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Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Dale Killingbeck

Dale Killingbeck

Christopher Culler looked forward to son Raydon Bowen wearing the matching King’s Camo outfit and boots he got the boy for Christmas as they set out on their annual spring bear hunt.

Instead, the 7-year-old Canyon Elementary School student in Kemmerer spent hunting season in the hospital following a diagnosis of an extremely rare genetic condition. 

The disorder has left him without vision and fighting for life in Salt Lake City’s Primary Children’s Hospital.

“He is obsessed with bear hunting with me,” Culler said. “We have a good time usually. It’s more about crushing some Mountain Dew and snacking then it is hunting.”

Culler, 38, and wife Bailey Bowen, 30, now are now on a mission that has them on family leave from their jobs at PacifiCorp/Rocky Mountain Power and praying for a boy who seemed normal and active until a little more than a year ago.

At first, Raydon’s condition didn’t seem that serious. He started struggling in school, had trouble focusing, and was having emotional outbursts. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"His parents suspected ADHD. "}]

But at the start of the year, his behavior problems became worse and they went to the pediatrician looking for medication help. Nothing seemed to work.

As Easter arrived, Raydon was acting abnormally and the family wondered if it was his medication.

“On Easter Sunday we were at an Easter egg hunt, and all the kids were getting ready and they are doing a countdown,” Culler said. “Everybody runs out and starts picking up eggs, and Raydon just kind of walked out there passed 20 eggs and just kind of looked around and wasn’t excited.”

Culler said the first grader was instead tripping and stumbling. 

He and his wife were unsure what was going on, but sent him to school the next day. They got a call from the school that he was having problems going up and down the stairs.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Trip To Utah"}]

They called their pediatrician from work, who told them to take him to the local emergency room. Then she called them back and told them to take him Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City.

Culler with Bowen, then 38-weeks pregnant, headed for Utah. 

At the hospital they were told Raydon would have to stay overnight for more tests. The next day an MRI scan showed areas of his brain that were white that were not supposed to be white.

Doctors told them Raydon had adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD), a rare genetic disorder that attacks the membrane that protects nerve cells in the brain and spinal chord. 

The condition keeps the brain from communicating properly with other parts of the body, which was the reason for Raydon’s stumbling and other issues.

Raydon also was recently diagnosed with Addison’s disease that typically accompanies ALD and means he has a cortisol deficiency that will need to be medicated for the rest of his life. 

Culler said it’s “frustrating” that they were chasing ADHD and has since found out that many other parents go down the same road because there was no newborn screening for the genetic disorder in their state.

“I’m like, ‘Why hasn’t anything changed? Why aren’t people screening for this?'” Culler said. “When Raydon was born, Wyoming didn’t do newborn screening for ALD, and a lot of states didn’t. 

"Now there’s a few holdout states that still don’t, but most places do, and Wyoming does now.”

Once the couple learned the diagnosis, doctors also told them that there is no cure, but a bone-marrow transplant can freeze the destruction where it is at. 

Raydon stayed in the hospital a week for more tests, and then the family came home as the hunt for a bone marrow donor began.

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

The family stayed in Kemmerer about three weeks. Bowen decided she needed to bring the baby into the world to prepare for Raydon’s next hospital stay. 

Their son Porter arrived through an induced birth on April 21.

Meanwhile, Raydon’s eyesight got worse as he rode his bike, but still he seemed to be enjoying time to play and try and be normal again.

Culler and Bowen have a blended marriage, and he used the time to prepare his 17-year-old daughter for the reality of he and Bowen having to go back to Salt Lake City. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Grandparents stepped up to help."}]

They kept in close contact with doctors and Primary Children’s Hospital as Raydon’s speech and vision were getting worse. 

They then received word from their doctor that instead of a bone marrow transplant, Raydon would get an infusion of stem cells from umbilical cord blood.

The family went back to the hospital on May 4, and Raydon received nine days of chemotherapy to destroy his immune system. Then the stem cells were transplanted into his bone marrow.

Friday marked the 22nd day after the infusion. 

His dad said Raydon spends his days laying in his hospital bed, unable to see or speak.

“It’s really hard to watch,” Culler said. "He’s to the point where it's kind of hard for him to do anything.

"There’s so much pain involved with doing that to a young body and agitation and anxiety that is astronomical.”

Culler said sometimes Raydon will try and feel for his mom’s ring or feel for his beard. Sometimes he reaches for a hand to kiss it.

“That’s kind of how we know that he’s still there,” he said.

Doctors and parents are waiting for “engraftment,” the process when donor stem cells start making new blood components. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"In Raydon’s case it may take 30 days."}]

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

For now, Culler watches their newborn baby at the hospital’s Ronald McDonald House every night while Bowen stays with Raydon. 

They switch places during the day, and the past month is a blur.

Culler said he thinks about the future and possibility of needing a new home to handle a son who cannot see or may have other physical limitations. 

He said his wife and Braydon’s grandparents are living in the moment and trying to make sure everything “is OK now.”

 that has been started on their behalf and for fundraisers such as a hunting and fishing expo that is doing a 50-50 raffle for them, sales of T-shirts that say “Raydon Strong,” and a Utah-based company called Rise and Shed that is doing a fundraiser to help the family with their medical bills.

Culler said he has never been a person who has asked others for help.

“But we’re looking down this road, and we don’t know how long it’s going to be,” he said. 

Culler’s mind goes to when he will return to work, the needs ahead, and more.

Raydon’s elementary school classmates have sent him cards and letters. Culler hopes that one day soon they will be able to read them to him.

Doctors have told the parents that the stem cells may be able to bring back some of the function that Raydon has lost. Time will tell.

Culler said his wife “just wants her boy back” and regrets the times she didn’t make the extra effort to read him that one more story that he was asking for or going to his room to play with him when Raydon asked.

Culler thinks back to the hunting trips, and how he was planning to teach him things this year. 

For Raydon, the trips are mostly about the Mountain Dew that he could only get on special occasions.

“I told him we can have Mountain Dew when we’re in the mountains, when we’re hunting, or when we’re doing ‘dude’ stuff,” Culler said. “He says, ‘Come on, we’re mountain dudes, we gotta drink Mountain Dew.’ That was our thing.”

Raydon Bowen Mix Collage 06 Jun 2026 07 09 AM 6478 6 6 26

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

<title>Rare Genetic Condition Took Kemmerer 7-Year-Old's Eyesight, Threatens His Life | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A Kemmerer couple is on medical leave taking care of a newborn and their 7-year-old son who has a rare genetic condition that took his eyesight. All the little boy wanted to do was go hunting this year, instead he's fighting for his life.

Rare Genetic Condition Took Kemmerer 7-Year-Old's Eyesight, Threatens His Life

Gillette resident Matthew Hohnholt’s destiny was to put on a uniform.

One grandfather fought in World War II as a medic, and his grandmother worked in U.S. Army Intelligence directly with General Dwight D. Eisenhower during that war.

Another grandfather was a tank mechanic in Korea, and his father was a U.S. Marine who served with Task Force Delta on classified missions in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

Once he graduated from high school in Washington state, Hohnholt traded cowboy boots for combat ones in Marine Corps boot camp.

“I was a young kid, I didn’t have any skills, and it was kind of a golden ticket out,” he said. “I wanted to serve my country, and that meant a lot to me to be able to do it.”

Hohnholt’s enlistment in 2000, and an injury while going through infantry school, had him reassigned to learning electrical repair for generators and other equipment. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Then 9\/11 happened."}]

Hohnholt remembers being at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, when the base commander called all the trainees together to talk about the attacks and “kind of explaining to us what had happened and kind of the uncertainty of the future.”

He was put on a list to go to Afghanistan, but that tour was canceled.

In 2003, he was sent to Kuwait in support of a Marine fighter squadron as the invasion of Iraq was being staged. 

That led to a role in providing security for convoys into Iraq when the war got underway.

The 45-year-old now is a 100% disabled veteran who suffered more loss last year when his 19-year-old son, Garrett, took his own life. 

Hohnholt is still trying to pay off the funeral debt.

“I’ve been divorced for four years,” he said. “I kind of ran low on money and had to get rid of the house because I couldn’t afford to make payments on it anymore. 

"And then I moved in with my brother, and so, I just have been kind of helping with my brother and that’s kind of where I am at.”

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

He said he still owes $8,000 on his son’s funeral bill and is trying to save money for a gravestone.

Candy Morris, a Washington state friend who went to school with Hohnholt, started a GoFundMe campaign last October to try and help chip away at the funeral debt and also to assist with housing. 

She characterizes Hohnholt as an “all-around great guy” who is the best friend of her husband. 

Morris and her husband moved to Alaska 15 years ago, but Hohnholt has visited a couple of times and they stay in touch.

“He showed up for our family with care and love, spending hours with us and helping care for my newborn daughter,” Morris said. “He became her first babysitter, and I later named her after his grandmother, Faye, a woman who meant so much to him.”

Morris said she was recently contacted by Australian kindness and mental health social media influencer Samuel Weidenhoferl, who asked her to revise the 

as part of his “kindness” effort for a veteran in every U.S. state. 

Once she did, Weidenhofer made Hohnholt the Wyoming representative of his campaign.

Weidenhofer has helped raise thousands of dollars for veterans in other states. He typically meets with the veteran, does an interview and then posts it on his social media with a link to the GoFundMe.

Weidenhofer has 8.1 million followers on TikTok and 3.3 million on Facebook. His GoFundMe effort so far has raised $2 million nationally from 53,500 donations.

Hohnholt said Weidenhofer traveled to Gillette to meet the man at his son’s grave on Memorial Day. 

Hohnholt came away impressed and calls Weidenhofer and his cameraman “super nice guys.”

“I was blown away at him telling me I was selected,” he said. “It was a flattering, humbling experience.

"I have never really been recognized for anything before, and it was pretty emotional. I believe he even got me to cry, just a little bit.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Thankful For Recognition"}]

Hohnholt said any money he receives is secondary to just being recognized for his time in the Marines and trying to lead by example while he served. 

He said he appreciated “just having someone there and telling me that I was not alone.”

An attempt to reach Weidenhofer was not successful. 

Hohnholt said he appreciates people who have donated to the GoFundMe to help with his son’s funeral costs. 

Garrett Hohnholt struggled with depression for much of his life, but had seemed to have come of the tunnel of darkness that surrounded him, he said.

“He graduated from high school and had a couple of really good friends that he loved,” Hohnholt said. “It really shocked me. … I spent a lot of my time with him and I was really looking forward to getting to know him as a man.”

Born in Wheatland, Hohnholt’s Wyoming roots go back to time on a ranch outside of Guernsey until second grade. 

His family moved to Casper until he was in sixth grade and then to Washington state. 

Hohnholt said he returned to Wyoming every summer to work on his grandfather’s ranch.

Hohnholt said his war experiences left him with PTSD and definitely changed him. 

He has struggled with depression, anxiety and stress. He likes to socialize and has friends, but avoids crowds and busy places.

He also finds there are times he just needs to be alone.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'Shock And Awe Stuff'"}]

While serving in Iraq, Hohnholt’s security role for convoys involved protecting their fuel, water, and supplies for a helicopter squadron at forward bases as well as other convoy missions.

“We saw a light amount of combat, and it was pretty much during convoy operations,” he said. “It’s not like we were staying and having big battles. But it was moving gear and stuff like that.”

After Iraq, he spent a year serving in his career field doing generator and electrical repair before getting out of the service. 

Hohnholt looks back on his Marine Corps service with no regrets, and while he does not like to dwell on specifics about incidents that led to his disability, he said they can be put into the category of “shock-and-awe stuff.”

Hohnholt left the Marines with an honorable discharge and campaign ribbons. He sees his younger self as a “just an average Marine doing average things who fought in a war.”

But if called upon, there is no hesitation about whether he would raise his hand to take the oath of service again.

“You know, absolutely I would,” he said. “It’s the good and the bad that has made me who I am. I have a lot of family and friends and people seem to like me. That’s just good enough for me.”

Garrett and Matthew Hohnholt

<title>Gillette Marine Vet With PTSD Struggles To Pay Off Funeral Debt From Son’s Suicide | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A 45-year-old Gillette Marine Corps veteran struggles with PTSD, along with paying off funeral debt from his 19-year-old son’s suicide last year. "I was really looking forward to getting to know him as a man,” said Matthew Hohnholt.

Gillette Marine Vet With PTSD Struggles To Pay Off Funeral Debt From Son’s Suicide

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

Renée Jean

Business & Tourism

Business

CHEYENNE — Patricia Miller was helping another customer when a smooth-talking gentleman came in and quickly grabbed some crystals that he said were a gift for his mom. 

“He was trying to small talk with me about how wonderful of a person he was, because he’s getting them for her,” Miller told Cowboy State Daily. “And he’s going to print out information about each one of them, and all this other stuff.”

Miller thought that was sweet and said so, but what happened next was anything but sweet.

“He handed me this $100 bill, and I could feel that something was different,” she said. “And I was looking at it, and I’m like, ‘Well, maybe it’s old?'”

That prompted the man to helpfully add that the bill was from 1996.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"That’s when things clicked for Miller."}]

“Like, who knows what year the bill is that you’re handing a cashier?” she said. “So that’s what really triggered my mind to be like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is counterfeit.’”

Not wanting to falsely accuse the man — or ignite a confrontation — Miller took a different tack. 

“I said to him, ‘I”m sorry, but I don’t have change for this. You’re going to have to maybe get change and come back. Do you have anything smaller?’" Miller said. “And he said, ‘No, I’ll go to Bomgaars and get change.’”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"The man never returned for his items. "}]

Later, looking at the store’s video surveillance, Miller saw the man had several recognizable bags with him. When she visited those other stores, it confirmed her suspicion that the $100 bill had been fake. 

The same man with the same story and multiple copies of the same $100 bill, all sharing the same serial number, had hit all of the stores.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Same Serial Number All Over Town"}]

Miller’s social media post about the experience drew jeers from some skeptical online commenters who accused her of overreacting. 

She posted the bill so others would know what was happening, to prevent anyone from getting duped.

A manager at a discount store on South Greeley Highway in Cheyenne, who asked that her store not be named for corporate reasons, confirmed she’d encountered both the same man and the same $100 bill as Miller. 

The man came to the store on South Greeley between the hours of 3:30 and 4 p.m., she said, trying to buy some baby wipes and a gallon jug of water with the $100 — a classic, small-purchase, big-change tactic.

The cashier felt something was off with the bill, but couldn’t identify what. She used a traditional counterfeit detector pen. If the iodine ink, which reacts with starches in standard, wood-pulp paper, remains black, that’s supposed to indicate that a bill is real. 

But the manager has learned a different trick to identify counterfeits lately. 

“I swabbed it with rubbing alcohol, and the ink smudged,” she said. “So I told him it was fake and we were not going to accept it.”

When the cashier told the man the bill was fake, he said, “Keep it,” and walked out, by then visibly trying to hide his face from the camera.

“That confirms to me that it was fake,” the manager said. 

The bill has been turned over to Laramie County Sheriff’s Office for further investigation.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Bleached Bills Fool Counterfeit Pens"}]

The discount store manager said counterfeiters have come up with a smart strategy to fool the traditional iodine counterfeit detector pens.

What they do is bleach a $1 bill, and then print a $100 bill over the top of it. Because it’s genuine currency paper, the iodine pens won’t catch that the bill is fake. 

“The counterfeit pens are garbage,” the manager said. “You can write on that and it won’t catch it because it is in fact money paper, just not the right denomination.”

She prefers that her employees use rubbing alcohol to test the ink. If it smudges, that’s a huge red flag.

She also has them hold the bill up to the light, to look for water marks and other security features that $100 bills have that $1 bills do not.

The last check is the texture of the bill itself, which is slightly changed by the bleaching process. 

“When we held it up, it did not have a water mark in it,” she said. “It did not have a face in it, and I felt no texture on the bill itself.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"A Prop Money In Riverton"}]

In Riverton, meanwhile, funny money has taken a slightly different tack, with Hollywood-style prop bills circulating around town.

At Blossoms and Boba Cafe, owner Jesica Fritz told Cowboy State Daily a group of children roughly ages 10-13 came in for a shopping spree with what they thought was a genuine $100 bill, given to them by a friendly stranger who had encouraged them to spend all of the money in one place. 

“One of the girls who works for us thought it was real at first,” Fritz said. “It did look very realistic, unless you read it and looked closely at it.

"The other girl, my daughter, was like, ‘No, absolutely this is not real. Look, it doesn’t even say, ‘In God we trust.”

Instead the bill said, “In Prop we Trust,” and elsewhere, in tiny fine print, it identified the money as a film prop, not for legal tender.

Fritz said her cafe does use counterfeit detection pens and also trains staff to hold bills up to make sure the paper shimmers correctly, and to look closely at fine print and seals.

“If you’re slammed and super busy and someone just hands one of these to you, I can totally understand why some people would take it as regular money,” she said. “It looks very realistic.”

The children had already paid for their Boba teas before trying to use the fake $100 for extra items. When told the bill wasn’t real, they were crestfallen, but cooperative.

“The kids legitimately believed they had real money, and were super stoked about it,” Fritz said. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Staying Ahead Of Funny Money"}]

Fritz turned the bill over to the Riverton Police Department. 

The department did not return Cowboy State Daily’s request for comment, but Fritz said they told her that several other businesses in town had also seen prop money circulating.

Cheyenne police, meanwhile, said it has seven reports of counterfeit bills being passed around at local businesses so far this year. 

“The counterfeit bills we encounter the most are $20 and $100 denominations,” said department spokeswoman Alexandra Farkas. “Many of the fake $100 bills are novelty bills intended for film production and are marked with the phrase, ‘For Motion Picture Purposes.’”

That can be easy to overlook during a busy transaction, Farkas acknowledged.

“If counterfeit currency is seized and is not associated with an active local investigation, our Property and Evidence Division will send it to the U.S. Secret Service for further investigation,” she said. “For more information about identifying counterfeit bills, the Secret Service offers educational resources online at 

By policy, businesses are supposed to try to retain suspicious bills and turn them over to police. But both Miller and the discount store manager admitted they considered their own personal safety first and foremost. 

Fake 100 bill inset 1 6 6 26

<title>Fake $100 Bills Making The Rounds In Wyoming, Counterfeit Pens Don't Detect Them | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Counterfeit $100 bills are getting passed throughout Wyoming and store clerks say iodine counterfeit detector pens won't detect the fake bills. “The counterfeit pens are garbage,” said one store manager

Fake $100 Bills Making The Rounds In Wyoming, Counterfeit Pens Don't Detect Them

It’s a scene that feels like it belongs in a sepia-toned, black-and-white movie, but it’s living color at Slack Elementary School near Parkman, Wyoming. 

Students there begin and close out their school year by riding their horses to the one-room schoolhouse on horseback.

Picture a dozen or so kids, legs swinging in sometimes too-big stirrups, strung out along a narrow ranch road. 

For the last day of school in May, the Bighorn Mountains might still hold a streak or two of snow while ahead a tiny, white schoolhouse awaits. 

The horses plod along at a slow walk — by strict family decree — helping create a moment of what feels like suspended time. 

“If you let one horse start trotting, then you’re going to have a horse race on your hands,” ranch mom Jill Kerns told Cowboy State Daily with a chuckle. 

Three of her four children have been young enough to participate in the tradition. 

“It usually takes about 10 to 15 minutes,” she said. "Honestly, it takes longer to catch the horses and saddle them than it takes to ride down there.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"One-Room School That Still Works"}]

The end point of the horse parade is the historic Slack Elementary School, one of about a couple dozen remaining one-room schoolhouses in Wyoming. 

The Slack School opened in 1890, giving it 136 years of history in this ranching community. The present building was buildt in the 1930s, after the original schoolhouse burned down. 

Although no one is quite sure when the first- and last-day horseback rides began, they are a cherished community tradition, one that honors the school’s heritage in a ranching community and salutes the history of the American West.

Teachers at Slack use the activity to throw open a window to local history and lifestyles, pointing out there was a time when the ride wasn’t ceremonial at all. 

Jill’s father-in-law Krayton Kerns remembers when the school used to have an old barn for people to put their horses in during the day.

“It was pretty well used up by the time we got here in ’65,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “And I’m not sure when it got torn down the rest of the way, but prior to my time at Slack School, the generation before, they rode to school because that was their only transportation.”

Krayton, meanwhile, walked to school every day. 

“Dad mentioned to me that he always walked to school,” he said. “So I decided I was going to do that, too, even though we had a bus driver who ran a Suburban van that hauled a bunch of kids to school.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Big Brother, Big Sister Teaching Method"}]

Slack might seem on the surface like it’s some kind of throwback. But there’s more value in this old-fashioned approach than people realize, and parents say they see their children earning a leg up in key areas like reading.

“The teachers have told me when the Slack kids get to Tongue River, they tend to be a little bit ahead,” Jill said. “By the time they leave Slack, they’re very well prepared, if not ahead.”

Jill’s son Henry, who had one year at Slack, told Cowboy State Daily he was able to work at his own pace, which meant he didn’t have to wait on learning new material. 

Kids who attend the one-room school near Parkman, Wyoming, still ride horses to their schoolhouse on the first and last days of class. “If you let one horse start trotting, then you’re going to have a horse race on your hands,” one ranch mom said. 

Thomas "Tom" Leroy Mefford, 79