Dear Friends

Babies in the family Congratulations to Florence and Jamie Williams of Helena, Mont., on the birth of Benjamin Chesnut Williams on Thursday, July 12. Ben’s stats are 8 pounds and a shade over 20 inches long. Florence is a former HCN staffer and intern who freelances out of Helena. Her most recent HCN article was […]

Summer break Don’t search your mailbox for a July 16 issue of the paper – it won’t be there. Each summer HCNskips an issue to give our readers and staffers a small break. We’ll be back on July 30. The changing of the guard For the first time in 17 years, High Country News has […]

The board comes to Paonia Meetings of the board of the High Country Foundation are always interesting. But the June 3 meeting in Paonia was almost too interesting. It opened with longtime board member Andy Wiessner objecting to a column High Country News distributed through its Writers on the Range syndication service in early May. […]

Back from Berkeley They stayed for graduation and one last sushi dinner, but then Ed and Betsy Marston, publisher and editor of this paper, high-tailed it east from Berkeley, Calif., to Paonia, Colo., and the rural life. But while their four-month teaching stint at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, […]

A-potlucking we go The far-flung board of directors of High Country News will soon gather in Paonia, Colo., for its second meeting of the year. Following an all-day session with staff on Saturday, June 2, the board will host an evening potluck in Paonia’s shady town park on Fourth Street and North Fork Avenue. All […]

A community of readers We like to say that High Country News is driven as much by its readers as it is by the ever-changing news. Our letters to the editor are often more entertaining and informative than anything else in the paper. And many a time we have answered the office phone and listened […]

Relentless Over the years, High Country News has been blessed with many friends and supporters. Surely one of the most faithful is Connie Harvey. On more than one occasion, the longtime resident of Aspen, Colo., has made timely contributions that have kept the paper going or seeded a new endeavor, such as our Writers on […]

The Ides of March It’s hard not to get a case of spring fever these days, though Mother Nature is being her typical, contradictory self in western Colorado. Just as the first crocuses and daffodils pushed their green heads through the soil last week, a Pacific storm dumped a foot of cement-like snow on Paonia, […]

Divided waters Our lead story on the lower Rio Grande started out as a class project. Writer Megan Lardner, a graduate student in journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, traveled to El Paso and Ciudad Juarez as part of her class with freelance writer and radio producer Sandy Tolan. During his semester as a […]

Changing times The Nez Perce tribe is returning to its stolen lands. As we report in this issue, the tribe now manages wolves on 15 million acres of central Idaho wilderness, and it’s even bought back part of the Oregon homeland that Chief Joseph fought for in 1877. Though many tribes continue to struggle against […]

Winter kicks in The snow gods have smiled on Colorado’s Western Slope. Falling steadily for a week, snow has blanketed apple trees, compost heaps and coal trucks. Farmers and ranchers have reason to hope their water rights won’t be called this spring, and boaters are dreaming of a river season that lasts longer than two […]

Remember the Alamo Tim Sullivan, who survived an HCN internship last fall, has known for a long time that his home state, Utah, is a little different than the rest. He called the office recently with the latest evidence. “I’m very worried about the Mexican Army coming across our borders,” Bob Scott, a World War […]

Calling all party animals The year’s first meeting of the board of the nonprofit High Country Foundation, which governs High Country News, will be held in Phoenix, Ariz., Feb. 2-4. As is the custom with board meetings, we’ll be hosting a potluck dinner for readers from the Phoenix area. These events, held around the West […]

A skipped issue This is both the last issue of the year and the last issue for a month. In July and in early January, High Country News lets readers catch up on their reading and the staff catch up on their breathing. The next issue will be dated Jan. 15. A new printer and […]

Stop the presses! Sometimes the forces of sprawl get beaten by determined community opposition. That rare story about a small town’s successful campaign to stay small is reported in this issue by associate editor Greg Hanscom. What was almost as startling was the timing: This issue was 99 percent finished, and as far as we […]

I was 20 years old and an undergraduate wildlife biology student when I first heard David R. Brower deliver “The Sermon” at the University of Colorado. I had come to Boulder to hear the famous Archdruid, whom I had only known through Sierra Club books and magazine articles before. I knew him by reputation as […]

A forest history award On March 29, 1999, High Country News published Lynne Bama‘s story about public-land exchanges and the turn-of-the-century politics that led to checkerboarded lands in the West. Her story vividly outlined how private land came to dot public lands, and how attempts by federal agencies to consolidate their holdings led to controversy […]

Our election issue If there’s a theme for this year’s election issue, it’s that Old West politicians are under increasing attack: Our cover story reports on Washington Sen. Slade Gorton’s tough re-election battle, and Todd Wilkinson writes on p. 5 that several of Montana’s statewide races remain neck-and-neck. Western citizens are demanding more power in […]