KOWB Staff

A $2 million gift commitment from Ultra Petroleum Corp. will support and enhance the University of Wyoming’s energy research and academic program, the university announced on Tuesday.

Miss Wyoming Lexie Madden, a University of Wyoming student from Torrington, was named third runner-up at the Miss America Competition on Saturday night in Las Vegas. She is just the second Miss Wyoming to place in the national pageant, joining Carol Held, who was first runner-up in 1948.

Senior forward Leonard Washington scored 14 of his 16 points in the second half and grabbed 13 rebounds to guide the 25th-ranked University of Wyoming men’s basketball team to a 59-48 win over Nevada on Saturday afternoon in the Lawlor Events Center.

University of Wyoming senior free safety Luke Ruff received one of the highest academic honors a college student-athlete can achieve by being named on Thursday to the 2012 Capital One Academic All-America Division I Football First Team as selected by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA). It is the first time in Ruff’s career that he has earned First Team Academic All-America honors. He is the first Wyoming Cowboy to earn the honor since Trenton Franz in 2004.

Fifty-six percent of the Wyoming sampled voters answered that they supported an increase compared to 44 percent who disagreed.

The Cheyenne Police Department has initiated an AMBER Alert for a two-year-old girl believed to have been abducted by her non-custodial mother around 11:30 a.m. Tuesday. Angeleana Tyler, is described as white, 3 feet tall weighing 30 pounds with brown hair and eyes.