It's The Rut And Wyoming Pronghorn Bucks Are Battling To Build Their Harems

This story has been updated as of Oct. 1, 2025, at 2 p.m. to reflect what we know at that point:

As the country edged closer Tuesday to a federal government shutdown, Walt Schweitzer worried about the two-party checks issued to young grain farmers, which can’t be cashed without the signature of the U.S. Farm Service Agency.

Farmers who use crop proceeds to collateralize FSA direct operating loans must split those checks for grain sold to the local elevator. Those checks will go uncashed as long as FSA signatories are furloughed, said Schweitzer, president of Montana Farmers Union. There were 1,142 Montana farmers with FSA direct operating loans last year. The money they’ve borrowed to pay for seed, fertilizer and other farm basics totaled $118.6 million. 

“It’s frozen funds,” Schweitzer said. “These are people that are living on a shoestring, the young farmers.”

Wednesday marks the beginning of a new federal fiscal year, but without a federal budget passed by Congress and no agreement on a short-term funding bill, it appeared agencies would begin the new budget year without money to function. 

Ballerina Needed Nerves Of Steel To Attend Boot Camp And Pursue Dreams

jackie@cowboystatedaily.com.

To excel as a ballerina, Skylar Lippincott, 17, of Thermopolis, Wyoming said you must learn to ignore the pain and push yourself beyond your limits. 

“It's a big misconception that ballet is easy,” Lippincott said. “It looks easy but it's so complex because you have to be paying attention to what your body is doing and counting your music at the same time.”

In the Cowboy State when most female athletes are in rodeo or pursuing volleyball and track, Lippincott said that being a ballerina requires nerves of steel and should not be discounted since it is a tough sport. 

“A lot of people don't know how difficult it is on your body,” Lippincott said. “It's definitely a full-time commitment that you have to dedicate your entire life to.” 

The Fountain Hotel

The Fountain Hotel, a luxury playground for the rich visiting the Yellowstone National Park, was built in 1891 as the largest hotel in the park. It was also believed to be haunted by guests that never left.  

According to Annie Carlson a research coordinator at Yellowstone, the hotel was a ‘cut above the rest.’ which was located just north of Fountain Paint Pot in the Lower Geyser Basin. The three-story structure cost $100,000 to build and could accommodate 350 guests. It boasted 143 rooms, steam heat and baths that used the hot springs water. 

“The hotel was fancy given its rustic surroundings, and guests would wear their finest clothes to regular evening balls,” Carlson said. 

Bomber Discovered In New Guinea Jungle

By David Madison, 09/27/25

Before Wyoming World War II hero Sgt. Thomas L. Cotner left to serve in the Pacific, his mother hosted a dinner party at Club La Vida in Evansville, a restaurant and night club known for its roulette wheel. 

The event was noteworthy enough to earn coverage in the local newspaper, which reported the dinner was to honor Tom, who had just finished training at an air base in Illinois. 

Tom’s brother and fraternal twin, Ted Cotner, was also in the Army Air Corps and would be stationed at Hickam Field in Hawaii, where on Dec. 7, 1941, he saw his first action.

Ted Cotner’s commander praised the young airman for his heroic response to the Pearl Harbor attack.

Loneliest Mail Carrier In The Nation

Tebra Morris drives 300 miles a day to deliver one of the longest and most remote mail routes in the nation, where she often travels longer distances between mailboxes than most postal carriers do for their entire routes.

The unofficial motto of the U.S. Postal Service proclaims: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” 

The line is lifted from a Charles W. Eliot poem, which in turn references the writings of Greek historian Herodotus 2,500 years ago on the courier service in the ancient Persian Empire.   The average Persian postal carrier in 500 B.C. had more people on his route than Tebra Morris does today. 

Great American Outdoors Act

With a key component of the 2020 Great American Outdoors Act set to expire at the end of this month, the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources is set to meet Friday in Grand Teton National Park to consider whether to continue funding infrastructure in national parks. 

The committee includes Wyoming Republican Rep. Harriet Hageman. It’s scheduled to hold an oversight hearing at 10 a.m. at the Jenny Lake Visitor Center in Grand Teton National Park. Several people are scheduled to speak before the committee, including Grand Teton Superintendent Chip Jenkins and Julie Calder, chair of the Jackson Hole Travel and Tourism Board. 

Act Included Two Funding Streams

The main topic will likely be the Legacy Restoration Fund section of the Great American Outdoors Act, which was signed into law by President Trump in 2020. The Legacy Restoration Fund (LRF) authorized $1.9 billion per year for five years. That included $1.3 billion for the National Park Service, and the rest for other federal land-management agencies.

Wyoming’s Zero-Tolerance Wildfire Policy Leaves No Room For ‘Let It Burn'

Wildfire is recognized to have a cleansing and renewing role in nature, but allowing it take its natural course is considered too risky in Wyoming.

Most state and federal agencies in charge of public lands have a standing policy to go after every blaze with everything they’ve got, as soon as possible. 

“The State of Wyoming, we do not have a let burn policy, we have a put-out policy, immediately,” Wyoming State Forester Kelly Norris said during a recent interview with Cowboy State Daily Show with Jake Nichols. 

“The Bureau of Land Management has that same policy, obviously private lands have that same policy,” she added. 

In remote areas of vast National Forest land in Wyoming, the U.S. Forest Service has a more leeway to allow natural fires to burn. 

However, that can have dire consequences if a fire escapes a wilderness area, as did the massive Pack Trail Fire in northwest Wyoming in October 2024, Norris noted. 

A slurry bomber airplane, under contract with the Wyoming State Forestry Division, helps fight the Muddy Fire near Casper. (Courtesy Russell Haynes, Wyoming State Forestry Division)

Wyoming Will Lose More Than An Hour Of Daylight Before Fall Officially Starts

Andrew Rossi, 09/02/25

The last of summer isn’t for another three weeks, but it’s taking a shockingly large chunk of its daylight before it goes. Between now and the autumnal equinox on Sept. 22, Wyoming will lose more than an hour of daylight. 

“We lose an average of 55 minutes a month after the equinox,” said Max Gilbraith, planetarium coordinator at the University of Wyoming. “In the next 18 days, we will lose about an hour and 10 minutes of daylight.”

The loss of daylight will go hand-in-hand with the first bites of winter. Cooler nights, lower humidity, and the first snowfall of the season are all possible before summer’s officially over.

“The first half of September is the period of the year when we lose daylight the fastest,” Gilbraith said.

Wyoming Lawmakers Drafting Legislation To Ban Cloud Seeding For 10 Years

After nearly four hours of educational presentation and passionate testimony, a legislative committee voted Thursday to draft legislation that could halt cloud seeding programs in Wyoming, ban geoengineering, and deliver a message to Congress.

The message the Joint Agriculture, State & Public Lands and Water Resources Committee voted in favor of drafting and potentially sending to Congress remained unclear to the public as the vote happened Thursday.

No lawmaker had read it aloud or described it ahead of the vote.

Wyoming Newspapers Saved

People in eight Wyoming communities have been cheering this week as they learned their local newspapers were saved.

This is not just good news for them locally and also for all of Wyoming.

The term “desert” gets used out here in the frontier when we lack things that people are used to seeing in bigger cities. When medical care is limited, the situation is often cited that we live in a medical desert. 

Well, this past week, we heard about eight towns (Torrington, Wheatland, Guernsey, Pinedale, Bridger Valley, Lusk, Evanston, and Kemmerer) becoming “news deserts.” 

Even in a depressed condition, local newspapers provide key information. About government meetings, births and deaths, little league team victories, lots of stuff about the local school systems . . . the list is almost endless.

There is no definite formula – each town and each newspaper is a little different from each other. But for centuries, people in this country have relied on their local papers for critical news.