High Prices And Low Supply: Douglas, Commissioners And Companies Struggle With Housing
It's freezing outside as Terry Short smokes a cigarette under a hotel's awning near downtown Douglas. He's wearing a Dallas Cowboys sweatshirt, his hometown team.
"For the most part it's as nice little sleepy town that you know generally doesn't have a whole lot of chaos," Short said.
Short is an oil field worker for a company called Gunslinger. Today is his day off, but normally he would be out in the field doing inspections or survey work. Short is far from the only worker of his kind in the area. He said folks get a daily per diem from companies to live on. The housing strategies are diverse and often focused on saving.
In Search Of Safety: Energy Boom Leaves Domestic Violence Survivors Without Escape Routes
This story is part of a two-part series on the effects of the Converse County energy boom on housing in Douglas.
I knock on the door of an apartment in the one and only income-restricted apartment complex in Douglas. 29-year-old Elise shows me in. Petite with long dark hair and a friendly smile, she gives me a tour of the small apartment she shares with her two children. We're not using her last name to protect her from retaliation. I notice a sign on the living room wall that says, "Home Sweet Home," and for Elise, a home has never been so sweet as this one. About eighteen months ago, Elise left an abusive relationship with her children's father.
Brinton Museum Exhibit Features American Indian Artists And Story
The Brinton Museum in Big Horn, Wyoming, is home to a collection of artifacts and objects from many Plains Indian tribes. As it open for the season, the Brinton along with the Center for American Indian Research and Native Studiesput together an exhibit centered around the Lakota creation story. Wyoming Public Radio's Catherine Wheeler sat down with Craig Howe, the director of the Center for American Indian Research, to talk about how the story has an impact today.
Wyoming Lawmakers Are Ready To Battle Over Health Care
President Trump is now backing a lawsuit that would invalidate the entire Affordable Care Act, and that's promising to make health care a major election issue next year. Wyoming Republicans are fine with that, even though they have failed to repeal and replace when they controlled both chambers of Congress.
New Book Tells True-Life Tale Of A Wyoming Homicidal Love Story
Author and journalist Ron Franscell is out with a new book. It tells the story of a Wyoming couple who committed several murders in the 1970s and 80s to get their own "happily ever after," and how they were finally brought to justice after several decades. Wyoming Public Radio's Caroline Ballard spoke with Franscell about his book Alice and Gerald: A Homicidal Love Story, and he told her he became interested in the story after hearing about their arrests in the news a few years ago.
Advocates Say Sexual Violence Survivors Face Gaps In Law Enforcement Training
April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. While the issue has received more and more attention, sexual assault is a crime that's still chronically under-reported across the nation. Concern about how the criminal justice system will respond is one of the top reasons victims say they don't report.
State Of Idaho Funds Controversial Wolf Bounty Program
If you kill a wolf in Idaho, your effort might be worth $1,000.
A nonprofit in North Idaho covers costs for hunters and trappers who successfully harvest wolves. The group, called the Foundation for Wildlife Management pays up to $1,000 per wolf harvest.
When Modern Brewing Meets Ancient Ales, Strange Things Happen
The closest that Travis Rupp came to getting fired, he says, was the time he tried to make chicha. The recipe for the Peruvian corn-based beer, cobbled together from bits of pre-Incan archaeological evidence, called for chewed corn partially fermented in spit. So, Rupp’s first task had been to convince his colleagues to gather round a bucket and offer up their chompers for the cause.
Saxophonist Takes First Place In UW Orchestra Competition
A somewhat unusual instrument claimed first place in the annual Dorothy Jacoby Student Soloist Competition at the University of Wyoming in March. As she told Wyoming Public Radio's Micah Schweizer, Mikayla Peterson is the second saxophone player in her family to perform with the UW Symphony Orchestra in the concerto competition.
