Continuing the Crook County News Since 1884
Continuing the Crook County News Since 1884
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Meeteetse annexation approved CODY (WNE) — A proposed annexation that will increase the size of Meeteetse by more than 70% moved forward last week following a 3-2 vote by the Town Council on May 4. The question of whether to annex 390.7 acres into the town limits proved divisive among council members. Mayor J.W. “Bill” Yetter and council members Eric Scott and Josh Blake voted for the measure, while Corey Guthrie and Dustin Taylor voted against it. Yetter said the annexation would have significant benefits for the town. “The benefit to the tow...
On behalf of Governor Mark Gordon, the Wyoming Arts Council is now accepting nominations for Wyoming’s Poet Laureate. Poets may self-nominate, or be nominated by someone else. The deadline to submit a nomination is Wednesday, May 31. Nominations must be submitted using this online form: https://forms.gle/4sTeDDq3SFUkH4S1A. Support materials can be uploaded through the online form or mailed to the Arts Council. If mailed, materials must be received by the Wyoming Arts Council by Friday, June 2. Nominated poets must be Wyoming residents. R...
POWELL — The grizzly bear found dead along the North Fork Highway last week was killed by a Cody area hunter who said he mistook the animal for a black bear, according to court documents. The hunter, Patrick M. Gogerty, reportedly came forward on May 2 — the day after he reportedly shot the bear, and after the bear’s carcass drew widespread public attention. “Gogerty should have turned himself in immediately,” North Cody Game Warden Travis Crane wrote in an affidavit included in court records. Park County Prosecuting Attorney Bryan Skoric charg...
CASPER — Air pollution from oil and gas production is harming Wyomingites’ health, a new study says. Researchers from Boston University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, PSE Healthy Energy and the Environmental Defense Fund compared emissions of a trio of pollutants — nitrogen oxide, ozone and fine particulates — to rates of respiratory and cardiovascular hospitalization and childhood asthma in 2016. Their peer-reviewed analysis, which was published May 8 in the journal Environmental Research: Health, found that oil and gas act...
Black Hills Energy to use Wyodak coal to research hydrogen generation GILLETTE (WNE) — Black Hills Energy will be using Powder River Basin coal to research hydrogen generation. Black Hills Energy was recently awarded a grant from the Wyoming Energy Authority to conduct a feasibility analysis on hydrogen generation using coal from Wyodak Mine. The ongoing research project partners engineers from Black Hills Energy with clean power production experts from Babcock & Wilcox Enterprises, or B&W, as well as members of the Chemical and Biomolecular E...
CASPER — The Wyoming Republican Party is asking local school districts to adopt policies that align with Senate File 117 — a bill proposed during the session this year that’s similar to Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law, and which would have barred classroom instruction about gender identity and sexual orientation in certain grades. Two county parties — Park and Sheridan counties — passed resolutions in April and March, respectively, urging their local districts to adopt policies that align with Senate File 117. The state GOP central...
KEMMERER — Microsoft billionaire and TerraPower Chairman Bill Gates toured the Naughton Power Plant in Kemmerer on Friday and saw where TerraPower will build a nuclear reactor before conducting a press conference that afternoon. “Getting things right here will be a big part of how we keep electricity reliable and keep the United States at the forefront of providing energy technology to the entire world,” Gates told locals who packed a room at the Best Western Fossil Country Inn. “The United States has had some challenges with energy securit...
Situations involving guns result in teen’s death, felony charge CHEYENNE (WNE) — Two apparently unrelated shooting incidents took place in Laramie County over the weekend, with one resulting in the death of a teenage girl. The Cheyenne Police Department is continuing its investigation of a shooting at Lincoln Park in south Cheyenne as a homicide after the 15-year-old female victim was declared deceased Monday morning. The unidentified girl was injured in an incident police officers responded to at about 12:23 Sunday morning. At the scene, res...
SHERIDAN — Wyoming Senate Vice President Dave Kinskey was removed from his position as chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee last week. Kinskey, R-Sheridan, was chair of the committee for the previous two sessions and was slated to continue as chair until Senate President Ogden Driskill, R-Devils Tower, removed him from the role. Whether the removal is allowed by Senate rules is disagreed upon by the pair. Senate rule 2-8 only refers to membership within a committee and says, “No change shall be made in any committee except by vote of...
Man dies after rollover crash on I-90 near Rozet GILLETTE (WNE) — A 37-year-old man died after rolling his car on Interstate 90 near Rozet Wednesday afternoon. Jachob Irish was driving a Honda Civic eastbound on Interstate 90 when he failed to negotiate a left-hand curve in the road near mile marker 145, according to Wyoming Highway Patrol. He drove onto the shoulder, then overcorrected, causing the Civic to go into a ditch and turn over several times. Campbell County Coroner Paul Wallem said Irish died from blunt force trauma, specifically t...
Degenfelder opposes proposed Title IX rule change CHEYENNE (WNE) — State Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder released a statement Thursday regarding the Biden administration’s proposed Title IX rule changes. Title IX is a 1972 law that bans sex discrimination in public schools, colleges and universities that receive federal funding. Among other changes, proposed new rules that are due to take effect in May would include protections for transgender and nonbinary students for the first time. Degenfelder said in the sta...
Probation recommended for man accused of pointing rifle from car GILLETTE (WNE) — The man accused of pointing an AR-15-style rifle at a car full of people after cutting them off reached a plea deal that recommends probation on reduced charges. Christen H. Best, 18, pleaded no contest March 15 to amended counts of possession of a deadly weapon with unlawful intent, a felony and misdemeanor reckless endangerment. District Judge James M. “Mike” Causey accepted and withheld judgment on the felony plea and found Best guilty of the misde...
JACKSON – A group of intervenors hoping to defend Wyoming’s new abortion ban has grown from three to four, with Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray joining two lawmakers and an anti-abortion advocacy group. The intervenors are arguing that the Attorney General’s Office is offering “inadequate representation” for their interests by defending the ban on “legal grounds alone” and that allowing them to introduce evidence will expedite the case. The proposed intervenors — state Rep. Rachel Rodriguez-Williams who sponsored the ban, R-Cody; state R...
Trial for Cody couple delayed to August for possible plea agreement CODY (WNE) – The jury trials for the Cody couple charged with abusing their 15-year-old child by putting her in cruel confinement have been delayed until Aug. 7 due to possible plea agreements. Jacob Wayne Guyer, 38, and Christine Philbrook, 48, were charged separately in 2021, each with one count of child abuse after they allegedly locked the child in a room for several hours a day, under poor living conditions and with little food. Both Guyer, the child’s father, and Phi...
JACKSON – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service opposes Wyoming congresswoman Harriet Hageman’s legislative push to remove Endangered Species Act protections from Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem grizzly bears. But the Wyoming Game and Fish Department backs delisting “by whatever means is necessary.” Game and Fish Director Brian Nesvik told Hageman, a first-term Republican, and other members of the United States House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife and Fisheries as much Thursday morning. He described Yellowstone area grizzli...
Mountain lion shot and killed in Slater GUERNSEY (WNE) – As local ranchers Jeb and Lalonda Baker were sipping an early morning cup of coffee and looking out toward the horizon, they wondered why their dog was out agitating the cattle. When the dog came walking in between them, they knew something else was out near the calf pen. As Baker grabbed a pair of binoculars and took a closer look, all he could say was, “it’s a lion,” before heading for the gun cabinet. This mountain lion was a 130-pound male that was on the prowl close to Normand...
CASPER – Anti-abortion lawmakers in Wyoming celebrated a historic win following the U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade over the summer, vowing to further restrict the procedure by next deleting the rape and incest exemptions in the trigger abortion ban that the Legislature had passed months earlier. But more than half a year and two lawsuits later, that initial jubilation has quieted as anti-abortion lawmakers in the Equality State face the realities of a complex post-Roe landscape. On Wednesday, a Teton County judge temporarily blo...
Newcastle schools locked down after report of student with gun NEWCASTLE (WNE) — Newcastle High School was in an extended lockdown on March 15 after the school was informed that a student had brought a gun to school. There have been no injuries reported as a result of the incident, but after the school’s administration confirmed that a gun had been brought to school, both Newcastle Middle School and the high school remained locked down while law enforcement investigated the situation. “It is no secret; we actually recovered a gun on schoo...
Bill creates charter school authorization board GILLETTE (WNE) — The state will now have a board made up of qualified education individuals to authorize new charter schools. Previously, if a school district board did not agree on the creation of a charter school, the decision went on to the state loan and investment board. Senate File 174, sponsored by Sen. Ogden Driskill, R-Devils Tower, passed through the Legislature and awaits the governor’s signature. Rep. Ken Clouston, R-Gillette, was part of the House Education Committee that debated the...
JACKSON — The 24-year-old Wisconsin man who died Thursday southeast of Smoot was killed by an avalanche that broke loose above him and carried him into a creek below. “His sled landed on top of him, six to seven feet of debris piled in and he was facedown in the water,” said Frank Carus, director of the Bridger-Teton Avalanche Center, who investigated the fatality. Carus said the tragedy demonstrates the danger of terrain traps — areas like gullies or streambeds where even a small amount of snow can bury a person. “You just always want to t...
SOUTH PASS—Kevin Maynard doesn’t bat an eye at these conditions. Highway 28 is visible, after all, and it’s not snowing. Still, as the Wyoming Department of Transportation plow driver navigates the winding highway toward the 7,500-foot-elevation pass, streaks of snow blowing across the road morph into sheets. Visibility deteriorates as the windblown snow and sky blend into a white mass, and drifts encroach onto the lanes. A sign warns the route is closed to high-profile light traffic, with the speed limit set temporarily at 55 miles per hour....
Man charged after $22K in fraudulent disability benefits GILLETTE (WNE) — A Gillette man is accused of defrauding the Wyoming Department of Workforce Services out of more than $22,000 by continuing to file temporary disability claims for about a year after returning to work. Klaus G. Paugsch, 49, waived his preliminary hearing Jan. 31 and was bound over to District Court on five felony counts of making misrepresentations or false statements in violation of the Wyoming Workers’ Compensation Act. Paugsch qualified for temporary disability ben...
CASPER — It’s unclear whether the Senate will get to debate the “Life is a Human Right” bill, the most ambitious and sweeping anti-abortion legislation the Wyoming Legislature has seen. Over a week after clearing the House in a 46-16 vote, House Bill 152 still hasn’t been assigned to a Senate committee for its first hearing in that chamber. Senate President Ogden Driskill, who is in charge of assigning bills to committees, told the Star-Tribune on Friday morning that he’s deliberating whether or not to bring the bill out of his drawer beca...
SHERIDAN — Distance education and in-person classes will soon be treated equally when it comes to how the state reimburses community colleges for the courses it offers. The legislation was among the first slate of bills signed by Gov. Mark Gordon during the current session of the Wyoming Legislature. “This bill removes any financial consequence for our community colleges offering courses via a certain modality,” Northern Wyoming Community College District President Walt Tribley said. “It is absolutely the right thing to do philoso...
Cody man charged with perjury CODY (WNE) — The Cody man charged in September for the alleged assault and battery of his pregnant girlfriend was charged Feb. 7 with one count of perjury after he allegedly asked his girlfriend to recant her statement to get the case dismissed. Travis William Rednour, 40, now faces imprisonment for up to five years, a fine of no more than $5000 or both, if convicted of perjury. That would be in addition to felony charges Rednour currently faces for aggravated assault and battery of a pregnant woman and the misdeme...
