Betsy Marston

COLORADO Directors, take note: Don’t even think about staging a play in Colorado if it features a character with a nicotine habit. A three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals recently ruled that smoking indoors anywhere in the state enjoys no protection under the First Amendment – and that includes puffing away on a cigarette […]

UTAH Even after he was caught making an outrageously racist remark, Republican state Sen. Chris Buttars refused to resign. Buttars had criticized a revenue-sharing bill for school districts, saying, “This baby is black, I’ll tell you. This is a dark and ugly thing.” Buttars said he was sorry, but he apologized only after the Senate […]

MONTANA Karen Craver might have one of the toughest jobs in the West. For three years, she’s been a rural mail carrier in sparsely populated northern Montana, close to Canada. “Some places up here,” she says, “it’s 10 miles between mailboxes.” Every Tuesday and Thursday, Craver hits the rocky road that takes her north of […]

WYOMING Perhaps in jest, the award-winning Jackson Hole News&Guide wants readers to come up with a new welcome sign for the town. The current greeting at Teton Pass is definitely outmoded: “Howdy, stranger, yonder is Jackson Hole, the last of the Old West.” With the town now urbanized and chock-full of New West bazillionaires, the […]

CALIFORNIA Snap your fans for the late Beverly Allen, a petite woman just over 5 feet tall who became a high-kicking, feather-bedecked showgirl at the age of 80 with the Fabulous Palm Springs Follies. This is a group you have to be at least 55 years old to join, and Allen, reports the Los Angeles […]

NEVADA Five years ago, Douglas Hoffman and his wife, Debbie, bought a house in an upscale retirement community outside of Las Vegas. The spectacular neon lights of the Strip at night were what passed for a view, and the just-planted trees were small. But as Sun City Anthem in Henderson grew to 7,000 homes, the […]

WASHINGTON Given the number of accidents and attacks against bicyclists in Seattle, riders may want to don flak jackets. In September, a cyclist was hit by a truck and killed, and in October, a rider accused the driver of a sport utility vehicle of trying to intimidate or even hit him, reports the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. […]

OREGON Lucky, an elk that was hand-raised by residents of Tillamook County, was by all accounts a cute calf. You could see the little elk along Highway 101, in a pasture where bull elk like to hang out with milk cows. He was comfortable with people and would jump into a pickup bed as easily […]

UTAH AND OREGON The West used to pride itself on a live-and-let-live attitude. No more. In Orem, Utah, on Feb. 11, a judge will begin hearing the case against Betty Perry, 70, who refused to water her lawn and then resisted arrest when a policeman came to cite her for having brown grass. The jury […]

THE WEST If Glen Canyon Dam were a person, says Shaun McKinnon in the Arizona Republic, “it would surely suffer from low self-esteem.” There are several reasons: Environmentalists want to breach the dam to benefit native fish and bring back beaches, the writer Ed Abbey wrote about blowing it to smithereens in The Monkey Wrench […]

COLORADO Hikers passing any of 284 high mountain lakes in western Colorado this fall may get to see some flying fish. First, a small plane will appear, flying low. Then, “at precisely the correct time,” the pilot will open a bay and send a stream of fish-filled water into the lake. It’s a native fish-stocking […]

MONTANA Fewer people may be heading for vacations in our national parks these days, but “glamping” – short for glamorous camping – is on the rise. Think of luxury tents that come equipped with Persian rugs and electricity for powering blow dryers. As for stinky outhouses – forget about it. The possibility of glamping convinced […]

ARIZONA Paradise Valley, a posh town of 14,500 people in the Phoenix area, boasts houses that cost more than $20 million, and it’s nothing if not persnickety about urban necessities such as cell-phone towers. The town’s planning commission recently ruled that the first tower to be erected must wear a disguise as a palm tree […]

NEW MEXICO Once arranged in a ring just like England’s ancient Stonehenge, 100 refrigerators are no longer standing in Santa Fe. Strong winds toppled much of the 80-foot-high, graffiti-covered structure, reports the Associated Press, and the rest was dismantled on May 30. “Fridgehenge,” or “Stonefridge,” as it was dubbed, morphed into a cult phenomenon that […]