GILLETTE, Wyo.– What began as an experiment has since flourished into a thriving food distribution company: Equality State Farms.

GILLETTE, Wyo. – Talayna Duran had been enjoying life on her own. Last year, the Gillette native moved into her first rental home after landing a job as an electrician apprentice at a coal mine. But since enrolling in college part time and changing jobs, she no longer can make ends meet.

Sometimes, you just have to say no, even if it’s to your son when he asks you to buy a real Christmas tree.

That’s what Powell resident Dena Schwarz told her 12-year-old son, Mason, due to the financial squeeze she’s facing because of the economic downturn. This was her son’s first year as a Boy Scout, and he has been selling Christmas trees with his troop. But a higher-quality Christmas tree costs around $100—a purchase Schwarz couldn’t justify.

GILLETTE, Wyo. – Tina Stout is poised for a pared down Thanksgiving dinner today. Amid record-high inflation and skyrocketing food prices, her $50 budget is stretched thin. Where typically she’d prepare a full spread for the holiday meal, this year the 58-year-old retail clerk is sticking to a few basics—yams, potatoes and a turkey—for herself and her two siblings.

GILLETTE, Wyo. ¬– Two months into the school year, students at Twin Spruce Junior High School in Gillette know the drill. Before the bell rings, their cell phones go in the numbered pouches hanging on the wall near eighth-grade English teacher Bridget Graham’s desk. Like other schools in the Campbell County District, Twin Spruce teachers choose whether students can have phones in class. Graham has opted for a no cell phone policy, meaning students turn in their devices before class, but can use them in between and at lunchtime.

GILLETTE, Wyo. ¬– The family of a missing Gillette resident supports an online petition that calls for justice and a concerted effort by police and other state and foreign entities to make her whereabouts known.

GILLETTE, Wyo.—A raccoon shot out of a pile of thick brush near Stacy Koester’s feet. She screamed and did a pirouette before toppling onto the dirt mound she’d been climbing. Koester looked up at the two women standing over her and laughed.

GILLETTE, Wyo. ¬– In the face of record-high inflation and historic gas prices, Antonio Avila had a hard choice to make. The 16-year-old, two-time state wrestling champion from Gillette was given the option to attend national wrestling tournaments in North Carolina or Iowa in October. Both attract college scouts from across the country, and a scholarship to an NCAA Division 1 program is potentially on the line. In the past, Avila would have attended both for maximum exposure.

GILLETTE, Wyo.—After six days of silence, Stacy Koester’s TikTok videos are back following a judge’s dismissal of a stalking protection order by the fiancé of a missing Gillette resident who Koester has vowed to find.

GILLETTE, Wyo. — A judge dismissed a request for a stalking protective order sought by the fiancé of a missing Gillette resident against a local woman he accused of harassment.

GILLETTE, Wyo.—Ashley Means heard about Irene Gakwa weeks ago and kept telling herself she should help with the search. Gakwa disappeared from her Gillette home in late February, prompting local resident Stacy Koester to organize and lead group searches beginning in mid-June.

GILLETTE, Wyo.—The fiancé of the missing Irene Gakwa has filed for a stalking protection order against a Gillette resident leading local searches to find her.

GILLETTE, Wyo.–Russell and Heidi Kennedy were enjoying a comfortable life and living within their means when a medical emergency threw them off financial course.

Gillette, Wyo.—Everything is suspect out here. Debris scattered along the roadway that would normally go unseen was suddenly being scrutinized: discarded plastic Sprite bottles, tattered garbage bags, pieces of burnt wood and a faded running shoe flung behind a barbed-wire fence. Even a pile of sun-bleached bones likely belonging to a deer or antelope warranted a second look.

GILLETTE, Wyo.—Stacy Koester apologized for her messy car. A squashed can of Bang energy drink and empty plastic water bottle were strewn on the driver’s side floor. A gas receipt was tucked into the center console beside an open box of light blue surgical gloves and half pack of cigarettes.

GILLETTE, Wyo.—The overgrown grass and weeds riffled in the light breeze as dozens of volunteers trudged through the irrigation ditches along former Highway 59, near the Dry Fork Mine in northern Campbell County last Saturday. The searchers squinted in the early morning sun under ball caps and straw hats while they poked through the thigh-high brush, looking for clues that might lead to the mysterious disappearance of Irene Gakwa.