Continuing the Crook County News Since 1884
Continuing the Crook County News Since 1884
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GILLETTE - While coal is still king in Campbell County, oil and gas are still the second and third largest contributors to the county's economy, as far as taxable value goes. Across the state, natural gas production has been on a steady decline since 2009, while oil production has been more up and down. According to a report put out by the Wyoming State Geological Survey this month, the state's oil production has not yet surpassed its 2019 high, while nationwide oil production has surpassed...
GILLETTE – Uranium production looks to be back on the upswing after years of dormancy. A report recently completed by the Wyoming State Geological Survey found that Wyoming is primed to take advantage of the expected expansion of the domestic uranium industry. And Campbell County should be right in the thick of things. Wyoming leads the country in uranium mining and has the largest economic uranium ore reserves in the U.S. which are located across the Powder River Basin, Great Divide Basin, S...
CHEYENNE - In advance of the upcoming budget session, the Wyoming Legislature's wallet to appropriate funds for budget requests is expected to shrink by $13.3 million. An updated Consensus Revenue Estimating Group (CREG) report informed members of the Legislature's Joint Appropriations Committee they had $37.3 million in discretionary funds to spend this year. The CREG report is a forecast of the state's total revenue and assets. It includes estimates of Wyoming's mineral prices and production,...
Four Missouri hunters argued in court papers filed Friday that the owner of Elk Mountain Ranch perpetuated Wild West history by illegally trying to block others from thousands of acres of public land so he can use it exclusively. In documents submitted to the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, the hunters defended a federal Wyoming judge's decision that they did not trespass when they crossed through the airspace above Fred Eshelman's property to hunt public land in Carbon County. The...
Applications open for internship program for new farmers, ranchers CHEYENNE (WNE) — The GrowinG Internship Program is now accepting applications for 2024, according to a news release from University of Wyoming Extension. “The goal of this program is to provide interns with a hands-on internship at a working farm or ranch in Wyoming, in cooperation with state producer organizations and educational institutions,” said Kendra Faucett, program coordinator, in the release. The program provides a $5000 stipend for a 10-week work experience, which...
If Wyoming keeps throwing hay to help elk survive the winter, the state is creating a future where wapiti will be ravaged by chronic wasting disease and dramatically reduced in number. Hunter opportunities, likewise, will fall off significantly. At least that’s what the experts expect. Eight experts, to be exact, including three employees of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. Here are their projections for what’s coming to northwest Wyoming elk herds in two decades if state officials entrusted to manage the herds continue feeding while alw...
Man accused of strangling girlfriend, holding her against her will GILLETTE (WNE) — Officers forced their way into a home and later arrested a 37-year-old man who allegedly strangled his girlfriend and held her against her will Friday night. Police went to the 100 block of Bay Avenue for the report of a man and woman in a fight at about 11:15 p.m., Police Cpl. Dan Stroup said. When they arrived, they forced their way into the home after they heard a woman whimpering and what sounded like strangling noises. In the home, they spoke to the man a...
The Wyoming Department of Corrections’ transfer of 240 inmates to a private Mississippi prison due to a staffing shortage is a temporary fix to an ongoing problem, WDOC Director Dan Shannon says. “We don’t have an inmate housing issue,” Shannon told WyoFile. “We have a staffing problem.” Roughly 25% of the department’s uniformed staff positions are vacant, with most of those occurring at the Wyoming State Penitentiary in Rawlins and the Wyoming Women’s Center in Lusk. To account for that, the department has also transferred 40 inmates to the Li...
GILLETTE — Two separate investigations into deaths that have happened in Campbell County Sheriff’s Office custody have been forwarded to special prosecutors in neighboring counties to review for potential charges. At their regular meeting this week, Campbell County Commissioners approved sending the cases out of county to avoid potential conflicts of interest with the Campbell County Attorney’s Office. The Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation report on the death of Kenneth R. Durrah, who died while he was an inmate in the Campbell Count...
Children, mother injured in fiery crash near Ralston POWELL (WNE) — A woman and her two school-aged children suffered “extensive” injuries on Sunday evening after their vehicle crashed down an embankment and caught fire just east of Ralston. The 36-year-old woman, her nine-year-old son and her six-year-old daughter were all taken by ambulance to Powell Valley Hospital and then flown on to larger hospitals in neighboring states, said Trooper Kaycee Shroyer of the Wyoming Highway Patrol. Authorities were unsure of the occupants’ place of residen...
As summer turned to fall in Wyoming this year, red and gold political leaflets began to appear in mailboxes. At first glance, the oversized glossy postcards didn’t look much different than any other campaign material. They featured an official lawmaker headshot, his name, contact info and the word “conservative” several times over. The header “Legislative Update” was emblazoned on the front. Albeit early for a campaign season that won’t officially kick off until May — when the candidate filing period opens — the mailers appeared normal...
12-year-old arrested Thanksgiving Day bound over on drug charges GILLETTE (WNE) — A 75-year-old Gillette man arrested on drug charges Thanksgiving Day has been bound over to District Court. Dickie F. Sandy waived his preliminary hearing Nov. 30, binding him over to District Court for possession with intent to deliver meth and possession of meth and liquid meth, all felonies, as well as misdemeanor counts of cocaine and amphetamine pill possession, according to court documents. A Sheriff’s deputy, who recognized Sandy from his past work wit...
CASPER — Wyoming’s Black Butte Mine in January 2021 applied to add federal coal reserves at its Sweetwater County operations, which supplies the Jim Bridger Power Plant and a sizable share of baseload thermal energy throughout the West. It was a run-of-the-mill application that state regulators expected to be approved smoothly. Instead, it has become mired in a nightmarishly tedious approval process that’s brought state leaders to their wits’ end. Concerns at the Black Butte Mine are among a host of recent complaints coming out of coal country...
CASPER — In August, lawmakers on the Joint Education Committee shot down a controversial ban on the “instruction” of gender identity and sexual orientation in Wyoming’s K-3 classrooms. For some conservative lawmakers and parents, it was a blow. But at the same time that the panel rebuffed Wyoming’s own version of a “Don’t Say Gay” law modeled after Florida’s, it also advanced the rest of a proposal to expand “parental rights” in education. After some debate, that draft bill is now heading to the 2024 legislative session. The Joint Education C...
Man caught after getting stuck in snow pleads guilty to federal charges GILLETTE (WNE) — A Campbell County man who was arrested after driving his truck into a snowbank on the side of Highway 50 pleaded guilty to federal drug charges while another man involved in the drug bust has been sentenced to state prison. Jesse Ray Walthers, 39, pleaded guilty at his October change of plea hearing in U.S. District Court to a count of possession with intent to distribute meth and a count of possessing a firearm in furtherance of drug trafficking, a...
Governor Mark Gordon’s proposed budget for the next biennium is a conservative one, recognizing that the pandemic-related “funding tsunami” has receded but the circumstances that led to program cuts three years ago still exist. However, it also addresses immediate challenges faced by Wyomingites, such as expanding property tax relief to $20 million. “It is not easy to have to reduce programs, especially those providing services for our most vulnerable populations. And yet that is what circumstan...
Black 14 Philanthropy delivers 40,000 pounds of food to Laramie LARAMIE (WNE) — Cathedral Home and the University of Wyoming Food Share Pantry welcomed a delivery of 40,000 pounds of food and goods that traveled to Laramie last Tuesday. The delivery is made possible through a partnership between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Black 14’s “Mind, Body and Soul” initiative, which dispatches food to communities identified by active Black 14 players, according to a news release from the Cathedral Home. Mel Hamilton and John Gr...
BUFFALO — The state of Wyoming continues to recover from the pandemic, with unemployment trending down and the average monthly employment back to pre-pandemic levels. The preliminary numbers for the first-quarter average monthly employment this year was 3187 compared with 2978 in 2020 in Johnson County, according to data from the Wyoming Department of Workforce Services. The first quarter in Wyoming had 269,312 average monthly employees, a few hundred more employees than in the first quarter of 2020. That’s the first time the quarterly emp...
Information sought about missing Cody woman POWELL (WNE) — Family members of a missing Cody woman are asking anyone with information about her whereabouts to get in touch with law enforcement. Katie Ferguson was last seen on Oct. 10 in Arkansas, Ferguson’s mother, Mona Hartling, wrote in a Nov. 5 Facebook post. Ferguson had been traveling from Dothan, Alabama, to Cody with her ex-boyfriend and their two children, but “somewhere near Little Rock, Arkansas she disappeared,” Hartling wrote. Hartling shared few other details, explaining in a Saturd...
CHEYENNE — State lawmakers advanced a bill draft on Monday that aims to ban all hemp-products containing any psychoactive properties, including delta-8, without providing a distinction between “synthetic” and “naturally occurring” properties. Members of the Legislature’s Joint Judiciary Committee were divided in their opinions of the bill. Some members said the draft was a necessary step toward protecting youth, while others hesitated over the bill’s broad language. Committee co-Chairman Rep. Art Washut, R- Casper, said the bill was “not read...
CHEYENNE — Will potential voters be required to live in Wyoming for at least 30 days in order to vote? Do people need to register as a PAC if they spend more than $1000 in an election? After some heavy deliberation Thursday, members of the Legislature’s Joint Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee advanced bill drafts that could create significant changes to existing Wyoming election laws. 30-day residency requirement Legislators forwarded a bill to next year’s budget session that, as written, would add a 30-day resid...
Hightman drops Supreme Court appeal GILLETTE (WNE) — A Gillette man serving prison time for stealing from his fiancée – who remains missing – in the days and weeks after she was last seen, has backed out of his appeal filed with the Wyoming Supreme Court. Nathan J. Hightman, 40, filed his intent to appeal less than two weeks after receiving a three- to six-year prison sentence — along with fines, restitution and probation — in June. The motion to waive his appeal was filed last week, as Hightman decided not to move forward after weighing his op...
An analysis of wolverines in Wyoming and the rest of their Lower 48 range paints a grim picture of a low-density species that’s losing its habitat and facing an uncertain future. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service published a 100-page “species status assessment” for North American wolverines in late September. That document presages a final determination that federal wildlife managers must make by late November to satisfy a May 2022 federal court order. The assessment’s closing paragra...
Shooting complex task force finalizes pre-proposal survey SHERIDAN (WNE) — The State Shooting Complex Oversight Task Force completed work during its meeting Friday morning that will help it identify communities interested in being home to the complex. The task force was established by Senate File 169, which Gov. Mark Gordon signed into law March 2. The task force comprises several legislators and representatives from Wyoming Game and Fish Department, Wyoming State Parks and Cultural Resources, Wyoming Travel and Tourism, firearm and archery m...
BUFFALO — The Ellis family has welcomed hunters and anglers onto its remote mountain property off Hazleton Road for more than 50 years. “Give the Ellises a holler and get written permission and enjoy the land” was how it always worked, said Brendan Ellis, one of three siblings who sold the Ellis Sheep Co. Ranch to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department in November 2022. Now, the 3835-acre parcel is known as the Ellis Wildlife Habitat Management Area. It’s open to the public and managed by Game and Fish for wildlife conservation and recreat...
