1991

Top Wyoming News Stories, 1991*

1. Reapportionment plan overturned by federal court
2. Budget crisis strikes state government
3. Sen. Al Simpson’s comments on Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill hearings
4. Guilty plea of Thermopolis youth in murder of mother and three brothers
5. Continued federal efforts to plan for wolf return to Yellowstone
6. Congress rejects attempt to raise grazing fees
7. Wyoming soldiers fight in Persian Gulf War
8. Amtrak returns passenger service to Wyoming
9. Kern River Gas Transmission Co., builds natural gas pipeline to California
10. Crook County rancher John Dorrance tries to legalize exotic game farming

1992

Top Wyoming News Stories, 1992*

1. Mark Hopkinson executed (December); 1st execution in Wyoming since 1965
2. Legislature reapportions itself into districts
3. Some Fremont County residents try for a monitored retrievable storage site for nuclear waste in Fremont County
4. Legislators debate funding shortfalls in budget session
5. Large and small school districts battle over education financing system
6. Congress debates grazing fee increases
7. Demonstrations favor a stalking bill in Wyoming
8. Justice Walter Urbigkit ousted from Supreme Court in retention election
9. Federal officials investigate shooting of “wolf-like” animal in Yellowstone
10. Voters approve term limitation initiative

1993

• October, Lusk becomes the first town in the United States with a community-wide fiber optic telephone system.

Top Wyoming News Stories, 1993*

1. Four schoolchildren injured in Sheridan by gunman, shooting randomly. Gunman shot self. Sept. 17, 1993.
2. District judge decided school funding was unsound. Judge Nick Kalokathis, after one-month trial of lawsuit by Green River, Rock Springs, Evanston and Campbell County schools against state. Schools alleged more state money per student went to small schools than to large. Ruling November, 1993, the judge said the state constitution did not guarantee equal funding for all districts.
3. Interior Department failed in an attempt for grazing reforms. The agency proposed raise of $1.86 per animal unit month to $4 per anum, but Congress did not agree.
4. In September, Malcolm Wallop announces retirement from U.S. Senate.
5. Gunman-neighbor shoots two in Goshen County March 21; he is later shot by his sister-in-law. Gunman Ray Esquibel lived, sentenced to life in prison.
6. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released report on wolf reintroduction in Yellowstone.
7. 4-month strike by 480 workers at General Chemical’s trona plant near Green River. Picket line violence July 31. Mediated agreement reached in November.
8. Torrington police officer Lt. Harley Mark killed in car accident in Sept. while searching for jail escapee.
9. Dick Cheney announced he would not be a candidate for the Senate (Dec.)
10. AP investigates Wind River Bureau of Indian Affairs police brutality.

1994

Top Wyoming News Stories, 1994*

1. Republican Party sweep of the 1994 elections in Wyoming. The governor and the four other top offices were won by Republicans and Republicans Craig Thomas and Barbara Cubin won their respective races for the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives.
2. Voters reject legalized gambling and also reject a proposed ban on most abortions.
3. Deaths of five Douglas teenagers, killed by a train at a local crossing in August. Noah Stavnes, Jeremy Stavnes, Ryan Willson, Tiffany Rabun and Jennifer Coziahr were riding in a car hit by the train at an unrestricted crossing.
4. Continuing debate over rangeland reform and grazing fees.
5. Efforts to return wolves to Yellowstone National Park.
6. The growing concern over the rise in the number of children bringing firearms to school.
7. State Board of Land Commissioners impose two-year moratorium on sales of state lands.
8. Senator Malcolm Wallop retired from the Senate after 18 years of service.
9. The continuing debate over the constitutionality of school finance.
10. University of Wyoming student John Candelaria shot and killed in May on the corner of 15th and Ivinson on the Laramie campus by Robert Lovato, the first murder ever committed on the University of Wyoming campus.

1995

Top Wyoming News Stories, 1995*

1. The Wyoming Supreme Court rules that the state’s education funding system is unconstitutional and orders that the state comply with the Constitution by July 1, 1977.
2. U.S. Senator Al Simpson announces his retirement from the Senate at the end of his third term in 1996, setting off a flurry of activity among candidates.
3. Fourteen Canadian wolves are released into Yellowstone National Park to become acclimated to their new home
4. Two men are trapped hundreds of feet underground when a trona mine collapses in Sweetwater County; one rescued, the other dies.
5. Two convicted murderers, including a man convicted of killing his stepmother and three brothers, escape from the Wyoming State Penitentiary.
6. A Fremont County sheriff’s deputy is shot to death as he returns a Boy’s School escapee to the institution in Worland.
7. Gov. Jim Geringer produces his first budget, compiled through his “strategic planning” process.
8. Wyoming officials continue concern over planned gold mine in Montana near Yellowstone National Park.
9. President Clinton golfs, floats and shops his way through Jackson, bringing with him hordes of reporters and sightseers.
10. Mae Wardell, 83, survives for eight days after her car slides off a highway and gets stuck in mud.

1996

Top Wyoming News Stories, 1996*

1. State Sen. Mike Enzi defeats former Secretary of State Kathy Karpan for U.S. Senate seat vacated by Sen. Al Simpson.
2. Jessica Dubroff, a seven-year-old seeking to become the youngest pilot to fly across the United States, is killed in a single-engine Cessna crash shortly after taking off in Cheyenne. The crash also killed her father and flight instructor.
3. President Bill Clinton announces a deal to halt building of a gold mine near Yellowstone National Park.
4. Levi Todd Collen is sentenced to three life terms in prison for raping and killing Berry Bryant of Riverton. Both had been students at Northwest College, Powell, at the time of the murder.
5. Widespread late-season forest and range fires cause damage statewide.
6. The legislature struggles with the impact of the Supreme Court’s ruling on education finance.
7. The State Land Board renews a moratorium on the sale of state lands.
8. University of Wyoming head football coach Joe Tiller leaves to accept the head coaching job at Purdue University.
9. Nine people are killed when a C-130 transport plane crashes near Jackson. The plane was carrying vehicles used by President Clinton’s entourage during his vacation in the Jackson Hole area.
10. State and county officials struggle with the question of whether to allow access to public lands to build the Express oil pipeline.

1997

Top Wyoming News Stories, 1997*

1. Legislature agrees on plan for education finance reform, only to have it challenged immediately by 31 school districts and the Wyoming Education Association. A state district judge approved part of the plan and rejects the remainder.
2. Several wolves shot as the population of predators in Yellowstone National Park continues to grow faster than expected. A federal judge declares the reintroduction program illegal and orders the wolves removed, but puts the order on hold pending an expected appeal.
3. Amy Wroe Bechtel disappears near Lander while jogging.
4. Lawsuit over the winter use of Yellowstone National Park results in agreement to study closing segment of snowmobile trail for three years.
5. Correctional officer Wayne Martinez killed by three inmates in an unsuccessful escape attempt.
6. Joint public-private task force recommends elimination of Department of Commerce and relocation of economic development activities into a new quasi-government agency.
7. Marty Olsen, found guilty of murdering three people in a Worland bar, becomes first person in Wyoming in ten years to be sentenced to death.
8. Truck driver Keith Jesperson, convicted serial killer, returned to Wyoming to face murder charge two years after admitting to a murder in the state.
9. Mesa Airlines announces halt to service to five Wyoming towns in attempt to gain federal subsidies for continuing service to those communities.
10. U.S. Department of Agriculture panel recommends that cattle in six Wyoming counties be tested for brucellosis before sale.

1998

Top Wyoming News Stories, 1998*

1. University of Wyoming freshman Matthew Shepard lured from a Laramie bar, kidnapped, tied to a fence east of Laramie, and savagely beaten. He dies in a Fort Collins hospital five days later. Police arrest two Laramie men for the murder. The case brings national attention as a “hate crime,” committed because Shepard was gay.
2. Christen Lamb, an 8-year-old Laramie girl, is kidnapped and murdered while visiting her grandparents’ home at Powell. A man living across the street from her grandparents is arrested, tried, convicted of the murder and given a life sentence.
3. Legislature fine-tunes the education funding formula in an effort to comply with a 1995 Wyoming Supreme Court ruling that lawmakers provide equal educational opportunities to Wyoming students. More than half of the state’s school districts continue litigation over the matter.
4. Two penitentiary prisoners convicted of the murder of Wayne Martinez, a correctional officer, during an escape attempt. One is sentenced to life; the other is given the death penalty, but appeals the case.
5. An outbreak of E. coli sickens residents and visitors in western Wyoming. Outbreak is traced to the water supply in Alpine.
6. Gillette math teacher Cheryl Trover shoots and stabs her husband then lies to officials that an intruder committed the crime and kidnapped her. When police doubt her story, she commits suicide.
7. Wyoming Business Council is created to stimulate state’s stagnant economy.
8. Two Green River teenagers push a third teen off a cliff, then take their own lives. The two are apparently motivated by the despair of one over his breakup with a girl.
9. National Park Service decides against closing a 14-mile snowmobile trail in Yellowstone National Park as part of a winter use study.

1999

• Foote Creek Rim, Wyoming's first wind farm is completed. At the time, it produced 85MW.

Top Wyoming News Stories, 1999*

1. Conclusion of the murder case that focused national debate on violence against homosexuals and the effectiveness of bias crime laws. Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson were tried separately for the murder of 21-year-old University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard.
2. Year-long struggle by state officials to address the budget shortfall, estimated at one time to be as much as $127 million.
3. First statewide standardized testing of 20,000 school students in Wyoming. The tests, criticized for errors, showed that two-thirds of students performed poorly in mathematics and from 40-60 percent, depending on grade level, failed to measure up in reading and writing.
4. Park Service proposal to ban snowmobiles on a road to Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park.
5. Legislature’s responses to the school funding formula.
6. (tie) Threats received by several Wyoming schools in the wake of the Columbine High School shootings
7. (tie) Investigations of the Wyoming National Guard involving improper loans of equipment and a false promotion.
8. Lawsuit over the funding formula for Wyoming’s community colleges.
9. Former Casper youth soccer coach charged with ten counts of child pornography.
10. State’s continuing problems with methamphetamines with 20 labs found making the illegal substance, up from 12 in 1998.

2000

Top Wyoming News Stories, 2000*

1. Wyomingite Dick Cheney elected vice president of the United States
2. Wildfires rage from June to October
3. Snowmobiles banned in Yellowstone, Grand Teton National Parks
4. Coalbed methane industry continues boom
5. Oil industry rebounds
6. Wyoming Business Council troubles lead to resignation of CEO
7. Ban proposed on new roads in national forest roadless areas
8. Marilyn Kite becomes first woman appointed to Wyoming Supreme Court
9. Legislature considers variety of new taxes
10. Education officials express dismay with drop in Wyoming Comprehensive Assessment System (WyCAS) test scores for most school grade levels