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Kolby Fedore

Crime & Courts

More than 50 years after he admitted using dynamite to blow up a Fremont County undersheriff's patrol car, and nearly four decades after federal prosecutors convicted him of running a major methamphetamine trafficking enterprise, Alfred "Buzz" Apodaca is once again headed to federal prison.

Apodaca, 72, of Riverton, was sentenced July 6 to 10 years in federal prison followed by five years of supervised release after pleading guilty to possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine and being a felon in possession of a firearm. U.S. District Judge Alan B. Johnson imposed the sentence in Cheyenne.

The sentence closes a case that began with a 

 by the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation into methamphetamine trafficking in Fremont County.

Federal prosecutors say investigators identified Apodaca as one of the area's primary meth suppliers. Agents completed two controlled purchases totaling more than 52 grams of methamphetamine before executing search warrants on his pickup, camper trailer and storage unit.

The searches uncovered about four pounds of methamphetamine, more than 1.6 pounds of marijuana, drug distribution materials, records of suspected drug transactions and two loaded handguns. Because Apodaca is a convicted felon, he was prohibited from possessing firearms.

Apodaca was indicted Sept. 16, 2025, and pleaded guilty April 14. The investigation involved DCI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Fremont County Sheriff's Office.

For many longtime Wyoming residents, Apodaca's name is inseparable from one of the state's most infamous crimes.

As a teenager in 1973, he admitted planting dynamite that destroyed the Fremont County undersheriff's patrol car. The explosion became one of the most memorable acts of violence against law enforcement in Wyoming history. No one was injured.

The bombing cemented Apodaca's notoriety, but it wasn't the end of his criminal record.

In the early 1980s, federal authorities accused him of leading a large methamphetamine manufacturing and distribution operation spanning central Wyoming.

In 1988, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld his convictions under the federal Continuing Criminal Enterprise statute — often referred to as the federal "drug kingpin" law — finding prosecutors had presented sufficient evidence that he organized or supervised at least five participants in the operation.

[{"type":"text","text":"Back In Federal Court"}]

Federal authorities say the latest investigation showed Apodaca had returned to trafficking methamphetamine decades after those earlier convictions.

The U.S. Attorney's Office said the evidence recovered during the searches demonstrated continued drug distribution activity, along with illegal firearm possession by a convicted felon.

U.S. Attorney Darin Smith said repeat offenders remain a priority for federal prosecutors.

"Methamphetamine traffickers who repeatedly ignore the law will be held fully accountable," Smith said in a statement. "This defendant's lengthy criminal history, combined with his continued trafficking of dangerous drugs while illegally possessing firearms, posed a serious threat to Wyoming communities."

ATF Special Agent in Charge Chris Ashbridge said the case highlighted cooperation among federal, state and local investigators.

"Firearms are all too frequently used by violent offenders to facilitate other illicit crimes," Ashbridge said. "This case is a prime example of how seamless collaboration with our local and federal partners delivers significant sentences and tangible results that builds safer communities."

With the sentence now imposed, Apodaca will spend the next decade in federal prison.

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

<title>Decades After Bombing A Patrol Car With Dynamite, Riverton Man Back To Prison For Meth | Cowboy State Daily</title>

More than 50 years after he admitted using dynamite to blow up a Fremont County patrol car, and four decades after being convicted of running a major methamphetamine trafficking enterprise, Buzz Apodaca, 72, is once again headed to federal prison.

Decades After Bombing A Patrol Car With Dynamite, Riverton Man Back To Prison For Meth

 to bring a 12-year-old Oklahoma girl back to Wyoming has pleaded no-contest to three felony charges, ending the criminal case short of trial and leaving prosecutors free to seek the maximum possible sentence.

Christopher Steven Gravenmier, 31, entered no-contest pleas Wednesday in Lincoln County District Court to two counts of first-degree sexual abuse of a minor and one count of kidnapping.

Lincoln County Attorney Spencer Allred and Deputy Lincoln County Attorney Ember Oakley prosecuted the case.

Rather than agreeing to a negotiated prison term, the plea leaves sentencing open, allowing both sides to argue for the punishment they believe is appropriate.

"We're really pleased with this because we can argue up to the maximum," Oakley told Cowboy State Daily. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Sentencing is scheduled for July 29."}]

If the court orders the sentences to run consecutively, Gravenmier faces mandatory prison terms of 25 to 50 years on each of the two first-degree sexual abuse convictions, along with up to 20 years on the kidnapping conviction — a combined maximum of 120 years in prison.

[{"type":"text","text":"No-Contest Plea "}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Several other felony counts were dismissed as part of the plea agreement."}]

Although a no-contest plea differs procedurally from a guilty plea, it has the same legal effect in a criminal case.

"'No-contest' is legally the same as a guilty plea," Allred said. "No-contest pleas basically mean the defendant does not contest the charges against him, but it acts the exact same way as a guilty plea. He's still convicted of those counts. It's procedural. He says, 'I don't contest those charges,' but it acts the same way as a guilty plea."

By entering the plea, Gravenmier gave up his constitutional right to a trial, and the case now moves directly to sentencing.

[{"type":"text","text":"Taken From Home"}]

 April 22 when the girl, who had been reported missing from Oklahoma days earlier, called her grandmother from a Wyoming gas station and said she had been abducted.

Investigators initially encountered Gravenmier after the girl said she had borrowed his cellphone. But once she was safe, authorities say she identified him as the man who had brought her to Wyoming.

The girl told investigators she had communicated with Gravenmier for months on Snapchat before he drove from Kemmerer to Oklahoma. She alleged he told her he knew where she lived, prompting her to leave home with him because she feared what might happen if she refused.

Prosecutors allege Gravenmier drove the girl back to Wyoming, where he sexually abused her during the trip and after arriving in Kemmerer. Charging documents also allege he threatened her, attempted to prevent anyone from tracking her cellphone and warned her not to report what had happened.

Gravenmier was arrested later that day and charged with multiple felony counts. Several of those charges were dismissed as part of Wednesday's plea agreement.

[{"type":"text","text":"Police Station"}]

At the police station, Gravenmier admitted to investigators that he had driven to Oklahoma and picked up the girl several days earlier.

The affidavit says agents noticed that he became "very emotional" during questioning and appeared nervous, grabbing at his shirt, wiping his face and developing a noticeably dry mouth.

[{"type":"text","text":"After requesting an attorney, the interview ended."}]

While investigators obtained search warrants for his home and vehicle, Gravenmier remained at the police station.

The affidavit states he was crying, slumped over in his chair and told agents he was "really sorry for what happened."

Gravenmeier and Lincoln County courthouse 4 30 26 1

<title>Wyoming Man Accused Of Kidnapping, Assaulting 12-Year-Old Oklahoma Girl Pleads No Contest | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A Kemmerer man accused of driving 16 hours to Oklahoma to bring a 12-year-old girl back to Wyoming pleaded no-contest to kidnapping and two sex abuse charges and now faces up to 120 years in jail. The affidavit said he told police he was "really sorry."

Wyoming Man Accused Of Kidnapping, Assaulting 12-Year-Old Oklahoma Girl Pleads No Contest

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

Outdoors

Wildlife

A study of levels of the stress hormone cortisol in cattle exposed to wolves in California suggest that just having wolves around stresses the cows.

Ranchers in Wyoming and California told Cowboy State Daily that the study’s apparent findings don't reveal anything that they didn’t already know.

And, they said, it bolsters ranchers’ longstanding argument that the cost to them of having wolves around goes well beyond just the price of the cows the predators kill.

 found that cortisol levels in hair samples from cows indicate that cattle exposed to wolves experienced different levels of seasonal cortisol fluctuation, compared to those not exposed to wolves.  

“Our study provides the first evidence of disrupted cortisol regulation in beef cattle exposed to gray wolf presence, measured through hair cortisol analysis. Our preliminary findings reveal important research gaps for understanding predator reintroduction ecology,” according to the authors.

“These preliminary results point toward a potential physiological mechanism by which predator reintroduction may indirectly affect prey, with implications for understanding how recovering carnivores could influence prey physiology, animal welfare, and productivity,” the authors stated.

All that is a fancy way of saying that having wolves around can cause fear to ripple through a cattle herd, said Mitch Benson, who ranches near the Wind River Indian Reservation.

“I think it took somebody with credentials to draft a story,” for the matter to gain attention, said Benson, who has seen the study.

“We ranchers have known about this for years. Why do you think our great-great grandfathers eradicated them (wolves)?” he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"‘In La-La Land’"}]

Ranchers in Sierra County, in northeast California, admonished state wildlife officials last spring that they were 

 by a wolf pack that had settled there and started attacking cattle.

Wolves had been gone from California for about a century when they started drifting in from Oregon on their own in 2011.

The state now has several established wolf packs. Another recent study, apart from the one done on cattle cortisol levels, suggests that California wolves have been feeding mostly on cattle.

Paul Roen is a county official and rancher in Sierra County.

During a telephone interview with Cowboy State Daily on Thursday, he said that while the wolf pack was there, ranchers reported 160 attacks on cattle, 94 of which were confirmed to be wolf kills.

Unlike ranchers in Wyoming, California ranchers aren’t allowed to shoot wolves.

State wildlife agents last fall killed four of the eight wolves thought to be there.

“The killing of cattle stopped immediately. That night,” Roen said.

“Anybody who says that lethal removal (of wolves) is not part of the solution is in la-la land,” he said.

The surviving wolves fled when the four were killed. But at least one of them might have returned and started attacking cattle again, Roen added.

California had a fund to compensate ranchers for cattle killed by wolves, but it was drained in “about 45 days,” he said.

And the compensation payments never took into account the full scope of losses to ranchers, Roen said.

That includes such things as cattle losing weight or having gestation and birthing problems with calves, he said.

“The direct losses (to wolf kills) are the most insignificant effects that can be felt by ranchers,” Roen said.

He said that the stress study “is verifying exactly what we’ve been saying” about the wider effects of wolves on cattle.

Roen added that “we are in the midst of another study,” this time in his county, that aims to tally the cumulative effects that the wolf pack had on cattle herds there.

Jim Magagna, a sheep rancher and executive vice president of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association agreed that the California cow stress studies are confirming what ranchers already knew.

“Certainly, there has always been evidence that the presence of wolves affects weight gains and birth rates in livestock,” he said.

“I think the (cortisol) study is helpful, because it helps pinpoint a cause” for the effects that ranchers see, Magagna added.

Benson said that as he sees it, the return of predators is part of larger “rewilding” agenda, that aims to push ranchers off the land.

“You start taking a 35% loss because of stress from predators, and I don’t think there are many guys who can maintain the profitability of the herd,” he said.

And when ranchers fold, “who comes along and buys the land?” he added.

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<title>Study Says Wolves Stress Cows Out; Ranchers Say, ‘We Told You So’ | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Ranchers in Wyoming said a new study that shows cattle get stressed out by wolves is something they've been saying all along. “We ranchers have known about this for years. Why do you think our great-great grandfathers eradicated them?" one rancher said.

Study Says Wolves Stress Cows Out; Ranchers Say, ‘We Told You So’

A routine drive over Teton Pass turned into a white-knuckle spectacle Wednesday when the RV appeared to lose its brakes and barreled downhill, weaving through traffic before somehow reaching the bottom without crashing.

The frightening descent was captured on video (without audio) by Jeff Bernhard, who was traveling from Victor, Idaho, to Jackson when the motorhome suddenly came flying up behind his vehicle in the oncoming lane.

"My driver's exact words were, 'Oh, shit, here it goes again,'" Bernhard told Cowboy State Daily. "It was kind of surreal."

Watching through his phone, Bernhard feared he was witnessing another deadly crash.

"It was hard to film, honestly," he said. "I had an eerie feeling that I've had a few other times where it feels like someone's about to die. I'm just so grateful that's not how this turned out."

The video shows the motorhome racing downhill, passing slower traffic while the driver appears focused entirely on keeping the vehicle on the roadway.

[{"type":"text","text":"Remarkably, everyone walked away unharmed."}]

Bernhard said the motorhome continued through Wilson, crossed the bridge into Jackson and eventually pulled safely off the road. Later that day, he saw what appeared to be the same motorhome traveling south of Jackson.

"I was concerned after we left that maybe his brakes caught on fire or something," he said. "But that doesn't appear to be the case."

Cowboy State Daily has asked the Wyoming Highway Patrol whether troopers responded to the incident, whether the driver suffered a mechanical failure and whether the agency is investigating.

[{"type":"text","text":"Still Fresh In Drivers' Minds"}]

Bernhard's reaction reflects what had happened on the same stretch of highway about a week earlier.

On July 7, a dump truck hauling asphalt descended Teton Pass after losing its brakes. 

 the truck crossed into oncoming traffic, struck five vehicles — including two pickup trucks, a motorcycle and a Subaru — before overturning.

The crash killed Nicholas Besobrasow, 66, of Idaho, and David Page, 57, of California. Four other people were injured.

Survivor Caleb Batista told Cowboy State Daily he 

 thrown off the mountainside after the truck hit his motorcycle.

Another witness, Dumitru Cebotari, described seeing smoke pouring from the truck while its engine screamed down the grade, realizing almost immediately the driver could not stop.

[{"type":"text","text":"For Bernhard, Wednesday's video looked frighteningly familiar."}]

"That was where his mind went — and mine too" he said, in reference to the earlier tragedy. 

[{"type":"text","text":"A Mountain That Demands Respect"}]

Drivers who regularly travel Teton Pass often describe it with two seemingly contradictory words: beautiful and intimidating.

[{"type":"text","text":"Bernhard is one of them."}]

"It's a beautiful area," he said. "But driving and towing especially can be really consequential."

The pass carries thousands of commuters between Victor and Jackson, along with commercial trucks, RVs, motorcycles and tourists unfamiliar with steep mountain driving. Its long downhill grade and tight switchbacks leave little margin for mechanical problems.

[{"type":"text","text":"Bill Sniffin knows that firsthand."}]

A veteran motorhome owner with more than 50,000 miles behind the wheel of RVs and the author of numerous columns about driving them, Sniffin said he immediately recognized the danger when he watched Bernhard's video.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"I've had that experience,\" he said."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Even experienced drivers, he said, don't take Teton Pass lightly."}]

"I've gone down Teton Pass before, and it is scary to death," Sniffin said. "In my case, I'm driving a 32,000-pound rig and towing a car, and the traffic is terrible, and the hairpin turns. You're literally white-knuckle. Your life is passing before your eyes."

[{"type":"text","text":"When Brakes Aren't Enough"}]

Sniffin said many larger diesel motorhomes are equipped with what's known as a Jake brake — an engine braking system that slows heavy vehicles on long descents without relying heavily on conventional brakes.

Smaller motorhomes often don't have that equipment because of the added expense, forcing drivers to depend much more on their service brakes.

"I used to have a smaller rig that didn't have Jake brakes," Sniffin said. "It was terrifying because you could start smelling your brakes when you came down a pass. When that happened, you knew you were borderline. You had to stop and let them cool down, and if there was no place to stop, you were in trouble."

Sniffin emphasized he has no way of knowing what happened to the motorhome in Wednesday's video.

But he said long mountain descents have a way of exposing problems that may never reveal themselves on flatter highways.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"It's very lucky that there wasn't a horrible collision,\" he said."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Another Reminder"}]

Whether the motorhome suffered brake failure or another mechanical problem remains unknown.

But for commuters who travel Teton Pass every day, Wednesday's close call served as another reminder of how quickly a routine drive can become an emergency.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"It demands more respect than what most people give it,\" Bernhard said."}]

"You've got to think twice. Unfortunately, you've got to kind of know how scary it is. Otherwise, people just sort of hope for the best."

[{"type":"text","text":"On Teton Pass, that difference can come down to only a few seconds."}]

Teton pass video 7 17 26

<title>Holy Cow: Motorhome Appears To Lose Brakes On Teton Pass, Motorist Captures Video | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A routine drive over Teton Pass turned into a white-knuckle spectacle Wednesday when an RV appeared to lose its brakes and barreled downhill, weaving through traffic before somehow reaching the bottom without crashing. One motorist captured the video.

Holy Cow: Motorhome Appears To Lose Brakes On Teton Pass, Motorist Captures Video

Mac Watson

Daily Video News

It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Friday, July 17th.  I’m Reece Cowan, filling in for Mac Watson

This newscast is brought to you by the Wyoming State Fair. Wrap up your summer at the Wyoming State Fair, August 11th through the 15th in Douglas!

Rodeo, Demolition Derby, live music, entertainment and fair food await. Learn more at W-Y State Fair dot com. See you at the fair! This ad was paid for by Converse County Tourism.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"–"}]

A wall of water surged through East Thermopolis late Wednesday, stranding people and breaking a gas main after 4.5 inches of rain fell in an hour near the town. Cowboy State Daily’s Jackie Dorothy reports that one resident said he heard a roaring coming in his direction.

“It was a really intense two hours Wednesday night. It was clear skies. When at 10 o'clock a flash flood hit. One resident described it as a wall. He called 911, by the time he got a hold of dispatch, the wall of water had already hit his house. Another resident, she was actually trapped in her house. Morgan talked about going outside to rescue her dog. Once she got back in her house, Morgan said that she could feel it moving, and she really thought she was going to die. Chief Cornwall said that this is the worst flooding he has ever seen.”

Meteorologist Straub said that the thunderstorm that caused all the damage developed about 10 miles east of Thermopolis and just kind of sat there for about an hour and a half. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"},{"type":"italic"}],"text":"–"}]

Megan Degenfelder’s campaign for Wyoming governor released a video early Thursday of President Donald Trump doubling down on his endorsement of her. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that the push comes with a month to go before Wyoming’s hotly contested Republican Primary election. 

“We've got a month before the primary election, which in Wyoming generally involves a huge standoff between Republicans of all stripes, and Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder garnered the Trump endorsement back in January. Well the president doubled down on Thursday, reiterating his endorsement. Trump varies on when he gives endorsements, Dagenfelder's is among the earliest that we've ever seen. Seven months before the primary election. She said that she was deeply honored to have the president's support and grateful that he took the time to speak directly to the people of Wyoming.”

Trump has not endorsed anyone in the hotly-contested U.S. House race, where 10 Republicans vie for the nomination. He also hasn’t endorsed in Wyoming’s Secretary of State race or for other top state executive-branch seats. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"–"}]

Seven teens were arrested Wednesday in a sweeping western Nebraska raid over illegal machine guns and drugs. Cowboy State Daily’s Kolby Fedore reports that investigators say they found Instagram posts of the teens posing with and firing Glock-style guns equipped with illegal switches. 

“Federal authorities say that illegal Glock switches have become one of the fastest growing criminal trends that they're seeing in America, with a near 800% spike in the last few years, and that is reflected in a recent criminal case where seven teenagers in Western Nebraska were arrested on Wednesday for possessing these illegal machine guns as well as cocaine. All of the teenagers appeared for their initial hearing on Wednesday afternoon in Scottsbluff County Circuit Court. This criminal case came to light when investigators flagged suspicious activity on social media where they saw the stolen guns posted in videos and a series of pictures online. One of the defendants was even seen pointing it at another defendant.”

According to ATF, recoveries of suspected machine gun conversion devices traced by ATF increased from 658 in 2019 to 5,816 in 2023. Agency spokesperson Ashlee Sherrill tells Cowboy State Daily “they present a significant public safety concern." 

More than 23,000 birds and bats were killed by wind turbines in Wyoming in 2025, according to a report presented Wednesday to the state Game and Fish Commission. Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports that according to an official “They’re flying around and they’re not paying attention to those blades.” 

“Game and Fish, they don't set the policy. It's the Industrial Siting Commission that really says yes or no. They're the ones that have the power over the licenses for these operations. What Game and Fish does is before the project is built, they come in and they work with the developer to kind of give them advice on how to mitigate or avoid conflicts with wildlife, and then after the fact, they will do some monitoring as well and maybe suggest some solutions. I also talked to an eagle advocate in Laramie, and she said, although she appreciates what the game and fish is doing or trying to do, she doesn't think it's enough.”

Wyoming Game and Fish habitat protection program supervisor Will Schultz tells Cowboy State Daily that, in some cases, painting one blade of a wind turbine black helps birds see it before it’s too late, adding that hundreds of hours of work and research have gone into wind farm risk mitigation. 

I’ll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.

Cowboy State Daily News continues now….

Park County officials say a Wednesday flash flood nearly destroyed a bridge over the Shoshone River and cut off access for some county residents. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that one witness said “We watched a wall of debris build up and surging muddy water begin to overflow the banks.”

“Monsoonal moisture is moving into western Wyoming. That manifested as several short-lived but intense thunderstorms on Wednesday afternoon, and a mudslide and just an intense amount of flash flooding that came out of the mountains along the South Fork of the Shoshone River took out a bridge that serves a number of people and residences on a county road that's pretty far removed from Cody. Without that bridge, they have no access to the rest of the world. I spoke to the Cowboys State Daily meteorologist Don Day, and he said that the risk of monsoonal moisture and flash flooding is going to extend into the next week at least.”

The Park County Public Works Department hoped to have a temporary bridge installed across Boulder Creek by the end of Thursday. Park County engineer Brian Edwards told Cowboy State Daily that the compromised wooden bridge had already been “high on our priority list for replacement.”  

Although manufacturers of AI software that uses surveillance cameras to search for guns say it makes people safer, gun rights activists are alarmed. Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports that Buffalo's Mark Jones, of Gun Owners of America, says it violates the Second and Fourth Amendments.

“There's software that's it's been around for a few years. It's been used in schools. It's software that helps camera surveillance cameras, pick up guns, firearms that that have been drawn or the out of a holster. The the idea being at least in the school it can help maybe catch a school shooting earlier. Hobbs, New Mexico, has expanded this to a municipal application. They've got about 70 cameras at different points around the city that have this software. I reached out to some some Second Amendment advocates and also a gun control advocate, and none of them are really fans of it.”

The technology has potential to do good, but only within narrow parameters that protect gun owners’ rights, said George Mocsary, University of Wyoming law professor and co-founder of the UW Firearms Research Center. 

A magnitude 3.3 earthquake in Yellowstone on Thursday was felt by people as far as 30 miles away. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that it’s the largest earthquake of the year so far in the national park.

“A magnitude 3.3 earthquake was detected in Yellowstone National Park around 720 a.m. this morning. So Yellowstone, on average, experiences between 15 120 500 earthquakes every year. This is the largest earthquake detected in 2026 so far, but that's not even that big of an earthquake by Yellowstone standards. The largest earthquake last year was a 3.9 and even that wasn't very big. So while a lot of people get apocalyptic, while a lot of people get apocalyptic any time they hear something about something shaking in Yellowstone, earthquakes are an almost everyday occurrence, and a 3.3 is indicative of nothing to be alarmed about.”

What the earthquake doesn’t indicate is any significant change in Yellowstone’s volcanic systems. Even at a depth of 4 miles, Thursday morning’s quake was too shallow to indicate anything volcanic, which is true for most of Yellowstone’s earthquakes. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"– "}]

The Galloping Horse is galloping again — or at least it will be when someone at The Wrangler turns the power on. Cowboy State Daily’s Greg Johnson reports that after years of being inoperable, the iconic 400-pound folk art cowboy was fixed, refurbished and put back in place Thursday morning. 

“The iconic galloping horse that for decades has sat over the entrance to the Wrangler Western Wire store in downtown Cheyenne hadn't been galloping for the last few years. A Cheyenne man who whose office is just across the road, finally decided, you know what, it needs to gallop again. So him and his brother and son got together and spent about 90 hours each, about almost 300 hours between them to restore this thing. They got a pretty prominent Cheyenne artist to paint it again to look pretty much original. And on Thursday morning, they put it up again, so they would be ready for Frontier Days.”

Thursday was a proud moment for Dennis, who explained he had the idea to get the Galloping Horse galloping again because he saw it every day and “every day I wished it was moving again.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"—"}]

And that’s today’s news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on 

 - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our 

 channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I’m Reece Cowan, in for Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.

News image 7 17 26

<title>Cowboy State Daily Video Newscast: Friday, July 17, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Friday's headlines include

*Flood Wreaks Havoc In Thermopolis
*Trump Endorses Degenfelder For Second Time
*Teens Arrested For Machine Guns Near Wyo Border

Cowboy State Daily Video Newscast: Friday, July 17, 2026

Government & Politics

Politics

Manufacturers of AI software that uses surveillance cameras to search for guns say it makes people safer, but some gun rights activists told Cowboy State Daily they think that’s a brazen violation of Second Amendment and privacy rights.

Companies such as Volt for years has provided gun-detection software to schools, which the company claims helps stop school shootings.  

The city of Hobbs, New Mexico, has outfitted about 70 video cameras with software from another company, ZeroEyes.

ZeroEyes claims that the software helps cameras quickly detect drawn firearms, which are then verified at company facilities by human observers, who can alert local authorities.

Gun-detecting AI software doesn’t require dedicated cameras, it can be applied to existing surveillance, traffic and web cameras.

Firearms enthusiast Nic George of Sheridan told Cowboy State Daily that he understands the good intentions behind the software, but the broader implications of what gun surveillance might lead to are troubling.  

Although manufacturers of AI software that uses surveillance cameras to search for guns say it makes people safer, gun rights activists are alarmed. Buffalo's Mark Jones, of Gun Owners of America, says it violates the Second and Fourth Amendments.

James M. Kiren, 76