By Bob Beck

Laramie, WY – The Grand Teton Music festival is underway.
It starts with a weekend celebration of Leonard Bernstein.

Music Director Donald Runnicles says they year's lineup tries to celebrate a number of things, including great music and great musicians.

The festival kicks off tonight (Thursday night). Friday features the annual Music in the Hole 4th of July event. The rest of the performances will be at Walk Festival Hall in Teton Village. The last concert of the summer is August 16th.

Cheyenne, WY – The Kroger Co. has restocked certain
ground beef products at King Soopers and City Market after recalling others as a precaution.

The company voluntarily recalled the ground beef because of cases of E. coli illness in Michigan and Ohio.

A company spokesman says all questionable products were pulled from the shelves Tuesday night, the equipment was cleaned and sanitized, and then fresh cases were placed in the markets on Wednesday.

The company says customers can return questionable meat to any King Soopers store for a refund or replacement.

Rawlins, WY – A Texas-based wind energy company is making
plans for the construction of a new wind farm in eastern Carbon County.

Project manager Nate Sandvig of Horizon Wind presented plans for the project this week to the Carbon County Commission and the Carbon County Planning Commission.

Sandvig says meteorological towers are being installed in the area now to gather data that will be needed to get financing for the proposed project.

Helena, MT – A Wyoming-based airline plans to renew
Essential Air Service to Lewistown, Miles City and Sidney in early September.

The U.S. Department of Transportation has given Great Lakes Aviation permission to change the hub from Billings to Denver for
those flights.

Great Lakes, of Cheyenne, Wyo., is taking over the EAS contract held by Big Sky Airlines before it ended operations on March 8.

Cheyenne, WY – The past two presidential election years
haven't been kind to Democratic candidates in Wyoming - the party lost seats in the Legislature in 2000 and 2004.

But the chairman of the Wyoming Democratic Party, John Millin, says he's planning for a different result in 2008.

Thousands of Democratic-leaning voters came out of the woodwork for Wyoming's Democratic caucuses in March.

Millin says the Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton campaigns have since then given the state party long lists of names of volunteers and caucus participants.

Casper, Wy – More than 4,000 SourceGas customers in
Wyoming weren't credited for payments they made last month because
of a company billing error.
Some received disconnect notices because of the problem.
SourceGas serves about 72,000 natural gas customers in Wyoming.
A SourceGas spokesman says the data error has been fixed and all
payments have been posted to customers' accounts.
He says the company has backdated payments related to the issue
to ensure customers won't be fined or experience credit problems.

Laramie, Wy – A former University of Wyoming swimmer has advanced to the semi-finals of the U-S Olympic swimming trials. Scott Usher swam his fastest time of the year in the 200 meter breast stroke, placing second to the American record holder, Brendan Hansen. Usher will swim again tonight for a shot at the finals. U-W swim coach Tom Johnson says that race will be a tough one. If he qualifies for the finals, Usher must place in the top two in order to make the team.

Casper, WY – Two drilling rig workers died in separate
accidents last month in Wyoming.

The Wyoming Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating both accidents.

A Wyoming OSHA official says they are the first drilling fatalities in Wyoming since February 2007.

Fifty-six-year-old Sam Aurther, of Lander, died June 23 while working on a rig drilling near Thermopolis.

Range Drilling President King Brown says Aurther had been on the job for just two weeks but had 30 years of experience in the
industry.

Laramie, Wy –

Helena, MT – The Montana wildlife department plans three
hearings on proposed rules for managing gray wolves in the state.

The hearings come as a lawsuit challenges reclassification of wolves in the Northern Rockies. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
recently announced an end to wolves' status as an endangered species.

The decision shifts management from the federal level to the states of Montana, Idaho and Wyoming, which together have about 1,500 wolves.