Episode Details

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Monday, December 22nd. I'm Mac Watson.

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Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon has received five clusters of complaints asking him to oust county officials from their offices. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that three former Wyoming governors say that number is unprecedented.

"Governor Sullivan, Governor Gehringer, and Governor Fruedenthal, and they were all like, we don't remember anything like this happening to us. And you would feasibly remember, because the governor himself has asked to do an investigation. It's his task…So it's just this thing now where Governor Gordon's had five, one of them, he did say, rose to the level of malfeasance, and the other one, he said, 'No, it's kind of sloppy.' And now he's got three that are churning right now that he's doing investigations on him considering."

There are still 3 actions on the Governor's desk that are still pending, including:

• A complaint to remove two of the three Hot Springs County commissioners;

• A refreshed complaint against Weston county clerk Becky Hadlock that now includes claims she filed a false post-election audit;

• And a complaint to remove the entire, three-man Platte County Commission.

Read the full story HERE.

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About 3,200 of Lexington, Nebraska's 11,000 residents work at a huge Tyson Foods beef processing plant — for another month. Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports that the plant's sudden shut down impacts the whole town, including healthcare.

"The hospital CEO wrote this huge scathing letter to Tyson's board about how it's impacting not just the plant, but the whole town, trickling down healthcare…Healthcare is with so many fewer patients, all of these people at once, losing their company healthcare. What's the follow up going to be if a lot of these families have to move to find new jobs, there's not going to be nearly as much need for this rural health care, which is real, struggling to hang on anyway."

For 35 years, the beef plant has been by far the largest employer and economic driver of Lexington.

Read the full story HERE.

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The new reality facing the University of Wyoming is to maintain its major Division I athletic programs, it needs to generate revenue that is paid to players. Cowboy State Daily's David Madison reports that UW will have to build up a war chest to keep up with rival schools like CSU and BYU in this brave new world of collegiate athletics.

"We're all accepting this harsh reality that we're going to lose pure amateur college athletics, and there's going to be an entry fee. What is it for Wyoming? It could be at least 2 million bucks. And you know, how are we going to generate that? Well, it's doing a better job getting sponsorships, getting fans and businesses that know that their customers are fans, to get behind it with their marketing budgets. Wyoming's at a disadvantage because of the size of the population the ad budgets are in Wyoming compared to Colorado."

Alex Jewell, UW's assistant athletic director for development, tells Cowboy State Daily that "rising costs have affected everyone because scholarships cost more than they did 20 years ago. So the goal, Jewell adds, isn't just recruiting, it's retention.

Read the full story HERE.