Continuing the Crook County News Since 1884
Continuing the Crook County News Since 1884
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New mental health program off to a fast start GILLETTE (WNE) — A new program to help Gillette residents with their mental health has gotten off to a fast start. Earlier this spring, the Northeast Wyoming Community Health Foundation launched Hope Source to help people pay for therapy and counseling costs. Nachelle McGrath, executive director of the foundation, said she’s received 20 applications, and ten of them have been approved. The other applications were sent back because they needed more information, and they will be re-submitted. “I...
CHEYENNE — An AI-generated candidate has filed to run for Cheyenne mayor, and county officials are investigating whether VIC, an acronym for Virtual Integrated Citizen, can appear on the ballot. Under Wyoming law, only registered voters can run for local or statewide elected office. But can a person file an artificial intelligence as a candidate? That’s the question Laramie County officials are trying to answer. Cheyenne resident and registered voter Victor Miller put VIC on the mayoral candidate form, listing a house and email address, but...
JACKSON - Brent Bien has high hopes for his ballot initiative that could cut Wyoming property taxes in half for homeowners. And he's one step closer to getting it in front of voters to make it state law. Joined by co-applicants Cheryl Aguilar and Rich Weber, Bien turned in 644 petition booklets to the Wyoming Secretary of State's Office for certification Thursday. "We're anxious to hear the results here in a couple of months," said Bien, a former Republican gubernatorial candidate who...
CHEYENNE — Forestry and public land officials said Friday that they expect Wyoming to experience an “average-to-normal” wildland fire season, with the north-central part of the state experiencing the driest conditions. In what has become an annual tradition, Wyoming State Forestry Division and Bureau of Land Management officials joined Gov. Mark Gordon in a media briefing that covered wildfire safety, prevalence and steps officials are taking to lower the risk of wildfires in Wyoming this year. State Forester Kelly Norris said when it comes...
RIVERTON — Beginning next year, Wyoming families with qualifying income will have access to government assistance for private schooling. Gov. Mark Gordon signed House Bill 166, “Education Savings Accounts,” into law in April. His line-item vetoes significantly narrowed the scope of the legislation, but it’s still likely to spark a host of lawsuits and widespread debate as its activation date approaches. And the new legislation could cause an uptick in enrollment for Wyoming’s private schools. The passed version of the measure caters only to f...
Commissioners protest BLM coal leasing change GILLETTE (WNE) — Campbell County Commissioners are protesting the Bureau of Land Management’s recent proposal to put an end to federal coal leases in the Powder River Basin. The federal agency announced its changes to the Buffalo Field Office land use plan in mid-May, and if it goes through, it would effectively kill coal mining in Campbell County 17 years from now. The plan targets the Powder River Basin and its 12 Wyoming coal mines, which are all located in Campbell County, and would allow mines...
JACKSON — Honor Wyoming is aiming to build a majority in the state Legislature made up of lawmakers who adhere to its values, most of whom are the ultraconservative Wyoming Freedom Caucus and its allies in the Senate. That vision is outlined in a document being circulated via email around the state. It says Honor Wyoming is taking on the state’s Republican “establishment class.” Honor Wyoming’s mission is “to protect and advance liberty values through state-based grassroots and legislative advocacy,” according to the prospectus obtained by the...
Oil and gas companies in the Mountain West report thousands of drill-related spills each year, including spills of crude oil and chemical water used in hydraulic fracking, which can result in adverse effects to land, potable water and wildlife. In Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico, the amount of spills over time have stayed roughly steady even as the amount of oil and gas production has increased, suggesting that regulations designed to rein in spills do not inhibit production and have more or less maintained a lid on risk. However, a new...
Four wild horse and burro adoption events to take place in June CHEYENNE (WNE) — The Bureau of Land Management Wyoming is kicking off the summer with four wild horse and burro adoptions in June. Untrained animals will be offered to qualified adopters at the following in-person adoptions for a $125 minimum fee: • June 1, Wind River Wild Horse Ranch Public Off-Range Pasture: Approximately 20 wild horses (burros to be determined) will be available from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the public off-range pasture near Lander. Take a free wagon tour to view th...
Grizzly attack in Grand Teton was ‘surprise encounter’ JACKSON (WNE) — A grizzly bear attacked and injured a man visiting Grand Teton National Park on Sunday. The 35-year-old Massachusetts man is in stable condition and expected to fully recover. Park officials have not released the victim’s name. The Jackson Hole Daily’s attempts to contact him were unsuccessful by press time Monday. Meanwhile, Grand Teton biologists and law enforcement rangers are investigating the incident, which occurred near Signal Mountain Lodge. While few details a...
A movement is afoot to increase Wyoming’s snowmobile permit fees to keep up with the rising costs of maintaining some 2500 miles of groomed trails. The staff that administers the recreation trails has identified a budget shortfall resulting from increased costs of equipment, fuel and other factors, said Chris Floyd, deputy director of Wyoming State Parks and Cultural Resources. “In short…our revenues have been quite steady for a long time,” Floyd told the Legislature’s Joint Travel, Recreation, Wildlife and Cultural Resources Committee...
On Memorial Day, our nation honors military service members who have given their lives to preserve our freedoms. Families, friends and communities come together to remember the great sacrifices of military members and ensure their legacies live on. The benefits we provide can help the families of deceased military service members. For example, surviving spouses and dependent children may be eligible for Social Security survivors’ benefits. You can learn more about those benefits at www.ssa.gov/benefits/survivors. We also offer support to w...
CASPER — Electric vehicles are deepening America’s partisan ruts, and it’s evident on both car lots and capital hill. Polling and sales data show that while Democrats are buying EVs in droves, Republicans are hesitant to make the switch from internal combustion, according to surveys from Gallup, Pew Research and others. Wyoming — the most red state in the union — fits this description: the market share of new EV sales in the Cowboy State was 2.1% in 2023, dragging significantly behind the nationwide average of 9.5%, according to industry...
Wyoming joined more than 20 states this week in filing two lawsuits in federal court to stop the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s new rules to reduce greenhouse gas and other harmful pollutants emitted from coal- and natural gas-fired power plants. The lawsuits allege the EPA has overstepped its authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from electrical power plants when it issued four sweeping rules in April, including one that mandates a 90% reduction of carbon dioxide at the smokestack by 2032. Although the EPA’s emission red...
CHEYENNE — University of Wyoming President Ed Seidel recommended closing the university’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion on Friday, following a decision by the state Legislature to defund the office effective July 1. Duties and personnel from the ODEI will be reassigned to other university entities, Seidel said, with the assistance of a new vice provost position in the Office of the Provost. UW spokesman Chad Baldwin told the Wyoming Tribune Eagle the university doesn’t “anticipate any layoffs, but the ODEI staff positions have been...
Political community group hosts town hall with Prism Logistics CASPER (WNE) – Prism Logistics Manager Kyle True stepped into the spotlight Thursday to address a Liberty’s Place 4 U town hall meeting in Casper. True is seeking to build a gravel pit on state land at the base of Casper Mountain near Coates Road, and his plans have been met with fierce opposition, led primarily by residents in the surrounding area. Thursday’s town hall hosted by the political community group was one of the first public meetings to discuss the topic at which True...
Average price of gasoline remains unchanged in last week in Wyoming CHEYENNE (WNE) — Average gasoline prices in Wyoming are unchanged in the last week, averaging $3.27 per gallon on Monday, according to GasBuddy. com’s survey of 494 stations in Wyoming. Prices in Wyoming are 0.3 cents per gallon higher than a month ago, and stand 8.0 cents per gallon lower than a year ago. According to GasBuddy price reports, the lowest price in the state on Sunday was $2.87 per gallon, while the highest was $4.19, a difference of $1.32. The national ave...
More than 17,500 Wyoming enrollees lost Medicaid or Kids Care CHIP coverage over the previous 12 months ending March. That’s because the Wyoming Department of Health is performing its federally mandated eligibility review for the services. The state paused that annual effort during the pandemic while the feds temporarily bolstered Medicaid funds to help cover extra enrollees. Of those removed from the rolls, 12,380 — nearly 70% — lost access due to “procedural reasons,” like failing to return renewal paperwork. About three quarters of those...
Wyoming sues Biden administration over new methane rule CHEYENNE (WNE) — Wyoming has joined the states of North Dakota, Montana and Texas in suing the U.S. Department of Interior and Bureau of Land Management over a new rule that undermines existing state regulatory programs and harms Wyoming oil and natural gas producers, according to a news release from Gov. Mark Gordon’s office. The suit was filed this week in the U.S. District Court for the District of North Dakota. The rule — commonly known as the “methane waste prevention rule” and relea...
GILLETTE - Justin West stopped bull riding in 2010. He'd recently had a bad fall, and doctors told him that if he had one more accident he would likely be paralyzed. A few years later, he was in the Big Horn Mountains for his brother's birthday. They were riding snowmobiles when they came up on what they thought was a 5-foot drop. It turned out to be a 40-foot drop. "I closed my eyes, and all I thought about was, I'm dead," he said. Miraculously, West survived the fall. But he knew instantly tha...
CASPER — If you’re a ghost on the grounds of what formerly was Fort Caspar, you might very well be a young soldier who died during the Battle of Platte Bridge in 1865. You liked playing checkers and maybe smoking a cigar and thinking of a pretty girl back home, all the way on the other side of the Mississippi River. You could also be a child who drowned in that same vicious river while trying to get to what is now Oregon or Utah or Montana. You might, if you’re really aware, be in awe that people who now use that same river for recre...
Six fatal crashes so far in Campbell County this year GILLETTE (WNE) --- So far in 2024, 21 people have died in 18 fatal crashes in Wyoming. A third of those crashes, which resulted in six deaths, happened in Campbell County. In 2023, there were 11 fatal crashes in Campbell County. In 2022, there were seven. 2021 had four fatal crashes, and 2020 had eight. Campbell County Sheriff Scott Matheny said when it comes to these crashes, “it randomly spikes and sometimes it doesn’t.” The first crash wasn’t until Jan. 30, then there was another one abo...
The United States Postal Service has decided to move Casper’s processing and distribution center to Billings, Montana. The decision comes as part of the USPS’s Mail Processing Facility Review, which it says will help modernize and streamline postal services. The Casper location will be reworked into a local processing center. Local processing centers are limited to sorting “letters and flats to individual mail carrier routes in the regional area,” the USPS Office of the Inspector General’s website says. Since the postal service has also deci...
Woman arrested for aggravated assault after allegedly hitting motorcycle with her car GILLETTE (WNE) — A 63-year-old woman was arrested for aggravated assault after allegedly chasing a motorcycle throughout town and intentionally hitting it with her car Sunday afternoon. She and a 53-year-old man have been in an ongoing dispute over the ownership of two motorcycles, said Police Deputy Chief Brent Wasson. Sunday afternoon, the woman sat outside the man’s room at the Arrowhead Motel and waited for him to leave. The man left his motel room and...
Minor killed at Casper mall CASPER (WNE) — A minor is dead following a stabbing just before noon Sunday outside Eastridge Mall in Casper. “The two people most directly involved are in custody,” police lieutenant Scott Jones said, adding that additional individuals who may have been involved have been identified, questioned and may face “further action.” The victim, who is under the age of 16, will not be publicly identified until after an autopsy is performed Tuesday by the Natrona County Coroner. He died shortly after law enforceme...
