Episode Details

When Cowboy State Daily meteorologist Don Day isn't trying to predict the Wyoming's weird weather, he's battling the elements internationally.

Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi spoke to Wyoming's weather guy about his most recent excursion, which saw him helping other Americans soar as long and as far as they could across continental Europe in a balloon.

"He's done the Gordon Bennett Cup before, which is the oldest aviation race in the world, but this was the first time he went international for it. So they launched from a town in Germany, and his job was to stay on the ground, giving weather updates to three USA teams that were in the air. And the goal of the race isn't necessarily to reach a finishing point. It's to get as far as you can while staying airborne as long as you can… it's just one of the many things that Don day does when he's not giving us Wyoming weather forecasts."

Day has been involved in ballooning — gas and hot air — for over 25 years. He's a recognized international expert.

Read the full story HERE.

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It took six years of wrangling with the courts and lobbying the Wyoming Legislature, but finally a new one-room schoolhouse has opened in an area two hours north of Laramie so remote ranchers call it "Little Siberia."

Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz visited the rural school at its grand opening last week.

"The reason they wanted a schoolhouse out there for their kids and other ranch kids is it's on a good day, it can take an hour and a half just to get back to Rock River, and that's on a good day when there's no snow or rain or anything like that… they they fought and fought and fought for for over six years. Claire McFarland, our courts reporter, reported in January that the Wyoming Supreme Court turned them down for the proposal, get this school. But they kept going. They got some legislators behind them, and they got a budget item attack attached to the 2024 budget. And so it was a go."

It's Albany County School District No. 1's most remote school, a modern iteration of the one-room schoolhouse that was the hallmark of American and Western education until just a few decades ago.

Read the full story HERE.

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Along with hundreds of firefighters on the ground, Wyoming's huge summer wildfires have been attacked from the air.

Cowboy State Daily's Dale Killingbeck interviewed a pilot who drops water and slurry bombs like they're at war with the fires.

"At the Natrona County International Airport, this past week, we were able to talk to a pilot who actually flies one of these air tanker jets. It's actually a jet that he uses to dump fire retardant on forest fires all across the region… he told me that, you know, they always look for the heel of the fire, and then they look along the flanks and and if there's a structure on one side of the flanks that's going to be where they're going to put it down, that's if they're the first ones to the fire. Otherwise they're, they're following direction from controllers on the ground or another controller in the air."

Challenges for pilots who fly fire missions include the terrain, smoke, obstacles such as power lines, towers or anything that could represent an impact threat as they swoop in to dump fire retardant from just 150 feet while flying at 160 mph.