Episode Details

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Monday, April 20th. I'm Mac Watson.

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A high-risk special forces rescue of a U.S. fighter pilot in Iran was successful earlier this month. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that the rescue mission echoed war games training held in Wyoming in 2023, when the military turned a remote, windswept stretch of highway near Rawlins into a simulated rescue of a downed pilot.

"The concept in Wyoming was to take over a strip of highway and use that to land and see if that could, if that was workable, and that they actually did, it was kind of a stair step they did. They did that first, and then they came back to Wyoming and they did more stuff. You know, can we fuel up these planes? How much stuff can we do without an actual air base? And so we kind of got an inside glimpse into how the military prepares for some of these out of the box types of things."

The exact operational details of the Iran mission remain classified, and Air Force spokesmen were careful not to comment beyond prepared statements when Cowboy State Daily called to ask about the training exercise.

Read the full story HERE.

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The Cheyenne attorney asking authorities to prosecute Chuck Gray for handing over voter information to the feds now says Gray lost attorney-client privacy by texting a news outlet. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that Gray calls the new allegation "more lunacy ... from a radical leftwing attorney."

"The attorney George Powers, who has done public transparency projects like this before, he says, 'Yeah, you texted a news outlet that the Ag approved the release of unredacted voter rolls to the feds, allegedly in violation of state law,' whereas Secretary Gray says, 'No, this is just a cooked up scheme. This is Leftist Lawfare.' What Powers filed Monday is kind of like a police report, except in this case, the AG is the investigator. It's kind of like when you go to your local police station and you say, 'Hey, I want to fill out a report something has happened.' So he filed the supplement on Friday, because he got another batch of evidence, a public record, a text between Gray and a news outlet that he said, made his case stronger."

Powers, who in 2024 won a pro-transparency case against the Wyoming Department of Education, has voiced doubt over the extent and content of Gray's legal consultation, and has asserted that Gray has relied on it enough to waive attorney-client privilege.

Read the full story HERE.

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In their first interview Thursday since returning from a trip around the moon, the Artemis II astronauts credited their training at Wyoming-based NOLS for helping prepare for their mission. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that the National Outdoor Leadership School was singled out by Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman last Thursday during the crew's first group interview after returning to Earth from it's 10-day mission to the moon and back.

"NOLS leadership coach Rich Rochelle, said that this program is really about leadership and teamwork. They put these astronauts into expeditions where they are tested. They put them in stressful, isolating experiences meant to teach them to lean on each other and be better teammates and leaders. Upon returning back to Earth, astronaut Reid Wiseman said that NOLS allowed him to see that integrity isn't a one or a zero, you either have it or you don't. NOLS instructors say that over 90% of current astronauts have taken at least one