Wyoming News Briefs

City recognizes Cheyenne man for life-saving efforts during blizzard

CHEYENNE (WNE) – Cheyenne city officials on Monday recognized a man for saving the life of another man who could have frozen to death during the city’s recent blizzard.

During a short ceremony and with his family looking on, Miles Quisenberry received a certificate for his March 14 actions from Mayor Marian Orr and Police Chief Brian Kozak.

Quisenberry had gotten up early that day. The wind howling, and it was very cold. According to city officials, Quisenberry left his house on O’Neil Street around 6 a.m. and drove south, but instead of taking his usual route to work, he made a left turn on West Seventh Street.

He was coming to a stop at an intersection when he saw a flash in the right rearview mirror.

“He shined a light thinking that I didn’t see him,” Quisenberry told Orr. “I saw him in my passenger mirror. I went back, and that’s when I saw him in one of the snow drifts.”

Quisenberry went to the man’s side, where he discovered the man was elderly, under-dressed for the conditions and in snow drifts about three feet high around him.

Quisenberry helped the man stand and made several attempts to get him into his truck and out of the weather, but the elderly man said he could not feel his feet.

After placing the man in his truck, Quisenberry found out where he lived and backed up to the house.

Company wants to bring hail mitigation techniques to Cheyenne

CHEYENNE (WNE) —  A North Dakota company wants to bring its cloud-seeding technology to Cheyenne in an effort to mitigate hail damage from storms.

According to Cheyenne Mayor Marian Orr, Fargo-based Weather Modification Inc. seeks to base aircraft and storm teams at Cheyenne Regional Airport, starting with the 2020 spring storm season. The company hopes to use seeding techniques to decrease the size of hailstones in order to reduce damage to crops and property.

The company currently conducts cloud-seeding operations over the Snowy Range for the city’s Board of Public Utilities to order to increase snowpack.

A representative from Weather Modification was not immediately available for comment Friday. But according to the company’s website, cloud seeding, also known as weather modification, is the use of seeding crystals that enhance a cloud’s ability to produce precipitation.

In this case, crews would use aerial glaciogenic seeding techniques to induce excess supercooled liquid water that could potentially become hail to freeze into larger numbers of small particles, rather than much smaller numbers of large particles.

“It damages crops out in the county,” Orr said. “Even in the city, we have significant damage with our police cars and fleet - and everyone’s roofs.”

Orr said a team from Weather Modification, as well as representatives from Calgary, Alberta, Canada, where the company conducts hail mitigation activities, are scheduled to make a presentation in Cheyenne during the first week of April.

The program would cost around $1.6 million a season, but Orr said plans do not call for the city to bear the cost alone.

Barrasso, Enzi back wolf de-listing bill

JACKSON (WNE) — Wyoming’s Congressional delegates are signing onto a bill to delist wolves in other states to fend off future lawsuits over wolves in this state.

Although Wyoming already manages wolves inside the state, Sens. John Barrasso and Mike Enzi have both signed on to a bipartisan bill introduced last week with a primary purpose of delisting wolves in the Great Lakes states of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan.

Wyoming’s inclusion in the bill is solely to ensure that the 2012 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service delisting rule for wolves in Wyoming “shall not be subject to judicial review,” the bill states.

“Wyoming has successfully recovered the gray wolf and demonstrated its ability to manage the species,” Mike Danylak, a spokesman for Barrasso, said in an email. “The legislation creates certainty for the people of Wyoming by prohibiting further judicial review of the delisting determination.”

Wolf management in Montana and Idaho is already exempted from litigation because of a 2011 rider that then-Montana Sen. Jon Tester tacked onto a congressional spending bill. The Wyoming delegation has tried repeatedly to follow suit.

An appeals court decision in early 2017 returned the approximately 300 wolves that call the Equality State home to Wyoming Game and Fish Department jurisdiction. Canis lupus was in state control from 2012 to 2014, and then for three years were the only wolves in the Northern Rockies that were federally protected.

Man arrested for allegedly selling drugs outside Walmart

ROCK SPRINGS (WNE) — A Salt Lake City man remains locked up at the Sweetwater County Detention Center where he faces multiple drug-related charges.

Around 12:19 a.m. March 21, Rock Springs police officers responded to a suspicious drug call at Walmart, 201 Gateway Blvd. Officers made contact with David Thompson, 33, who was allegedly attempting to sell drugs outside of the store and had his stepdaughter with him.

Thompson’s bag contained an assortment of illegal narcotics, according to a RSPD press release.

Thompson was arrested and charged with alleged child endangerment; possession of controlled substances, methamphetamine, heroin and marijuana, with intent to deliver; felony possession of controlled substances, meth, heroin and marijuana, more than 3 ounces; two counts of manufacture or delivery of a controlled substance in pill form, more than 3 grams; and two counts of possession of a controlled substance in pill or capsule form, more than 3 grams. Thompson was also given three citations for alleged possession of a controlled substance in pill or capsule form, less than 3 grams.

The case is still under investigation.

Woman facing sexual assault charge for group home incident

EVANSTON (WNE) — An Evanston woman who was employed as a daily living assistant for Pioneer Counseling has been charged with first-degree sexual assault for an alleged incident that occurred in late January. Kortney Thompson allegedly engaged in sexual behavior with a client at the group home where she was employed when the client was physically helpless, and Thompson should have known the client was helpless and had not consented. 

According to an affidavit filed in support of arrest, Evanston Police Department Detective Scott Faddis received a call from a manager with Pioneer Counseling regarding a sexual assault that occurred on Jan. 27. On that date, Thompson was working at a group home overseeing the care of six residents. 

According to court documents, at approximately 11 a.m., Thompson drove some clients to a liquor store and purchased several small bottles of alcohol. She allegedly provided four of the six residents with alcohol and smoked marijuana with two of the residents. 

Later she allegedly purchased more alcohol before returning to the group home and again providing alcohol to the residents. When a coworker showed up to take over for Thompson, that coworker found several of the clients were intoxicated. The coworker called Pioneer Counseling’s residential manager and reported the situation, after which the manager went to the group home and conducted breathalyzer tests on the clients. 

At that time, one of the clients reported that a few hours before, he had passed out in his bedroom and awoke to find Thompson undoing his pants and engaging in sexual contact with him, even though he claimed he repeatedly told her to stop. When interviewed, two other group home residents reported they had witnessed Thompson engaging in a sexual act with the man.