Episode Details

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming, for Monday, July 8th. I'm Wendy Corr, bringing you headlines from the Cowboy State Daily newsroom - brought to you by Wyoming Senior Olympics - on July 10th you can help support senior athletes in Wyoming by participating in the WyoGives day of giving!

The Yellowstone contract worker who injured a park ranger and was killed in a shootout on July 4 held a female hostage at gunpoint prior to his death.

The gunman, Samson Fussner, 28 of Florida, was an employee of Xanterra, a company offering hotel and other services within Yellowstone National Park.

Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland acquired a recording of a "be-on-the lookout" notice aired on the Park County dispatch system hours before the incident, and confirmed its authenticity with the Park County Sheriff's Office.

"What it alleges is that the shooter had taken a woman hostage and was threatening to go shoot up possibly a fireworks show… at some point, he also allegedly threatened suicide by cop, which is a phrase generally meaning you're going to engage or aggravate cops so that they kill you."

The investigation into the incident is ongoing, and under the jurisdiction of the FBI.

Read the full story HERE.

Secretary of State Chuck Gray is already drawing lines in the sand when it comes to the 2026 Wyoming governor's race.

At a political rally in Casper on Sunday, Gray said he's heard rumblings that Gov. Mark Gordon may try to run for a third consecutive term in 2026. But Cowboy State Daily's Leo Wolfson reports that if Gordon tries that, Gray has said that he won't certify his candidacy.

"This would be unusual, but not totally unprecedented in Wyoming history, as former governor Ed Herschler served three terms. But law has been put in place since that time, that makes it so that a governor cannot serve more than eight years in any 16 year period, which would have appeared to invalidate Gordon's effort."

The Wyoming Constitution does not definitively clarify whether a governor can run for a third term or more in Wyoming, but it also doesn't outlaw it. And Gordon has said nothing publicly on the topic so far.

Read the full story HERE.

Wyoming has its own money pit. It's called Anchor Dam, and it lies in the southwest corner of the Bighorn Basin.

The valley where the dam was built looks picture perfect for a dam - but Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that the dam has never held any of the water it was designed for.

"I think geologists were fooled by the fact that there was so much chuckstone sediment there that normally doesn't leak. But there were faultlines that made that a much more highly fractured rock than expected, it was also thinner in the location where they moved the dam to, they decided they had to move it further up, that turned out to be a little too thin, then underneath there's dolomite. That's a very soluble limestone."

Anchor Dam is often pointed to as an example of wasteful government spending. But Jean says rather, this project was an attempt to bring water to an arid part of the state that really needed it in order to prosper.

Read the full story HERE.

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