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.

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With 36 awards for its 2024 reporting, WyoFile topped its previous record in the annual, four-state Top of Rockies journalism contest. 

The nonprofit news organization’s accolades included 13 first-place awards, 13 second-place awards and 10 third places — more than any other Wyoming publication — in the contest administered by the Society of Professional Journalists’ Colorado chapter. Contest judges honored all six staff reporters, two editors, five freelance contributors and a columnist for work published on WyoFile.com. Collaborations with KFF Health News and the Gillette News Record were also recognized.

“Nobody chooses a career in journalism for the accolades, and no one pitches in to support independent reporting in order to win awards,” said Matthew Copeland, WyoFile’s chief executive and editor. “But as someone privileged enough to see both how hard this team works, and how stalwart our members are in backing that work, it’s incredibly gratifying to see all that selfless commitment lauded by our peers.” 

This year’s contest had more than 1,850 entries from more than 80 news outlets and 20 freelancers from Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico, according to SPJ. 

“The competition continues to grow each year, and we are honored to highlight outstanding journalism throughout the four-state region,” said contest coordinator Deb Hurley Brobst. “These are hard-working journalists who deserve recognition of their efforts.”

WyoFile took first place across a range of beats and journalistic disciplines including education, religion, health, mental health, science, sports, personal storytelling, photography, multimedia storytelling and illustration. 

Reporter Katie Klingsporn’s education feature, “A winding path: How a reservation school graduated its largest-ever class” won first place, with a judge calling it “an engaging and well-written report that captured personalities and pride.”  

“Impeccably researched and wonderfully written,” a judge said about Mike Koshmrl’s science and technology feature first place for “Wyoming’s mostly wolf-free policy produces precise management of a controversial canine.”

Former Health and Public Safety Reporter Madelyn Beck won first place in public service journalism for “A critical call.” A judge applauded Beck’s series for its “in-depth look at EMS in … Wyoming, first the problems then potential ways forward.”

Freelancer CJ Baker’s health feature “Medicaid expansion can’t pass the Legislature. So what’s the alternative?” also took first. A judge called the story “a masterclass in old-fashioned journalism.” 

In awarding Managing Editor Joshua Wolfson first place for his personal column “The killing of Bobby Maher and the fear at the heart of parenthood,” a judge said, “A teen’s fatal stabbing leads the father of a schoolmate to find words where it seems there really could be no words … and beautiful ones.” 

“This slate of impressive recognitions from the four-state Top of the Rockies journalism contest proves Wyoming is home to one of the best independent news media outlets in the country,” WyoFile Board President Emilene Ostlind said. “Wyoming citizens are the real winners here as we all benefit from the robust coverage WyoFile provides our state”

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A strong sense of civic duty made a career in law enforcement appealing to Darlena Potter. Yet, after studying administration of justice as a University of Wyoming undergrad, she decided she was too timid to hit the streets with a badge and a gun. 

“But I still wanted to be a public servant,” Potter said, who has since found her calling as Wyoming’s public records ombudsman. The Wyoming Legislature created the position in 2019 as part of broader public records reform. The ombudsman’s website explains the job as providing “a resource for the public to resolve issues regarding records requests submitted to state and local government agencies.” The job also involves educating public officials about what’s required of them under Wyoming’s public records law, Potter said.

Having served as ombudsman for roughly three years, she believes in the position’s ability to bolster government transparency, but also recognizes it’s not without limitations. For starters, the Wyoming Public Records Act gives government entities room for interpretation leading to wide variations in procedures and fees. On top of that, the ombudsman can’t actually enforce Wyoming’s public records laws. What Potter can do, is mediate disputes between requestors and requestees, set timelines for the release of records and waive fees. 

But just because Potter sets a timeline or waives a fee, there’s no guarantee state, county or municipal governments will comply; only a court can force government officials to hand over records. (Potter doesn’t handle federal records requests which are governed by the separate, federal Freedom of Information Act.)

“I have no teeth, so to speak,” Potter said. 

Without another enforcement mechanism, public records disputes will continue to land in court. “I wasn’t part of the Legislature when they created this position,” Potter said, “but I think ‘wasn’t this supposed to also assist the courts by not having those lawsuits?’” 

While she doesn’t want her critique of the position’s minimal authority to diminish the importance of the things she can do, renewed interest from lawmakers has Potter feeling optimistic that her role, and public records law, could see some statutory improvements. The Joint Judiciary Committee is considering public records requests as an interim study topic for the legislative off-season. 

“I’m always trying to do research,” Potter said, looking at best practices and what other states do, in case the Legislature calls on her for input.

Fees, fees and more fees

Complaints about fees are common, Potter said. The biggest bill to cross her desk was $3,900 but her predecessor fielded a complaint from a requestor who was charged $6,000, she said. 

While state government has rules setting uniform procedures and fees for fulfilling public records requests, Potter said, unfortunately those don’t apply to local government entities. “When I work with cities and towns, I always provide them the state’s [rules],” for reference, Potter said.

But without a required fee schedule at the local level, Potter said, “it feels like they pull a random number, and in all honesty, with some of them, it feels like they’re just trying to deter people from asking for [records], which is very frustrating for me.”

WyoFile regularly encounters such custodian-to-custodian variations firsthand, but rarely as strikingly as when we made identical requests to all 23 of Wyoming’s sheriffs for an investigation into deaths in county jails. Raw numbers on jail deaths weren’t hard to get for the most part, but disparities emerged when WyoFile filed a follow-up request for the times jail staff had intervened to save an inmate’s life. Most counties fulfilled the request for free, a few denied the request altogether and several charged fees ranging from $25-$270.

In Colorado, governments and agencies can’t charge requesters more than $41.37 an hour to research, retrieve and compile public records — a rate that’s adjusted for inflation every five years.

Resource challenges 

While Potter stands by the importance of open and transparent government, she’s also sympathetic to the challenges local governments face. “We really are a state that has somewhat limited resources,” Potter said. 

In small rural communities you can have one public official wearing multiple hats, Potter said, and “they may or may not have the technology … to be able to pull that information readily.” 

Because of those limitations, some governments struggle to fulfill requests within the 30 days required by law, which can be frustrating to both parties. 

When negotiating timelines, “I try to work with both sides to see the other folks’ side,” Potter said. “In a lot of cases, it’s not that they don’t want to provide it. It’s just like, ‘Oh my gosh, you want this like yesterday and that’s not even feasible.'”

Statute grants government entities grounds to deny a request if it interferes “with the regular discharge of the duties of the governmental entity.” When that’s the issue, Potter said she works with requesters to adjust the scope of the request to get them at least some of what they want.

Potter even faced her own challenges fulfilling WyoFile’s request for all complaints filed to the ombudsman since the position’s 2019 inception. There have been three different people in that role, each with their own document management systems. And while most complaints come in via an online form, others are emailed directly, mailed as hard-copy letters  or communicated on the phone. Potter’s initial response only included records that originated as online complaint forms, which WyoFile agreed would suffice given our desire to get a general sense of the variety of complaints. 

Who complains about what? 

While public records requests are a staple of the Fourth Estate, only a handful of journalists were represented in the complaint forms shared with WyoFile. There were also only a couple of lawyers seeking assistance. 

Complaints about fees, as mentioned earlier, were a common theme. Several people had their requests denied by police agencies who deemed the release of the records to be “contrary to public interest.” 

Those can be challenging disputes to resolve, Potter said. A WyoFile request for a settlement, in a lawsuit against Albany County, for example, was initially denied because releasing the documents in full “would affect the future government operations of a Wyoming Governmental entity and cause substantial injury to the public,” court documents filed on behalf of the county stated. Ultimately, WyoFile got the settlement agreement through the court process. 

There also was a rash of complaints from people requesting election records, which Potter said were likely connected to “how the overall society views elections and the integrity of them.” 

Their requests were denied because they were asking for statutorily protected information. Potter responded, she said, by helping fine tune their requests.

They wanted information that would identify how individuals voted, Potter explained, but “by state statute, we protect the voter. But there are certain portions that can be released.”

Several people also struggled to get records about themselves or their family members. 

One of Potter’s early cases was a mother seeking police records detailing her son’s death in an auto wreck. “She was just trying to get records for closure,” Potter said, “and I remember thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, I feel like the records are very instrumental in her being able to have full closure. But at the same time, I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s gonna traumatize her.'”

Ultimately, Potter was able to get her the records. “She was very much appreciative, and she said that it gave her a sense of calm,” Potter said. 

Beyond loosely tracking the impact of her work in her own spreadsheet, the Legislature doesn’t require her to report the outcome of complaints or how often they result in fulfilled requests. 

It’s something Potter said she’d like to implement on her own. 

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The Wyoming Ethics and Disclosure Act requires elected officials in Wyoming’s executive branch — the governor, secretary of state, state treasurer, state auditor and superintendent of public instruction — and all members of the Wyoming Legislature to file financial disclosure forms with the secretary of state. 

These forms, due each year by Jan. 31, help to uphold the state’s prohibition on elected officials using their office for private gain. Lawmakers and state executives who hold 10% or greater interest in a company must disclose any contracts that business has with the state for more than $5,000.

Those convicted of violating the Ethics and Disclosures Act face fines up to $1,000.00 and removal from office. 

WyoFile requests and shares these documents every year to help the public monitor for potential conflicts of interest. 

Only a handful of lawmakers and state execs have contracts with the state exceeding $5,000. 

Gov. Mark Gordon listed grazing leases with the state, Rep. Ken Clouston, R-Gillette, provides athletic training services to Gillette College and the Campbell County School district, and Sen. Barry Crago, R-Buffalo, listed legal services he provides to the town of Kaycee. While Sen. Cale Case does not have a contract with the state, he disclosed that the Inn at Lander, which he co-owns, often supplies lodging, food and meeting rooms to elected officials and various other state entities.

Sen. Mike Gierau, D-Jackson, was the only lawmaker whose form was missing from WyoFile’s Feb. 3 public records request to the secretary of state’s office for the disclosures. 

When asked about the missing form, Joe Rubino, the secretary of state’s chief policy officer and general counsel, said when the office received Gierau’s form it simply stated “same as last year.” Because statute requires disclosure of the pertinent information each year, Rubino said, the office does not consider Gierau’s form complete. 

“I wrote ‘same as last year’ because the day before [it was due] I broke my arm,” Gierau told WyoFile. “I fell on the back stairway going to a roll call vote and broke my arm right above my wrist.” 

Unable to write well, Gierau said he filled it out “truthfully and honestly,” using a shortcut, so he wouldn’t have to fill in all the information again.

He disagrees with the secretary of state’s interpretation that his form is not complete. His 2024 form is listed below along with every other official’s 2025 financial statements and code of ethics forms. WyoFile received these documents through a public records request. See something fishy? Missing? Let us know at editor@wyofile.com.

Wyoming House

Wyoming Senate 

Wyoming executive offices

Gov. Mark Gordon 

Secretary of State Chuck Gray

Superintendent Megan Degenfelder 

State Auditor Kristi Racines 

State Treasurer Curt Meier

Correction: This story was updated to include Sen. Jim Anderson’s form which was left out due to reporter error. —Ed.

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The University of Wyoming has cut ties with a project that landed it on a list of 45 universities under federal investigation for allegedly engaging in race-exclusionary practices in their graduate programs, the school announced Friday.

The announcement came hours after the U.S. Department of Education said it had launched the investigations “amid allegations that these institutions have violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act …. by partnering with ‘The Ph.D. Project.’” The federal agency described the project as “an organization that purports to provide doctoral students with insights into obtaining a Ph.D. and networking opportunities, but limits eligibility based on the race of participants.” 

The Department of Education launched the investigations a month after it issued a “Dear Colleague” letter giving institutions a two-week deadline to comply with the Trump administration’s interpretation of civil rights law. Since President Donald Trump took office in January, his administration has taken broad steps to eliminate diversity and inclusion efforts from government and public institutions.

“The Department will no longer tolerate the overt and covert racial discrimination that has become widespread in this Nation’s educational institutions,” the letter stated. “The law is clear: treating students differently on the basis of race to achieve nebulous goals such as diversity, racial balancing, social justice, or equity is illegal under controlling Supreme Court precedent.”

The university will comply with the investigation and was already looking into the Ph.D Project’s alleged “race-exclusionary” approach, UW spokesperson Chad Baldwin wrote in a statement. 

The university’s College of Business has been a partner in the program “as a way to increase its pipeline of graduate students,” Baldwin wrote. 

When the Wyoming Legislature passed a law prohibiting the university from engaging in “diversity, equity and inclusion” programs, Baldwin wrote that “UW in May 2024 eliminated its Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and began a comprehensive review of university practices to eliminate those that promote differential treatment of individuals or classify people on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, ethnicity or national origin.”

That review flagged the Ph.D. Project and led UW to discontinue that relationship, Baldwin said. 

Political response

That was deeply disappointing to UW alumna Karlee Provenza, a Democrat who represents Laramie in the Wyoming House. 

“My education at the University of Wyoming was incredible, and I benefited from being around all different kinds of people,” said Provenza, who got her Ph.D in social psychology with an emphasis on psychology and the law.

“They’re creating a boogeyman, and they’re setting up hysteria and manufactured rage to try and take down public education,” Provenza said of the Trump-directed investigation. “So when the government comes to dismantle education, the University of Wyoming shows its colors by saying, ‘okay, that’s fine,’ instead of standing up and saying, ‘We have done a damn good job here, and we’re going to continue to do a good job, and you can rip our education out from our cold, dead hands.’ 

“That’s what leadership would look like. But there’s apparently no leadership at the University of Wyoming.”

Republican state lawmakers have been pushing the university to roll back its diversity initiatives, barring the school from spending state dollars on diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Last year, administrators closed UW’s Office of Multicultural Affairs, which has existed for 30 years, replacing it with the Pokes Center for Community Resources. Officials also closed UW’s DEI office, though some of its programs were moved to other areas of the university.

Lawmakers weren’t convinced that went far enough, and they passed multiple bills during the recently completed session intended to combat DEI programs. Gov. Mark Gordon vetoed one bill that sought to enact restrictions on curriculum requirements at UW and Wyoming’s community colleges while also barring DEI-related activity within government. The governor  said the measure “introduces ill-defined and overly broad restrictions, creates significant legal ambiguities and risks unintended consequences that could negatively impact Wyoming’s higher education institutions and workforce development.” He signed a second measure, House Bill 147, that bars government agencies from participating in DEI programs, the Sheridan Press reported.

“Governor Gordon is pleased that the University is cooperating with the investigation and that it has already taken steps to identify and review its programs that may involve race-exclusionary practices,” the governor’s spokesman Michael Pearlman told WyoFile in a statement Friday. “The Governor is confident that the University will make every effort to ensure full compliance with both federal and state laws, including this year’s House Bill 147 when it goes into effect on July 1.”

Among the other 44 schools being investigated by the Trump administration are Boise State University, the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs and Montana State University-Bozeman.

“Students must be assessed according to merit and accomplishment, not prejudged by the color of their skin,” U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a statement. “We will not yield on this commitment.”

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Mushers and their persistent pups faced challenging weather in western Wyoming during the 30th Pedigree Stage Stop Sled Dog Race. From trail-obscuring blizzards to trail-softening temperatures, these dogged dogs pushed, or perhaps better said, pulled through mixed conditions this week. 

Following opening ceremonies Jan. 31 in Jackson Hole, the 215-mile seven-stage competition made stops in Pinedale, Big Piney, Marbleton, Kemmerer and Lander. The race ends Saturday in Dubois. Fierce weather canceled the second stage in Pinedale.

Two of the 17 teams are from Germany, the rest are from the U.S. and Canada. Five-time consecutive champion Anny Malo of Saint Zenon, Quebec, who broke her winning streak in 2024, was in the lead at the race’s midpoint. 

The post Dogged dogs persevere Wyoming’s Pedigree appeared first on WyoFile .

Wyoming has for decades incarcerated juvenile offenders at the highest rates in the nation. 

The state’s multi-year efforts to reduce those numbers have been hampered, in part, by an unclear picture of why kids enter the justice system and whether incarceration seems to help. A bill to strengthen data and information sharing about state-supervised youth, including those in the juvenile justice system, died without debate in the House Judiciary Committee last week. 

The five no votes came from freshman lawmakers aligned with the Wyoming Freedom Caucus. Rep. Lloyd Larsen, R-Lander, a 12-year veteran of the House, led the effort to craft the measure. He took the bill’s failure as evidence more could have been done to communicate the backstory behind the need for more data.

“We didn’t just come up with this on a Saturday night while we were eating popcorn,” Larsen said of the Joint Judiciary Interim Committee-sponsored legislation. “We’ve gone through two interims of looking at this.” 

Why it matters 

While many of Wyoming’s neighboring states have decreased their use of juvenile incarceration, the Equality State once again posted the highest rate in the nation, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Justice. In 2021, Wyoming courts removed adjudicated delinquents — juvenile justice-specific terminology for young people convicted of crimes — from their homes and placed them in public and private facilities at over three times the national average. The majority of the offenses were non-violent, and 13% were technical violations — in other words, kids failing to comply with the terms of their probation, be it missing a drug test or poor academic performance. 

Research has found juvenile incarceration does not significantly deter delinquent behavior or improve public safety while leading to poor outcomes for young people — from lower academic performance to higher suicide rates. Instead, studies show that community-based programs, which address the root causes of delinquent behavior while keeping kids close to home, lead to better outcomes and do so with a smaller price tag for the state. 

Five years after South Dakota implemented juvenile justice reform — investing $6.1 million in expanded community-based programs in 2015 — the state cut the number of incarcerated youth in half and reduced its juvenile corrections budget.

The fiscal implications of Wyoming’s high juvenile incarceration rate have not been lost on lawmakers here. In 2021, the Joint Judiciary Committee agreed to study Wyoming’s juvenile justice system during the legislative off-season, acknowledging that “youth confinement is one of the largest expenditures for the Department of Family Services.” 

House Bill 48, “Department of family services-confidentiality amendments,” which died in the House Judiciary Committee last week, was seen as an important step in a multi-year effort to understand what’s driving Wyoming’s heavy, and expensive, reliance on juvenile incarceration. 

How we got here

Back in 2021, when the Joint Judiciary Committee set out to study juvenile justice, the panel’s members quickly realized the first problem they would need to tackle was a lack of consistent data.

That’s in part because Wyoming doesn’t have a statewide juvenile justice system. Instead of sending all juvenile cases to juvenile court, county attorneys have discretion — a policy known as single point of entry — and each county takes a different approach. Some will funnel juvenile cases to municipal and circuit courts, some rely on juvenile courts and others routinely use all three. There are also counties with diversion programs designed to keep juvenile offenders out of court altogether and others that rely heavily on juvenile probation programs. 

But no matter what a county decides to do, once a court orders a young person into custody, the state pays the bill. And for decades the state had no way of assessing what was happening at the county level to drive up, or drive down, juvenile incarceration rates, or whether money spent to confine kids was having the desired effect. 

Wyoming didn’t know high school graduation rates or recidivism rates for juvenile offenders, or how often they reoffend as adults. 

Acknowledging it’s hard to manage what you can’t measure, the Wyoming Legislature passed a Joint Judiciary Committee-sponsored bill in 2022 mandating the Department of Family Services set up the Juvenile Justice Information System. 

While DFS oversees out-of-home placements and juvenile incarceration, the agency quickly realized that pre-existing privacy laws would make it hard to fulfill the Legislature’s mandate for a comprehensive system tracking how kids enter the system or what happens after. That’s because DFS, the Wyoming Department of Health, the Wyoming Department of Education, the Wyoming Department of Corrections and the court system, which all hold pieces of the puzzle, are limited in what information they can exchange.

Solving that problem was a top priority of the Legislature’s Mental Health and Vulnerable Adult Task Force, which convened over the last two years. House Bill 48 was the fruit of that labor. 

Larsen, the Lander representative who co-chaired the task force, said enhanced data sharing is about helping state agencies better serve constituents and operate more effectively and cost-efficiently. 

“I think data really helps us identify what programs are needed and what programs aren’t,” Larsen told WyoFile.

Balancing the state’s desire to evaluate programs with privacy and confidentiality was a focus of the task force, Larsen said, given the vulnerability of the families DFS serves. 

“We should always be nervous about privacy,” Larsen said, which is why so much time went into “House Bill 48 which really addresses a very delicate, sensitive issue.”  

Those concerns were also on DFS Director Korin Schmidt’s mind when she testified to the House Judiciary Committee about the need for HB 48. 

“We take seriously the confidentiality of the information that we gather,” Schmidt said. “However, the confidentiality statutes, in large part … were created in the ‘70s, and they didn’t contemplate a time where maybe we could help these families a little bit earlier, a little bit more effectively, while also being good stewards of the dollar, while also ensuring efficiencies across our systems, both internally and externally.”  

State agencies are simply unable to answer many fundamental questions about juvenile justice, Schmidt told the committee. 

“We have frequently been asked the question: How many kids that you serve in your juvenile justice system go into the Department of Corrections system? We can’t answer that question,” Schmidt said. “And one of the reasons we can’t answer that question is because of our confidentiality statutes.”

House Bill 48 would give the DFS director authority to initiate changes in how data is shared between state agencies through a rules-changing process requiring public and legislative input. 

That ensures “the general public also knows what it is that we are doing in a very transparent way,” Schmidt said.  

Those guardrails did not persuade the majority of the House Judiciary Committee — the bill died on a 5-4 vote. Reps. Laurie Bratten from Sheridan and Marlene Brady from Rock Springs, briefly mentioned privacy concerns before casting no votes, along with Republican Reps. Tom Kelly from Sheridan, Jayme Lien from Casper and Joe Webb from Lyman.

What now? 

Juvenile justice data sharing was just one piece of HB 48. The bill would also have enhanced DFS’ ability to evaluate its other programs — helping abuse and neglect victims, for example — and opened up opportunities for cross-agency referrals between DFS case workers, public health nurses and mental health providers. 

While HB 48 died in committee, Larsen said, that doesn’t mean solutions are off the table this session. He suggested individual lawmakers may bring their own versions of the bill. 

Lawmakers have until Jan. 29 to introduce bills in the Senate and Feb. 3 in the House. 

Learn more: Listen to Juvenile (in)justice from Reveal.

The post Wyoming locks up kids at the highest rates in the nation. Bill to help understand why died without debate. appeared first on WyoFile .

The sun, just barely starting to rise, cast pink on Thursday morning’s clouds, but the sky was bright with the War Memorial Stadium lights. 

A team assembled on the 50-yard line at 6 a.m. ready to run the ball. But they weren’t football players with their eyes on the endzone. The goal line for the University of Wyoming cadets, in fatigues and boots, was the Colorado-Wyoming border, some 30 miles south of Laramie. 

Covering the distance as a relay, cadets from the Army ROTC Cowboy Battalion and Air Force ROTC Detachment 940 each planned to run a mile or so before passing the ball to fresh runners following along in a convoy of vans. 

At the border, the UW cadets pass the ball to Colorado State University ROTC, whose cadets run it over 30 miles to Fort Collins. 

The ceremonial exchange of the ball started in 1991 and happens every year before the CSU-Wyoming football game, also known as the Border War. Friday’s 6 p.m. game at Canvas Stadium marks the 116th time the rivals will face off. 

Talk of CSU leaving the Mountain West Conference in 2026 has raised uncertainty about the future of the rivalry game. 

“I believe the Border War will continue,” UW Athletic Director Tom Burman said. “I have talked to John [Weber], the AD at Colorado State, and I believe that’s what he thinks. It’s in all of our best interests that we play CSU in multiple sports every year. It’s 66 miles away. College athletics has lost its balance, and we’re traveling sports teams all over the country to compete. This is one that just makes sense. And I would say, let’s just not screw it up.”

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They packed the pews tight at Saints Cyril and Methodius Catholic Church, those without seats standing wherever they could find space. Mourners took off work and school, many traveling across Wyoming to gather on a calm, sunny October morning in Rock Springs. The service started late in order to make room for everyone. 

This was the funeral of Dawson Fantin, an 18-year-old graduate of Rock Springs High School who’d only recently left his hometown to start college at the University of Wyoming on a prestigious Trustees’ Scholar Award. One month into the semester, he died in his dorm room of an apparent suicide. The Sept. 28 death remains under investigation pending the results of an autopsy and toxicology screening. 

But there in the church, family and friends celebrated a young man who embraced people from all walks of life. He also had a competitive side, representing Wyoming in national high school speech and debate competitions. He volunteered at the local senior center and throughout the community. He lit up rooms with his goofy sense of humor. He was open about his own struggles with PTSD as part of his advocacy to destigmatize mental health care. His death shocked family and friends who saw nothing but his bright future ahead.

The University of Wyoming, in contrast to the outpouring of grief in Rock Springs, marked his death with nearly three weeks of silence. It wasn’t until Oct. 18 — 20 days after Dawson’s passing and 10 days after his funeral — that UW sent an email to the campus acknowledging a student had died. 

But that decision spurred suspicion about why UW had kept quiet. 

Effective communication 

Dawson’s parents, Debra and Paul Fantin, grew concerned about the delayed communications after hearing from Dawson’s friends that the burden of sharing the heartbreaking news with their professors was falling to them, and not the university. 

When asked why UW waited 20 days to notify staff and students of Dawson’s death, Vice President of Student Affairs Kim Chestnut told WyoFile the university was following outdated guidelines that advised against public notifications to prevent further suicides through contagion. Instead of an all-campus message, Chestnut said, a team had been working to reach out directly to impacted students and faculty. The university changed course, sending out the Oct. 18 email, when it came to light the guidelines had changed, Chestnut said.

“What I would offer is we have a new director of our counseling center,” Chestnut explained. “So Megan Belville [had] just begun in that position at the start of this academic year, and she researched last week what the practice recommendations are with the growth of social media and information sharing that is no longer within the means of a university to manage, which is why we decided to share information at the end of last week.” 

Moving forward, UW will more immediately notify the campus community about student deaths, and share bereavement and mental health resources, but not provide the cause of death in the case of a suicide, Chestnut said. 

While experts encourage a cautious, measured approach to communicating about suicide, WyoFile found that UW’s delayed acknowledgment of Dawson’s death was at odds with widely accepted national guidelines for suicide response, also called postvention, used by universities for more than a decade.

“It is important that the death be addressed openly and directly. After a suicide, once the basic facts are known, any attempt to delay informing students will only encourage rumors,” the Higher Education Mental Health Alliance’s guide to suicide response states. The resource, produced in partnership with nine organizations dedicated to advancing college mental health, was first released in 2014.  

“If communication efforts are not carried out in an effective manner the rest of the postvention execution will suffer and community anxiety will increase,” the guide advises. “Because of today’s immediate communication culture and the speed at which information spreads via social media, the postvention committee needs to be ready to communicate quickly to affected students and the campus community.” 

Dawson’s friends, extended family and parents told WyoFile that UW’s delayed communication added stress to an already heart-wrenching experience. They hope UW is genuine in its commitment to improving how it communicates about student deaths and mental health resources, but “only time will tell,” Dawson’s mom, Debra Fantin said. 

The message UW finally sent out on Oct. 18 stated: “Initial notice was not shared as we worked to manage family notifications and their wishes on information sharing.” While the wording indicated UW’s desire to be sensitive to Dawson’s family, it didn’t land that way with Debra and Paul, who were upset UW attributed the delay to the family’s wishes. 

“We had no communication with them at all,” Paul said. Debra said she received two voicemail messages from a dean and Paul has been in touch with UW police, but it’s been more phone tag than meaningful conversation, the two told WyoFile.  

Attached at the hip 

Katie Hinz remembers visiting UW last year and seeing crosses erected outside the student union in memory of three students who died in a car crash on Highway 287 last February. She’d love to do something like that for Dawson. 

“We met on Aug. 17, so the day after we moved in,” Hinz said. A group of first-year students sat in the grass waiting for an event to begin, and Dawson “sat on a sprinkler head and when he stood up his whole butt was wet,” Hinz said. She was struck by Dawson’s easygoing sense of humor. “He loved to entertain people, so he immediately made a joke out of it, and we just kind of became friends right from that moment. And then ever since then, we were attached at the hip.”

Being on campus without her sidekick has been tough, she said.

“What’s hard for me is I’m three hours away from where he’s buried,” Hinz said. “I can’t just go see him if I’ve had a bad day. And there’s no cross outside [his dorm], no memorial for him.”  

She’s thought about putting one up but she’s uncertain how the university might respond. 

“They’ve already been so hush-hush about a suicide in the dorm, like if I were to put a cross outside or anywhere on campus, would they just immediately take it down?” Hinz said. 

There’s good reason to approach physical memorials with caution to limit the risk of contagion, but the Higher Education Mental Health Alliance’s postvention guide also advises “a suicide death ought not to be handled differently than other deaths, but the framing of content needs to be carefully managed.”

Unfortunately, Hinz hasn’t felt like UW’s quiet approach is rooted in a desire to mitigate harm. 

“I feel like the university has tried to sweep this under the rug,” she said.

Not so, Chestnut said.

“That’s never a sentiment we’ve had or felt,” she said. “If anything, sweeping it under the rug would be in opposition to the very real space and time that we want to provide to attending to mental health concerns and prevention.”

Chestnut acknowledged how the delay in communication may have sent mixed messages and said the university commits to doing better. 

“We have provided great care,” Chestnut said. “I know that our teams have done incredible work to support students and faculty and staff at every measure. But are there elements that we can continue to refine and improve? Absolutely.” 

Because UW didn’t quickly notify all faculty, Hinz said “my professors were finding out about what happened through me, and I think that made them a little more confused and concerned.” Ultimately she found her professors were supportive, but at first, she worried some of them thought she was lying. 

Hinz said she doesn’t want to criticize UW because she understands administrators were managing a complex set of needs after Dawson died. But a campus-wide notification would have relieved her of the burden of explaining to professors and her fellow students why she was so upset. 

Shifting guidelines 

When asked for copies of the outdated resources that shaped UW’s decision not to release a timely public notification, as well as the new guidelines, Chestnut pointed WyoFile to a suicide response guide specifically geared to off-campus student housing managers released in June. 

Dawson lived in a UW dorm, not in independently managed off-campus housing. Regardless, those guidelines say community communications should be protective of those at a heightened risk of mental health issues and “sensitive to those grieving the loss of a community member, and offer hopeful messages about community support and healing.” 

When asked why she shared the off-site housing guide and if she could also share the previous guidelines, Chestnut said: “Please know, we reference a broad amount of resources to create our practice, there are national organizations that support nearly every aspect of student affairs so we won’t just be using the off-site document.” 

She also declined to share UW’s current guidelines because they are in the process of being edited. 

Swiss cheese 

Dawson’s cousin Kali Lenhart is a UW alum, but her poke pride is wavering. 

“We are a very close family, and Dawson was more like a sibling to my sister and me than he was a cousin,” Lenhart said. She started babysitting him a couple of times a week when she was a teenager and he was just months old. “My social life in high school, outside of sports and activities, was babysitting and hanging out with Dawson. We were very, very close.” 

Her grief is immeasurable, but beyond that “the piece that I’m struggling the most with is how the university has handled all of it,” Lenhart said. “I know they do a great deal of prevention, and they have lots of resources as far as the prevention side goes, but how they handled [Dawson’s death] or really their lack of handling is one of the pieces I’m having the hardest time with.” 

Lenhart and her sister Kelci Schutz have shared with administrators how UW’s slow communication put unnecessary stress on Dawson’s fellow students and friends like Hinz. In response, they’ve also heard promises that the approach will change. 

Staff turnover could factor into why the university dropped the ball, Lenhart suggested. There’s a new director of the counseling center and an interim dean of students. But Lenhart knows from her experience working in health care as a nurse and clinical supervisor that pointing the finger doesn’t lead to lasting change. She prefers the Swiss cheese approach. 

“You line up all these slices of Swiss cheese, and if the holes in the processes and systems you have in place line up just right, and something gets all the way to a patient to cause harm, then you ask: What’s wrong in the system? What do we need to build into the system?” 

Lenhart hopes that speaking up about her family’s experience will help UW to improve its procedures. 

“I have so much pride in this institution, and I don’t want to have to lose my love for UW on top of Dawson,” Lenhart said through tears. “And so for some reason, I want to make this better, and I want the answers.” 

“You have to fix this,” Lenhart said, speaking to her alma mater. “You can’t do it this way for other students.” 

The University of Wyoming’s website encourages “any concerned individual can refer a student who may be experiencing academic, personal or emotional challenges or who may be demonstrating concerning, distressed, or disruptive behavior to the UW CARES Team by submitting a referral form.”

Anywhere in the United States, if you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, call or text the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988.

Correction: This story has been updated to correct where Dawson Fantin volunteered and his mental health diagnosis. —Ed.

The post A student died on campus, and the University of Wyoming stayed silent for 3 weeks appeared first on WyoFile .

To catch a glimpse of a comet blazing across Wyoming’s sky is one thing. To capture the moment with a camera is another. 

Comet Tsuchinshan–ATLAS, that’s been delighting evening star gazers for the last week, won’t be back for another 80,000 years. WyoFile’s Development Director Daniel Kenah set out to capture the once in a lifetime photograph. 

“I knew the comet was going to be visible for a couple weeks,” Kenah explained. “So I’ve thought about how to capture it with something interesting in the foreground. A couple nights ago I went to a viewpoint above Big Horn and captured the comet with small bits of the Elk Fire below, but the smoke filled the valley and made that difficult.” 

Undeterred, Kenah went out again the next night with a new composition in mind. 

“Since the comet is almost due west in the sky, I thought about capturing some of the glacier-carved peaks you see from Highway 16 — Bighorn Peak, Darton Peak and Loaf Mountain,” Kenah said. “I knew the moon was waxing, and at about 3/4 full [that] night. It cast bright light onto the mountains, and I was far enough from the Elk Fire to avoid the smoke.” 

Balancing a long enough exposure to have the moon light the mountains, but not so long that stars streak and the comet loses its crispness, Kenah set up for the photo.

“One of the things I love about night photography is the quiet time while the shutter is open. It’s wild to see an object like that in the sky. You can practically hear it spraying across the sky. And it’s only visible every 80,000 years, so it’s amazing to think about some of the earliest humans having looked up in wonder at that same chunk of rock and ice floating through deep space, reflecting light for us to see for just a few weeks.”

The post The quiet capturing of a comet appeared first on WyoFile .