Gov. Mark Gordon will consider whether to begin the process for removing Weston County Clerk Becky Hadlock from office after receiving a complaint from eight local qualified electors who allege “acts of misconduct and malfeasance,” according to a Friday press release from the governor’s office. 

The release did not detail the allegations or name the complainants, but this is not the first time Weston County’s elections practices have been scrutinized. Following November’s general election, an initial miscount caused by an error of Hadlock’s drew fierce criticism from Weston County voters.  

“Given the very serious nature of the potential consequences involved, removal of an official duly elected by the voters of Weston County, preserving the objectivity and integrity of this process is crucial,” Gordon’s press release said. 

State law lays out a process for the governor to “commence action” in removing a county officer who is “guilty of misconduct or malfeasance in office” by filing a petition in district court. In other words, if Gordon finds in his review of the complaint against Hadlock that she appears to be guilty, the governor can request the clerk be tried in district court for misconduct or malfeasance in office. 

“Consequently, the Governor will have no comment on this investigation while it is ongoing, focusing instead on reviewing and determining relevant facts,” the press release said. 

In November, Secretary of State Chuck Gray said his office was planning a “more full analysis evaluating [the clerk’s] conduct” to present to the Attorney General’s office. Gray did not have an update on the matter at a press conference last week, but told WyoFile Friday that his office will be releasing the results of its investigation in early 2025.

How we got here

For the general election, Hadlock printed three versions of the ballot due to errors on the first two, Gray told the Wyoming State Canvassing Board in November. 

It’s not unusual for clerks to reprint ballots, but it became a problem when some voters were given the erroneous first and second versions. As a result, tabulators miscounted votes in a county commission race as well as the competition for House District 1, where House Speaker-elect Rep. Chip Neiman (R-Hulett) was running unopposed for reelection. 

The initial, unofficial results for Weston County showed Neiman received 166 votes while 1,289 left that part of the ballot blank, also known as an undervote. That count caught Secretary of State Chuck Gray’s attention on election night, he said, and when Hadlock didn’t answer his calls, he sent the sheriff’s office to her home. 

Hadlock initially denied there was an issue, Gray said, but ultimately agreed to the secretary of state’s request that her office complete a hand tabulation of the ballots, which confirmed her mistake. 

The recount showed that Neiman received 1,269 votes, and the results were certified by the county canvassing board. 

The state canvassing board also certified Weston County’s results, but at the objection of local voters who asked at the meeting that they delay doing so. Newcastle Mayor Pam Gualtieri was among the objectors. 

“As the mayor, it’s my job to take care of [local citizens], and we would like to see Weston County hand-counted by another county, not ours,” Gualtieri told the board. 

Gualtieri reiterated those concerns to WyoFile Friday. Though she was not one of the eight residents who filed the verified complaint, she wants to see some accountability. 

“A lot of residents just don’t feel like it was taken seriously [by the clerk,] and it’s affecting their thoughts on the next election,” Gualtieri said.

Only two races were recounted in Weston County, but Gualtieri said that’s needed in every race. 

“Even the people who ran in the election are concerned if their numbers are correct, if they’re supposed to have those positions or not,” she said.

Whatever the outcome of the complaint, Gualtieri said Weston County has a long road ahead of itself. 

“It’s easier to lose trust than it is to gain the trust,” Gualtieri said. 

Hadlock did not respond to WyoFile’s request for comment. 

This is a breaking news story and may be updated. 

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Republican legislators are planning to bring at least four bills to Wyoming’s 2025 general session aimed at restricting transgender people’s participation in certain sports and access to public bathrooms and other spaces. 

Lawmakers’ increasing focus on transgender issues comes on the heels of controversy at the University of Wyoming involving its women’s volleyball team and an alleged transgender player on an opposing team. It also follows an expensive and hard-fought campaign season that saw the Wyoming Freedom Caucus win control of the House and move the body further to the right. 

The exact details of the legislation remain to be seen — none of the bills had been published by press time — but they vary in scope, according to several lawmakers who spoke with WyoFile. They are being drafted less than a year after Wyoming banned gender-affirming care for minors including puberty blockers and hormone therapy.

Rep. Martha Lawley (R-Worland), who announced in an op-ed plans to bring both a sports bill and a private spaces bill, said she sees the legislation as an opportunity for lawmakers to unify around a single issue. 

“I would like this to become something that’s more about the cooperation that we can engage in when we really want to,” Lawley told WyoFile. “And if there’s one place that we could showcase that it would be on an issue like this.”

One of Lawley’s bills would expand Wyoming’s transgender athlete ban beyond its current limitation on middle and high school girls sports to include elementary school and intercollegiate competition. The second measure would prohibit transgender girls and women from using women’s public bathrooms, locker rooms, showers and correctional facilities. 

Lawley defeated a Freedom Caucus-backed opponent in the primary election. Whether the group brings its own legislation on the two related matters is not yet clear. Freedom Caucus Chair Rep. Rachel Rodriguez-Williams (R-Cody) told WyoFile, “We haven’t seen [Lawley’s bills] yet, but we are pleased to see her being more responsive to the will of the people of Wyoming.” 

Meanwhile, Sen. Wendy Schuler (R-Evanston) — the lead sponsor of the 2023 sports bill that became law without Gov. Mark Gordon’s signature — told WyoFile she’ll also bring legislation to extend sports ban to the collegiate level. Plus, Park County lawmakers are expected to bring a bathroom bill in support of a resolution passed by Powell’s school board last month. 

Rep. Karlee Provenza (D-Laramie) told WyoFile she’s saddened by the forthcoming slate of legislation. 

“I know that my colleagues are good people. I know that we all want to solve issues and problems, and so when I see this divergence from what I believe are our shared values, it’s just disappointing,” she said, adding that she’d prefer to see lawmakers coalesce around other issues like wildfires, affordable housing and recent trona mine layoffs in southwest Wyoming. 

“We have real problems here,” Provenza said. “I thought I was coming [to the Legislature] to solve problems and not attack people in my district, because that’s who this impacts — it’s my district.”

Sports bans

The University of Wyoming women’s volleyball team forfeited an Oct. 5 match against San José State University because the rival team is alleged to have a transgender player. 

Wyoming’s players were split 9-9, with one abstention in their team vote on whether to play the Spartans. Records indicate the decision to forfeit was ultimately made for them by higher-ups after pressure mounted from the public and elected officials.The circumstances in part inspired Lawley’s legislation. 

“What happened with the volleyball was very eye-opening, I think, for a lot of people in Wyoming,” Lawley said. “I had a lot of response from constituents about that when it was happening. They were very appreciative of the decision made by the University of Wyoming. They felt it was the right decision. Honestly, their only criticism was, ‘Why did it take so long? Why was that so hard to do or figure out?’”

Lawley said her bill would provide clarity in future situations by requiring eligibility standards for intercollegiate sports at UW and Wyoming’s community colleges to be based on biological sex. It would also prohibit teams from competing against out-of-state transgender players. 

“This isn’t about shutting anyone out—it’s about giving every young woman the chance to compete on a level playing field,” Lawley wrote in her op-ed. “The amendment provides legal remedies to hold institutions accountable if those rights are violated.” 

The legislation also extends the ban already on the books to include all grade levels in the K-12 system. As written, the law only applies to middle and high school girls sports. 

While Schuler said she’ll likely support Lawley’s bill, she’s also planning to bring a version that would only include intercollegiate sports. 

“Mine is just a little bit more simple,” Schuler said. 

When Schuler first brought legislation in 2023 to impose the ban, she originally included collegiate sports. She eased off that, however, when UW asked her to allow the National Collegiate Athletic Association to sort things out instead. 

But the NCAA, “they just haven’t done that,” Schuler said. This time, Schuler hasn’t gotten approval from UW, she said, but “they didn’t try to discourage me. Let’s just put it that way.”

Private spaces 

In November, the Park County School District #1 Board of Trustees voted unanimously for a resolution that calls on lawmakers to pass legislation related to restroom use, the Powell-Tribune reported. 

“Due to conflicting case law and legal authority, the current legal and legislative landscape of the United States and Wyoming does not provide a clear foundation for individual school districts to set policy surrounding the issue of sex-based restroom use,” the resolution reads. 

“The district will advocate in the 2025 legislative session and support the passage of legislation similar to Oklahoma Statute 70-1-125 ‘Restrooms in Public Schools’ which will clarify the issue of restroom use for all Wyoming school districts,” the resolution states. 

The 2022 Oklahoma law requires restrooms or locker rooms in public schools to be designated exclusively based on biological sex. 

Lawley said she’s heard Park County lawmakers are planning to bring their own legislation to account for the resolution. Meanwhile, her legislation would cast a wider net than Oklahoma’s, applying the law to not just public schools but other public buildings such as correctional facilities. 

“We have all heard stories of discomfort and fear when policies aren’t clear, leaving institutions scrambling to balance privacy concerns with the risk of lawsuits,” Lawley wrote in her op-ed. “It’s time for the Legislature to act.”

As for enforcement, Lawley said her private spaces bill would give anyone legal standing in court should they sue a school district or other public entity for not complying with the law — also known as a private right of action. Similarly in Texas, a private right of action allows private individuals to sue abortion providers or anyone who “aids and abets” an abortion in a Texas court. 

“Other states have used funding as a motivation, and that could be something we look at again,” Lawley said. That could prove to be complicated, however, since the state is constitutionally obligated to fully fund public education. 

The Wyoming Legislature’s general session starts Jan. 14. 

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Plans to better conserve sage grouse on 65 million federal acres of the imperiled birds’ embattled habitat are being simultaneously cast by competing interest as either overly burdensome on western states, a script for extinction or a Goldilocksesque ideal level of protection. 

Drafts of the Bureau of Land Management’s divisive plans were met with cautious optimism early this year by Wyoming leaders and advocacy groups with a stake in sage grouse management. But that support evaporated last week when the BLM rolled out its final environmental impact statement outlining its revisions to the 9-year-old plans that guide sage grouse management today.

“The thing that changed — which changed the tenor of our comments — is that nothing changed,” said Bob Budd, who chairs Wyoming’s Sage Grouse Implementation Team. 

Budd and others in Wyoming had been optimistic because the state thought BLM was working “together on it” and that changes requested by state managers would be accommodated, he told WyoFile.

“We brought science to the table and said, ‘Look, here’s the way this ought to be handled,” Budd said. “It was ignored.” 

BLM’s final proposal amends 77 resource management plans across sage grouse habitat in 10 western states — revising policies on about 45% of the remaining sagebrush-studded landscapes where the chicken-sized birds dwell. The policies, according to the BLM, blend a “west-wide management approach with unique policies in the individual states.”

“Our environmental analysis, aided by a wealth of information from our partners, indicates that these proposed updates — which are the result of decades of sustained collaborative efforts — are the best way to ensure the health of these lands and local economies now and into the future,” BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning said in a statement. 

The revisions intend to reverse sagebrush habitat losses that are contributing to the long-term decline of sage grouse. Populations naturally swing up and down — Wyoming bird numbers are up, at least at the moment — but recent nadirs in the cycle hit all-time lows in most western states, according to the BLM’s final EIS. Rangewide, sage grouse populations declined nearly 80% from 1966 to 2021. There are few bright spots in the modern era: Since 2002, sage grouse have continued declining on 87% of their range.

Grouse groups trade takes

Some environmental groups say BLM’s final environmental impact statement doesn’t go far enough to stem the declines. Western Watersheds Project, American Bird Conservancy, the Center for Biological Diversity and Advocates for the West maintain the plans will exacerbate the sage grouse “extinction spiral.”  

“Letting anti-conservation states and extractive interests get their way above all else is something we expect to have to fight in the next administration, and it’s disappointing that this is what the Biden Administration is leaving us with as well,” Western Watersheds Project Deputy Director Greta Anderson said in a statement. “What a squandered opportunity.”

In 2019, Western Watersheds Project and a consortium of other groups successfully challenged BLM’s re-write of its West-wide sage grouse conservation strategy. That re-write was spurred by the energy dominance agenda of the first Trump administration. 

The plans being finalized now are intended to address the court’s concerns: that BLM’s 2019 revisions lacked a range of alternatives, did not take a hard look at environmental impacts, and improperly analyzed cumulative effects and required habitat replacement, known as compensatory mitigation.

Other conservation groups felt that the BLM mostly hit the mark in its 2024 revisions. 

A coalition including Audubon Rockies, The Nature Conservancy, National Wildlife Federation, Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, Natural Resources Defense Council and Pew Charitable Trusts signaled they’re “optimistic” about the final plans. 

“With grouse populations on the precipice, now is the time for action,” Natural Resources Defense Council staffer Bobby McEnaney said in a statement. “By issuing these land management plans, the Bureau of Land Management has identified science-based approaches to manage the habitat that the iconic sage-grouse need for survival.”

Lee Davis of The Nature Conservancy’s Sagebrush Sea Program said in a statement that it’s “crucial” to implement a “balanced, pragmatic and durable” plan that “not only halts habitat loss but also averts the risk of an [Endangered Species Act] listing.”

“Without collaboration and compromise,” Davis said, “we all stand to lose.”

Wyoming gripes

In Wyoming’s comments submitted in response to the BLM’s draft plans in June, state officials sought adjustment to “10 areas” of the federal agency’s proposal. Gov. Mark Gordon, who signed the state’s letter, wrote that he would not support any designations of extra-protective “areas of critical environmental concern” for sage grouse in Wyoming. 

“One-fourth of our state is currently designated as ‘Core’ habitat for the species, and we have imposed significant restrictions on development, and dedicated hundreds of millions of dollars to habitat improvement in those areas at great economic cost,” the governor wrote at the time. “There is simply no need to add more designations, restrictions and possible confusion on those landscapes.” 

Gordon’s request was mostly not reflected in the final version. Five months later, BLM’s final plans included 636,352 acres of potential ACECs for sage grouse in Wyoming — down from 839,225 acres in the draft plans. 

The reduction by more than 200,000 acres came in an area known as the “Golden Triangle,” which the BLM described as a “large expanse of intact sagebrush that supports portions of the densest population of [sage grouse] across its entire range.” Even though it was slashed in size, the final plans still included a 272,557-acre ACEC in the Golden Triangle. 

Budd reiterated the belief that the extra layer of safeguards for sage grouse isn’t necessary. 

“The Golden Triangle is already in a core area, it’s in a migration corridor,” he said. “It has tons of protections already there.” 

Another big sticking point, he said, concerned how the BLM addressed “adaptive management.” 

“We have a process in Wyoming to deal with incidents, like the fires we recently had,” Budd said. “They came in with their version of how adaptive management would be done, down to the level of what metric or what model might be used.” 

The BLM is accepting protests of its final EIS through Dec. 9. Gordon and other western governors will also lead a “Consistency Review” process designed to ensure that the policies align with those of the states. That review won’t wrap up until Jan. 7 — two weeks before the change in presidential administrations.

“I am hopeful that as we move into a new Trump Administration that we can shape a functional Record of Decision in the New Year,” Gordon said in a statement. 

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BAIROIL—Audra Thornton knew every person who visited town hall on Tuesday to cast their vote in the election. But she still turned some folks away, instructing them to return with their IDs.

After all, rules are rules — even in Bairoil, a tiny and shrinking Sweetwater County community that only about 60 people call home.

“It doesn’t matter if we know them or not,” Thornton said. “We still have to see their identification. We just have to abide by the law.”

Following state and federal laws is of course a necessary part of administering any election in Wyoming. Poll workers and county staff, however, go to extraordinary lengths to pull off an election in the most rural reaches of the least populated state in the nation.

Bairoil’s just one example. The tallest task of every election in the former company town at the east edge of the Red Desert comes at the end of the night.

Thornton, a veteran election judge, phones in vote counts to election officials in Sweetwater County’s seat, Green River. Cindy Lane, the county clerk, classifies those as “official, unofficial” results. But the actual ballots still need to physically arrive in Green River to be fully certified. And 160 highway miles divide the two towns, which sit on opposite ends of the eighth largest county in the United States.

Bairoil’s three election judges, all women, contemplated the great journey those ballots must take. The locked bin enclosing the ballots crosses over the Continental Divide three times. That’s the hydrological feature that splits the country into two, determining whether water flows into the Atlantic or Pacific oceans.

Bairoil itself sits in the Great Divide Basin — essentially a gap in the Continental Divide, where water flows nowhere — and so the ballots first cross over while headed east of town. After a westward Interstate 80 turn at Rawlins, the ballots enter back into and then exit the Great Divide Basin, making for the triple crossing.

The ballots’ unusual every-other-year odyssey is one that many Bairoil residents hope keeps happening.

“They already closed our school,” election judge Adene Wuertley lamented. “They can leave our polling place alone.”

Bairoil, like many once-booming industry towns, is losing population and a shell of its former self. U.S. Census data shows that the population once surpassed 200 people in the 1990s. That tumbled to 68 by the 2020 Census — it’s the figure that appears on the sign coming into town. And it’s kept on slipping.

“We’re probably closer to 61 right now,” Wuertley said. “We’ve had several people move out.”

As the population has gone away, so have services and amenities. Nowadays, commercial services for the general public have essentially narrowed to a vending machine at town hall.

The track record helps explain why Bairoil residents want to keep what they have, even if it’s the ability to vote in person without having to leave town.

“This is a good thing that they’re here, it really is,” said Frankee Foley, one of the last residents to cast her ballot on Tuesday.

It’s a “heck of a lot better,” she said, than the long drive. The next closest Sweetwater County polling station is in Wamsutter, 78 miles away.

Thornton, the lead polling station judge, agreed. About 80% of Bairoil residents, she pointed out, are over the age of 65.

“It would be a hardship on a lot of people,” Thornton said. “I hope they don’t close it down.”

It’s been tried before. During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, former Secretary of State Ed Buchanan encouraged clerks around Wyoming to consolidate polling stations, partly because it was a tough year to recruit polling station workers.

Bairoil’s residents who didn’t vote by mail traveled to Wamsutter that year, the judges recalled.

Keeping the polling station local in Bairoil gives voting day an especially small-town flair. As 5 p.m. approached, the election judges had tallied up 41 ballots — a good turnout, considering there were then 50 registered voters in town. In the last couple hours of the day, almost all of the missing voters trickled in.

Wuertley at one point even rang a neighbor to check in on someone who was sick, though it turned out they were too ill to vote.

Just after 7 p.m., Thornton declared the polls closed to those present: a reporter, her two fellow judges, and a Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Deputy Sean Snider, whose job that night entailed a 160-mile ballot box delivery to Green River. After a phone call to the clerk, certifying papers and fussing with cable locks, the ballots were on the road and soon after traveling 80 mph down I-80 across southern Wyoming.

A couple hours later, the box landed in Green River with Lane and her staff at the Sweetwater County Clerk’s Office. Keeping polling places like the Bairoil vote center going, the clerk said, takes work: Staff has to transport voting equipment the day before, and results on Election Day are delayed an hour or so.

It’s not the only far-flung polling site Sweetwater County administers. The Washum and McKinnon stations, Lane said, are every bit as small — one’s even located on an ADA-compliant family farm.

“They really enjoy their polling locations in those small communities,” Lane said, “and they hold on to what they have.”

People are spread out in rural Wyoming, she said, and it’s full of small mining communities where people work “7 to 7.”

“I like that they have options,” Lane said.

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Early voting for the general election is on pace to easily eclipse the scant primary-election turnout in Wyoming’s most populous counties. 

Laramie County residents are even breaking early voting records. 

“It’s phenomenal,” County Clerk Debra Lee said. 

The primaries in August yielded the lowest statewide turnout since 2016. But now, Lee says, Laramie County residents are showing up in droves. More than 7,000 people had voted early in person there as of Monday, not including absentee ballots. The entire vote count for the primaries there was 18,554. 

Early voting has been popular in Campbell County, too. 

“It’s definitely busier than the primary was,” Election Coordinator Michelle Leiker said. 

And while the rather long ballot has resulted in the occasional wait for voters, Leiker said the re-registration process has been the primary cause of slow downs. 

“A lot of them missed the November 2022 election, and they didn’t respond back to the postcard that they received in the mail,” she said. “And so I had to purge about 8,000 people that were registered from the 2020 election.”

Campbell County started the year with about 12,000 registered voters, but that had already climbed to about 15,000 a week or two ago, Leiker said. That’s compared to 20,000 voters in 2020. 

Sheridan County purged about 4,000 voters after the 2022 election, according to Election Supervisor James Temple. As of Wednesday, about 1,000 came back to re-register. 

“So it has just been non-stop madness,” Temple said. “But so far, we’re holding our own. If we can just get through one more week, I think it’ll be a really good election.”

Lines and absentee ballots

In Albany County, early voting has attracted decently long lines, according to Election Coordinator Stacey Harvey, so get ready to wait if you show up during a high-traffic time of day.

“​​On a busy time, [it’s a] 20- to 30-minute wait, probably,” she said. “It’s been wild. It’s good, we like it.”

Beyond voting in person, Fremont County Clerk Julie Freese said absentee ballot data suggests they’re on track to eclipse absentee vote counts from 2016, but not the higher-turnout and absentee-heavy 2020 race. Primary numbers have already been eclipsed, she said. 

She added that voters are still requesting absentee ballots, but they should be mindful that the ballots must be back to county offices by 7 p.m. on Election Day. 

“We do still keep getting absentee requests, which is getting close to the time frame where it’s a little bit concerning,” Freese said on Monday. 

The U.S. Postal Service recommends locals send in ballots at least seven days before the deadline, giving absentee ballot holders less than a week to mail it back in, or two weeks to bring it to a drop-box. 

There’s been a bit of a slower start in Natrona County, Clerk Tracy Good said.

“I’m not gonna lie, last week, I was kind of like, ‘Where is everybody at?’” she said.

But it’s picking up this week, and she expects they’ll soon be processing around 800 people a day as the election nears. 

All election staff WyoFile talked with felt confident about the number of election judges and volunteers they’ve been able to attract for the general election, even if there are still a few vacancies and some more training to do. In Sheridan County, Temple said he even plans to keep some of the judges on the clock to help enter voter registrations into the state system the day after the election — something he says they have 30 days to do.

“We’re hoping we can have them done in as little as five to six days this time,” he said. 

To see what’s on your own ballot before heading to the polls, go to your local elections web page, or vote.org. To figure out where to cast your ballot, the Wyoming Secretary of State’s Office has also launched a new polling place locator on its website.

WyoFile’s election guide covers races for U.S. Congress and the Wyoming Legislature, as well as judicial retention and the proposed constitutional amendment. 

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They packed the pews tight at Saints Cyril and Methodius Catholic Church, those without seats standing wherever they could find space. Mourners took off work and school, many traveling across Wyoming to gather on a calm, sunny October morning in Rock Springs. The service started late in order to make room for everyone. 

This was the funeral of Dawson Fantin, an 18-year-old graduate of Rock Springs High School who’d only recently left his hometown to start college at the University of Wyoming on a prestigious Trustees’ Scholar Award. One month into the semester, he died in his dorm room of an apparent suicide. The Sept. 28 death remains under investigation pending the results of an autopsy and toxicology screening. 

But there in the church, family and friends celebrated a young man who embraced people from all walks of life. He also had a competitive side, representing Wyoming in national high school speech and debate competitions. He volunteered at the local senior center and throughout the community. He lit up rooms with his goofy sense of humor. He was open about his own struggles with PTSD as part of his advocacy to destigmatize mental health care. His death shocked family and friends who saw nothing but his bright future ahead.

The University of Wyoming, in contrast to the outpouring of grief in Rock Springs, marked his death with nearly three weeks of silence. It wasn’t until Oct. 18 — 20 days after Dawson’s passing and 10 days after his funeral — that UW sent an email to the campus acknowledging a student had died. 

But that decision spurred suspicion about why UW had kept quiet. 

Effective communication 

Dawson’s parents, Debra and Paul Fantin, grew concerned about the delayed communications after hearing from Dawson’s friends that the burden of sharing the heartbreaking news with their professors was falling to them, and not the university. 

When asked why UW waited 20 days to notify staff and students of Dawson’s death, Vice President of Student Affairs Kim Chestnut told WyoFile the university was following outdated guidelines that advised against public notifications to prevent further suicides through contagion. Instead of an all-campus message, Chestnut said, a team had been working to reach out directly to impacted students and faculty. The university changed course, sending out the Oct. 18 email, when it came to light the guidelines had changed, Chestnut said.

“What I would offer is we have a new director of our counseling center,” Chestnut explained. “So Megan Belville [had] just begun in that position at the start of this academic year, and she researched last week what the practice recommendations are with the growth of social media and information sharing that is no longer within the means of a university to manage, which is why we decided to share information at the end of last week.” 

Moving forward, UW will more immediately notify the campus community about student deaths, and share bereavement and mental health resources, but not provide the cause of death in the case of a suicide, Chestnut said. 

While experts encourage a cautious, measured approach to communicating about suicide, WyoFile found that UW’s delayed acknowledgment of Dawson’s death was at odds with widely accepted national guidelines for suicide response, also called postvention, used by universities for more than a decade.

“It is important that the death be addressed openly and directly. After a suicide, once the basic facts are known, any attempt to delay informing students will only encourage rumors,” the Higher Education Mental Health Alliance’s guide to suicide response states. The resource, produced in partnership with nine organizations dedicated to advancing college mental health, was first released in 2014.  

“If communication efforts are not carried out in an effective manner the rest of the postvention execution will suffer and community anxiety will increase,” the guide advises. “Because of today’s immediate communication culture and the speed at which information spreads via social media, the postvention committee needs to be ready to communicate quickly to affected students and the campus community.” 

Dawson’s friends, extended family and parents told WyoFile that UW’s delayed communication added stress to an already heart-wrenching experience. They hope UW is genuine in its commitment to improving how it communicates about student deaths and mental health resources, but “only time will tell,” Dawson’s mom, Debra Fantin said. 

The message UW finally sent out on Oct. 18 stated: “Initial notice was not shared as we worked to manage family notifications and their wishes on information sharing.” While the wording indicated UW’s desire to be sensitive to Dawson’s family, it didn’t land that way with Debra and Paul, who were upset UW attributed the delay to the family’s wishes. 

“We had no communication with them at all,” Paul said. Debra said she received two voicemail messages from a dean and Paul has been in touch with UW police, but it’s been more phone tag than meaningful conversation, the two told WyoFile.  

Attached at the hip 

Katie Hinz remembers visiting UW last year and seeing crosses erected outside the student union in memory of three students who died in a car crash on Highway 287 last February. She’d love to do something like that for Dawson. 

“We met on Aug. 17, so the day after we moved in,” Hinz said. A group of first-year students sat in the grass waiting for an event to begin, and Dawson “sat on a sprinkler head and when he stood up his whole butt was wet,” Hinz said. She was struck by Dawson’s easygoing sense of humor. “He loved to entertain people, so he immediately made a joke out of it, and we just kind of became friends right from that moment. And then ever since then, we were attached at the hip.”

Being on campus without her sidekick has been tough, she said.

“What’s hard for me is I’m three hours away from where he’s buried,” Hinz said. “I can’t just go see him if I’ve had a bad day. And there’s no cross outside [his dorm], no memorial for him.”  

She’s thought about putting one up but she’s uncertain how the university might respond. 

“They’ve already been so hush-hush about a suicide in the dorm, like if I were to put a cross outside or anywhere on campus, would they just immediately take it down?” Hinz said. 

There’s good reason to approach physical memorials with caution to limit the risk of contagion, but the Higher Education Mental Health Alliance’s postvention guide also advises “a suicide death ought not to be handled differently than other deaths, but the framing of content needs to be carefully managed.”

Unfortunately, Hinz hasn’t felt like UW’s quiet approach is rooted in a desire to mitigate harm. 

“I feel like the university has tried to sweep this under the rug,” she said.

Not so, Chestnut said.

“That’s never a sentiment we’ve had or felt,” she said. “If anything, sweeping it under the rug would be in opposition to the very real space and time that we want to provide to attending to mental health concerns and prevention.”

Chestnut acknowledged how the delay in communication may have sent mixed messages and said the university commits to doing better. 

“We have provided great care,” Chestnut said. “I know that our teams have done incredible work to support students and faculty and staff at every measure. But are there elements that we can continue to refine and improve? Absolutely.” 

Because UW didn’t quickly notify all faculty, Hinz said “my professors were finding out about what happened through me, and I think that made them a little more confused and concerned.” Ultimately she found her professors were supportive, but at first, she worried some of them thought she was lying. 

Hinz said she doesn’t want to criticize UW because she understands administrators were managing a complex set of needs after Dawson died. But a campus-wide notification would have relieved her of the burden of explaining to professors and her fellow students why she was so upset. 

Shifting guidelines 

When asked for copies of the outdated resources that shaped UW’s decision not to release a timely public notification, as well as the new guidelines, Chestnut pointed WyoFile to a suicide response guide specifically geared to off-campus student housing managers released in June. 

Dawson lived in a UW dorm, not in independently managed off-campus housing. Regardless, those guidelines say community communications should be protective of those at a heightened risk of mental health issues and “sensitive to those grieving the loss of a community member, and offer hopeful messages about community support and healing.” 

When asked why she shared the off-site housing guide and if she could also share the previous guidelines, Chestnut said: “Please know, we reference a broad amount of resources to create our practice, there are national organizations that support nearly every aspect of student affairs so we won’t just be using the off-site document.” 

She also declined to share UW’s current guidelines because they are in the process of being edited. 

Swiss cheese 

Dawson’s cousin Kali Lenhart is a UW alum, but her poke pride is wavering. 

“We are a very close family, and Dawson was more like a sibling to my sister and me than he was a cousin,” Lenhart said. She started babysitting him a couple of times a week when she was a teenager and he was just months old. “My social life in high school, outside of sports and activities, was babysitting and hanging out with Dawson. We were very, very close.” 

Her grief is immeasurable, but beyond that “the piece that I’m struggling the most with is how the university has handled all of it,” Lenhart said. “I know they do a great deal of prevention, and they have lots of resources as far as the prevention side goes, but how they handled [Dawson’s death] or really their lack of handling is one of the pieces I’m having the hardest time with.” 

Lenhart and her sister Kelci Schutz have shared with administrators how UW’s slow communication put unnecessary stress on Dawson’s fellow students and friends like Hinz. In response, they’ve also heard promises that the approach will change. 

Staff turnover could factor into why the university dropped the ball, Lenhart suggested. There’s a new director of the counseling center and an interim dean of students. But Lenhart knows from her experience working in health care as a nurse and clinical supervisor that pointing the finger doesn’t lead to lasting change. She prefers the Swiss cheese approach. 

“You line up all these slices of Swiss cheese, and if the holes in the processes and systems you have in place line up just right, and something gets all the way to a patient to cause harm, then you ask: What’s wrong in the system? What do we need to build into the system?” 

Lenhart hopes that speaking up about her family’s experience will help UW to improve its procedures. 

“I have so much pride in this institution, and I don’t want to have to lose my love for UW on top of Dawson,” Lenhart said through tears. “And so for some reason, I want to make this better, and I want the answers.” 

“You have to fix this,” Lenhart said, speaking to her alma mater. “You can’t do it this way for other students.” 

---

The University of Wyoming’s website encourages “any concerned individual can refer a student who may be experiencing academic, personal or emotional challenges or who may be demonstrating concerning, distressed, or disruptive behavior to the UW CARES Team by submitting a referral form.”

Anywhere in the United States, if you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, call or text the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988.

Correction: This story has been updated to correct where Dawson Fantin volunteered and his mental health diagnosis. —Ed.

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The University of Wyoming women’s volleyball team will forfeit its game with San José State this weekend amid criticism over the rival team’s transgender player. 

The Cowgirls are the third in a group of teams to forfeit games to the currently undefeated California squad, following similar actions from Boise State and Southern Utah universities. The San José State player Blaire Fleming’s transgender status was publicized in April, and afterward another  team member joined a suit over NCAA rules allowing trans athletes under certain circumstances. 

UW had originally decided to go forward with the game following talks between the athletic department, coaching staff and the team, according to Cowboy State Daily.

As of Tuesday afternoon, UW changed its mind.

“After a lengthy discussion, the University of Wyoming will not play its scheduled conference match against San José State University in the UniWyo Sports Complex on Saturday, Oct. 5,” Nick Seeman, UW’s Assistant Athletic Director said in a statement. “Per Mountain West Conference policy, the Conference will record the match as a forfeit and a loss for Wyoming. The Cowgirls will host Fresno State on Thursday, Oct. 3 at 6:30 p.m. in the UniWyo Sports Complex.”

The response

Following the decision, Wyoming Equality released a statement calling the forfeiture “yet another troubling instance of politics overshadowing fair competition in collegiate sports.”

“Athletics should be about fostering teamwork, growth, and healthy competition — not about discrimination and exclusion,” spokesperson Santi Murillo said in a press release. “We believe every athlete, including transgender athletes, deserves the opportunity to compete and play the sports they love. This is personal to me, as the first transgender athlete at UW I experienced the best of Wyoming, a focus on playing sports, not politics. Taking away opportunities to compete hurts all athletes.”

Wyoming Equality also called for a focus on “consistently applied standards that create fairness and opportunity” in sports. 

Gov. Mark Gordon backed the decision to forfeit the game, saying on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter: “I am in full support of the decision by @wyoathletics to forego playing its volleyball match against San Jose State. It is important we stand for integrity and fairness in female athletics.”

This echoes support the Boise State team garnered from the Idaho governor after it decided to cancel its match. 

Rep. Rachel Rodriguez Williams (R-Cody) also supported the decision. She is the new chair of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, which previously called for the game to be canceled. 

“Thank you, UW for making the right decision and for protecting womens sports,” she said on X.

Under pressure

The decision came as state lawmakers circulated a letter pressuring UW to cancel the game. It was addressed to UW President Ed Seidel and Athletic Director Tom Burman. 

“The Legislature has been very clear that the University of Wyoming, being a publicly funded land grant institution, should not participate in the extremist agenda of Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) or propagate the lie that biological sex can be changed,” the letter, circulated by Sen. Cheri Steinmetz (R-Lingle), states. “We all know it cannot.”

That was an apparent reference to the Legislature voting to cut UW’s block grant by the amount it took to fund the university’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Lawmakers also voted to ban the use of state funds for anything to do with DEI, though Gov. Mark Gordon vetoed part of that budget footnote.

In response, UW has eliminated its DEI office, though it retained all staff and aimed to keep programming situated under that entity. Most of those programs didn’t match what lawmakers stated they wanted to root out, UW Board of Trustees members said. 

The DEI office housed several programs, including the federally required compliance offices for the Americans with Disabilities Act, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. That last federal law prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools receiving federal funding and is often cited in arguments against allowing trans women to participate in women’s sports. 

The lawmakers’ letter goes on to state: “The Wyoming Citizens were very clear in the last election cycle in which they categorically rejected incumbents and candidates who supported policies promoting or failing to stop the ‘woke’ agenda.”

During this year’s primary election, members of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus gained ground against the more traditional Republicans, reflecting what many residents see as a need for more conservative policies in Wyoming. This followed 2022’s primary election when the Freedom Caucus also gained members. 

Wyoming legislators passed a law last year that banned trans girls from participating in middle and high school girls’ sports. This year, lawmakers also banned most forms of gender-affirming care for minors, including surgeries and hormone treatments.

The Biden Administration extended Title IX protections in May to ban discrimination based on gender identity, which includes someone’s transgender status. That has been challenged and enforcement has been blocked via a lawsuit headed by 15 Republican-led states, which does not include Wyoming. 

Brooke Slusser, another member of the San José State volleyball team, has also joined a lawsuit against the NCAA, which claims its policies allowing trans athletes violate Title IX. The suit was originally filed by swimmer and activist Riley Gaines, who spoke at UW’s campus and fought against a trans woman being allowed into a UW sorority. Judges at the district and circuit court levels both dismissed a lawsuit over that separate issue. 

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Both the Wyoming and Idaho Freedom Caucuses joined the D.C.-based national network of far-right political blocs two years ago, but they’ve since traveled two very different roads.

After a successful August primary, the Wyoming Freedom Caucus is poised to take control of the state House in November. Meanwhile, its Idaho counterpart has splintered, leaving original members fighting with a new collection of lawmakers being recruited by the State Freedom Caucus Network.

The Gem State schism has grown so petty that the two factions are squabbling over who owns the rights to the Idaho Freedom Caucus logo.

“If all this sounds improbable, well, it isn’t,” Randy Stapilus, who covers Idaho politics, wrote in an Idaho State Journal op-ed. “Given the nature of what underlies these groups, it’s probably better seen as inevitable. The other states with Freedom Caucuses are on notice.”

Still, of the dozen network members, the Idaho Freedom Caucus is the only one that has thus far imploded. Is it an outlier, or a warning sign to extremists who have banded together to take over their respective statehouses?

The answer will help determine if Wyoming’s Freedom Caucus can successfully make the transition from a group of obstructionists to a functional governing body that’s able to pass its own agenda. 

A loose-knit Wyoming Freedom Caucus formed in 2016 with roughly a half-dozen members, modeled after the GOP’s U.S. House Freedom Caucus that started a year earlier. There was little movement in its ranks until about 20 Republican incumbents and candidates met in Story in September 2020 to vent their frustration over their inability to ban abortion and eliminate gun regulations. They shared fundamental beliefs in smaller government, minimal taxes and a bare-bones state budget.

In 2021, the Freedom Caucus had about 18 members who could reliably be counted on to vote as a bloc. After the 2022 election, the caucus grew to about 26.

It was six votes short of the majority at the time, but its new-found strength was a wake-up call to “traditional” conservatives who formed the Wyoming Caucus in response. 

Then a dramatic shift in legislative power occurred this year. Thanks to the requirement that bills must have two-thirds support to be introduced in the budget session, on opening day the Freedom Caucus killed 13 committee-passed measures that would have normally sailed through the process. 

The war between the two groups began in earnest, and the battleground was the Republican primary election in August. The Freedom Caucus had a net gain of three House seats and is strongly positioned to obtain a clear majority in November. 

The Freedom Caucuses in Wyoming and Idaho joined the State Freedom Caucus Network in 2022. Leaders made separate trips to D.C. to learn more about the network’s tactics, which emphasized an us-versus-them divide between members of the populist state caucuses flying under its banner and the demonized “RINOs” — Republicans in name only.

The Wyoming group hasn’t accomplished everything on the national network’s long list of priorities, including a ban on teaching “critical race theory.” But far-right lawmakers successfully sponsored abortion bans currently on hold pending court action, as well as anti-transgender bills and the diversion of state public-school funds to private and religious schools.

By contrast, the short history of the Idaho Freedom Caucus reads like the playbook for a team bent on self-destruction. The Idaho caucus is much smaller than Wyoming’s, which allows anyone to join. According to Stapilus, the 12 Freedom Caucus members in Idaho had to be vetted and invited, but they couldn’t agree on their mission, and several didn’t like their organization’s subservient relationship with the network. 

A secretly taped recording of a fractious meeting was leaked to the public last May. Squaring off were the Idaho state director for the State Freedom Caucus Network and a caucus co-chair who backed moderate positions of the speaker of the House. Both sides were angry and couldn’t wait to break away from each other. 

In a newsletter earlier this month, the Idaho Freedom Caucus outlined its beef with the national network and the director, who was described as “more in line with the [network] than Caucus members, making the ongoing situation untenable.” The caucus claimed the network ordered it “to be dissolved and re-formed on the conditions that it alter its self-governing structure, rewrite its bylaws, and adhere to a rigid D.C.-driven agenda.”

Sounds like a whole lot of freedom going on, doesn’t it?

The national caucus network cut off financial and administrative support, and the former director was tasked with forming a competing state Freedom Caucus, according to the Idaho Freedom Caucus newsletter. 

But Stapilus wrote that the feisty original group, now down to seven members after resignations and primary losses, isn’t going away. The caucus declared it will “follow its own path,” and hired a former state senator as the new director.

Like Wyoming, Idaho’s far-right made significant gains by defeating more moderate opponents in the GOP primary. But it’s uncertain whether those wins will translate into a chance to control the Idaho House, or if the feud will continue to sap the group’s power.

Wyoming’s Freedom Caucus, to my knowledge, hasn’t been handicapped by such disputes. The members’ common bond seems to be the need to control the House, support senators who align with Freedom Caucus positions and elect more of their own to state offices, including the governorship. Chuck Gray, a member of the caucus when he was in the House, was elected secretary of state in 2022.

I don’t see a backlash here against the network’s leadership, largely because its campaign strategy has helped elect new Freedom Caucus members. The bare-knuckled tactics the network encourages, including mailers that opponents charge lied about their voting records, were key to several victories. 

“I took 22 hit pieces in the mail and 10 text messages against me, and that negativity works,” Rep. Dan Zwonitzer of Cheyenne, a Wyoming Caucus member who lost his bid for an 11th term, told the Wyoming Tribune Eagle. He added it’s “the new normal, and that’s what bothers me.”

There have always been negative campaigns, but the 2024 Republican primary sunk to a new low in many districts. As its members try to build coalitions to help them govern, the Freedom Caucus should remember how the ex-Idaho director framed its work before the rebellion: “We can save the nation one state at a time, and the State Freedom Caucus has the formula.”

National groups have resources to help, but sometimes the reward isn’t worth the pain of complying to unbending rules, especially ones at odds with legislators’ views of their own state’s priorities.

I wonder why more Republicans aren’t worried about the clash between those who want to rigidly adhere to the extreme-right platform of the Wyoming Republican Party and the traditional conservative wing. It’s the perfect recipe to tear a political party apart.

An example of what can happen when a state caucus refuses to follow an unwanted national “formula” is only one state to our west. The Wyoming Freedom Caucus should take that lesson to heart, especially since it’s following orders from the same master that led to the implosion in Idaho.

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