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

<title>🚧 Today In Voices: Saturday, February 14, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Today In Voices: Saturday, February 14, 2026

 "Someone said that John Harbaugh has the same voice as Joe Biden and now I can’t unhear it..."

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Dale Killingbeck

Dale Killingbeck

Wyoming Life

Around Wyoming

The family of a 16-year-old Cheyenne East High School soccer player will celebrate his life Saturday following a July 17 ATV crash on Elk Mountain with friends that left him with brain injuries in a Denver hospital ICU.

The parents of Rielly Jay Smith have been going through a “nightmare” as they first experienced days of hope that their son’s brain swelling might go down before learning from another specialist eight days later that he h ad essentially died seconds after his crash.

Brandon Smith characterized his son Rielly as a “jokester who always made everybody smile.”

“He touched a lot of hearts and got his friends through some dark days,” Brandon Smith said. 

He said Rielly was a “confident” young man who was “100%” into soccer and played forward and striker. He loved the camaraderie and “family” he made on the team.

Brandon Smith said he and Rielly were talking about his dream to play soccer in college and try and get scholarships as his junior year approached.

Rielly had gone with three buddies for a camping trip on Elk Mountain at the family property of a friend. They started riding four-wheeler ATVs within 25 minutes after they arrived, said his mom, Kazia Smith.

She said he was supposed to be on one of the machines with his friend driving, but he ended up driving one himself without a helmet and was “doing 45 mph and hit a drainage ditch with no helmet.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"‘Freak Accident’"}]

Brandon Smith said it was really a “freak accident” because the drainage ditch was only on the road for a 15-mile stretch. 

The ATV went into the ditch and Rielly hit his head on the handlebars, still holding on for 132 feet before falling off the machine.

Brandon Smith said the doctors told them that they did not know if a helmet would have saved their son’s life because of the speed he was going when the crash happened, but he hopes that others take away the importance of always wearing a helmet when using ATVs, motorcycles and similar machines.

“Always wear a helmet, even if it looks stupid,” he said. “You just never know what could happen.”

The teen was flown by Wyoming Life Flight helicopter first to Casper’s Banner Wyoming Medical Center, where it was determined that he needed a second flight to Anschutz Medical Campus Children’s Hospital in Aurora, Colorado.

“We were with him for a week in the ICU hoping that his brain swelling would go down and that he would be OK,” Kazia Smith said. “Unfortunately, we found out five days in that on impact he was gone.”

Brandon Smith said there had been multiple tests on their son at the Colorado hospital, then they got a second opinion from another neurosurgeon who informed them about their son’s true state. 

He characterized the medical expertise prior to the second opinion as “not good.”

“The doctors never really told us that on impact he was gone,” Brandon Smith said.

“We were hoping for a miracle that the swelling would go down and that he would come back and be OK,” Kazia Smith added. “But then a second opinion told us ‘absolutely not,’ he was gone in half a second.”

The parents on learning that information decided to take their son off life support July 25.

“It was a nightmare,” Kazia Smith said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Teen Sets Up GoFundMe"}]

Rielly’s parents said in addition to soccer, their son loved camping, boating, fishing and was a 16-year-old who loved to hang out with his friends.

Rielly’s best friend Owen Knight started a 

 to help with funeral and expected Life Flight costs. The couple are extremely thankful for the support that has been shown their family during the ordeal.

“He made that for us without us even knowing about it,” Kazia Smith said. “It’s just been a godsend.”

Brandon Smith, who said he works for the state of Wyoming, said he understands his medical insurance probably will not cover the helicopter bills. 

He does not yet know what they will be, only that they will be challenging for the family’s finances. Kazia Smith is self-employed.

The couple said they were best friends in high school, had Rielly early in their marriage and believe that it was their son who brought their marriage back together during a really rocky time. 

Rielly was joined by his sister, Kinzlee, 7, nine years after his birth.

Brandon Smith said a “celebration” of Rielly’s life and not a “funeral” is planned for 2 p.m. Saturday at Beacon Hill Church in Cheyenne, 3411 Cleveland Ave. It’s open for anyone who wants to come.

“It’s going to be as positive as possible,” Brandon Smith said. “Because he was the most positive person, never negative, never upset.”

“He was the life of the entire room wherever he went,” Kazia Smith added.

Both parents said their son was a teen with faith in Jesus Christ who wore a cross necklace with the verse Philippians 4:13 inscribed on it: “Through Christ who strengthens me, I can do anything.”

“For a 16-year-old boy to have that much faith as he has had is (helping) to keep us strong in our faith as well,” he said. “Even through this horrible situation.”

Rielly Jay Smith Smith Family 8 8 25

<title>🚧 After Son Dies In ATV Crash, Cheyenne Family Pleads: ‘Always Wear A Helmet’ | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The family of a 16-year-old Cheyenne boy who died from brain injuries after a July 17 ATV crash on Elk Mountain will celebrate his life Saturday. His dad says he was someone who “always made everyone smile” and pleads for others to “always wear a helmet.”

After Son Dies In ATV Crash, Cheyenne Family Pleads: ‘Always Wear A Helmet’

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

Clair McFarland

Government & Politics

Executive

Because he removed emissions controls from diesel engines, a 65-year-old Wyoming man is bracing for his sixth month in federal prison.

Troy Lake will also live out the rest of his days as a convicted felon, unless he receives a pardon from President Donald Trump.

Lake’s wife Holly and son TJ both hope the president does just that. Holly and others have been writing letters to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials, urging them to recommend Troy Lake for a presidential pardon. 

Recent changes in the regulatory landscape fuel that hope. The president’s administration 

 to relax rules around tailpipe emissions.

But tampering with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency-required emissions systems remains a federal felony.

Lake pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to violate the Clean Air Act on June 12, 2024.

He was sentenced Dec. 5, 2024, to 12 months and one day in prison, and he and his business Elite Diesel were together fined $52,500.

Troy Lake reported to prison Feb. 10 and remains at the FCI Florence correctional complex in Colorad

where he’s instrumental to the prison’s diesel shop.

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

Through his business Elite Diesel, Troy was for years the go-to mechanic for over-the-road truckers and others running diesel engines, according to multiple trucking business owners who spoke with Cowboy State Daily.

In about 2007, customers started approaching Lake because their trucks had problems “brand new off the lot,” recalled Troy Lake’s son TJ, who was in high school at the time.

That coincided with the EPA tightening emissions standards on heavy diesel trucks in 2004, and again in 2007.

Removing or “deleting” emissions control systems wasn’t Troy Lake’s main business at that time. Not even close. He ran a successful shop with six service trucks and jobs in the gold mining industry, Holly Lake told Cowboy State Daily. 

“But customers of ours, quite a few of them, would buy new trucks every year and start running into those issues — and they’d ask Dad if he could fix it,” said TJ. “And we found a way.”

The culprits at that time were systems in trucks that recirculated exhaust into the engine’s “breathing,” or intake air supply.

They were built to limit exhaust particles. They also slashed engines’ lifespans by feeding them filthy air: “Like you’re breathing in your own fart,” said TJ. 

Troy Lake disabled those systems. His ability to do so spread via word of mouth and customers came to him — no advertising needed, TJ recalled. 

In the years that followed, manufacturers started adding diesel particulate filters to meet emissions standards. Then they added selective catalytic reduction filters and called for diesel exhaust fluid (DEF), a chemical treatment, usually urea-based, used to reduce nitrogen oxide output.

As the EPA heightened its emissions restrictions and manufacturers built more complex filtration and recirculation systems around them, Troy Lake’s “deletes” grew more sophisticated too.

The business spent around $350,000 on research and development. That wasn’t just for performing the deletes, but for determining how the techs could make the engines run even cleaner through their tuning, said Holly. They spent $325,000 on an EPA test bench.

And they put more than $1 million into other sophisticated equipment like engine and chassis dynamometers. But those don’t count strictly as investment into deletion technology, Holly clarified, since the shop used them for numerous other jobs.

Other mechanics had Troy finish their own deletions. They sounded him for help on tricky problems, and they referred their customers to him, court documents say.

He performed or helped with at least 344 deletes from 2017 through 2020, according to testimony transcribed at Troy’s sentencing hearing.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"The Raid"}]

On Oct. 18, 2018, the federal government under Trump’s first administration executed a search warrant on the Elite Diesel shop, which was then based in Windsor, Colorado.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"To the Lakes, it was a raid."}]

“It looked like a military operation,” Holly recalled.

Black SUVs converged on the block; agents emerged “in tactical gear” and rifled through the business, the equipment, the personnel files, she said.

The Lakes and an Elite Diesel employee were eating at the local Olive Garden at that time, said TJ, who was then working remotely for NASA while also helping at the diesel shop.

They watched the operation in horror from a video surveillance application on their cellphones, he added.

U.S. Attorney’s Office staffer Rebecca Weber, the federal prosecutor who secured Troy’s prison sentence six years later, characterized it as a fruitful operation.

“And what that search warrant revealed and later investigation revealed was that Elite Diesel was really the epicenter in this region for heavy-duty emissions tampering,” said Weber.

The investigation led to eight other “intermediary diesel shops” where techs would remove emissions systems hardware from trucks.

Doing that would throw the computer systems of the trucks off and send the truck into “limp” or disabled mode.

“But Elite Diesel and Mr. Lake knew how to rewrite that code to override that limp mode,” Weber continued. “And that is not knowledge that most other people and most other truckers around the country have.”

She reasoned that the court should make an example of Troy Lake. 

Depending on the operation, said Weber, Elite Diesel would charge about $2,000 per delete and brought in roughly $800,000 by doing them.

That was enough to yield a profit, but it was also offset by the shop’s investments and expenses, Holly countered in her own interview.

Troy Lake was a regional mastermind for deletions, but the procedure itself was commonplace, even rampant, Troy’s defense attorney Richard Kornfeld said at the sentencing hearing.

That's a notion lifelong trucker Cole Stevens, whose family owns Oklahoma-based Stevens Trucking, noted in his own interview with Cowboy State Daily. 

Stevens is an industry expert who doesn't know and hasn't worked with Troy Lake. 

"Almost everybody I know that’s like a conservative, three-quarter-ton owner deletes their just, regular day-to-day pickup trucks," he said.

But because his business is so high-profile, added Stevens, he doesn't indulge in the practice. 

"When the federal government started to regulate all these emissions deals, there’s all these evaporators and all these sensors that are just overkill; it actually makes the engines burn so hot you actually have way more engine problems," he said. 

It's tough to tell if the new systems' particulate treatments are worth the damages they've wrought on the industry and the hazards they've caused, he said, because the major manufacturers have sunk billions of dollars into them to appease what Stevens cast as a rushed government pipe dream - "and nobody's doing any tests for non-DEF systems anymore. Nobody's making that argument." 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Moving To Wyoming"}]

After the search operation at Elite Diesel, four years of pregnant silence passed.

“We didn’t hear hide nor hair from them until 2022, really,” said TJ. “We kept more in contact with them, letting them know we were moving the business operation.”

The Lakes moved Elite Diesel to their home state of Wyoming.

Troy was born in Newcastle and raised in Rawlins, where his dad ran an automotive shop. The Lakes lived for years in Dubois, Wyoming public records show.

By 2023 under President Joe Biden’s administration, federal prosecutors were reaching out — seeking information from Troy on how he performed the deletes and pressuring TJ to get a defense attorney himself, TJ said.

Troy haggled with federal authorities to keep TJ and one of Elite’s employees from being charged, the son recalled.

The father also explained the deletions to the EPA, Kornfeld had said in court.

“They were looking for a silver bullet on how to tell if a truck has been deleted or not, but they don’t even know what they’re looking for,” said TJ. “They have no idea.”

Troy Lake was charged in the U.S. District Court of Colorado on April 12, 2024, with conspiracy to violate the Clean Air Act.

That’s a felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, or a fine calculated by doubling any “gross gain” from the operation.

Criminal stigma and the pressure of the case both took a toll on the shop.

By December, Elite Diesel was “a shadow of its former self,” Weber said in court.  

Rumors circulated that Elite Diesel was closed, though it wasn’t. That also ate into the Lakes’ savings for Troy’s legal defense, Holly recalled.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Going Away"}]

U.S. District Court Judge Regina Rodriguez handed down Troy’s 12 month and one day sentence Dec. 5.

Rodriguez noted at that hearing that she’d served prior as counsel for engine manufacturer Cummins.

It was a fact the Lakes and some of their customers cast as significant: since a common feeling among truckers is that government requirements of costly, high-maintenance emissions systems cripple small business owners and small shops, whereas large manufacturers can absorb the cost shock.

Rodriguez declined Thursday to comment, via her court's office. 

The U.S. Attorney’s Office of Colorado also declined to comment.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"A Call From Prison"}]

On July 20, Troy called Cowboy State Daily from FCI Florence.

The phone reception was dismal and the call truncated. Static interference and blips of silence were due to the call being monitored as per prison policy, Troy noted.

Troy and Holly’s 40th wedding anniversary passed April 20. His 65th birthday was June 8.

He said he goes outside several times a day, “unless we’re locked down.” The food is questionable, but he’s allowed to work in the prison camp’s diesel shop.

And he’s good at it, according to a letter bearing the signature of the prison’s automotive worker supervisor Bobby Knutson.

“He treats every piece of equipment as if it were his own and holds himself to a personal standard,” says the letter, which Holly Lake provided to Cowboy State Daily. 

The outlet was unable to contact Knutson directly by publication time, but was able to confirm that he's a U.S. Bureau of Prisons employee. 

The prison’s diesel particulate filter on the prison’s Blue Bird bus broke, and Troy “took the lead on resolving this complex issue,” the letter says, adding, “I wholeheartedly support Inmate Lake’s request for a pardon."

As for Troy, he said he’s surprised at how quickly his deletion career escalated.

“I wasn’t trying to be, like, a Robin Hood or anything,” he said. “I was just trying to help people — and the word got out all over the country that I could do it right. Because that’s a lot of it.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"The ’09 Paper"}]

 finding that greenhouse gases threaten public health and the welfare of future generations.

New motor vehicles drive that danger, the paper added. Agency rules aimed at mitigating the hazard followed.

Diesel exhaust is a mixture of gases and particulates, some of which cause cancer when tested in animals, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration 

The Trump Administration is now seeking to rescind the EPA’s 2009 finding.

Cyrus Western, the new EPA administrator overseeing Wyoming, Colorado and other mountain states under Trump’s second administration, declined this week to comment to Cowboy State Daily.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Calves On The Interstate"}]

For Wyoming-based livestock hauler Duane Rankine, Troy Lake’s modifications were literally lifesaving for hundreds of calves.

He hauls livestock “from coast to coast,” running hard across tough terrain, he said.

When his three brand-new trucks kept breaking down and leaving him at the mercy of warranty issues and recurring repair costs, Rankine grew frustrated.

But not as frustrated as in 2020, when his machine’s emissions system entered a heated regeneration, or burn, mode as he scaled Elk Mountain in southeast Wyoming with 120 head of baby calves in tow.

That’s when the system cooks the caught exhaust particles to burn them down into gas and ash, a process Rankine characterized as trading one form of waste for another, and overheating a valuable engine in the process.

The truck nearly caught fire. Purple smoke billowed from under the hood, Rankine said.

He was able to get the rig off the road, arrange for alternate transportation and get the calves to Texas as planned, he said.

That’s when Rankine decided to spring $3,000 to have Troy tune the engine after Rankine himself removed the filter, he said.

To replace the whole filter system “and make the truck run like the government … wants you to, it’s $27,000” after labor, he said.

Other Elite Diesel customers, like Kaycee-based cattle hauler Mark Malli and trucker-turned-rancher Cody Clark, echoed those frustrations with the emissions systems in their own interviews. They both touted the better fuel mileage and longer engine life of a post-deletion machine. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Even In Wyoming"}]

Deletion prosecutions aren’t common in Wyoming, but they aren’t unheard of.

Troy Lake IMG 5648 8 2 25

<title>🚧 Wyoming Man In Prison For Removing EPA-Mandated Filters Seeks Trump Pardon | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A 65-year-old Wyoming man is in federal prison for pulling EPA-mandated emissions systems from ailing diesel engines. As the Trump administration inches toward reversing those mandates, Troy Lake's family is pushing for the president to pardon him.

Wyoming Man In Prison For Removing EPA-Mandated Filters Seeks Trump Pardon

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's business and tourism reporter, Renée Jean

Renée Jean

Business & Tourism

Business

Last year, the famous Mayor of Flavortown Guy Fieri went on an epic summer road trip, and part of that trip went right through Wyoming.

Now, finally, the Wyoming segments of “Guy’s All-American Road Trip” are airing.

The first, “Camp Cook-Offs and Chuckwagons,” was this past Friday, June 21, but if you missed that, not to worry. It’s airing again at 11 a.m. Friday on the Food Network.

In the midst of this Wyoming segment, Fieri discovered a food revolution, the epicenter of which has been quietly taking place at EternaFresh in the basement of the Bomber Mountain Civic Center in Buffalo. 

EternaFresh is a freeze-dried foods factory that Beau Fowler started a couple of years ago. He became interested in freeze-dried food technology because he’s a gardener and is obsessed with food preservation.

“Their whole thing was that they wanted to see if they could make a quality meal out of it, and whether they could tell the difference that freeze-dried ingredients were used,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “And we’ve been saying a lot that it’s kind of a food revolution. There’s a lot of folks who just don’t know anything about it.”

[{"type":"text","text":"That turned out to include Fieri himself."}]

“That was a really cool experience, being able to teach Guy something new about food,” Fowler said. “Because he’s seen a lot, he’s done a lot of stuff, and he’s a well-seasoned chef.”

[{"type":"text","text":"25-Year Shelf Life"}]

But even the Mayor of Flavortown hasn’t done much yet with freeze-dried foods. One of the first things he learned about EternaFresh’s freeze-dried foods is the incredible shelf-life.

“The product that we manufacture out here in Buffalo has a shelf life of 25 years,” Fowler told Cowboy State Daily. “So, the products we’re cranking out right now are good until 2046 or 2047.”

The other cool thing about the freeze-dried foods that impressed Fieri is the complete lack of preservatives, Fowler said. Those are commonly added to extend the shelf-life of foods. But they can add lots of calories to a product, as well as chemicals that people may not want to consume on a regular basis.

“Using this technology, we can eliminate all of the need for preservatives,” Fowler said. “So pretty much all of our products are just that component. Our broccoli is just broccoli. Our bananas are just bananas. There are no additional additives, dyes, colors or preservatives added to any of our products. Except, like, our cotton candy and kettle corn, we do put a little sugar in that.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Contrary to first impressions, freeze-dried foods do not lack flavor."}]

“The process really amplifies the taste,” Fowler said. “You almost get a better taste of whatever ingredient that’s been freeze dried.”

Reconstituting an item is just a matter of adding water, or perhaps wine, broth, or brine to add a new, complimentary flavor to the ingredient.

Fieri’s favorite freeze-dried item, though, was probably the homemade chocolate ice cream, which typically wouldn’t be reconstituted. It would just be eaten as is.

“That’s just a really fun item,” Fowler said. “We go back to an old-fashioned ice cream that has just four simple ingredients for the base. We don’t have to have any gums or pasteurized eggs, because we can preserve it in that original ingredient state. It’s kind of reinventing the old-fashioned ice cream as well.”

The freeze-dried ice cream can also be reconstituted into a milk shake by blending with some ice.

The best way to learn what can be done with freeze-dried foods, though, is just to play around with them and prepare a meal. So, Fieri had the guys square off against the girls for a little contest.

The competition is part of the episode that’s airing Friday on the Food Network. 

Featuring freeze-dried foods on one of Fieri’s programs might not be what most people would expect. 

After all, Fieri frequently touts the freshness of ingredients for foods he is presenting on his shows, which include “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,” “Ultimate Recipe Showdown,” “Guy Off the Hook” and many others. 

“They grabbed a pile of products and made up two dishes,” Fowler said. “And it was wonderful. Really beautiful dishes. And what better way to educate not just local folks, but the entire country on what freeze drying can do and how you can retrofit it into your everyday meals.”

As a result of the Fieri episode, Fowler has seen a 10-fold increase in orders from his factory in Buffalo. Those requests are coming from all over the United States.

“We’ve got grocery stores from all over the country calling, wanting our product,” Fowler said. “And we’re figuring out ways to get this to folks all over the country.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Fowler has been preparing for the onslaught for a year now."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"The Cody Cattle Company"}]

 while in Wyoming last summer, several of which Cowboy State Daily has already covered.

But there was also a stop at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, where Fieri and his crew of 60 were treated to an authentic chuck wagon dinner, and to The Cody Cattle Company, where they took in a high-energy Western show and an all-you-can-eat buffet that features brisket, pulled pork and chicken strips.

“It was chaos, but it was fun,” Greg Pendley, co-owner of The Cody Cattle Company, told Cowboy State Daily. “All the people you see on the show he brought to our show, so there were the film crew and audio people.”

Fieri interviewed both Pendley and his wife Ann, and he even got up on stage to play the tambourine at one point.

“That didn’t make the show, but it was fun,” Pendley said. “And then after the show, he came back to the Green Room and met the band and shared a bottle of his Santo tequila with us and signed it.”

That tequila was delicious, Pendley added. The signed bottle is now empty of all tequila, but it’s sitting in a shadow box along with a picture of Fieri and the Pendleys, and other folks who were there.

The Cody Cattle Company now carries Santo tequila so other people can try it if they’re interested.

[{"type":"text","text":"Please Pass The Huckleberry Dressing"}]

At the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, Fieri showed up with between 60 to 65 people, and it was an impressive  sight, the museum’s Ken Straniere told Cowboy State Daily. 

“We did about an hour and a half exclusive tour with Guy, his family and the crew,” Straniere said. “And he just sort of wandered all over the place wherever he wanted to go. He absolutely loved the Cody Firearms Museum, and we got him hands-on with some of the items that we have in our values.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Fieri also seemed impressed by the history of Buffalo Bill Cody."}]

“I don’t think he realized how famous Buffalo Bill was until (museum staff) were explaining that he was the most famous person on the planet (at the time),” Straniere said. “And so, he was really curious about some of the items we have upstairs in the Buffalo Bill Museum.”

The most popular part of the tour, though, was probably the chuck wagon dinner provided by 2 Mules Chuckwagon.

“He talked to our executive chef upstairs for a while, and I know she got a kick out of that,” Straniere said. “She didn’t make it on the episode, but our chef Romi St. John-Pollack prepared a huckleberry salad dressing especially for that day, and that dressing made it onto the show because they loved it so much.”

Guy Fieri dropped in on several spots in Cody and Buffalo as part of his "All-American Road Trip" last summer, including a "chaotic" stop at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West -- complete with lots of tequila. Those episodes have begun airing.

Today In Voices: Saturday, February 14, 2026

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