PINEDALE – Rex Rammell told a dozen people gathered in the Sublette County Libraries’ Lovatt Room that he had one more gubernatorial run in him.

The perennial candidate recorded segments at KPIN Radio before officially announcing his candidacy for governor of Wyoming in 2022 last week. Rammell made one of his first campaign stops in Pinedale with a Saturday evening forum that lasted shy of two hours.

Rammell, a veterinarian from Rock Springs, recapped his upbringing, as well as failed gubernatorial and congressional runs in both Idaho and Wyoming dating back to 2002. Rammell said he could win this year because “people are catching onto what’s happening.”

Rammell criticized current Gov. Mark Gordon for his policies, labeling him as a “radical environmentalist.”

Rammell ran for governor, state Senate and Congress in Idaho and Wyoming. His most recent bid, for Wyoming governor in 2018 as a Constitutional Party candidate, received 3.32 percent of the vote (6,751 votes).

At his campaign stop, Rammell told the dozen gathered that his focus as governor would be to move all federal lands within Wyoming’s borders under state control.

“I own this issue,” he said. “This is part of my life and I want to see it through.”

He told to the audience that does not mean succession from the union, nor would he support that initiative.

Rammell told the audience about the beginnings of his legal issues when his domestic elk escaped in Idaho outside of Yellowstone National Park. Then-Idaho Gov. Jim Risch ordered an emergency hunt and Rammell was arrested for obstructing a peace officer when he refused to move off an elk carcass.

He did not mention his conviction for killing an elk in the wrong hunting zone, which was upheld by the Idaho Appellate Court, or his ongoing legal dispute for lack of brand inspection permits while moving horses into Sublette County. Rammell contested that the brand inspection law violates his Fourth Amendment rights. A jury trial date has been set for April 28.