WYOMING

Through a barrage of full-page newspaper ads, a Casper couple is hoping to derail a years-long, multistate effort to collect taxes on Internet purchases.

Hawkins & Powers Aviation Inc. has gone from being one of the country’s largest aerial firefighting firms to the brink of bankruptcy.

"The financial implications are very good for rural economic development here," Van Eaton said. "We’re a good market for regional recycling, and we’re the primary market for western Nebraska and southeastern Wyoming farmers. The quality rural lifestyle here is something really special to offer our employees."

"I don’t think that sits very well with the average citizen,"

It would be the first-ever biodiesel plant in the state and among the largest in the nation. It would also create a new opportunity for Wyoming farmers to grow camelina, canola, brown mustard and other oil seed crops.

Please read the Wyoming Technology Organization’s introductory letter include here or visit their web site http://www.wyomingtechnology.org/index.html.

Travel spending in Wyoming in 2004 amounted to about $5.5 million per day, according to a report compiled by an Oregon firm hired by the Wyoming Business Council. Adjusted for inflation, spending has increased 2.2 percent each year since 1997 within Wyoming’s second-largest industry.

Shober said attracting film production would help the Wyoming economy in two ways. First, the production would pump money into the local economy where filming takes place. Second, it would generate tourism, bringing new visitors.

"Unless the audience sits through the credits, they’re going to assume it’s Wyoming," said Michell Howard of the Wyoming Film Office. "This has a great impact on us."

For everyone involved, the wine of eastern Wyoming is an economic experiment in its infancy. And they’re learning as they go.