Wyoming

Chuck Gray Raises Alarm About Zuck Bucks Group At County Clerks’…

Published

1 year ago

October 4, 2024

Chuck Gray Raises Alarm About Zuck Bucks Group At County Clerks’…

Secretary of State Chuck Gray is raising alarms about a private elections group that attended a meeting of Wyoming county clerks last week.

At the meeting of the Wyoming Association of County Officers held in Rock Springs, there was a booth and a staff member from the nonprofit Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL).

On Wednesday, he sent a letter to Wyoming’s 23 county clerks expressing his concerns.

“I was deeply troubled by the presence of CTCL at the Wyoming Association of County Officers meeting in Rock Springs last week,” Gray writes. “Despite many in the media who have claimed there is no presence by these groups in Wyoming, CTCL’s presence in Rock Springs only demonstrates that they are targeting Wyoming.”

Fremont County Clerk Julie Freese was at the meeting and said CTCL’s presence was rather innocuous. She said the group’s representative did not offer her help or any money, and appeared to be serving in a strictly informational role.

“I don’t think this girl said or had anything to do with any of us that would be out of line,” she said.

Freese also finds it interesting Gray felt the need to put out a public letter about the issue when he had already expressed concern to the clerks about CTCL being at the meeting.

“It’s a little bit surprising when he already had discussed it and we know his concerns,” she said.

What’s It About?

CTCL is connected to Meta founder Mark Zuckerburg, who gave $350 million to the organization to help with public election administration during the 2020 election.

The group used this donation to pay out $332 million in donations to provide thousands of local elections offices COVID-19 “relief grants.”

In a Facebook post, Zuckerberg said the money was intended to “support election officials with the infrastructure they need to administer the vote — including voting equipment, PPE for poll workers and hiring additional poll staff.”

The grants became colloquially known as “Zuck Bucks.”

Although the CTCL grants in the 2020 election were nominally nonpartisan, many accused the group of focusing its main efforts on areas won by President Joe Biden in battleground states to help draw a higher voter turnout, which historically tends to benefit Democrats more than Republicans.

As he also mentioned in a 2023 letter sent to the clerks, Gray believes these kinds of “deeply disturbing” grants could expose Wyoming to funding streams supported by foreign actors. He pointed out that liberal donor Swiss billionaire Hansjorg Wyss, who lives in Wyoming, gave to groups that then gave money to CTCL.

There is no evidence CTCL spent any money in Wyoming in 2020, but Gray urged the clerks in his letter to let him know if any private groups solicit them with money to run their elections, which is legal in Wyoming.

Freese said she already receives significant information on how to run elections from various governmental groups and doesn’t believe a group like CTCL could sway her.

CTCL appears to have broadened its focus this election year, offering “Rural and Nonmetro Election Infrastructure Grants,” for more rural areas. The grants are only eligible in jurisdictions like Wyoming that haven’t banned private funding of election administration.

During the 2023 and 2024 legislative sessions, bills were brought that would have banned private funding of elections in Wyoming. Neither gained much traction.

“Given the evolving tactics of groups like CTCL and their history of influencing election administration across the country, as well as Wyoming’s lack of a statutory ban on private funding of election administration, Wyoming is particularly vulnerable,” Gray writes.

Freese and Marissa Carpio, a representative of the Equality State Policy Center, said their groups had a neutral stance on these bills. Their only concern was that the legislation could inhibit private groups like Rotary clubs and schools from offering facilities to use as polling places.

“Where they worry is the cost burden on those county clerks,” Carpio said.

(Cowboy State Daily Staff)

Influence

Zuckerburg’s actions drew a rash of criticism from Republicans like Gray alleging that he and his wife were trying to influence the final results of the election.

Democrats have pushed for more federal funding in elections for years, which are largely funded at state and local levels. The GOP has largely opposed these proposals and introduced legislation that would prohibit nonprofits from giving direct funding to election offices.

Gray himself isn’t above taking advice and influence from private groups.

A trove of emails obtained through a public records request provided to Cowboy State Daily earlier this year by watchdog group Documented show that Florida-based think tank Foundation for Government Accountability lobbied Gray on various elections and ESG (environmental, social and governance) topics in early 2023, which resulted in nearly identical legislation brought before the Legislature.

Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.

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Wyoming

Wyoming High School Basketball 2A State Tournament 2026

Published

3 hours ago

March 1, 2026

Press Room

Wyoming High School Basketball 2A State Tournament 2026

The 2-time defending champ Tongue River girls, along with both teams from Big Horn will represent Sheridan County in the small school version of March Madness.

Click here to see results from the regional tournaments.

2A Boys:

First Round:

Thursday, March 5th: (All games played at Casper College)

(#2E) Big Horn vs. (#3W) Shoshoni – Noon

(#1W) Thermopolis vs. (#4E) Sundance – 1:30pm

(#2W) Wyoming Indian vs. (#3E) Wright – 6:30pm

(#1E) Pine Bluffs vs. (#4W) Rocky Mountain – 8pm

Friday, March 6th: (All games played at Ford Wyoming Center)

Consolation Round:

Big Horn/Shoshoni loser vs. Thermopolis/Sundance loser – Noon LOSER OUT!

Wyoming Indian/Wright loser vs. Pine Bluffs/Rocky Mountain loser – 1:30pm LOSER OUT!

Semi-Finals:

Big Horn/Shoshoni winner vs. Thermopolis/Sundance winner – 6:30pm

Wyoming Indian/Wright winner vs. Pine Bluffs/Rocky Mountain winner – 8pm

Saturday, March 7th:

Friday Noon winner vs. Friday 1:30pm – Noon at Ford Wyoming Center Consolation Championship

Friday 6:30pm loser vs. Friday 8pm loser – 3pm at Natrona County High School 3rd Place

Friday 6:30pm winner vs. Friday 8pm winner – 7pm at Ford Wyoming Center Championship

2A Girls:

First Round:

Thursday, March 5th: (All games played at Casper College)

(#2W) Wyoming Indian vs. (#3E) Big Horn – 9am

(#1E) Sundance vs. (#4W) Shoshoni – 10:30am

(#2E) Tongue River vs. (#3W) Greybull – 3:30pm

(#1W) Thermopolis vs. (#4E) Pine Bluffs – 5pm

Friday, March 6th: (All games played at Ford Wyoming Center)

Consolation Round:

Wyoming Indian/Big Horn loser vs. Sundance/Shoshoni loser – 9am LOSER OUT!

Tongue River/Greybull loser vs. Thermopolis/Pine Bluffs loser – 10:30am LOSER OUT!

Semi-Finals:

Wyoming Indian/Big Horn winner vs. Sundance/Shoshoni winner – 3:30pm

Tongue River/Greybull loser vs. Thermopolis/Pine Bluffs loser – 5pm

Saturday, March 7th:

Friday 9am winner vs. Friday 10:30am winner – 9am at Ford Wyoming Center Consolation Championship

Friday 3:30pm loser vs. Friday 5pm loser – 10:30am at Ford Wyoming Center 3rd Place

Friday 3:30pm winner vs. Friday 5pm winner – 5:30pm at Ford Wyoming Center Championship

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Wyoming

Wyoming Crow Hunters Can Blast All They Want, But Nobody Eats The Birds

Published

15 hours ago

March 1, 2026

Press Room

Wyoming Crow Hunters Can Blast All They Want, But Nobody Eats The Birds

Mention of bird hunting might conjure up images of hunters and their dogs huddling in freezing duck blinds or pounding the brush in hopes of kicking up pheasants. But crow hunting is a thing in Wyoming too.

“It’s about the sport of it,” Dan Kinneman of Riverton told Cowboy State Daily.

He started crow hunting when he was 14 and is about to turn 85. He’s never tried cooking and eating crows or known anybody who has.

Instead, shooting crows is essentially nuisance bird control, as they’re known to wreak havoc on agricultural crops.

“All the ranchers will let you hunt crows. I’ve never been refused access to hunt crows. They all hate them,” he said.

In Wyoming, crow hunting season runs from Nov. 1 to Feb. 28. No license is required, and there’s no bag limit. Hunters can shoot all the crows they want to.

It’s a ball for hunting dogs too, Kinneman said.

“My yellow Labrador retriever, he doesn’t care whether it’s a crow or duck. In fact, he likes crow hunting more than duck hunting, because there’s more action,” he said.

Crow hunting requires skill, patience and a good set of decoys, an experienced Wyoming hunter said. The upside is, there’s no bag limit, hunters can blast all the crows they want. No one eats them, though.

Don’t Expect It To Be Easy

Kinneman said that in the days of his youth, crow hunting was as simple as driving around and “shooting them out of trees with rifles.”

However, as the number of people and buildings potentially in the paths of bullets grew, such practices fell out of favor. Crow hunting became more regulated.

And it evolved to resemble hunting other birds, such as waterfowl.

Meaning, hunters started setting out decoys, hiding in blinds and using calls to tempt crows to within shotgun range.

Kinneman is no stranger to hunting of all types. He’s taken numerous species of big game in Wyoming and elsewhere. And in July 2005, he shot a prairie dog near Rock Springs from well over a mile away.

He hit the prairie dog from 2,157 yards away. A mile is 1,760 yards.

But bird hunting has always been his favorite.

“It’s my life,” he said.

He has a huge collection of duck, goose and dove decoys. And two tubs full of crow decoys.

The uninitiated might think that going out and blasting crows would be a slam dunk.

That isn’t so, Kinneman said. He likes crow hunting for the challenge of it.

“Hunting crows is hard. They are a lot smarter than ducks and geese,” he said.

Pick Up After Yourself

Even though he doesn’t eat crows, Kinneman said he never just left them littering the ground where he shot them.

“I never let them lay out there. I always picked them up and disposed of the carcasses,” he said.

That’s good ethics and it shows respect for the ranchers, he said.

“Leaving them (dead crows) out there would be no different than just leaving all of your empty shotgun shells out there,” he said.

“You have to pick up after yourself, or the ranchers won’t let you back onto their land,” he added.

Slow Year

At his age, Kinneman isn’t sure how much longer he’ll be able to get out crow hunting. And this year has been a total bust.

“I love doing it. But this year there are no crows,” he said.

The Riverton area is along major crow migration routes.

Picking a good hunting spot is a matter of “finding a flyway” that the crows are on and then setting up a spread of decoys and a blind along the route.

But with an unusually warm winter, the crow flyways have been practically empty, he said.

Migrations Are Off Everywhere

Avid birdwatcher Lucas Fralick of Laramie said that warm, dry conditions much of this winter have knocked bird migrations out of whack.

“I do know that because of the weather, migrations are off all over the place,” he said.

One of his favorite species is the dark-eyed junco, a “small, sparrow-like bird,” he said.

They usually winter in the Laramie area and leave right around March. This year, they were gone by November, he said.

“They’re a cold-weather bird,” he said.

Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.

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Wyoming

Wyoming State Parks surpasses five million visitors in 2025

Published

1 day ago

February 28, 2026

Press Room

Wyoming State Parks surpasses five million visitors in 2025

Wyoming State Parks is thrilled to announce that system-wide visitation surpassed the 5-million-visitor milestone in 2025. With an estimated 5,048,419 total visitors, the agency saw a 5% increase over 2024, marking its highest visitation levels since the 2020-21 recreation surge. This continued growth reaffirms Wyoming’s reputation as a premier destination for recreation, history, and culture. […]

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