Episode Details

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming, for Friday, December 20th. I'm Wendy Corr, bringing you headlines from the Cowboy State Daily newsroom - brought to you by the Cowboy State Daily Morning Show with Jake. From 6 a.m. to 10 a.m., Monday through Friday, Cowboy State Daily's Jake Nichols takes you deeper into the stories that matter - and keeps up with the news, weather and sports in your part of Wyoming. Just tune into Cowboy State Daily Dot Com and join the conversation.

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An explosive Continuing Resolution proposal from President-elect Donald Trump and Elon Musk, which would have kept the government running, failed the House vote Thursday night 235-174 - that includes 38 Republicans in the majority that voted against it.

Cowboy State Daily's Leo Wolfson reports that Congress will have until the end of Friday night to avoid a government shutdown before funding lapses.

"US Representative Harriet Hageman did vote in support of it. She said she spoke to Trump about it personally, and she thought it was a good deal for Wyoming farmers and allows the government to kind of continue as is, by extending the debt ceiling… we have a fair, a rather large amount of federal employees that live here in the state, most of these employees would be furloughed in the event that a government shutdown happened, we saw this exact thing take place between late 2018 and early 2019 in Trump's first term, and that was the longest shutdown in US history, of 35 days."

A bipartisan compromise had been reached between Democrats and Republicans before Musk and Trump torpedoed it. Musk spent most of the day Thursday trashing the measure on social media and threatening the political future of any Republican who dared to support it.

Read the full story HERE.

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Delaying the demolition of the 115-year-old LaPrele Dam near Douglas beyond April 1 would be a recipe for disaster. That's what state engineers told Wyoming officials Thursday, noting that the dam is actively failing.

Wyoming State Engineer Brandon Gebhart issued an order to breach the dam Nov. 1, according to outdoors reporter Mark Heinz. He said that he made that decision because there are no other options.

"One lady who's a legislator... she just came as a private citizen, as a rancher in Douglas, she said, Look, you know, we've depended on this dam for generations, for, you know, for irrigation, for flood control. Is there any way we can extend the life of this dam? … And the engineers who who are present… they told the committee, look, it's just, it's, it's beyond gone. We, we've gotta get rid of this thing. We gotta do it soon, or it's gonna fail."

The dam was built in 1909, intended to have a 50-year lifespan. Engineers say it was evident that the dam had reached the end of its "useful life" in 2019.

Read the full story HERE.

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There's something familiar missing by the railroad tracks between Cheyenne and Laramie, near the Wyoming-Colorado state line, after an old Union Pacific water tower that had been there for about 80 years was demolished without warning.

Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that for decades, the 50-foot-tall structure towered over the railroad station near Harr