Heard Around the West

There may be nothing new, perhaps, about a drunk guy on horseback in Wyoming, but Benjamin Daniels, 28, created a traffic hazard at 4 p.m. in Cody just by “riding a white horse during a snowstorm.” Slow-moving horse and snowflakes were blending in, reports the Associated Press, and motorists told police they feared there would […]

Ah, Vail, where big money still gets spent on a crucial item like a parking space. The Vail Daily says a treasured spot within Vail’s heated indoor Founders Garage is now on offer for $500,000. “Parking is going up in Vail,” said Buzz Schleper, the spot’s owner. “There’s always somebody out there who has money […]

Twice a year or so, says a fire chief in Medford, Ore., a blaze breaks out in somebody’s house and bullets start banging as well. “Actually, it’s not uncommon for us to deal with ammunition during fires,” says Medford Battalion Chief Ken Goodson. A recent Jacksonville fire was a doozy, though, because James Frings sold […]

Did a bunch of dinosaurs really hang out together 190 million years ago, leaving their many footprints behind? When a University of Utah geologist announced that a “dinosaur dance floor” had been found within what’s known as the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument in northern Arizona, it made big news. But four Western scientists — including […]

As Capital Press put it: “Winemaker Budge Brown is on a mission — to find a cure for breast cancer — and he’s doing it one bottle at a time.” After his wife, Arlene, died of breast cancer three years ago, Brown, who grows grapes in California’s Pope Valley, decided to buy a wine label […]

Starting in January, you can get paid to ride your bicycle to work. It’s all thanks to the $700 billion bailout passed by Congress to goose our failing economy back to productivity. Workers who use their bikes as primary transportation to and from their jobs will be eligible for $20 a month from their employers. […]

MONTANA. Dan Cooper, the co-founder and president of Cooper Firearms of Montana, a small gun manufacturing company in Stevensville, was forced to resign recently after stirred-up gun advocates called him a traitor and threatened reprisals against his business. Cooper’s blunder? He told USA Today that he supported Barack Obama for president and had donated to […]

As the Bible says, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” A football player in his senior year at Mesa State College in western Colorado didn’t die for his teammates, but he willingly sacrificed his right pinky finger. After offensive lineman Trevor Wikre broke the […]

Teri Paul, the director of a state park museum in Blanding, Utah, found herself the victim of a surprise attack recently. The cause? An anatomically correct statue of Kokopelli, a fertility god of ancient Indians, which has greeted visitors to the Edge of the Cedars Park Museum since 1989. Kokopelli, a well-known denizen of the […]