Wyoming
Casper Gold And Silver Production Facility Makes Money For 20 Foreign Governments
CASPER — Just across the North Platte River on the northwest side of town in the old newspaper building, a Wyoming version of Fort Knox is being born.
Cement trucks are going in and out, workmen are busy placing rebar, and on the other side of the building parts for a state-of-the-art world-class secure vault are waiting to be assembled. When work is done, the building will have gun ports and cameras at many angles to meet the security expectations of a Lloyd’s of London insurance policy.
Welcome to the Scottsdale Mint, which is in phase two of a nine-phase plan to turn the former Casper Star-Tribune building into a world-class gold and silver production facility.
President and CEO Josh Phair said operations began last summer, and by the end of this year between 50 and 100 people will be working to create precious metal rounds, bars, official national coins and more.
Producing Legal Tender
And that’s why all the expense and work is being put into turning the mint into the city’s most secure place.
“We produce for more than 20 foreign governments and central banks,” he said. “So, we are actually producing legal tender right here in Casper, Wyoming, and ship it all around the world.”
Despite the construction, rooms for melting equipment, tool-and-die operations, stamping, offices and two working vaults are in place and filled with people. An armed guard scans people going in and out. After more than 20 years operating out of Scottsdale, Arizona, Phair said Scottsdale Mint operations will be centered in Casper.
With the shaky world economy, wars in the Ukraine and Middle East, and a divided market where the dollar is being undermined as the world’s reserve currency, demand for Scottsdale’s products have been booming.
That boom started in 2020, during the pandemic.
Phair said the company he began out of his guest bedroom in 2008 and expanded in 2011, then needed to grow again from the two buildings the mint had in Scottsdale. Californians had moved into the Phoenix region and there were no commercial buildings available to expand into less than an hour away.
Sell Or Expand?
He was also getting requests from people who wanted to by the company, and Phair spent some time deciding what he would do.
“I had to make a decision. Do I sell it, or take it to the next level?” He said.
He settled on the latter and started looking for where the company could relocate. Initial searches had him looking beyond the nation’s borders to “free port” areas in Switzerland and Panama that would allow the company to accomplish its international role with some advantages.
The he turned his eyes to elsewhere in the U.S. to states with pro-business laws and “sound money” practices. He learned Wyoming ranked at the top, and that the state passed a legal tender bill a few years ago.
“I wouldn’t be here if that law wasn’t passed,” he said.
Once he toured the former newspaper building, Phair said he knew it would be the mint’s new home, but there would be work to do. Phair said they basically gutted the building and have installed new plumbing, electrical work and air handling systems.
The Vault
There is a 30-by-30-by-15-foot vault with the more than a foot-thick door that now holds some gold and silver items, but there are bigger plans for it in the near future.
“What you are looking at here is the highest rated vault in the world that you can get,” Phair said. “The class three vault is built for billions of dollars. It will be for high-net-worth people who want to put valuables away, also for business-to-business (valuables) and sovereign wealth.”
In a separate vault for production items, Phair shows coins minted for Samoa, Fiji and the Cayman Islands. One coin has the likeness of the late Queen Elizabeth of England.
“We’ve had projects personally signed off by Queen Elizabeth,” he said. “We did a coin a few years ago for Gibraltar. It was the Royal Arms of England (and) … it went to Buckingham Palace for her to sign off on.”
In addition to his work for governments, the mint produces several artistic rounds sought by collectors, as well as gold and silver art pieces. Future plans call for jewelry to be added to the company’s product list.
The Cowboy Round
One hot seller is a cowboy round. That came as an idea to honor the company’s past and future.
“We have a cowboy round that we launched this year, and we have sold more than the state of Wyoming’s population in the last six months,” he said. “The city of Scottsdale has a bucking bronco on the city emblem, and obviously Wyoming has a lot of cowboys on the license plates.”
The company designed the three-dimensional image in-house and included the rays from Arizona’s state flag as part of the design. It added a buffalo as a small “privy” mark on the bottom right of the round’s front.
Phair said depending on the particular job and design of the coin or bar, the company makes as little as $1 on the “transactional spread.”
“On gold, it could be as thin as $1 an ounce, which is nothing,” he said of the profit margins. “If it is something much more elaborate it could be more than $100.”
A lot of the work involves volume.
“One customer alone in the past six weeks we probably did $80 million in gold,” he said.
Some of the Scottsdale Mint’s gold bars use color in their design. The mint employs artists, engineers and others to get creations from an idea to the shipping room. A typical project would take six months before production begins, Phair said.
Son Of A Pastor
The 44-year-old Phair was born in South Dakota and raised there and in Florida. His father was a pastor. After college in 2022, he arrived in the Phoenix area to do risk management.
“When I was 24 years old, I landed a $4 billion gold mining company out of Reno and I started handling the insurance and risk management for about a dozen publicly traded mining companies. So I was in Denver, Coeur D’Lane, and Phoenix handling copper, silver, and gold producers and fell in love with minerals,” he said.
In the bullion business, he saw an opportunity for a high-quality brand. After starting his business in a guest bedroom, he learned that the company using precious metals to make screen material for Apple iPads wanted to sell its manufacturing operation.
“So, I bought the division, and moved it out of Albuquerque to Scottsdale,” he said, emphasizing that success did not happen overnight, but the company has worked to fulfill its motto to be “the most distinguished name in bullion.”
Phair defers questions about the value of the company. It’s privately held and he points to his customers and the company’s reputation in the world for its value.
“I like to say we do billions. Numbers sometimes get really big in our industry,” he said. “I would say we are among the top five mints in the world. I don’t think there is another mint that mints for more countries than us.”
President And ‘Conductor’
As president of the company, he likens his role to a conductor of an orchestra and calls the company a mix of science, engineering and art.
“I’ve got an artistic bone. I can’t hum, I can’t draw, but I know what looks good,” he said. “I think that has played a role in building the brand. And I love to find brilliance. I couldn’t do this without the staff of people from the top to the bottom of the organization.”
There are a lot of future plans for the business in Casper, one that involves the big vault and new company based out of the mint location. When the building is completed, Phair envisions a gallery for art, and a place for digital investments that are tied to a value of something tangible in the vault.
He hopes to take advantage of Natrona County’s free trade zone status and appreciates the fact he, his wife and two children are now living in the center of Wyoming.
Because the company does so much international business, he frequently travels the world and has been to Europe, Dubai, Singapore and the Caymans, as well as many other small island designations.
“I like coming back to Casper,” he said. “There is something about the community here that is special.”

Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
Wyoming
Casper veteran David Giralt joins race for Wyoming U.S. House seat
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)
Wyoming Boys 4A Swimming & Diving State Championships 2026
4A Boys State Swim Meet for 2026 in Cheyenne
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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