Sorted by date Results 1 - 8 of 8
Rekindling a still-smouldering debate from last year’s legislative session, Laramie Republican Rep. Ocean Andrew on Thursday brought House Bill 199, “Wyoming Freedom Scholarship Act” — a measure that would bring universal school vouchers to Wyoming. Lawmakers created a new program in 2024 to give income-qualified families up to $6,000 in state funds to offset private school fees, pre-K tuition or homeschool education costs. School choice advocates wanted to extend the program to all Wyomingites with school-aged kids, but legislative comprom...
Facedown in the dirt, with bear bites on his back and rump, Dennis Van Denbos wondered how this would end. It wasn't looking good. "When I [got] that third bite ... I thought, 'They are just going to eat me,'" he said. "It wasn't a fearful thing, it was just a recognition that this was going to happen." The year was 2007, and Van Denbos had taken an early walk in Grand Teton National Park that had turned perilous after he happened upon a sow grizzly and her three cubs as they fed on an elk...
Yellowstone National Park has closed the Biscuit Basin area for the season after a hydrothermal explosion strewed boiling water and rocks skyward Tuesday morning, destroying a section of boardwalk and spurring frightened tourists to flee. No one was injured in the blast at Black Diamond Pool, which was caused by hydrothermal conditions and not volcanic activity, the park said Wednesday. Geologists are monitoring conditions, mapping the debris field and sampling water to assess any changes in the...
Wyoming's state tourism agency has suspended social media posts and paid ads relating to wildlife amid the worldwide furor over the wolf abuse and killing in Daniel. The Wyoming Office of Tourism, also known as Travel Wyoming, alerted unknown recipients to the social media suspension in a letter obtained by WyoFile. "I know you are all well aware of the public criticism over the wolf abuse by a resident," read the email, which came from the office's Senior Communication Manager Piper Singer...
There’s never been enough doctors in rural Wyoming, where I live, but a shortage of obstetricians is now increasing the risks for pregnant women across the state—and the nation. In the last decade in Wyoming, three hospitals have closed their maternity ward. That includes Rawlins, where pregnant moms now have to risk travel on Interstate 80—notorious for weather-related closures—to deliver their babies in Laramie, 100 miles away. But Wyoming isn’t the only state to face inadequate maternal care: Less than half of the rural hospitals in Americ...
Nesting falcons, development concerns and loud local opposition bedeviled a proposal to build a via ferrata in Sinks Canyon State Park. But it was an engineering cost that finally spelled its end, according to Wyoming State Parks. State Parks recently announced it is pulling the plug on the effort to build a via ferrata - a series of cables and rungs strung up a cliff that offers users protection while climbing. After spending considerable time determining a site that most people found...
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...
RED DESERT – Sitting in the verdant shade of an aspen grove on Steamboat Mountain — which rises out of the Red Desert in southern Wyoming — Jason Baldes talks about buffalo. As the buffalo reintroduction coordinator for the Eastern Shoshone Tribe, this is not unusual for Baldes, who’s wearing a shirt that reads “Make Buffalo Great Again.” But on this day in early June, he isn’t focused solely on the herd he helped reintroduce to the Wind River Indian Reservation. Instead, he imagines the hulking creatures that once roamed this mountain being pu...
