A southwestern Wyoming big game hunting advocate who spent the past 13 years safeguarding beleaguered mule deer has been appointed to a high position in the Trump administration’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 

Josh Coursey, the co-founder and longtime president of the Muley Fanatic Foundation, announced to the group’s membership on Wednesday that he’ll be assuming his new post in May. Coursey did not disclose the nature of the position and reiterated to WyoFile that he was not yet at liberty to say. 

“It’s a presidential appointment,” Coursey told WyoFile. The position, he added, does not need to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. 

In his departure note, Coursey said he felt “called to serve” and is eager for the new challenge.

“I know, as the [Muley Fanatics] motto states, Do the Right Thing, that this calling is the right thing to do,” he wrote. 

Coursey’s announcement did not mention President Trump’s nominee for the top Fish and Wildlife Service post, Brian Nesvik, who’s also a Wyoming resident. Nesvik, a former Wyoming Game and Fish Department director, is still undergoing his Senate confirmation. He’s cleared the first hearing and subsequent first vote, 10-9, along party lines, the Jackson Hole Daily reported.

But Nesvik and Coursey run in the same Wyoming wildlife circles. The former Game and Fish director even appeared on Coursey’s podcast, Wild Things and Wild Places, in a two-part series in late 2023. 

By some measures, Coursey is lesser known. Desirée Sorenson-Groves, who leads the nationwide National Wildlife Refuge Association, had never heard of him when reached by WyoFile on Thursday.

Sorenson-Groves’ hunch is that Coursey was selected as a “political” deputy director at the Fish and Wildlife Service. “That is what I would guess,” she said. “A guy named Siva had [the position] before.”

Siva Sundaresan, a former Wyoming resident, was deputy director of the agency under the Biden administration’s director, Martha Williams. 

Besides Nesvik and Coursey, at least a couple other Wyoming residents have been selected for appointments by the Trump administration. Sheridan County resident Cyrus Western, a former Republican statehouse representative, was picked to helm the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Region 8 office in Denver, Colorado. And Cheyenne attorney Karen Budd-Falen was selected as the acting deputy secretary under U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. 

Coursey told WyoFile he could not yet discuss the nature of his role or the issues he’ll be working on.

When he starts in May, he’ll be helping to lead a federal agency significantly diminished by the administration that selected him. The Trump administration’s Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency cuts have hit the Fish and Wildlife Service nationwide, including in Coursey’s home state of Wyoming. There are plans to close the agency’s tribal office in Lander, staffing impacts at places like the Saratoga National Fish Hatchery and blows to the Service’s black-footed ferret recovery efforts. 

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To say things are hectic for the Sublette County Hospital District is an understatement. 

The district is just months out from opening a brand-new hospital in Pinedale, and the list of tasks is daunting, district board chair Tonia Hoffman said. For starters: ensure construction is complete, onboard doctors, move long-term-care residents, set up payment and billing systems, install furniture, hire nurses.

“We’re kind of deep in the throes of trying to get everything ready to go,” Hoffman said. 

Amid the myriad tasks involved in opening the county’s first hospital by July 1, it wasn’t exactly welcome news to discover a new state law will impose a significant cut in property taxes, she said. The district earns revenue from a mill levy, which pulls from those taxes. The mill levy equated to $12.4 million in 2022-2023 for the hospital district.

Senate File 69, “Homeowner property tax exemption,” will apply a 25% exemption on the first $1 million of a single-family home’s fair market value, which will translate into a smaller pool of funds for the Sublette County Hospital District to draw from. The district is far from alone. 

“It will have an unfortunate effect, I think, on every small rural hospital in the state,” Hoffman said. 

Wyoming’s 15 hospital districts, along with hundreds of other special districts and local governments that get revenue from a portion of property taxes, are now confronting funding cuts. These districts include services for cemeteries, housing authorities, irrigation, recreation, fire protection and rural health. 

Though exact numbers won’t be clear until properties are reassessed — an annual task typically finalized in June — districts expect some hard choices as they determine how to stretch shrinking funds. With rural health care providers already facing steep challenges, some say, the cuts could topple a precarious fiscal balancing act.

In Pinedale, Hoffman said, the hospital district is relatively insulated by its mix of funding sources. But in combination with other recent and potential changes aimed at taxes, she said, the overall effects are concerning.

“We’ve [already] been preparing for months on where we can cut, and where we can save,” she said. 

Taxpayer relief squeezes districts 

In response to sharply rising home values in several counties and correlated spikes in tax bills, Wyoming lawmakers passed five homeowner relief bills in 2024. Gov. Mark Gordon approved all but one. 

In 2025, lawmakers brought another round of property-tax relief measures to the Legislature, with many noting that property tax burden was the loudest voter concern they heard. Bills included Senate File 69, which originally proposed to apply a 50% exemption on the first $1 million of assessed value for single-family homes for the next two years.

Dozens of special district representatives, including first responders, urged lawmakers to reconsider given the drastic service cuts the measure would require due to millions of dollars in lost revenue. They argued that many taxpayers don’t realize property taxes don’t fund state government, but instead pay for local services like senior centers and law enforcement. 

Special districts do this through voter-approved mill levies, which are tax rates applied to the assessed value of a property. One mill is equal to one dollar per $1,000 of assessed value. Depending on the district, the aggregate of an assessment of 1 or 2 mills could generate enough funds to help support annual operations. 

Legislators tussled over Senate File 69 at great length, debating the level of cuts and whether the state should offer relief to communities by backfilling the lost revenues. In the end, they agreed to the 25% cut with no backfill. Gordon signed that bill into law March 4. 

“This act, coupled with the bills I signed last year, responds to the call for property tax relief,” Gordon said in a news release. “Now the practical impacts of this legislation will need to be navigated by our cities, counties, special districts and citizens.”

Rural health care fragility

Wyoming hospitals are already in precarious positions, Wyoming Hospital Association Vice President Josh Hannes said, due to the challenges of operating rural health care facilities. Low patient volumes, administrative burdens from insurance companies, high rates of uninsured patients, rising labor costs and increasing prescription drug prices create a difficult landscape for financial sustainability, he said. 

Senate File 69 further jeopardizes the state’s health care network, said Hannes, who lobbied against the bill during the session. While the measure may seem like a win for property owners, Hannes wrote in a February op-ed, “the reality is such an exemption would have devastating consequences for Wyoming communities.”

Mill levies fund critical services and facility upgrades for the state’s 15 special hospital districts, supporting not just hospitals but also senior living facilities, he noted. 

Cutting property taxes “could force many of these already vulnerable institutions to make painful cuts, potentially reducing essential healthcare services in rural areas where access is already limited,” Hannes wrote.

Wyoming has eight hospitals “at risk of closing,” according to a recent Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform report. 

Hannes was not sure how the report qualified “at risk” but said every one of Wyoming’s 19 “Critical Access Hospitals” — small, rural hospitals with 25 or fewer beds located at least 35 miles from another hospital — operated at a loss in 2023. 

“I think it’s fair to say all of our hospitals are at risk,” he told WyoFile. 

Of Wyoming’s 15 hospital districts, Hannes said, 12 districts operate those “Critical Access Hospitals.”

“When you take 25% of the residential tax revenue away from those, that’s going to be an issue,” he said. The challenge will be widespread. 

“Every other governmental entity that receives that revenue is going to have to make some pretty tough decisions about what portions of their services could they maintain,” Hannes said. 

Austerity planning? 

Reserves and other financial streams will factor into how hospital districts will deal with cuts.

The Teton County Hospital District was established in 1976 to oversee St. John’s Health in Jackson. The district is authorized to levy up to 6 mills annually but has levied 3 since the district’s creation. That equated to roughly $12.3 million in 2024, according to county records. 

Like Hoffman, St. John’s Chief Communications Officer Karen Connelly noted the convergence of national, local and state headwinds “challenging the sustainability” of Wyoming medical centers like St. John’s. 

“Senate File 69 is one,” Connelly told WyoFile in an email. Others, she said, include pressure on workforce wages due to the high cost of living in Teton County and the shift in payer mix toward Medicare due to an aging population, which affects reimbursement rates. 

“For context, the annual mill levy support has roughly equaled the cost of unreimbursed care we provided our patients,” Connelly continued. “A reduction in that support, along with the other challenges I’ve noted, will require us to reduce costs where we can and evaluate our services and programs in order to remain sustainable.” 

The hospital district is just beginning to develop its budget for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1. “The budget we develop … will account for an expected reduction in mill levy funds as well as the other challenges I described,” Connelly wrote. 

Albany County Hospital District operates Ivinson Memorial Hospital in Laramie, which has served the community for nearly a century. The district levies 3 mills on county voters, which amounted to $2.2 million during the last fiscal year, Ivinson Memorial Hospital CEO Doug Faus said. The amount has been growing steadily for about a decade, he added. Because the hospital has produced a profit in recent years and has employed careful fiscal management, he said, “we’ve been able to put money in the bank and save it, you know, for things like this.”

The hospital uses the mill levy funds for charity care, he added. “So any citizen in our county who doesn’t have the ability to pay, that’s what that money is used for.”

And while Faus doesn’t see the property tax cuts forcing any major service cuts at Ivinson, he is also keeping a close eye on the swirl of health care changes on the horizon, including federal efforts to cut Medicaid and Medicare. 

“We save money for a rainy day because we know the rainy day is coming — and it looks like the clouds are forming,” Faus said. 

Budgeting surprises

In Pinedale, where the hospital district has worked for years to reach the construction stage, the path has already been littered with challenges.

The Sublette County Hospital District operates clinics in Pinedale and the Big Piney/Marbleton area, but the county is the only one in Wyoming without a hospital. The district in 2020 asked voters to increase the mill levy with the express intent to create a new district to build a hospital, and the measure passed by a large margin. That levy was $4.8 million in 2021/22, and jumped more than 150% to over $12 million the following year, according to the district’s annual report. 

The vision is a 10-bed, 40,000-square-foot hospital, with a similarly sized attached long-term care facility. It’s an ambitious project, however, and has relied on the levy along with private donations and other county contributions. 

Hoffman, too, cited other recent changes, such as a 2022 deferred repayment plan that allows mineral companies more time to repay taxes. That means the district based early feasibility studies on funds that aren’t immediately available.

“I think that across the entire state, all of the hospitals are in the same situation, and we’re all going, ‘OK, how do we pivot and figure out how to work against this, or how to maintain our revenues when this is going to be a really challenging time,” she said.

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CHEYENNE—Wyoming Supreme Court justices grilled attorneys Wednesday on the legality of the state’s two abortion bans, honing in on what has long been the case’s central question: whether a 2012 amendment to the state constitution prevents lawmakers from ending the practice.

It was a day years in the making after several women, doctors and an abortion aid group filed a lawsuit in March 2023 challenging two newly passed abortion bans. A Teton County District Court sided with the plaintiffs in November, striking down a near-total ban and a second against abortion medications before the state appealed the decision to the high court.  

Much like previous court proceedings, Wednesday’s hearing largely focused on Section 38 of the Wyoming Constitution, which protects individuals’ rights to make their own health care decisions. In their questioning, justices wrestled with whether there’s a compelling reason to prohibit abortion in Wyoming, who gets to decide when life begins and whether health care decisions are a fundamental right. 

The hearing took place less than a week after Gov. Mark Gordon announced that he selected his attorney general, Bridget Hill, to replace Chief Justice Kate Fox when she retires from the Wyoming Supreme Court on May 27.

While the decision isn’t expected to be published before Fox’s retirement, she will participate in its consideration and decision since she heard the case, per the court’s internal operating procedures. Meanwhile, Hill will remain Wyoming’s attorney general until she takes the bench on May 28, and she will not participate in the court’s decision on this particular case. 

In the meantime, abortion in Wyoming remains technically legal, though a pair of new laws has effectively stopped the state’s lone clinic — Wellspring Health Access — from providing abortion services.

One of the new laws requires patients seeking abortion medications to first undergo a transvaginal ultrasound and a 48-hour waiting period. A second placed more onerous regulations on Wyoming clinics that perform abortions. A separate case challenging those abortion restrictions was heard in a Natrona County District Court earlier this month. Choosing not to rule from the bench, Judge Thomas Campbell said he would issue a written decision at a later date.

Inside the courtroom 

The long-anticipated hearing lasted about an hour and kicked off with arguments from Wyoming Special Assistant Attorney General Jay Jerde, who is defending the bans for the state. 

“When you have an individual right that’s fundamental, when the state regulates, it has to have a compelling reason for doing so. And the restrictions imposed have to restrict the right to the minimum amount possible while still accomplishing the compelling purpose,” Jerde said. 

But the right of individuals to make their own health care decisions, as specified in the state’s constitution, is not a fundamental right, Jerde said, because of how it is qualified by another section of the constitution that empowers the Legislature. 

“The Legislature may determine reasonable and necessary restrictions on the rights granted under this section to protect the health and general welfare of the people or to accomplish the other purposes set forth in the Wyoming Constitution,” Section 38, Subsection C reads. 

“What about Subsection D?” Justice John Fenn asked. 

“The state of Wyoming shall act to preserve these rights from undue governmental infringement,” Subsection D states. 

“Does that also fit into this reasonable and necessary test?” Fenn asked. 

“No, Your Honor. It does not,” Jerde said. 

Later, Justice Kari Gray pressed Jerde about when life begins. 

“Do the courts get to determine when there’s viability? Does the Legislature? It’s an unsettled area of the law. There’s no consensus. Not secular consensus, not religious consensus on when life begins. So who gets to decide when life begins?” Gray asked. 

That’s up to the Legislature, Jerde said, “because they’re the most answerable to the people.”

Representing the plaintiffs, attorney Peter Modlin pushed back on the argument that health care decisions are not a fundamental right. 

“The question presented in this case is whether the state Legislature may deprive pregnant women of their fundamental constitutional rights for the duration of their pregnancy,” Modlin said. “The state’s position is that the Legislature has plenary authority to dictate to pregnant women what health care choices are available to them. We urge the court to reject this and find the laws unconstitutional.”

“What about the slippery slope?” Fenn asked Modlin later in the hearing. 

“‘Health care decisions’ is a broad term, and if we determine that’s a fundamental right, it seems to me that there’s all kinds of — health care is a heavily regulated industry. It opens Pandora’s box on what is health care and what regulation can be made. Medical marijuana — I mean, you just go check down the list of so many different things that are reasonably regulated that this might turn that upside down,” Fenn said. 

“We would respectfully disagree,” Modlin said.

“Your Honor, we looked, and the state looked as well, for another example of a law that prohibited a specific medical procedure, you couldn’t find one. And neither could the state. These laws are truly unique,” he said.

Marci Bramlet, another attorney for the plaintiffs, reiterated this point in her arguments, citing the fact that “there is no correlating limitation on a man’s right to make health care decisions, especially reproductive health care decisions.”

“But a man is not similarly situated,” Gray responded. “Equal protection requires similarly situated individuals.” 

Outside the courtroom

Abortion rights advocates gathered in front of the Wyoming Supreme Court for around an hour before the proceedings. A group of perhaps three dozen people, mostly women and some men, wore green and stood quietly holding signs. They did not engage in any chanting or shouting — an organizer told WyoFile they did not want to give the impression of trying to intimidate or sway either people entering the courtroom or the justices inside.

Among them was Dr. Giovannina Anthony, a Jackson provider who is one of the plaintiffs in both ongoing legal disputes over abortion. Anthony told WyoFile that the new laws have forced her to provide transvaginal ultrasounds to three women in recent months. 

Clients have come to Anthony through Just The Pill, a company that provides abortion medications by mail. State law requires them to receive an ultrasound 48 hours before receiving the abortion medication. There’s no medical reason for the procedure, Anthony told WyoFile, but she has to follow the law. 

“I apologize to the patient for a probe in the vagina that is not necessary and doesn’t improve patient safety,” she said. “It makes me feel like an agent of the state, not a doctor.”

Abortion providers, including Anthony and Wellspring, the Casper clinic, have been waiting on a Natrona County judge’s action on a proposed injunction against the law mandating the ultrasound, which the Legislature passed earlier this year. That case is likely to proceed regardless of the Wyoming Supreme Court’s decision on the abortion bans, because that proceeding focuses on the regulation of abortion, rather than an outright ban.

The ultrasound requirement, Anthony said, is invasive, adds extra costs and an extra logistical hurdle for women seeking an abortion. But it’s not going to dissuade them, she said. In 30 years of practice, Anthony has never seen an ultrasound change a woman’s mind about an abortion. 

“Women who want to end their pregnancy are going to end their pregnancy,” the doctor said, “no matter what.” 

That’s a worry that drew Wendy Volk, a longtime Cheyenne realtor and outspoken women’s rights activist, to join the group standing in front of the Wyoming Supreme Court. 

Volk cited the well-publicized deaths of pregnant women in Texas and Georgia who had sought abortions in those strictly limited states. “Women are dying because of abortion bans,” she said. She fears a ban in Wyoming would put women here in similarly unsafe situations. 

But Volk was optimistic the Wyoming Supreme Court would uphold the Teton County judge’s choice. She believes the state’s constitution protects women’s rights to the health care of their choosing. “That is the Wyoming way,” she said. 

Cheyenne-based psychologist Sarah Courtright shared Volk’s optimism for the outcome. She didn’t see how the state’s attorneys could reconcile the protections for personal health care choices with a ban on abortion, she said. She also pointed to lawmakers’ recent drive to make sure adult Wyomingites can’t be forced to take a vaccine — a response by conservative lawmakers to the government’s public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“What are they even going to be able to say?” she asked of the ban’s proponents. 

Those opposing the ban lined one side of the sidewalk that led up to the courthouse entrance. But on the other side of the sidewalk — where one could envision a line of counterprotestors — there was just green grass. 

Inside the courtroom, however, advocates for ending abortion filled a number of the benches. Only one sitting member of the Legislature, conservative Cheyenne Republican Rep. Gary Brown, attended the hearing. But the religious-driven political faction that has pushed the abortion bans held a “Pray for Life” livestream last week, in which they prayed for a favorable outcome to Wednesday’s hearing. 

“We know that life is of infinite value,” Nathan Winters began the livestream. Winters, a former lawmaker and president of the Wyoming Family Alliance, a conservative Christian organization, said people were gathering virtually to “pray for wisdom and pray for Wyoming’s future.” 

Winters was followed by former Wyoming Supreme Court Justice Keith Kautz, who left the bench in May. 

“To our great shame, Father, we have decided that an unborn child made in your image isn’t a child at all, but merely an unidentified tissue of potential life that may be destroyed and killed even though we know it is alive,” he said during his prayer remarks. “We are becoming enslaved to unthinkable corruption and immorality.”

Speaker of the House and prominent anti-abortion crusader Chip Neiman, R-Hulett, also spoke, as did Sen. Cheri Steinmetz, R-Torrington. 

“I just want us to really realize how important what we’re really doing here is,” Neiman said. “We are standing in the gap for people who can’t have a voice.”

The court will now take the arguments made during the hearing under advisement before publishing a written decision that’s expected sometime later this year.

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Gerald Lovato had a lot to do before his next fight. A physical. An eye exam. Blood work.

Swinging by his Albuquerque home that afternoon, Gerald found his roommate making tacos. Mikey, also a professional fighter, was studying massage. “Before your fight?” Mikey asked, gesturing to his massage chair in the corner of the kitchen. Gerald smiled. Later. 

Both were men of few words. For Gerald, the tendency toward quiet started with childhood abuse. Then, out celebrating his 21st birthday, he got mixed up in a brawl. A stab wound that debilitated his right hand also left him anxious about crowds.

A physical therapist suggested he try mixed martial arts. Gerald got good fast and turned pro. Mikey, his teammate, was like a brother.  

Mikey was in the kitchen when Gerald left to finish his pre-fight tasks and get his daughter from school. She remarked how good it smelled when she got home. 

“Mikey made tacos. We’ll have that for dinner.”

But Mikey wasn’t around. 

Gerald woke that night to Mikey’s girlfriend banging on the front door. She couldn’t get him on the phone. 

Gerald knocked on the door to his friend’s room. No response. He tried the handle. Locked. He forced it open. 

Mikey’s death ignited Gerald’s drive to understand the pervasive silence surrounding suicide. Gerald was no stranger to suicidal thoughts. The two men could have helped one another. 

But there was still the match. As Gerald prepared to enter the ring, an unusual thing happened. 

“This guy walks in and he’s like, ‘Hey, anybody want a chair massage?’ It just felt like Mikey fulfilling his word.” 

He lost a close fight. But the chance encounter reminding him of Mikey stayed in his head.

He fought for several more years, till his body couldn’t keep pace with the sport’s demands. Gerald rekindled a love for art he’d abandoned as an insecure child.

A move to San Diego to get his daughter closer to her mom landed Gerald in painting school. 

Painting alone in his studio, the flow he’d felt in the ring coursed through him again. He found personal peace and catharsis, but Mikey’s death, and those of other friends, pushed Gerald to address the silence surrounding suicide through art. 

Back in New Mexico he hosted art events to bring his community together. That led to an introduction to a University of Wyoming American Studies professor who encouraged him to study in Laramie.

This spring, he’ll graduate with a master’s degree focused on art’s role in suicide prevention. Experience Gerald’s research in action at “Wyoming Unite” from 6 to 9 p.m. Thursday at the University of Wyoming Art Museum in Laramie. 

Inviting his community to connect around suicide terrifies him more than a fight. It’s important work, but he’s still a quiet guy who gets nervous in crowds. 

He knows what to do in moments like this. You tape up your fists, believe in yourself and get in the ring.

If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, call or text the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988.

The post He fought professionally. Now, he battles stigma of suicide through art. appeared first on WyoFile .

University of Wyoming officials omitted notable internal findings from their official public response to the demotion of a well-liked dean and the ensuing public outrage earlier this month, newly-released records show. 

When the Board of Trustees demoted Dean Cameron Wright, they said it was because of poor performance towards the state’s goal of bringing the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences into the top tier of such schools nationally. 

Wright’s supporters, however, argued Wright’s demotion was instead retaliation for his opposition to UW President Ed Seidel’s efforts to shift $500,000 from the engineering school into the budget of the School of Computing. That school is a Seidel initiative directed by the president’s romantic partner, Gabrielle Allen. 

As furor in the campus community mounted and university officials defended the demotion, they cited an investigation conducted last October by the university’s Office of General Counsel. That review found that Seidel had not violated any conflict of interest rules in advocating for his partner’s college. 

The university shared that finding with reporters amid the controversy. But, records released Tuesday show the university’s statement left out another finding — that Seidel’s involvement in shaping the School of Computing’s budget and policy could lead to “reputational harm” to the president, his partner and the university.

And while university officials noted the board had “unanimously agreed” that Seidel hadn’t violated a conflict of interest plan governing his actions with the school, that wasn’t the entire story either. The complete record shows some trustees were concerned about the situation. 

“A minority of the Board strongly feels that the perception of a [Conflict of Interest] and the appearance of impropriety is just as damaging and needs to be mindfully addressed,” reads a Jan. 24 document outlining the board’s response to the review.  

University officials on Tuesday stood by their previous statements.

“In drafting the university’s [April 3] statement – done in a short period of time in response to reporter questions, and summarizing voluminous records you have now seen – there was no intent to leave out meaningful information,” UW spokesperson Chad Baldwin wrote to WyoFile on Tuesday. “The statement also pointed out that further information would be disclosed in response to a public records request.”

Incomplete picture? 

Strikingly, the university’s public statement, first provided to WyoFile on April 3, left out those two findings but quoted friendlier conclusions that came directly before them. 

On Tuesday, the school released the complete records, with some redactions, in response to a request first filed by the Laramie Reporter, an online news organization. Those records show the omissions in the university’s April 3 statement.

In that statement, school officials wrote: 

“The University found that since the President did not direct additional finances to [the School of Computing], nor did he affect or direct any academic policy other than to reinforce the original budget and intent of the [computing school], there is likely not an actual violation of the President’s COI plan.”

That sentence comes from the office of general counsel’s analysis. The complete paragraph is as follows [emphasis inserted by WyoFile highlights the omitted findings]:

“Since the President did not direct additional finances to [the School of Computing] SOC, nor did he affect or direct any academic policy other than to reinforce the original budget and intent of the SOC, there is likely not an actual violation of the President’s COI plan. However, his continued involvement could lead to a potential or apparent conflict of interest and cause reputational harm to the President, Director Allen, and the University.”

The university’s statement continued:

“The Board of Trustees unanimously agreed that the President has not violated his [conflict of interest] Management Plan and strongly supports the mission and vision of the [School of Computing] as a means to carry out its land grant mission, enhance the Tier 1 Engineering initiative, provide for interdisciplinary teaching, research, service, and innovation opportunities across all colleges, and boost student success.”

That sentence came from the conclusion section of the board’s response to the conflict of interest review. The complete paragraph is as follows [emphasis inserted by WyoFile highlights the omitted findings]:

“The Board unanimously agrees that the President has not violated his [conflict of interest] Management Plan and strongly supports the mission and vision of the [School of Computing] as a means to carry out its land grant mission, enhance the Tier 1 Engineering initiative, provide for interdisciplinary teaching, research, service, and innovation opportunities across all colleges, and boost student success. A majority of the Board maintains that there is also no apparent conflict of interest and contends that the President should be able to discuss [School of Computing] as an initiative, whether or not his partner is the Director. However, a minority of the Board strongly feels that perception of a [conflict of interest] and the appearance of impropriety is just as damaging and needs to be mindfully addressed and reaffirms the University’s recommendation that the President refrain from any involvement with [School of Computing] while his partner is the Director.”

The dissent did not change the relevant conclusion of the board’s findings, Baldwin said Tuesday. “The records do note that some trustees had been concerned about the potential appearance of a conflict, but that’s not the same as concluding [Seidel] had violated the conflict plan,” he said. 

Last November, the month after the general counsel completed its review, Allen told the board she would stop directing the computing school in August 2025. The decision came “after months of sustained reputational attacks,” she wrote in an April 7 letter to UW faculty senate leaders that was obtained by WyoFile.

Trustee response

The vote to demote Wright came after a closed-door executive session, so there’s no public record on whether the board was united in its choice, or whether the split captured in the conflict of interest review carried into that meeting. The board’s vote was unanimous, without public discussion. Amid the consternation over Wright’s demotion, the board has presented a united front. 

Trustees also downplayed Wright’s objections to Seidel’s proposed transfer of $500,000 from the engineering college’s control to the computing school. Seidel dropped that proposal after Wright objected.

“We reiterate that the decision to remove the dean was based solely on his performance — not on the dean’s objections to a possible, relatively minor proposed funding shift,” the trustees said in an April 8 statement. 

Events of the last two weeks appear to justify the concerns of those trustees who feared even the perception of a conflict of interest could damage the university. Since Wright was demoted and news of his opposition to the $500,000 transfer broke — including the existence of a letter from two Laramie lawmakers last fall to Gov. Mark Gordon, expressing concern about retaliation against Wright — two major donors to the university have publicly announced they are reconsidering their financial support. 

On campus, the deans of the university’s other colleges, except Allen, wrote a letter to Seidel and the trustees expressing “deep concern for the trajectory of the university.” On April 7, an overwhelming majority of the faculty senate backed a vote of “no confidence” in Seidel’s leadership. 

In response to those actions, the trustees last week announced the formation of a new committee to examine and propose solutions to the crisis of confidence in leadership. 

Clarification: This story has been updated to clarify the board’s procedures in demoting Wright. —Ed.

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Thousands of Rocky Mountain Power residential customers will see their monthly electric bills jump by about $14 beginning in June. 

The Wyoming Public Service Commission approved the rate hike Tuesday, the latest in a series of increases by a company that has pointed to fossil fuel market volatility, skyrocketing insurance for wildfire liability and major investments in renewable energy for the rising costs.

The three-member commission voted unanimously to accept a settlement agreement struck between Rocky Mountain Power, its largest industrial customers in the state and the Wyoming Office of Consumer Advocate. The deal reduced the utility’s original request for a $123.5 million increase, or 14.7%, to an increase of about $85.5 million, or 10.2%.

Those figures could change slightly, based on a handful of minor stipulations to the agreement. The commission’s final order will be issued in a few weeks, potentially changing some calculations.

Commissioners acknowledged that, although they don’t like to see continuing rate hikes, the company is essentially responding to rapidly changing market forces, as well as diverging federal and regional policies that drive up the utility’s costs and ultimately impact customer rates.

Affordability, Commissioner Mary Throne said, “is a challenge — and it’s a challenge across the [electric utility] sector. I think it’s time we have sort of a global discussion about affordability and bring in the relevant stakeholders.”

Because Rocky Mountain Power is part of PacifiCorp’s larger, six-state service region, the utility must comply with renewable energy requirements that many in Wyoming regard as “unwise,” according to Commission Deputy Chairman Chris Petrie.

“I think many of those [Rocky Mountain Power and PacifiCorp] decisions represent the utility’s best effort to continue to provide the required service and to control their costs, as best they can, while complying with other pressures exerted on them,” Petrie said. “We certainly have to acknowledge that there have been significant rate increases that are welcomed by nobody.”

The utility’s customers also experienced a 5.5% general rate increase in January 2024, as well as a pair of temporary upward fuel cost adjustments over the past two years. 

Unresolved issues

Commissioners agreed that the approved rate hike settlement, even with their added stipulations, likely won’t forestall the utility asking for yet another rate increase in the near future.

Before the company makes another request, however, the panel encouraged it to make good on a promise to “workshop” those issues with stakeholders, including the Wyoming Office of Consumer Advocate and the Wyoming Industrial Energy Consumers group — the intervening parties that hashed out the settlement agreement with Rocky Mountain Power.

For example, Rocky Mountain Power and its parent company PacifiCorp have relied for years on a “multi-state protocol” group of stakeholders to hash out how to divide systemwide expenses and infrastructure investments among the six states where PacifiCorp operates. But under pressure from some states, PacifiCorp has signaled its intent to possibly dump the multi-state protocol process and replace it with a more piecemeal approach.

In fact, PacifiCorp has contemplated a “corporate realignment,” or breakup, in an effort to better respond to pro-fossil fuel policies favored in states like Wyoming and Utah and cleaner energy policy demands in states like California, Oregon and Washington.

Another matter to “workshop” is increasingly expensive wildfire liability insurance and litigation costs and how to fairly plan for those expenses, according to the commission.

The post Wyoming OKs Rocky Mountain Power rate hike, tapping customers for another $85.5 million appeared first on WyoFile .

At the behest of state lawmakers, Wyoming in 2024 took unprecedented steps to regulate shed antler hunting — actions that have started a western trend. Specifically, the Equality State now requires out-of-state residents to get a conservation stamp and to wait a week, giving residents a head start. 

Those changes caught some shed-seeking Westerners off-guard. But the majority of antler seekers are relishing the new rules, wildlife officials now know. 

“High levels of approval, in and of itself, shows that people were really receptive to the regulation,” said University of California-Berkeley PhD candidate Sam Maher, who’s been studying antler hunting in Wyoming since 2023. 

In 2024, Maher and her collaborators surveyed 318 shed hunters online and in person at trailheads within the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, where there’s a seasonal closure on antler gathering until May 1. The results suggest that 64% of all respondents were in favor of the new restrictions on non-resident antler gathering. To no surprise, Wyoming residents who stood to benefit were the most on board: 87% favored the new rules, versus just 27% of non-residents. 

The new regulations also motivated more locals to hit the hills. Some 22% of the Wyoming residents that Maher and company surveyed said they “would not have shed hunted otherwise,” but went out because there was the perception of less competition. Non-residents, meanwhile, were effectively dissuaded from coming to Wyoming, even after they could on May 8. Some 29% of those surveyed reported not coming because of the new regulations. 

“We asked residents and non-residents how it changed their behavior,” Maher said of the new rules. “It seemed like the increased enthusiasm by residents offset the fact that non-residents couldn’t come in for the first week.” 

Studying under UC-Berkeley professor and seasonal Wyoming resident Arthur Middleton, Maher has been examining the burgeoning pursuit of antlers in the American West for a chapter in her dissertation. The first batch of data she received after her 2023 surveys provided new insights into the demographic makeup of shed hunters: The majority are white male westerners who like nature and exercise and are not motivated by the high dollar that elkhorn can fetch. She’s adapted the results into a user-friendly story map dubbed “Brown Gold Rush.”    

There’s also a greater goal for the research. Maher and the University of Wyoming’s Tyler Kjorstad are working on an academic paper, “The emerging need to manage scavenged wildlife resources,” that’s going through the peer-review process with the Journal of Biological Conservation.

Kjorstad, who’s with UW’s College of Business, is also working with Maher on another paper estimating the economic contribution of shed hunting in Wyoming. All the data they’re amassing, he said, is useful outside of academia. 

“There’s information that’s advantageous for policy managers and ecologists, and in my opinion, economists,” Kjorstad told WyoFile.

The steps that Wyoming has taken to regulate shed antler hunting are “a big deal,” Maher said. Those regulations started with seasonal closures back in 2009 to protect wintering wildlife, but have since evolved to protect the experience of shed antler hunting. Antlers fall into a “weird gray area” because, after they separate from an animal, they’re typically not protected from commercial sale, like wild game meat is. 

“The act of regulating this is pretty unprecedented and interesting,” Maher said. It sets the stage, she said, for land and wildlife managers to regulate “similar resources,” naming bird feathers, snake skins and seashells. 

Already, neighboring states are copying Wyoming’s approach to regulating shed hunting. Starting in 2025, for example, out-of-state shed hunters in Idaho will have to possess a nonresident hunting license — a $185 investment. The Montana Legislature also is weighing a bill that proposes a $50 non-resident license fee for shed hunting, according to the Montana Free Press’ bill tracker.

The post Wyomingites dig new antler regs — they’re even shed hunting because of them, survey finds appeared first on WyoFile .

Less than four months after Evanston Regional Hospital discontinued its labor and delivery services, a Utah medical network has stepped in to patch the maternity care gap in southwestern Wyoming. 

Intermountain Health is now offering pre-pregnancy, prenatal and postpartum maternal health services in Evanston through a program called Maternal Health Connections. 

The program offers a combination of in-person, virtual and home visits, as well as remote patient monitoring, for pregnant people and new mothers. The program can help Evanston-area patients get prenatal and postpartum care without having to risk traveling long distances on Wyoming highways, particularly in dangerous weather conditions. 

“Pregnancy can be a difficult time in a woman’s life, and current economic and geographic challenges do not make it simpler,” Ibrahim Hammad, MD, a maternal fetal medicine physician at Intermountain Health, said in a press release. Hammad oversees the new program. “It’s part of our responsibility as healthcare professionals, to not only provide care and treatment in clinics and hospitals, but also to reach out to our patients in an effort to ease their burden. This program is designed to bring maternal care to the patient.”

The news is a bright spot in a health landscape that has seen services erode in recent history. Along with facility closures, hospitals have struggled to attract and retain sufficient staff and diminishing care puts pregnant people and their babies at risk as they travel longer distances to find services. The trend also poses existential threats to communities, as adequate health care is crucial to attracting young families to rural towns, state leaders say. 

When Evanston’s maternity ward closed in late 2024, it marked the fourth Wyoming facility since 2014 to shutter its labor and delivery unit and expanded a service gap in the southwestern corner of the state. The hospital cited declining demand.  

How it works 

Maternal Health Connections provides access to virtual visits from Intermountain OB-GYN physicians and other providers based in Utah, according to Intermountain Health. For in-person care and assistance, an Intermountain Health registered nurse will staff a Maternal Health Connections clinic in the Uinta Medical Building in Evanston. Clinic appointments are available two days per week.

Video conference equipment in the clinic will allow an OB-GYN physician or midwife based in Utah to consult with a Wyoming patient through telehealth, assisted by the on-site nurse. The program also offers remote patient monitoring devices for participating pregnant moms to take home beginning at 28 weeks. 

“Our mission is to improve maternal and neonatal outcomes in Uinta County and surrounding communities.” Krystal Richards, the grants project director for Maternal Health Connections at Intermountain Health, said in release. “We’re excited to bring a local maternity care option to these Wyoming families.”

Program patients can deliver babies at Intermountain Health hospitals in Park City or Ogden, Utah, and receive postpartum care through the Evanston-based nurse, including home visits.  

A federal Health Resources and Services Administration grant of $3.9 million helped launch the program, according to Intermountain Health. 

Interim work

Wyoming’s maternal care gaps have grown drastic enough to capture the attention of lawmakers, the governor and healthcare representatives.  

Solutions have been elusive. Complicating the issue are provider challenges like low birth volume in rural areas, high costs of medical malpractice insurance, financial viability struggles for hospitals, the impact of new abortion laws on doctors, liability concerns and regulatory barriers to midwives delivering in hospitals.  

Health care advocates have called on the state to expand Medicaid, promote midwifery and build partnerships that could expand care. 

The Legislature’s Joint Labor Committee made Wyoming’s maternity care and child care shortages its No. 1 priority between the 2024 and 2025 legislative session. No bill explicitly aimed at alleviating the care gaps emerged from the committee, however. Attempts to increase funding for maternity care programs failed in budget talks, meanwhile. 

The OB Subcommittee of Gov. Mark Gordon’s Health Task Force also worked to explore solutions. That group narrowed its focus last summer to three areas: how to better use midwives, doulas and family physicians alongside obstetricians in delivery care; exploring creating OB medical fellowships to bolster care in Wyoming and regionalizing the state’s maternity care.

The Legislature’s Management Council voted last week to give committee chairs the discretion to choose off-season priority topics for their panels. The Joint Labor Committee had again proposed maternity care as a No. 1 topic for 2025.

The post Evanston moms, newborns and moms-to-be get a lifeline from Utah appeared first on WyoFile .

Legal counsel for the Wyoming GOP advised county parties to disregard state statute and a Wyoming Supreme Court ruling when considering who should be allowed to vote in local party elections, according to a letter obtained by WyoFile. Instead, the attorney advised county Republicans to follow a contested party bylaw since the matter involves a private organization. 

“I understand some have alleged county officers who are no longer precinct persons may not vote in your upcoming elections,” attorney Brian Shuck wrote in a March 17 letter to Weston County Chairman Karen Drost. “They argue that, if there is a conflict between a GOP bylaw and a state statute, the statute controls,” Shuck wrote. “I disagree.” 

Shuck’s letter arrived in the midst of victories for Republicans less aligned with state party officials in several county GOP leadership elections. Former Speaker of the House Albert Sommers, for example, was elected chair in Sublette County, while former representatives Tony Niemiec and Lorraine Quarberg were selected to lead their parties in Sweetwater and Laramie counties respectively. 

In recent years, harder-line Republicans, including Shuck and Chairman Frank Eathorne, have dominated the party, while infighting and legal battles sapped its coffers. But some pundits and political observers see the recent victories by more moderate Republicans as a sign of the party turning back toward its big-tent ethos of the past. 

“I just think maybe this tide might be starting to turn a little bit,” Curtis Rankin, a Weston County committeeman, told WyoFile. 

Precinct people 

When Rankin, a third-generation rancher, ran for precinct committeeman in August, it was his first time doing so. What drew him to the race — which he handedly won with 68% of the vote — was simple. 

“Well, because I don’t agree with what the Freedom Caucus is doing,” Rankin said. 

The Wyoming Freedom Caucus, which aligns with the further-right wing of the state’s Republican Party, won control of the House in the Legislature last year after a meteoric rise that began in some respects in the local party positions that Rankin now finds himself in. 

The Freedom Caucus, Rankin said, “they talk about all this transparency that they want and fairness, and then when they get control down at the Legislature, there’s like half of the committee bills that they worked on during the interim that never even got out of the speaker’s drawer to be discussed.” 

Committee bills accounted for 14 of the 95 bills that Speaker of the House Chip Neiman, R-Hulett, kept in his drawer and thereby unilaterally killed during this year’s session. Last week, former Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette, told lawmakers that was to be expected after the 2024 election resulted in an “ideological shift.”

“There’s probably about six of us out of 21 that’s not Freedom Caucus [aligned] on that committee,” Rankin said of the Weston County Republican Party’s precinct members. “So it’s kind of an uphill battle.” 

Every two years, the public elects precinct committee members for both the Republican and Democratic parties as part of Wyoming’s primary elections, as outlined in state statute. 

The responsibilities of precinct members vary, but arguably their weightiest duty involves selecting nominations for political vacancies. In 2022 alone, Republican precinct committee members were tasked with selecting nominees to replace outgoing Secretary of State Ed Buchanan and Superintendent of Public Instruction Jillian Ballow — two of the state’s top elected officials. 

It’s also up to precinct members to elect party leadership — including their chairman and secretary — and to develop the party’s platform, which in turn often shapes legislation. 

When Weston County held its leadership elections in March, it followed Shuck’s advice to allow precinct members who had lost their August elections to cast a ballot. That included Chairman Karen Drost, who voted and was reelected to the county party’s top post after losing her race in August. 

But that’s not right, Rankin said. 

“They claim, you know, being that they’re a private entity, that they don’t have to follow other rules, and so evidently the Supreme Court case in their minds does not affect them, which I just totally disagree with,” Rankin said. 

Neither Drost nor Shuck returned WyoFile’s request for comment. 

Who gets to vote?

In his letter, Shuck wrote that the argument against allowing ousted precinct persons to vote “relies heavily on the Uinta County case and their interpretation of a state statute.” 

The Uinta County case involved a dispute within that county’s Republican Party over who could vote in its 2021 officer and state committeeperson elections. A party bylaw adopted that same year allowed outgoing precinct committee people to vote due to their past positions in leadership. 

That was a violation of state law, according to the plaintiffs — a group of Republicans on the outs with the further-right Uinta County GOP leadership — who filed suit in district court. The defendants, which included former Secretary of State Karl Allred, argued that the issue was not for the state to decide but rather the party since it’s a private organization. They also argued that the party’s constitutional right to freedom of political association would be violated if it was prohibited from adopting and using the bylaw in question. 

In 2023, the Wyoming Supreme Court sided with the plaintiffs “because the voting procedure used in the election and the party’s bylaw violated clear and unambiguous language” of state law, according to the ruling. 

The high court did not decide on whether the state law violated the party’s constitutional right to freedom of association since it was “not properly presented and the Wyoming Attorney General was not notified of, or allowed to participate in, the litigation,” the ruling stated. 

Shuck argued in his March letter that since the Wyoming Supreme Court “dodged” the constitutionality question in the case, the party bylaw — and ultimately, the U.S. Constitution — supplants state statute. 

“I will see your statute and raise you a Constitution,” Shuck wrote. 

What now?

Ultimately, at least a handful of counties allowed ousted precinct committee members to vote in leadership elections, including Washakie County. 

“We did a provisional vote, but it didn’t matter in the results,” newly elected Washakie County GOP Chairman Mike Greear said. 

Greear, an attorney, previously served in the Legislature as House Speaker Pro Tempore. He said Shuck advised his county party over the phone after a committeewoman raised the issue at its election meeting. 

“I would disagree with [Shuck’s] advice, I can say that,” Greear said. “It’s not the kind of advice I would give.” 

Had allowing ousted precinct committee members to vote been enough to tip elections one way or another, Greear said it may have been a different discussion. 

“Fortunately, we weren’t in that position,” he said. 

But the debate over who is legally qualified to vote in GOP leadership elections could play out again in May when county precinct members and officers meet in Cody to elect the state party’s leadership. 

The post In dispute over local elections, Wyoming Republican Party attorney says law, court ruling don’t apply appeared first on WyoFile .

The judiciary holds too much power and Congress should curb its authority, Wyoming’s federal delegation argued in response to Equality State lawyers and retired judges who called on them to defend “American Rule of Law” from attacks by President Donald Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk.

In an April 11 letter, Rep. Harriet Hageman and Sens. John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis said the federal judiciary has drawn scrutiny on itself. “Unelected judges imposing their policy biases on our nation without democratic legitimacy are the root cause of today’s controversy,” they wrote. 

The politicians largely sidestepped the central tenet of an open letter signed by more than 100 Wyoming lawyers and retired judges and published late last month. That letter had called on Hageman, Barrasso and Lummis to condemn an increase in personal attacks and calls for impeachment led by the president and his allies on federal judges who issue court decisions they dislike.

The Wyoming jurists who signed that missive focused on Trump’s calls to impeach specific judges who ruled against his policies, and social media posts by Musk calling a judge’s ruling an “attempted coup,” among other criticisms. 

The letter also cited threats of violence against judges, a phenomenon U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has said is on the rise. It also noted Trump’s efforts to target law firms he doesn’t like. “These attacks are part of a growing effort to discredit, not just judges, but seemingly the American Rule of Law,” the letter stated. 

The delegation’s response does not mention the president, Musk or threats of violence against judges. 

Instead, Barrasso, Lummis and Hageman wrote that “the country is witnessing a healthy debate right now about the appropriate role of judges,” according to a copy of the letter obtained by WyoFile. The federal lawmakers also cited legislation they were cosponsoring to eliminate judges’ authority to issue nationwide injunctions on actions by the federal government. 

“I think the delegation sort of missed the point,” former Wyoming governor and longtime attorney Mike Sullivan told WyoFile on Monday. “This was not a partisan effort. This is a legitimate, serious and what I think is a constitutional concern about the judiciary and the rule of law.”

Last week, House Republicans including Hageman passed the No Rogue Rulings Act, which would curb judges’ ability to issue nationwide injunctions. Republican lawmakers did so in response to a series of court rulings against aspects of Trump’s agenda — particularly elements of his mass deportation effort that judges found could violate peoples’ civil rights, and parts of the Musk-driven effort to cut budgets and staffing levels across the federal government. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, has introduced a similar measure in the Senate.

“Both the legislative and the executive branches are rightfully using their constitutional checks and balances to address judicial overreach,” Hageman, Barrasso and Lummis wrote in their letter.

In their letter, the Wyoming jurists told Lummis, Barrasso and Hageman the U.S. Constitution called on them to defend the judiciary from attacks, even if those attacks come from other branches of government. 

“As our elected federal representatives—and as required by your own oaths—we thus urge you to publicly condemn these threats, affirm judicial independence, and remind Americans that appeals—not violence, intimidation, or invitations to lawlessness—are the constitutional remedy for undesired court decisions,” the letter read. 

Though the delegation in its letter described a bipartisan drive for judicial reform, the No Rogue Rulings Act did not draw any support from Democrats in the House and will likely die in the Senate, where it won’t be able to garner 60 votes, according to a report in Politico.

Lummis, Barrasso and Hageman expressed pique at the letter authors’ choice of an open letter. Among the letter’s more noted signees were former Gov. Mike Sullivan; retired Wyoming Supreme Court Chief Justices Marilyn Kite, Michael Golden, Michael Davis and E. James Burke; retired U.S. District Court Chief Judge William Downes and former Wyoming Attorneys General Gay Woodhouse and Patrick Crank. 

(WyoFile board member Susan Stubson also signed on. She was not involved in the production of this report, and neither she nor any member of the WyoFile board have authority to direct news coverage or news content.)

Many of those attorneys are retired from public office and working in private practice, if not retired entirely. The jurists appear to have sought a public discussion, concluding their letter with: “We welcome your earliest public response to these very serious concerns.”

But the federal delegates said the more than 100 signees should have reached out as individuals.

“We are disappointed you failed to express your concerns with us directly before rushing to publish your letter,” they wrote. “A robust discussion about addressing the challenges and concerns facing our nation would be more beneficial than attempting to score political points through the press.” 

WyoFile reached out to signees of the original letter but did not receive a comment on the delegation’s response by early Monday afternoon. This story will be updated if that changes. 

Sullivan noted that the Wyoming attorneys published their letter in the wake of a highly unusual statement by Chief Justice Roberts, who protested Trump’s call for the impeachment of U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg. Trump called for Boasberg’s impeachment after the judge issued a ruling momentarily halting one of Trump’s most controversial deportation policies. Judges are not politicians, Sullivan said, “and when they come down in a way that doesn’t agree with your position they shouldn’t be demeaned or defamed or threatened with impeachment.”

Those signing the letter have an obligation to maintain judicial independence, as does the delegation, the former governor said.

“This is a group that believes this ought to be a public discussion,” Sullivan said. “We have our own constitutional obligations as members of the bar, practicing before the judiciary, and we shouldn’t just sit back and let this happen. 

The post Called on to defend the rule of law, Wyoming’s delegation says judges, not Trump, are the problem appeared first on WyoFile .