Welcoming a brand new year
This week we said goodbye to 2024 and hello to 2025.
In this week’s issue we listed what we deemed were the top 10 stories locally for 2024. To be fair there were many honorable mentions that did not quite make the top 10. 2024 was full of stories chronicling our achievements, heartache and decisions that impact the lives of our readers.
2024 was a busy news year and 2025 will likely not be any different. We will hit the ground fast and furious in 2025 with the grand opening of the Ten Sleep School slated for next Thursday and the following week will be the start of the 40-day Wyoming Legislature general session.
There will be many things to watch during the session including the supplemental budget. Rep. Martha Lawley has sponsored five bills that have already been prefiled, many directed toward women’s privacy and biological female rights.
One bill specifies “requirements for the use of sex-designated restrooms, showers, sleeping quarters and locker room facilities at public facilities” and defines ‘Female’ as “a person who has, had, will have or would have had, but for a congenital anomaly or intentional or unintentional disruption, the reproductive system that at some point produces, transports and utilizes eggs for fertilization.”
Another bill specifies requirements for athletic participation with the same definition of a female.
A bill sponsored by the Travel Committee, following on the heels of the wolf that was run down by a snowmobiler, captured, tortured and then killed in Daniel, would make it a misdemeanor for any person who intentionally injures or disables a predatory animal (per statute) “by use of an automotive vehicle, motorpropelled wheeled vehicle, or vehicle designed for travel over snow shall upon inflicting the injury or disability immediately use all reasonable efforts to kill the injured or disabled predatory animal. Any person who fails to immediately use all reasonable efforts to kill an injured or disabled predatory animal as required by this subsection commits cruelty to animals.”
The Daniel incident created national attention and this bill will likely draw attention outside of Wyoming as well.
With more than two weeks before the session begins (as of this writing Sunday night) there are 147 bills that have been prefiled. This number likely will triple with 497 bills filed during the 2023 General Session.
Other stories likely to make the 2025 top 10 are follow-up stories to the 2024 Top 10 including the opening of the new Gottsche Rehabilitation facility and the opening of the new Lighthouse facility. There is the potential 2025 could see the opening of the Dollar General with site plans submitted and approved but no timeline yet for construction at the location off of Big Horn Avenue.
We will also be following the Wyoming Boys’ School lawsuit in 2025.
2024 saw several new businesses start up, several expansions and we expect 2025 will not be any different. We appreciate all the people willing to invest in the future of Worland and Ten Sleep.
We look forward to seeing the many annual events that will grow and what they will bring, including, but not limited to, Culturefest, the Washakie County Fair, Nowoodstock, the Pepsi Wyoming Championship BBQ and Bluegrass Festival, Hunterfest; Quick Draw, Christmas parades and the Rotary Lights.
Whatever this new year brings Washakie County and the Big Horn Basin, one thing will remain constant, we will be there reporting the stories to you, as we have for the past 119 years (120 on Dec. 28, 2025).
Happy New Year!