Episode Details

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Monday, October 27th. Bringing you headlines from the Cowboy State Daily news center, I'm Mac Watson. "Brought to you by the Wyoming Business Council. Wyoming youth are our future, but they're leaving the state at ALMOST TWICE the national average. What would bring them back home? Share your bold ideas with the Wyoming Business Council at wbc dot P U B forward slash story."

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Former Wyoming Secretary of State Kathy Karpan has passed away at the age of 83. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that she spoke with Karpan back in November of last year, and even at 82, she was tough as nails.

"She took fire from the right. She took fire from the far left she

was a woman in Wyoming politics in the 80s…even talking to her when she was 82 she was still sharp. She would still push back on you if you had something slightly wrong. And so I think that that toughness was through the mind, through the body, through the career for her."

Longtime friend and political colleague Rodger McDaniel says Karpan maintained an avid curiosity throughout her life, and she especially loved history.

Read the full story HERE.

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A fiery head-on collision that killed two people last week is the latest deadly crash on U.S. Highway 287 between Laramie and Fort Collins. Cowboy State Daily's Zak Sonntag reports that the 65-mile stretch of highway has been so deadly over the decades that it's earned the nickname "Highway of Death."

"It is a notorious highway. It is a highway that has claimed dozens and dozens of lives over the years, fatal incidents, drunk driving, accidents, driving at night. It's got all the hallmarks, really, of a dangerous roadway. It's got undivided lanes. You have extreme weather, winter conditions, blind turns, everything you can think of. And then you add to that, the tendency of some people to take risks because it's a rural highway…But…there are also some elements that are kind of just inexplicable. I mean, you look at the fact that they have made improvements to this road in the last two decades, they've widened areas of it that are dangerous, they've added passing lanes, and yet it still continues to claim lives."

According to statistics provided by the Wyoming Department of Transportation between 2015 and 2024, the stretch of highway from Laramie to the Colorado border saw a total of 545 crashes, including 11 fatal crashes resulting in 13 deaths.

Read the full story HERE.

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There is plenty of speculation that a body found two weeks ago in western Nebraska is that of missing Moorcroft man Chance Englebert. But Cowboy State Daily's Jen Kocher reports that former FBI special agent Tom Myers explains that the process to determine the cause of death, not just the ID of the person, takes time.

"Some of the injuries would be very easy to determine, such as, if there was foul play…What is more subtle, however, is say that this person either jumped from a cliff above, or was pushed from a cliff above, that's basically impossible to determine, because you can't determine, you know how a person, if they did, fall from above based on certain injuries in the spine and legs and other injuries that are telltale signs of that particular fall. However, it's the subtleties that you're not going to be able to determine."

The DNA analysis is a straightforward process, Myers says, and can now usually be extracted from any bone, even those exposed to the elemen