Judge dismisses Taylor Haynes eligibility suit
CHEYENNE (WNE) — A Laramie County judge earlier this month dismissed a lawsuit over the residency of a perennial Republican candidate for governor.
Taylor Haynes no longer faces legal action over whether he was eligible to run for Wyoming elected office in the Aug. 21 primary. The district court also won’t hear evidence about whether he lived on the Colorado side of his ranch that straddles the Wyoming-Colorado border.
The court also dismissed questions about whether the Wyoming Secretary of State’s Office has the authority to remove a candidate from a ballot after it has been certified and printed.
In a statement, Haynes maintained that the lawsuit was a hoax, and accused Secretary of State Ed Buchanan of using it to garner votes for Harriet Hageman, who also ran for the Republican nomination.
Haynes also endorsed Buchanan’s Democratic challenger, Jim Byrd, for secretary of state in the Nov. 6 general election.
“(The state) lied in their press release, stating they had proof I was not a Wyoming resident,” Haynes wrote. “Their recent motion to dismiss the case as moot is an admission of their lying.”
A spokesman for Buchanan’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the state moved last month to dismiss the case because there was no longer an active legal question when Haynes lost the primary.
In a release at the time, Buchanan implored the Legislature to give the secretary of state the authority to remove candidates from the ballot if they are deemed ineligible.
“The Legislature is the right body for this issue,” Buchanan wrote. “The Wyoming Constitution instructs the Legislature to ‘secure the purity of elections, and guard against abuses of the elective franchise.’”
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GOP fire suspect turns himself in
LARAMIE (WNE) — Kellen Sorber, the man charged with setting fire to the Albany County Republican Party headquarters, turned himself in Saturday.
After federal agents put out a $5,000 reward for information about the suspect, the 27-year-old turned himself in at the Albany County jail, undersheriff Josh DeBree said.
Sorber had been working at Speedgoat Cafe at the time of the Sept. 6 fire at Laramie’s 214 Ivinson St. building. Speedgoat owner Tim Hentgen said Sorber disappeared after Oct. 16, when agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives arrived at the with a warrant to collect a DNA sample.
An apartment that sits atop the Republican headquarters was occupied at the time of the Sept. 6 fire, though there were no injuries.
Denise Greller, chair of the Albany County Democratic Party, said Sorber had not been affiliated with the local Democrats in any way.
Both Democratic and Republican party leaders in Laramie said they had never heard of Sorber, who is not a registered voter in Wyoming.
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Buffalo man pleads guilty to illegally shooting grizzly
CODY (WNE) — A Buffalo man pleaded guilty to illegally shooting a grizzly bear on Tolman Ranch in early September.
The bear was shot by David Huber, 43, about 6.5 miles northwest of Clark near Bennett Creek. Huber, who turned himself in, pleaded guilty to the shooting, claiming he thought it was a black bear.
Huber had a fall black bear hunting license. The season started Sept. 1.
Huber will pay a $10,000 fine, as ordered by Judge Bruce Waters in Park County Circuit Court on Oct. 22. He had already paid $5,000 Oct. 22 and will pay $250 a month, starting Dec. 31, until the remaining debt is paid off. The money will be transferred to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.
In early October, Wyoming hunters and G&F killed eight bears in Park County alone due to potentially dangerous human interactions.
A recent federal court decision returning grizzly bears to Endangered Species Act protection was enacted a few weeks after Huber shot the bear. Now, shooting a grizzly bear without proof of self-defense is considered a felony, carrying up to $50,000 in fines and one year in jail.
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Northwest Wyo beet sugar content highest in four states
POWELL — Sugar beet growers in northwest Wyoming not only produced a crop with the highest percentage sugar content in the history of the Lovell Factory District, but the sugar in their 2018 beets topped the charts for the Western Sugar Cooperative’s entire four-state region.
This district’s average sugar content of slightly over 18 percent is the only growing area in the cooperative’s four states that will reach 18 percent sugar, said Rodney Perry, Western Sugar’s chief executive officer at Denver.
As of Oct. 26, Perry said the co-op is predicting a yield of 29 tons per acre and sugar content of slightly over 18 percent in Wyoming. The comparable figures for the Montana sugar crop are a little over 30 tons per acre and slightly more than 17 percent sugar.
Perry said the harvest is not nearly as far along in Colorado and Nebraska. He said Colorado is running sugars in the high 16s, and Nebraska is close to 17. Yields in those two states are probably going to be somewhere between 30 and 31 tons to the acre.
Overall tonnage across four states looks like it’s going to be down a little, “due to weather,” Perry said. The cooperative had been expecting a harvest of 3.7 million tons, but that projection has been adjusted as the harvest progresses.
“We’re going to be closer to 3.5 million tons, down about 200,000 tons from what we had seen earlier in the year in our sampling,” he said.
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Wyoming this Weekend, Nov. 2-4
By the Wyoming News Exchange
A performance of 17th and 18th century masterpieces by accomplished musicians will highlight this weekend’s activities in Wyoming.
Sheridan’s Whitney Center for the Arts will host the Venice Baroque Orchestra in concert on Saturday. The orchestra has appeared in more cities in the United States than any other baroque orchestra in history.
Prior to the orchestra’s performance, the Sheridan College Flute Choir will perform.
Other activities scheduled for the weekend include:
A continuing exhibit of works by New Mexico-based artist Madlin Coit at Sheridan’s Edward A. Whitney Gallery;
Tours of Lander’s Wild Horse Sanctuary;
Pro Jackpots barrel racing, pole racing and roping events at Gillette’s CamPlex on Sunday, and
A musical performance by touring musicians Evan Drachman and Doris Stevenson in Sheridan on Sunday.
For information on these and other events, please visit the Wyoming Tourism Division’s website at TravelWyoming.com.
