Here in HCN’s tiny hometown, Paonia, Colorado, we remain amazed by — and grateful for — all the folks who drop by just to say hello, since Paonia is on the way to pretty much nowhere else. Ulli Lange, 80, and family and friends, visited right before July Fourth and Paonia’s Cherry Days celebration. Ulli, […]
Dear Friends
Posted inAugust 18, 2014: Alaska's Uncertain Food Future
An award, and a whole lot of visitors
“The Tree Coroners,” by HCN contributing editor Cally Carswell, just received one of the Society of Environmental Journalists’ 2013-2014 Awards for Reporting on the Environment. The Dec. 9, 2013, feature story took second place in the category “Kevin Carmody Award for Outstanding In-depth Reporting, Small Market.” Congrats, Cally! VisitorsSo many readers pass through Paonia, Colorado, […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2014: Idaho's Sewer System
New kids in town
Well, they’re not exactly kids, but HCN is pleased to welcome two new interns to our Paonia, Colorado, office for six months of journalism boot camp. And we’re also delighted that Krista Langlois, our extraordinary editorial fellow, is staying for another six months. Growing up in Toronto, new editorial intern Sarah Tory devoured books on […]
Posted inJuly 21, 2014: On the Wild Edge
Visitors from Maine to Montana
Summer’s in full swing in Paonia, Colorado, our tiny hometown. The North Fork Valley’s sunny weather, scrumptious fruit and fine wines draw lots of visitors, and we’re always delighted when friends old and new drop by our office. Andreas (Andy) Mink, who reports for the Sunday edition of Neue Zurcher Zeitung, Switzerland’s leading paper, spent […]
Posted inJune 23, 2014: River of No Return
Summer publishing break
In our 22-issue-per-year publishing schedule, we’ll be skipping the next issue. Look for High Country News in your mailbox again around July 21. You can keep up with Western news and views on our website, hcn.org, for fresh articles, and follow us on Twitter and Facebook. June board meetingAt the tail end of May, 10 […]
Posted inJune 9, 2014: Border Out of Control
Remembering Cecil Garland
Forty-nine years ago, a Lincoln, Montana, hardware-store owner spread maps of the nearby national forest on his kitchen table. A self-educated migrant from North Carolina’s Great Smoky Mountains, he liked to hunt elk in a backcountry area where the Forest Service wanted to build roads, logging areas and campsites. He drew a line around the […]
Posted inMay 26, 2014: The Great Gun Rights Divide
Welcome, Brian Calvert!
HCN is delighted to welcome new associate editor Brian Calvert. Brian, a fourth-generation Wyoming native, grew up in Pinedale and graduated from the University of Northern Colorado in 1994 with a BA in English liberal arts and minors in writing and media studies. He has worked as a foreign correspondent, writer, audio journalist, and, most […]
Posted inMay 12, 2014: Parks for All?
Of Pulitzers and presidents
High Country News congratulates Dave Philipps, who covered the West’s wild horse controversy for us in a 2012 feature story. In April, Philipps and the Colorado Springs Gazette received the Pulitzer Prize, newspaper journalism’s highest honor, in the national reporting category for Philipps’ investigative series, “Other Than Honorable.” The three pieces “used Army data to […]
Posted inApril 14, 2014: A landscape of surprises
A brave and unusual conservationist turns 90
Ninety years ago, on April 12, 1924, Tom Bell was born in a house owned by the Union Pacific Railroad, in Winton, Wyo., a coal-mining camp. It was an inauspicious but appropriate beginning for the guy who would start both High Country News and Wyoming’s largest conservation group. Tom’s father, Lafe Bell, worked in the […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2014: When California Kicks Coal
It’s spring break time again!
In mid-March, as snow melts and crocuses bloom in our hometown of Paonia, Colo., HCN staff takes one of our four annual publishing breaks. Look for the next issue, a special issue on unusual travel experiences around the West, to hit your mailbox around April 14. And in the meantime, visit hcn.org for fresh news […]
Posted inMarch 3, 2014: Fallon’s deadly legacy
Goodbye, Hello
In January, our board of directors gathered by phone and Web to talk with staff about High Country News‘ progress over the last four months. There’s good news: Print and digital subscriptions are up 1,000 from last year, our coffers are bursting with end-of-year donations (thanks to all who contributed!), and our redesigned website should […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2014: The Gila $olution
New HCN employees and several visitors at the office.
Thank you for helping us blow our gift-subscription goal out of the water! Our loyal readers gave their friends and families more than 1,600 holiday gift subscriptions. We joyfully welcome our new readers and thank our existing ones for sharing your commitment to our journalism and to the region that binds us together. New development […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 2014: The Hanford Whistleblowers
HCN welcomes new interns
We’re delighted that stellar intern Krista Langlois is staying for another six months as our latest editorial fellow. And two new interns have arrived for a half-year of journalism boot camp. Christi Turner isn’t just thrilled to be out West – she’s pleased to be back in the United States. A Rhode Island native who […]
Posted inDecember 23, 2013: Beauty or Beast
HCN takes a holiday break
With sub-zero lows and nearly a foot of fresh snow outside our Paonia, Colo., offices, it’s finally looking – and feeling – like wintertime. That means it’s time for another publishing break in our 22-issue-per-year schedule. The next HCN appears Jan. 20, but meanwhile, you can visit hcn.org for fresh news, features and opinion. Here’s […]
Posted inDecember 9, 2013: The Tree Coroners
Ed Quillen anthology available now
Last June, regular High Country News contributor, Denver Post columnist and dear friend Ed Quillen died suddenly. Now, his daughter, Abby Quillen, has compiled an eBook anthology, Dispatches from the High Country: Essays on the West from High Country News, available on Amazon Kindle and through Smashwords. She’s also gathered his best Denver Post columns […]
Posted inNovember 25, 2013: Ecosystems 101
California Boomin’
Longtime contributor and former HCN editor Jon Christensen is shaking up the academic world with the latest edition of Boom: A Journal of California. A native Californian and adjunct professor at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, Jon now edits the quarterly that, he says, “strives to bottle that lively mixture of what makes […]
Posted inNovember 11, 2013: Cosmic Prospecting
Mailbox surprise
The staff and board were surprised and deeply humbled by the generous check that arrived in our mailbox last month, a bequest from the late Gerald Hollingworth of Steamboat Springs, Colo. Gerald was a longtime reader who shared High Country News articles with his friends and engaged them in long conversations on many Western subjects, including […]
Posted inOctober 28, 2013: Lifeblood of the Delta
Fall ‘friendraiser’ and board meeting
The first snow was fluttering down when High Country News‘ staff and board members arrived in Hailey, Idaho, for a late September meeting. But the white flakes couldn’t quite cover the black tracks left by a summer fire that rampaged down ravines to the edge of town. Signs – many in front of insurance offices […]
Posted inOctober 14, 2013: The New Geronimo?
Help HCN complete its online archives!
We’re proud that High Country News is 43 years old — but our website, hcn.org, is still incomplete, because our online archive goes back only 20 years. Now we’re finally scanning in issues published before 1994. Soon they’ll be available online. We need your help to finish the project, though. So far, our point man, […]
