Gov. Mark Gordon started his State of the State Wednesday, Jan. 11, by honoring a Carbon County EMT who died while responding to an accident right before Christmas. Gordon thanked all of the state’s first responders, including healthcare providers, in the state.

He said his health care task force is hard at work trying to figure out how to prevent mental health crises.

“You’re going to see more recommendations coming up…controlling costs of both physical and mental health. And we're also going to work on access,” he told lawmakers.

Gordon also asked the Wyoming legislature to support a bill that would create a new alert system for missing adults in the state. Gordon created the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons task force in 2019. One of the main recommendations that came out of the group is to create what is called an ‘Ashanti alert system’ that would operate like an Amber alert for adults from ages 16 to 64. There is a bill that will be introduced during this session that would create the system.

“It’s an opportunity to stop more missing persons cases at their inception as well as taking a meaningful step at curbing human trafficking,” said Gordon.

The governor also focused his speech on energy, education, the economy and inflation in the state.