An Olympic-sized hangover HCN associate publisher Greg Hanscom, who hails from Park City, Utah, went home during the middle of February, to experience the greatest sports show on earth. He and other family members helped officiate the Winter Olympics’ cross-country ski events, but those duties left plenty of time to revel in Olympic mania and […]
Dear Friends
Posted inMarch 4, 2002: Seed in the ground
‘His courtroom was a classroom’
“The end of an era” is how Mark Rutzick, attorney for the timber industry, describes the passing of Judge William L. Dwyer, who died Feb. 12 at 72 from complications associated with cancer and Parkinson’s disease. Although the sentiment is perhaps wishful thinking on the part of Rutzick, who lost virtually every case he brought […]
Posted inFebruary 18, 2002: Here lies the Rio Grande
Dear Friends
An educational journey Our cover story, written by associate publisher Greg Hanscom, is the last in a three-year series on the Rio Grande. It’s been quite an education. While HCN has a long history with the geography and politics of the Colorado River, the Rio Grande has always been something of a mystery to us. […]
Posted inFebruary 4, 2002: Last dance for the sage grouse?
Dear Friends
Spreading the News You may notice that the middle four pages of this issue look a bit different than usual. We’re using this special pull-out section to announce our Spreading the News fund-raising campaign, which is designed to support this organization’s evolution from a newspaper into a full-fledged multimedia organization. We’re already on our way. […]
Posted inFebruary 4, 2002: Last dance for the sage grouse?
A Great Old Broad
Celia Hunter, legendary wilderness advocate, died peacefully at home in her log cabin in Fairbanks, Alaska, on Dec. 1. She was 82. Though Celia’s work has been lauded by the nation’s major environmental groups, nothing speaks more about her life than how she lived her last days on earth. Last summer, Celia donned a drysuit […]
Posted inJanuary 21, 2002: Finding the words
Dear Friends
End of an era This issue’s cover story will be the last for a while from senior editor Michelle Nijhuis. Michelle left HCN at the end of the year to travel and pursue a freelance writing career. Her departure is a great loss for the paper. From the day Michelle arrived as an intern in […]
Posted inJanuary 21, 2002: Finding the words
Joy Belsky: ‘She made us better’
Joy Belsky, a Portland, Ore., range ecologist who rose to national prominence while crusading to boot cattle off public lands in the West, died Dec. 15 of breast cancer. She was 56. Belsky took on ranchers who, she argued, were letting their cattle trample native plants and wildlife, public agencies that she believed discriminated against […]
Posted inDecember 17, 2001: Bad moon rising
Dear Friends
Winter break It’s time for our traditional winter break, when we give staffers time to shovel their driveways and readers time to catch up on back issues of HCN.Our next issue should reach your mailboxes around Jan. 21. Covering the bases Writing and editing a cover story can take months, but even with all that […]
Posted inDecember 17, 2001: Bad moon rising
Tommie Bell: Supporter and sustainer
A woman with a vital connection to High Country News died on Nov. 19. Though her name did not often appear in the paper, Muriel “Tommie” Wilcox Bell helped sustain the publication during its formative years. The story began when Tommie bought her husband, Tom, a subscription to a Wyoming-based tabloid called Camping News Weekly. […]
Posted inDecember 3, 2001: Closing the wounds
Dear Friends
From the inside out There may be no more powerful agent for change in any agency than someone who has worked on the inside. During the 1980s, a Forest Service timber marker from Oregon named Jeff DeBonis became sick of his role in overcutting the public lands. He founded an organization for his fellow Forest […]
Posted inNovember 19, 2001: Bringing back the bosque
Dear Friends
Balmy weather It’s been an unusual fall here on Colorado’s West Slope. Unseasonably warm days and nights not only prolonged the vivid display of blazing aspens in the high country, but also kept the equally resplendent river-bottom color alive all the way into early November. The balmy air seemed to ripen leaves like fruit: Foliage […]
Posted inNovember 5, 2001: Wyoming's powder keg
Dear Friends
Never say never For decades, High Country News has monitored the rise and fall of extractive industries in the West. In recent years, we’ve joined a growing number of scholars and pundits in asserting that the West has turned a corner: Logging, mining and grazing are on their way out, even as a new amenity-based […]
Posted inOctober 22, 2001: Healing the Gila
Dear Friends
Sympathy from all over It appears that it’s the rare town, city or school that didn’t come up with a creative way to respond to the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington, D.C. Penny drives have been popular in the West, and displays of letters from kids to police and firefighters were shared […]
Posted inOctober 22, 2001: Healing the Gila
Remembering Mike
One of the country’s statesmen died Oct. 5, 2001, at the age of 98. Mike Mansfield grew up in Great Falls, Mont., and worked in the copper mines of Butte before launching one of the longest and most distinguished political careers in history. It was punctuated by his staunch opposition to the Vietnam War. Below […]
Posted inOctober 8, 2001: Whoa! Canada!
Dear Friends
Mountain-grown tomatoes This has been a great summer for tomato plants in Paonia. They grew husky. And the law of the garden jungle was repealed for 2001: The hated, voracious green tomato worms never appeared. Moreover, the plants bore lots of fruit: large, dark-green, rock-hard fruit. In a pre-cholesterol world, that would have been fine. […]
Posted inSeptember 24, 2001: River of dreams
Dear Friends
Award-winning intern Congratulations to former Daily Astorian reporters Karen Mockler and Mike Stark. The pair will share the 4th annual Dolly Connelly Excellence in Environmental Journalism Award for their three-part series on the Columbia River Estuary, titled “Life on the Brink.” The $1,000 annual award was created by Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist Joel Connelly to honor […]
Posted inSeptember 24, 2001: River of dreams
Far from out of it
The HCN offices on the morning of Sept. 11 were the same as any other place in the nation, and perhaps in the world: People quietly huddled around radios, trying to figure out what the events would mean for themselves and the future. Circulation manager Gretchen Nicholoff sweated out the hours until mid-day, when she […]
Posted inSeptember 10, 2001: The rise and fall of a desert stream
Dear Friends
In wolf’s clothing Because HCN does not cover religion, we generally do not take positions on reincarnation. However, if there is reincarnation, we expect Michael Robinson to come back as a wolf. Michael, now a staffer with the Center for Biological Diversity in Pinos Altos, N.M., and a former HCN intern, cares more about wolves […]
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
Dear Friends
About this issue Writers for this special issue about the Forest Service’s Framework for the Sierra Nevada’s 11 national forests researched and wrote their stories while taking a course in environmental journalism with Ed and Betsy Marston, the publisher and then-editor of High Country News. The couple taught the course at the Graduate School of […]
Posted inAugust 13, 2001: No refuge in the Klamath Basin
Dear Friends
Writers on the Range, redux In the Dear Friends column for June 18, 2001, we discussed HCN’s op-ed syndicate, Writers on the Range, and the extent to which it should air a variety of views. The heart of the discussion was a column by Frank Carroll, a Potlatch timber company employee. In response, we got […]