Around the 307
News, commentary, and other items of interest from the greater Wyoming landscape.
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It’s the last full week of March! Here are some news items of interest for the week of March 24th, 2024:
Cowboy State Daily published this news story at the beginning of the week reporting on the Dry Piney Wildlife Crossing Project along Highway 189 near La Barge. The project which was completed in October 2023 includes nine underpasses and 17 miles of 8-foot tall fencing on both sides of Highway 189 to encourage big game, primarily mule deer and pronghorn, to use the underpasses and avoid wildlife-vehicle collisions. Since its completion, the Dry Piney wildlife crossing project is estimated to have already saved hundreds (maybe thousands) of moose, deer, antelope, and other wild animals of all sizes.
Critters of all kinds (like this large mule deer buck) are already adapting and taking advantage of the Dry Piney wildlife project underpasses along Highway 189. [Photo courtesy of Tom Hart, Wyoming Department of Transportation via Cowboy State Daily.] On Wednesday, March 27th, the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission announced its first Carnegie Medal award recipients for 2024. Among those recognized was Kendall Bybee Cummings from Evanston, Wyoming. On October 15th, 2022, Kendall and three of his teammates from the Northwest College wrestling team in Powell, Wyoming were hiking and shed hunting in the Shoshone National Forest near Cody, Wyoming when they encountered a grizzly bear. The bear attacked and began to maul Brady Lowry. When shouting and throwing rocks failed to dissuade the bear from continuing its attack, Kendall in an act of bravery attacked the bear. You can read a full account of the event here. The Carnegie Medal is given throughout the U.S. and Canada to those who enter extreme danger while saving or attempting to save the lives of others. Cowboy up!
Six months after surviving a grizzly bear attack, Brady Lowry (left) and Kendall Cummings (right) return to the Bobcat-Houlihan Trailhead where their ordeal began. [Photo credit Andy Austin/ESPN.] On Friday, March 29th, TerraPower LLC took the official step of filing a construction permit with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build a nuclear reactor in Kemmerer, Wyoming. If approved, the permit would enable TerraPower to build the first commercial nuclear reactor in the United States in more than a dozen years. Read the TerraPower press release here. You can also read this Kemmerer Gazette story from earlier in the week about the project and along with it, the boom anticipated for the local economy.
A conceptualized rendering of the Natrium Nuclear Reactor facility in Kemmerer, Wyoming. [Image courtesy of TerraPower.] Lastly—here are a some Wyoming historical events (some well known, others obscure) that occurred during the month of March.
March 1st, 1872—President Ulysses S. Grant signs the act establishing Yellowstone National Park.
March 7th, 1870—The world’s first female jurors are seated in Laramie, Wyoming Territory.
March 29th, 1899 —Mountain Man Beaver Dick Leigh, who lived a long life in and around the Teton Mountain, dies at age 68 in his home near Rexburg, Idaho. Leigh Lake, Jenny Lake, and String Lake (formerly known as Beaver Dick Lake) in Grand Teton National Park are named after this famous Mountain Man and his Eastern Shoshone wife, Jenny.
This William Henry Jackson photo from 1872 shows Beaver Dick Leigh (standing at left) with his first wife, Jenny, and their children. [Photo courtesy of the Jackson Hole Historical Society and Museum collection.]
That’s all for today folks! Thanks for reading and have a good week!
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