Dear Friends

A FORESTER, A FARMER, AND A FAMILY REUNION Sara Mattes, a selectman from Lincoln, Mass. (“where Paul Revere was caught”), came in while visiting the Western Slope. She noted that a lot of HCN’s reporting filters down to her advocacy work – including opposing anything that was supported by former Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif. Penny […]

WELCOME, MARTY AND LISA HCN’s new online editor, Marty Durlin, is glad to be back home in Delta County. She grew up in the nearby town of Delta, where her father was a state representative and her mother taught school. Marty holds a B.A. in humanities from Colorado Women’s College, and studied music and creative […]

WELCOME, NEW HCN INTERNS Fall intern Christine Hoekenga is happy to be back home in the West. The Boulder City, Nev., native earned a double major in environmental science and rhetoric and media studies from Willamette University in Salem, Ore. While there, her passion for scuba diving led her to a semester abroad in the […]

MEET US IN SALT LAKE HCN invites Salt Lake City area readers to join us for a dialogue on Thursday, Sept. 13. We’ll help the Utah Science Center kick off a series of discussions on “Choices.” Several panelists, including David Nimkin, National Parks Conservation Association chair; Dianne Nielson, energy advisor to Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman; […]

AMERICAN BIKERS, IRISH DOGS, BRITISH WALKERS Jay Bagley came to town for the “Top of the Rockies” BMW motorcycle rally, held in Paonia every year. Jay says he’s fallen in love with this part of Colorado and might move here from Sacramento, Calif., where he works in Medicaid fraud reduction. Another biker, Vern Holm of […]

PARTY WITH HCN AND REP. MARK UDALL If you happen to be in western Colorado Thursday, Aug. 23, please join us for an HCN summer celebration. Our special guest will be Colorado Democratic Congressman and U.S. Senate candidate Mark Udall, who will discuss the key issues facing the region and Congress’ role in addressing them. […]

Summertime, and the visitin’s easy

SUMMER BREAK As we do every June and December, we’ll be skipping an issue. Our staff plans to spend the last two weeks of June catching up on the long-term projects that we never quite find time for, enjoying family and friends, and battling the bindweed that’s overtaken our gardens. Look for the next HCN […]

WELCOME, NEW HCN EMPLOYEES Shaun Gibson, HCN’s new designer and production assistant, designs pages and promotional materials, finds photos and artwork, and helps post each issue on the Web. Shaun has spent most of his life in small towns in Colorado. His great-grandfather was a miner in Crested Butte, and his grandfather was one of […]

PARTY IN PAONIA You’re invited to a High Country News potluck party for readers, board members and staff. As a special treat, some of our former interns will also be in town for the first-ever HCN intern reunion. Join us on Saturday, June 9, 6 p.m., at the town park in Paonia, Colo. Please bring […]

VISITORS It’s not often that we get an international visitor. A journalist from Tokyo, Japan, dropped by in late March. Takashi Kikuchi, who writes for Festival magazine, was in western Colorado to cover The String Cheese Incident, a bluegrass/calypso/funk jam band from Boulder, Colo., that has toured in Japan. Takashi came to Paonia to see […]

THERE’S LIFE AFTER HIGH COUNTRY NEWS We’ve recently gotten exciting news from some former HCN interns. Patrick Farrell (summer 2005) just landed a job as a video journalist at the New York Times. Katie Fesus(fall 1996) now teaches English at Lake Tahoe’s Sierra Nevada College and directs ARC (Adventure, Risk, Challenge), an outdoor adventure and […]

VISITOR, SINGULAR Spring is coming to our valley, but visitors are still far and few between. Wilf Bruschke of nearby Montrose, Colo., came by recently to check us out and start a new subscription. BURY ME GREEN Singer/songwriter John Winn of Grand Junction, Colo., tells us his latest CD, Wild Stallion, contains a song titled […]

VISITORS Denis Brunke, a longtime subscriber from Logan, Utah, stopped in to say hello. He was taking the scenic route back home after visiting a friend in nearby Snowmass. An HCN reader since the days of Tom Bell, Connie Brown of Lander, Wyo., visited us. She was in the area to study yoga with teacher […]

High Country News Northern Rockies Editor Ray Ring has won the 2006 George Polk Award for Political Reporting for his story, “Taking Liberties,” an in-depth look at a secretive libertarian campaign to cripple land-use planning in six Western states. One of the most prestigious prizes in American journalism, the Polk Award was established at Long […]

VISITORS Richard Heede stopped by in early January to fill us in on his Snowmass company, Climate Mitigation Services, which can pinpoint a particular company’s contribution to climate change. In 2003, Heede completed an inventory of ExxonMobil’s emissions between 1882 and 2002. Now he’s expanding the study to the world’s 85 top corporate greenhouse gas […]

WINTER BOARD MEETING High Country News board members and staff traveled to Berkeley in late January to do some work, enjoy a little sunshine, and — with help from some old friends — put on a show for our Bay Area readers, present and future. Our idea of a show is, of course, fairly serious: […]

FOUR MONTHS OF INDENTURED SERVITUDE This winter, Erin Halcomb is trading in her chain saw for an HCN intern’s computer. Erin, a Colorado native, spent the past five winters in Oregon, thinning trees and teaching environmental education. During the summers, she worked as a fire lookout. Erin first came to Oregon in 2001, when she […]

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 […]