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JACKSON - After an acrimonious, three-hour meeting, Wyoming's top five state elected officials have approved a contract for a $100 million sale of the Kelly parcel to Grand Teton National Park. "I believe in our office we can take the $100 million and turn it into $1.6 billion," Treasurer Curt Meier said, shortly before voting for the deal. "That that could be a perpetual - actually, generational - fund that would benefit the students and the education system of the state of Wyoming until the...
SHERIDAN — Gov. Mark Gordon said on Wednesday that state agencies may have to “limit services” following voter approval of a constitutional amendment that allows lawmakers, if they so choose, to create a separate residential property tax class. He also said he was “pleased” the amendment passed in Tuesday’s General Election. “It was a good election, by all accounts here in Wyoming. Things turned out well,” Gordon said on Wednesday morning. “I am particularly happy about the Amendment A passage. I wasn’t sure it was going to pass. It is a diffic...
CHEYENNE — Squatting is a nationwide issue that’s made it difficult for owners to sell or sometimes even visit their residential property, and Casper law enforcement says Wyoming is not immune to it. Transient people move into vacant homes, sometimes causing damage to the property, and often refuse to leave after the owner or police confront them. This issue is commonly treated as a civil dispute by law enforcement due to the difficulty of verifying whether the occupant is a legitimate tenant, according to a memo from Pacific Legal Fou...
At its peak, the mighty Elk Fire made a furious wind-driven, overnight run. Sheridan and Johnson County firefighters had never seen anything like it before on their home turf. Neither had their parents or grandparents. Between 1:30 and 5 a.m. on Oct. 4, the blaze consumed more of the Bighorns' rugged east slope than any previously documented fire had burned that forest in total. "In a matter of three hours it ran 25,000 acres," Bighorn National Forest Supervisor Andrew Johnson said weeks later....
The man who struck and killed Grizzly 399 while commuting home from Jackson on Tuesday night was driving at around the speed limit of 55 mph, law enforcement officials said Thursday. Those details about the Snake River Canyon accident that pulled at heartstrings around Wyoming and the world come from a crash investigation relayed by Lincoln County Sheriff's Patrol Lt. John Stetzenbach. "Looking at the crash itself, the size of the bear and the damage that was done to the vehicle, [the...
JACKSON — Grizzly 399’s cub was not collared when its famous mother was hit and killed by a car Tuesday evening in the Snake River Canyon. That means wildlife managers do not have an easy way to locate the yearling. The cub has not been seen since the accident, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials said Thursday. But biologists said they’re optimistic about the cub’s chances because denning season is approaching. The cub is large and approaching 2 years old, when grizzly mothers typically kick off their young. “High chances of survival...
They packed the pews tight at Saints Cyril and Methodius Catholic Church, those without seats standing wherever they could find space. Mourners took off work and school, many traveling across Wyoming to gather on a calm, sunny October morning in Rock Springs. The service started late in order to make room for everyone. This was the funeral of Dawson Fantin, an 18-year-old graduate of Rock Springs High School who'd only recently left his hometown to start college at the University of Wyoming on a...
Shortly after being sued for defamation in July, the political action committee affiliated with the Wyoming Freedom Caucus sent out additional mailers, doubling down on claims that landed the PAC in court. That prompted two Sweetwater County lawmakers to file an amended legal complaint this week, seeking to strengthen their legal argument ahead of an upcoming deadline in the case. Reps. J.T. Larson (R-Rock Springs) and Cody Wylie (R-Rock Springs) filed the lawsuit after the WY Freedom PAC...
PINEDALE - Before the sun breached the horizon, hundreds of firefighters filed from their camp to their assignments on the 86,555 acre Pack Trail Fire burning in the Shoshone and Bridger-Teton National forests in Fremont and Sublette counties. There were 613 personnel fighting the fire and working to protect the nearby homes, buildings, ranches and acreage as of Wednesday morning. "In 20 years of firefighting, I've never seen anything quite as wild as this one. The amount of fire activity on...
Lawmakers are scrambling to draft a bill that would restrict what wildfire victims can claim damages for when electric utilities spark blazes. Insurance premiums for utilities are exploding due to class action lawsuits stemming from utility-caused wildfires that have resulted in death and property damage - particularly in the West. Some utilities fear they may lose insurance coverage while increasing insurance rates threaten to raise costs for electric customers and bankrupt some power...
Wyoming’s five top elected officials have advanced plans to allow the public to carry concealed firearms in many areas of the Capitol and attached facilities — either with a permit or, in some cases, without. The State Building Commission — a panel composed of the governor, auditor, secretary of state, treasurer and schools superintendent — still faces a long process before finalizing any changes, including a 45-day comment period. A majority of respondents to an online survey conducted by the body disagreed with earlier proposed changes...
Kandace Sitting Eagle, 34, of Arapahoe, Wyoming, was sentenced to 121 months’ imprisonment for aggravated child abuse, assault resulting in serious bodily injury, and assault with a dangerous weapon. These crimes arose from abuse of Sitting Eagle’s 13-year-old child. According to trial evidence and statements made at the sentencing, Kandace Sitting Eagle and her husband, Truman Sitting Eagle. Sitting Eagle, 36, pleaded guilty to assault resulting in serious bodily injury on Apr. 8. He was sentenced to 108 months in prison in August 2024, aft...
The boxcar-housed installation, currently located in Laramie, will travel to Wyoming towns along the Interstate 80 railroad corridor. In many ways, Wyoming's heritage lies on the shoulders of immigrants who built the transcontinental rail line traversing the southern portion of Wyoming and the multiple generations of laborers who have kept it running since. That heritage, and the stories of those laborers, deserves more recognition and is worthy of celebration, Wyoming artist Conor Mullen said....
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senators John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis (both R-WY) joined U.S. Senator Pete Ricketts (R-NE) in introducing the bipartisan Securing American Agriculture Act. This legislation would protect Wyoming food and agriculture supply chains from being taken over by foreign adversaries. "Protecting America's agricultural and food supply chains from Chinese Communist Party threats is a top priority," said Barrasso. "China's alarming influence on the global agricultural supp...
Rod and gun club got federal permits to eliminate 30 of the giant trout-eating birds, but daily efforts to kill them have struck a nerve with many residents. 9-MILE LAKE-Initially, Jay Benson was OK with the idea of taking out some white pelicans to protect the Alco Rod and Gun Club's pricy stock of put-and-take trout. Often during the summer, he said, a few dozen of the hefty native piscivorous birds rafted out on the club's exclusive 9-Mile Lake outside of Laramie to take advantage of the...
Concerns over street projects and costs for updating the city’s pavement management plan became a key point of discussion during this week’s Green River City Council meeting. At the October 1 meeting, one of the council action items included the Public Works Department’s recently issued request for quotes for updating the city’s pavement management plan. Responses were received from two firms, and the review committee recommended awarding the contract to preform the work to MDS Technologies Incorporated. Before a motion was brought to enter i...
As part of an ongoing conversation about mental health in Wyoming, and a wrap up for September's Suicide Prevention Month, Governor Mark Gordon took time last Thursday to visit Sweetwater County and sit down for an honest conversation about addressing suicide. "This is an area where Wyoming really has its work cut out for it," Governor Gordon said regarding the topic of suicide prevention. The event was hosted by Rock Springs Mayor Max Mickelson at the Broadway Theater in Rock Springs, and was...
The Green River High School Athletic Department recently announced the hiring of a new head coach for the Softball program. Mark Hyde has been selected as the new Green River High School Head Softball Coach. Mark has been an Assistant Softball Coach for Green River High School for the past four seasons, according to a district press release, and was instrumental in helping the program get up and running four years ago. "We are extremely excited to have Mark Hyde on board as our new Green River H...
Acting U.S. Attorney Eric Heimann announced Sept. 13 that the Cody man whose girlfriend disappeared while the couple and their two children were returning from Alabama in October of 2023 was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Alan B. Johnson. Adam Shane Aviles, Jr., age 26, of Cody, Wyoming, was sentenced to 87 months in federal prison for being a felon in possession of ammunition. Based on evidence presented by the government at the sentencing hearing, Judge Johnson found that Aviles unlawfully possessed the ammunition in connection with t...
CASPER - Wyoming's oil and gas producers have won a reprieve with a federal court injunction against the Bureau of Land Management's methane regulation rule, stalling for now regulatory requirements that would have added millions of dollars in overhead for producers and threatened to force many of Wyoming's small operators out of business, industry representatives say. 'The left hand of the government does not know what the right hand of the government is doing' The court declared the BLM's...
Wyoming’s county commissioners and an alliance of Casper-area residents want to support Teton County in a lawsuit over local government authority to impose zoning and safety codes on private businesses leasing land from the state. The Casper Mountain Preservation Alliance joined a group of Teton County homeowners who filed an amicus brief in a long-running lawsuit over state-sanctioned development on a school trust section in Teton County. The Wyoming County Commissioners Association also filed an amicus brief, seeking to argue on behalf of T...
A federal judge has upheld the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's plans for managing black-footed ferrets in Wyoming, the state where the once-presumed-extinct species was rediscovered some four decades ago. The dispute over how the federal government managed the endangered weasel-like animal traces back nearly a decade to when federal wildlife managers officially designated the Wyoming population as "nonessential, experimental." That classification allows for more regulatory flexibility than...
CASPER — Wyoming’s senior senator is throwing his political and intellectual weight behind a big case before the U.S. Supreme Court, whose outcome could significantly diminish the reach of the National Environmental Policy Act. The law’s application has become overly rigorous and is bogging down economic development, Sen. John Barrasso argues in an Amicus Brief delivered to the court last week. The act requires federal agencies to vet policies and development proposals to ensure communities and public lands are protected from certain envir...
Steven Shobert, 49, of Worland, Wyoming, was sentenced on Aug. 28 to 18 months in prison for possession of machine guns in violation of federal law. According to court documents, on Aug. 29, 2023, Shobert was arrested for driving under the influence. He had a holstered firearm on his hip and surrendered it to the officers. A state judge imposed bond conditions requiring Shobert to relinquish his firearms pending the DUI case. Shobert consented to a search of his residence to gather his firearms. The search resulted in the discovery of one...
The House Draw Fire caused an estimated $25 million in economic damage when it consumed nearly 175,000 acres of mostly private land in Johnson County, a preliminary evaluation found. That figure will almost certainly rise as ranchers in the fire's path more fully assess their losses and livestock fall ill due to smoke exposure. While the massive and swift-moving fire did not destroy any homes, it caused extensive damage to local ranching operations including the loss of at least 590 miles of...
