https://www.ronetempest.com/home daily 1.0 2026-01-05 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1593121783696-IVBUWOMLTQ226VA2S067/neoText_lastWestern_FA_1708x2560.jpg Home - Buy Here Coming Soon June 2020 https://www.ronetempest.com/bio daily 0.75 2024-04-02 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1594244064472-YNLS02QT0EV2P53PJU37/ronemug.jpg bio Photo by Laura Richardson https://www.ronetempest.com/contact-me daily 0.75 2020-07-09 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1592427615946-I4261AEHYSCD77333HS3/IMG_1834.JPG contact me Photo by Irfan Khan https://www.ronetempest.com/books daily 0.75 2023-10-03 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1593125120900-DK8P1GLWG5DW4ZZ69XJA/the-two-elk-saga.jpg books - The Two Elk Saga Originally published in seven installments between May 20 and June 10, 2014 on the nonprofit news site WyoFile.com. "The Two Elk saga is made up of intertwined stories: one man’s outsized dream; Wyoming’s desire to believe in energy castles in the air, kept aloft by taxpayer dollars; and the federal government’s failure to bring anyone down to earth, until millions of dollars in public money had been squandered. It is, in short, a case study of territorial ambition, personal greed, political nepotism, government malfeasance, and a highly creative interpretation of federal tax laws." https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1593121783696-IVBUWOMLTQ226VA2S067/neoText_lastWestern_FA_1708x2560.jpg books - The Last Western The Unjustified Killing of Michael Rosa by Ed Cantrell ROCK SPRINGS, WYOMING, 1978. A Puerto Rican undercover cop out of West Harlem. An Indiana preacher's son turned frontier lawman. A midnight shooting death outside a boomtown saloon. A mountain town murder trial turned Wild West show. In his powerful and compelling reconstruction of an infamous 1978 killing in boomtown Rock Springs, Wyoming, journalist Rone Tempest tracks the parallel lives of Ed Cantrell, an Indiana schoolboy who styled himself a 19th-century gunfighter lawman, and Michael Rosa, a decorated U.S. Marine who worked under Cantrell as an undercover narc until Cantrell drew his gun an shot him dead in the back seat of an unmarked police car. https://www.ronetempest.com/nonprofitjournalism daily 0.75 2024-04-02 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1593462959525-O6700PV5GDC2JGO9EKZT/wyofile.png nonprofit journalism - WyoFile Since its beginning in 2008, the nonprofit public interest news site WyoFile.com has become an important source of serious in-depth reporting for and about Wyoming. WyoFile stories have been republished in more than 50 newspapers. A co-founder with internet entrepreneur Christopher Findlater, Rone served as WyoFile's first long-term editor and continues to contribute occasional investigative stories and features. His most ambitious investigative work, the story of fraudulent power plant developer Michael J. Ruffatto, resulted in an 18th month prison term for Mr. Ruffatto. See "Two Elk: The Story Behind the Story." A recent piece was a long profile of former Wyoming Catholic College President Kevin Roberts who now heads the powerful Heritage Foundation in Washington. “Wyoming’s ‘Cowboy Catholic’ could remake government if Trump wins” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1593551482943-OL3EKS1ROSRB0501K6XF/ProPublica-logo.jpg nonprofit journalism - ProPublica ProPublica.Org is the nation's leading nonprofit news organization and winner of multiple Pulitzer Prizes for its outstanding investigative journalism, often in partnership with newspapers and other media. In 2007, Rone was hired by ProPublica.org founding editor-in-chief Paul Steiger --with whom he had worked at the Los Angeles Times-- as a regional consultant based in Wyoming. From 2008-2011, Rone collaborated with ProPublica reporters on several projects including a story about a failed $100 million coal gasification scheme. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1593463263391-FZVPLKUSXM9YDAZUC6FK/utah-investigative-journalism-project.png nonprofit journalism - The Utah Investigative Journalism Project Rone joined the board of the nonprofit Utah Investigative Journalism Project in 2018 after moving to Salt Lake City from Wyoming. The young news organization under its founding reporter-editor Eric Peterson has produced a great number of important investigative news stories for state newspapers as well as conducting training sessions for newspaper staff and journalism students. In addition to his work on the nonprofit board, Rone is also an occasional contributor, most notably his reports on inmate torture at the Daggett County County Jail "Scared All the Time" that resulted in a state settlement with the abused inmates. https://www.ronetempest.com/intheworks daily 0.75 2023-10-02 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/9bcac1f6-87ce-4f92-9030-82006b8fc82a/Reporters+with+Afghan+Rebels+1980.jpeg in-the-works - The Peshawar Package Tour The Peshawar Package Tour is a satirical, episodic novel about battleground Afghanistan starting with the bloody Herat Province uprising against compulsory coeducation in 1979 and ending with the tragically botched American exit from Kabul in 2021. The underlying theme is the historic and constant resistance to women’s rights by the fundamentalist Pashtun leaders promoted by Pakistan and, during the Soviet occupation, funded with billions of dollars in American and Saudi money. Initially ignored by American journalists caught up in the romance of the turbaned underdogs and intentionally stoked by American intelligence agencies in its proxy war against the Soviet Union. This critical mistake produced disastrous results for everyone involved, but mainly for Afghan women. Despite the tragically serious subject, the novel maintains a light tone (think Voltaire’s Candide; G.M Fraser’s Flashman and Waugh’s Scoop) through the exploits of its reluctant hero, Daily Explosion reporter Temple, and a recurring cast of hapless hacks including “Wrong Way” Whitmire, “Turtle” Cleghorne and “Major” Roberts who evoke an era when most foreign correspondents were monolingual, hard-drinking men who like to think of themselves as “cowboys.” The truth was usually the first casualty. (WORK IN PROGRESS. ESTIMATED LENGTH 50,000 WORDS) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1593122826770-X1SXT327UMAIRK943LVQ/American-Basketball-Team-in-Italy-1969.jpg in-the-works - Knights of the Roundball with Bill Drozdiak A television comedic/ adventure series in eight episodes about a free-spirited American basketball all-star team barnstorming Cold War Europe in late 1960s during an unfolding terrorist bomb plot by the Italian Red Brigade and their radical allies. Fiction based loosely on real life adventures of Jim McGregor touring teams. (See the Sports Illustrated article “The Tour.”) WRITTEN/SHOPPING FOR BUYERS https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/969349ef-2522-4bb5-bf0e-799b8e1780f3/el-paso.jpg in-the-works - The Price of Copper. Labor, Race and Suicide in a New Mexico Mining Town Begins with the mystery and tension surrounding the tragic 1938 suicide death of the mine manager and family patriarch in Santa Rita, New Mexico. From that dramatic starting point, Tempest goes on to paint a vivid portrait of open-pit copper mining, labor conflicts, and corporate-sponsored racism in company mining towns across the Mountain West from the early years of the 20th Century to the first successes of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s. He ends with his reflections on a lost era and its enduring impact on his own American family in a chapter—borrowing from a mining term— “Angle of Repose.” Completed. 50,000 words. Under Publisher Review. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1593123600632-EMNQGB8OL1P02GHMS1ZK/accidental-saint.jpg in-the-works - Accidental Saint A picaresque novel about a young man's mid 19th journey from England to Salt Lake City and the two greatest influences on his life, Communism co-founder Friedrich Engels in Manchester and Mormon Assassin Porter Rockwell in Utah Territory. (IN REWRITE) https://www.ronetempest.com/musings daily 0.75 2020-06-17 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ec321c2af33de48734cc929/1589847331546-NBMOOBORXBR1I52QDOEM/20140301_Trade-151_0124-copy.jpg Musings https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ec321c2af33de48734cc929/1589847332082-XD1KMA4EER5NVQWQZJ4O/20140301_Trade-151_0124-copy.jpg Musings https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ec321c2af33de48734cc929/1589847330913-1F0BEVH4E8EWIS3SJYLB/20140301_Trade-151_0124-copy.jpg Musings https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ec321c2af33de48734cc929/1589847330272-BEQUDHMNDH37S90TSA0T/20140301_Trade-151_0124-copy.jpg Musings https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ec321c2af33de48734cc929/1589847329019-GP1Z6VXLF9U75MC4JIO0/20140301_Trade-151_0124-copy.jpg Musings https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ec321c2af33de48734cc929/1589847328311-R7PAZDQTBOBSEOWC9YQ3/20140301_Trade-151_0124-copy.jpg Musings https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ec321c2af33de48734cc929/1589847327684-2C1WKZU35SCT0ZV1OJOX/20140301_Trade-151_0124-copy.jpg Musings https://www.ronetempest.com/newspapers daily 0.75 2024-04-02 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/39388361-c03e-4a9c-9ea3-fad358175fa1/National-Catholic-Reporter-Logo.png newspapers https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/887f1a42-0f2a-48b9-92fc-271bdeabbd62/32024+Kevin_Roberts_at+Amerifest+2022.jpg newspapers - 'Cowboy Catholic' leads Heritage Foundation plans for 2nd Trump term When Kevin Roberts took over as president of tiny Wyoming Catholic College in 2013, few people outside its Lander, Wyoming, base even knew the school existed. But in just three years, the media-savvy Roberts managed to put the conservative campus in the national spotlight by embracing the term "cowboy Catholics" and by refusing to accept federal grants and student loans that he felt would compromise the school's independence and religious freedom. "I fully expected Kevin to be the next senator from Texas or something," said Glenn Arbery, who became the college's president after Roberts' departure in 2016. "The man has an energy and a brilliance about what he wants to do politically. That was just evident. He was too big for our little college for sure." Photo: (Wikimedia Commons/Gage Skidmore) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1594329607569-WR1PN1X6LHZMF7P55EEH/la-times-logo-sm.png newspapers https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1593460010796-CKEGD9KVQQ3UGH5A6V7S/Lev+Dermen+and+Jacob+Kingston+%28Federal+Court+Files%29 newspapers - Utah trial featuring a prominent member of polygamist sect and an L.A. businessman has wide implications SALT LAKE CITY—On the surface it seems an odd partnership: a prominent member of a secretive Utah polygamist sect and the Armenian immigrant owner of a prosperous chain of Southern California truck stops. But testimony in the federal court criminal trial in Salt Lake City of Los Angeles fuel distributor Lev Dermen is that he and Jacob Kingston, a member of the Mormon breakaway sect known as the Order, as well as relatives of Kingston, engaged in a $470-million fraud of a government biofuel program. Kingston has testified at the trial in exchange for a lighter sentence. In his opening statement to the jury, Dermen’s attorney, Mark Geragos, said the Kingston sect has a long history of defrauding the government and that Jacob Kingston, not Dermen, as the government claims, was the true mastermind of the alleged fraud. Photo: Lev Dermen and Jacob Kingston (Federal Court Files) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1594322874421-ZGOVR34FKE9H368BX50L/Screen+Shot+2020-07-09+at+1.24.28+PM.png newspapers - Was Mitt Romney’s vote the fulfillment of a Mormon prophecy? SALT LAKE CITY—Utahans reacted to Sen. Mitt Romney’s decision to break Republican ranks with a mixture of pride and dismay Wednesday, with some in this majority-Mormon state even suggesting that his vote to remove President Trump from office recalled a prophecy attributed to the church founder Joseph Smith. Although generally debunked as apocryphal by modern historians, the so-called White Horse Prophecy dates to 1844 when Smith himself was a candidate for president of the United States. The Mormons — members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — have long regarded the U.S. Constitution as a divinely inspired document. According to the legend, Smith predicted that someday the Constitution would be in extreme danger — hanging “like a thread as fine as silk fiber”— and that a member of the church would ride in on a white horse to save it. Photo: CNN https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1619210949970-KV3EXG19U7OZW9SHQNVX/6WYLCZK2QBC3PLWG7FP4AM7KME.jpg newspapers - Utah Pharmacy Role in Idaho Execution April 18, 2021 Here’s how a Salt Lake City pharmacy played a key role in the execution of an Idaho serial killer Salt Lake City pharmacist Richard Rasmuson remembers the frantic call from an Idaho prison official seeking a lethal dose of a drug for an execution in his state. A death warrant had been served and the clock was ticking. “He said, ‘We have a scheduled date, and we’ve spent all this money getting it ready, and we’re under the gun because we don’t have any way to do it,’” Rasmuson recalled in one of several interviews with The Utah Investigative Journalism Project. Rasmuson said the prison official offered a large amount of cash upfront and promised that no one would ever reveal who had provided the drug. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1594329785226-DRUCQZU382JMFE44K9BK/saltlaketribune-sm.png newspapers https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1609186624369-GEVCT2SC2XNY4U1PE2JR/post-print-world.jpg newspapers - Rone Tempest: Learning to navigate in a post-print world The Salt Lake Tribune is joining a digital trend. But will readers follow? The writing has been on the wall or, more accurately, on the digital screen for years. On Jan. 1, Salt Lake City will become yet another American city without a daily print newspaper. The Salt Lake Tribune will be online-only six days a week, with a print edition Sunday. The LDS Church-owned Deseret News will also move online daily, with a single weekly print edition and a monthly magazine. In 2012, University of Southern California journalism professor Jeffrey Cole boldly predicted that “almost all” print newspapers in the United States would be extinct in five years. Cole, director of the Center for the Digital Future at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, was not far wrong. Photo: Hannah Grabenstein | AP file photo https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1593461019450-Y5JN5CE3PD8XWVS4F6NO/josh-olsen2.jpg newspapers - ‘Scared all the time’: Former Daggett inmates describe abuse at the hands of jail officers Dustin Porter said he has recurring nightmares of the attack dog that lunged at him in a slippery jail hallway: “I’ll wake up right before he bites me.” Josh Olsen said he was told to wear long-sleeved shirts to hide the marks made on his arm by the jolts of a stun gun. Josh Asay recalled the terror of having a semiautomatic handgun pointed at his face: “We were pretty much scared all the time. The people who were watching over us were hurting us.” In their first public interviews since Utah state investigators abruptly closed the 80-bed Daggett County jail in February, several former inmates detailed what they described as painful “initiation” rituals in which a guard at the jail — sometimes with other officers as witnesses — repeatedly stunned them with a Taser weapon and subjected them to terrifying K-9 police dog “training” exercises. Photo: Trent Nelson, Salt Lake Tribune https://www.ronetempest.com/magazines daily 0.75 2020-07-16 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1593126124599-M2A11G9QCHSGMYQGMHZJ/IMG_1551.PNG magazines - The Tour With Bill Drozdiak (Sports Illustrated - MAY 7, 2019) How Barnstorming College Stars Took Basketball to the Next Level in Europe Europe has supplied some of the NBA's biggest names for a generation now. But the catalyst for the eventual Euro Invasion is all but forgotten: Jim McGregor, the entrepreneurial American coach who brought basketball across the Atlantic 50 years ago. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1593126959919-T9OKM8K0ACS8CO7NJY66/whos-dying-in-our-war-screenshot.png magazines - Who’s Dying In Our War LOS ANGELES TIMES MAGAZINE CAMP ANACONDA — Some months after the Americans took over the sprawling Balad Air Base, about 50 miles north of Baghdad, someone posted an enigmatic sign on the main gate asking: “Is Today the Day?” Soldiers at the base, which the U.S. military renamed Logistics Support Area Anaconda, or Camp Anaconda, take turns speculating about what the sign means. … https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1593127855620-IEJXNP77OXOIXPF3E6QY/Karl+lagerfeld.jpeg magazines - Kaiser Karl: One Minute, He’s Revising the Chanel Suit. Next, He’s Mixing Up a Grapefruit-Mandarin-Scented Men’s Perfume. Then, He’s Making and Breaking Top Models. Does Karl Lagerfeld Ever Sit Still? LOS ANGELES TIMES MAGAZINE It was the day after a disastrous appearance on French television, and Karl Lagerfeld, German-born superman of fashion, was still bristling, fuming with rage. Photo credit: CHANEL International B.V. https://www.ronetempest.com/the-last-western daily 0.75 2021-01-17 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1593121783696-IVBUWOMLTQ226VA2S067/neoText_lastWestern_FA_1708x2560.jpg The Last Western Order here https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1594676625072-168ZREYSYCMG94GVFI0O/beckyrosa-bw.jpg The Last Western - Becky Rosa “I still kept expecting Mike to walk through the door and tell me that he didn’t really die…I tried to move on because I needed to move beyond the pain. I’m not exaggerating when I say that I cried all the tears I had.” She kept his memory alive for her three children by telling them how much their father loved them and that he was a hero who was killed because he planned to expose corruption before the state grand jury.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1594679968253-NS2VKG6CECBEX3YL36HA/rosa-marine.jpg The Last Western - Michael Rosa Although he was clearly troubled, there was something about Rosa’s passionate drive to overcome a cruel childhood in one of the toughest neighborhoods of Harlem that made his story compelling. It was hard not to root for him. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1594249659835-719DT37IBF1QH0RAQWBJ/Screen+Shot+2019-12-17+at+6.23.53+AM.png The Last Western - Gov. Ed Herschler A lantern-jawed, ex-Marine Corps war hero and country lawyer with a penchant for Lucky Strike cigarettes and Cabin Still bourbon, Ed Herschler built a power base by working the state’s VFW and American Legion bars. (CBS 60 Minutes 1977) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1593717266568-A3GDFOFXT1VCVQXS93KR/44c4f433-b11b-59a8-805d-c6767abe7b66.image.jpg The Last Western - Ed Cantrell Cantrell’s story was a tale of an undersized midwestern preacher’s boy who molded himself into a tough hombre, respected by some and feared by many others. The most common description of Ed Cantrell was that he was someone “you don’t want to mess with.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1594250286278-LXJXYFUJ2NK9JKNBXHVD/Screen+Shot+2019-12-17+at+6.18.22+AM.png The Last Western - Dan Rather Many have pointed out that Rather might have done better to simply stroll with his crew from his 6th Avenue office in New York City down to 42nd Street, the seedy tenderloin of Manhattan, vice core of the Big Apple. Instead, the intrepid reporter traveled 1,819 miles west to a tiny Wyoming city on the edge of the Red Desert where—on national prime time television—he professed to be shocked to find a great deal of prostitution and gambling. (CBS 60 Minutes 1977) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1594248868215-Z22EFFNMJDPNO3SEF3US/Screen+Shot+2019-12-17+at+7.49.16+AM.png The Last Western - Gerry Spence Resplendent in his trademark ten-gallon hat, Spence pulled out all the stops, staging a combination of the infamous Texas Defense (the victim “needed killin’”), and the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show complete with exhibitions by quick-draw gun artists. Completely unembarrassed, Spence even teased out Oedipal parallels. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1593550935052-6DBDG2Q7H4JR2ZHX3AOV/29_police.jpg The Last Western Ed Cantrell (right) as a young Indiana State Trooper posing with local police officer and young interloper. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1593719995757-FMX0S8APHK4SBO186AUF/Ed-Cantrel-army-1.jpg The Last Western Young Army PVT Cantrell before shipping out for MP duty in Stuttgart, Germany, 1948. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1593551001208-6YYV7IM7UAVNT9CH7CQ3/IMG_1615.png The Last Western Marine Sgt. Michael Rosa and his first wife Blanca. Photo courtesy of Bobby Rosa https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1593719674108-A0QP6N6TNTWJQES0NQTR/beckyrosa.jpg The Last Western Rebecca "Becky" Smith from high school annual. She was only 16 years old when she first met her future husband Michael Rosa at a Maryland bingo parlor. (Photo courtesy Rosa family) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1594927272408-55Z6Y4P3RSTPC2XFQWHY/outlaw-inn.jpg The Last Western The Outlaw Inn across the street from the Silver Dollar Bar where Rosa was shot. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1597167205332-K3KHGDQZ0HBXOQRT7GE7/krza2.jpg The Last Western Built above a network of underground coal mines, Rock Springs suffers from frequent, unpredictable collapses like this one in the early 1970's in the city's downtown. (Photo courtesy Paul Krza) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1597167256229-WBTORR6FAZZ7367Q7C11/krza3.jpg The Last Western One of the several notorious bars on in boomtown Rock Springs. (Photo courtesy Paul Krza) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1593549719589-OIOEGEYC8TFL03DG149B/0635845C-DB08-4D9F-9C0A-B3EA914DA1EB-26826-00000B39DAB552C3.jpg The Last Western Fake booking photograph staged by the Rock Springs police department as part of Michael Rosa's cover for his work as undercover narc. It was this photograph that Gerry Spence showed the Pinedale, Wyoming jury at Cantrell's murder trial. (Wyoming court files) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1594421221778-WYN37CKOH6FJNC6MHO74/Ed-Cantrells-gun-and-knife-Rone-Tempest.jpeg The Last Western Ed Cantrell's gun-belt. Photograph by Rone Tempest at the Cantrell Rock Springs family home. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1593719775827-X4Q1RFA7VEANCKOFR1XU/4A20CC15-0723-4B84-B432-3F4A92E47EB9-57315-00001632E32B97F5.JPG The Last Western Fast draw expert and Ed Cantrell friend Bill Jordan in his U.S. Border Patrol uniform. Jordan demonstrated his technique at Cantrell's murder trial while praising Cantrell's gun skills. (From "No Second Place Winner" by Bill Jordan) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1594421147588-FONP743XGA33R70QGSGB/cantrellspence.jpg The Last Western Cantrell and lawyer Spence meet with reporters after Cantrell's acquittal. Spence asked him what he thought of people who said he only got off because he had a "smart lawyer." Cantrell responded: "Fuck 'em, I'm free." (Sweetwater County History Museum Collection) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1597167113393-X4YCVL7PWMGXVOSAB1EK/krza1.jpg The Last Western Cantrell (left front) and Gerry Spence (in trademark 10-gallon hat proceed to Rock Springs preliminary hearing in 1978. (Photo courtesy Paul Krza) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1594421328892-HZ9KMQRGTCAHTGUANF5X/IMG_4851.jpeg The Last Western Ed Cantrell (left) and defense lawyer Gerry Spence in trademark 10-gallon hat leave Rock Springs Justice of the Peace courthouse after 1978 preliminary hearing. (Rock Springs Rocket-Miner, Sweetwater County Musuem) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1593550371397-NL8V48IWFUY90L64FEM4/download.jpeg The Last Western Photo Credit: Jackson Hole News & Guide photographer Emory Anderson https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1594594793392-GTC29P5BSWIF6BLW00LZ/IMG_4835.jpg The Last Western An August 1978 People Magazine article featured Michael Rosa's widow, Becky, and the couple's three young children Roxanne (top), Christopher (bottom right holding flag) and Jasmine (in mother's arms). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1593551043253-7GODPK8QB60LRAP1N82X/IMG_1309.jpg The Last Western Top photo: Gerry Spence and Ed Cantrell, Bottom photo: Christopher Hawks, Imaging Spence and Ed Cantrell at Gerry Spence's 60th birthday party in Santa Barbara, California in 1989. (Photos courtesy of Christopher Hawks) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1593550971522-7AUQBE1ZTC5Q0OYUWNXF/EdCantrell03-RangeDetective-Wyoming-1184x1465.jpg The Last Western Cantrell had already suffered several stokes when this portrait was taken by western photographer Charles W. Guildner outside Rock Springs in 2003. (Photo reprinted with permission) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1595262216631-TUOCL0SI9SZNLX6REJM8/rosagrave.jpg The Last Western Rosa's gravestone at the Long Island National Cemetery, Farmingdale, New York. At the funeral mass in West Harlem on July 26, 1978, Rosa's sister asked a New York Times reporter: "He was an honest cop and where did that get him." https://www.ronetempest.com/events daily 0.75 2024-04-02 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/e4282dd8-1d71-4b28-ab7a-8d83f507900c/greg-olear-2.png events - Greg Olear Prevail Podcast Interview March 15, 2024 From Cowboy State to Christofascist State: Kevin Roberts, Wyoming, Project 2025, and the Spectre of a Second Trump Term with Rone Tempest In this discussion with Greg Olear, Tempest discusses his experiences as a foreign correspondent in China, Afghanistan, and Paris; Liz Cheney’s demise and the enigma of Wyoming politics; and his Wyofile profile of Kevin Roberts, head of the Heritage Foundation, thought leader behind Project 2025, and Tempest’s erstwhile Wyoming neighbor. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1610905430491-K1FJ947CAMFY7KMBJ048/WPR-Interview-Screenshot-20210117.png events - Wyoming Public Radio Interview January 15, 2021 Wyoming Public Radio’s Bob Beck talks with Rone Tempest about The Last Western. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eea7e6ec184436bda426c05/1594674013705-DUYKYP41KMWYHO6BVW3R/Stephanie-Gorton.png events - Virtual Book Event: The gilded age origins and uncertain future of investigative journalism July 9, 2020 - Online Virtual Conversation with Author Stephanie Gorton for Utah Investigative Journalism Project (Recorded July 9, 2020 Salt Lake City and Providence, R.I.)