Wyoming
A Wyoming mother’s trust in the Catholic Church rattled by her son’s accusations of abuse – WyoFile
Renee Penton-Jones raised her son and daughter mostly as a single mother. Though she is Methodist, her ex-husband and kids were Catholic, and she relied “on the safety” of the Catholic Church for support. The Casper resident enrolled her children in Saint Anthony School and had them take part in church activities. The Christian education and physical activity her children received “meant the world” to Penton-Jones.
Last month, Penton-Jones’ son, James Stress, told her “that there was going to be a discussion with the church” about things that had happened to him as a boy. He didn’t want to talk about it with her then. She “really had no clue” what her son’s words could mean.
On March 31, Stress and two others filed a lawsuit alleging that a former Wyoming youth minister, Doug Hudson, who once worked at Our Lady of Fatima Church, had sexually assaulted them in the 1990s when they were boys. According to the complaint, Hudson had “plied” each of them “with copious amounts of alcohol.”
The lawsuit also named the Diocese of Cheyenne, which oversees parishes throughout Wyoming, and Our Lady of Fatima Church as defendants, stating that they failed to “supervise and control” the youth minister, which allowed for the alleged sexual assaults to occur.
Penton-Jones learned about the allegations last week through a news article that a friend sent to her. She was busy at work preparing for an Easter buffet and initially read only the headline. Then she sat at her desk and read the whole story. “It was just very disturbing, very upsetting, very shocking,” she told WyoFile. She called her son after to see that he was OK. And she wrote a comment on Facebook reacting to the news:
“As a single mother raising two children, I TRUSTED that they were safe within the arms of the Catholic Church. I TRUSTED that my son would be in a loving and caring, Christian environment when he was with the youth counselor hired by the church,” Penton-Jones wrote.
“I couldn’t have been more wrong and I can never undo the pain and suffering inflicted on my child. My heart breaks for him and the others who were subjected to this cruel and inhumane treatment right under the eyes of the church. I pray to God that there will be acknowledgement, apologies and accountability.”
Penton-Jones said she was unsure whether she could look to the church as the same place of safety that it had been to her for so long. “I would have to think about that,” she said. “There’s a lot of emotion. There’s anger. There’s frustration, like I told you, guilt, there are so many things that go through your head. How did I miss it? What didn’t I see?”
A spokesperson for the Diocese of Cheyenne initially declined to comment on the lawsuit, but told WyoFile that the diocese planned to respond publicly to the allegations “in the near future.”
The diocese shared its statement with WyoFile on Tuesday. The message refrains from commenting on the specific accusations in the lawsuit because the matter “is now the subject of active litigation.” At the same time, it expresses the diocese’s “awareness of the seriousness of such claims and its concern for all individuals who may be affected.”
“The Diocese recognizes that allegations of abuse — particularly those involving minors — can cause deep pain and lasting harm,” the message states. “Any person who comes forward with such allegations deserves to be heard with respect and compassion.”
The Diocese of Cheyenne, the statement continues, “remains committed” to protecting children and vulnerable people and upholding policies and procedures “to promote safety, accountability, and compliance with civil and Church law.”
“Out of respect for the legal process and all parties involved, the Diocese will refrain from further public comment while the matter proceeds,” the statement reads.
“All I can say is that I respect that there’s recognition,” Penton-Jones told WyoFile after a reporter read the statement to her.
When the lawsuit was filed, WyoFile attempted to contact Hudson through multiple avenues. None of those attempts were successful. A new court summons for Hudson lists a Kentucky address.
“I trusted him implicitly,” Penton-Jones said of Hudson. “I trusted the church with my children. So it was a huge shock.” If she had the opportunity to say something to Hudson, she would ask him “a lot of whys” and “How could you?”
Local Catholic Church members and others have reached out to Penton-Jones to “express their love and disappointment and prayers for healing and accountability.”
“It’s been a blessing to me,” she said. “To know that there’s so much positive in such a horrible situation, it’s comforting.”
Her “overwhelming thought is that the church be held responsible.”
“An apology would be ideal,” Penton-Jones said. “I can’t answer for my son. Good grief. I don’t know how you recover from that. How it affects your whole life.”
Four-time NFR heeler Trey Yates has been at the top of his game, placing at every rodeo he entered between July 9 and July 12. With consistency leading the way, Yates has established a comfortable lead in the Mountain States Circuit Standings.
NFR Open at the Pikes Peak or Bust Rodeo
Yates punched his ticket to Colorado Springs after winning the average at the 2025 Mountain States Circuit Finals with Garrett Tonozzi. The Pueblo native also claimed the year-end circuit title.
During Pool A of the NFR Open, Tonozzi and Yates secured their spot in the finals after clocking a 16.3 on two head. In Round 1, the team stopped the clock in 10.6 seconds to win fourth. They followed up their fourth place with a second-place finish in round 2 with a run of 5.7 seconds.
The Mountain States Average Champs will compete again on July 18, looking to secure that huge NFR Open win.
Circuit Rodeo Success
After changing roping partners in June, Yates has found success with header Riley Kittle at several rodeos, including many in his circuit.
For the first time in his career, Yates took home first place at the Cattlemen’s Days Inc. Rodeo. He heeled his steer in 4.4 seconds to win $3,384. Yates also entered the calf roping, where he placed sixth and clinched the all-around title.
In Monte Vista, Kittle and Yates placed third with a time of 5.3 seconds, winning $1,757 at the San Luis Valley Ski-Hi Stampede.
The Laramie Jubilee Days wrapped up July 12, and after the dust settled, Yates had added another $2,202 to his busy weekend wins. He and Kittle placed fourth in Laramie with a 5.4-second run.
Despite some tough luck in the first round of the Sheridan WYO Rodeo, Kittle and Yates roped their steer in 5.5 seconds to place second in Round 2, adding $2,832 to the team’s earnings.
World Standings
Yates has consistently been within the Top 15 for most of the year and is pursuing his fifth trip to Las Vegas. The 2018 NFR Average Champ currently sits at number ten in the PRCA World Standings with $73,598.33.
He also leads the Mountain States Circuit in both the heeling ($29,352.04) and the all-around ($30,654.88) after his success in Gunnison.
After solidifying his spot for his fourth NFR at the 2025 Governor’s Cup, Yates is looking to head back to Sioux Falls for that season-defining rodeo. He sits in the sixteenth spot for the Cinch Playoff Series with a total of 463.04 points.
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Douglas photographer Mark Panasuk enjoys transforming a dark scene into something beautiful.
He’s always on the lookout for another interesting setting, and when he found an abandoned stone ranch house north of Lost Springs, Wyoming, he knew he had something special.
Unlike the famous line from poet Dylan Thomas, he portrayed the property as going “gentle into that good night.”
Digging into its history, Panasuk became even more enamored with capturing the stone walls and grounds with the Milky Way above it because it once was home to one of the most successful Back ranchers in the West — Jim Edwards.
“It was kind of a unique house in that it was big house, two story, out in the prairie here in eastern Wyoming,” Panasuk said. “It had several buildings … and he was really inventive because he put in that water tower.”
The tower was built with an opening that appeared to allow a space for a fire that would keep the water from freezing in the winter.
The house had a bathroom with toilet, shower, and the property also featured a stone garage.
There is evidence of several other outbuildings that once were around it. Several accounts of the property state that Edwards was the first in the area to have indoor bathroom facilities.
Panasuk got permission from the current landowner to photograph the house and grounds, and the result shows the Milky Way like an arch above it framing the property.
He said he put a light inside the house, which has lost its windows, because he thought it made a better piece of art.
Creating the final image required a combination of 35 photos and three-minute exposures to fully reveal the Milky Way.
He used a computer program to stitch the digital images together to make it one.
Panasuk said he spoke with some of the ranchers around the property and learned that a father or grandfather knew Edwards, who made a name for himself well beyond Wyoming.
Turns out that Edwards is a featured name at the Homestead National Historic Park in Beatrice, Nebraska, and Ebony Magazine once profiled him in its March 1949 issue that had Billy Eckstein on the cover.
Magazine Profile
The profile was titled “The Last Days of Jim Edwards” and characterized him as a “legend” in Wyoming and a name that would remembered well beyond his death.
A history of Edwards written for the Black Past website says he was “one of the most successful African American homesteaders in the state of Wyoming.”
And “Pages From Converse County’s Past” compiled in the 1980s revealed that he was commonly known as “(N-word) Jim.”
But that word did not stop Edwards from becoming a successful rancher and business man. His coming and goings had fairly frequent mentions in the social columns of the local rural newspapers.
The Black Past account of Edwards’ life says that he was born on Feb. 14, 1874, and arrived in Wyoming in 1900 with his father and a group of Italian miners responding to newspaper ads about work in a Lusk coal mine.
The miners drove Edwards out, and he walked to Lusk and found work on the Wilson Brother’s Running Water Ranch.
Over the next 14 years, he rose to the rank of foreman and was a good sheepman, cowboy and horse trainer.
In his final years at the ranch, a dispute with the Wilson brothers led to a lawsuit that Edwards won in 1923, giving him $3,000 in back wages plus interest. The Wyoming Supreme Court increased it to $4,000.
The Lusk Free Lance on Nov. 1, 1923, reported that the dispute had been over an accounting of his share of sheep as well as his wages.
1913 Homestead
Meanwhile in 1913, the Wilsons helped him homestead acreage on Harney Creek.
Edwards recruited other blacks to homestead on land around him, and he eventually bought their properties.
“Converse County’s Past” states that Edwards married Lethel Dawson in 1914 in Denver, and that her parents cooked on a river boat on the Mississippi River
When her father contracted tuberculosis, they moved to Denver for his health.
A story looking back on Lost Springs in the Casper Star-Tribune on April 6, 1974, reports that Lethel’s father was a full-blooded Indian and her mother black.
After her marriage to Edwards, she traveled to Denver from time to time to sing on radio stations.
The Lusk Standard newspaper on Sept. 12, 1919, reported that “Mrs. Jim Edwards” had just become the “happy” owner of a new piano.
“Now, we’ll have some jazz,” the editor wrote.
In the Ebony Magazine story a few years after his wife’s death, Edwards was still in charge of his 14,000-acre Sixteen-Bar-One Ranch.
He had named it the Sixteen-Bar-One because it represented the ratio of white ranchers to black ones.
Edwards told the reporter that when he first arrived in Wyoming and then later set up his homestead, gunplay with neighboring ranchers and would-be outlaws was not uncommon. He was tested.
“No man will ever run Jim Edwards off of his land,” Edwards told the magazine. “Let ’em know right away that you’re going to fight for what you own. Just because a man’s colored is no reason for people to think he’s a coward.”
That philosophy likely was part of the reason for a story in the Niobrara County News on Dec. 3, 1914, when Edwards still served as herder for the Wilson Brothers and had a “mix-up” with a herder from another ranch over their bands of sheep.
Edwards had the man arrested, but later “dismissed the case and paid all the costs.”
Sheep ‘Straying’
Another mention of Edwards in the Lusk Herald a year earlier had him complaining that he had a lot of trouble with sheep “straying away.”
The Ebony account said that at one time, Edwards had 20,000 acres of land with oil rights, and during his normal operations had more than 1,000 head of cattle, 9,000 sheep, 200 horses, 5,000 chickens and 500 hogs.
He told the reporter that what he considered most important in his success was a “clean mind and a few years ago a pistol.”
“I didn’t have to use my pistol much, but then you don’t have to when you make your decision to stand at the outset,” he added.
Edwards built the stone house himself, helped pay for the construction of the Congregational Church in Lusk — where his wife sang in the choir — and told the reporter that Lethel had been “the guiding influence in my life.”
And it turned out that ranching was not his only interest and business success.
A feature story in the Casper Tribune-Herald on July 16, 1945, profiled a restaurant co-owned by Mary Simms, a black woman, and Edwards that specialized in Southern fried chicken.
“In spite of rationing which has made it difficult to obtain the steaks to fill demand, the restaurant has kept abreast of the demands for the excellent fried chicken which has been its specialty,” the newspaper reported. “With the generous helping of chicken, French fries, a vegetable, dessert and the special golden brown succulent biscuits are served.”
Edwards’ love Lethel died of leukemia in 1945, according to the Converse County history, and he sold his ranch that contained 18 sections to four buyers in 1950.
The Scottsbluff Star-Herald on Jan. 7, 1951, recounted Edwards’ death at age 76.
“A Scottsbluff man died from suffocation Saturday night after water boiled away in a pot in which chicken was being cooked filling a basement room with smoke,” the newspaper reported. “The dead man was James E. Edwards, age unknown, who rented a room at 801 East Eighth Street.”
He is buried in Scottsbluff.
Panasuk said he was happy to get a photo of the once prosperous ranch while it still stands.
“The sad part about it is that probably about in 10 years it’s all going to be gone,” he said.
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
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