Cowboy State Daily Video News: Tuesday, January 27, 2026

It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Tuesday, January 27th.  I’m Mac Watson.

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Wyoming head football coach Jay Sawvel said he voluntarily took a $125,000 pay cut and redirected the money to help fund player compensation. Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison reports on the reasons the coach is setting this precedent.

“When it comes to raising money to stay competitive in this, in this increasingly professionalized world of college sports, Wyoming is at a disadvantage. It's not in a major television market. It's a small state, relatively small school…He's decided that it's important enough for him to make a statement. Basically, put his money where his mouth is, and say, ‘Look, I am here to try and generate some momentum. I'm trying to generate some spirit of giving, probably among alumni and others that support cowboy football. And let's go. Let's get into this next season.’”

Ryan Thorburn, communications director for the UW athletic department, tells Cowboy State Daily that coaches donating their own money to help fund player compensation remains uncommon in college football. 

Read the full story HERE.

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An initial review of data from the Office of State Lands and Investments shows Wyoming might not have enough eligible public land to satisfy a controversial bill seeking to sell between 30,000 and 200,000 acres to families for $1 per acre. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that the bill would have to have multiple requirements to succeed.

“An initial review of data from the Office of shows that maybe less than 16,000 acres would be available, and that's because of the bill's many carve outs. There's things like, it can't be designated for a public use, it can't be recreation sites and a lot. And so Wyoming, last year, designated grazing and agriculture as a public use, as a governmental purpose. And so it becomes an argument. Then, like you guys just locked up all this public land under the governmental use Banner, and now this bill would exempt lands that are designated that way from sale.”

The author of the bill, State Rep. Jacob Wasserburger from Cheyenne, tells Cowboy State Daily that he’s still optimistic the bill could work, and is gaining support from around the state.

Read the full story HERE.

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Blood-trailing dogs may track down black bears shot by hunters if a bill before the Wyoming Legislature passes. Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports that this is already legal to use blood-tracking dogs to track big game animals that have been shot, such as elk and deer.

“They've drafted a bill, Bill Landon out of Casper and some other legislators, at the behest of a bear hunter, have drafted a revision to the statute that would just add and black bear to the language of the statute so people can start using their tracking dogs on black bear again…Julie Macallister from Rock River, who's a hardcore, dedicated bear black bear hunter as well as a tracking dog trainer. It really wants to see this pass, because then she can go back to using her tracking dog to helping her find bears that she shoots.”

Senate File 27 is set to go before the 2026 Legislature and would clarify the matter of using tracking dogs, by adding three words, “or black bear” to the existing statute, so says bear hunter Julie McCallister.

Read the full story HERE.

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State Treasurer Curt Meier and Sen. Brian Boner are working on a bill that would divert one-sixth of property taxes from wind, solar, and industrial projects into a fund for affected neighbors. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports on why the lawmakers say Wyoming needs to establish a compensatory mitigation fund.

“So Senator Boner is still spitballing like, ‘I just want to know if county commissioners can do this, if they're willing to have these hearings and decide these mitigation payments.’ Treasurer Kurt Meyer, for months has been hearing members of the public complain about wind farms designated to go in near their properties and the views and the effects. And so even though he's voted for those, he has said in line with his constitutional duty to fund schools with land leases. He said, ‘I'm not blind, that there are impacts, so maybe we should glean a little bit of property taxes from those and set aside to see if some of these have $1 value on them, and we can pay those people back.’”

Boner tells Cowboy State Daily that he is asking county commissioners whether vetting and answering neighbors’ claims for mitigation money is something they can do, and how they’d do it. 

Read the full story HERE.

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I’ll be back with more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.

 

Cowboy State Daily news continues now…

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The tour schedule for the western leg of Big Boy's historic coast-to-coast tour has been announced. Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that the world's largest locomotive, which weighs more than one million pounds, will leave Cheyenne on March 29th with its own crew that will take care of its maintenance every night.

“It's a very expensive thing, actually. They have to have crews of people that follow Big Boy around. And there are nightly mechanical tasks in keeping him operable, making sure everything's going right. It's not like the more modern diesel, where you can just fill the tank and check a few things and you're done. It's more like an all-night marathon to keep Big Boy on the rails throughout. The engineers that operate the loc omotive don't know all of these areas that they go through.”

Union Pacific announced Monday that Big Boy will leave the Cheyenne steam shop on March 29 headed for California.

Read the full story HERE.

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Wyoming weather is always unpredictable and never boring. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that as the weekend’s subzero temps have left Wyoming, but are being replaced by seriously strong winds. 

“So there's the saying that nature abhors a vacuum, and that's kind of true. So when we get sub-zero arctic temperatures in Wyoming, as those move on, there's a vacancy, there's an open space, and that's generally filled with winds. The difference is, this was not a windstorm. What we saw on Monday were winds of up to 65 miles per hour in southeast Wyoming. That wasn't like the wind storms that we had back in December, where we had winds of 88 to 103 mile miles per hour. Plus. Chinook winds are the result of air moving up and over the mountains as it descends, it dries out, and then the valleys and canyons in Wyoming just funnel that air and make it super powerful. So what we were experiencing on Monday were chinook winds that were filling the vacancy left by the sub zero temperatures that we had over the weekend.”

Meteorologist Don Day tells Cowboy State Daily that the outlook for the coming weeks is promising, with consistently colder days and a better chance of snow in the areas where it’s needed most.

Read the full story HERE.

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Cheyenne art dealer Harvey Deselms, the driving force behind the Capitol Avenue Bronze Project, commissioned bronze sculptures of his own dog, Dot, to immortalize her spunky spirit before she passes. Cowboy State Daily’s Dale Killingbeck reports that Deselms says bronzing a pet is a better alternative to taxidermy.

“An art dealer in Cheyenne, Harvey Deselms is known for his bronzes. So as his dog,a Jack Russell Terrier, to be exact, is getting older, he decided he wants to preserve Dot, and that's her name. So he has had commissioned three bronzes to be made – life-size bronze is to be made of Dot. And when talking to the artist, who's doing it, she said, ‘Yeah, it's kind of like other pet owners have done that.’ She's done some for other pet owners as well. So apparently this is something that is available when people want to preserve their pets.”

Raised on a ranch with working dogs, Deselms said he never had a dog as a pet before Dot. 

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And that’s today’s news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I’m Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.