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

Andrew Rossi

CODY — Chloe ODonnell, 7, almost had no one to celebrate her birthday with her when 15 invitees to her party canceled. 

With one message, Cody rallied last weekend to ensure the little girl and her family knew the community has their backs.

After all the invited guests canceled, Chloe’s mother Melanie turned to Facebook to see if anyone would be willing to swing by and celebrate with them. 

 150 people reached out within 15 minutes.

“We just wanted her to feel like she had a group of people there to have fun with her,” Melanie told Cowboy State Daily. “It blew me away that so many people just showed up or wished her a happy birthday. They made Chloe feel so loved.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"None Of 15 Invitees Came"}]

 birthday party in Cody’s Mentock Park. Around 15 people, mostly new friends in the neighborhood, had been invited.

When Sunday turned into the hottest day of the summer, with temperatures in Cody over 100 degrees, the party was relocated to Millstone Pizza Company & Brewery.

That’s when the cancellations started coming in. Everything from heat-related concerns to, in one case, a death in the family.

“When the last kid finally said that they weren't coming, we had already set up at Millstone,” Melanie said. “Our decorations were out, I’d bought this big cake, and we were all sitting in the downstairs arcade center by ourselves.”

Melanie and her four kids are new to Cody, having moved there in January. They’re still trying to establish themselves in their new home, but that’s especially difficult for Chloe.

“She has some developmental struggles and doesn’t make friends easily,” Melanie said. “She hasn’t made a lot of friends yet, and I so badly wanted her to have a great day.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"They Came Bearing Gifts"}]

Desperate to give her daughter a happy birthday, Chloe turned to Cody Area Classifieds on Facebook. She asked if anyone with young kids wanted to come hang out in Millstone with Chloe and her siblings.

Within 15 minutes, multiple families RSVPed that they were on their way. And they came prepared.

“They arrived with gifts for her,” Melanie said. “People offered to drop off gifts for her, which I told them wasn’t necessary. It was really heart-warming.”

Melanie said responders expressed their desire to attend or send a gift so Chloe wouldn’t feel alone.

“A man from Red Lodge, Montana, messaged me and said, ‘I obviously cannot come down, but I have grandkids,’ and that really touched me,” she said.

The man sent Melanie $25 via Venmo so she could get Chloe a birthday gift.

However, one of the most touching displays of kindness came from a child who arrived for the party, Melanie said. He came with a gift that came from the heart.

“One little boy actually shopped in his room for something she might like and put it in a gift bag for her,” Melanie said. “He gave one of his own items to her. It was very sweet.”

The birthday party turned into a networking event. Many new bonds were forged, and phone numbers exchanged.

Meanwhile, dozens of people sent messages wishing Chloe the best on her birthday.

In a moment of desperation, Melanie found an overwhelming wave of friendship for Chloe and her entire family in Cody.

“The people who showed up were complete strangers, but they all acted as if they had always known each other,” she said. “The children were so sweet and well behaved. Chloe had an amazing time.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Old And New Roots"}]

Melanie said the last three years have been “so rough” for Chloe and her three siblings. In that time, Melanie got divorced, remarried, then lost her mother and both grandmothers.

Melanie’s new husband, “my high school sweetheart,” had been working in Cody for over a decade. The whole 

 family has been there for less than a year, but it already feels like a loving home.

“I’ve learned this town shows up for people,” she said. “We came from a larger city, and this is the kind of thing that would never have happened there.”

What Melanie didn’t realize until recently is that she wasn’t establishing new roots in Cody. She was rediscovering old ones.

“My grandfather told me that our family lived in Cody at one point,” she said. “My great-grandmother actually lived here in the early 1900s and moved back to the East Coast in the 1920s. I didn’t know about that connection until my second or third visit.”

In that sense, the birthday party was like a family reunion. More than anything, Melanie’s happy she got to give Chloe a memorable birthday and better bonds in her new home.

“She started making friends really fast,” she said. “It was a beautiful moment of a small town supporting each other. They are amazing, and we love this town.”

Chloe O Donnell IMG 8932 7 18 26

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<title>Hooray! Cody Residents Rally When No One Shows Up For 7-Year-Old's Birthday Party | Cowboy State Daily</title>

When no one showed up for a Cody girl's 7th birthday party, her mom went to Facebook to see if anyone would swing by. That's when the town of Cody rallied. More than 150 people stopped by the local pizza place to wish Chloe O'Donnell a happy birthday.

Hooray! Cody Residents Rally When No One Shows Up For 7-Year-Old's Birthday Party

Outdoors

Wildlife

 in the Bridge Bay Campground in Yellowstone National Park, several people rushed and yelled at the angry animal to prevent it from attacking the 65-year-old grandpa again.

Their efforts were successful, sending the bison running. As far as the world could see, that was the end of the incident.

Joshua Lewis of Colorado Springs encountered the belligerent bull bison at the same campground moments after it tossed McDaniel and ran off. He said that the incident was “only the beginning of the bison’s rage.”

“I noticed how fast everybody jumped on and started retelling the story and what happened afterward, but there was a lot more that happened after the fact,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “Nobody’s aware of what happened after Round One.”

On the evening of July 10, Lewis was camping in spot E-243 on the E-Loop at Bridge Bay Campground. He was there with his cousin and her son from Switzerland.

 coming from the D-Loop, he assumed it was “a bunch of guys getting or about to get drunk.”

“We heard the yelling and thought it was drunks having a brawl,” he said. “No one yelled ‘bison’ that we heard, just adults yelling ‘Hey, hey, hey,’ and ‘Stop.’ Not even a scream of terror.”

What Lewis was actually hearing was photographer Mike MacLeod and others charging and yelling at the bull bison that had just tossed Mike’s grandfather Carl into the air.

 to prevent it from harming the older man any further.

They successfully chased the bison off. It ran from the D-Loop to the E-Loop — and it wasn’t any less agitated, Lewis said.

Lewis was walking to the bathroom when he heard his cousin scream. Two men at the E-244 campsite were shouting, “Look out!”

“That’s the total time and distance before the problem descended into our loop,” Lewis said. “I turned expecting something to have gone wrong with the fire, but saw the men, my cousin, and her 12-year-old son all scattering.”

The bison was running head-on at first, so Lewis didn’t immediately register what was happening. When the bison turned, revealing its massive profile, he recognized the severity of the situation.

“It had come through the amphitheater area and a small meadow next to (our campsite) and was apparently already in full charge,” he said. "The men at 244 happened to be sitting at their fire, facing south, and saw it coming. 

"My cousin heard the noise and turned at the same time the men started yelling when they saw it bearing down on the camp.”

Nobody was too close to the bison. It had closed the distance and was still amped up.

Lewis knew that everyone in the vicinity was making stressful split-second decisions when the bison suddenly charged into their area. From what he observed, the bison appeared to be assessing the situation and choosing a target.

“The suddenness of the attack really threw everybody off their game,” he said. “In the snap of a finger, the bison had already blasted into the camp and was trying to figure out which way it was going to go and who was going to hit first.”

Lewis had to be very intentional with his heat-of-the-moment actions. He wasn’t as agile as he would’ve liked.

“I almost lost my leg last year because of a massive infection and a surgically related complication in my knee,” he said. “I was using a walker until January and only quit using a cane in March.”

Since he couldn’t run to save anybody, he figured the best thing he could do was save his cousin’s son.

“He was able to run through the trees east around Site 244 to the bathroom,” he said. “I shoved him into the women’s room and slammed the door shut.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The 'Minute To Live' Look"}]

Lewis said the bison had already seemed targeted and was pursuing the 12-year-old. The two men at Site 244 distracted it long enough for him to reach the bathroom.

Meanwhile, Lewis’s cousin was running around the campsite trying to keep parked vehicles and trees between her and the bison.

“I was able to get her attention and guide her towards me,” he said. “The guys at the campsite next to us kind of directed traffic and created chaos for the bison.”

Suddenly, his cousin tripped and fell, and Lewis knew he couldn’t get to her.

“My knee would not allow me to get away,” he said. “If I had gotten to her, I would have been a sitting duck and done nothing but slow it down, which probably would have gotten us both killed."

Since the bison was still focused on the boy who suddenly disappeared into the bathroom, it didn’t notice the tripped woman. It definitely noticed her when she got back up and started running, as it immediately turned to charge at her.

Lewis, who served in the military, said he saw a chilling look in his cousin’s eyes in that moment.

“I've had experiences in my life, like failed parachutes during a parachute military freefall exercise, where it's like, ‘I got one minute, and I'm done,’” he said. “I saw that look in her face, like she knew that was the end of the line.”

Fortunately, Lewis’s cousin managed to run to the bathroom before the bison reached her. Once she was inside and Lewis slammed the door shut, the bison was less than 20 feet away and rapidly closing the distance.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Horror Movie Moment"}]

With three people secure in “the woefully inadequate bunker with no secondary exits,” Lewis said he was “trying to calculate a bunch of problems and solutions all at once.”

“I didn't know if it could knock down a concrete wall, because if it could get into the bathroom, somebody was going to die,” he said.

After a few minutes of uncertainty, Lewis decided he needed to know what was happening outside. It felt like a horror movie moment.

“There was nothing but dead silence until I opened the door, and it squeaked really loud,” he said. “I didn't get hit and knocked on my butt, so I pushed it open a little more with a good, loud squeak.”

That’s when the two men from Site 244 called out to Lewis, telling him that the bison was gone. After everyone was safe inside the bathroom, it had run eastward and out of the camp.

[{"type":"text","text":"The next thing Lewis heard was sirens rushing toward them. "}]

It was Yellowstone EMS, “coming to check on the carnage” at the D-Loop and to treat McDaniel’s critical injuries.

The whole incident lasted a few minutes that felt like an eternity, Lewis said, adding that nobody in their part of the campground was hurt.

“I think the only reason there was not another strike and injury is that four people in motion, especially the men yelling at 244, made it hard for the bison to select a target,” he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Going And Gone"}]

As everyone’s adrenaline started to come down, they were trying to process what had just happened.

Lewis spoke to the two men who successfully distracted the bison, and they were going over every detail in exasperation. They seemed to be experienced backcountry hikers, which added to their dismay in the moment.

“I could tell both of them were doing an after-action review,” he said. “One of them told me he always has bear spray on his hip, but he didn't know if he should have pulled it out or just run. His brain definitely locked up in the moment.”

According to Lewis, they were asking the same question as MacLeod and McDaniel in the aftermath of their encounters with the bison: “Did I do the right thing?”

Lewis’s cousin immediately started taking down their tent. They left the park and spent the night in Cody. It was another familiar, haunting look Lewis knew.

“She was clearly showing some signs of PTSD from the encounter,” he said. “She’s the primary caregiver for her son, and I think, as a mom, she definitely was in more of an emotional state realizing how close she was to losing everything.”

As for her son, he quickly recovered and didn’t seem to be overly affected by what happened.

“He’s a typical kid, (so he was) watching some World Cup recaps and his video games before they went back to Switzerland,” Lewis said.

Lewis’s cousin eventually asked to see MacLeod’s video of the bison tossing McDaniel.

“She got really quiet,” Lewis said. “I think she realized how much worse things were. It brought it into another level of perspective.”

She got another reminder of what happened at the Pikes Peak or Bust Rodeo when they returned to Colorado Springs. Lewis had already bought tickets for her and her son, and the last event of the night is always bull riding.

“The second bull out of the shoot was brown with black hair,” he said. “It almost looked like a tiny buffalo. The next rider got bucked and landed like a frog, and the bull’s front feet hit that guy square in the butt. 

"She got choked up on that and said, ‘What would have happened to me if that bison had gotten hold of me?’”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Could Have Been Worse"}]

Lewis’s account of what happened at the E-Loop of the Bridge Bay Campground was extremely detailed. That’s because he works as a private investigator and “writing reports and covering details” comes with the job.

What struck Lewis wasn’t only how terrifying and traumatizing that moment was, but how much worse it could have been.

“There were several things that could have been worse,” he said. “The family that had the campsite next to the bathroom, with several small children, was away at the time. Those young guys managed to yell and make the right noise at the right time, which gave my cousin and her son time to get to relative safety.”

He also noted that while the bison was extremely aggressive, it wasn’t destructive. There was little to no evidence of what happened at the campground in the aftermath.  

“Between the tents, fire pits, and vehicles, the bison didn’t touch a thing or do any property damage,” he said. “It’s a testament to the deadly agility.”

Lewis was glad to hear that McDaniel was recovering from the bison toss. His femur was broken in four places, requiring surgery, but he’s expected to make a full recovery.

The bison, meanwhile, remains and will remain at large. Yellowstone officials confirmed that they 

don’t intend to take any management action 

“The bison will not be euthanized,” Yellowstone spokeswoman Linda Veress told Cowboy State Daily. “While serious injuries are uncommon and fatalities are extremely rare, encounters with bison can result in severe consequences.”

Lewis wanted to share his story because the encounter at Bridge Bay Campground didn’t end with the bison running off after tossing McDaniel. It’s a harrowing reminder of how dangerous Yellowstone’s wildlife can be.

“It was amazing how fast everything happened,” he said. “I’ve been in some hairy incidents, and I knew bison could run fast, but it astonished all of us. 

"If it had not been distracted by four people and had only one person on its mind, there would have been a different outcome.”

Angry bison 7 18 26

<title>After Flipping 65-Year-Old Man, Angry Bison Went After People In Next Campsite | Cowboy State Daily</title>

After an agitated bison flipped a 65-year-old man in Yellowstone last weekend, it charged after another group of campers. The first incident was “only the beginning of the bison’s rage," said a Colorado man who said the bison targeted a 12-year-old.

After Flipping 65-Year-Old Man, Angry Bison Went After People In Next Campsite

Zakary Sonntag

PINEDALE — The people in this small western Wyoming town are suspiciously friendly. 

At least that's the impression you get from your one-and-only local acquaintance, a man named Marlon, who you know for the simple fact that he answered the phone at the Log Cabin Motel when you called to ask for a room.

He’s the kind of guy who gives bad news while sounding chipper.

“We’re completely booked up for the rest of the week. And you know what else? None of the hotels in town have any more rooms,” he said with the buoyant tone of a father revealing a baby name. 

The reason is the Green River Rendezvous, a multi-day celebration of the historic mountain men rendezvous that took place around the Rocky Mountain West between 1825 and 1840.

For Marlon, though, it’s better thought of as “Pinedale’s Super Bowl.” The Rendezvous Rodeo in particular is something you simply cannot miss, he said. 

You're in Pinedale on other business, but Marlon made a strong case.

“It’s fantastic. You’re going to love it, and you can totally hang out with us,” he said.

Your first thought is that you should never trust motel managers who hand out their personal numbers after a five minute conversation. 

The second thought is that this Marlon guy is freakin' awesome. 

He directs your stay to a nearby campground, then shoots you a text from his personal phone. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"“Let me know when you get into town.\""}]

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

Rendezvous Rodeo is the Goldilocks of Wyoming’s summer rodeo circuit. It’s big enough to draw serious talent and formidable roughstock, but not so large to have outgrown its uniquely local feel.

It's a venue where most can find a spectator spot close enough to smell the must of a bull in the chute, or reverse park on the railing and watch in a camp chair from the bed of your truck.

The Western cookout cuisine is locally sourced, traditionally made, and prepared before your eyes in a wood-fired caldron of beef tallow — where simmer onions, potatoes, corn, and baskets of Idaho trout. 

Then there’s the brisket, of course, made on 17 hours of woodsmoke.

“It’s simple, but it's good to boot. It’s being done the way it's been done for 100 years,” said owner of the Pitch Fork Fondue restaurant, Matt David, whose family homesteaded in the Pinedale area in the early 1900s.

Western traditions are strong here because they’re learned early, as with the kiddos lassoing tree stumps across the rodeo grounds.

“That’s just how it is here, the cowboy culture, they grow up doing all this stuff from the time they can walk,” said a woman named Lynn, referring to a pint-sized roper barely taller than his father’s boot.

You don’t have to be born into this culture to appreciate it, which you discover when you finally meet Marlon face-to-face.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"From All Around the World"}]

In wayfarer sunglasses and a resort-style shirt with palm tree print, Marlon’s look is more beachcomber than cowboy. Which makes sense, because he’s a native Floridian by way of Cuba — even if he no longer sees himself that way.

“This is my home now, and I never want to leave because I love the people,” he said, matching words with action. "They’re welcoming, everybody looks after each other. Community is the whole point of Pinedale.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"“Let me introduce you to my friends.”"}]

His friends come from even farther away; places like the Dominican Republic, Turkey, and Jamaica. Most are here as part of an employer-sponsored work program, and if Marlon has his way, they’ll not want to leave either. 

He gestured to the arena, where a cowgirl rounded a barrel and kicked a plume of dust our direction, then said, “A lot of people around the world don’t get to see these things. I want them to see that it’s amazing, and have a real Wyoming experience.”  

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Some of his friends aren’t yet sold."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Biggest Difference"}]

With steer roping as a backdrop, you fall into conversation with a woman named Delia from Romania, who takes issue with how the rodeo animals are treated. 

“In Romania, cows are only for milking. And these cows are so cute, but they treat them so rough. I don’t like it,” she said.

Marlon, with his infectious perspective, flipped her opinion like a steer. Not only are the cows unharmed, he told her — over and over — they’re also having more fun than the ropers.

Whether she accepted this logic or not, Delia seemed to enjoy the rodeo, nosing the arena gate for a closer look. Although the biggest cultural difference is not the treatment of animals, it’s the treatment of people.

“In Pinedale, everyone is so nice. They ask, ‘How are you? Happy to meet you. Do you need anything?’” she said. “In Bucharest, that will never happen. You will never hear that from anyone.”

At that moment, it strikes you that Marlon’s eclectic group is something of a metaphor for the Green River Rendezvous, where disparate groups of trappers, traders, and Native Americans gathered to exchange goods as well as culture.

Clint Gilchrist, executive director of the Museum of the Mountain Man in Pinedale, said the 19th century meetups were more diverse still. 

“At those rendezvous, there were a lot of Frenchmen, Mexicans, Americans, Scottish people, African American ex-slaves, Eastern Indians like the Delaware and Iroquois came out. Even some Cherokee,” said Gilchrist.

“There’d be several thousand people, and they were all different nationalities. It was a very big cultural mix of people,” he added. 

Six of the original 16 rendezvous took place in what is today the nearby town of Daniel, Wyoming. 

It's a strange comfort to know that long-ago mountain men once watched dusk settle across this same serrated horizon, and you imagine the rosy twilight over Fremont Peak is just as wondrous today as it was back then.

Rodeos were never part of those historic meetups, but here in Pinedale, rodeo-goers are keen to integrate the ethos of rendezvous exchange. 

“These are really big in Florida. You got to try this,” said Marlon, handing you a tequila-based cocktail called Cayman Jack. 

It doesn’t look like your type of beverage. But in the spirit of rendezvous — bottoms up.  

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"“You're going to love it,” he said."}]

Contact Zakary Sonntag at zackary@cowboystatedaily.com

Rendezvous 1 inset Museum of the Mountain Man 7 18 26

<title>Green River Rendezvous: 200 Years Of The Ultimate Wilderness Swap Meet  | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The Green River Rendezvous is a multi-day celebration of the historic mountain men rendezvous that took place between 1825 and 1840. Its rodeo is the Goldilocks of the summer rodeo circuit — big enough to draw serious talent but maintains a uniquely local feel.

Green River Rendezvous: 200 Years Of The Ultimate Wilderness Swap Meet 

Julie Mankin

 annual “Daddy of ’em All” Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo that began Friday looks far different to some usual contestants.

Even the cowboy who could “still make Cheyenne” in George Strait’s 1996 country hit might not be aiming his truck “toward that Wyoming line” today.

That’s because entries at the Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo will be down by about 70%.

Morning slack competition, which drew hundreds of athletes in each timed event and made Cheyenne the world’s largest pro rodeo, has been eliminated.

Slack is for overflow competitors for events that draw dozens more entries than spots in the main performances. Slack usually happens early mornings or late nights, typically for timed events.

This week, just 72 of the sport’s winningest contestants (and champions of nine rodeos as far away as Oregon and Arizona) were invited to enter each event.

Before this year’s rodeo, it wasn’t unusual to see 200 or more contestants in timed slack event rounds.

The change was announced last winter as a way to help ease horse-trailer-parking congestion and create a more manageable schedule for the event’s thousands of volunteers.

Also announced was the Frontier Days Committee’s purse increase, bringing total prize money at the 10-day rodeo to $960,000.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Breaking Point"}]

Still, area barrel racer Kate Spaur Devore recently went viral with a simple social media post: “Goodbye to the Daddy.”

“Cheyenne closed the door on many of the very contestants who helped build its reputation as the ‘Daddy of ’em All,’” Devore said.

CFD is typically the third-richest rodeo in the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association’s regular season, behind Houston and San Antonio.

Because rodeo is a pay-to-play sport, accessibility to Cheyenne’s fat paychecks was known to provide the confidence and capital to launch a newcomer’s career, if not save a veteran’s entire season.

Cheyenne Frontier Days CEO Tom Hirsig said he understands eliminating slack competition is a huge change for the 130-year-old rodeo, but the world’s largest outdoor rodeo had simply outgrown its ability to handle the hundreds of slack riders.

“People are upset they’re not able to come,” he said. “But we simply have no room for those big rigs anymore.”

He also mentioned that rodeos have to absorb stock charges without help from contestants. The cost of fresh cattle today is sky-high and can’t be recaptured.

It’s a price that’s multiplied for every additional bovine chased down Cheyenne’s long arena.

Devore referenced the same sandy arena’s starring role in Garth Brooks’ 1995 hit song “The Beaches of Cheyenne” when she wrote, “So many dreamed of dancing on that stage. We came in droves, paid our entry fees, and took our chances.

[{"type":"text","text":"“Every year seemed to produce another Cinderella story.”"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"From Slack To Hall Of Fame"}]

Ote Berry, for instance, was 22 in July 1985 and about to go to work in a hay field when he won the bulldogging event in Cheyenne, which propelled the South Dakota native into his first National Finals Rodeo and a Hall-of-Fame career as one of the greatest of all time.

Eliminating the slack competitions at CFD is a fundamental change for the historic rodeo, many competitors say.

“Honestly, there is no more Daddy of ’em All,” said veteran barrel racer Kelly Yates, whose late father was a Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) director for eight years.

Yates turned pro at age 13 and has made as many competitive runs in Cheyenne as any contestant.

Along with her brother and father, both Hall-of-Fame ropers, she’s competed at the NFR.

But lately, she only competes at the finals of the PRCA’s Mountain States Circuit, which includes Cheyenne Frontier Days.

This year, Yates earned a coveted berth into Frontier Days via her 2025 circuit earnings. But she said it “won’t do her any good.”

Now that Cheyenne’s entries are so limited, its paychecks aren’t counted toward circuit standings, but only world standings.

For the first time in more than a century, Cheyenne Frontier Days won’t have slack competition, which is for overflow competitors. Although some are saddened by the move, the rodeo says it has outgrown its ability to handle the hundreds of extra riders.

Shirley Ethel Murphy, 92