Lummis names new investment officer

CHEYENNE - Longtime tax analyst Michael Walden-Newman will take over as Wyoming's chief investment officer, State Treasurer Cynthia M. Lummis announced Wednesday.

Currently serving as the Wyoming Taxpayer Association's executive director, Walden-Newman will take over the job next month, Lummis said.

Walden-Newman will replace the retiring Glenn Shaffer.

The state treasurer's office invests more than $5 billion of state funds to generate money for the state budget.

Walden-Newman, who has represented the Wyoming Taxpayers Association since 1990, came to Cheyenne in 1987 as a research analyst with the association.

Sheridan police plan liquor store stings

SHERIDAN - Police will be checking local liquor dealers to make sure they are not selling alcohol to minors.

Sgt. Allen Thompson said between now and the end of the year the police department will have 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds try to purchase alcohol at various Sheridan businesses to see if they can buy alcohol.

The underage drinkers will either show no identification if asked for an I.D. or will present their actual I.D. showing their true age.

The police department has not conducted an alcohol sting in at least six years, Thompson said.

Anyone caught selling or buying alcohol illegally will be cited.

Sheridan liquor dealers are being notified about the random stings, Thompson said.

Injured woman may be from Wyoming

FORT COLLINS, Colo. - Police were trying to identify a young woman who fell off the top of a moving car and was critically injured.

The girl - believed 18 to 20 - had been "car surfing" in the 600 block of Smith Street when she fell around 6:15 p.m. Monday and hit her head on the pavement. The driver and a passenger in the light-colored, four-door Buick LeSabre asked people nearby to call 911, then drove away.

Witnesses said the car had Wyoming plates.

Responders found the woman in the street bleeding, unconscious and barely breathing. She remained in critical condition Wednesday at Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins.

The girl is 5 feet, 6 inches tall and 124 pounds. She has shoulder-length dark brown hair with red highlights, brown eyes, pierced ears and a pierced belly button. She has a birth mark on her upper right hip.

She was wearing a silver ring with a single stone on her left hand.

Anyone with information was asked to call Fort Collins Police Services Community Services at (970) 221-6540.

Black Hills showing signs of early fall

RAPID CITY, S.D. - There's a touch of bright in the Black Hills National Forest in what may be an early turning of leaves to yellow and gold.

"It's starting already, and in some areas it's pretty spectacular," said Frank Carroll, spokesman for the forest in southwest South Dakota and northeast Wyoming.

"It seems early to us. And the foresters are saying that because of the drought and the need for nutrients in the trees, this may be a really sudden change of color."

Carroll said the declining amount of daylight, cooler temperatures and the stress from drought will all have an effect on when the change occurs, how brilliant it gets and how long it stays.

A late-summer chill that included frost in some areas had an effect on parts of the Bear Lodge Mountains near Sundance, Wyo., district forester Jeanette Timm said.

"It varies by location. In the higher elevations, anything over 4,000 feet, the aspen are turning, along with the ferns," Timm said.

Timm said the Bear Lodge district normally hits its color peak about the first week in October, but she expects it sooner this year.