Continuing the Crook County News Since 1884
Continuing the Crook County News Since 1884
Sorted by date Results 701 - 725 of 734
Cheney moves again to protect Devils Tower name WORLAND (WNE) — Wyoming U.S. Representative Liz Cheney announced on Monday a plan to reintroduce legislation to codify the name of Devils Tower National Monument. The move would follow several previous attempts to set the name in stone. In 2014, a proposal was submitted to the Unites States Board on Geographic Names on behalf of the Lakota tribe to change the name of the monument to “Bear Lodge”, in accordance with Native American tradition. Prior to 1901, the unique feature was referred to as “B...
CHEYENNE — In the throes of the longest government shutdown in the history of the United States, Sen. Charlie Scott, R-Casper, was sitting down for breakfast and reading a newspaper. Workers for the U.S. Department of the Interior had been furloughed, and in the national parks of the West, things were beginning to go into disarray. In Yellowstone, roads went uncleared and in Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, trash began piling up, with those responsible for cleaning it nowhere to be found. Fortunately, it was wintertime and v...
EVANSTON — The Uinta County Herald was met with confusion when asking Wyoming Sen. Wendy Schuler, R-Evanston, why she co-sponsored a bill last week that would allow municipalities to be their own watchdogs and publish public notices on their own websites. “If I’m listed on there, it’s totally in error,” Schuler said Monday morning. The freshman legislator seemed baffled, and said she absolutely supports newspapers and believes local governments should continue to be required to publish public notices in local newspapers. The Herald reached o...
CHEYENNE — Gov. Mark Gordon and State Auditor Kristi Racines’ working group to make Wyoming a more transparent state met Friday to chart a path forward. But its members cautioned it likely would be a long process. The Financial Transparency Working Group that Gordon and Racines announced in the final months of last year’s campaign has tasked itself with working to solve multiple issues related to access to public documents and financial information. Friday’s meeting was mostly laying out the challenges the group would need to address, and pla...
EVANSTON — The Uinta County School District No. 1 Board of Trustees held the first of two public hearings on proposed rule CKA, the School Safety and Security Rule, which would allow district employees to apply for approval to carry concealed firearms on district property, on Tuesday, Jan. 15. The district chose to pursue adopting the rule after the policy on concealed carry adopted last year was ruled null and void following a lawsuit filed afterward. When the hearing opened, trustee Dave Bennett moved to limit remarks to ten minutes per p...
Cam-Plex wins $1.5 million grant for upgrades GILLETTE (WNE) — After being turned down twice by the Wyoming Business Council board and staff, Cam-plex has secured a $1.5 million grant to help upgrade the Heritage Center and Energy Hall from the State Loan and Investment Board. Cam-plex had requested $3 million to cover half of the expenses for a $6 million renovation of the two buildings. After nearly an hour of discussion at the SLIB meeting Thursday morning, a compromise was made to OK half the request and for the Business Council to work w...
JACKSON — Alfalfa-spewing elk-feeding trucks and the federal employees who drive them will be deemed “essential” and thus unaffected by the partial government shutdown, but so far the herds are OK without the help. National Elk Refuge Biologist Eric Cole has been allowed to work part time to determine when feeding is needed, and he has found that grasses are still plentiful and accessible for the approximately 2,800 elk congregated on the refuge’s south end. “What we’ve had going for us is we haven’t had any significant thaw-freeze c...
CASPER — Wyoming lawmakers will try to set aside $250,000 to sue Washington state over coal, bypassing Wyoming’s attorney general and hiring a private lawyer, via a bill introduced Thursday in Cheyenne that largely mimics a failed measure last year. Washington has effectively blocked a coal export terminal development by denying a state water permit. Wyoming — which wants an export terminal on the West Coast to get its coal to Asian buyers — has long maintained that Washington’s block is political: that the powers that be in Washingto...
CHEYENNE — Two Democratic lawmakers hope to launch meaningful income tax discussions in Wyoming with the introduction of new legislation. House Bill 233, introduced Thursday, would impose a 4 percent tax on residents and corporations earning more than $200,000 in taxable income a year. Sponsors of the bill say the tax would raise an additional $208 million annually for the Wyoming Department of Education's School Foundation Program, which oversees public school funding. This would undoubtedly solve the state's education funding woes, said S...
Party switching bill killed a second time in committee CHEYENNE (WNE) — A closed primary bill that failed Tuesday once again couldn't win enough support for it to move on to the Senate floor Thursday. But a similar measure in the House and a newly filed bill in the Senate mean the issue of closed primaries is still alive this session. Senate File 32 had failed in the Senate Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee on a 3-2 vote Tuesday. But Chairman Bill Landen, R-Casper, tried to bring it back for potential r...
Suicide is the tenth leading cause of death in the United States, and it is the eighth leading cause of death in Wyoming. On Thursday, January 17, 2019, advocates from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, the largest suicide prevention organization in the United States, will arrive at the state capitol to meet with lawmakers to encourage them to support Mental Health Parity legislation and to make suicide prevention and mental health care a top priority for the year. “After providing hundreds of people across the state of Wyoming w...
Former teacher gets prison for sex abuse CHEYENNE (WNE) — A former Cheyenne junior high school math teacher was sentenced Friday to at least 20 years in prison for sexually abusing his former student, whom he later adopted. Joseph Meza’s friends, family and former students crowded the Laramie County courtroom, several of whom read statements urging the judge to understand his positive impact on their lives. On the prosecution’s side, the victim sat with her family and friends waiting to hear the sentence. Through a victim’s services coordin...
Bill would set out-of-state tuition minimums LARAMIE (WNE) — For the second consecutive year, Rep. Bill Henderson, R-Cheyenne, is bringing a bill to the legislative session that would statutorily prescribe a difference between the tuition rates paid by in-state and out-of-state students at the University of Wyoming. Henderson brought a bill last year that would have required both UW and Wyoming’s community colleges to charge out-of-state students at least 10 percent more than they charge in-state students. That bill failed its introductory vot...
CHEYENNE — The Wyoming Legislature will take another crack at changing the requirements for the Hathaway Scholarship for high school students looking to focus on career and technical education. The bill, Senate File 43, would change requirements for students to receive the two highest levels of funding through the Hathaway Scholarship. Instead of requiring two sequential years of a foreign language class, the bill would allow students in ninth through 12th grades to take three years of one elective: career and vocational education, p...
CASPER — Over the next 40 days, members of the Wyoming Legislature will consider between 400 and 500 bills. Some of those bills will have been talked about, poked and prodded for months, originating in committees comprised of seasoned lawmakers with serious policy chops and the institutional knowledge to understand how to dress a piece of legislation — as the popular saying goes — to get it ready for “prime time.” Other pieces of legislation might be partisan-driven, or of dubious legal merit, and may have no hope for passage. Others might attr...
CHEYENNE - John Barrett will likely spend the rest of his life in prison for killing and abusing his ex-girlfriend’s two-year-old son. In a Laramie County courtroom Friday, there was a lot of crying and anger, and at least some reckoning over the impact of what he had done. Barrett’s pleas to second-degree murder and aggravated child abuse effectively ended questions over whether prosecutors would seek the death penalty in his case. As part of that plea, prosecutors and defense attorneys jointly recommended Barrett spend 50 years to life in pri...
LARAMIE — The 27-year-old who set fire to the Albany County Republican Party headquarters in September agreed to a plea agreement that will put him in prison for at least 44 months. In Judge Scott Skavdahl’s Casper court, Kellen Sorber pleaded guilty Wednesday. He will be sentenced March 15. Sorber was identified as the main suspect for the Sept. 6 fire at Laramie’s 214 Ivinson Ave. building after ATF agents identified his DNA at the scene. The ATF investigated the case and began questioning him at the place he worked — the Speedgoat Café. S...
All Wyoming Brands due in the 2019 brand renewal period are now considered expired and will enter a grace period for renewal. A second notice will be sent to all persons who did not get their brands renewed in the 60 days preceding the expiration date of your brand. You will have until March 1, 2019 to renew your Wyoming Livestock Brand. Any brands that were due for renewal in 2019 will be considered delinquent after March 1, 2019. A delinquent fee will be added to the current renewal fee on any brands renewed from March 1 to Dec. 31, 2019. Bra...
CASPER — Lawmakers will consider a bill that would increase taxes for all property in Wyoming and send tens of millions of dollars to public schools here over the coming years. The education-funding deficit has been a dominant topic for Wyoming lawmakers for years, as the recent bust created a deficit that was projected to top $1.8 billion by the beginning of the next decade. Two years later, the situation has stabilized somewhat, but the core problem remains unsolved, off cials said. This measure, which would add three mill levies to all p...
CHEYENNE - Wyoming's new governor, Mark Gordon, was sworn into office Monday, officially becoming the state's 33rd leader. The newly minted chief executive used his inaugural address at the Cheyenne Civic Center to both praise his home state and outline his vision for it under his leadership. Speaking behind a surprise gift made by his son, Spencer Young, a handmade wooden podium with artwork of the Capitol done by childhood friend Jim Clayton, Gordon focused on the potential of Wyoming and its...
NEWCASTLE — The small claims court in Newcastle upheld the public’s right to inspect public documents without charge when the court ruled in favor of Wayne Chittim on Dec. 5. According to attorney William Curley, who represented Chittim, his client was taken to court by the Osage Water District and Osage Improvement and Service District over costs associated with a public records request made by Chittim. In the written request dated Oct. 17, 2016, Chittim specifically asked to inspect the 2015 and 2016 accounting books for the two districts. “I...
CHEYENNE — Companies operating bar games that resemble video slot machines are challenging the Wyoming attorney general’s position that they’re enabling illegal gambling. In a lawsuit filed recently in Natrona County District Court, a group of vendors called Wyoming Skills LLC says special features in their games make winning a question of skill, exempting them from state gambling laws. The games from North Carolina-based Banilla Corp. mimic casino-style slot machines that are illegal in Wyoming. But the vendors say skill comes in when the t...
CASPER — The New York Stock Exchange has warned one of Wyoming’s largest coal producers that it could be delisted, following consistent weak performance of the company’s stock. Gillette-based Cloud Peak Energy’s common stock has been trading below $1 per share at the close of the market for 30 days in a row, prompting a notification on Wednesday that the company had six months to remedy its low stock price or it would be delisted from the NYSE. Cloud Peak operates the Antelope and Cordero Rojo mines in Wyoming and the Spring Creek mine in Mont...
CHEYENNE — Wyoming has consistently ranked as one of the most dangerous states for workers. And in 2017, Wyoming once again more than doubled the national average for workplace fatalities. According to the Wyoming Department of Workforce Services, the state saw a fatality rate of 7.7 workers per 100,000 full-time-equivalent employees in 2017. That’s the third highest in the country and significantly higher than the national rate of 3.5 per 100,000. Only Alaska and North Dakota ranked higher last year. Last year’s numbers weren’t an anomaly...
Man sentenced to prison in fatal DUI wreck RIVERTON (WNE) — Winter Hawk Goodman, who killed three people while driving drunk in 2016, was sentenced Friday to 12 years imprisonment. After a four-day federal trial, Goodman was in convicted in federal court of involuntary homicide in October for the deaths of Lyle Black, Sarah Black and William C’Bearing. In a departure from the norm, the federal trial took place in Lander. Typically such trials are conducted either in Casper or Cheyenne. At Goodman’s sentencing, the Blacks’ three daughte...
