When Dave Smart left his post with the Texas Tech basketball team to become the new head coach at Pacific, there was a glaring hole on Grant McCasland’s staff.

As it turns out, to replace one assistant coach, McCasland needed to look at other sitting head coaches to fill the void.

Jeff Linder, who spent the last four years leading the men’s basketball program at Wyoming, officially joined McCasland’s staff on May 14 in what was a rather unique situation.

ESPN’s Pete Thamel reported on Linder’s pending arrival in Lubbock on May 9. He also reported Wyoming already had Linder’s replacement in Sundance Wicks, on May 12, two days before Tech announced Linder’s signing.

In those five days, it became apparent things weren’t great between Linder and the Cowboys. McCasland provided some clarity on the situation earlier this week in his first availability of the offseason.

“I think what happened in his scenario is just completely unique to (name, image and likeness),” McCasland said. “How do you build a team and what are the opportunities that each university has to build it? I think ultimately, he was at a transition time where he’s trying to figure out how to navigate this new landscape and we were able to convince him to come to Tech and be a part of winning a national championship.”

McCasland and Linder go back to their time at Midland College together, where they led the team to an appearance in the JUCO national quarterfinals. They first met when McCasland was a residence hall director at Northeastern Junior College in Colorado while Linder was working at Division II Emporia State. Linder was trying to recruit some of Northeastern’s players.

The two coaches are the same age — Linder will turn 47 next month — and have children who are also the same age. They’ve been connected for decades, and the opportunity presented itself to reunite in Lubbock.

“These days in college basketball I think your staff has to be connected,” McCasland said, “and people not only have to love the game, but you’ve got to be able to trust each other and he’s a guy that I trust with everything.”

There is some fallout from how Linder wound up in Lubbock, though.

Alex Taylor, the University of Wyoming beat reporter for the Wyoming Tribune, reported Tuesday via X (formerly Twitter) that Tech and Wyoming reached an agreement to sort out Linder’s buyout with his previous school.

In exchange for Linder coming to Texas Tech, Taylor reported, Wyoming will visit Lubbock for non-conference games during the 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons in which Tech will pay guarantees of $150,000 each ($300,000 total).

Wyoming will also receive an additional $200,000 for its return football game in Lubbock in 2028. Tech, which lost at Wyoming on the gridiron in the 2023 season opener, was set to pay $300,000 for the Cowboys’ trip to Lubbock. That price tag will now be $500,000.

“UW agreed to waive the remaining portion of his liquidated damages after Coach Linder vacated the money owed to him,” Wyoming AD Tom Burman said in a statement, “and Texas Tech agreed to provide financial support for a few competitions. UW felt that this was a good compromise.”

Taylor said in a previous social media post that “Linder has talked extensively for the past two seasons about the lack of NIL in Laramie.”

Now that the dust has settled, Linder is officially with the Red Raiders, and McCasland sees it as an immediate positive for Tech’s on-court possibilities.

“I think on the floor coaching and game planning,” McCasland said, “he’s really going to be a huge add for us. … He’s an awesome guy more than anything and I really think he’ll help us basketball wise, but his character and who he is as a person is the biggest add to our program.”

It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming! I’m Wendy Corr, bringing you headlines from the Cowboy State Daily newsroom, for Friday, May 24th.

The National Park Service and the Montana Department of Transportation, or MDOT, hoped to open the Beartooth Highway for Memorial Day weekend. Mother Nature had other plans.

The opening of the Beartooth Highway, a popular scenic drive outside Yellowstone National Park, was scheduled for 8 a.m. Friday. But Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports the opening has been delayed because of “deep, drifting snow.”

“They’re expecting another two feet of snow on the Beartooth Highway just on Thursday, and it’s possible there could be more over the weekend. So MDOT says they might be able to clear part of the highway from Red Lodge up to a spot called Vista Point, but they won’t clear it to the Wyoming State Line. And the National Park Service has confirmed that it’s going to keep the Wyoming side of the highway closed throughout Memorial Day weekend.” 

The Park Service issued several other road closures in Yellowstone on Thursday. Sylvan Pass, the route between Yellowstone’s East Entrance and Fishing Bridge, was closed for most of the day due to slick roads and stuck vehicles.

A retired couple in the tiny Carbon County town of Dixon have landed in no-man’s land when it comes to insuring their mobile home. After 42 years of carrying coverage continuously with their insurance company, never missing a payment and never turning in a claim, their company dropped their coverage.

The couple told Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean that they believe many other senior citizens are facing similar difficulties.

“They own a mobile home, which has always been harder to insure. And they got a notice that their rate was going to go up by $1900. They’re senior citizens, they’re living on a fixed income. That wasn’t something they could afford. They shopped around, they thought they had found a new insurance, then they accepted lower coverage with a lower premium. But then that insurer raised the roof on the rates, and that’s left them with no affordable options.” 

Mobile homes have always been more difficult to insure. Now, most companies don’t want to bother with them at all.

A Cheyenne judge Thursday sentenced a former Wyoming Highway Patrol Trooper who raped a woman to 10-15 years in prison.

But Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that state Representative Landon Brown of Cheyenne lobbied the judge for leniency, calling former state trooper Gabriel Testerman, quote, “a man of God.”

“He pointed to the fact that Testerman has maintained his innocence all along. You know, he didn’t go so far as to say that he disbelieved the jury. He said he trusts the process, but he pointed to Testerman’s good character as reported by other people, and his role in the community, and said that he would do well on a suspended sentence or probation.”

However, Judge Robin Cooley agreed with the prosecutors, that Testerman had violated the trust the community had placed in him as a law enforcement officer.

Lander-based Visionary Metals, whose chief executive has family ties to the famed uranium heartland community of Jeffrey City, is staking a potential $1 billion claim on America’s next big strategic mineral — nickel.

CEO Wes Adams told energy reporter Pat Maio that his startup company is in an exploratory stage to dig up nickel and its byproduct, cobalt, in the Granite Mountains north of Jeffrey City. 

“The deposits that he’s identified are in two different prospects. One is called the King Solomon prospect, and the second one is called the Tin Cup prospect. And a prospect can have deposits in them anywhere from 10 million to 50 million tons of ore… So this could be a rather significant find for him.” 

At $10 a pound for nickel, that could mean there’s a total of $1 billion of ore in the two prospects claimed by Visionary Metals.

The scenario that’s played out in Cody over the past year, with locals suing to halt plans to build an LDS temple, is happening in cities all over the United States.

Cowboy State Daily’s Leo Wolfson reports that communities in Texas and Utah are seeing similar battles.

“A lawsuit has been filed in Heber City, Utah, over almost identical circumstances and parties as the Cody one – like Cody, it was filed by neighbors who are opposing the structure. In the town of Fairview, Texas, which is a North suburb of Dallas, there’s also may be a lawsuit imminent, especially after a planning Zoning Commission recommended rejecting a proposed temple there. The mayor of Fairview has said that the temple has already threatened to take legal action about this.” 

Cody mayor Matt Hall told Wolfson that many city officials didn’t know the City code was written in a way that circumvents the council.

And that’s today’s news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming’s only statewide newspaper by hitting the subscribe button on cowboystatedaily.com. And don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel! I’m Wendy Corr, for Cowboy State Daily.

State Rep. Dan Zwonitzer, R-Cheyenne, has seen the evolution of the Wyoming Legislature during his nearly 20 years in office. Now, he said, is not a good time to leave it.

“You don’t leave the Legislature when it’s at a point of chaos,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “We’re probably in the worst shape we’ve been in in 20 years. That’s not when you bail ship. You right the ship.”

Infighting has become common in the state Legislature of late, with a clear division marking the more moderate and farther right Republican factions.

On a larger scale, Zwonitzer said he sees a concerning lack of effort from younger legislators in getting to know the issues and working hard to find solutions for them. Although he acknowledges the learning curve in the Legislature is steep, filled with dense policies and complicated economics, he said many legislators aren’t even bothering to engage with the curve.

“It seems like it’s easier to sit back and throw rocks and complain and stir the pot than it is to find effective solutions,” he said. “Our decisions have consequences that are wide ranging and extremely dynamic to people’s livelihoods and their lives.”

Zwonitzer has won each of his last two Republican primary elections by about 150 votes. His current district makes up southeast Cheyenne and rural Laramie County.

Running against Zwonitzer in the House District 43 Republican primary is Cheyenne resident Ann Lucas, a farther right Republican and former credit union and banking executive who moved to Cheyenne in 2002. She describes herself as a conservative who believes in limited government and taxation only when its absolutely necessary.

Lucas believes Zwonitzer, who was first elected in 2004 and is the longest-serving current House member, has been in office far too long.

“Citizen legislature is not supposed to be occupied by lifers,” she said.

Vision For The Future

“Righting the ship” is what Zwonitzer considers his top priority if reelected to another term in office.

He has staked his position as one of the more prominent faces in the Wyoming Caucus, a group that has formed in opposition to the farther right Wyoming Freedom Caucus, which is often blamed for most of the infighting.

Zwonitzer said the source of the divide is much more than the Wyoming Caucus or the Freedom Caucus, but rather legislators not being on the same page about what direction Wyoming should move in, giving in to “anger-based politics” instead of accomplishing real policy.

“Somethings got to give, and we’ve got to move Wyoming in a direction, even if it’s a direction some people don’t like, other people will,” he said. “We’re not doing any good just yelling at each other and playing divisive games.”

Lucas said she considers the Freedom Caucus members her friends and the likelihood that she will vote the same as them high.

“I predict that I will likely rarely vote in the same way my opponent has in his 20 years in the House,” she said.

‘Game Of Chicken’ With Federal Money

Many members of the Freedom Caucus have also spoken against accepting money from the federal government because that usually comes with various strings attached. Taking a stand by not accepting money from the feds, Zwonitzer said, “is a game of chicken” Wyoming is not going to win.

He also said many new legislators also don’t understand the boom-and-bust nature of Wyoming’s revenue streams, which are highly dependent on mineral revenue. Zwonitzer mentioned the dire economic straits Wyoming was in around 2020, a situation the state had to use its savings and federal assistance to get out of. Because of scenarios like this, he and many other veteran legislators like to dedicate a certain portion of the budget each year to savings, a move often opposed by members of the Freedom Caucus.

Zwonitzer believes the legislative moves the state has been making for the last 60 years can be attributed to the high quality of life in Wyoming today, not blamed for its problems. Tearing down the status quo only goes so far without a clear vision for the future, he said.

“The Freedom Caucus relies on whatever the hot-button issue of the month is that generates people’s anger,” he said. “I would be interested to know what their vision is for 10 years from now.”

If reelected, Zwonitzer, chair of the House Labor, Health and Social Services Committee, said he wants to work to keep health care costs down, which have increased significantly in recent years for both private insurance and uncompensated care. He hopes this committee, which is made up of mostly freshman legislators, can do a better job tackling this issue in the upcoming session.

On energy, Zwonitzer said he wants Wyoming to continue to serve the market and what it is dictating. He wants to keep coal production viable as long as possible, in whatever form that might look like. Zwonitzer also believes there could be a real future for hydrocarbons and other alternative approaches to energy in Wyoming, but also wants to keep supporting the state’s fossil fuels industry.

He wants people to realize the reason Wyoming has such low taxes is because of the state’s robust mineral industry, which he estimates supports 80% of the Wyoming state government budget directly or indirectly.

Zwonitzer said Lucas has often blamed him for the increase to the state’s fuel tax and creation of the state lodging tax during his time in office. He responded that only two tax increases in 20 years is “pretty damn good.”

Lucas’ Plan

Lucas said her experience working in the banking industry makes her an excellent fit for the Legislature. She also said she has coached hundreds of people and families on how to improve their personal financial conditions and taught financial literacy at all school levels.

Lucas said she is concerned by the “blatant tax-and-spend culture” the Legislature has developed. She believes property tax solutions could be achieved by cutting the spending.

“We must be far more transparent in reporting to our citizens and more frugal with our citizens’ money,” she said.

On the transparency front, she believes an electronic voting system should be developed for the Legislature so residents can see how their lawmakers are voting on every issue. Zwonitzer complained this spring that roll call votes were being called so frequently that they were being weaponized.

Lucas said the state should do more audits of its financial accounting and eliminate some of its trust fund accounts. She also wants to reduce overall government spending because many Wyoming residents are struggling financially.

“It’s very hard to decide if you can afford your child’s school clothes while watching our Legislature approve building unnecessary, mega schools when smaller schools would better serve the students of Wyoming,” she said.

Specifically, Lucas is concerned about education spending in Wyoming. Wyoming has one of the highest rates for per-pupil spending in the country but falls around the middle of the pack for its test scores.

She also believes progressive ideology has entered Wyoming’s public schools. In conversations with teachers, Lucas said they’ve told her they’ve been instructed to focus on social emotional learning and sexual ideology rather than teaching basic skills.

“Our current Legislature will not stand up to the federal government to protect our families and ensure that the education our children receive ensures the highest academic performance possible,” she said. “If we’re going to spend more than everyone else, our students should be receiving world-class educations.”

On parental rights, she doesn’t believe schools should be allowed to conduct any survey without parental consent, promote any activist organization or sexual ideology with children.

“This is not the purview of public education,” she said.

She also opposes President Joe Biden’s new Title IX rules, which ban sex discrimination and prohibitions on people using the bathrooms of their choice.

Lucas also brought up a 2022 redistricting dispute involving Zwonitzer as a reason he shouldn’t be reelected, which is how she ended up in his district in the first place. She also claimed he voted with Democrats on 84% of votes during the 2024 legislative session.

Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.