Bob Beck

A search firm says there is a lot of interest in Wyoming’s opening for a new Director of Education.  The position was created by the State Legislature to take over day to day operations of the State Department of Education. 

Emergency unemployment compensation program benefits will be reduced under the federal government’s budget sequester. 

Wyoming Workforce Services Director Joan Evans that the program provides unemployed individuals who have exhausted regular unemployment insurance benefits.  Evans says the reduction will likely be noticeable.

The Northern Arapaho Tribe is a mess, financially. They’re behind on their audits, past audits have not been flattering, and change has been slow to come. Wyoming Public Radio’s Irina Zhorov has been looking into why the audits are less than ideal and the status of the Tribe’s future financial solvency.   

BOB BECK: To start, why is a federal governmental agency even auditing a tribe, if the tribe is supposed to be pretty much sovereign?

In the mid 1990’s the University of Wyoming made a conscious effort to attract more Native American students to the University. Over the years recruitment and retention of students from the Wind River Reservation has been challenging.  New efforts could change things and many believe that will be important for the long term health of the Reservation.

A new study shows that the decline in native cutthroat trout has had dramatic impacts on the migratory elk herds in the Greater Yellowstone Area. 
 

Lead Researcher Arthur Middleton and others were studying the decline of elk herds in the region, and they determined that grizzly bears were playing a greater role in those deaths than they realized. 
 

The illegal introduction of lake trout into Yellowstone Lake has harmed the cutthroat trout population. 
 

Pollutants detected in water wells in Sublette County’s gas fields
Sublette County has been in the news a lot because of its air quality problems, which largely stem from natural gas production. But there’s another issue too: Pollutants have been showing up in water wells. Wyoming Public Radio’s Willow Belden reports.

Next week the Cheyenne International Film festival gets underway. The event begins May 16th and runs through the 19th.  The producer of the event is Alan O’Hashi who’s been active in helping Wyoming movie makers and this venue gives them a chance to showcase their work, but as the title suggests, International films will also be shown.   O’Hashi tells Bob Beck the event was started five years ago and continues to grow.  He says they will be showing a wide range of films.

Former Newspaper reporter and author Tom Rea has a new venture, he is the Editor of WyoHistory.org. It is a history website about Wyoming.  He tells Bob Beck the idea for the website came as he was doing a job for the Natrona County School district.

This weekend a new set of graduates are leaving the University of Wyoming.  For some, they are facing an unknown job situation, but others are ready to jump into their careers.  The graduates also talked about Wyoming’s efforts to keep them in-state. Wyoming Public Radio’s Bob Beck sat down with three graduates from U-W’s College of business and found that two are leaving and one thinks he’ll hang around a bit longer.

As it addressed issues concerning substance abuse, one thing the state never had were Wyoming specific numbers on the financial impact of substance abuse.  Wyoming Public Radio’s Bob Beck reports that a recent study has found that the cost of alcohol, tobacco and drug abuse is staggering.

BOB BECK:  This is the Wyoming Survey and Analysis Center or WYSAC  today people in the state are being asked about their tobacco use.

“And how old were you when you first smoked at least one cigarette every day for 30 days in a row?  16? All right…”

For the last month, state officials have expressed concern about Wyoming’s dry winter and the possibility of another bad fire season.  But with the moisture the state has recently received, the question is whether that concern has been reduced.  Bill Crapser is the state forester and he tells Bob Beck that having more moisture has helped.

Wyoming's Senators Help Defeat Gun Control
After weeks of intense lobbying on Capitol Hill gun control advocates suffered a stinging defeat this week…in part because of opposition from Wyoming’s two Republican senators. Matt Laslo reports from Washington. 

Author and historian David McCullough is a two time winner of the Pulitzer prize, he has twice won the National Book Award, and has been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his books on American History. He spoke about history, education and a number of topics at the University of Wyoming this week. I was able to catch up with him following his talk.

A survey of registered voters in Casper has found that the majority do not want the city council to overturn the city’s smoking ban. 

When the Casper City Council began to discuss overturning the law, the American Cancer Society Action Network and the American Heart Association hired a firm to survey Casper residents about the efforts. More than 600 Casper voters supported the smoking ban.

Jason Mincer of the Cancer society says the law is popular, with 62-percent of public support.

While Colorado has legalized marijuana, Governor Matt Mead has no interest in seeing Wyoming do the same.  During a recent conference call with reporters, Mead was asked if he would support legalizing marijuana in the state.  His answer was no.

A long time Wyoming Public official has written a new book about the suicide of former Wyoming U-S Senator and Governor Lester Hunt.  Hunt was a democrat who was Wyoming’s Governor for six years, before getting elected to the U-S Senate, where he served from 1949 until his death in 1954.  In his book called Dying for Joe McCarthy’s sins, Rodger McDaniel says that Hunt was well thought of in Wyoming…

Study after study says that children are not as active as they used to be and many groups and organizations are promoting various ways for children to develop a healthy lifestyle.  In Laramie, a young woman is trying to do this with yoga…for kids.  Wyoming Public Radio’s Bob Beck has more.        

The University of Wyoming’s Fay Whitney School of Nursing has been chosen to participate in a $3 million initiative aimed at transforming nursing education.  The initiative is called the Future of Nursing State Implementation Program.  UW School of Nursing Dean Mary Burman says the effort is intended to address issues that include health care access, quality and cost.  Burman says in Wyoming, they will look at three key issues.

The season is over for the Wyoming Cowboys basketball team.  Western Michigan defeated Wyoming 75-67 in the College Basketball Invitational. 

The Cowboys had a chance to ice the game, but Wyoming’s Josh Adams made only one of two free throws, allowing the Broncos’ David Brown to tie the game with a three-point shot in the closing seconds and send the game into overtime.

In overtime, the Broncos pulled away.

After the game, Wyoming Sophomore Larry Nance Junior gave Brown credit for making a tough shot.

The Wyoming Cowboys will face a Mid-American Conference team in the second round of tonight’s College Basketball Invitational tournament. 

Western Michigan had 21 wins and 12 losses this year and features two solid inside players in Junior Shayne Whittington and Freshman Darius Paul. 

Wyoming Head Coach Larry Shyatt says they will have to be contained.

Wyoming’s Nathan Sobey made a three-point shot at the buzzer as the Cowboys rallied to beat Lehigh 67-66 in the first round of the College Basketball Invitational. 

Wyoming trailed most of the second half, but rallied to tie it, only to see Lehigh take the lead with six seconds left, setting up Sobey’s game winning shot.

The President wants to increase the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $9 an hour.  Wyoming’s congressional delegation quickly opposed the idea, saying it will force Wyoming’s small business community to hire and retain fewer workers.   But the U-S Labor Department’s Seth Harris says his office has studied minimum wage hikes extensively and he says such an increase would help the economy, not hurt it.

DEQ releases ozone strategy for Sublette County
The Department of Environmental Quality has released a plan for tackling the ozone problem in Sublette County. Emissions from the energy industry there have combined to form a type of pollution called ozone, which can be a health hazard. Ozone levels have been so high that they violate federal standards, and the Environmental Protection Agency has given Wyoming three years to fix the problem.

BOB BECK: The Department of Environmental Quality has released a plan for tackling the ozone problem in Sublette County. Emissions from the energy industry there have combined to form a type of pollution called ozone, which can be a health hazard. Ozone levels have been so high that they violate federal standards, and the Environmental Protection Agency has given Wyoming three years to fix the problem.