Former Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife Lynne donated about $3.5 million to the University of Wyoming, and in return UW named a 20,000-square-foot center in Cheney’s honor. The Cheney International Center will house the university’s international programs, which include the study of global economic systems, international culture and social issues, international development and […]
Communities
Posted inSeptember 14, 2009: Home
Timothy Egan’s Western odyssey
A talk with the author of five books about the West
Posted inGoat
Victorious in Victor
Students and teachers at the Teton Valley Community School in Victor, Idaho, are heading back to school with a new spring in their step. That’s because their design won the 2009 Open Architecture Challenge: Classroom–a competition hosted by Architecture for Humanity, selected from more than 400 qualified entries from over 65 countries, which I blogged […]
Posted inSeptember 14, 2009: Home
Coming home to the cosmos
A wandering meteor-chaser puts down roots
Posted inGoat
Medic!
Picture yourself on the front lines of a massive wildfire — soot smeared into the creases of your face, your clothes stiff and itchy with days-old sweat, your palms blistered from grubbing a fire line through duff and brush with a Pulaski. What dangers might you face? Falling snags? A fire sweeping uphill faster than […]
Posted inSeptember 14, 2009: Home
A conversation with Michelle Nijhuis
Photos and an interview with the author of “Township 13 South, Range 92 West, Section 35”
Posted inSeptember 14, 2009: Home
Township 13 South, Range 92 West, Section 35
A home of mysteries and restless souls
Posted inGoat
Obama’s speech to students
Whipped up by right-wing talk shows, conservatives are criticizing President Obama’s back-to-school speech — which will “challenge students to work hard, set educational goals and take responsibility for their learning,” according to the U.S. Department of Education — as “indoctrination.” The Associated Press reports that: Idaho Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna requested additional information […]
Posted inArticles
Audio: Where the buffalo roam
Josh Zaffos talks about the Lakota reclaiming their grassland on the Pine Ridge Reservation
Posted inAugust 31, 2009: The dark side of dairies
A new land grab
The Oglala Sioux are on a path to reclaim their territory and their culture
Posted inRange
Ray Ring’s “Affirmative actions”
In his recent HCN report “Affirmative Actions” (August 17 edition), Ray Ring makes this statement: Obama’s array of appointees mirrors the percentages of blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans in our society. More than anything, these three controversial appointments highlight the (environmental) movement’s chronic failure to recruit minorities into its top echelon. Over almost 40 years […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Magical encounter
Michael “Skeeter” Pilarski admits he has never seen a fairy, but that doesn’t mean they’re not around. “Fairies manifest themselves differently to different people,” he told The Seattle Times, “and besides, only about 10 percent of people have ‘the sight.’” Pilarski is the founder and organizer of the ninth annual Fairy and Human Relations Congress, […]
Posted inWotr
Whose Valles Caldera is it?
When people try to describe the Valles Caldera National Preserve in New Mexico, they sometimes compare it to Yellowstone National Park. Both offer stunning landscapes born of volcanic activity, and both are filled with wildlife. Though only 89,000 acres, Valles Caldera contains thousands of elk, vast grasslands, streams and mountains, all within the sunken remnant […]
Posted inAugust 31, 2009: The dark side of dairies
A wedding, a story
Here in Paonia, Colo., the peaches and tomatoes are finally ripening and High Country News is still welcoming lots of summer visitors. Dale Benjamin and his son, Jordan, of Vancouver, Wash., dropped by the office with Dale’s cousin, Hal Brill, a Paonia local. A USDA consumer safety inspector back home, Dale said he was glad […]
Posted inAugust 31, 2009: The dark side of dairies
Romancing the stone
NAME Maurice McKinneyAGE 83HOMETOWN Whittier, Calif.OCCUPATION Retired gold miner and gemologist HCN SUBSCRIBER SINCE 2008 (longtime reader) For some time now, we’ve been receiving occasional — and very entertaining — letters from HCN reader Maurice McKinney. The self-described rockhound writes about his love of gems, Mexico and the great outdoors. “All my life I was […]
Posted inGoat
Funding to fight domestic violence
In recent weeks, the Obama administration has made safety on Indian reservations a major priority, doling out a slew of grants to tribes all over the West. “The Department of Justice is well aware that Indian Country is struggling with complex law enforcement issues involving violent crime, violence against women and crimes against children, and […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Suspicious habit
Can running from the cops become a lifestyle? That was the explanation in the Kitsap Sun from a 33-year-old man in Bremerton, Wash., who hightailed it to a roof as police searched his neighborhood for a suspect. After police got the man to climb down and asked him why he was hiding, the man explained: […]
Posted inRange
Still Trout Fishing in America
I catch fish with my hands. In the Wyoming Rockies, where I have spent my best summers, the high meadow streams are thick with brookies, cutthroats and rainbows. I hide behind willows and boulders, spying, greedy to catch, kill and eat them. The fish hang suspended in liquid moments then shear off like startled birds, crowding […]
Posted inAugust 31, 2009: The dark side of dairies
Dairy injuries and deaths 2003-2009
At least 18 people died working in Western dairies between 2003 and 2009; many more were injured. This list of deaths and injuries, compiled from state and federal safety agency reports, is certainly incomplete, thanks to loopholes and differences in state and federal reporting requirements as well as underreporting by workers. When possible, supplementary information […]
Posted inAugust 31, 2009: The dark side of dairies
Extinguished
Wildfires have intensified in the last 10 years, says Michelle Ryerson, chair of the National Wildfire Coordinating Group’s Safety and Health Working Team. More extreme fires require more complex methods of firefighting, leading not only to higher costs but a change over time in the risks that firefighters face. In 1987, Ryerson’s team began keeping […]