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"What does the yellow light means?" Probably the greatest scene from the TV show Taxi......

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Cowboy State Daily is Wyoming’s largest newspaper with Wyoming’s most experienced journalists. 

<title>🚧 Today In Television: Friday, May 16, 2025 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Today In Television: Friday, May 16, 2025

 "What does the yellow light means?" Probably the greatest scene from the TV show Taxi......

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's general assignment reporter, Clair McFarland.

Clair McFarland

Crime & Courts

Public Safety

With one last week of balmy weather forecast for Wyoming, the father of a hiker 

 near Yellowstone National Park’s tallest peak is organizing experienced mountaineers and hikers to conduct a widescale search in rugged, harrowing terrain.

Austin King, 22, summitted Eagle Peak at 11,361 feet on Sept. 17.

He left a note in the registry describing the blinding weather he endured to get there. King’s father shared a copy of the note with Cowboy State Daily. 

“I can’t feel my fingers and my glasses are so fogged from the ruthless weather of the mountains,” says King in a handwritten, smudged entry dated Sept. 17. “I truly cannot believe I am here after what it took to be here. I endured rain, sleet, hail and the most wind I have ever felt(.)”

He couldn’t see Eagle Peak for most of the day from the densest fog he’d ever seen, he added.

“I free soloed too many cliffs to get here and walked up to the peak from the connecting peak – AKA not the right path. I am 22 years old and I will never forget today (for) the rest of my life.”

He concluded: “Life is beautiful, got out and LIVE IT!” before signing his name and sketching a smiley face.

That was at about 6 p.m. It had taken him all day to climb the mountain, and the darkness was encroaching. The sun set at 7:07 that evening.

Three days later, he failed to show for a scheduled boat ride back toward his RV at Grant Village, where he lived while working as a Xanterra concessionaire employee in Yellowstone.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"The Clues We Grasp"}]

For avid hiker John Lamb, who has volunteered his services coordinating and leading a volunteer team of himself and six others, King’s note and the voicemails he left for loved ones that day are sparse and precious clues.

King left a voicemail for his father Brian King-Henke from the summit as well. The voicemail didn’t ping to King-Henke’s phone until a week later, Lamb said. But it roughly mirrors the language of King’s note.

“We can tell by that voicemail that he was disoriented,” Lamb told Cowboy State Daily on Friday. “He admits he came up the wrong path … he possibly didn’t know the right path to take down, to head back down to the lake.”

The side of the mountain facing the city of Cody features crumbling descents, cliffs, ravines and other pitfalls.

“You can tell he’s scared (in the voicemail), he’s cold — he doesn’t really know where he’s at,” said Lamb. “It took him all day to get there, so you can just imagine trying to come down a mountain not seeing at all, and not knowing where you’re at up there and which direction to go.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Gathering"}]

Lamb spoke to Cowboy State Daily after leaving the convention center at the Holiday Inn in Cody, which he’s been using as a makeshift command center to lay out his plan for the next six days.

He’s in touch with Yellowstone authorities still involved in the search. Yellowstone announced Oct. 2 it was scaling back search efforts and switching 

from “rescue” mode to “recovery” mode

. The latter refers to a search for a dead body.

But Lamb said the park authorities are planning another large aerial search Sunday while the weather is still fair. 

Yellowstone National Park confirmed Friday that Superintendent Cam Sholly has asked for another “extensive aerial search for Sunday” and the deployment of several ground teams to search more areas of the mountain that were under snow weeks ago. 

“The park has continued limited search efforts since scaling back,” says an email Yellowstone’s public affairs office sent Friday to Cowboy State Daily. “We are aware that the father is attempting to coordinate additional search efforts for the upcoming days and have provided him information on the search efforts to date. We are also cautioning any of these additional searchers to be aware of the dangerous terrain and predicted inclement weather for next week.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Snow is forecast for Oct. 17 in the park."}]

On Thursday and again Friday, volunteers working under Lamb’s direction hiked the 14 miles into the Eagle Peak area. They’re scheduled to camp overnight Friday, and possibly for days continuously after that, said Lamb.

They’re setting up a base camp on the Cody side of the peak.  

“We’ve been told to be careful. Some of the guys working on that — there’s rocks falling,” said Lamb. “We’re very aware of that.”

These days also mark the feverish end of grizzly bears’ wakeful feeding season. Lamb said bears, weather and terrain all are constantly on the minds of searchers.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Another Team Of Six"}]

Bill Dohse, a private search and rescue coordinator based in Cody, is also sending his team of six into the wilderness, he told Cowboy State Daily on Friday.

Dohse said he’s deploying four teams of search dogs, including scent and cadaver dogs, and at least two drone teams.

Dohse runs a for-hire outfit but so far, has been donating his efforts in the King search, he said.

In his own interview, King-Henke said he hopes to compensate the searchers 

. As of midday Friday the page had raised $6,495. King-Henke’s narrative on the page also urges people to pray for his son.

Dohse, who is a retired law enforcement agent, a longtime search and rescue operative and a lifelong mountaineer, has been running private searches since about 2015, he said. Sometimes his work is meant to compensate for authorities scaling back their efforts; sometimes it’s to help authorities cover more ground, he said.

In this case, he said he hopes to help the Yellowstone crews fan out more.

Like Lamb, Dohse was mindful of the predicted snowfall, saying he wants to accomplish a lot before Thursday.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"More Welcome"}]

King-Henke told Cowboy State Daily on Friday that he’d welcome still more volunteers.

He reached out to the private and volunteer hiking teams because he wanted to do more for his son. 

“As a dad, I need to be out here searching for my kid,” he said, speaking from a federal ranger station in Cody.

King-Henke described the coordinators sending a couple hikers to do a reconnaissance journey Friday, and a plan to send out both search crews Saturday morning.

So far King-Henke and Lamb are coordinating from their base in Cody. But King-Henke hopes to join the search himself, probably early next week, he said.

He’s planning to ride a horse furnished by Dohse’s operation. The searchers are still looking for people to stay with the horses during the searchers’ foot expeditions. King-Henke is also still seeking people who can keep the base camp supplied with food and water, he said.

Sunlight Sports in Cody has been letting searchers borrow gear. Store co-owner Wes Allen told Cowboy State Daily on Friday that he has contributed some of his own gear; some rental pieces, and that others at the store have also contributed gear to the effort. 

Allen is a long-distance hiker himself, he said. 

“That’s obviously somebody’s son and friend that’s out there still,” said Allen, who lauded both the volunteer search efforts and the work of Yellowstone and surrounding agencies’ search and rescue crews. 

I think the park and Park County search and rescue, and the folks from Bridger-Teton (National Forest) and everybody else that helped, they really went above and beyond,” said Allen. “It’s just a huge, wild place. It’s going to take a lot to find somebody who’s out there.”  

King-Henke said he has turned away services that weren’t feasible, such as a private helicopter flight quoted at about $10,000.

The father has described feeling numb and exhausted in his Facebook posts of recent days. But one bright spot, he told Cowboy State Daily, has been discovering the generosity of Cody residents.

“My true thanks to everybody here in Cody,” he said. “This town has opened their hearts to any resource they can possibly give us. It’s been truly amazing. And everybody else who has donated and, you know, sent prayers and all that. I truly appreciate everything.”

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<title>🚧 Missing Yellowstone Hiker's Note A Clue For Volunteer Search Teams Now Mobilizing | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The father of a 22-year-old hiker missing since Sept. 17 after summiting Yellowstone’s highest peak is coordinating private and volunteer search teams to help find his son. One of their clues is a note the hiker left at the mountain's summit.

Missing Yellowstone Hiker's Note A Clue For Volunteer Search Teams Now Mobilizing

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's Feature Reporter, Andrew Rossi.

Andrew Rossi

Wyoming Life

Around Wyoming

The American Film Institute defines Westerns as films "set in the American West that embody the spirit, the struggle and the demise of the new frontier." 

The themes and aesthetics of the Western genre are prevalent throughout the American West, but perhaps nowhere as pronounced and authentic as Wyoming, where Western culture is dominant. That why it makes sense that the Cowboy State is a favorite choice for setting and filming Westerns. 

And Wyoming’s Westerns include some of the genre's most revered films ever made.

But while it’s often a backdrop for Hollywood productions, it’s rarely a background. Wyoming can simultaneously be seen everywhere and almost nowhere.

[{"type":"text","text":"The Good, The Better, And The Best"}]

Steve Latshaw is a filmmaker and historian with more than 30 credits as a writer and director. He is also a historical advisor for the Museum of Western Film History in Lone Pine, California, a community used as a location for countless Western films and television shows.

Latshaw said he was “astonished” when he realized how prevalent Wyoming is in the Western genre.

“When I think of Westerns, you tend to default to the obvious states: California, Arizona, New Mexico, certainly Texas,” he said. “However, there were not only a significant number of Western films set in Wyoming, but a significant number of important Westerns. That’s critical.”

He is not alone in that opinion. In 2008, the American Film Institute (AFI) published its 10 Top 10, lists of the 10 greatest American films in 10 film genres, including Westerns.

Of the top 10 Westerns on AFI’s list, four — “Cat Ballou,” “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” “Unforgiven” and “Shane” — are set in Wyoming. At 40%, that makes the Cowboy State better represented than any other state on the list.

But that’s representation as a setting for these films, not as a location for actually making them. Of those four, only “Shane” was set and shot in Wyoming. That’s because there are two sides to Wyoming’s place in Western films: as a setting and as a location.

American writer Frank Gruber identified seven “basic plots” for Westerns. While not universal, most follow at least one of these seven storylines: the Union Pacific, the Ranch, the Empire, the Revenge, the Cavalry and Indian, the Outlaw, and the Marshal.

Each plot has its staples and characters, such as the elaborate chases and mystery of the Revenge Story or the threats of rustlers and nefarious landowners in the Ranch Story. Most Westerns incorporate some of these tropes.

Based on the basics of the seven plots, Latshaw can see why Wyoming is such a critical and prized setting for Western films. It’s a lot easier to build characters and stories when the state’s history already has such fertile history for the plot.

“Whenever you're going to write a Western, particularly a period Western or historical Western, you're going to look for story ideas in terms of the history that was there,” he said. “In other words, are there real-life stories? And there are so many dramatic events in Wyoming that would be a good setting for the characters and a story you want to tell.”

There are tons of precedents for all the basic Western plots in Wyoming’s history. The Johnson County Wars, the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, the Hole in the Wall Gang, other outlaws and gunslingers, and countless other authentic histories rife with dramatic potential.

Of course, all Western states have historical fodder for Westerns, like The Alamo in Texas or the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. But Wyoming has a little bit of everything.

“When you're setting a film in the American West, you're going to look for historical lynchpins to sort of hang your story on,” Latshaw said. “I think Wyoming is up there with many states with rich and vivid stories.”

Hollywood built its prestige and profits by transporting audiences to any place and time to tell compelling stories. But that doesn’t mean film studios actually have to go there to be there, and that has been Hollywood’s approach for most of Wyoming’s Westerns.

While plenty of Westerns are set in Wyoming, the state is largely absent from its own filmography. In his research, Latshaw was equally surprised by its prevalence and absence.

“It appears that Wyoming has been more important as a dramatic setting than an actual filming location,” he said. “There haven't been a huge number of Westerns that were actually filmed there, which was really interesting.”

There are frequent Wyoming “cameos” in Western cinema. “The Outlaw Josey Wales,” “Dances with Wolves” and “Django Unchained” are important Westerns that include scenes shot in Wyoming, usually the iconic facade of the Tetons.

[{"type":"text","text":"Of AFI’s four Wyoming Westerns:"}]

Wyoming isn’t and hasn’t ever been a go-to location for Western films or films in general.

. Productions often choose to film in states that provide incentives to shoot there, usually in the form of tax credits, exemptions, cash grants and fee-free locations.

The latest attempt to make Wyoming more appealing to filmmakers by offering rebates based on their Wyoming expenses 

 during the 2023 session of the Wyoming Legislature.

Latshaw believes there’s another significant reason why Wyoming isn’t a more popular film location, and it's one Wyomingites know all too well.

“That may be simply down to climate,” he said. “Looking at the weather tables, it appears that fall, winter and spring tend to be cold. That narrows the window of when you can shoot comfortably in Wyoming. So that may be a major factor.”

But bad weather and lack of incentives haven’t stopped passionate film producers in the past. A notable example is 1953’s “Shane,” which was almost entirely filmed in Jackson and Grand Teton National Park.

“George Stevens, a powerful A-list director at the time, (wanted) the best possible locations for his film,” he said. He didn’t want the movie “to look like it was shot in Chatsworth, California, or even Lone Pine. He wanted authentic locations and certainly had the clout to say, ‘No, I want to shoot regardless of whatever hardships. I want to shoot this in Wyoming because that's what the look is.’”

In the case of “Shane,” the authenticity of Jackson’s picturesque landscapes contributes to the film's overall effect, often cited as one of the greatest Westerns ever made. It’s one of several Western films preserved in the U.S. Library of Congress.

[{"type":"text","text":"Wyoming’s Westerns"}]

Regardless of its lack of physical screen time, Westerns set in Wyoming are amongst the best told in the genre. They range from some of the earliest forays on film to vast epics of Western melodrama to the most stinging critiques of the genre and the history it draws from.  

“I think writers and filmmakers saw that it was an important setting for a great Western film,” Latshaw said. “Wyoming has so much history, and it's very picturesque. It's just beautiful country. A lot of films have been set in Wyoming because of its history and because it was so deeply involved in the history of the Western expansion. That's key to its success.” 

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<title>🚧 Of The Greatest Westerns Ever Made, Wyoming Is Tops — Even If They Aren't Filmed Here | Cowboy State Daily</title>

On the American Film Institute's top 10 Westerns list, four — “Cat Ballou,” “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” “Unforgiven” and “Shane” — are set in Wyoming. Problem is, only one of them was filmed here.

Today In Television: Friday, May 16, 2025

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