Episode Details

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Monday, March 16th. I'm Mac Watson.

–

A Wyoming reporter faces 10 felony charges for allegedly forging documents and lying about her credentials while opposing a controversial wind farm project in southeastern Wyoming. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that according to court documents, investigators found evidence she tried to deceive the state's environmental permitting panel.

"Platte County authorities asked Converse County Sheriff's investigators to come in and help and put this investigation together. And in addition to the documents that already formed part of that meeting, discussing whether they were real, whether the authors, purported authors, actually wrote them, there were other things like that she supposedly, or I guess, allegedly, lied under oath about her credentials, where she had gone to college, what kind of degree she had, what kind of land she owned. So there's three counts of possession of forged documents, there's three counts of forgery, and there's four counts of perjury."

40-year-old April Marie Morganroth, who also has listed aliases of April Marie Hamilton and April Marie McClellan, now faces 10 felonies in Wheatland Circuit Court. If convicted, she could face up to 65 years in prison and $65,000 in fines.

Read the full story HERE.

–

Thursday's windstorm was one for the record books with the highest wind speed ever recorded at the Cheyenne airport. Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports that although 14,000 people lost power, it was restored quickly by linemen who dangled from cherry-pickers in the record-breaking winds.

"It was a record breaking windstorm, really, 109 mile an hour gust was measured near Chugwater, 92 mile an hour gusts that are at the airport here in Cheyenne, 94 there's a couple 98 mile per hour gusts. At one point, the highest point, 14,000 customers in and around Cheyenne were without power. Black Hills energy reported that, and a lot of that was down power lines, broken power poles."

Cowboy State Daily Meteorologist Don Day says that along with record-setting gusts, that same spot near Chugwater that produced the 109 mph gust also had legitimate hurricane-force winds, which were sustained 75.2 MPH for 2 minutes.

Read the full story HERE.

–

A Gillette therapist has installed a "Wind Phone" in a park to allow a person to pick up the receiver and speak freely to a loved one to share memories or grief without judgment. Cowboy State Daily's Jen Kocher reports this is the first of its kind in Wyoming.

"The concept is to put an old style rotary phone in a in a garden or idyllic place, so you can literally sit in serenity with your deceased loved one and process your grief by you can either pick up the phone and call that person, pretend to call that person, or you can just sit in the space and talk to your loved one. She was able to speak to her grandparents and her friend."

A Japanese garden designer came up with the concept of a "Wind Phone" following the death of his cousin in 2011. He wanted to provide grieving people with a symbolic mechanism to connect with their loved ones in a serene setting to promote healing and reflection.

Read the full story HERE.

–

A Kaycee-area rancher has been charged with theft after prosecutors say he t