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Wyoming Mixed On Boy Scouts Changing Name After 114 Years

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Wyoming Mixed On Boy Scouts Changing Name After 114 Years


Wyomingites involved in scouting have mixed opinions on the 114-year-old youth organization Boy Scouts of America changing its name to Scouting America early next year.

Boy Scouts of America President Roger Krone told the media Tuesday that the name change is about inclusivity.

“We are an organization for all. It’s time our name reflects that,” Krone said.

Former Boy Scouts, a troop leader and others Cowboy State Daily interviewed Wednesday reacted differently, with some calling the rebrand a smart move to divert recent negative legal actions and media attention, and others calling it unnecessary. 

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“That’s good news,” said Jay Conley, Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) commander in Star Valley, Wyoming.

Conley said he’s been working to start up a Scouting program in his area for months, and that he benefitted from the program in his own days as a Boy Scout.  

Though the national group touted the name change as an inclusive move, Conley speculated that the rebrand could help set a new course after reports of the unsavory way the group “used to run.”

He did not go into detail.

And yet, some programs have flourished and taught kids useful skills, camaraderie and “how to be a patriot,” he said. “I think we need more of that in the country.”

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Actually, Expense

Dennis Freeman, who served for decades as a scout master in Green River and an upper-level administrator in Cheyenne, said he supports the name change, but parted ways with the organization in 2021 because of hiking membership costs for members.

That was when the group was facing millions of dollars in judgments over lawsuits stemming from sexual abuse revelations, he said.

In 2019, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints also parted ways with the Boy Scouts, diminishing the organization’s numbers.

Freeman said the membership costs and program fees came to about $100 a year per enrollee by the time he left, tripling in about three years. That adds up for lower-income families with multiple kids in the program, he said.

“I’ve promoted kids to Eagle (Scout rank) who might have gotten there without help even at $24 a year,” he said.

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Look Around The World

But Freeman said he supports the name change and considers it a natural move when other scouting groups around the world are knocking down gender exclusion barriers.

Scouts Canada officially went co-educational in 1998.

The United Kingdom’s Scouting Association started accepting girls in 1976.

Boy Scouts of America, or BSA, is not co-ed, but offers different troops for boys and girls and different leaders for each, Freeman noted and the group’s 2018 guidance for inducting girls confirms.

Still, the group has combined-sex “packs,” which are larger clubs that don’t meet as often as the smaller “dens.”

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“I’m not sure rebranding solves all their problems, but I think it’s a good idea,” said Freeman, pointing to female troops in his area.

“I wish the Scouts well,” he said. “Scouting meant a lot to me and still does.”

Eagle Scout

Wyoming legislative Rep. JT Larson, R-Rock Springs, is an Eagle Scout, the organization’s highest rank of accomplishment, a title shared by the late U.S. Sen. Mike Enzi and former President Gerald Ford, among other notable people.

Larson said he didn’t have much of an opinion on the name change, but wasn’t sure why it was necessary.

Larson said he didn’t know much about the group’s national scandals; rather, he credited the Rock Springs group with helping to grow his leadership and people skills.

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“And I attribute a lot of my success today to the lessons I learned through the Boy Scout program,” he said.

Mama Says No

Janean Retz, a Gillette-area mom with a 7-year-old son, said she considered having her son join the Scouts, but has decided against it with all the group’s changes.

“It is good for boys to have what the Boy Scouts used to provide in an atmosphere of bonding with each other while achieving life skills without the distraction of girls,” Retz told Cowboy State Daily in a Wednesday message. “While the younger boys may not be as distracted by the girls as the older boys likely are, it’s still a distraction.”

Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.



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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 2-18-26

WyoPreps Girls Basketball Week 9 Scores 2026

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WyoPreps Girls Basketball Week 8 Scores 2026

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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

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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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