Colorado can be proud of sending Democrat Patricia Schroeder to the House of Representatives in 1972. There, she battled the Old Boy network with wit and, more important, grit. Two years ago she retired, and now she’s published a book, 24 Years of House Work … and the Place is Still a Mess: My Life […]
Betsy Marston
Posted inAugust 17, 1998: Living out the trailer dream
Dear Friends
Summer visitors Rick and Lucy Daley stopped in on their way to the Desert Museum in Tucson, Ariz., where he will be the new director. Rick is former director of the Denver Botanic Gardens, while Lucy was director of international students for the University of Colorado, Denver College of Business. Artist Phil Undercuffler came by […]
Posted inAugust 17, 1998: Living out the trailer dream
Heard around the West
“I’m having a ball,” says Ruth Thomas of Spokane, Wash. She may be 72 and arthritic, but that doesn’t stop Thomas from pursuing a dream. After the former middle-school science teacher sold her house and furniture and bought a bike, she began an odyssey across the United States, visiting the smallest town in every state […]
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
Ghostly fish swim in Idaho
Once there were thousands of sockeye salmon leaving the Pacific Ocean to spawn in Idaho’s Redfish Lake. Only one sockeye salmon made it to the lake in 1994, 1995 and 1996; and not even one bright-red fish returned to spawn in 1997. The decline of these once abundant native fish is something we ought to […]
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
Blasting through a cathedral
When Congress established Petroglyph National Monument in 1990, on the edge of Albuquerque, N.M., its rationale was straightforward: “to protect the cultural and natural resources of the area from urbanization and vandalism.” Just a few years later another threat to the monument emerged. To accommodate the desire of developers, the New Mexico delegation backed a […]
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
Heard around the West
You’re in a car when a thunderstorm boils out of the West and rain pelts down. What do you do? Nothing, of course, since the National Lightning Safety Institute says cars are one of the safest places to be during lightning strikes – relatively speaking. Two teenagers in a ’92 Subaru near Jackson, Wyo., found […]
Posted inJuly 6, 1998: Riding the Wyoming 'brand'
The Wayward West
Each year Wildlife Services “controls’ about 100,000 lions, coyotes and bears, mostly by killing them. On June 23, the federal agency lost support when the House of Representatives voted 229-193 to cut $10 million from its $20 million budget. A day later, however, after the livestock industry mounted an intense lobbying effort, the $10 million […]
Posted inJuly 6, 1998: Riding the Wyoming 'brand'
Heard around the West
Hungry bears breaking into cars and cabins at Yosemite National Park in California are racking up hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage. Bears have learned it’s easy to get into the driver’s seat if they “place their claws on top of car doors and peel them off,” reports AP. Relocating the black bears hasn’t […]
Posted inJune 22, 1998: Western water: Why it's dirty and in short supply
The Wayward West
In early June, GOP leaders in the House promised to end logging subsidies for the timber industry, agreeing with the Clinton administration that “road credits’ should die. Soon after, the Forest Service, for the second time in its history, posted a number for what its road-building program really lost last year: $88 million. Jet-boat enthusiasts […]
Posted inJune 22, 1998: Western water: Why it's dirty and in short supply
Heard around the West
Maybe it had to happen. The “green glow” emanating from cool corporations in the laid-back Northwest has faded, reports the Los Angeles Times, with just the merest hint of gloating. There’s gigantic Microsoft, targeted by the Justice Department for monopolizing computer software, and Starbucks, assailed for cruelty to songbirds for removing shade trees from coffee […]
Posted inJune 8, 1998: Don't fence me in
Heard Around the West
Old myths die hard, especially when perpetrated by Hollywood. On the Flathead Reservation in western Montana, tourists regularly want to know: “Where are the flat heads?” reports the Great Falls Tribune. And some people visiting the Museum of the Plains Indian in Browning, Mont., expect Native Americans to live in tepees and to wear feathered […]
Posted inMay 25, 1998: Tackling tamarisk
The Wayward West
Albuquerque, N.M., Mayor Jim Baca, always outspoken, is hopping mad. President Clinton recently signed an emergency spending bill that included chopping 8 1/2 acres out of the city’s Petroglyph National Monument. It’s “dishonest and cheating,” Baca told the Albuquerque Journal, “but that’s life in Washington.” The deleted acreage will go for a road extension to […]
Posted inMay 25, 1998: Tackling tamarisk
Heard around the West
Many federal bureaucrats like hiding behind a desk. Jim Furnish is admittedly gregarious. He also loves the Oregon coast and hopes eight citizens from around the United States will want to join him for an expense-paid weekend of brainstorming while taking hikes along the cliffs. Furnish makes no bones about needing help. Supervisor of the […]
Posted inMay 11, 1998: The working West: grassroots groups and their newsletters
Heard around the West
Maybe Denver International Airport was built to test the tempers of travelers. Flighty state-of-the-art baggage system? No backup. Access road blocked by snowdrifts? No backup. A busted concourse train? No backup – so 30,000 passengers were stalled and enraged Sunday, April 26, some of them trapped for hours in darkened train tunnels without ventilation or […]
Posted inApril 27, 1998: The old West is going under
Heard around the West
Bears are so smart. In Mammoth Lakes, Calif., nestled in the Sierra Nevada mountains, some 30 black bears have chosen to become New Westerners by denning underneath hotels, restaurants and homes. They’ve become so used to gourmet food, snug basements and the amenity of a no-hunting ordinance that the animals are now familiar figures in […]
Posted inApril 13, 1998: Oil clashes with elk in the Book Cliffs
Heard Around the West
During the day, Polly Letofsky, 35, takes reservations at a ski lodge in Vail, Colo., but several nights a week she turns into Fitness Woman, snowshoeing up Vail Mountain as she trains for her dream of walking around the world. She figures that ambitious jaunt, totaling 7,000 miles across four continents, will require three years […]
Posted inMarch 30, 1998: A bare-knuckled trio goes after the Forest Service
Heard around the West
There’s hot news from Anchorage, Alaska, and many hikers are going to recoil in horror when they hear it. The red pepper spray that’s supposed to ward off black bears may do just the opposite – attract them. Evidence so far is anecdotal, but U.S. Geological Survey researcher Tom Smith (contact him on the Internet […]
Posted inMarch 16, 1998: Olympic onslaught: Salt Lake City braces for the winter games
Heard around the West
Drenching rain, slip-sliding houses on the edge of eroding cliffs, not a glimpse of sun for weeks – blame the rotten weather on Al Nino. Drunks and the unruly frustrated do. But Nino, a retired Navy man in the Southern California county of San Luis Obispo, says he’s getting a little tired of complaining phone […]
Posted inMarch 2, 1998: Wild horses: Do they belong in the West?
Heard around the West
Apre-ski style in Aspen, Colo., can lurch widely, from rhinestone cowboys and “meppies” – mountain preppies – to gold-toned glitterati and “grunge puppies,” reports the Aspen Times, but what do (presumably) ordinary people on the street really find to be fashion faux pas? Some examples: “Those goofy, furry little boots. What’s up with that?” “Plastic […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 1998: Private rights vs. public lands
Heard around the West
Why did a logging company “rape 30,000 acres of virgin forest?” A satirical magazine on the Internet, The Onion, says the answer can be found in the provocative behavior of the trees themselves: “If you’re going to tease, openly flaunting your abundant natural resources, don’t be surprised by the consequences. “It’s only natural for any […]