HCN TAKES A HOLIDAY Thanks to all of our readers and friends who attended our annual holiday open house on Dec. 6. As we always do this time of year, HCN staffers are taking a two-week break to sing carols, swill wassail and celebrate the holiday with family and friends. The next issue of HCN […]
Colorado
Posted inDecember 11, 2006: Old but Faithful
Have knives and hooks, will travel
Name The Mobile Matanza Hometown Taos, New Mexico Measurements 36 feet long by 13 feet, 6 inches tall Items on her wish list Gloves, hook-eye sharpener, meat band saw blades, meat grinder plates, three-way oilstone, platters, long butchering aprons, butchering supplies and knives, brushes and scrapers. She’s sleek, full-figured and gleaming white, though not […]
Posted inDecember 11, 2006: Old but Faithful
Dear friends
CONGRATULATIONS, RICK CRAIG Former HCN intern Rick Craig (Summer ’91) of Missoula, Mont., recently won top prize in the Chicago Tribune’s 24th annual Nelson Algren Awards. The awards honor previously unpublished short fiction works by American writers, amateur or professional. Nelson Algren, “the voice of America’s dispossessed,” is best known for his novels The Man […]
Posted inNovember 27, 2006: The West: A New Center of Power
Dear friends
HCN Holiday Open House If you’re in the Paonia area on Wednesday, Dec. 6, please join us for our holiday open house. From 5 to 7:30 p.m., you can meet HCN staff and other readers and enjoy refreshments. Our office is located at 119 Grand Ave. ANOTHER HCN WIN HCN Contributing Editor Michelle Nijhuis has […]
Posted inNovember 13, 2006: Bred for success
Dear friends
CHANGING OF THE GUARD High Country News is bidding goodbye to editor Greg Hanscom and welcoming new editor John Mecklin. Mecklin got his start in journalism in 1978 as a reporter for the twice-a-week Williamson County Sun in rural Texas. Later, as a reporter for the Houston Post, he traveled to Saudi Arabia and Iraq […]
Posted inOctober 30, 2006: Peace Breaks Out In New Mexico's Forests
Dear friends
HCN BOARD MEETING The fall meeting of the High Country News Board of Directors, held in Missoula, Mont., focused on the rapidly changing world of publishing, especially the growing prominence of the Internet as a news source. Web master Paolo Bacigalupi walked board members through our Web site, hcn.org, and explained our strategy for turning […]
Posted inOctober 16, 2006: A River Once More
Dear friends
MONGOL STOPOVER Seventeen Mongolians, including environmentalists, politicians, journalists and representatives of the mining industry, showed up on HCN’s doorstep in late September as part of a tour around Colorado. The tour, organized by the San Francisco-based Asia Foundation, was intended to “establish a foundation for trust and relationship-building between participants” in order to yield “viable […]
Posted inOctober 2, 2006: From the ground up
From the ground up
A staff walks out; a grassroots newspaper is born
Posted inOctober 2, 2006: From the ground up
Dear friends
HCN NEEDS YOUR SUPPORT It’s that time of year again, when we come to you on bended knee, asking for help keeping High Country News going. Unless you’ve given recently to our Research Fund, you should be receiving a letter soon. For comments from writer Jane Braxton Little about the importance of the Research Fund, […]
Posted inOctober 2, 2006: From the ground up
The wet Net
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, “The myth trafficker,” in a special issue about community media in the West. John Orr created the “Coyote Gulch” blog in 2002 to follow Denver-area politics, but the following November, that topic converged with his other love — Colorado water. Voters were […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 2006: Going Big
Dear friends
WELCOME, EVAN AND FLETCHER New HCN intern Fletcher Jacobs arrived in town only to find that the “off-the-grid” solar-powered house he’ll be living in for the next few months was recently struck by lightning. Until the home’s electrical system can be repaired, it’s back to flashlights and candles. Fletcher spent the last two years in […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 2006: Going Big
The memory of mountains
A long time ago, I climbed a mountain with my mother. It was back in the early ’80s, when she was only slightly older than I am now — hard for me to believe, even though I’ve done the math and know it’s true. The mountain was Pikes Peak in Colorado. We climbed it from […]
Posted inSeptember 4, 2006: Blast from the Past
Dear friends
BIKERS, FILMMAKERS, ENGINEERS, CHEESEMAKERS Billie Stanton, editorial writer for the Tucson Citizen, left a business card in our door on a recent weekend: “I was here; you were gone. But keep up the good work.” Sorry we missed you, Billie. Filmmaker Dave Gardner and his daughter, Stephanie, of Colorado Springs, Colo., stopped by as part […]
Posted inSeptember 4, 2006: Blast from the Past
The Fourth Wave
Can the West’s uranium towns rise once more?
Posted inAugust 21, 2006: The Lure of the Lawn
Dear friends
CONGRATS, MATT AND PAOLO HCN staffers recently took home two more writing awards. West Coast correspondent Matt Jenkins received the 2006 James V. Risser Prize for Western Environmental Journalism for his story “Squeezing Water from a Stone” (HCN, 9/19/05: Squeezing Water from a Stone). Judges had high praise for Matt’s story about the implications of Las […]
Posted inAugust 21, 2006: The Lure of the Lawn
Safety first
NAME Steve Ficklin VOCATION Petroleum Engineering Technician AGE 54 HOME BASE Silt, Colorado KNOWN FOR Keeping drill rigs from blowing up HOBBIES Working brainteaser math problems, fishing, hunting, camping. HE SAYS “Each hole is different. No two wells are identical.” Steve Ficklin doesn’t talk a lot. As he drives along a dirt road outside the […]
Posted inAugust 21, 2006: The Lure of the Lawn
Nine reasons why a river is good for the soul
SILT. Healthy particles of silt are suspended in the river, buffed off eons of Wingate sandstone and the debris of flash floods fire-hosing through twisted arroyos. These tiny particles of soil, mud, stone, trees and bones scour our skin as we float in the slow, warm current of the river. We drift in silence, particles […]
Posted inAugust 7, 2006: Is It or Isn't It (Just Another Mouse)?
Dear friends
MORE BANG FOR YOUR BUCK Readers have been calling for more content and a greater diversity of stories in High Country News. We’re happy to deliver: We’ve added four pages with this issue. To help cover the additional costs of printing and mailing, we’ve added an extra page of advertisements — but not to worry: […]
Posted inAugust 7, 2006: Is It or Isn't It (Just Another Mouse)?
There was no green in this Rainbow gathering
When we tell folks that we became the unwitting hosts for the Rainbow Family’s annual gathering, the first response is “the who?” The Family’s Web site, welcomehome.org, styles the Rainbows “the largest non-organization of non-members in the world.” At the beginning of July, more than 17,000 of them gathered in Big Red Park, north of […]
Posted inJuly 24, 2006: Taking Liberties
Dear friends
SUMMER EDITORIAL RETREAT In June, our editors and correspondents spent a day and a half at an editorial retreat (actually, it was more like a “full rout,” quipped one staffer). Former staffer Florence Williams, now a successful freelance writer, gave us a workshop on magazine writing techniques. Look for exciting changes coming to the news […]