It can be argued that Gillette, with its promise of jobs for practically anyone with a pulse, is Wyoming's fastest-growing city in terms of people.

But a young boy also found out the city is teeming with toads. Not the kind that stiff you with a bar tab, but the kind that hop on four legs and live in ponds of standing water.

The Gillette News-Record reported in its Aug. 3 edition about a march of epic proportions of toads in Zane Steeg's yard.

It's thought the toads are of the Great Plains variety, though no one knows for sure.

"They're seeking greener pastures," guessed Bill Turner of the state Game and Fish Department.

At one point, mom Linda Steeg described a 20-foot-wide swath of the toads crossing Highway 50.

"The highway was just greasy with them," she said.

This was a real reality show

Who says you can't learn anything by watching TV?

For two teenage boys from Worland, the survival skills they learned by watching "Man vs. Wild" and "Survivorman" on cable just might have saved their lives.

Jordan and Matt Olson, brothers out on a hiking trip, were with two adults and two other teenagers climbing Cloud Peak on Aug. 5, the Northern Wyoming Daily News reported, when they got turned around.

That's when the reality show kicked in.

The Osborns, the paper reported, built a fire by scraping material from their jeans with a pocketknife as a means of fire starter. They then placed stones in the fire and kept warm by holding the stones close to their bodies, just like the character in the program "Survivorman" who traverses wilderness, desert and summit, relying on his innate cunning, all alone.

The brothers' adventure - where they lit a fire that eventually caught the attention of the county search and rescue team - ended the following morning.

"(The boys) did everything right," search and rescue commander Mel Walker told the paper.

Soon it will be time to survive another ordeal for the boys - football practice.

Rabbits thwarted by a Haire?

They're seemingly everywhere in Wyoming, yet in Powell, the furry cottontail rabbit is known as an exotic pet.

Yep, that 4-H exhibit you just might see at the Park County Fair is actually an exotic animal, per Powell city statute.

The man who would stop rabbits from being classified as simply pets?

David Haire.

Seems Mr. Haire, according to the Aug. 7 edition of the Powell Tribune, suffered from bacterial pneumonia he believes he contracted by coming into contact with rabbits owned by his neighbors.

"To me, it's an issue the city should be dealing with," Haire told the paper. The rabbits, he said, also emit a nearly unbearable stench.

Haire's neighbors feel the man is being discriminatory toward 4-H participants. They, too, will have their day before the city on Aug. 20 to discuss their thoughts.

A whale of a golf tale

No braggin' about this one.

Fifteeen-year-old Spencer Shipley sank two holes-in-one on Aug. 3 at the Gillette Golf Club. He did it on the par-3 No. 8 hole during back-to-back rounds.

One of the balls took a bit of a circuitous route to find the bottom of the cup. The second nine-hole round of the day, the News-Record reported in its Aug. 5 edition, began as Shipley hit the ball two feet in front of the cup, bounced two feet behind the cup and plopped into the cup.

Thirty minutes later, another hole-in-one on No. 8.

The next day, 59-year-old Jerry Anderson aced the same hole.

"I can add this to my stories for my grandson," he told the paper.

The odds of such a feat happening three times in two days on the same hole? Try 164 million to one, golf pro Lonnie Reed told the paper.

"That's crazy. That's like winning the lottery," he said.

Pink dino delights in Thermop

Intern Vicky Helmke made a big dino discovery near the Wyoming Dinosaur Center in Thermopolis recently.

The (Thermopolis Hot Springs) Independent Record reported on Aug. 9 about a find that the Dinosaur Center believes could be the largest marine reptile or the only land-dwelling dinosaur ever unearthed at the Sundance Formation, which used to be under an ocean.

The bone was found on Warm Springs Ranch two miles south of the Wyoming Dinosaur Center, the paper reported.

It could be a dinosaur, or it could be a pliosaur, the general name for any big-jawed marine reptile, the paper reported.

Got an item or tip for this column? Contact night editor David Mirhadi at (307) 266-0616 or david.mirhadi@casperstartribune.net.