Wyoming
Newlyweds On A Hike Find California Rescue Dog Lost In A Wyoming Whiteout
Rich Renner always knew he had pretty good neighbors, but he found out just how good when his new rescue dog from California got himself lost in a Wyoming whiteout.
Renner had taken the goldendoodle named Charlie out ahead of this past week’s storm to relieve himself. There was some snow on the ground at the time, but Charlie wasn’t having a thing to do with that strange, cold, white stuff on the ground.
At least not at first.
“I had taken him out to the barn, but he was staying under the overhang,” Renner said. “He wouldn’t go out to the snow.”
Given the dog’s reluctance, Renner decided to shovel a path from the barn to the house to make it a little easier for the pooch to get around.
While Renner was doing that, the dog finally decided maybe the snow wasn’t so bad after all.
“He kind of got the zoomies,” Renner said. “So, he was running around and went around the corner, out of sight. I had boots on, so I followed after him.”
By the time Renner turned the corner, there was no sign of Charlie.
A California Dog Meets His First Wyoming Whiteout
At first, Renner wasn’t too concerned. It wasn’t the first time the dog had done a little bit of exploring around the house.
Normally, he came back on his own.
But this time was different. There was a huge snowstorm expected later in the day, and the forecast was for temperatures in the range of 25 degrees.
Charlie is a rescue dog fresh from California, which means the goldendoodle didn’t have much in the way of fat stored in his body. Nor was he yet acclimated to the cold.
Renner followed his dog’s tracks down to a forested edge, and there saw what had captured Charlie’s attention.
“There were deer tracks all over,” Renner said. “Boom, he was gone.”
Renner was at first more worried about the deer than the dog.
He’d just put an AirTag on the dog’s newly arrived collar right before they went outside that morning. The collar also had the couple’s names and phone numbers.
“An hour later, that AirTag pinged at a neighbor’s house about a half mile away,” Renner said. “So I zoomed down there on a four-wheeler and I saw tracks, but no Charlie.”
Renner roamed around on his four-wheeler for about an hour, looking for and calling for Charlie. Then he had to go to work.
“My wife, Barb, stayed home all day and worked off and on and looked for him some, too,” he said.
A Long, Cold Night
Once Renner returned home, he and his wife did more searching until about 10:15 p.m. that night using a headlamp to see.
“I thought I’d see his eyes somewhere with that headlamp,” Renner said. “But to no avail.”
By this time, a sick feeling was growing in the pit of his stomach.
He was thinking about how the dog had chased after an animal three times his own size and how sometimes deer had charged, unafraid, at the couple’s older husky.
Maybe Charlie had been hurt. And Wyoming’s famous winter winds were picking up.
Was his California pooch stuck somewhere outside in this Wyoming whiteout, where the temperature was just getting colder and colder?
“It had snowed all day,” Renner said. “It was just a lot of snow.”
That snow covered the dog’s tracks, making him impossible to track.
The AirTag was proving next to useless as well, suggesting the dog had gone somewhere very rugged, some place with little to no data to transmit a signal.
Tuesday night, Renner could barely sleep thinking about Charlie, lost in this heavy snowstorm, with temperatures forecast to get into the lower 20s that night.
“Since we didn’t find him, I’m thinking, ‘Oh my God, he’s not going to survive the night,’” Renner said. “I kept waking up a lot and thinking about him. Like, ‘Oh my gosh, what’s he experiencing right now? Where’s he at? Did a mountain lion get him?’”
The next day, Renner and his wife were both exhausted but had not lost hope they would yet find Charlie.
They were looking, their neighbors were all looking. They even hired a drone company to come look for Charlie using an infrared camera.
Neighbors Rally As Storm Deepens
The Renners had been putting messages out on Facebook and social media about Charlie, asking for the community’s help to find him.
Renner was amazed at how his neighborhood sprang into action.
It seemed that everyone he knew — and even some people he didn’t know yet — were looking for his pet, who he feared was too skinny to survive another night out in the cold, much less the cold, wet snowstorm that continued into Wednesday.
“Before, I lived in Cheyenne for a lot of years, and you didn’t even hardly know your neighbors,” he said. “You maybe said ‘hi,’ to them when there’s a snowstorm and you’re shoveling your snow at the same time.
“But other than that, we didn’t even know our neighbors.”
Mountain Meadows, though, proved to be a different kind of friendly — the kind that doesn’t smile and wave in passing; the kind that shows up on the doorstep and asks, “How can I help?”
“There were probably six different vehicles or side by sides at different times looking for him Tuesday night,” Renner said. “And then people were passing the word on through Facebook and emails and everything.
“And just everyone was praying for him. I mean the number of prayers that went up for Charlie is just amazing.”
A Blind Date, A Snowy Hike, And A Lost Dog
While a small army of neighbors continued to search for Charlie with drones and side-by-sides, a newlywed couple the Renners had never met were on a surprise date.
Jada, a Laramie native, and Collin Szymanski, from Utah, are newlyweds.
Since Collin is new to Wyoming, Jada has been making a point of showing him some of her favorite places.
That day, she’d decided on a literal blind date, complete with blindfold, to one of her favorite places in Curt Gowdy State Park — Hidden Falls.
The falls are a couple miles from where the Renners live as the crow flies, and maybe 10 miles or more away in twisting, winding, dog-chasing-a-deer miles.
By the time Jada and her husband arrived at the Hidden Falls Trail, snow was picking up speed and Jada was starting to question the idea of hiking that afternoon.
“There was, like, snow everywhere,” Jada said. “I was like, ‘Oh man, I thought it was going to be a little less snow than this.’
“So I unblindfolded him and I was like, ‘Should we still go?’”
The couple are young and in love, so of course the answer to that question was, “Yes!”
As they hiked into the thick carpet of new snow, they soon found themselves with a new-but-stand-offish friend.
“All of a sudden we see this little dog running around,” Jada said. “We’re thinking, ‘Oh well, his owners must have decided to go on a hike in the snow, too.’”
The Sound Of Loneliness
When they got to the end of the trail, though, there were no owners around.
That was when Charlie began to howl, a haunting, lost sound.
“You could tell he was so sad,” Jada said. “So we were trying to get to him, but he was a little scared of us.”
Once Jada managed to get close enough to see Charlie’s collar, things changed. The second she said his name, the dog immediately calmed down and came over to them.
It was remarkable, given that Charlie had only had that name for about four weeks. But it clearly meant everything to the dog to hear that one word.
These were friends, Charlie decided, because somehow they knew his name.
An Answer To A Prayer
By noon, with no further sight or sign of Charlie, the Renners’ hopes were dwindling.
Their property backs up to some very rugged country with deep draws and thick timber. It’s a maze of places to get lost.
It’s also a maze full of obstacles and dangers much larger than Charlie — mountain lions, deer, moose. Then there are box canyons easier to get into than out.
Their skinny California dog, chasing a deer in a full Wyoming whiteout, could easily become lost, trapped, or hurt. More and more, it seemed like that’s what had happened.
Just as they were about to give up and call it a day, Renner got a phone call from a man he didn’t know.
“Hey, are you guys missing a dog?” the man asked.
Relief flooded through Renner at those words as the man told him he’d just found a golden-colored dog at Hidden Falls in the box canyon.
Thanks to the collar, which had the Renners’ number on it, he’d been able to immediately call from the canyon.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Renner said, noting that calls from the canyon are usually impossible to make.
It felt like a minor miracle.
Charlie had spent all day and night Tuesday in a snowstorm that got down to about 25 degrees, and had somehow managed to bump into what were the only other hikers on the Hidden Falls Trail, somehow none the worse for his adventures.
Soon, Renner and his wife were headed in their cars to go pick up Charlie from the Szymanskis, meeting halfway between their home and Hidden Falls.
For Rich, who describes himself as a person of faith, all these details add up to something bigger than coincidence.
“I know that God makes things happen,” he said.
Jada felt that as well, considering how things happened.
“Their whole neighborhood had been looking for him,” she said. “He told us he had just been praying so hard. We felt like we got to be the answers to those prayers.”
Celebrity Life On A Leash
Back home, Charlie acts as if nothing miraculous has happened at all.
“He’s happy to be home for sure,” Renner said. “He spent yesterday in the barn, and he’s in the barn today.”
But he’s not going outside any more for a while without a leash, Renner said, as he remains just a little too fascinated with Wyoming wildlife, particularly moose, which are 100 times heavier than he is.
Renner is looking into electric fences to keep Charlie and his moxie corralled so that the pooch’s future adventures won’t be quite so harrowing.
“We’re chuckling now, because he’s like a celebrity,” Renner said.
For all the worry and all the searching, what’s really sticking with the Renners is how his Wyoming neighbors were there when needed, crawling the snowy hills in their trucks and side-by-sides, looking for a California pooch with no idea what a Wyoming whiteout really means.
“That’s the real story,” Renner said. “It’s the community, the neighborhood, how everyone just rallied behind this to help.”
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
Wyoming
Hoping to draw Colorado interest, construction begins at $80M betting facility in Laramie County
CHEYENNE, Wyo. — Foundation work is beginning this week on Wyoming’s next horse betting and gaming house.
The $80 million Wyoming Downs facility in Laramie County, one of two the company is investing in over the next couple of years, is poised to be one of the largest facilities of its kind in the state. The company is aiming for a spring 2027 opening.
The facility will host upwards of 600 historic horse racing machines, Wyoming’s largest TV wall, multiple dining options and more across 58,000 square feet. More land was bought for future hotel development. Commuters driving between Cheyenne and the Colorado border can see clearly from Interstate 25 the expansive development.
That placement along the travel corridor is purposeful, Wyoming Downs and 307 Horse Racing President Kyle Ridgeway said.
“I think that the targeted consumer for this is from Colorado or from the Front Range,” Ridgeway said. “I anticipate we’re going to have plenty of people from Cheyenne come down here to play and enjoy the amenities, but when you look at 600,000 people within a 30-minute drive, that’s what justifies this investment and brings all that tax revenue in from another state, which is fantastic.
“We don’t get the opportunity to do that in Wyoming very often.”
There is still plenty to offer Cheyenne residents besides the facility’s amenities. Ridgeway said in a speech to attendees at the project’s groundbreaking Tuesday, June 2, that more than 150 permanent jobs will be supported by the facility on top of the dozens supported by the companies’ corporate offices and the 400-plus involved in the project’s construction.
Groathouse Construction, a Wyoming business, is the project’s general contractor. Wyoming Downs said it believes putting the project in local hands also helps keep the project uniquely Wyoming-focused.
Ridgeway added the facilities have already proven themselves to be effective tax revenue generators for the local governments. The Wyoming Gaming Commission’s 2025 report, released in late May, shows bettors wagered $2.49 billion on historic horse racing machines last year, a jump from the $2.11 billion wagered in 2024.
Wyoming Downs facilities generate roughly $25 million in taxes annually across the state, and Ridgeway estimated after the ceremony that the upcoming $80 million facility alone will generate an additional $3 million for Laramie County once the property has been in operation for a few years.
Horse betting sites have been increasingly popping up across Wyoming this decade. The Wyoming Downs location will be Cheyenne’s second large-scale horse betting facility since 2024, when the 30,000-square-foot Horse Palace at Swan Ranch opened. Ridgeway said Wyoming Downs is still offering something fresh for tourists and residents.
“This’ll have amenities that Swan Ranch doesn’t have, including the largest TV wall in Wyoming and a pretty super-cool sports viewing area with a restaurant and just a level of finish and class that I don’t think Wyoming has quite seen yet with these types of properties,” he said.
Ridgeway said he thinks resident fatigue with these facilities isn’t as strong as it appears, especially given the tourism benefits of off-track betting.
“Wyoming’s been built on mineral extraction and tourism, and what this is is a touristic facility. I’m not aware of any particular pushback about this specific facility outside of — you see random social media comments where people say, ‘Oh, another gambling facility.’ But where this is located, I think people in Cheyenne have generally been supportive of,” he said.
The Laramie County facility will be just one part of a larger project Wyoming Downs is working on over the next few years. Construction will begin in early 2027 on a similar facility in Evanston looking to draw in Utah and western Colorado crowds.
Some of the company’s current facilities, notably in Casper, Cheyenne and Rock Springs, will see millions poured into renovations as well. New smaller-scale parlors will also go up in Gillette and Green River this year, according to an information packet provided by the company.
More details will come as the construction process develops, Ridgeway said. Details about amenities, such as what the complex’s dining options will look like, remain undisclosed, though Ridgeway promised that options will be “excellent.”
“We haven’t made final selections on what the options are, but we have a number of different options on the table that we’re considering for what we want to offer for the customers,” Ridgeway said. “You have to have something that’s high quality for where this is located. If somebody’s going to drive 25 or 35, or even 45 minutes to come here, they got to be able to sit down and have a quality meal.”
For more information as it becomes available and to learn more about Wyoming Downs facilities and 307 Horse Racing‘s events and offerings, see the companies’ websites. Renderings for the upcoming Cheyenne facility commissioned by the company are available for viewing below.
Related
GILLETTE, Wyo. — Two of the Republican candidates for Wyoming governor, Megan Degenfelder and Brent Bien, went head to head in Campbell County this evening. They both highlighted differences in some areas but agreed on energy, public lands, government oversight, abortion and election security.
Degenfelder, Wyoming’s superintendent of public instruction, introduced herself as “a Wyoming ranch kid whose parents clawed their way into the middle class” and said she believes Wyoming is “worth fighting for” because she believes the Wyoming people’s lives are at stake.
Bien, a retired Marine Corps colonel and combat veteran, pointed to his military career and leadership experience.
“My whole adult life has been about leadership, about principled conservative leadership,” he said. “My objective is to restore principled conservative leadership, accountability and discipline to Cheyenne.”
Nuclear energy
Both candidates supported Wyoming’s role in energy production but opposed bringing outside nuclear waste into the state.
“I do not want Wyoming to be … the permanent repository for spent nuclear fuel. I will not allow that to happen on my watch,” Bien said.
Degenfelder said Wyoming should consider nuclear power as part of its energy future but added, “If it works for us to be able to have nuclear as part of the portfolio, then it has to be right for Wyoming and that is ensuring that we do not accept anyone else’s waste, period.”
Public lands
The candidates also opposed privatization of public lands.
“No one loves public lands more than I do,” Degenfelder said. “You start selling that to the highest bidder, Wyoming loses who we are.”
Bien said he is “absolutely opposed” to federal lands being sold to private interests.
“If they do decide to dispose of it, then we as the state of Wyoming should get first-right refusal at no cost,” he said.
Attorney general and judicial appointments
When asked what each would be looking for in an attorney general and judicial appointment, both candidates called for conservative leadership.
Bien said he would seek an attorney general from outside state government.
“I want a clean set of eyes to look at what everything’s been that’s been going on,” he said. “I want someone who will put people first and it will put Wyoming first.”
Degenfelder said she wants stronger advocacy from state agencies.
“I want a bulldog in not just the attorney general’s office, but in all state agencies,” she said. “I want an attorney general that is so aligned to my mission and vision and what I believe that there’s an amicus brief on my desk the next morning after an action takes place.”
Immigration
Both candidates supported stronger immigration enforcement.
Bien explained he wanted to cooperate with ICE “to the fullest extent possible” and to make sure immigrants who are not in the United States legally would be sent out of the state.
Degenfelder said illegal immigration is already affecting communities in Wyoming.
“If you’re here legally, you got nothing to worry about. If you aren’t, it’s time to go home,” she said.
Energy development and green energy
Energy policy generated some of the sharpest comments of the night.
Degenfelder argued renewable energy projects should compete without government support.
“I’m also an economist and so I’ll tell you the way that you kill these green energy, you make them play on the same playing field,” she said. “No more tax subsidies, no more handouts, ensuring the regulatory environment is just as equal.”
Bien took a firmer stance against renewable development.
“Folks, there’s no place in Wyoming for this green energy,” he said. “I want these things bonded up front and where we’re not paying for these like we did all the gas wells. The answer for me is absolutely, unequivocally no.”
Economic development
Degenfelder argued government should focus on infrastructure such as water and sewer systems rather than directing economic development.
“Government does not create jobs. Private business does,” she said.
Bien echoed that sentiment.
“The only business that government has in business is simply to get out of the way. It’s to cut taxes. It’s to deregulate,” he said. “Right now, we’re turning into state capitalism where we have our own state government picking winners and losers.”
Government audits
Both candidates supported increased auditing of state government.
“This state has not done a full-blown budgetary audit since 1989,” Bien said. “Whoever’s belly-aching loudest is going to get audited first.”
Degenfelder agreed.
“We should be auditing every single state agency, every single budget line all the time,” she said. “Government is a beast, and you need someone in there who can tame it and who knows how to do it.”
Abortion
Abortion was another topic where both candidates expressed strong opposition.
“Life starts at conception and there are no exceptions,” Degenfelder said. “We are now one of the most openly abortion states in the country because of that ruling by the Supreme Court. We’re working against the devil here.”
Bien also opposed abortion.
“Folks, for me, there are no exceptions. Life does begin at conception,” he said.
Election integrity
Bien advocated for hand-counting ballots.
“I am very much a proponent of hand tabulation being the primary method of counting all cast paper ballots and I will push that way,” he said.
Degenfelder called for paper ballots statewide.
“Every single ballot should be a paper ballot,” she said, adding that she supports “banning dropboxes.”
Republican platform
Both candidates pledged support for the Wyoming Republican Party platform.
“80% is a no-brainer, and we need to require that out of our elected officials,” Degenfelder said.
Bien said he expects to be held to “100%” of the platform.
“The party’s been co-opted. You have to have an ‘R’ behind your name to win in this state,” he said.
Candidate priorities
During a segment where candidates selected their own discussion topics, Degenfelder highlighted school choice, career and technical education, removing pornography from school libraries and protecting Wyoming’s water rights.
Bien focused on education and agriculture, criticizing student proficiency rates and proposing policies aimed at strengthening Wyoming’s agricultural industry, including declaring agriculture critical infrastructure and reducing regulations on small butcheries.
Technology and education
Although technology and its place within education was not discussed during the debate, County 17 asked both Degenfelder and Bien their thoughts regarding student technology in schools.
Bien said technology is being used too much in classrooms and is making it harder for students to think on their own.
“What it’s doing is it’s dumbing down our kids,” Bien said. “Our kids aren’t learning how to critically think anymore. They go straight to one of the AI things and it generates an answer for them.”
Degenfelder said she backed a bill to ban cellphones during instruction time.
“I supported a bill that came through the legislature a couple of years ago that actually would ban cell use during instructional time, and I stand by that,” Degenfelder said. “I think that it’s appropriate to take cellphones out of classrooms, and what we find is that kids thrive.”
Closing statements
In closing remarks, Bien emphasized his experience as an outsider candidate.
“I am the only outsider in this race, but I am the only one who’s got an inordinate amount of leadership experience,” he said. “Folks, you deserve a government that you can trust.”
Degenfelder pointed to her endorsements from President Donald Trump and U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman.
“I get asked a lot, ‘How did you get the Trump endorsement?’” Degenfelder said. “The answer is really simple. I earned it.”
Alongside other candidates, Bien and Degenfelder will be competing for support in Wyoming’s Republican gubernatorial primary Aug. 18.
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