WELCOME, JASON HCN has a new development associate to help with raising money, planning events and board meetings, and producing a newsletter for former interns. Jason Nicholoff, the eldest son of Circulation Manager Gretchen Nicholoff, grew up in Paonia. After graduating from Ohio’s Oberlin College with an English degree, he did environmental work and grant-writing […]
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Posted inMay 2, 2005: The Great Energy Divide
Dear friends
ANIMAL PLANET Here in Paonia, we’ve been having various critter adventures. JoAnn Kalenak, our production assistant, recently adopted a beagle named Darcy. In mid-March, though, the dog disappeared while chasing rabbits. Three weeks later, a neighbor called to say that Darcy had been vacationing at her farm a few miles away the entire time. Meanwhile, […]
Posted inApril 18, 2005: What Happened to Winter?
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KIDS THESE DAYS … Nature, with a capital N, is going to hell — or so we’re told. The venerable wilderness warhorse Dave Foreman recently e-mailed around an essay detailing exactly how it’s doing so, and why. Among other culprits, he blames High Country News (too preoccupied with “happy little resource-extraction communities”), The Nature Conservancy […]
Posted inApril 4, 2005: Calling It Quits
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TRAGEDY IN PAONIA HCN’s home town, Paonia, Colo., population 1,500, is grieving for three children killed in an explosion at a mountain lodge outside of town. At least 16 others were injured in the March 19 blast, which was probably caused by a propane leak. Delta County Sheriff Fred McKee identified the children as 2-year-old […]
Posted inMarch 21, 2005: An Empire Built on Sand
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A VISITOR Newspaperman Bob Wick stopped in at High Country News recently. Wick, who lives in Sierra Vista, Ariz., and his brother co-own almost 40 small newspapers across the country, including the nearby Montrose Daily Press. Wick is an environmentalist as well as a publisher, but what seems to consume him most is sculpture: He […]
Posted inMarch 7, 2005: Anarchy in the Gas Fields
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BOMBS AWAY! This issue’s cover story mentions Project Plowshare, the federal government’s campaign, during the 1960s and early ’70s, to find “peaceful” uses for nuclear bombs. Longtime HCN subscriber Chuck Worley of Cedaredge, Colo., remembers it well: Worley, now 87, and his former plumbing partner, the late Fred Smith, protested the use of nuclear bombs […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 2005: Have Environmentalists Failed the West?
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FIGHTING THE GOOD FIGHT Eric Barlow, the brother of HCN board member Michele Barlow, made it onto Vanity Fair’s list of the “Best Stewards of 2004,” for his work protecting the Barlow family’s Wyoming ranch — and others like it — from oil and gas development. Eric, a veterinarian and former Marine, has been a […]
Posted inJanuary 24, 2005: Written in the Rings
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WELCOME, JODI! It takes an adventurous — and dedicated — person to leave behind a bustling urban center and a corporate paycheck to work for nonprofit wages in a small town like Paonia, Colo. But we found just such a person in Jodi Peterson, who started work in January as HCN’s news editor. She comes […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 2005: The Asphalt Graveyard
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NEW INTERNS “This is surreal,” says new High Country News intern Julie McCord of HCN’s hometown, the coal miner’s haven of Paonia, Colo., pop. 1,500. Julie was born in Jamaica and has lived in Chicago, Toronto, Panama, Mexico, Japan and Washington, D.C. She comes to us from Manhattan, where she earned her master’s degree in […]
Posted inDecember 20, 2004: Stand Your Ground
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HAPPY HOLIDAYS This will be the last issue of High Country News that you receive for a month. The staff will take an issue off to spend time with family and friends, and to frolic in the white stuff that’s been falling consistently for a week now. The next issue should hit your mailbox Jan. […]
Posted inDecember 6, 2004: Where Do We Go From Here?
A flurry of visitors
VISITORS A mild late fall/early winter has brought a few snowflakes to Paonia, and a flurry of visitors to the HCN headquarters. John Slone dropped in from Montrose, Colo. Subscribers David and Catie Karplus came through from Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks in California, where David works in utilities and grounds, and Catie studies […]
Posted inNovember 22, 2004: Conservationist in a Conservative Land
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ELECTION DAY On election day, the phones at High Country News headquarters grew silent and the office seemed as still as a tomb, so we were delighted to chat with a visiting sculptor-pilot from Telluride, Colo. Richard Arnold told us he’d been a longtime reader, but what brought him to Paonia was the Zimmerman Foundry. […]
Posted inNovember 8, 2004: Keepers of the Flame
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YOU KNOW MORE THAN WE DO If you’re flipping through this paper in search of election results, stop. Due to a fluke in our print schedule, we’re sending the issue to press on Oct. 29 — four days before election day — but it won’t hit your mailbox until Nov. 8, almost a week after […]
Posted inOctober 25, 2004: Window Shopping: Part-Time Paradise
Dear friends
A lesson the First Amendment Writer and naturalist Terry Tempest Williams came to western Colorado in early October for the 24th annual meeting of the Western Colorado Congress. She spoke to a packed auditorium about the “open space of democracy.” Williams, who just published a book by the same name, talked about the differences that […]
Posted inOctober 11, 2004: The First Family of Western Conservation
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CONGRATULATIONS Betsy and Ed Marston, HCN’s longtime editor-publisher team, are grandparents. On Sept. 18, in New York City, the Marston’s daughter, Wendy, gave birth to a 7-pound, 9-ounce baby girl, Maude Rose Marston Lehmann. Maude is bound to be one above-average kid; Wendy is a freelance writer and editor, and her husband, Ben Lehmann, works […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 2004: Life After Old Growth
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End of summer swarms During the tail end of August, as the last cobs of sweet corn were cut and sold, and local farmers began transforming their fields from verdant rows of uniform green to mazes for kids to run through, visitors flocked to High Country News. Colorado subscribers included Bobbie and Roy Wright from […]
Posted inSeptember 13, 2004: When a Boom is a Bust
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Potluck High Country News’ next thrice-yearly board meeting will take place in Portland, and we’d love to have you join us for a potluck party on Saturday, Sept. 25. It will take place at the First Unitarian Church, on the corner of 12th and Main, from 6-9 p.m. Beverages will be provided; please bring a […]
Posted inAugust 30, 2004: How Long Will it Flow?
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THE HCN FAMILY GETS A LITTLE BIGGER — AND MUCH CUTER The summer has been a fruitful one — and not just for farmers growing sweet corn, cherries, peaches and tomatoes. Within only 15 days, we were graced with two new members of the High Country News family. On July 30, Lydia Kestrel Puckett was […]
Posted inAugust 16, 2004: Journey of Rediscovery
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WALKING FOR AFFORDABLE HOUSING In mid-July, Blake Chambliss came through Paonia while out on a 800-mile walk around Colorado. The retired architect is trying to raise awareness of the state’s “affordable housing crisis.” Housing is considered affordable if it eats up less than a third of your monthly paycheck, he said. A quarter of Colorado […]
Posted inAugust 2, 2004: The Greening of the Plains
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A presidential visit Readers Nicki Leniton and Brett Nelson, schoolteachers who live in Carbondale, Colo., came by the High Country News office in mid-July driving a Ford Crown Victoria and towing a 12-foot-tall effigy of George W. Bush. The two are part of a nationwide effort by the nonprofit True Majority (founded by Ben Cohen […]