Wyoming

Natrona County Library director: DOGE cuts will directly impact local library

Published

11 months ago

April 5, 2025

Natrona County Library director: DOGE cuts will directly impact local library

CASPER, Wyo. — The Trump administration’s efforts to slash federal government spending will be felt here at home in Natrona County, particularly at the library.

That’s according to the executive director of the Natrona County Library, Lisa Scroggins, who referenced the recent news that the National Endowment for the Humanities has cut or canceled most of its grant programs.

As part of the Trump Administration’s spending cuts identified as necessary by the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, many humanities programs across the country are seeing their grant funding slashed.

This has a direct impact on the Wyoming Humanities Council which, in turn, has a direct impact on the Natrona County Public Library.

The Wyoming Humanities Council funds countless programs across Wyoming, including programs and services offered by the library. Those services, Scroggins said, are in jeopardy.

“The Wyoming Humanities Council does great work in supporting things like library initiatives,” Scroggins said. ” And libraries are part of the humanities. We have directly received grants from the WHC.”

Scroggins referenced a number of different programs that the library offers Casper residents, including book clubs, talk groups, and even the Story Walk, which took place along the North Platte River.

“Currently, we have a book club about women’s mental health,” Scroggins shared. “We’ve partnered with Amy Adwalpalker, a Licensed Professional Counselor from Deep Waters Counseling, and we’re hosting a series of book club discussions, where participants are reading books about women’s mental health. In Wyoming, we know that mental health for everybody is tremendously important, but women face different issues than others; their mental health needs are different. So the book club is one of the programs that we offer, that is funded through the Humanities Council.”

As that program and others show, the library is more than just a place to check out books. It actively impacts the lives and well-being of Natrona County residents.

“We also offer these living room-type conversations where we discuss some tough subjects with community members, and teach them, through modeling, how to express your opinions without negating somebody else’s,” Scroggins said. “We give them a chance to learn to listen and look for ways to create solutions, rather than just creating programs. That’s another program funded through the Wyoming Humanities Council.”

Additionally, the Story Walk has been a major fixture of the community since its inception. Each of these services, and more, are made possible through the Wyoming Humanities Council.

The New York Times reported that the National Endowment for the Humanities has canceled most of its grant programs. It has also put its staff on administrative leave “as its resources are set to be redirected toward supporting President Trump’s priorities.”

Now, Wyoming Humanities is urgently seeking the support of the public at large in order to continue its programs.

That’s according to a release from the organization, which states that “Wyoming Humanities is urgently calling on Wyoming residents to support essential cultural and educational initiatives in the face of devastating federal funding cuts.”

The release states that on the evening of April 2, all state humanities councils were notified that their National Endowment for the Humanities grants, including their general operating funds for the current year, have been fully canceled, effective immediately.

The email, which The New York Times reviewed, was sent out late Wednesday night.

“Your grant’s immediate termination is necessary to safeguard the interests of the federal government, including its fiscal priorities,” the letters said. “The termination of your grant represents an urgent priority for the administration, and due to exceptional circumstances, adherence to the traditional notification process is not possible.”

For Shawn Reese, executive director of Wyoming Humanities, the news wasn’t surprising. However, how the news came definitely was.

“We had gotten notice that DOGE was at the National Endowment for the Humanities at the beginning of the week,” Reese said. “But on Wednesday night, around 10 o’clock, my counterparts in other state councils started emailing, in alphabetical order, that they had received a notice from a suspicious email account, and that these notices were going into their junk mail files. Just one state after the other. Mine ended up getting flagged by our antivirus software and I was only able to extract it from the quarantine today. It was marked as a phishing attempt.”

Reese said he finally was able to read the notice, and the content wasn’t surprising, either.

“We knew DOGE was going to be making cuts to grants and to the staff, because Congress had designated 40% of the NEH’s budget to go directly to states. We weren’t quite sure, until the termination letters, if our state funding would be treated differently than the other grants that NEH makes directly to cultural organizations. But it turns out, we’ve all been treated the same.”

Reese said he knew, for instance, that the Meeteetse Museum District received funding directly from NEH for improvements to the museum, but those funds have been cut as well.

Once Reese gathered and processed the information, he sent out a press release, “urgently” seeking the public’s assistance in support current and future programs.

“This decision threatens Wyoming Humanities’ ability to continue providing invaluable educational and cultural programming,” the release said.

The release notes that, for decades, NEH funding was the cornerstone of Wyoming Humanities’ success. The funding supported programs ranging from community lectures and cultural discussions, to the promotion of literature, history and the arts.

“The federal funding cuts will signiﬁcantly impact Wyoming Humanities’ ability to sustain popular programs such as Native Narratives, the Center for the Book, Smithsonian exhibits, and more,” the release stated. “These programs oﬀer opportunities for meaningful cultural exchange, exploration of history, and celebration of the arts, and have become a vital part of Wyoming’s educational landscape.”

The programs, Reese said, are a vital part of the arts and culture scene in Wyoming and these funding cuts won’t just cost them at some unknown point in the future; they’re costing the council right now.

“We operate on kind of a reimbursement basis,” he said. “We don’t get all of the federal funding at once; we submit monthly drawdowns. So, we submitted our drawdown quickly the next morning, on the third. And it has not been approved. I’m not sure that there’s anyone who can make those approvals, or if they’re even allowed to make the approvals. So the cut, although effective April 2, actually affects us going back to the beginning of March.”

The library, too, is bracing for even more cuts to its programming, after the entire staff of the Institute of Museum and Library Services was put on immediate leave.

Oil City News reported Wednesday that grant funding from the IMLS is sent to the Wyoming State Library, in Cheyenne, which is then dispersed to public and academic libraries across the state, including the Natrona County Public Library.

“According to the IMLS website, Wyoming received around $1.23 million in the 2024 fiscal year, which Wyoming State Library’s State Librarian Abby Beaver says was roughly what it was expecting for the 2025 fiscal year,” Oil City News reported. “Applications for the 2025 fiscal year have been sent in, but the Trump administration’s actions this week mean that no staff are available for the processing work.”

Between that and the cuts to the National Endowment for the Humanities, Scroggins said that it’s no longer a matter of if programs will be affected; it’s a matter of when.

“The cuts will impact the Natrona County Library,” she asserted. “There’s no could. If [the Wyoming Humanities Council] doesn’t have the funding, they won’t have the grant opportunities. And we have leaned into their grant opportunities, to the benefit of our community. We’ve received them. So could it affect us? Yeah. Not that it could, but that it will.”

The future is unknown, both for the Natrona County Library and for the Wyoming Humanities Council itself. Both Reese and Scroggins are imploring the community to speak to their elected representatives, to donate to the humanities, and to spread the message of the arts wherever, and to whomever, they can.

“We need our community’s voice now more than ever,” Reese said. “Whether you’ve beneﬁted from our programs directly or simply believe in the power of the humanities to unite and inspire, your support is crucial. We are urging citizens to reach out to their elected representatives to restore funding for the NEH and ensure the continued success of these programs.”

Scroggins agrees, and is asking people to spread the word about the different services that the library offers, as well as all of the different programs that the Humanities encompass.

“I think it’s really important to raise awareness that we are here for people,” she said. “Like I said, we have the women’s mental health book club, and we have book clubs on death and dying; those are issues that people face. We have resources here for businesses to grow and thrive; they’re incredibly important. We teach people how to use technology and, of course, we support literacy and doing everything we can to help our community be strong and thrive in an ever-changing world. If you benefit from the library, if you use the library, share your own story about what that looks like.”

For the Humanities Council, this move came as a major blow; one that will impact all aspects of its services.

“It’s really making us rethink all aspects of the organization,” Reese said. “We will need to rely on our reserves and the generosity of our donors. We have ongoing responsibilities. We received funding from the state of Wyoming that we grant out to museums and libraries and historical societies and that funding will continue until the summer of 2026. So we’ll continue to be able to support communities in that way. But other things that we’ve done…we just really need to reevaluate our resources and the programs that we’ve been able to offer in the past.”

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Wyoming

Rivalries and Playoff Positioning Highlight Week 11 Wyoming Girls Basketball Slate

Published

12 hours ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

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)

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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

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)

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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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4A Boys State Swim Meet for 2026 in Cheyenne

Gallery Credit: David Settle, WyoPreps.com

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Wyoming

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

Published

24 hours ago

February 26, 2026

Press Room

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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Wyoming

Wyoming man reaches plea deal to avoid jail time in wolf-abuse case

Published

1 day ago

February 25, 2026

Press Room

Wyoming man reaches plea deal to avoid jail time in wolf-abuse case

A Sublette County man who captured and brought an injured wolf into a bar in February 2024 has struck a deal with prosecutors that could keep him out of jail, reports WyoFile.

A signed plea agreement filed with the Sublette County District Court and acquired by WyoFile on Wednesday afternoon means that Cody Roberts, 44, would likely no longer face trial. It had been set to begin March 9.

Under the deal, Roberts withdraws his earlier not guilty plea and changes that plea to guilty or no contest for felony cruelty to animals.

The deal calls for a prison sentence of 18 months to two years that would be suspended in favor of 18 months of supervised probation and a $1,000 fine. Additionally, agreed-upon conditions of his probation include: no hunting or fishing; no alcohol, presence at bars or liquor stores; and a requirement that Roberts follow recommended addiction treatment.

As part of the deal, the parties are asking that a “pre-sentence investigation report” be ordered by the court.

Roberts allegedly acquired a wolf by striking it with a snowmobile, leaving it “barely conscious” on Feb. 29, 2024. Photos and video from that night showed him posing for pictures with the animal and even kissing it. The wolf’s behavior suggests that it was gravely injured, according to biologists who’ve reviewed video of the muzzled animal while it was prone and barely moving on the floor of the Green River Bar.

The Wyoming Game and Fish Department initially handled the incident, issuing Roberts a $250 fine for possession of warm-blooded wildlife. The state agency declined to seek stiffer penalties or jail time, and Game and Fish officials maintained that predatory animals, including wolves, were exempted from felony animal cruelty laws.

Sublette County law enforcement officials disagreed. In August, prosecutor Clayton Melinkovich convened a grand jury that indicted Roberts for felony animal cruelty. That crime could have put Roberts in jail for up to two years, though his plea agreement averts mandatory time behind bars as long as he successfully completes probation.

WyoFile is an independent nonprofit news organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policy.

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