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Memorial Day: Wild mustangs help veterans heal through Wyoming ranch program

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Memorial Day: Wild mustangs help veterans heal through Wyoming ranch program


While Memorial Day is a time for remembrance, it can also be a difficult period for many veterans, particularly those struggling with mental health.

A program in Wyoming is helping to address those challenges by pairing veterans with wild mustangs in a unique approach to healing.

VETERANS DAY: DENNIS QUAID, TRACE ADKINS AMONG HOLLYWOOD STARS HONORING OUR MILITARY

Operation Remount takes place in Wyoming.  (Kennedy Hayes/FOX News)

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According to data from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs from 2001 to 2022, veterans are more likely to be diagnosed with PTSD, depression and anxiety than civilians. Each year, approximately 6,000 veterans die by suicide.

At some point in their lives, 7 out of every 100 veterans (or 7%) will experience PTSD, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

In the small town of Jay Em, Wyoming, a nonprofit called Operation Remount Corporation is offering a form of equine therapy that serves not only veterans and first responders, but also the mustangs—many of which come from traumatic backgrounds.

Karen Alexander, co-founder of Operation Remount, says some mustangs also experience trauma and anxiety, making the program a form of reciprocal healing. 

“These are mustangs that went through three adoptions and were not accepted or not adopted,” Alexander said. “When the mustangs first come, they are very afraid of humans. It’s really neat to see when that animal finally says, I can trust you.”

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TRUMP SUPRISES 104-YEAR-OLD WWII VETERAN WITH BIRTHDAY MESSAGE AFTER VIRAL TIKTOK INVITE 

Veteran Sean Walker is one of this year’s participants at Operation Remount. He says joining the program and meeting his horse, nicknamed Spirit, was needed after serving in the military.

Walker, who completed two tours in Iraq and one in Bosnia with the Kansas National Guard, says just a few weeks with his horse, Spirit, has already made a significant impact.

According to data from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs from 2001 to 2022, veterans are more likely to be diagnosed with PTSD, depression and anxiety than civilians.  (Kennedy Hayes/ Fox News)

“We call him Enduring Spirit Wind,” Walker said. “He’s taught me probably more than I could have possibly taught him.”

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After retiring from the military, Walker said reintegrating into civilian life was difficult. Like many other veterans, he experienced mental health challenges.

The program recently added a new red cabin to house participants during the six-week course. It was built in honor of Marine Corps Sgt. B.J. Shepperson, who served two deployments and struggled with the transition back to civilian life in Wyoming.

Shepperson said his brother B.J. loved horses and would have really appreciated what this program is doing to help other veterans. 

PTSD is slightly more common among Veterans than civilians. At some point in their life, 7 out of every 100 Veterans (or 7%) will have PTSD.  (Kennedy Hayes/ FOX News)

“After two deployments and coming back to Wyoming, he had a hard time re-adjusting,” said his brother, Baxter Shepperson.

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VETERAN ON MISSION TO COMBAT SUICIDE IN MILITARY COMMUNITY

Program leaders say they’re working to construct more cabins, allowing additional veterans and first responders to stay overnight during the program as they experience the therapeutic bond with a horse.

“It’s like when you found a connection that you’ve lost,” Walker said. “It allows you to have that reconnection and Spirit has been that.”

Operation Remount allows the veterans and first responders to keep the wild horse after completing the six-week course. The nonprofit holds sessions in both spring and fall.

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The team at Operation Remount is now working toward building an indoor facility so they can offer the program throughout the year, even during Wyoming’s harsh winter months.



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Casper veteran David Giralt joins race for Wyoming U.S. House seat

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Casper veteran David Giralt joins race for Wyoming U.S. House seat


CASPER, Wyo. — David Giralt, a Casper-raised military veteran and conservative Republican, has announced his candidacy for Wyoming’s lone seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. The congressional seat is being vacated by Republican Rep. Harriet Hageman, who launched a campaign in December for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by retiring Sen. Cynthia Lummis. […]



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Rivalries and Playoff Positioning Highlight Week 11 Wyoming Girls Basketball Slate

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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)

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CLASS 3A

Final Score: Lyman 40 Mountain View 26 (conference game)

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CLASS 4A

Final Score: Evanston 41 Riverton 39 (conference game)

Final Score: Natrona County 42 Kelly Walsh 38 (conference game) – Peach Basket Classic

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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)

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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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Read More Girls Basketball News from WyoPreps

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WyoPreps Coaches and Media Basketball Polls 2-25-26

WyoPreps Girls Basketball Standings 2-23-26

WyoPreps Girls Basketball Week 10 Scores 2026

WyoPreps Coaches and Media Basketball Polls 2-18-26

WyoPreps Girls Basketball Week 9 Scores 2026

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WyoPreps Coaches and Media Basketball Polls 2-11-26

WyoPreps Girls Basketball Week 8 Scores 2026

WyoPreps Coaches and Media Basketball Polls 2-4-26

WyoPreps Girls Basketball Week 7 Scores 2026

WyoPreps Coaches and Media Basketball Polls 1-28-26

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Nominate A Basketball Player for the WyoPreps Athlete of the Week Honor

WyoPreps Coaches and Media Basketball Polls 1-21-26

WyoPreps Girls Basketball Week 5 Scores 2026

WyoPreps Coaches and Media Basketball Polls 1-14-26

WyoPreps Girls Basketball Week 4 Scores 2025-26

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WyoPreps Coaches and Media Basketball Rankings 1-7-26

WyoPreps Girls Basketball Week 3 Scores 2025-26

WyoPreps Coaches and Media Basketball Rankings 12-24-25

WyoPreps Girls Basketball Week 2 Scores 2025-26

WyoPreps Coaches and Media Basketball Rankings 12-17-25

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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)

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#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)

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Buffalo at Glenrock, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)

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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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Submit a Score to WyoPreps

 

Wyoming Boys 4A Swimming & Diving State Championships 2026

4A Boys State Swim Meet for 2026 in Cheyenne

Gallery Credit: David Settle, WyoPreps.com





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Political storm in Wyoming as far-right activist caught handing checks to lawmakers

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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.”

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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.

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“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.

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“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.

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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.

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“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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