Colorado Central Articles From — January 2000

Column by Hal Walter

Mountain Life – January 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine

WHEN YOU HEAT YOUR HOUSE with a woodstove, you tend to listen when someone asks if you want some free firewood. Usually it’s an offer for you to clean up this person’s yard of rotten cottonwood trunks, or limbs that look more like brush than cordwood. Read the rest of this article

Letter from Slim Wolfe

Rural life – January 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine

Ed & Martha,

You have to credit humans for our inventiveness. Just as we were running out of real space for our dreams and schemes, we invented cyberspace. It doesn’t do much for me, personally, but it seems to be just the thing to fill out the economy with minimal danger (we hope) to the biosphere. Read the rest of this article

Letter from Harvey N. Gardiner

Colorado History – January 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine

Editors:

In your December issue, the interesting article “Tomichi Lives On” repeats an historical inaccuracy that has been so often repeated that it is now accepted as truth. The historical inaccuracy is that the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act caused the silver crash of 1893. Read the rest of this article

Article by George Sibley

History – January 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine

SOMEHOW A POT got broken, up here in the Upper Gunnison. Maybe someone broke it, or maybe some hunters left it behind planning to return for it and some agent of nature broke it — a nosy coyote or freezing water.

It wasn’t one of their good pots — for they were making beautiful pottery by then. “It was just one of their common pots,” says Dr. Mark Stiger, anthropologist at Western State College in Gunnison. “The kind of pot the women might let the men take on a hunting trip.” Read the rest of this article

Review by Martha Quillen

Favorite Books – January 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine

TIME, LOVE, MEMORY, A Great Biologist and his Quest for the Origins of Behavior by Jonathan Weiner is a beautifully written book relating some of the history of DNA research. Weiner makes understanding complicated genetic research easy — by illuminating the stories of the scientists, and even the fruit flies. By the time you finish, you’ll not only have a fair idea about how we got from Mendel to modern genetic engineering, you might even harbor a fond affection for those surprisingly complex little insects who gave their all to this research. Read the rest of this article

Review by Lynda La Rocca

Favorite Books – January 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine

THIS YEAR, my choices are all over the map — and I mean that both literally and figuratively.

For a taste of genuine, death-defying adventure, the kind we moderns pay exorbitant sums to be carefully guided through, pick up a copy of The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition by Caroline Alexander (Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1998). Read the rest of this article

Essay by Martha Quillen

The Millennium – January 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine

I WANTED TO WRITE something extraordinary for the millennium — something succinct, important, relevant. and unforgettable. This is, after all, an occasion that only happens every thousand years.

But then I found my enthusiasm for the event waning. Read the rest of this article

Article by Marcia Darnell

Helping the poor – January 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine

IN MOST CITIES, the homeless shelter is the bastard child of the middle class — hidden from sight, the object of pity and scorn, never really a part of the family. In Alamosa, however, the shelter is a conglomerate of businesses, programs and educational efforts that’s a major part of the city’s character. Read the rest of this article

Article by Nancy Ward

Local Artists – January 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine

REDHAWK: multi-talented artist taught by the spirits, led by visions; simple but complicated. He’s a man at peace with himself, his life, his spirituality, and his universe; a regional and national award-winning painter, sculptor, and creator of Native American artifacts. Read the rest of this article

Article by Sharon Chickering

Local History – January 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine

TWIN LAKES is a quiet hamlet — even at the peak of tourist season when vehicles zip by on Highway 82 to climb over Independence Pass and the Continental Divide to Aspen.

Strolling the half-mile Forest Service interpretive footpath from the center of Twin Lakes to the top of Mount Bump on a summer day, one can survey the peaceful blue of two lakes surrounded by a forest of pine, spruce and aspen. Yellow shrubby cinquefoil, pink wild roses, and blue lupine bloom in low-lying fields dotted with elk scat. It is hard to believe that, in this very spot, seven lives were snuffed out in the space of minutes early one morning in January 1962. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Local Lore – January 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine

Hillsdale College was recently rocked by a national scandal involving its long-time president. It’s in Michigan, about 80 miles west of Detroit — and that’s 1,100 miles from here — but there is a strong connection. Central Colorado is where that president of Hillsdale College grew up and first worked, and our region is a place he wrote about. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Pack-Burro Racing – January 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine

Winston, N.M.

14 miles – April 17, 1999 Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Pack-burro racing – January 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine

The Western Pack Burro Ass-ociation — the outfit that preserves and promotes Colorado’s only indigenous sport — convened in Leadville in late 1999 and elected the group’s first woman president, Sue Conroe of Salida.

She replaces Dave TenEyck of Golden, who has served two terms as president. He promoted gender equality by racing with Xena, a jenny — most racers run with jacks or geldings. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Local life – January 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine

Two unofficial used-car lots have vanished in Central Colorado in recent months.

Leadville’s “Lemon Lot” got cleaned in November. The site, across from Safeway, often boasted several dozen vehicles in varying states of repair, many of them offered for sale.

It was part of the 47-acre Poverty Flats area owned by the railroad and sold in October to the Seven Saints Land Company. The county government asked Seven Saints to clean up the area; commissioner Jim Morrison said he had received many citizen complaints. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Politics – January 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine

Some rays of sunshine

Just so we’re not totally critical here, it’s time for some praise:

1) The newspaper with the longest name in Central Colorado (Park County Republican and Fairplay Flume) sponsored a Nov. 19 symposium on the Colorado Sunshine Law, and about 40 local leaders and officials attended. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Phone service – January 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine

Leadville, more than any other place in Central Colorado, is enduring a geographic transition. For generations, it was solidly in the Arkansas Valley. But now it’s becoming part of the Interstate 70 Sacrifice Zone as the economic and cultural domination of the ski resorts continues to grow.

This is reflected in controversies over telephone service there. Leadville is a local call from Salida and Buena Vista, and 20 years ago, that would have reflected its connections. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Local Artists – January 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine

Poetic Fame

Peggy Godfrey, who chases cows, raises lambs, and writes poetry near Moffat (and occasionally contributes to this magazine) is getting close to famous.

In November, she made the cover of Cowboy Magazine, and in December, she was featured on the front page of High Country News. Has the fame changed her? “I’m getting more inquiries about my ‘Ewe Mow-Em Lawn Service,’ where I pasture sheep in people’s yards,” she said. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Politics – January 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine

Oil & Gas: $36,077

Real Estate: 33,600

Securities & Investment: 21,300

Commercial Banks: 21,000 Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Politics – January 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine

Granted, you’ve already seen too much about the presidential election, so we’ll change the topic a little to the congressional election in Colorado’s third district, which comprises Central Colorado, the San Luis Valley, and just about everything else between Pueblo and Grand Junction. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Marcia Darnell

San Luis Valley – January 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine

Ranchers Revisited

Cathy and Mike McNeil, who were profiled in the October ’99 issue of Colorado Central, were named outstanding conservationists of the year (ranch division) by the Colorado Association of Soil Conservation Districts for their work in sustainable ranching. Read the rest of this article

Comic Strip by Clint Driscoll and Laura Ravenwood

Mountain Life – January 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Weather – January 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine

Central Colorado’s two ski areas — Monarch and Ski Cooper — were scheduled to open the weekend before Thanksgiving. But Mother Nature didn’t coöperate, and so the lifts didn’t start running until Dec. 11, three weeks later.

Most ski areas in Colorado were hurting for lack of snow, although the big resorts along Interstate 70 have snow-making and could thus open more or less on schedule. Read the rest of this article

Essay by Greg Moore

Mountain Life – January 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine

NEAR SUN VALLEY, Idaho, a Seattle couple is building a house that measures 20,800 square feet. That’s the current local record holder, but it’s not unique. Here and in other mountain resort towns, people who have made their money elsewhere are moving in and building bigger and bigger houses. Read the rest of this article

At the beginning of the month, overall, Colorado’s snowpack, statewide, was 50% of average. The Gunnison River Basin was at 34%; the Colorado River is 56%; South Platte was 69%; North Platte was 67%; Yampa/White was 69%; Arkansas was 59%; Rio Grande was 21%; and San Miguel/Delores/Animas/San Juan Basins were 17% of average. With 40% of our accumulation season behind us, we are at 64% of last year’s snowpack. Read the rest of this article