Episode Details

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Friday, August 29th. I'm Wendy Corr, bringing you headlines from the Cowboy State Daily newsroom - Brought to you by the Converse County Tourism Promotion Board! Discover Douglas and Glenrock in beautiful Wyoming, where rich history, outdoor adventure, and welcoming communities await. Feel the Energy of Converse County at www.ConverseCountyTourism.com.

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Two proposed bills and one proposed resolution to either stall out or ban cloud seeding and other atmospheric manipulations were topics of heated discussion at the legislature's Agriculture Committee on Thursday.

Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that, during a four hour conversation about the topic, Representative Mike Schmidt, an outspoken critic of cloud seeding, presented the three measures.

"He handed those out to the committee, but they weren't in the advanced materials available to the public. I was able to get the gist - what the two proposed bills, the first two were ones a moratorium, a 10 year moratorium on cloud seeding to get some baseline water research. The other one is a ban on other kinds of atmospheric injections and radiations. And then the third one is this proposed resolution that Schmidt said he wanted to send to Congress, but no one read it aloud or described it, and it wasn't part of the public meeting materials that were available beforehand."

The topics elicited strong emotions and concern from people who are saying that the skies just don't look right. The committee, by a show of hands vote, asked its staffers to formulate the three measures.

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The body of a hiker who went missing in late July has been found and recovered from the Bighorn Mountains.

The Big Horn County Sheriff's Office confirmed that the body of 38-year-old Grant Gardner was found on the northern route of Cloud Peak on Tuesday evening. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that Gardner's body was found by a couple of out of state hikers who happened to be at just the right spot at the right time.

"A team of experienced climbers from North Carolina had summited Cloud Peak on Tuesday, and as they were making camp, they spotted a glimmer from what turned out to be a piece of fabric on Grant Gardner's backpack. They immediately notified the Big Horn County Sheriff's Office, and they sent their search and rescue team up there… it had been obscured from view in several spots because they'd covered that area multiple times in multiple ways during their 20 day search effort earlier this month, but it was just a difficult thing to spot, and the Big Horn County Coroner is doing an investigation right now to determine what happened to Gardner, but at the very least, this will provide some closure to his family."

Gardner had summited Cloud peak on July 29, which was also the last time anyone had been in contact with him. The Big Horn County Sheriff's Office mobilized a massive search and rescue operation on Aug. 1 which lasted 20 days.

Read the full story HERE.

Granting Wyoming authority to regulate the byproducts of burning coal to make power, including coal ash, is a huge step for the state in getting out from under sometimes tedious and frustrating federal oversight.

That was part of the message EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin delivered at the Wyoming Capitol on Thursday during a signing ceremony for a letter recommendin