will ensure there’s no pressure on the existing Laramie County power grid. 

But Black Hills Energy is also a partner on the project, officials have confirmed. So, even as a “self-powered” campus, the development is still, at some point, depending on Black Hills for infrastructure and interconnection. 

Project Jade is just one of several data centers looking to build within the Black Hills service territory, but the question for each of them is essentially the same, said Wes Ashton, Black Hills Energy’s vice president of utilities for Wyoming, South Dakota, and Montana.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Cost-Causer Is Cost-Payer"}]

“Overall, the idea is to prevent any large loads or large customers from shifting any other cost to customers,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “And typically, LPCS (large power contract service) tariffs these days, I think most people (equate) it to data centers. 

"That’s certainly the hot conversation and where a lot of the customer growth around the country is coming from.”

Customers coming into Black Hills' service territory are told up front about the large-load tariff and the company’s expectation that such customers will have to pay for any and all new infrastructure required to serve them.

That applies to their shares of the grid, as well as any other enhanced upgrade to transmission, or other sides of distribution. 

“Anything like that has to be covered there,” he said. “Or the simple way to say it is, and you may have heard before out of our company, the cost-causer is the cost-payer.”

The Black Hills large-load tariff was created more than a decade ago in response to Microsoft building a data center in Cheyenne, which became Black Hills’ first commercial, large-load customer. 

Under this system, large-load customers can expect a detailed analysis of their power requirements to happen in the early stages. 

In practice, that means the data center is expected to build or contract for its own dispatchable, onsite power, which will ultimately be integrated into the wider grid. 

“It’s a highly regulated process,” he said. “The requests that come in are negotiated out and there’s a number of different agreements that take place. Those requests and those load studies are evaluated … and all load requirements — generation, transmission system impacts — are studied in detail.”

Once the detailed system analysis is completed, a plan is then developed for serving the project’s power, which will be filed with and overseen by state regulators who evaluate the plan on whether it adequately protects existing ratepayers.

Ashton argues that this approach allows the utility to welcome extremely large data-center loads while isolating the financial risk to those customers themselves, rather than spreading it across households and small businesses.

“That is a process that takes place over a number of months, if not years, to get that set up,” Ashton said. “The core principle is that the tariff keeps away or isolates any risk on behalf of the utility, and it isolates it to that customer, so that customer makes their payments for the investment, and that customer would make their payments to be integrated onto a system. 

"And then that tariff allows, through those individual negotiations, either generation that’s behind the meter, purchasing power over the open market.”

Few Rate Hikes Despite Dozen Data Centers

Black Hills already serves about 12 total data center sites across roughly eight customers, Ashton said. 

Meanwhile, in the last decade it’s only had one rate increase request, according to a statement by Black Hills representative Austin Allen during a recent Cheyenne forum about data centers.

Here, company executives are referring to base-rate cases. Separate fuel and power-cost adjustments are handled through other mechanisms on a customer’s bills.

It’s a track record that has the company confident that its large-load tariff is working as intended, and keeping the costs of scaling up power for such customers from affecting ordinary ratepayers in an undue manner. 

“We’ve probably got another maybe a dozen or so entities that we’re in various stages of conversations or negotiations with,” Ashton said. “There are always conversations and customers at various levels of maturity. 

"Some are introductory conversations, some are actively trying to work a project, and some are developers.”

So far, nothing has suggested that the company’s large-load tariff won’t be scalable to gigawatt territory. 

In fact, Ashton said the infrastructure that these companies have built out has ripple effects that have so far been positive for consumers, improving grid reliability and efficiency for everyone.

“They help by essentially funding the system enhancements that we have, and ultimately those benefits extend to all of our customers,” Ashton said, adding that new value also comes along as many of those customers continue to invest in infrastructure. 

“That system investment not only provides greater reliability to our network, but it also has benefits to all of our customers,” he said. “And that’s why year-in, year-out, our Cheyenne system is one of the best — if not the absolute best — in reliability in the country. It’s always in the top one or two for reliability, because we continually invest in that system.”

The Edison Electric Institute is the body that publishes the ratings, which includes an annual study of interruption minutes. According to that body, Black Hills Energy’s electric utility in Cheyenne has been in the top quartile for reliability for the past 10 years running.

EEI data by the company consistently show outage minutes that land in top tier utilities, a point Black Hills frequently touts when marketing its system to data centers. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Could Bills Go Down?"}]

Public concern about the power use of data centers has settled around the simple question of whether their power needs will show up on everyone else’s bill, but Ashton believes it’s actually the opposite way around. 

Because of the data center improvements, rate increases have been slower than they might have been, which is to the regular ratepayers’ advantage.

Ashton doesn’t have a specific figure to encapsulate that, but said “rates have held steady as a result.”

The LPCS tariff has frequently been touted by state regulators, consumer advocates, and even Wyoming legislators as effective. So far, however, no large customers have scaled back or left, so that’s a scenario that has yet to be tested.

“I like to say that as we continue to experience growth on that system, or our system, that has been a good thing for customers, in addition to tax base and jobs,” he said. “We have been very involved in support for being a long-term partner to growing Wyoming’s economy by bringing value to the table, by bringing expertise, and to be a trusted partner for the communities we serve by providing safe, reliable, cost-effective energy.”

As the scale jumps from megawatt to gigawatt, Ashton said Black Hills continues to believe their tariff written for large loads a decade ago is still the right tool. 

Whether that promise holds true as Project Jade and other massive data center projects move from concept to construction will help determine how much of the AI boom Wyoming can absorb — and at what utility cost to people already living on the high plains.

Substation and transmission near Project Jade 6 22 26

<title>How Black Hills Energy Is Preparing For Surge Of Power-Hungry Wyoming Data Centers | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Black Hills Energy says it’s ready for a surge of power-hungry Wyoming data centers that can each use as much electricity as a small state. The bottom line is making those projects pay their own way, said a company official. 

How Black Hills Energy Is Preparing For Surge Of Power-Hungry Wyoming Data Centers

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's Feature Reporter, Andrew Rossi.

Andrew Rossi

Wyoming Life

Around Wyoming

Yellowstone National Park’s “first” petroglyph remains one of its most controversial. Even calling it a petroglyph could raise the ire of some archaeologists.

While Yellowstone was a significant site for many indigenous cultures that left behind plenty of artifacts, rock art was — and remains — rare in the park. 

[{"type":"text","text":"That changed with the discovery of the Old Faithful petroglyphs in 1977."}]

To this day, archaeologists are divided over how to interpret these petroglyphs and the stories they tell. It’s a debate that’s only become more interesting in recent years.

“Not everyone agrees that it's a petroglyph,” said retired archaeologist Mavis Greer. “For me, there’s no question that it is, but who made it and when are still very controversial.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Old Faithful Petroglyphs"}]

Greer is one of the few archaeologists who has seen and studied the Old Faithful petroglyphs.

In 2011, she wrote a short paper on the site with fellow archaeologists John Greer and Elaine Skinner Hale, who was on Yellowstone’s Cultural Resource staff at the time, and even that was subject to controversy.

“I was very excited to see the site, but I don’t think (the National Park Service) was all that happy about what we wrote,” she said. “They don’t want any publications anywhere showing that this and other rock art sites have been found in Yellowstone.”

Greer didn’t discover the Old Faithful petroglyphs. A Yellowstone visitor, Nicole Cromwell, wrote a letter to park staff informing them that she’d found two petroglyphs carved into the rock near an extinct geyser in 1977.

Today, the petroglyphs are in an area that isn’t accessible to the public. Greer is one of the few who’s been able to see them.

“The petroglyphs were made when the pool was dry, and the rocks are ideal height for sitting, so this would have been a good camping area in the past,” she said.

Both petroglyphs are circular shapes with spokes and other shapes emanating from the center, resembling wheels. What the design was meant to depict has been debated for the last 49 years. 

[{"type":"text","text":"The prevailing interpretation is that these petroglyphs are wheels. "}]

Specifically, they depict the wheels of wagons or, potentially, stagecoaches carrying white Europeans into northwest Wyoming.

That was the assumption when the petroglyphs were first studied in the 1970s. 

Paul Sanders with the office of the Wyoming State Archaeologist reached the same conclusion during a 2008 survey of the site.

Many archaeologists don’t even believe it’s Aboriginal rock art. They think the “wheels” were carved by white Europeans rather than any of the tribes associated with Yellowstone.

[{"type":"text","text":"Greer doesn’t agree."}]

“There are lots of wagon wheels in rock art across the northern plains, and none of them are similar to what's at Old Faithful,” she said. “I believe they were made by Native Americans before first contact with Europeans.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Shields And Status"}]

Greer believes the petroglyphs depict the shields of indigenous warriors, a common image on rock art panels throughout North America.

Most petroglyphs are believed to have had spiritual or ceremonial significance to the tribes and individuals that created them. According to Greer, shields fall under the umbrella of ceremonial art.

“The design of the petroglyph was whatever was on the actual shield,” she said. “There had to have powerful symbols on their shields, and they would often make petroglyphs of their shields where others could see that they had that power.”

Shields would have been unique to each individual, and covered with images, designs, and colors representing their personal power and position. 

[{"type":"text","text":"That’s why shield petroglyphs are so common, but none are the same."}]

“It’s a geometric-type design that was used by a lot of different tribes,” Greer said. “They were very ornate and colorful, and depicted powerful animals, spiritual helpers, and other things that helped them not get shot.”

Greer believes shield petroglyphs need to be interpreted through the lens of intertribal warfare. Shields were important status symbols for men in indigenous tribes.

“They had a lot of conflict between tribes because that was a way that men got status in their tribe,” she said. “In order to gain any status, you had to have engaged in something that showed you were brave and an outstanding warrior.”

In that sense, a shield petroglyph was like a self-portrait. It was a one-to-one depiction of the shield its artist used in battle, down to the same designs and colors.

While most of the color has vanished in the hundreds or thousands of years since they were carved, the intricate and unique designs and symbols remain.

“The design of the petroglyph is whatever design was on the actual shield that they were using when they were out in a battle,” Greer said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Which Wheel Or No Wheel?"}]

There are legitimate petroglyphs depicting the wagons of European settlers. 

, one of Wyoming’s most renowned petroglyph sites.

The confirmed wagon petroglyph at Castle Gardens is one of the reasons Greer cited for why she doesn’t believe the Old Faithful petroglyphs depict wagon wheels.

For one thing, the circular designs at Old Faithful are very intricate and asymmetrical. The wheels on wagon petroglyphs are much simpler, emulating the spoked design of an actual wagon wheel.

Also, Greer isn’t aware of any petroglyphs of wheels without wagons. It’s something she researched for her 2011 paper.

“Wheels, by themselves, are even less common in rock art than complete wagons or vehicles,” she said. “The only possible single wheel we found is at Newspaper Rock in eastern Utah, and its identification is based only on its circular form with rays, not any historical association with a wagon or other items, (so) there is no evidence that it’s a wheel.”

For Greer, it’d be highly unlikely to find a petroglyph depicting a wagon wheel without also depicting a wagon. Meanwhile, it’s quite common to find isolated shield petroglyphs.

“When these wheels are compared with the Old Faithful figures, they both are round with spokes or rays,” she said. “The similarities end there.”

There is another type of wheel that had great spiritual and ceremonial significance to indigenous tribes: medicine wheels. 

Medicine wheels, like the Medicine Wheel National Historic Landmark in the Bighorn Mountains, were usually constructed in sacred areas.

While the Old Faithful geyser basin could easily have been a sacred area deserving of a medicine wheel, Greer doesn’t think that’s a likely explanation for the petroglyphs.

“When viewed from a stylistic perspective of cultures in the northwestern Plains and Rocky Mountains, a shield design is a better explanation.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Who, When, Why"}]

So, if the Old Faithful petroglyphs weren’t depicting wagon wheels, and they weren’t made by a European, who made them? When were they made?

[{"type":"text","text":"Those questions, according to Greer, are much harder to answer.  "}]

“There are just too many tribes that were traveling through Yellowstone in the last thousand years,” she said. “Even with a lot of investigation, I don’t think anyone would be comfortable saying its Shoshone as opposed to the Crow, Blackfeet, or Kiowa. 

"The Cheyenne and Arapahoe were there, too. Any one of them could have made those petroglyphs.”

Determining the age of the petroglyphs would also be difficult, but that’s another reason why Greer believes they aren’t depicting wagon wheels. They look too old.

“The petroglyphs are in a geologic situation where if a European had made it, it would look a lot fresher than it does,” she said. “It looks like it's been there for some time.”

Greer didn’t have enough data to give an approximate age range for the Old Faithful petroglyphs, but she’s confident that they’re too old to be wagon wheels. 

She believes the petroglyphs are older than the first wagon wheels in western North America.

“My only thought is that they were created pre-contact,” she said. “That's not saying much, because the contact period for this area starts in 1800, but it’s something.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Not So Open Secrets"}]

The Old Faithful petroglyphs remain the best-known petroglyphs in Yellowstone National Park, but even they aren’t common knowledge to the typical tourist. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Anyone who wants to see them can’t."}]

“It's in an area of the park where you cannot go without a ranger,” Greer said. That makes it easier to keep the location secluded.”

While there’s plenty of accessible information on Yellowstone’s archaeology, petroglyphs, and other indigenous rock art are rarely mentioned. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Greer believes that’s simultaneously deliberate and accidental."}]

Greer is aware of other Yellowstone petroglyphs and rock art panels discovered within the last two decades, but information about them is scarce. 

That’s partly because they’re inaccessible to most tourists and scientists.

“I think most archeologists thought there was rock art in Yellowstone, but nobody had gone out there and really searched for it before,” she said. “Doing a rock art survey in the park is not a simple thing. You’d need money, horses, and a camping crew to find those places.”

Greer also believes the National Park Service has a vested interest in restricting what gets published about these sites, at least until they’re better understood. 

From what she’s heard, the newly discovered sites are more fragile than the Old Faithful petroglyphs.

“The new sites have been paintings rather than petroglyphs,” she said. “That’s just the nature of the rock that they're dealing with. 

"On limestone and even types of granite, they're more likely to have paintings than petroglyphs.”

Greer’s 2011 paper on the Old Faithful petroglyphs is still the most recent scholarly work on any rock art in Yellowstone, and it’s “still controversial,” according to Greer.

“That one’s been known for a long time, and I wouldn't say there are a lot of people who think it's a confirmed petroglyph yet,” she said.

Yellowstone's “first” petroglyph remains controversial. Some archaeologists don't buy it. While Yellowstone was a significant site for indigenous cultures rock art was rare. That changed with the discovery of the Old Faithful "petroglyphs" in 1977.