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Stephenie Eastman woke up in the early hours of the morning on Sunday not feeling well. Not long after, she lost consciousness. Her husband Matt was trying to figure out what was wrong when their eight-year-old daughter Maizee made her way down the hall before collapsing. Kaden and Reese, the oldest daughter and son of the family, hurried upstairs after hearing the commotion. Kaden called Emergency Services, but while he was still on the phone he collapsed as well. This nightmarish situation...
For Sunshine Week - the nationwide celebration of public records and transparency - WyoFile checks in on a pillar of open government. The Wyoming State Archives, established in 1951, preserves and shares records documenting Wyoming's history and governmental operations. "We keep records as a means of transparency," State Archivist Sara Davis said. "We keep records for people to access those records." Journalists might use them to examine government officials' past decisions, like reporting that...
The Bureau of Reclamation suspended extra "drought response" releases from Flaming Gorge Reservoir Tuesday at the request of Wyoming and the other three Upper Colorado River Basin states. The reservoir, which straddles the Wyoming-Utah border, was tapped for an extra 500,000 acre-feet of water starting in May 2022 to help ensure that water levels downstream at Lake Powell don't drop low enough to threaten hydroelectric power generation at Glen Canyon Dam this year. An estimated 463,000...
Bruce Moats has been accused of never having met a document that shouldn't be public or a meeting that shouldn't be open. "Largely I plead guilty to that, though not totally," the grayed, wiry 66-year-old Cheyenne attorney said. Moats' mindset and bias toward transparency was born partly from his upbringing, he said. Growing up in a massive family, with 10 kids, decision-making was a collective effort. Functioning as a family wouldn't have worked, he said, "unless all of us [knew] what's going...
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...
CASPER — Lawmakers have tried for years to push through legislation to restrict crossover voting. This session, they finally succeeded. House Bill 103, which significantly restricts when people can change their party affiliation, cleared its last vote in the Legislature on Friday in a 19-11 vote. Though the bill has made it through the Legislature, Gov. Mark Gordon must still decide on it. The bill, sponsored by Wheatland Republican Rep. Jeremy Haroldson, would bar voters from changing their party affiliation after the first day of the c...
CHEYENNE—Wyoming residents with a first-time, nonviolent felony conviction can see their voting rights restored upon completion of their sentence. Lawmakers are now considering expanding the restoration process to other rights, including owning or using a firearm, serving on a jury and holding public office. Senate File 120 – Restoration of civil rights received the approval of its original chamber before the House Judiciary Committee voted unanimously to support the bill on Friday. “This is a bill that’s actually been on my heart and on my m...
She likes to journal. She took care of her little sister through foster care. She loves football. She just wanted to go on a trip with her friend. Abbi. Sheila. Jocelyn. Lela. These are the names of real women with full, complicated, vibrant lives. They are also the names of women who became part of the ongoing epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW). Their stories are told in the short film "Who She Is," which had a special screening at the Broadway Theater in Rock Springs...
CASPER — The Legislature wrapped up its fourth week in session on Friday, finishing up final budget amendments despite a power outage at the Wyoming Capitol. The end of the week marked the halfway point of the session. Friday was also the last day for bills to make it out of committee, meaning that many bills died because there simply wasn’t enough time to get to them. Here are some highlights of where bills stand at the session’s halfway mark. Elections A bill to bring in ranked-choice voting options for nonpartisan municipal races died pretty...
The Green River Star was recognized for excellence in two categories during the Wyoming Press Association’s 124th winter convention in Cheyenne last weekend. Editor Hannah Romero received two Pacemaker Awards. She received second place in the Column Writing category for a package of three columns sharing personal reflections on the holidays of Veterans Day, Christmas, and New Year’s. The contest judges especially took note of the New Year’s column, commenting: “Pick a word for the new year... Well, that’s different. Enough with the weight-loss...
POWELL -Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom has been resurrected and the show's producers have picked two area ranches' black-footed ferret conservation efforts to highlight in the first season. When Allen and Kristine Hogg, owners of the historic Lazy BV Ranch, got a call from the iconic wildlife show's representatives last fall, they were excited and invited the team to the ranch. The show, which premiered 60 years ago this month, was a favorite as the two grew up. "We weren't allowed to watch TV...
Rep. John Winter (R-Thermopolis) rode horseback into the Red Desert to see some new country last year. An outfitter and rancher, Winter was accompanied by a rangeland specialist and members of the Rock Springs Grazing Association. During the outing he learned a good bit about a growing natural resource concern in that corner of the state: Wild horses. "I'll tell you, there are just too many horses," Winter said. "They're affecting sage grouse and other wildlife, and it's ruining the range." Newl...
CHEYENNE - At first, chess is a game of skill and structure, full of calculated moves and rules. But then it becomes an art. "Chess teaches your mind a structured way of thinking. It's great for math, and other subjects where you have to take things step-by-step," said Dan Joelson, a one-time Wyoming state chess champion at age 17. "But the better you become at chess, the less it becomes like that," he said. "The more it becomes-well, to me, it approaches art. You have to think outside the...
CHEYENNE—An “unprecedented” shortage of Wyoming game wardens is adding to angst about a legislative proposal that would attract coyote hunters onto public land at night, adding to the thinned corps’ around-the-clock duties. “Our folks are feeling the pressure of their significant workload that is not shared by as many people as it should be right now,” Wyoming Game and Fish Department Chief Warden Rick King testified last week. “Our folks work really hard and they’ll do the best they can, but that’s really one of the things I worry about: The...
CODY - "You picked the hardest horse," Tabitha was told more than once. Tabitha, a client in the Cedar Mountain Center's substance abuse recovery program, didn't care. There were plenty of horses that were quiet and still and gentle. Pebbles wasn't like that - "She had a high, intense energy," Tabitha said. For better or worse, Tabitha saw a little bit of herself in Pebbles, and she was drawn to the animal. "I watched how the other clients interacted with the horses, and nobody was interacting...
CASPER -Experts have identified the remains of a Sheridan sailor who died in the attack on Pearl Harbor during World War II. Herman Schmidt, 28, was a Navy Gunner's Mate Third Class aboard the USS Oklahoma, a Nevada-class battleship. Schmidt's remains were officially identified about two years ago, though the Department of Defense held off on announcing the news until his family could be fully briefed, according to a Monday press release from the department's Defense POW/ MIA Accounting Agency....
GRAND TETON NATIONAL PARK— It wasn’t AJ Duda’s first brush with angling for goldfish and other former aquarium dwellers within view of the Teton Range. The Pine Island, Florida teen, visiting Jackson Hole with family, had scouted this unlikely microfishing honey hole during a prior vacation. This time he came prepared. Armed with a spinning rod rig, line tipped with flies and small jigs, Duda worked the geothermally heated water coursing out of Kelly Warm Springs as it left the small pond....
Pointing to a three-year delay in implementing Wyoming’s big game migration protection policy, some members of the Wyoming Wildlife Taskforce encouraged wildlife managers to act during the group’s final meeting. “We’re missing opportunities,” Sen. Larry Hicks (R-Baggs) said at the Dec. 14 meeting in Cheyenne. “It frustrates me to no end to sit here and say, ‘Well, we have to have the best-available science.’ We can’t afford the best-available science for every single wildlife population [or] corridor in the state of Wyoming. If that becomes t...
CHEYENNE - Ray Montoya passed by what he thought was an abandoned building when he walked to his grandmother's south Cheyenne house after school each day. One afternoon, the 7-year-old Montoya peeked his head into the building and saw boys hitting punching bags. "I asked Clyde Jacoby what was going on, and he told me it was a boxing club and asked me if I wanted to join," Montoya said. "It looked pretty cool, so I ran home and asked my mom if I could do it. "... Boxing was never something I had...
CASPER — Wyoming’s grizzly bears — and the humans who manage them — have had a standout year. Conflicts, the official designation for confrontations between bears and people or their property, were the lowest the state has recorded since 2014. And the six bears relocated in 2022 represent the least since the ‘90s, said Dan Thompson, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department’s large carnivore supervisor. “It felt all summer, and into the fall, like a low-conflict year,” Thompson said. But the agency was reluctant to declare the year a success too e...
While facing challenges in 2022, Green River and Sweetwater County showed resilience and demonstrated how the community continually comes together to help one another and keep growing stronger. While this year wasn't unmarked by tragedy and difficulties, the majority of the news contained stories of heartwarming acts of kindness, inspiring achievements, and exciting developments. GR Strong Perhaps this year's biggest news story was also the most tragic, when Green River grieved together over a...
CASPER — For the first time in at least a century, Wyoming recorded more deaths than births over a year-long period, according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau. The state reported 6,679 deaths between July 2021 and July 2022 compared to 6,189 births. In a census data table dating back to 1922 compiled by the Wyoming Department of Health, it’s the only year where deaths overtook births. According to a report published by the Wyoming Economic Analysis Division, 23 other states also recorded more deaths than births from July 2021 to Jul...
POWELL -At the Rock Creek Ranch in the Clarks Fork Canyon, Leroy, the nearly 2-ton ranch "mooscot," still has free run of the iconic ranch land. And now he has developed a taste for Christmas. "He loves Christmas as long as he's eating," said ranch manager Jerry Hill of the people-loving steer. Recently Leroy accompanied the Hill family on a trip to the woods on the ranch to pick out the ranch family's Christmas tree. They found the perfect evergreen. Hill knew it was the right one because...
Lower water levels at Flaming Gorge Reservoir, which have left several boat ramps and docks high and dry, are likely the “new normal” for years to come, according to federal officials. The Bureau of Reclamation’s most recent water-balancing adjustment under the Colorado River drought contingency plan, announced this month, maintains current plans at Flaming Gorge Reservoir on the Wyoming-Utah border. Those plans entail releasing an extra 500,000 acre-feet of water through April as per actions implemented in May. However, Flaming Gorge — alo...
Union Pacific Railway, one of two railroad companies that haul coal out of the Powder River Basin, is under fire for curtailing shipments to customers, including power plants. The failure to meet customer coal demand has resulted in less coal-fired power generation and higher costs to ratepayers for natural gas purchases to replace coal power. Coal-fueled power plants nationwide have responded by "curtailing operations for parts of the year in order to conserve fuel for peak seasons," National...
