Wyoming
Former Wyoming Man Is Hero Beekeeper From Dodgers Game
The MVP of Tuesday night’s Major League Baseball game between the Arizona Diamondbacks and Los Angeles Dodgers was Matt Hilton. But don’t bother looking for the 37-year-old right-hander on either team’s roster.
While the former Wyomingite did help his hometown Arizona D-backs to a 4-3 win, Hilton’s ESPN highlight reel was compiled before the first pitch was ever thrown. The pest control expert was called on to handle a colony of bees that held up the start of the game for almost two hours.
Media outlets across the country had fun with the puns — “Chase Field was buzzing last night” — but the truth of the matter is the situation could have turned serious in a heartbeat. Even before Hilton arrived he had a pretty good idea he would be dealing with a highly antagonistic crossbred species known colloquially as “killer bees.”
“We live in a state where Africanized honey bees are super common here,” Hilton told Cowboy State Daily. “Compared to a normal strain of honeybees, most people can’t tell the difference. Except these have a tendency to be extremely aggressive — 10-20 times more aggressive than the average honeybee.”
Red Carpet Treatment
Hilton informed stadium staff to move people in the closest box seats to at least 50 to 75 feet away. He was on his way.
“I explained these bees very much raised the risk level quite a bit. I kind of walked them through it, but it was not their first rodeo,” Hilton said.
In fact, stadium personnel rolled out the red carpet for Hilton and had everything waiting for the bee whisperer when he arrived.
“I was able to drive right up to the big bay doors and throw my gear on,” he said. “They had the scissor lift right there ready to go. It was in everyone’s interest to get this game underway as safely and quickly as possible.”
Bonnie Tyler’s “I Need a Hero” blared from loudspeakers as Hilton’s play-in song, just like he was the team’s closer coming in from the bullpen.
By the way, a shout out to another winning team — Blue Sky Pest Control of Phoenix. Chase Field actually contracts with the local company for regular service keeping the food concessionaire areas pest- and rodent-free.
Blue Sky Pest Control is also on-call 24/7 for just the type of crazy emergency that came up Tuesday.
“I was at my 6-year-old son’s T-ball game when the head guy at Chase called me and said he had a swarm of bees holding the game up,” Hilton said. “In my line of work, especially with a high-profile account like this, we have to drop everything and take care of the problem.”
10,000 To 20,000 Bees
When Hilton arrived to the field, he quickly anesthetized the popup colony with a non-pesticidal solution. That was done to lock the bees in place.
“They interlock their legs together when they are in a colony like this. The last thing you want to do is start poking at them and have them fly off individually looking for someone to be mad at,” Hilton said.
The pest control tech estimates between 10,000 and 20,000 bees made up this particular swarm. If agitated, D-backs fans could be in a lot more pain than anything the Dodgers could dish out.
“The risk comes in if that swarm gets disturbed. If they start stinging people, when they do it releases a pheromone in the stinger that signals: ‘Hey, get this guy,’” Hilton said.
Deaths have been reported in Arizona, Utah and Texas, where a victim was stung repeatedly by Africanized bees.
Donned in a beekeeper’s protective suit, Hilton was able to vacuum up all the bees as the crowd around him chanted, “You can do it!”
King For A Night
Once the job was done, Hilton gave the fans a fist pump and was immediately invited to toss out the ceremonial first pitch.
Just another day at the office, Hilton said. Except for the paid attendance.
“I’ve done hundreds of these types of calls. This was the first in front of 30,000 people,” Hilton said. “I’ll maybe be in a parking lot and a handful of people will be looking on from their office windows. This one was a little more high-pressure with a game hanging in the balance. It was pretty electric, pretty awesome.”
Blue Sky offers a relocation service for bee swarms it collects but the market for Africanized bees is slim.
“Beekeepers don’t want Africanized honey bees. You see pictures of video of beekeepers tending their hives without a suit on. That’s where it gets dicey. If they did that with these bees they would be in a world of hurt,” Hilton assured.
Wyoming To The Rescue
Topps, the baseball card manufacturer, is already working on a special one-off card for the bee specialist who saved the game. It will be a keepsake for the Arizona man with Wyoming roots.
Hilton lived in Buffalo, Wyoming, from ages 11 through 18 before he attended college Arizona State University. He met an Arizona girl, Morgan, and the two were married in 2010. They have four kids.
“I moved away from Buffalo because of the cold. I got married to the love of my life and found a career and a company that really suits me,” Hilton said. “Buffalo is a super cool little town and I take a lot of pride having grown up there. I miss hunting and fishing in the Big Horn Mountains.”
Contact Jake Nichols at jake@cowboystatedaily.com
Jake Nichols can be reached at jake@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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WyoPreps Coaches and Media Basketball Rankings 12-17-25
WyoPreps Girls Basketball Week 1 Scores 2025-26
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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