By Connie Vigil Platt
Cowboys have always been known as hard riding, hard working men. They are also known to be ready and willing to have a good time. Being accustomed to the rhythms of a horse, they are naturally good dancers. They also appreciate a lively foot-tapping tune.
Singing cowboys best describes the musical group once known as The Frisco Canyon Ramblers, as most of the band members also had day jobs as working cowboys.
You don’t have to be a baseball fan, or even a Brad Pitt fan (I know you’re out there) to enjoy the movie Moneyball. It’s about the underdog 2002 Oakland As and their general manager’s unconventional methods of building a winning ball team. Apart from the high quality of the film, I was also struck by the two trailers leading up to it. One was for the upcoming One for the Money, based on mystery writer Janet Evanovich’s main protagonist, Stephanie Plum, the Trenton, N.J.-based bounty hunter. The other was for a film entitled Haywire, directed by Steven Soderbergh, about a female covert operative who had been set up and is out for revenge. It’s great to see women in the role of protagonists instead of just eye candy or props for leading men.
By Wendy Oliver
When I first moved to Buena Vista, I expected to gain a traffic-free life in the mountains while losing out on performing arts. Three months later, I attended the 1999 Alpine Orchestra’s Christmas concert and discovered a high caliber community orchestra right in the Upper Arkansas Valley. By January, I’d dusted off my oboe and joined both the Orchestra and the pit band for the local production of Brigadoon. More than a decade and a hundred performances later, I’m still impressed with the depth of talent in our small communities.
By Hal Walter
Believe in ghosts? I suppose I’m inclined to, mainly because I’ve had a few spooky experiences that apparently defy logic. In the spirit of Halloween and Day of the Dead, here’s a recount of some these events, and lest you think I’m making this stuff up, rest assured I’m really just not this creative.
By Jim Williams and Curtis Scheib
Things are changing radically in the solar electric industry. Dramatic price decreases in the cost of solar electric panels within the last several years means solar is getting closer to grid parity in many parts of the country. Grid parity is when the costs of installing a solar electric system can compete with the utility electric rates that you pay over the life of the system without rebates or subsidies. Oddly, the other extreme change is the normalization of both the use and financing of residential and small business solar installations.
Sugar and Spice Mountain Bakery
411 Main St.
Westcliffe, Colorado 719)783-4045
by Ann Marie Swan
Westcliffe has been blessed with Sugar and Spice Mountain Bakery, a Mennonite family-owned business with the redeeming quality of using sugar judiciously.
Naomi Yoder, who owns the Main Street bakery with her husband, Jason, says she only uses “real ingredients” and unbleached flour, just like her mother did. “We bake here like we would at home,” Yoder said.
By Ladd Stevens
I grew up in the fifties and sixties. Back in those days, not everyone who graduated from high school went to college. Some of my classmates went into the trades: you know, became plumbers, carpenters, electricians. While it was important that you got a good education and learned your three R’s – reading, ‘riting, ‘rithmetic – there was no guarantee about going to college or even that going to college was necessarily better than apprenticing yourself to a master tradesman. People to build your houses and office buildings were as important as someone to teach your kids. Maybe it was the post World War mentality: Everyone pitched in and did what needed to be done to help America get back on its feet and prosper.
Name: Jacque Keller
aka: That lady with all the tattoos.
Occupation: Currently; artist – watercolors, acrylics, tattoos; reporter for the Wet Mountain Tribune; assistant librarian at West Custer County Library.
By Jennifer Dempsey
When John Grove and Shawn Woodrum took over the State Highway building at 402 Main Street in Buena Vista a year and a half ago, they weren’t exactly sure what the 5,000 square foot warehouse would become.
“We’ve just basically done it by the seat of our pants,” said Grove, 45. “If we had had a business plan it would have changed every other month. We knew we wanted a place that would cater to all walks of life. We wanted this to be a big umbrella that includes everybody in the community, like a modern Mayberry.”
By Susan Tweit
More than a decade ago, when Richard and I began restoring our “dream place,” the formerly blighted industrial property bounded by the thread of channelized creek where we live, we had no plan, no budget, and no real concept of how much work lay ahead. We did have a vision of healing the land and its degraded creek, reestablishing the community of the land right in town, and a comfortable sense of time in which to do the work.
By Patty LaTaille
Journalist Allegedly Attacked
A temporary protective order alleging physical and possible sexual assault was filed on a former Saguache County Commissioner and current Center school board candidate after an incident Wednesday, Oct. 12, at the Saguache County Courthouse.
County Planning Commission Chairman and Center School Board candidate Bill McClure allegedly attacked Center Post-Dispatch reporter Teresa Benns in the Land Use Office.
Western May Seek University Designation
GUNNISON – Administrators at Western State College (WSC) in Gunnison are considering changing the title of the school to ‘university.’
The idea was discussed with WSC faculty and staff in late September. College president Jay Helman cited the establishment of a graduate program, capital improvement projects at the college in recent years, and success in private fundraising as several indicators towards the new title, according to the Gunnison Country Times.
By Ed Quillen
One of the obscure pleasures of life in a little mountain town is the occasional dose of isolation. It snows all day with strong wind. The roads are closed, the phone and power lines go down. You have no idea what’s going on in the rest of the world, and you don’t really care because you couldn’t get there anyway. You’re just playing cribbage at home by lantern light while a wood fire cheers and warms.
I swear
If you took me back
I wouldn’t take even a second for granted
For all we go through in this life
For all the scars you can’t erase
I just can’t understand with a New York Sky above me
Mercury’s Rise
by Ann Parker
Published in 2011 by Poisoned Pen Press
ISBN 978-1-69058-961-8
Reviewed by Ed Quillen
You could say that Ann Parker is an elemental writer, or maybe a metallic one, given her book titles. Mercury Rising is the fourth in a series that includes Silver Lies, Iron Ties, and Leaden Skies. All feature the adventures of Inez Stannert, a partner in the Silver Queen Saloon in the boomtown Leadville of 1880.
By George Sibley
“Employer wanted.” We saw that sign in Missouri, along US 36 – a good “heartland” road: if you laid a ruler on the map with Denver at one end and Indianapolis at the other, you’d see a line already there, US 36. Interstate 80 runs above it, Interstate 70 below, if you want to zip past and avoid it all, but if you want to go through the so-called heartland, US 36 is a good transect. A lot of it is still two-lane blacktop through Kansas, but it’s a fast two-lane with very little traffic, so long as you keep watch for the occasional tractor the size of a dinosaur traveling 17 mph.
Story and photos by Kenneth Jessen
There are well over 1,500 ghost towns in Colorado. Many are abandoned mining camps spread out over the western half of the state. Among the most obscure is Duncan, located along the western base of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
The history of Duncan started in 1874 when John Duncan followed an old trail over Medano Pass into the San Luis Valley. At the mouth of Pole Creek, he discovered some “float,” or gold-bearing ore, that had washed down from the mountains. He constructed a durable cabin made of hand-hewn logs locked tightly together with corner notches. As word got out other prospectors were attracted to the area, and in 1890 a town grew up around his cabin. Duncan then turned from prospector to town promoter, laid out the town of Duncan, and sold lots for $25 each.
By John Mattingly
Back in December 1975, an earnest fellow named Birch – a member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses – was kind enough to come to my farm to warn me of impending doom. He urged me to repent and prepare for the end of the world – The Rapture, on January 17, 1976.
I offered to bet Birch ten thousand dollars that The Rapture would not come on January 17, 1976. Birch was tempted but admitted he didn’t have that much money in the bank, nor was he sure if he could spend the money in a post-rapture world. In the end, he bet a hundred. We shook on it, and I became a little richer the following month.
Trio Caught after Camping Out
WESTCLIFFE – Three siblings from Florida who were subjects of a national manhunt were apprehended after a high-speed chase on I-25 near Colorado City but not before spending a final night of freedom camping at the St. Charles trailhead in the San Isabel National Forest.
Ryan, Dylan and Lee Grace Dougherty had been on the lam since Aug. 2 after being accused of an armed bank robbery in Georgia and the attempted murder of a Florida police officer.
The trio had been spotted purchasing camping gear in Colorado Springs and attempting to buy ammunition at the Cañon City Walmart. A tip led authorities to the campground but they had already decamped. Soon after they were spotted on the interstate where a high-speed chase ensued and the fugitives crashed their car and were apprehended. There are currently 76 charges against the trio pending in Colorado.
Crestone – Gateway to the Higher Realms
By James McCalpin
Crestone Science Center
ISBN 978-0-9835382-0-2
$21.95; 256pp, including appendices and index.
Reviewed by Eduardo Rey Brummel
Remember your grade school teacher’s admonition to never title a paper, “All About —”? That’s the intrinsic trouble with any guidebook: So much information; so few pages. The cover of this one proclaims it to be: “A Comprehensive Guide to Crestone, Colorado, and Area Attractions,” which it truly seems to be.
By Mel Strawn
There are a lot of artists in our mountain region. Salida is recognized as one of the “best art towns” in the U.S.. It has galleries, art walks and studio tours. It has visual artists, poets, novelists, dancers and musicians as well. Yet, with all this it seems to me there are some missing elements. One of these is a recognized, ongoing venue for critical/appreciative commentary and dialogue – at least in the visual arts. One of the functions of informed criticism is to enhance awareness and appreciation as well as to challenge. Without it, ambitions, rewards and creative life in general are diminished. There are here, in fact, some venues and informed commentary on occasion: Jeff Donlan’s sensitive and supportive column in The Mountain Mail. Salida Citizen offers a reader’s comment function on line. Arkansas Valley Arts Center has a newsletter and a small gallery. ArtWorks sponsors events. Yet there is little predictable discussion of the ideas, achievements and wider context/import of the visual arts here.
By Jennifer Dempsey
When John Grove and Shawn Woodrum took over the State Highway building at 402 Main Street in Buena Vista a year and a half ago, they weren’t exactly sure what the 5,000 square foot warehouse would become.
“We’ve just basically done it by the seat of our pants,” said Grove, 45. “If we had had a business plan it would have changed every other month. We knew we wanted a place that would cater to all walks of life. We wanted this to be a big umbrella that includes everybody in the community, like a modern Mayberry.”
