Peabody freezes hiring at 3 Wyoming coal mines

GILLETTE - Peabody Energy has announced that it is freezing all hiring and recruiting at its three Wyoming coal mines.

CEO Greg Boyce told employees about the hiring freeze in a letter Tuesday. He also says Peabody will re-evaluate all capital projects and that many of those projects will be deferred or canceled.

Boyce says the St. Louis-basec company continues to have a solid business strategy and is planning for long-term success. Peabody officials declined to comment on the letter.

The company operates the Rawhide, Caballo and North Antelope Rochelle coal mines in northeast Wyoming's Powder River Basin.

TriWest gives $10,000 for Guard families fund

CHEYENNE - TriWest Healthcare Alliance has given $10,000 to the Wyoming National Guard for its Wyoming Family Assistance Fund.

TriWest is a private company that administers the military's TriCare health care program. The donation to help Guard members with family emergencies comes as the Wyoming Guard prepares for its largest deployment in history. More than 1,200 soldiers and airmen will be headed to the Middle East next year.

Major General Ed Wright is adjutant general of the Wyoming Guard. He says this is a tough time of year for families with relatives who are deployed and the fund is a godsend for struggling families.

State pen inmates might take college course

RAWLINS - Seven inmates at the Wyoming State Penitentiary who recently received their general equivalency diplomas might soon be able to take a college course.

Dave Throgmorton, chief GED examiner and director of the Carbon County Higher Education Center, says the center's policy is to pay for one college class for each person who completes a GED.

Throgmorton says how the inmates would take a college class still needs to be worked out.

One possibility would be for Throgmorton to teach sociology to the inmates over four consecutive weekends in January and February. Inmates would attend class all day on Saturdays and Sundays.

Authorities seize, return, parakeet from day care

CODY - The owner of a day care business in Cody says she found out the hard way that it's illegal to keep a monk parakeet in Wyoming.

Debbie Dawe says authorities served a warrant on her in-home day care center after she placed a newspaper ad to sell a Monk parakeet named Pete.

Authorities seized the parakeet but eventually returned him - on the condition that Dawe sell the bird to someone in another state.

Monk parakeets are allowed in Montana. Dawe says she bought the bird for $500 from a seller in Montana, but the bird squawked loudly and woke up her granddaughter and other infants in the day care.