Colorado Central Articles From — November 2001

Column by Hal Walter

Sept. 11 events – November 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine

For more than a week before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, a lone red-tailed hawk shrieked like a banshee while flying circles in the bright blue fall sky around the small basin where I live. Was it trying to flush out rabbits? Staking out territory? Looking for a lost mate, sibling or parent? Read the rest of this article

Poem by Jude Jannet

Environment – November 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine

Earth Day Dialogue, 1996

Said I do this for love of my mother.

Ah, but does she really love me,

you ask. Thought maybe

I was speaking of one particular

human, did you, the one we

blame all our troubles on? Read the rest of this article

Poem by Jude Jannet

Modern Life – November 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine

Backache

Middle aged man

All I want to do is sit on the porch and write poetry

to the birds and to the trees while they make love to me,

instead I must produce something so you

will pay me money to feed my children.

That is why I have a backache Read the rest of this article

Article by Ed Quillen

Local Artists – November 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine

SALIDA ALREADY HAS a reputation as a place where painters, sculptors, potters, and jewelers flourish. There’s not much poetry in that mix of muses, but that will change if Jude Jannet succeeds in her mission.

Jannet, a dynamic and memorable performance poet in her own right, organized and promoted SPARROWS (Songs, Poetry and Relations Raise Our Winter Spirits) gathering and workshop in Salida this past Februrary, and she’s planning another one. Read the rest of this article

Local biography – November 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine

From Tehran to Twin Lakes: An Uplifting True Story of Escaping Repression to Find the American Dream
by Firooz Eftekhar Zadeh
Published in 2000 by Twin Lakes Publishing, Inc.
ISBN 096744800X Read the rest of this article

Mining history – November 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine

Riding the High Wire – Aerial Mine Tramways in the West
by Robert A. Trennert
Published in 2001 by University Press of Colorado
ISBN 0-87081-631-4 Read the rest of this article

Regional lore – November 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine

Spanish Peaks: Land and Legends
By Conger Beasley Jr.
Photographs by Barbara Sparks
Published in 2001 by University Press of Colorado
ISBN 0-87081-604-7 Read the rest of this article

Essay by Lynda La Rocca

Mountain Life – November 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine

I WAS ORIGINALLY going to call this essay “Swan Song for the Stupid Zone.” But no such luck.

Regular Colorado Central readers already know that a “Stupid Zone,” (a term coined by the bearded half of Colorado Central’s publishing team) refers to a floodplain, an avalanche chute, those spanking new housing developments surrounding certain international jetports, and similar sites where people low on long-range planning skills put down roots so that they can spend the rest of their lives whining about floods, snowslides, and the recurrent roar of jet engines. Read the rest of this article

Letter from Slim Wolfe

Sept. 11 events – November 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine

Colorado Central,

It was a great month to be a flag salesman but a depressing one for anyone preaching the gospel of peace. The people were out with their flags, like so many colored tickets waving in the hands of spectators at a cockfight. There hadn’t been such a display of bloodlust since the last King George sent the boys to Iraq, for some reason they couldn’t seem to get it up for Clinton’s Marche Militaire, though he played it often enough. Even Martha Quillen, who the month before had literally peppered her editorial with large-font quotes about greed and gluttony and violence, was now making asides about “retaliation,” not exactly a virtue in the eyes of the prince of peace to whom so many swear allegiance. Read the rest of this article

Letter from Virgina M. Simmons

Geography – November 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine

Editors:

On my bookshelves, the best summary of names for the Rio Grande is found in Carroll L. Riley’s Rio del Norte: People of the Upper Rio Grande from Earliest Times to the Pueblo Revolt (University of Utah Press, 1995). Riley begins with the names used by Pueblo Indians in New Mexico when the Spaniards arrived. Puebloan descriptive names testify to the fact that this was the largest stream they knew. Read the rest of this article

Sidebar by Lynda La Rocca

Jury Duty – November 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine

So what is a jury, anyway? A jury is a group of people legally selected and sworn to inquire into, and decide the truth of, factual evidence and to render a verdict according to that evidence.

The jury’s earliest incarnation in England (the legal system upon which our own is based) may have derived from the Norman institution of “recognition by sworn inquest,” in which 12 knights were chosen to examine matters of interest to the Crown (such as the taxation of an individual) which could become the subject of public inquiry. Read the rest of this article

Article by Lynda La Rocca

Jury Duty – November 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine

Frankly, I was looking for the money. After spending a month back east this past summer, my husband Steve and I returned to Colorado in mid-August to an official U.S. Postal Service bin brimming with mail. Among the piles of catalogues, bills (and yes, several checks) was an unwelcome piece of news — my summons to report, the following week, for jury service. Read the rest of this article

Essay by Martha Quillen & Columbine Quillen

Sept. 11 events – November 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine

ED STARTED THE Letter from the Editors this month after rereading Jihad vs. McWorld, a book he picked up years ago on remainder. In Jihad, author Benjamin Barber writes about the new global economy and how it’s fueling a growing clash between religious fundamentalists, tribal cultures and hidebound traditionalists and the corporate culture that gives us fast food, Wal-Marts, pop music, and theme parks. Read the rest of this article

Sidebar by Martha Quillen

Salida school mill levy election – November 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine

In the final analysis, almost all of the numbers support the idea that Salida could use more money — since it certainly isn’t one of the richest districts in the state. The truth is, most of the schools in our region could use more money (some of them far more desperately than R-32-J Read the rest of this article

Sidebar by Martha Quillen

Salida School Mill Level Election – November 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine

One of the common local debates regarding District R-32-J’s proposed mill levy override revolves around whether money matters. But rather than being conclusive, the answer seems to be… Sometimes. Read the rest of this article

Sidebar by Annie Hays

Salida School Mill Levy Election – November 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine

Average teacher salary in selected districts, according to the Colorado Department of Education report cards

Buena Vista $ 31,975

Cotopaxi Re-3 $ 30,847

Custer County Consolidated C-1 $ 30,899 Read the rest of this article

Sidebar by Martha Quillen

Salida School Mill Levy Election – November 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine

One of the arguments against the mill levy override is that Salidans can’t afford to raise District salaries. Here’s the gist of it — and the numbers.

According to the Salida Comprehensive Plan 2000 the average per capita personal income in Chaffee County in 1997 was $16,082, and the average income for a two person household was $34,400. According to the Colorado Department of Education the average teacher salary in Salida was $34,507 in 2000. That would mean that the average teacher in Salida already makes what it often takes two Chaffee County residents to make. Read the rest of this article

Sidebar by Ed Quillen

Salida Scholl Mill Levy Election – November 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine

What’s a mill?

In this context, a mill is the smallest unit of currency in the United States — a unit so small that it has no coin. It’s 1/10 of a cent or 1/1000 of a dollar; think of it as a “millidollar” in the way that a “millimeter” is 1/1000 of a meter, and you’ve got it.

In property tax matters, a tax of one mill per dollar of taxable value is the same as a tax of $1 for every $1,000 of taxable value. Read the rest of this article

Article by Annie Hays

Salida School Mill Levy Election – November 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine

IN MOST PARTS OF THE COUNTRY, voters aren’t nearly as eager to head to the polls this year as they were last year. But in Salida the school board is campaigning to insure that citizens of District R-32-J will be anything but apathetic on voting day 2001. The Salida School Board is asking its voters for a second time in a row to approve a mill levy override for its schools. Read the rest of this article

Column by George Sibley

Sense of Place – November 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine

SENSE OF PLACE has come to be one of those concepts whereby we post-modern, post-industrial, post-urban bucolics move up through the thirty-two degrees of right living. So it seems appropriate that “senses of place” should be the focus of the 12th regional “Headwaters Conference” early this November in Gunnison. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Colorado Central – November 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine

A subscriber in New Mexico sent us a reasonable complaint. His September edition arrived on Sept. 4, he wanted to write a letter for publication, and the deadline for that was Sept. 7 — not enough time.

We agree that’s a problem, but there’s not much we can do about it, since when it comes to delivering magazines to subscribers, we’re at the mercy of the U.S. Postal Service. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Local Arts – November 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine

It was easy for us to claim with both honesty and modesty that we were the leading monthly magazine in Central Colorado — we were the only one.

Now there’s Metaphor, which bills itself as “Salida’s Monthly Poetry ‘Zine.”

The idea, according to publisher Carla Sonheim, is to document the monthly open-microphone nights at Bongo Billy’s Salida Café. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Media – November 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine

Except when the ground blizzards are howling, a drive in South Park is scenic. But it has also been a silent place if you want to listen to FM radio while you’re on the road.

Now that’s changed. KRCC, the public-radio station at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, installed a new translator on Oct. 4 to serve South Park.

It’s at 91.3 mHz on Badger Mountain near Wilkerson Pass, and station manager Mario Valdes said his signal should reach Fairplay, Alma, Hartsel, Lake George, and Florrisant — and perhaps even Cripple Creek and Victor. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Salida – November 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine

Like many Salidans, we were mystified one October night when we looked across the river and saw some new lights on Tenderfoot Hill.

Normally, there’s a white-light S that alternates with a red heart outline (for Heart of the Rockies, a Salida slogan that dates back to the 1930s). At Yuletide, it’s a big Christmas tree. And there has been talk, since Sept. 11, of installing an American flag, or of flanking the S with two more big letters to make it USA.. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Local History – November 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine

Colorado Fuel & Iron operated its steel mills in Pueblo, but the company’s influence extended deeply into the fabric of Central Colorado for about a century.

The old Orient iron mines above Valley View Hot Springs, now best known as the summer home for immense clouds of bats? Those were CF&I mines. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Marcia Darnell

San Luis Valley – November 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine

Fallout from 9-11

Even in a small town, the effects of the terrorist attacks have been widespread. Aside from the prayer vigils, blood donations, and fundraisers, the reactions to the event are pervasive.

* The Alamosa School Board is encouraging teachers to lead their students in the Pledge of Allegiance every day. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Sept. 11 events – November 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine

The mass murders on Sept. 11 happened a long way from Central Colorado, but the local response was almost instantaneous.

Perhaps the most bizarre reaction came in Leadville, where there was a run on gasoline that evening. Only one station was open, the Kum & Go, and the line was so long that the station implemented a $10 maximum purchase. Read the rest of this article

Comic Strip written by Clint Driscoll and illustrated by Judie Moorhead

Mountain Life – November 2001 – Colorado Central Read the rest of this article

Essay by Barbara Kingsolver

Patriotism – November 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine

My daughter came home from kindergarten in Tucson, Ariz., and announced, “Tomorrow we all have to wear red, white and blue.”

“Why?” I asked, trying not to sound wary. Read the rest of this article

SNOW SURVEY AND STREAM GAUGE FUNDING

The FY2002 Senate Agriculture Appropriations bill (S. 1191) provides the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) with $8,515,000 for snow survey and water forecasting. The House passed H.R. 2330, which provides NRCS with $7,137,000 for the same purposes. A conference committee will work out the difference. The Interior conference committee approved $64,318,000 to the USGS for cost sharing on stream gauging. State and local contributions total $123.2M. USGS is also funding a geology study of Lake Meade with $299,000. (The National Water Quality Assessment program funding is being decreased by $596,000) A note added to the Interior conference report reads, “Work by the [F&W] Service to mitigate the effects of water resource development projects conducted by other Federal agencies should be performed on a cost reimbursable basis and the Service should receive full and fair compensation for such work.” Read the rest of this article