Wyoming
Casper Wyoming Temple opens to media, public
The Casper Wyoming Temple is the latest new house of the Lord that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has opened for media, special-guest and public tours.
That opening began Monday, Aug. 26, with the temple’s media day, as Church leaders held a 10 a.m. news conference welcoming local media representatives before leading them on tours of the temple and then being available for interviews.
Representing the Church at the Casper temple media day were Elder Randall K. Bennett, a General Authority Seventy and president of the North America Central Area; Elder James R. Rasband, a General Authority Seventy and assistant executive director of the Temple Department; and President Camille N. Johnson, Relief Society general president. They were joined by local leaders.
Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles will dedicate Casper Wyoming Temple in a single 10 a.m. session on Sunday, Nov. 24, with the session to be broadcast to all units within the Casper temple district.
The single dedication session and Nov. 24 dedication date are updates from previous announcements of a Oct. 13 dedication and two sessions at 10 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. The rescheduled date now has the house of the Lord in Casper becoming the Church’s 201st dedicated and operating temple.
Coinciding with Monday’s media day, the Church released interior and exterior photographs of the temple. The images and the dedication updates were first published on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
Following Monday’s media day, invited guests will tour the temple Tuesday and Wednesday, Aug. 27-28, prior to the temple’s open house that runs from Thursday, Aug. 29, through Saturday, Sept. 14.
Serving 15,000 Latter-day Saints in nearly 50 congregations within its district, the Casper Wyoming Temple will be the state’s second dedicated and operating house of the Lord, following the Star Valley Wyoming Temple, which was dedicated in 2016. The Cody Wyoming Temple, which was announced in 2021 is in planning and design.
Monday’s media day and start of the open-to-the-public period of the Casper temple is the fourth in 15 days, with similar events having happened for the Pittsburgh Pennsylvania Temple on Aug. 12 and the Mendoza Argentina and Salvador Brazil temples last week on Aug. 19. A fifth temple — the San Pedro Sula Honduras Temple — will have its media day in two weeks, on Sept. 9.
Casper temple background
Church President Russell M. Nelson announced a house of the Lord for Casper, Wyoming, during the April 2021 general conference, one of the 20 new temple locations he identified.
The temple site was released in June 2021, with plans calling for a single-story edifice of approximately 10,000 square feet. The temple grounds are a 9.5-acre parcel at the intersection of Wyoming Boulevard and Eagle Drive in Casper.
An exterior rendering of the temple was released on Sept. 9, 2021, along the announcement of the groundbreaking date.
Elder S. Gifford Nielsen, a General Authority Seventy who was then president of the Church’s North America Central Area, presided at the Oct. 9, 2021, groundbreaking.
Casper temple design and features
The Casper temple features a steel-framed modular structure, built similar to the modular construction first used by the Church with its Helena Montana Temple, which was dedicated in June 2023. The exterior is a cladding of glass-fiber reinforced concrete.
Landscaping of the 9.5-acre temple grounds includes large boulders and stones and grasses — all reflecting the region’s rocky prairie — along with native plants, multi-trunk trees and evergreens.
The design motifs through the interior are based on the stylized versions of the Indian paintbrush — Wyoming’s state flower — and the sagebrush, both native to Casper and the surrounding area.
Floor coverings include green carpet tile in the instruction room, cream wool area rugs in the celestial and sealing rooms and red, green and tan decorative rugs in the entry and waiting area. Porcelain in the Timeless Marfil color is used in the interior, with granite in the color of Coast Green in the baptistry.
Art-glass windows and interior decorative painting feature local flora — including the Indian paintbrush — and geometric Native American patterns. The doors are stained sapele and painted poplar, with millwork employing the same woods.
The Church in the Casper area
In the latter half of the 1800s, those migrating to the western United States usually traveled through Wyoming. That includes the tens of thousands of Latter-day Saint pioneers between 1847 and 1859 alone what crossed the Oregon Trail through what is now Casper in the central part of the present-day state of Wyoming en route to Fort Bridger before dropping off the trail and heading southwest toward the Salt Lake Valley. Early Church members operated ferries in the Casper area to help pioneers cross the North Platte River.
Martin’s Cove — the location where early and severe winter storms trapped the Willie and Martin handcart companies of pioneers in 1856 — is about 60 miles southwest of Casper.
The Church’s first branch was organized as part of the Western States mission in December 1920, with Latter-day Saints meeting in homes and rented buildings until the first chapel was built in 1939.
Two stakes in the region were created on Oct. 14, 1962, by Elder Spencer W. Kimball and Elder Howard W. Hunter — two members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles who later became presidents of the Church. The Wind River Stake included congregations in Lander and Riverton and the Casper Stake included those in the namesake city; the stakes are now known as the Riverton Wyoming and Casper Wyoming stakes.
Beginning in the late 1800s, the closest operating houses of the Lord for Latter-day Saints in the Casper area initially were the Logan Utah and Salt Lake temples, with members traveling in later decades to the Idaho Falls Idaho and Ogden Utah temples. Currently, the two stakes based in Casper and the one in Riverton are assigned to the Fort Collins Colorado Temple district, which is a three-hour drive from Casper, some 225 miles away.
Casper Wyoming Temple
Location: 3011 Independence Court, Casper, Wyoming 82604
Announced: April 4, 2021, by President Russell M. Nelson, President of the Church
Groundbreaking: Oct. 9, 2021, presided over by Elder S. Gifford Nielsen, a General Authority Seventy and then president of the North America Central Area
To be dedicated: Nov. 24, 2024, by Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
Property size: 9.52 acres
Building size: 9,950 square feet
Building height: 97 feet, 6 inches, including the spire
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Wyoming
Rivalries and Playoff Positioning Highlight Week 11 Wyoming Girls Basketball Slate
It’s Week 11 in the 2026 Wyoming prep girls’ basketball season. That means it’s the end of the regular season. 3A and 4A schools have their final game or games to determine seeding before the regional tournament, or if a team is locked into a position, one last chance to fine-tune before the postseason. Games are spread across four days.
WYOPREPS WEEK 11 GIRLS BASKETBALL SCHEDULE 2026
Every game on the slate is a conference matchup. Several rivalry contests are part of this week’s schedule, such as East against Central, Cody at Powell, Lyman hosting Mountain View, and Rock Springs at Green River, just to name a few. Here is the Week 11 schedule of varsity games WyoPreps has. All schedules are subject to change. If you see a game missing, please email david@wyopreps.com.
CLASS 4A
Final Score: Laramie 68 Cheyenne South 27 (conference game)
CLASS 3A
Final Score: Lyman 40 Mountain View 26 (conference game)
CLASS 4A
Final Score: Evanston 41 Riverton 39 (conference game)
Final Score: Natrona County 42 Kelly Walsh 38 (conference game) – Peach Basket Classic
Final Score: #4 Thunder Basin 64 Campbell County 32 (conference game)
CLASS 3A
Final Score: #1 Cody 77 Worland 33 (conference game) – 5 different Fillies with a 3, and Hays led the way with 34 points.
Final Score: #2 Lander 49 Lyman 34 (conference game)
Final Score: #4 Wheatland 51 Douglas 40 (conference game)
Final Score: #5 Powell 48 Lovell 42 (conference game)
Final Score: Burns 56 Torrington 43 (conference game)
Final Score: Glenrock 78 Newcastle 30 (conference game)
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CLASS 4A
Rock Springs at #2 Green River, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
#4 Thunder Basin at #5 Sheridan, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
#1 Cheyenne East at #3 Cheyenne Central, 6 p.m. (conference game)
Jackson at Star Valley, 6 p.m. (conference game)
CLASS 3A
#3 Pinedale at Mountain View, 4 p.m. (conference game)
#1 Cody at #5 Powell, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
Buffalo at Glenrock, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
CLASS 3A
Newcastle at Buffalo, 12:30 p.m. (conference game)
Glenrock at Rawlins, 3 p.m. (conference game)
Torrington at #4 Wheatland, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
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Gallery Credit: David Settle, WyoPreps.com
Wyoming
Political storm in Wyoming as far-right activist caught handing checks to lawmakers
Controversy has engulfed Wyoming’s state legislature after a conservative activist was photographed handing checks to Republican lawmakers on the state house floor, in an incident that has highlighted intra-conservative divisions and the role of money in the Cowboy state’s politics.
The political storm started on 9 February, when Karlee Provenza, a Democratic lawmaker, took a photo showing Rebecca Bextel, a conservative activist and committeewoman for the Teton county Republican party, handing a check to Darin McCann, a Republican representative, on the legislative floor. Marlene Brady, another Republican representative, stands in the photo’s background, a similar piece of paper pinched between her fingers.
“You have a person from the richest county in the country coming down to Cheyenne to hand out checks on the house floor,” Provenza said. “I have never seen something so egregious.”
Questions around the checks were soon swirling, and answers weren’t forthcoming. When asked what Bextel gave to her, Brady told a reporter for local outlet WyoFile: “I can’t remember.”
Then Bextel herself addressed the incident. “I raised $400,000 in the last election cycle for conservative candidates, and I will be doubling that amount this year,” Bextel wrote on Facebook on 11 February. “There’s nothing wrong with delivering lawful campaign checks from Teton county donors when I am in Cheyenne.”
Since then, it has emerged that the checks came from Don Grasso, a wealthy Teton county donor, who told the Jackson Hole News and Guide that he wrote the checks for Bextel to deliver to 10 Freedom caucus-aligned politicians. Grasso said the checks were intended as campaign contributions, and were not tied to specific legislation. It is unclear how many checks were ultimately delivered, but two of four confirmed recipients include the speaker of the house, Chip Neiman, and John Bear, the former head of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus.
The Wyoming house has formed a legislative investigative committee, and the Laramie county sheriff’s office said they’d open a criminal investigation.
Bextel declined to answer questions from the Guardian. Brady, McCann and Bear did not respond to requests for comment.
Neiman said he considered the criticism a “wraparound smear campaign”. He said: “It never once crossed my mind that this was bribery.
“These legislators, myself included, are now guilty until we can prove that we’re innocent. How is that right in this country? Isn’t that a little bit backwards?”
The scandal has highlighted long-standing divisions in Wyoming’s Republican party, which in recent years has seen a growing divide between old school, more moderate conservatives and a harder-right Freedom Caucus.
Several former Republican lawmakers forcefully condemned their colleagues for accepting the checks, and a local Republican party branch called for the lawmakers’ resignations.
Ogden Driskill, a Wyoming Republican senator, told the Guardian he does not consider Bextel’s actions to be illegal, but that “just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should”.
Bextel has spent years pushing against housing mitigation fees in Wyoming, and Driskill noted that she distributed the house floor checks just days before a bill she had publicly supported was set to be heard. Bextel was registered as a member of the press, not as a lobbyist when she delivered the checks.
“Ethically and morally, it’s bankrupt to a massive degree,” Driskill said.
Neiman said that he and other legislators who received checks have supported similar bills in the past: “Bribery is paying somebody to do something they would not otherwise do.”
Nationally, the 2024 election cycle saw record-spending from the mega-wealthy, as well as dark money groups. Wyoming followed the trend, in a tense red-on-red primary season.
For those gearing up to campaign this year, Teton county, the richest in the US, and Bextel’s picturesque home turf, is an essential stop. Its extreme wealth gives it a foothold on the national level as well. Palantir chief executive Alex Karp and Donald Trump attended an annual Republican leadership fundraiser at Jackson Hole in 2024, and JD Vance attended the same one in 2025.
Bextel pulls dollars from Teton county into the Freedom Caucus side of Wyoming’s conservative split. She hosted no-press-allowed meet and greets earlier this year benefitting leading candidates for Wyoming’s governor and open US House seat.
In an interview with the Open Range Record, a media network she co-founded, Bextel said controversy around the checks was solely because she was making “even playing field” in Wyoming against the state’s more moderate Republicans, who she calls “George Soros” candidates. She said that she will be sure to keep raising money – just away from the legislative floor.
“I guess I’m gonna ask all the gentlemen and gentleladies to step outside the Capitol while I hand them a check,” Bextel said. “Let me be clear: I’m doubling down.”
But it’s not just wealthy local donors putting their weight behind the factions. Last election cycle, out of state groups spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on anonymous and often inaccurate mailers.
“These actors, especially from the far right, they like to push the bounds of the norms,” said Rosa Reyna Pugh, an organizing and advocacy consultant at Western States Center, an Oregon-based non-profit focused on democracy in the western United States. “They like to see what policies they can kind of push, and see where they can play a piece,” Reyna Pugh said.
While Neiman and Driskill fight politically, they do agree on one thing: summer will bring an expensive and brutal campaign season.
“You’re going to see more dark money than you’ve ever seen. We’ve done absolutely nothing to enforce it. Our secretary of state has not even made a slight attempt to deal with it,” Driskill said. “You’re going to see lots and lots of outside money and I think you’re seeing it on both sides.”
As national questions swirl around pay-to-play politics and profiteering in the Trump administration, Provenza wants better for the Cowboy State.
“We should not be aligning ourselves with how the federal government is conducting itself or how federal elections conduct themselves,” Provenza said. “We owe something far better and more honest to the people of Wyoming than that.”
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