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Kolby Fedore

Wyoming is among 27 states reporting illnesses from a recent salmonella outbreak linked to imported jalapeño peppers.

While federal health officials say there is no ongoing risk to customers who eat at Chipotle or QDOBA chain Mexican restaurants, a Wyoming health official says the outbreaks are a reminder of the tradeoffs that come with the modern food system.

"I think it is part of the cost of doing business for our industrialized society," Park County Health Officer Aaron Billin told Cowboy State Daily. "We get our foods in bulk. 

"One hundred years ago, people had small farms, grew a little bit of everything, but now people specialize just in jalapeños and sell on a massive scale. And if that food supply gets contaminated, that's a problem."

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Wednesday that 345 people have been sickened by the outbreak strain of 

. Thirty-six have been hospitalized, but no deaths have been reported.

The FDA's public case map places Wyoming in a category with five or six reported illnesses.

Chipotle and QDOBA have removed their affected products.

Although the last known illnesses began in July, the outbreak is only now drawing widespread attention after federal investigators completed weeks of patient interviews and supply-chain tracing that identified a common grower in Sinaloa, Mexico, as the likely source.

The salmonella outbreak comes as Wyoming continues to monitor another foodborne illness investigation.

 of Cyclospora, a microscopic parasite that causes prolonged watery diarrhea, stomach cramps and fatigue.

State health officials said five of those cases were associated with international travel while one remained under investigation.

Billin said foodborne outbreaks are an unfortunate reality of an interconnected food system.

"We trust that our food, either bought at the supermarket or bought at a restaurant, is safe," he said. "But we have these outbreaks every once in a while."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Tracing The Source"}]

According to the FDA, 177 of 191 people interviewed — about 93% — reported eating at a Mexican-style restaurant before becoming sick. Those restaurants included Chipotle Mexican Grill and QDOBA.

[{"type":"text","text":"Billin said outbreaks like this happen."}]

"Across the United States, we have probably half a dozen salmonella outbreaks every year," he said, noting previous outbreaks have been linked to eggs, backyard poultry, produce, pet reptiles and commercial food supplements.

While Wyoming has reported about six illnesses in the current outbreak, he said none are believed to have resulted in hospitalization.

Billin said contaminated produce can originate from several sources, including infected workers handling food after using the restroom, contaminated irrigation water or contaminated wash water used during processing.

"The more they wash it, the more contaminated it becomes," he said of the latter scenario. 

Because produce today is grown and distributed on such a large scale, a single contamination event can quickly spread across the country, he added.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Restaurants Responded"}]

After learning of the outbreak, Chipotle and QDOBA removed the affected jalapeño peppers from their restaurants.

Chipotle said its ingredient traceability system allowed it to quickly identify peppers from the affected grower and replace them with jalapeños from different suppliers.

"The health and safety of our guests and employees is our highest priority," the company said in a statement. "The recalled jalapeño peppers are no longer in Chipotle restaurants. Given these actions, the CDC and FDA have said they do not consider there to be a current ongoing risk from Chipotle restaurants in this outbreak."

The FDA said QDOBA also stopped serving the affected jalapeños July 28, and Coast Citrus Distributors has agreed to recall the remaining peppers linked to the outbreak.

Wyoming has two Chipotle restaurants — in Casper and Cheyenne — and seven QDOBA locations.

Multiple attempts to reach a manager at a Wyoming Chipotle on Thursday were unsuccessful. Calls were answered by an automated AI phone assistant that directed Cowboy State Daily to the company's website.

[{"type":"text","text":"A Casper QDOBA employee also declined to comment."}]

"Unfortunately, I am not allowed to comment," the employee said. "I was told to tell anyone asking about that to go to our website."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"One Diner's Experience"}]

Although federal officials say the affected product has been removed from restaurants, one Montana woman said she became violently ill after eating at a Chipotle location this week.

Nicole Lubick of Butte, Montana, told Cowboy State Daily she ordered vegetable fajitas with fresh tomato salsa on Aug. 4.

"I went home and ate, and honestly it didn't taste right," Lubick said. "It seemed like there was a lot of fat or something on the meat. It just didn't seem that great or fresh. But stupid me, I kept eating it."

[{"type":"text","text":"She said she woke around 2 a.m. sweating before becoming violently ill."}]

"I went to the bathroom, and sure enough, I started projectile vomiting," she said. "I probably vomited for two hours."

"I have never been so sick in my life," she added. "My gut says food poisoning."

Lubick said she had long considered Chipotle one of the healthier fast-food options and frequently ate there.

"I'm definitely going to rethink my eating habits and try to eat at home and eat locally grown food," she said.

Lubick said she reported her illness to her local health department and submitted a report through Chipotle's website.

There is no indication her illness has been linked to the salmonella outbreak, but Billin said her experience reflects why even isolated reports of foodborne illness can shake public confidence in a food system that depends on products being grown, shipped and served on a massive scale.

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

<title>More Explosive Diarrhea: Wyoming Hit By Salmonella From Mexican Jalapeños | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Wyoming is among 27 states that was hit by a recent salmonella outbreak traced to jalapeños served at chain Mexican restaurants. It’s just “the cost of doing business” anymore in today’s modern food system, said a Park County health officer.

More Explosive Diarrhea: Wyoming Hit By Salmonella From Mexican Jalapeños

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

Renée Jean

Energy

Wyoming’s first nickel sulfide discovery

 in the Granite Mountains north of Jeffrey City in 2024. This year, it’s moving into a decisive drilling phase as it tries to turn that find in the under-explored greenstone belt into Wyoming’s first and only nickel mine, producing a metal the federal government has designated as critical.

“We’ve identified some nickel targets, and we’re going to be drilling them this year,” Visionary Metals CEO Wes Adams told Cowboy State Daily. “We’ve used a lot of scientific methods to help reduce the amount of areas we have to explore.”

, scanning the earth’s crust from the air down to roughly 3,300 feet below the surface. It might sound like something out of a Star Trek movie, but it isn’t science fiction anymore. 

The technique uses subtle changes in Earth’s magnetic field to point the way to where valuable metals and minerals might be hiding. 

“That helped narrow down areas for exploration,” Adams said. “And then in areas where we do see targets, we follow up with ground surveys, which tell us exactly where these critical metal deposits might exist.”

After that, it’s drilling time — to test the areas with as little environmental impact as possible and further hone in on whether Wyoming has a nickel mine.

“It’s not like oil and gas drilling, where you have these giant pads and giant rigs,” Adams said. “We’re just drilling a 3-inch hole in the ground, to get a representative sample of what’s down there.”

That will ultimately determine how big the resource opportunity is, and whether it’s economically feasible to develop today in the future as technology matures.

Visionary’s core Wyoming focus is an Archean greenstone belt, a blend of ancient volcanic and sedimentary rock that often hosts gold and nickel, in the Granite Mountains. There’s a potential for multiple discoveries across a belt that’s 62 miles long and 25 miles wide. 

Any future mine would still go through permitting and environmental review. Leading up to that, the company has leveraged technology to keep its environmental footprint as small as possible. 

“The (aeromagnetic survey) was a great tool because it allowed us to cover a lot of ground without much impact,” Adams said. “We don’t need boots on the ground to conduct airborne surveys, so that gives us a lot of really good data we can use.”

Three-dimensional modeling was used to further refine what might be where, helping to reduce disturbance to the ground. 

“It also makes things more efficient from a cost perspective,” Adams said. “And it gives you a higher chance of having success … instead of if you were to drill, like when you were doing mineral exploration in the 1950s, '60s or even '70s.”

The approach in that timeframe involved spotting minerals on the surface as a primary indicator, then digging to see if there were more. 

“With modern technologies we can use all the data we can collect with a helicopter, with satellite surveys, with geologic mapping that’s been done over the years, with soil sampling, to figure out where the highest potential areas are,” Adams said. “And once we’ve narrowed those down, you can go out and use some geophysical ground surveys — magnetic surveys — that help you model the conductive metals in the ground before you even have to drill-test them.”

That way, once a company starts drilling tests, it’s more about determining the specific grade of metals rather than where the deposits are. 

“So now we’ve defined a few key target areas and we’re going to be testing the kind of mineralization that exists at our Tin Cup project and our King Solomon project,” Adams said. “So this is really an exciting year for us.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Deep Wyoming Roots"}]

Although Visionary is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange and maintains its headquarters in Vancouver, British Columbia, Adams grew up in the Rocky Mountain Region and frequented the Rawlins area when he was growing up. He now lives in Lander and maintains a working office there. 

“My family’s been in mining for three generations, so I’ve always been around it,” he said. “My dad actually grew up in Rawlins, and my grandfather was Rawlins-based as well. We’ve been involved in Wyoming since the 1930s, starting with dairy farming in Rawlins.”

The family eventually became involved in uranium exploration in the area and has remained connected to Wyoming ever since. 

“I live in Lander, and we love it up here,” Adams said. “It’s a great place to be exploring for things. Outside of Wyoming, I don’t think people realize that every kid has the opportunity to go to college here because of royalties that are generated by the mining industry and primarily, right now, that’s coal.”

One day, Adams hopes those royalties will include a contribution from the nickel he finds. 

“We’re at an early stage right now, but if there’s a possible development scenario that would benefit the Office of State Lands and Investments, that money goes directly into the Wyoming school system,” he said.

Adams would also love to see a resurgence of economic health in Jeffrey City. 

“It’s one of the reasons why it’s important to diversify and find new things,” Adams said. “And that’s kind of what we’ve set out to do here, is find new things that we can mine that are going to be important for not only green-energy technologies but just for future generations. It’s exciting to be able to define new opportunities like this that could be important in the long-term for the state, especially in Fremont County, where we’ve seen kind of an uptick in unemployment … things have been a little stagnant.”

To help it with this new phase of exploration, Visionary Metals has inked a deal with Canada's Teck Resources, the fifth largest copper miner in the world.

“They have mines all over the world and they bring a lot of technical expertise, a lot of mine development and exploration expertise,” Adams said. “They have a great team of geologists and geophysicists.”

Teck Resources is both an equity investor and a technical partner, according to Visionary Metals’ website. It has invested around $3 million in the partnership for exploration work at Visionary’s King Solomon and Tin Cup projects, which will fund testing for multiple high-potential sites starting in 2026.

“Success in this year’s drilling would accelerate the projects toward resource definition and support our goal of establishing Wyoming as an emerging nickel and copper district in North America,” Adams said in a video about the partnership. 

The areas identified for testing have already shown high conductivity. While not a guarantee, it is an indicator of potentially economic levels of mineralization, and the geology is similar to other sites in the world where high concentrations of nickel are found.

Teck has taken a 9.9% equity stake in the company, buying 17.4 million common shares of Visionary at roughly 7 cents per share. It has also committed to non-dilutive funding for geophysics and drilling on top of the equity stake, extending partnership through 2028. 

Teck retains the right to lead Visionary’s next equity financing, potentially deepening its stake in the company to nearly 20%. Under the broader alliance, Teck also has an optional path to earn up to 70% ownership in designated properties through a joint venture. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Tomorrow’s Ore Today"}]

Adams is careful to temper expectations. At this stage, the company doesn’t know how big the nickel deposits are. Indications remain promising, but it could turn out that the deposit is not yet economically feasible to mine. 

As technology improves, those deposits could become economically viable, though. Knowing about them and how big they are is key, he said, to knowing when the trigger can be pulled for development of a location.

That’s a trend that’s already played out in Wyoming’s favor in other areas of the state, he added.

“That’s what we’ve kind of seen with the U.S. Gold Corp project that’s outside of Cheyenne,” Adams said. “That was originally discovered in like the 1900s. And then a lot of the (recent) development work that went into it was conducted by Strathmore, which was run by one of our directors, Mr. David Miller.”

The CK Gold Project 20 miles west of Cheyenne has all its permits 

 with a gold and copper reserve that’s larger than initially anticipated, right at a time when gold and copper prices are performing well. 

New technology helped make that project economically viable, in addition to the favorable price of gold — a trend that’s been seen in other areas of the state as well, such as the 

“Sometimes it takes time,” Adams said. “That’s just kind of the way that mineral exploration works, and it’s one of the reasons why it’s a good thing to do right. If you know where these deposits are, even if they don’t get developed right away, they can pay dividends down the road not just for companies but for the state of Wyoming and the people who are trying to find work here.”

If the drill bit confirms what models so far suggest — high-grade nickel sulfide and copper at economically feasible depths — Wyoming’s first nickel discovery in 2024 could go down as the beginning of a new U.S. critical minerals district. 

Nickel is used in a variety of energy-storage technologies and infrastructure, as well as high-grade stainless steel and super alloys useful for military hardware. The U.S. has been relying heavily on foreign imports from Indonesia and the Philippines, putting the nation’s domestic supply at risk to geopolitical unrest and export restrictions.

Success in this area will position Wyoming to help the nation advance in one more area of independence. 

But even if it doesn’t pan out today, the datasets being generated in the Granite Mountains will still enrich Wyoming’s geological map, keeping the door open to future explorers in an era when secure, domestic supplies of critical metals have become increasingly important.

Visionary Metals and Jeffrey City 8 6 26

<title>Wyoming’s First Nickel Discovery Heads Into High-Tech, High-Stakes Drilling Phase | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Armed with new technology and a major mining partner, Visionary Metals is ready to probe just how big — and how valuable — a nickel discovery at Jeffrey City is. If realized, it will be a first of its kind in the Western U.S. since the 1940s.

Wyoming’s First Nickel Discovery Heads Into High-Tech, High-Stakes Drilling Phase

The wave of legacy ranches for sale in Wyoming is continuing with yet another historic ranch hitting the market for the first time.

This time, it is the 1,542-acre Quarter Circle Lazy B, owned for four generations by the Wallop family, which has ties to British nobility, as well as historic prominence in both Wyoming and American politics. 

The Quarter Circle Lazy B, listed for $24.5 million and on the market for the first time in 135 years, is tucked just under the Bighorn Mountains at the mouth of Little Goose Canyon. Its sale will mark the end of an era for one of Wyoming’s best-known legacy ranches.

Owner Paul Wallop told Cowboy State Daily he and his wife, Sandra, have decided this is the right time to start a search for the ranch’s next steward because none of the children have an interest in taking over the ranch. 

“We’re not ancient,” Paul Wallop said. “But we’re in our mid-60s, and we could easily do another 10-plus years. But in that 10 years, one health event and you’re not keeping up with it.”

Sandra Wallop told Cowboy State Daily she fears it will be more difficult to be “picky” about a successor if they wait. Now is the right time so they can be selective.

“It’s important,” she said. “We want them to have good Wyoming values, be good neighbors. I hate to say it in this fashion, but we want to kind of interview them before we sell to them.”

That doesn’t mean the couple will be “hovering” over their new neighbors, she added. 

“We’re not going to be that kind of neighbor,” Sandra said. “We deeply and passionately love this place … So we’re hoping the next family has the same attitude and perspective that we do.”

The Wallop family first began assembling its ranch in 1889, when English-born Oliver Henry Wallop bought the first piece of what would become the Quarter Circle Lazy B. 

Oliver was the third and youngest son of a titled line in Britain. He took a shine to the American West after graduating from an English university, and decided that would be how he would make his way in the world.

As the youngest son of Isaac Newton Wallop, the fifth Earl of Portsmouth in Great Britain’s Victorian era, Oliver never expected he would inherit land or title. Such young men were, at the time, known as “remittance” men, because they typically left home to make their way in the world and were given a remittance from their family. 

His father’s name, Isaac Newton, does have an indirect tie to the famous physicist of the same name. A relative of Newton’s married into the Wallop family, and many of its sons were subsequently given names to honor that heritage.

Oliver came to America soon after graduating from Oxford in 1883, first buying a ranch in Montana, where he introduced the region’s first thoroughbred horses. He then migrated south to Wyoming in 1889, establishing the Canyon Ranch, which included the Quarter Circle Lazy B.

Oliver was ultimately wrong about his chances for succession. He returned to England after his second brother died, becoming the Earl of Portsmouth in 1925. 

“He had to renounce his U.S. citizenship, and then he served in the House of Lords,” Paul Wallop said. “And I don’t know if there’s any other member of the House of Lords what has ever served in a foreign government — it’s a very unique thing.”

Polo has a long history in Sheridan County, and the Wallops are integral to that story, along with the Scottish brothers William and Malcom Moncrieffe. 

“Malcom Moncrieffe had what was called the Polo Ranch, and then William had the Quarter Circle A Ranch, which is the Brinton Museum now,” Paul Wallop said. “Quarter Circle Lazy B is the neighboring ranch to the Quarter Circle Lazy A.” 

Together, these ranches got a contract with the British cavalry for horses, shipping 20,000 to South Africa for the Boer War.

“They were selling to the U.S. cavalry as well,” Paul Wallop added. “Part of their training for all the horses was just to get them started playing polo.”

Historical records show Sheridan’s first big polo match was July 4, 1893, which played to a crowd of several thousand spectators after a warmup from a military band.

The teams featured five mostly British players on each side, listed as Beckton vs. Sheridan. 

“Polo has always been a big deal here, and it’s still a big deal,” Paul Wallop said. “And that’s partly because of my great-grandfather.”

By the end of World War I, militaries were trending toward mechanical vehicles, collapsing that industry. The remount program died away, and the ranch shifted toward cattle markets.

“My grandfather began in registered Herefords, and he did really well with that up until he passed in the spring of 1980,” Paul Wallop said. 

Some of Oliver Malcom Wallop’s herd were even shipped to Japan, Sandra added, thanks to their elite genetics. 

Japan was crossing its smaller draft cattle with western breeds until about 1910 to increase their size and make them better-suited to meat production. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Royal Guest List"}]

For all its remoteness, the Quarter Circle Lazy B has long attracted an international roster of guests, thanks in part to the family’s enduring ties to British nobility. 

While Oliver Henry Wallop returned to England to serve in the House of Lords, he maintained close ties to his family in Wyoming and his ranch was a quiet magnet for many high-profile visitors, ranging from Buffalo Bill Cody and President Theodore Roosevelt — who designated the Bighorn National Forest after his visit — to Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip and, in more recent times, Princess Anne. 

Sports legend John Elway, former French President Valery Giscard D’Estaing, and American political leaders such as Vice President Dan Quayle are also among the high-profile guests.

“I mean, we’ve served tea to Princess Diana’s sister,” Sandra Wallop said. “This ranch has been host to a huge long list of princes and princesses and queens and vice presidents and senators and on and on and on.”

 a popular PBS British historical drama set at Highclere Castle, through an aunt who married the queen’s manager for thoroughbred racing, Lord Porchester.

“He became the Earl of Carnarvon and Paul’s aunt became the Countess of Carnarvon,” Sandra said. “And they owned Highclere, which Paul’s cousin now has, and is where Downton Abbey was filmed.”

The buildings on the ranch reflect its layered history. There’s the historic stone barn, constructed in the 1930s, which once served as a show barn for registered Hereford sales and which today serves as a horse barn and tack space. 

There’s the foreman’s or manager’s house, dating to around the turn of the 20th century. It has three bedrooms and two baths, and is likely the oldest building on the property. 

There’s the Orvis-endorsed fly-fishing lodge, featured in Great American Fishing Lodges, built in 1993. It’s a two-bedroom, four-bath home with a panoramic view of Little Goose Canyon and Moncrieffe Ridge.

And there’s Johnnie’s mountain cabin, a remote two-bedroom, one-bath mountain home. 

Other structures include a heated mechanics shop, a newer Morton building for horses and storing equipment, a farm shed for storage with dog kennels at the south end, a Scale House complete with a 10-ton 1965 Fairbanks Morse Scale and a 100-by-200-foot outdoor riding arena complete with lighting, advanced drainage, tack areas and wash bays.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"More Than Land, Buildings"}]

All this set in an area that boasts trophy wildlife of all kinds — moose, elk, deer, mountain lion, bear, and upland game birds. The ranch still has one of Wyoming’s original private game-bird farm licenses, and it’s also one of the first conservation easements written in the state.

Little Goose Creek offers 600 feet of trout stream to go with the property’s four mountain ponds. 

What’s for sale, the Wallops say, is more than just a collection of historic buildings and some scenic acres. To them, it’s a way of life their family has spent four generations protecting.

That’s why they’re less focused on how fast the ranch sells than on who ultimately buys it. They hope for someone who will treasure both its history and its future, helping with the next three or four generations of stewardship. 

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<title>Wallop Family’s Quarter Circle Lazy B Ranch For Sale After 135 Years For $24.5M | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The Wallop family's legacy Quarter Circle Lazy B Ranch in Sheridan County is for sale for the first time in 135 years, listing for $24.5 million. It hosted Queen Elizabeth II, supplied cavalry horses to Britain and helped build Wyoming's polo scene.

Wallop Family’s Quarter Circle Lazy B Ranch For Sale After 135 Years For $24.5M

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily political columnist, Rod Miller.

Rod Miller

Opinion

CSD Columnists

Google defines the modern day internet term “ghosting” as “the sudden, unexplained ending of all communication by one person in a romantic relationship, friendship, or workplace, ignoring any attempts to reach out.”

A perfect example of this disturbing behavior happened when Cowboy State Daily reporter Kate Meadows 

 about Peabody Coal Company suddenly canceling medical benefits for their Wyoming retirees.

Meadows reached out to each member of the Wyoming congressional delegation for their reactions, and the response was…..crickets. She called again, offering our elected officials an opportunity to speak out on a development that deeply affects the lives of their constituents. Again, the response was dead silence.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Ghosted!"}]

It makes a cowboy or cowgirl wonder what would prompt our delegation in D.C. to ignore the folks back home when a coal company shafts its retirees. A simple, “Gosh, that sucks” or a “Thoughts and prayers” would suffice, since there’s not much Congress can do about Peabody’s parsimony.

But dead silence when asked about it? That just seems a cold and distant response from elected officials in a state as small and tight-knit as Wyoming.

Maybe Senators Barrasso and Lummis, and Representative Hageman don’t read Cowboy State Daily (the most widely-read news source in Wyoming) and simply didn’t know what Peabody had done.

Maybe they’re too busy keeping Wyoming safe from commies, cartels and cross-dressers to pay much attention to what’s happening in the coal patch.

Maybe Peabody had contributed to their campaigns, and they didn’t want to piss off a major donor.

Or maybe they just don’t give a rat’s ass about the people and the press in their home state.

Mute politicians are such an anomaly these days that I did some research.

I asked an old friend who did press work for the late Sen. Al Simpson (and we’ll tip our Stetsons at the mention of the name) when Simpson, Sen. Malcolm Wallop and Rep. Dick Cheney comprised our delegation. THAT was a delegation with real power in D.C. But I digress.

I asked my source if he recalled an instance where the entire delegation refused to respond to a question from the press, or to weigh in on an important Wyoming issue.

“Never!” was his emphatic reply. Not in a million years would a Wyoming delegation of that stature “ghost” their constituents. Hell would freeze over first.

My source prefers to remain anonymous, since he maintains a high profile in the Wyoming press ecosystem, and his name appearing in one of my columns might tarnish his reputation. But I’ll give you a hint...his name rhymes with “Charles Pelkey.”

Wyoming has traditionally, with the notable exception of Liz Cheney, treated our congressional delegation with kid gloves. We consider them our varsity lettermen, our fair-haired team; and they are the politicians most insulated from our criticism.

We tend to cut them a lot of slack. We don’t hold their feet to the fire as often as we should.

So when they unanimously choose to “ghost” us, to not answer our calls or questions from our press, the reason for that is no mystery.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"They do it because we let them."}]

Rod Miller can be reached at RodsMillerWyo@yahoo.com

<title>Rod Miller: Ghosted In The Big Empty – Or– The Silence Of The Delegation | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Columnist Rod Miller writes, "A perfect example of 'ghosting' happened when Cowboy State Daily reporter Kate Meadows reached out to each member of the Wyoming congressional delegation about Peabody Coal Company suddenly canceling medical benefits for their Wyoming retirees. And the response was... crickets."

Rod Miller: Ghosted In The Big Empty – Or– The Silence Of The Delegation

Lubnau head 2

Tom Lubnau

Last week, I commented on the ABC ("Anyone But Chuck") approach to campaigning for U.S. Congress. I said Steve Friess's argument is "hold your nose and vote for me." That phrase was, perhaps, a little inflammatory.

Let me clarify.  What I meant was that if you stay wedded to your particular candidate, the vote will be spread out, and we will elect a U.S. Representative who receives less than 20% of the vote — likely Chuck Gray.

Chuck Gray's approach to politics is akin to a yapping Chihuahua, making lots of noise and getting headlines, but getting little done. 

Most concerning is Gray dumping all of Wyoming voters’ election data to an agency of the federal government whose use is unrestricted.  Being the first state to turn over the data is not a feather in our state’s cap, when 19 courts have ruled that the data does not have to be disclosed to the bureaucrats.  No court has ruled it has to be turned over.

Our privacy was sacrificed when it did not have to be.

We should be voting for a good candidate, not running away from a weak one.

I had a personal favorite, but things changed when many of my friends endorsed Steve Friess for U.S. House last week.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"So I arranged a conversation with Friess."}]

After that conversation, a lot of the misconceptions I had are gone.

First, he's not a billionaire. Steve can afford to live comfortably, but his candidate disclosures show he's worth $25 million. That's a lot of money, but he's not a billionaire by any stretch of the imagination. 

His father gave away $500 million to charity during his lifetime and believed his children should know the value of a dollar. 

He drives a 2020 Yukon to his campaign events. He ranches cattle, knows how to run a backhoe, and knows how to get his hands dirty.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"He raised four kids in Wyoming."}]

Understanding the need to build a future for your children is a skill only parenthood brings. Steve cares about Wyoming and its future. 

He could have chosen anywhere in the world to live. He chose Wyoming. 

Columnist Tom Lubnau writes, "Chuck Gray's approach to politics is akin to a yapping Chihuahua, making lots of noise and getting headlines, but getting little done.  Most concerning is Gray dumping all of Wyoming voters’ election data to an agency of the federal government whose use is unrestricted."

Patsy I. Severs, 92