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HUGO — While kids meander among the stacks at the Hugo Public Library, 5-year-old Letty Nuffer sits cross-legged at a table concentrating on her language skills using a borrowed laptop computer that displays a fun video to show her how to pronounce consonant blends.

Thanks to a pilot project in telehealth, Letty can access therapy for her speech delay without a four-hour round trip to Denver for an in-person appointment. By checking out an equipment kit designed to facilitate a wide range of health care consultations, Letty’s mom, Kali Nuffer, can connect directly with her therapist as well as to specially designed video lessons.

The library, already an almost daily destination for Nuffer’s family, now has become the conduit for virtual doctor’s appointments for all four of her kids — just one more service that the facility offers beyond the traditional resources for residents on the Eastern Plains. Kristin Allen, the library’s director, says this year’s addition of telehealth has started to become, well, contagious.

“I’ve had several people recently call and say, ‘How can I do this? How can I get one of those kits?’” she says. “Just come down and get a library card. That’s all you need.” 

For many Coloradans, today’s library card unlocks a lot more than books or even an ever-expanding array of digital material available from 113 public library jurisdictions across the state — and that’s particularly significant for relatively far-flung rural communities whose smaller systems account for nearly 75% of the total.

The way libraries serve the public has evolved significantly over the last several years — a trend that only accelerated during the COVID pandemic, says State Librarian Nicolle Davies. She notes that libraries “leaned into technology” for the entire range of patrons, whether that involved teaching grandparents how to use video chat apps, preparing job seekers for a 21st-century workforce or helping kids advance their digital literacy.

“For years, we were really freaked out that everybody identifies us as just books, but we’re so much more,” Davies says. “And the reality is we’ve been in the (digital) space long enough now that we’re comfortable saying, ‘Yeah, we are still about books and we’re about all these other things as well.’ So it’s very surprising when people visit libraries today and find out what we’re doing and what we have, because the perception still can be outdated and antiquated.”

The pandemic necessitated a number of innovations that worked around COVID restrictions, and many of those remain. Davies, who lives in Douglas County, recalls checking out a meat-smoking kit from her local library that came complete with recipes and seasonings. She also checked out an outdoor version of the block-stacking game Jenga for the family to play.

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“There were just so many ways that the library got really creative on how to provide services to people during the pandemic,” she says.

The pandemic also elevated the role of libraries when it came to digital resources like ebooks, audiobooks, streaming movies and music, notes Sherri Baca, executive director of the Pueblo City-County Library District. She said her district reallocated its 2020 budget to pump up funding to digital vendors, embracing the “library at home” concept that meant buying fewer hard-copy books in order to meet the needs of homebound patrons with digital offerings.

“Readers are reading, but the formats are a little different, which is great,” Baca says. “I think that that’s what libraries are supposed to do, move with the times and be very relevant to our users, and get them what they need when they need it.”

That credo has provided scaffolding for public libraries’ ongoing evolution, a transformation forged in times of a devastating virus and deafening political noise — both challenging factors as library workers face burnout on one hand and, on the other, an invigorating reimagining of their role. Pushing back against the headwinds of censorship, libraries have sought to serve as patches in the social safety net, channels closing the distance between patrons and health care, and myriad other functions — while still navigating the shifting demands for information and entertainment in all its digital and analog forms.

Digital content use was escalating even before the pandemic, and COVID ratcheted the demand even higher. But for the Denver Public Library, there’s still high interest not only in bound books, but also older media formats such as CDs and DVDs, which remain popular among those who may not have access to the latest streaming technology.

“We think that’s an equity issue,” says Michelle Jeske, the city librarian and executive director of the Denver Public Library. “A lot of people still don’t have high-speed internet access or may not have great devices for downloading ebooks or streaming videos. Some people might still have a VCR or a Blu-ray player, so we’re still seeing use of those formats. And that’s why we’re continuing to buy or support that part of our collection.”

The specter of censorship

In any format, library collections nationwide have become the target of challenges — some from individuals, others orchestrated by politically motivated groups that have brought issues surrounding intellectual freedom prominently into the public discourse.

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Colorado isn’t without its conflicts, but has been far less affected than many other states. Still, lawmakers in the last legislative session passed a measure designed to reinforce the policies and procedures Colorado’s public libraries employ not only to acquire and use materials, but to deal with challenges to their content. 

James LaRue, executive director of the Garfield County Public Library District, has dealt with more than a thousand such challenges over a career in library management that includes stints as director of the Douglas County libraries as well as with the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. His book “On Censorship” explores the motives behind the challenges, which have come from across the political spectrum, and the dangers of book banning.

“It has gone from the one or two people that get upset by running across something in a library to being more centrally coordinated,” he says, noting that nationally many of the recent objections stemmed from both isolation during the pandemic that pulled some down conspiracy rabbit holes and political strategy aimed at motivating conservatives for the 2022 midterm elections — most often by objecting to books with LGBTQ content. 

Poll after poll says this is a deeply unpopular view, that 70% of either party is opposed to censorship. But why do they keep at it? Because it seems to work. It gets people riled up, and as always in America we are both obsessed with and repelled by sex.

— James LaRue, executive director of the Garfield County Public Library District

“Poll after poll says this is a deeply unpopular view, that 70% of either party is opposed to censorship,” LaRue says. “But why do they keep at it? Because it seems to work. It gets people riled up, and as always in America we are both obsessed with and repelled by sex.”

Although he notes that other states have experienced more frequent challenges, and have seen legislative efforts aimed at even criminalizing anyone who provides access to certain materials, about five states have passed what he calls “anti-censorship legislation.”

“Colorado,” he adds, “is a much happier environment.”

In particular, he notes the new state law’s emphasis on the “request for reconsideration” that challenges must go through that effectively slows the process and prevents knee-jerk reactions. The new law requires that library boards establish a written policy for reconsideration, and lists specific standards that, among several other things, require they consider the perspectives of marginalized groups.

Davies, the state librarian, says that the rancor that spills over from book challenges now appears to have gotten personal. For years, she recalls, surveys on the most trusted professions in America found librarians ranked near the top, along with firefighters. But in the last few years she has been troubled to hear the integrity of her peers disparaged, even if the spitefulness seems less prevalent in Colorado.

“We’re all librarians at the end of the day,” she says, “and so when institutions like the American Library Association are getting challenged, and everybody’s lumping our profession into having this agenda of grooming children and being pedophiles, it’s just been something I never thought I would have seen in this work.” 

The Pueblo district has had a request for reconsideration policy in effect for more than 10 years, and the passage of the new law required them to simply tweak the timeline for how often an item could be reconsidered, Baca says — from once in a 12-month period to once every two years, the most frequent allowed by the law.

Although she welcomes the attention to the issue of censorship, she estimates that in the nine years she’s been with the library system it has received only one or two requests per year for material to be reconsidered.

In Denver, Jeske estimates she sees “zero to one challenge a year — knock on wood.” Even before the new state law, DPL changed its policy to only allow Denver residents to challenge materials to block organized national challenges.

Providing a social safety net

The pandemic proved challenging in many ways, and its aftermath revealed all sorts of societal issues that had always been present but suddenly were exacerbated. Think homelessness, mental health issues and substance abuse, among others. And libraries, particularly in population centers, found themselves nudged to become more engaged when it comes to connecting those in need with social services.

“That’s nothing new, especially for the Denver Public Library being in this urban setting,” Jeske says. “I think the pandemic demonstrated to us and the community how vital we are as a public space and a place of access — for learning, for knowledge, for technology and connection to the world.”

Not to mention for clean water and a restroom.

Since 2015, the Denver Public Library has had at least one social worker on staff to serve that population. That lone hire nine years ago “seemed like a win,” Jeske says, but soon it became clear that one wouldn’t be enough. Now there’s a Community Resources team of at least 10 people, some of them “peer navigators,” people whose experience mirrors those they’re serving.

The team’s training has spilled over to the entire frontline staff so they’re better equipped to handle issues like security, de-escalation, mental health and first aid.

“We’re one of the pioneers in that space,” Jeske says.

Increasing concern over drug abuse at libraries surfaced early last year with a string of suburban Denver library closures over possible contamination from methamphetamine fumes. (There were no reports of patrons affected by exposure.) Contamination became an issue at one branch in the Pueblo district that required action to remediate exposure to the public, Baca says — though fortuitously, the branch was already scheduled to close for renovations. 

But just as libraries have adapted to community needs, they’ve also had to adopt safety measures. In Pueblo, that means installing environmental sensors in the restrooms that monitor the air in real time to detect potential hazards and immediately notify staff.

“A lot of preventative kinds of stuff,” Baca says, “and just being really active in making sure people understand what the library rules are.”

Pueblo’s library system saw another vehicle for meeting the community’s needs. Although most of the district’s facilities are clustered in the city, Baca launched the telehealth pilot in 2,000-population Colorado City, about a half-hour south of the city limits. Kits similar to the ones used in Hugo and elsewhere are available, with the added feature of a hot spot that can provide patrons mobile internet access in an area where service can be lacking — thanks in part to grant money from the Federal Communications Commission during the pandemic.

Pueblo recently received a $250,000 Mellon Foundation grant for a project aimed at collecting digital archives to preserve the local culture and history of areas that may not have the wherewithal to host the material themselves. As the regional hub for this effort, the Pueblo library will be reaching out to communities across southern Colorado to solicit audio, video or photo files that can be uploaded to help maintain the historical record.

She holds out both projects as evidence of the evolving state of public libraries as they match resources with pressing local concerns.

“So it goes back to the social supports,” Baca says. “Where are the gaps? Can the library be relevant?”

Digital literacy, broadband and health

Kieran Hixon suspected something was up when he took part in Gov. Jared Polis’ broadband initiative and learned that rural areas use telehealth at far lower rates than urban centers. The trend seemed counterintuitive, given the scarcity of medical services in rural areas.

A subsequent partnership with the state Office of eHealth Innovation explored melding telehealth services with libraries that, especially in small towns, are considered anchor institutions when it comes to broadband. And it turns out that one of the hurdles to implementing telehealth in those communities is digital literacy. 

Hixon, the rural and small library consultant within the state department of education, saw the gaps and immediately knew libraries could be relevant by combining their core mission — namely literacy, including the digital kind — and their unique ability to provide access to broadband in far-flung locations. He started calling around to small libraries to ask what they thought and found that while some were already hearing about patrons’ health concerns, they didn’t have the resources to assist them. 

“I called this one librarian and she says, ‘People are coming in, and I just don’t know how to help them. And I could sure use help to do it better,’” Hixon says. “I was like, OK, we’re onto something.”  

In partnership with Ashley Heathfield, a telehealth project manager at the Office of eHealth Innovation, Hixon combed data to find the counties with the worst health outcomes that were farthest from medical services. Then they targeted libraries in those counties and sent out an email to see who was interested.

Eventually 17 library jurisdictions, encompassing 24 buildings, signed on to the pilot project, which has been running for less than a year. Early findings include greater use of the in-library spaces than the kits. 

But in Hugo, director Allen began a “soft launch” last spring, and then started spreading the word. Two portable kits have been the most popular, with Allen scanning a barcode just as she would a book to check them out. Patrons normally have 24 to 48 hours to use the kits, though Allen remains flexible. She also fitted a mobile desk that patrons can roll into the library’s board room to use for in-library telehealth appointments with privacy.

Each kit contains a laptop computer with features like headphones with individual volume controls for the hard of hearing and large-print keyboards for the vision impaired, and an ergonomic mouse. It also includes a ring light, scale, blood pressure monitor (including cuff sizes from child to extra large adult), pulse oximeter and forehead thermometer. The kit includes a wireless hot spot to provide an internet connection to a health care provider.

Getting people to realize that libraries are available for more than just books is changing a thought process.

— Kristin Allen, Hugo Public Library director

Allen estimates that the portable kits get checked out five or six times a month, a gradual increase as the area’s “very traditional” population becomes familiar with telehealth as an option and gets used to the idea that their library can be a resource to pursue it.

“Getting people to realize that libraries are available for more than just books is changing a thought process,” Allen says. “They still get surprised when you say, ‘Oh, yeah, you can come in and make copies.’ And then you throw in being able to check out a telehealth kit, and they’re like, ‘A what?’ It’s just a whole new thing for a lot of people to wrap their heads around.”

Librarians going … and coming 

As libraries have undergone mind-bending changes, there’s been some evidence of burnout among librarians even as another generation has embraced the job for new reasons.

Davies, the state librarian, says she’s seen signs of burnout particularly among those frontline staff who deal directly with the public. She also notes what appears to be a mass retirement among those in library leadership roles, though it’s unclear whether that’s a response to librarians coming under attack over issues of content, the overarching lack of civility from the public or just demographics naturally thinning the ranks.

“Regardless of why it’s happening,” she says, “it is happening.” 

But she adds that a lot of younger people have been attracted to librarianship, prompting a spike within some programs as students seek advanced degrees in library and information science, because the shifting role of libraries has in some ways recast the profession as social justice work.

“It’s an equalizer in a community,” Davies says. “It serves everybody.” 

Allen, 44, first worked as an auto insurance claims adjuster in California, but about 14 years ago migrated to Colorado when her company moved its call center to Colorado Springs. She eventually moved to Limon after her husband took a job at the correctional facility outside of town.

With a degree in early childhood education, Allen did day care in her home. She often took her own kids to the Limon Memorial Library for story time with library director Lucille Reimer.

Describing herself as “one of those odd introverts that likes people,” Allen soon found that at the library she was completely in her element, and that comfort zone fed an innate desire to help people. It wasn’t long before Reimer, who needed some extra help, offered her a part-time job. So a few days each week, Allen learned that being a librarian involved a lot more than checking out books.

“It’s a service that you’re providing a community,” she says. “And it just spoke to my heart.”

After about a year, the position overseeing the Hugo library opened up. Reimer urged her understudy to apply. Allen hesitated — she didn’t have that much experience. But Reimer convinced her to take a shot, and she got the job.

It’s part-time, like many library jobs in rural areas, but that meant Allen could continue helping Reimer on a morning schedule in Limon before heading over to run the Hugo library in the afternoon. Now, Reimer is retiring and passing the reins in Limon to Katie Zipperer, who has been directing the library’s bookmobile, another crucial tool for serving the 2,500 square miles of Lincoln County.

“We try to do everything we can together,” says Allen, who’s in her third year directing the Hugo library. “So when we make flyers, when we do programs, it’s always the three of us working together. So it’s been great to share resources.”

When she attended CALCON, the annual gathering of library staffers from all over the state, Allen saw the world opening up. She knew she wanted even her tiny facility to be about much more than books, and suddenly she learned that bigger (and better funded) libraries were doing all sorts of things to serve their populations.

“It just opened my eyes,” she says. “When I saw what other, bigger city libraries were doing, I thought, ‘We can do that.’ I was like a blank sheet when I got here.”

While Hugo’s size and budget might be limiting, Allen’s imagination was not. She noticed the array of “tool kits” that other libraries offered — materials for crafts, sewing machines, yoga, even memory resources for Alzheimer’s patients. She went to her board and told them that Hugo wasn’t keeping up. The library could do more.

So she started small, packaging various school materials in backpacks that students could check out. After those started gaining popularity, Allen moved to providing copying services and printing services that could produce brochures, flyers and posters. Word started filtering through town that the library could offer some extras like binding and laminating, printing and faxing — Allen even started providing a notary service.

With the Lincoln County Courthouse nearby, services like those proved particularly popular.

“We’re trying to do small things,” Allen says. “We don’t have tons of room but we can add on services to make things easier for people.”

When it comes to the future, Davies figures that Colorado is “just scratching the surface” in terms of creative ways that libraries can serve their patrons.  

“Ten years ago, we didn’t have a library of things where you can check out tools and you can check out cake pans, and you can check out VR headsets or GoPro cameras,” Davies says. “Whether you’re checking out gardening tools because you live in an apartment, but you have a gardening box, you don’t need to own these things. But how cool is it that you can check it out from the library?”

As gardens around Colorado begin to overflow with tomatoes, growers and cocktail enthusiasts may find themselves crossing paths at a unique version of that particular morning drink, whether the hair of the dog or a jump-start to the day, the Bloody Mary.

In a state bursting with home gardens, farmers markets, fresh produce and a DIY spirit, it seems inevitable that the drink would move beyond syrupy, heavily processed tomato juice out of a can. A couple of Colorado establishments offer their own versions of the drink and they stepped up with tips and tricks for the home bartender to try their hand.

Visitors to the juice bar at Mt. Princeton Hot Springs near Buena Vista have come across the freshly juiced Bloody Mary this summer, recently returned to the menu after some years of absence. The Mt. Princeton version of the cocktail relies on extremely ripe local hothouse tomatoes — grown on a neighboring property that makes use of the same geothermal activity that powers the springs — juiced along with a small handful of additional vegetables, according to Tom Warren, general manager at the hot springs.

For each 16-ounce drink, he said they juice five to six tomatoes along with half a lemon, a touch of fresh garlic and three local carrots, the last of which vastly improves the texture of the juice.

“With the tomatoes only it’s very thin, but when you squeeze the carrots it’s a thicker juice,” he said. “I think in the mouth it feels better than just the really really liquidy tomato juice.”

Warren rounds out the flavor profile with a touch of Japanese oyster sauce, which takes the place of traditional Worcestershire sauce in adding a touch of savoriness to the whole package, along with a sprinkle of salt and pepper and the customer’s choice of vodka. They experimented with oyster and Worcestershire, and Warren said the Worcestershire was too strong for the milder, freshly-juiced version of the cocktail. 

“We thought with the oyster sauce, it tasted very, very good. I did taste a sample with the Worcestershire sauce, it was not bad, but it almost overwhelmed the taste of the tomato,” he said. It’s overall a relatively low-sodium approach, though they rim the glass with Tajin, a blend of chile, lime and salt.

When it comes to garnishes, Mt. Princeton sticks with its minimal approach, offering bacon as an add-on. There once was an option to add three chilled shrimp, but that became “just a nightmare to prep” because of its popularity, Warren said.

For the home enthusiast, he recommends finding high-juice tomatoes, such as the fresh local ones used at the resort. “This is a very low-structured, soft tomato that’s full of liquid content,” he said. Some varieties and underripe tomatoes, liked the ones in the big box grocery stores that are “as hard as an apple,” will have too much flesh and yield less juice. “You would juice 20 for a (cocktail).”

Warren’s biggest recommendations for making a home-juiced Bloody Mary were to buy a good juicer and be prepared to spend some time making and perfecting the cocktail. It’s a “very simple, very wholesome” drink that relies on a few quality ingredients. “The real joy to it is that none of it is from a can or a bag.”

“The best Bloody Mary I’d ever had”

In Colorado Springs, Mother Muff’s owner Susan Hirt says her menu of Marys was informed by an older, more complex version of the Mt. Princeton cocktail that she enjoyed almost 20 years ago. Inspired by “the best Bloody Mary I’d ever had,” she experimented with different vegetables and different proportions to put one on the menu years later when opening Muff’s.

Because Mother Muff’s can serve hundreds of Bloody Marys in a day, the restaurant relies on a high-quality commercial tomato juice for its base, and blends it with a “concentrate” that consists of other juices and ingredients. The concentrate is made by juicing carrots, celery, cucumber, green and red bell peppers, beets (for color), jalapeño and a secret seventh ingredient in big batches using heavy-duty Breville juicers. They pass the initial pulp through a second time to ensure that they’re getting as much juice as possible for their effort and then freeze the concentrate

“At first we juiced every couple of days, because it only stays fresh for three or four days,” Hirt said. “I wanted to keep it as fresh as possible, and as veggie as possible. We came up with making it in big batches and freezing it.”

Vegetables get cleaned and chopped for ease of processing, but none are peeled. Once everything is processed, the vegetable juice is dosed with Tabasco and Worcestershire sauces and is ready to be added to the tomato juice.

For the home mixologist, Hirt recommended the approach she took to develop the Mother Muff’s recipe: juicing a few cups of a variety of vegetables, then playing with the proportions. She had a cucumber-heavy version that she liked, but it was less popular with tasters, so she dialed down the cucumber and turned up the peppers, carrots and other ingredients. “The beet helps to give it that juicy, earthy flavor, but it’s also for color,” she said. Without it, Muff’s mix is more brown than red.

Removing the seeds from the jalapeños or other peppers can impact the flavor profile and the level of heat, and she suggested substituting poblanos for the home mixologist who prefers it mild. She’s used Anaheim peppers in a pinch, as well.

“Don’t be afraid to try different things if it’s for yourself, for a party,” she advised. “It really is endless, the things you can juice. I think apple might be a really great minor ingredient if you’re looking for something different.”

Muff’s offers a variety of additional customizations that customers can explore or the home bartender can take inspiration from. There are choices that stray from vodka or house-infused poblano vodka — with offerings that include gin, rum, whiskey and tequila — and garnishes that range from the typical olive and celery stalk to bolder choices such as a pickle spear, bacon, blue cheese-stuffed olives and pepperoncini. 

Other tweaks, often based on regional interpretations, include Clamato instead of tomato juice, or augmenting the drink with olive juice, pickle juice, sriracha, wasabi, porter-style beer, and even beef broth. 

“There are different kinds of Bloody Marys depending on where you are in the United States,” Hirt said. “Where I grew in in Illinois, they put beef broth into ‘em, which I think is kinda gross, but it’s on there. Years and years and years ago, I stole a recipe from a bartender at The Keg Lounge in Manitou — who is now a regular, by the way, which I love — he put a little bit of porter beer in his Bloody Mary. It was something really unique that’d I’d never tried. It was really good, so it’s on there.”

So whether or not it includes clams or beef, Mother Muff’s illustrates the diversity of the drink. There are countless roads that the tender of a Bloody Mary bar can explore to make the drink their own, and the next great iteration might just come from a basket of fresh farmers market ingredients.

A basic tomato juice recipe

3 pounds very ripe tomatoes, cored and roughly chopped
1¼ cup chopped celery, including leaves
⅓ cup chopped onion
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 pinch of black pepper
A couple of shakes of Tabasco sauce (6-8 drops, to taste)

This recipe can be made using the cooked method, recommended by simplyrecipes.com, or using one of these no-cook methods (including putting the ingredients through a countertop juicer) recommended by alphafoodie.com.

We tested the recipe using the blender method using extremely ripe field tomatoes and substituting two carrots for the sugar.

BERTHOUD — Parents everywhere hear the call of the wild, especially in the summer months, and one of the most common refrains is, “Can we go to the park?”

For many parents it might be a relief, a chance to shoo them out of the house like a miller moth. Yes! Go to the park! But for Lauren Bowling, that refrain is anything but a chance to unwind. It means work. It means nearly two hours in the car. It means a whole afternoon. 

Lauren and her husband, Richard, have twin boys they call walking miracles. Miles and Mack had twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome and were week-to-week starting about 12 weeks into her pregnancy, Lauren said, until they were delivered by emergency cesarean section at 28 weeks. The babies scrapped and survived, and the boys are now age 7. Mack is as able-bodied as they come and Miles has no cognitive problems, which gives the Bowlings oodles of gratitude. It really could have been much worse.

But Miles has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair to get around. This means not every park will work, including all the available playgrounds in Berthoud, where he lives with his parents, Mack and an older brother, Braxton.

This will change by next spring and possibly a lot sooner, thanks to the Berthoud Adaptive Park Project. The park will be Berthoud’s first inclusive playground of any kind, but this one will be one of the most inclusive in northern Colorado, with a surface he can roll on and swings, monkey bars and a merry-go-round, all adapted so Miles can have fun, too. Berthoud broke ground on the park on May 29. 

“The monkey bars are built so kids in wheelchairs can pull themselves through,” Lauren said. “Miles will be able to play on monkey bars with other boys.”

Berthoud launched the park thanks to the Bowlings, who raised money for it with a ridiculously successful lemonade stand (this year’s annual event raised more than $13,000, for a total of $53,000 over four years) and the help of Can’d Aid, a Longmont nonprofit launched in 2013 by craft-brew-in-a-can pioneer Dale Katechis. It also took some haranguing, the kind parents of disabled children learn to do as their offspring grow up enough to explore the outside world and realize some things aren’t the same for them.

Haranguing, even a few years ago, was how inclusive parks were built. Now parks departments realize that an adaptive park doesn’t mean building a ramp so kids can sit in their wheelchair while other kids run by them. Denver, in fact, tries to be inclusive with every new park. 

“Now people are realizing that accessible is not inclusive,” said Juliet Dawkins, who started LuBird’s Light Foundation with Jason, her husband, for their daughter, Lucia, after her nickname. “Even if you have a smooth surface, a wheel-able surface, if you don’t have a piece of equipment for them to play on, what’s the point?”

Most of Colorado’s larger cities have at least one inclusive park, and the movement is trickling down to towns such as Berthoud, with a population of 12,000. 

Yet parents still need to show up, speak up and make sure they are heard, Bowling said, despite emphasizing in her speech at the groundbreaking that she couldn’t have done it without the help of many others. She had to help push community fundraising for the park toward its $1.6 million goal, after all. 

“There were times I got intimidated by our grand goal, and anytime that happened, someone in the community reached out and would reinvigorate me,” Bowling said. “But I don’t think it would have happened without me pushing. It feels gross to say that, because so many helped lift me, but no, I don’t.” 

Where you belong (really)

This year’s theme of the National Recreation and Park Association is “Where You Belong.” That’s intentional, said Kara Kish, director of parks and recreation for the city of Loveland.

“A lot don’t feel they do belong,” Kish said. “But in the last five years, universal access has been the new standard. The primary drive is the commitment to be in service to everyone.” 

Cities across the country, including Loveland, Denver and many others, have revamped their recreation departments to not only offer programs specifically for those in disabled communities but adjust any class or sport to make it accessible if someone requests it. 

Parks are a harder commitment, but they are working on it. Loveland’s spent the past decade, Kish said, to make all its parks compliant with the American for Disabilities Act.

ADA standards, however, aren’t always fun, and that’s why parks departments are looking beyond them. Loveland broke ground April 22 on the 160-acre Willow Bend Natural Area and Universal Access Playground, which will feature the city’s first universally accessible playground — 12 acres. Loveland hopes it will be ready by spring. 

“Universal access goes beyond physical limitations,” said Bryan Harding, Loveland’s parks and recreation planning manager. “It runs the whole gamut. We won’t have everything for everybody but we will have something for everyone.” 

The park will feature play equipment designed to be used with other people, with a concrete slide, for instance, that’s extra wide and doesn’t cause static that can knock out pacemakers and bother those with hearing difficulties, as well as bathrooms with oversized stalls and adult changing tables. There will be tools for sensory play as well, which can be soothing for those with autism and other similar issues. There’s even charging stations for mobility devices such as electric wheelchairs. 

Concrete slides are a new concept, but it’s likely able-bodied kids will like them better as well, Harding said, since they don’t get nearly as hot as metal or plastic slides. Inclusive swings and merry-go-rounds are still loved and used regularly by everyone as well. 

“Inherently when you improve upon something,” Harding said, “it serves everyone better.” 

“We want people to be together”

Denver Parks and Recreation now considers whether a park is universally accessible and inclusive instead of buying a piece of equipment and calling it good. 

“It’s a conversation we are going to have every time a park is in the planning stage,” said Owen Wells, the district park planning supervisor for Denver Parks and Recreation. “We’ve had a lot of conversations with families and advocacy groups. They’ve helped us understand what makes parks inclusive. We’ve been learning over time.” 

Sometimes parks departments were the opposite of inclusive even when they meant well. Buying a single piece of adaptive equipment can be anything but inclusive.

“The idea is we want people to be together,” Wells said. “It doesn’t meet that goal if a kid is playing on a piece of equipment in a section of the park by himself.”

Parks and recreation departments and the equipment providers that serve them nationwide are doing their best to learn, Wells said. Denver’s focused on inclusive playgrounds for a bit now — Wells said it’s been a focus since he started working for Denver four years ago, and it was before he got there — and it’s now so commonplace that even towns such as Berthoud do their best. 

“I think we are in a moment where the industry is evolving a little bit,” Wells said. 

There are also limitations, Wells said. Some of Denver’s 175 parks were built during World War I and aren’t easy to retrofit, as accessible equipment can be much larger. Cost can also be an issue, although that may depend on the cities, as some said the equipment they found was a lot more expensive. Wells agreed that adaptive equipment costs more but also said fitting the equipment in older parks was a bigger constraint. 

“Is it backbreaking? No,” Wells said of the cost.

The fight continues

Yet with all the thinking on a citywide level about inclusive parks, there are still people fighting for more of them. Sarah Spiller, a physical therapist for Academy School District No. 20 in Colorado Springs, has a hard time recommending a park for her families in Colorado Springs. 

“Our closest one that’s accessible in our area is 30 minutes away,” Spiller said. 

There are three inclusive parks in Colorado Springs, she said, including Panorama Park, which she calls “wonderful.” But from the school district where she works, it’s 35 minutes away. 

Colorado Springs wants to work with her, she said, but said it is hamstrung by tens of millions of dollars in deferred maintenance on its parks. Many parks were built in the early 1990s, she said. But the city told her that if she could raise money for it, the city would match her contribution. 

She’s also spoken with an HOA that might be willing to donate money for a neighborhood park if they could use the grounds for free for events like Easter egg hunts. Maybe parks companies would donate a piece of adaptive equipment. 

“I need to create an organization and meet again with parks and rec,” Spiller said. “We will see.”

Spiller’s push is the kind of initiative that LuBird oundation wants to see, even if Dawkins does agree that parks and recreation departments are taking a lot more initiative on inclusive parks. 

“Whenever there’s a new park, generally cities will present plans to the public, and there are questions like, ‘Do you want a regular swing or a support swing?’,” Dawkins said. “Parents should advocate for that.”

There are certain pieces that LuBird pushes for nearly every time a new park gets built, such as surface merry-go-rounds and supportive swings, things that Dawkins calls “a slam dunk.” 

“It’ll be awhile before every park is inclusive every time,” Dawkins said. “But at the minimum, you can have those pieces and add more from there.” 

The park in Berthoud won’t be ready for kids until late fall, and it’s possible the rubber surface won’t be ready until the spring. They are planning a grand opening for Memorial Day. 

Bowling sees the park less as a way for her to avoid driving long distances as a real chance for Miles to be a typical boy whenever he wants. He can ask his mother if he can go to the park, and Bowling, finally, will be able to shoo him out the door. 

“He’ll be able to roll out the garage door and go down the block and play safely with his friends,” Bowling said. “That’s something I wish for every child.”

The moment Jordan Alvillar learned about two years into their marriage that her wife no longer wanted to have kids, her life and the future she had long imagined came to a screeching halt.

“It was like you were driving a car full speed toward what you think is going to be your final destination,” Alvillar, 37, said. “All of a sudden someone who’s not you just slams on the brakes. I felt very devastated and it took me a long time to process those feelings.”

Over the next year, as the pair dissected their differences in weekly therapy sessions, that devastation slowly disintegrated. In its place, Alvillar — who discovered she also wanted to live childfree — found a sense of relief.

Freedom, even.

The Denver couple’s decision to pass on having children is one story feeding into a trend of declining birth rates in metro Denver — where the impacts of slowing births have already trickled into classrooms, with smaller numbers of kids showing up to elementary schools. 

Denver County experienced the second-largest decline in births among the 100 most populous counties in the country from 2021 to 2022 — the most recent year of county-by-county data available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The number of babies born dropped 6.3%, to 8,649 from 9,232.

Meanwhile, Colorado’s total fertility rate is down, with fewer babies born per woman over her lifetime. Data shows an average of 1.5 births among Colorado women and an average of 1.6 births among women nationally. To fully replace Colorado’s population, the average total fertility rate would have to jump to 2.1, according to Colorado State Demographer Elizabeth Garner.

The freefall in births marks a generational shift and follows birth trajectories of both the U.S. and other developed nations as more millennials choose to have fewer — or no — kids. 

Last year, the country’s total fertility rate dropped to 1,616.5 births per 1,000 women, The New York Times reported last week, calling it “a historic low” that is well below the rate needed to maintain the U.S. population. The New York Times also reported in July on the rising number of U.S. adults who say they expect to remain childfree, citing a Pew Research Center study from 2023. Among the results, 47% of adults younger than 50 without kids indicated “they were unlikely ever to have children,” up 10 percentage points since 2018.

Climate anxiety, finances, ratchet anxiety about parenting

Why are adults at a ripe reproduction age opting for childfree households or fewer children than previous generations?

Their answers differ, often driven by deeply personal reasons.

In some cases, distress outside the home alters decisions made inside it. That was especially true during the housing crisis of the Great Recession and the pandemic’s health and economic challenges. Both moments of history spawned a decline in birth rates.

“That instability, that lack of certainty made people feel that they wanted to have fewer children,” Jennifer Reich, a professor of sociology at the University of Colorado Denver, told The Colorado Sun.

The kinds of social support people have access to, including parental leave policies and health insurance, also affect whether they see kids in their future, Reich said, noting that as governments scale back social safety nets, birth rates tend to go down.

At the same time, pressure on parents has been mounting, with parents feeling greater anxiety about their children’s success and an overwhelming sense of responsibility to enroll in high-quality day care, pick the right school and sign up for traveling sports teams.

“Our cultural expectations of what it means to be a good parent keep ratcheting up,” Reich said. The expectation that parents, particularly mothers, invest more in each child “can make parenting feel like more work.”

Other adults want to focus on their education and careers or find meaning in ways besides having kids. Some feel strapped by student debt, stressed about the worsening effects of climate change or worried about what the country’s future looks like amid sharp political divides, Reich said.

“They’re personal choices,” she said, “but they’re drawing on cultural and social information that help them shape their priorities for their family.”

Much of the overall drop in births has been driven by significant declines in babies born to women under 35, particularly under the age of 25, largely thanks to better access to effective contraceptives, according to Sara Yeatman, a professor of health and behavioral sciences at CU Denver.

Young adults on average still want to have two kids, but that desire often starts to wane in their 30s, Yeatman said, in part because of the escalating price of child care and housing. 

“It’s really, really expensive,” said Yeatman, who also runs the CU Population Center. “And so even if people might have one, they then revise their desires down to not have that second child because of how expensive it is.”

“The threat of regret”

Alvillar, who changed her mind about kids after years of anticipating having a family, has found happiness in her own rhythm with her wife, which includes room for their shared love of travel along with more ease to plot out how they want to spend their time and ever-growing bonds with their nieces, nephews and friends’ kids.

Alvillar said that while growing up she never had a role model who chose to be childfree. That meant that having kids seemed “inevitable,” she said.

“It just felt like a societal expectation that was ingrained in me and it was portrayed both in real life and in movies as a crucial life milestone that I was advised not to overlook,” Alvillar said. “I like to call it ‘the threat of regret.’ People saying, ‘you’re never going to know a love like this and if you don’t (have kids), one day you’re going to be on your deathbed wishing you did.’ That can really get people, and I think that for a long time, it really convinced me that it was just an experience I shouldn’t miss out on, and therefore I was just chasing a feeling.”

Through regular therapy with her wife, Alvillar came to realize that her long-held reasons for wanting kids were the wrong ones.

Other forces have also factored into her decision to plow forward without children, including her mental health — she has struggled with anxiety and depression since childhood — along with the uncertainty of the world.

“I think that even just looking at the state of the world, whether it be world wars that are happening, whether it be climate change, there’s no guarantee of how our world is going to look in the next 20 years and that children and families are going to be thriving,” Alvillar said. “They’re not necessarily thriving now, so it feels like an ultimate gamble to just put all this faith into the powers that be in our country or in the world that the world is going to be in a pristine state to where any child we would have would just have the greatest opportunities possible when that currently doesn’t exist.”

Reich, of the University of Colorado Denver, noted that public judgment often rears up in conversations about childbearing — deeming people who don’t want to have children as selfish or condemning parents who have more children than they can afford.

The better question, she said, is “how can we set up better opportunities where people who are parenting have the resources they need to be successful?”

Susan Ahmad, who lives in Commerce City, felt a pull to have kids in her early 20s as someone who has been close with her family and grew up devoted to family traditions and expectations, even helping raise her younger siblings.

By the time she turned 30, she began branching out in her own direction.

“I started living my life for myself and not for others and the expectations of what was thought to be for me,” said Ahmad, now 38.

Ahmad climbed up in her career and leaned into traveling, aiming to visit one new destination a year.

In 2022, however, she unexpectedly stepped into the role of parent after adopting her nephew when her older sister died. He still considers her his aunt, but she has taken on all the responsibilities of a mother, sorting out issues at school and cuddling with him at night during his first year of living with her.

She said adopting her nephew only reinforced her decision to not have her own children. Her family has battled challenges with addiction and mental health. Ahmad has faced struggles with mental health and has feared passing them down to kids of her own. She knows guilt would follow.

She also has seen firsthand how many children in foster care need a home while navigating the adoption process for her nephew. If she had her own kids, she said she might not have had the finances or bandwidth to bring her nephew, now 11, under her roof.

“Where would he be?” she wonders.

With dwindling birth rates eventually comes the prospect of school closures

Colorado’s population demographics make it one of the youngest states in the country with its long history of luring 20- to 40-year-olds seeking good jobs and access to the outdoors, said Garner, the state demographer.

“If we didn’t migrate people to the state, we would age really fast,” Garner said.

Her office is forecasting the birth rate to taper and hold steady, though she anticipates that the state’s share of women of childbearing age will grow, meaning the state could see a modest increase in the number of babies born until sometime around 2040. That increase will likely result in birth numbers that are slightly higher than birth figures in 2007.

However, those births will play out differently county by county. For example, Adams County is a younger county than its neighbors and will therefore likely see a greater uptick in births. Jefferson County is on the opposite end of the spectrum, with older residents, Garner said. 

Among the most immediate consequences of declining births and birth rates: Fewer kids showing up to elementary schools in recent school years.

Metro area school districts have had to wrestle with hard decisions in recent years while seeing smaller cohorts of students. Other district leaders in the metro area know that tough decisions loom ahead.

Closing 21 schools over the past three years — largely because of dwindling enrollment — has been among the most difficult work Jeffco Public Schools has faced, Superintendent Tracy Dorland told The Sun.

The district educated 76,172 students in preschool through high school last year after steady enrollment declines since the 2015-16 school year, when 86,708 students attended the district, state data shows.

Meanwhile, Jefferson County’s birth rate has also fallen — from 61 babies born per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44 in 2007 to 50 babies born per 1,000 women in that age range in 2022. The number of babies born dropped from 6,194 in 2007 to 5,521 in 2022.

The arduous process of closing schools has revised the way the district is planning for its future. Dorland said the district worked with an outside expert to complete a boundary study, which “confirmed that just changing school boundaries and shifting students around will not change the challenge of declining enrollment.”

If the expected trends from the boundary study hold, Jeffco Public Schools will likely have to consider more school consolidations in the 2028-29 school year, Dorland said.

With the study as a road map, the district is also redesigning the way it assembles plans for buildings, analyzing enrollment trends and projections as well as locations when figuring out infrastructure needs.

“It’s really important to me that given our recent history,” Dorland said, “significant financial investments are made in facilities that we are confident will serve our students far into the future.”

In Denver Public Schools, Colorado’s largest school district, leaders continue to plan for student population declines, according to Deputy Superintendent Tony Smith.

Last year, DPS educated 88,235 students in preschool through high school, state data shows. Enrollment has fluctuated throughout the past few years — partly due to migrants arriving in Denver — but overall remains down. The district saw its highest enrollment in the past decade during the 2019-20 school year, when 92,112 kids attended its schools.

Denver County’s birth rate has also continued to dip. In 2007, 75 babies were born per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44, compared with 44 per 1,000 women in that age group in 2022. The number of births decreased to 8,140 in 2022 from 10,084 in 2007.

District and board leaders have hemmed and hawed over school consolidations in recent years because of enrollment being down. The board, however, did approve closure of two elementary schools and one middle school in 2023.

More are likely on the way after the board in June adopted a policy that directs Superintendent Alex Marrero on how to go about proposing school closures.

Smith told The Sun that the district is contemplating new consolidation conversations and said leaders must develop a possible timeline and better understand how potential closures would affect communities.

“No one wants to shut down a school,” Smith said. “We are faced with the reality of declining enrollment that may present us with the choices that will include consolidation and closure of schools.”

Douglas County School District is also eyeing potential school consolidations, likely beginning in 2026 in Highlands Ranch. Like some of its peer districts, Douglas County School District is hammered by both declining births and an aging population, Superintendent Erin Kane said.

District enrollment has wobbled up and down in the past few years but was significantly down last year to 61,964 students in preschool through high school from its decade high of 67,597 students during the 2017-18 school year, according to state data.

Douglas County’s birth rate has also plunged from 72 babies born per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44 in 2007 to 54 babies born per 1,000 women in that age bracket in 2022. The number of births fell to 3,849 in 2022 from 4,205 in 2007.

And yet pockets of the district are experiencing growth, including Sterling Ranch west of Highlands Ranch. The community doesn’t have its own elementary school, even as it will encompass about 18,000 homes, Kane said.

Douglas County School District’s board later this month plans to vote on running a bond election in November, in part to fund a few new community schools where they’re needed.

“We want to make sure we’re investing in all of our schools, including in our schools where we do need to do consolidations,” Kane said. “Investing in those schools and opportunities for kids is important everywhere.”

GRAND JUNCTION — Prosecutors walked jurors through the complicated system behind vote counting in the first week of former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters’ trial. They questioned witnesses who showed step-by-step how Peters allegedly invaded that system in her attempt to prove the 2020 election was fraudulent.

Even though election conspiracy theories are not allowed in the trial and Peters is not charged with election fraud, the testimony has tiptoed around some of the numerous tentacles of national stolen-election theories. 

The testimony so far has shown that election deniers descended on Mesa County when they found a clerk willing to accept their election-fraud theories.

Among the prominent right-wing figures cited by prosecution witnesses was Ron Watkins, the former administrator of the website that hosts the QAnon conspiracy. Famous election deniers MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and math teacher Douglas Frank also figured into testimony, along with former professional surfer turned self-described “cyber expert” Conan Hayes and right-wing activist Sherronna Bishop.

Peters is being tried on seven felonies and three misdemeanors alleging identity theft, criminal impersonation, official misconduct, and violating her duties as county clerk. Her trial is expected to run through next week and possibly into the following week.

In cross-examination of prosecution witnesses, Peters’ team of four defense attorneys and a phalanx of their clerks and consultants, attempted to show that Peters broke no laws when she breached her own system. They drew testimony that the breach was her way of trying to ensure the election in her county was accurate.

How the prosecution started

The prosecution opened its case with a detailed account of Peters’ actions delivered by James Cannon, the chief investigator for the 21st Judicial District Attorney’s Office.

Cannon laid out the steps he took in an investigation he began on Aug. 9, 2021, when his office received a call from the office of the Colorado Secretary of State notifying him that the election system for Mesa County had been hacked and images of operating systems and passwords had been posted on a QAnon website.

Within two days, Cannon had obtained search warrants for homes and offices linked to Peters and her elections office. He had yellow crime tape draping secure sections of the elections office. He had locks changed on secure rooms. He had checked all county records to determine who might have illegally entered the tabulation room during what is called a trusted build. 

That has been described in the trial as a system upgrade that is similar to periodic cellphone updates — but with tight controls over who can be in attendance. 

In this case it was supposed to be a handful of representatives from the clerk’s office, the Secretary of State’s Office and Dominion Voting Systems, the maker of the voting system in use in Mesa County and most other counties in Colorado.

One of those listed on the slate of trusted build attendees was Gerald Wood, who was identified as an administrative assistant for Peters.

Wood, a local man who has been mentioned at the heart of the Peters’ case since it first blew up into a national story three years ago, told the jury he was ensnared in the election-office crimes when he was asked by Peters and Bishop to take a consulting job with the clerk’s office. 

Wood, a 32-year software engineer for an alarm-monitoring company, came into Peters’ orbit when he joined a conservative Mesa County group called Stand for the Constitution. Wood said it was initially organized for educating citizens about the Constitution, but evolved into a political conspiracy-promoting group that included Peters.

Wood agreed to do consulting work for Peters and, after passing a background check, was issued a badge to enter secure elections areas. Peters’ assistant clerk asked Wood to return the badge before he ever did any work. It was never returned to him.

Wood, who was questioning election integrity at the time, did attend Lindell’s Cyber Symposium in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, as a cyber-expert participant. Peters was also at that symposium where confidential election information from Mesa County was publicized. It purportedly showed that Dominion Election Systems could change election results.

Wood said the symposium was touted as an event where proof of election fraud would be revealed. He said it was not.

Man’s home was raided when he was a “cybersecurity” symposium

While he was there, Wood got news that his home had been searched by law enforcement officers and that his name was being publicized nationally as a participant in election-system hacking in Mesa County. 

Using Wood’s access badge and identification, Hayes had allegedly entered the area that was off-limits during a time when security cameras in the tabulation room were turned off. Employees testified that it was the first time in memory that those cameras had been turned off.

The plot came together after Peters became enmeshed with election deniers intent on showing that former President Trump had not lost the 2020 election, according to prosecution witness Brandi Bantz.

Bantz, Mesa County’s director of elections, described being called into Peters’ office for a meeting where Frank and Peters were present along with two other Peters’ employees who have since taken plea deals and been sentenced for their parts in the election-system breach.

Bantz said she was asked by Peters to leave that meeting and was ordered to attend a stolen-election seminar being given by Frank that evening at a Grand Junction hotel.

She said she was uncomfortable.

“Theories were being discussed — theories about voter fraud,” Bentz told the jury. “I do not support those theories.”

Frank was promoting the idea across the country that voting tabulation systems allowed for “phantom voters” to sway election outcomes. He said he was doing it at the behest, and on the payroll, of Lindell.

“I think it’s a feather in your cap if we discover this corruption in your county,” Frank was recorded telling Peters and her subordinates during a meeting in Peters’ office on April 23, 2021. Part of that meeting was recorded by Peters’ election manager, Stephanie Wenholz, who also testified that she was uncomfortable with the election-conspiracy information seeping into the Mesa County office.

She called investigator Cannon sobbing when she felt she needed to report what was going on.

During the meeting that upset her, Frank offered to bring in a team to find phantom voters on Mesa County’s system.

“They will do it for you. They are the best in the country,” he said on the recording played during the trial.

Peters’ defense team spent much of Friday afternoon trying to poke holes in the testimony of Wood who told jurors he did not remember many dates and faces and conversations associated  with his activities that are linked to the Peters’ case.

At the end of his testimony as a prosecution witness, defense attorney Daniel Hartman caused a stir in the courtroom when he shoved a paper at Wood in an attempt to subpoena him as a defense witness. Wood left the courtroom without taking it. The exchange came after the jury had been dismissed from the courtroom. 

Judge Barrett later ruled that attempted serving of a subpoena was “ineffective”  because an attorney is not allowed to serve a witness.

The trial will continue Monday with two more days expected for the prosecution’s witnesses before the defense presents its case.

By Andrew Dampf, The Associated Press

SAINT-DENIS, France — American-born Palestinian runner Layla Almasri realizes the weight of responsibility that she and her team carry at the Paris Olympics.

It’s about far more than merely competing.

“I think I can speak for all eight of us here at the Olympics,” Almasri said after competing in the 800 meters Friday. “We’re definitely diplomats for our people as well as athletes.”

It’s a role that’s reinforced every time she turns on the TV or looks at her phone and sees images of people struggling in Gaza during the Israel-Hamas war.

“Every single time. It’s really difficult to see,” Almasri said. “Mothers with my mother’s face on them. Children who look like me when I was a kid. It’s heartbreaking. And it almost feels like I was just hit with a strike of lightning, of luck, to be able to live somewhere where I don’t have to face the things that they’re facing.”

So it hardly mattered that Almasri finished last in her heat and 48th of the 49 finishers in the 800 heats — ahead of a competitor from Kosovo.

“I wasn’t even looking at the clock,” she said. “Just soaked in the moment. The crowd was really what I was focused on. And of course (I had) the best view in the house watching that race. Right on the track.”

After her father left Nablus for Colorado, Almasri was born and raised in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Last year, she earned a master’s degree in health promotion from the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, where she’s now an assistant coach for the women’s cross-country team.

She grew up eating Palestinian food and always has felt connected to her father’s homeland.

“It’s in my blood and it’s in my heart,” said Almasri, who won a bronze medal in the 1,500 at the Arab athletics championships last year.

Almasri first visited Nablus two years ago.

“It was beautiful,” she said. “It was home. All my cousins, all my aunts and uncles are there. So I just immediately fit right in.”

Palestine Olympic Committee president Jibril Rajoub has said about 400 athletes of varying levels are estimated to have died since October. The war began after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing approximately 1,200. The war has killed more than 39,200 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count.

Perhaps the most prominent Palestinian athlete to die in the war was long-distance runner Majed Abu Maraheel, who in 1996 in Atlanta became the first Palestinian to compete in the Olympics. He died of kidney failure earlier this year after he was unable to be treated in Gaza and could not be evacuated to Egypt, Palestinian officials said.

“We have a guy I raced with last year who’s been stuck in Gaza,” Almasri said. “He’s very talented and he’s still in Gaza.”

The attention on the Palestine team has been big inside the athletes village.

“Everybody wants a pin. We’re stopped for photos in the dining hall constantly,” Almasri said. “It’s really incredible to see how many people are really surprised to see us and happy to see us.”

There is no extra security for the Palestinians.

“Fortunately, we don’t need it and we don’t have any,” Almasri said. “We’re really lucky to have such a positive environment to be in.”

Have the Palestinians crossed paths with members of the Israeli team?

“We see them, but it’s just business as usual,” Almasri said. “We’re focused on ourselves and we’re sure they’re focused as well.”

Story first appeared in:

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS

Fifteen years ago, Jennifer and Adam Fernley came across an abandoned hilltop cabin for sale in the northwestern Colorado community of Stagecoach. 

Overrun with mice and other rodents, the house had been flooded by frozen pipes.

But the couple knew immediately they’d found their slice of paradise.

A house painter by trade, Adam took on the work of repair.

With sweeping mountain views across the rural corner of southern Routt County, the cabin sits on a 1-acre lot surrounded by scrub oak trees.

The only sound that can be heard from the back deck is the chirping of birds.

The Fernleys have raised their daughters in the house and don’t plan to ever leave.

The girls, now 12 and 16, say they also want to stay in the house forever. 

But right now the whole family is worried about their future as an Arizona-based operator with 35 private resorts worldwide moves ahead with a proposal to turn a large portion of their community into Stagecoach Mountain Ranch, a lavish members-only ski and golf resort similar to the Yellowstone Club in Big Sky, Montana.

“The whole thing is so overwhelming it keeps me up at night,” Adam said.

The Fernleys live across the road from the deserted Stagecoach ski area, about 15 miles south of Steamboat Ski Resort. With a vertical drop of 2,400 feet, it operated with three lifts from 1972 to 1974, when the owners, the Woodmoor Corporation, declared bankruptcy before completing a plan to build 16 subdivisions, a golf course, equestrian center and marina on Stagecoach Reservoir.  The new developer, Discovery Land Company, plans to build 700 luxury homes with exclusive access to skiing, golfing and fly fishing on the Yampa River.

Environmental concerns

Retired ecology professor Bob Woodmansee lives just down the road from the Fernleys. He recently wrote a methodical “manifesto” in opposition to the proposed development in the community where he and his wife have lived for 19 years. 

Woodmansee, a professor emeritus at Colorado State University’s Colorado Water Center, has nearly 60 years of teaching and research in ecosystem science and sustainability.

He also served as a Routt County planning commissioner and on the board of the Upper Yampa Water Conservancy District, which manages the Stagecoach Reservoir, the large lake to the north of Discovery’s planned resort.

“Biologically and ecologically it could be a disaster,” he said.

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Woodmansee’s ire is focused on the plan for a lakefront golf course. 

“Stagecoach Reservoir is already listed as an ‘imperiled’ waterbody for water quality by state and federal agencies,” Woodmansee writes in his paper, which is being circulated around the neighborhood and being used to bolster opposition. 

Before the developer even begins its plan to use nutrient-rich treated wastewater to irrigate the golf course, Woodmansee said the ripping out and organic decomposition of the sagebrush ecosystem during construction will release large amounts of nutrients into the lake, which could lead to toxic algal blooms.

Woodmansee is 82 and recently diagnosed with heart problems. He doubts he will live to see the resort built if it is approved by Routt County. But that won’t stop him from fighting it now. 

“I look at this battle as my last swan song,” he said. 

Room enough for the rich

Stagecoach has been growing and attracting more wealth — a trend only accelerated by the pandemic. It is a “targeted growth area” in the 2022 Routt County Master Plan. Two other new subdivisions, northwest of where Discovery hopes to build, are currently in the planning process.

But the exclusivity around the Discovery proposal feels to many Stagecoach residents like they are confronting an entirely different degree of development. 

Stagecoach Mountain Ranch will be similar to the Discovery-managed Yellowstone Club, where members include Tom Brady, Bill Gates and Justin Timberlake. 

The whole thing is so overwhelming it keeps me up at night.

— Adam Fernley, Stagecoach resident

The Yellowstone Club is a self-contained haven where 864 members and their guests never carry their skis or wait in lift lines, always have fresh powder (the club trademarked the phrase “private powder” at the 2,700-acre ski area in 2006) and pay a $400,000 initiation fee to move into the neighborhood and $60,000 in annual dues. That’s after they purchase a home — the low end being $6 million for a one-bedroom condo. 

In his 2020 book “Billionaire Wilderness: The Ultra-Wealthy and the Remaking of the American West,” Yale professor Justin Farrell writes that “the Yellowstone Club represents the pinnacle, or inevitable telos, of the trajectory of extreme wealth concentration in the United States.”

Farrell focuses his book on the staggering collective wealth — and wealth gap — in the Wyoming county that includes Jackson Hole ski area, a 175-mile drive south of the Yellowstone Club, where 90% of income is made by 8% of households.

As to why extreme wealth has a rapidly increasing presence in the Mountain West, Farrell writes, “Burdened by social stigmas, status anxiety and feelings of inauthenticity or guilt, the ultra-wealthy use nature and rural people as a vehicle for personal transformation, creating versions of themselves they view as more authentic, virtuous and community-minded.”

Selling a “family-friendly and outdoor-forward lifestyle in a beautiful natural setting,” the Yellowstone Club maintains a high demand for membership, according to Ed Divita, a founding member of The Discovery Land Co.

“People are our highest focus,” Divita said in a July 19 phone interview, and that includes club members, employees and the surrounding community. He also touted philanthropic contributions to surrounding communities from Discovery club members across the globe.

And, it is a “top priority” for Discovery to not only be environmentally sensitive but environmentally beneficial, he said.

“A Faustian bargain”

The Stagecoach Mountain Ranch plan calls for close to 700 luxury homes on about 6,600 acres, which includes the ski mountain and golf course. Discovery has also acquired a slice of property with prime fishing on the Yampa River.

Divita said in the interview that 700 homes will have far less of an impact than the plans dating back to the early 1970s envisioning a maximum build out of 4,500 dwelling units.

According to the Stagecoach Community Plan, created by Routt County in 2017, there are currently over 2,388 platted single and multifamily lots within Stagecoach, of which 1,802 remain vacant.

Discovery owns the fly-fishing parcel of land and the golf course site, and Divita said the plan is to acquire the ski mountain parcel “in stages,” adding four new lifts, a gondola and high-end ski lodges and dining amenities. 

Membership fees for Stagecoach have not yet been determined, Divita said, when asked at a July 8 introductory meeting with community members at the Oak Creek Fire Protection District’s Stagecoach Station. “But it is going to be expensive,” he said.  

Divita insisted Discovery is not planning to build another Yellowstone Club, and that Stagecoach Mountain Ranch would reflect the area’s unique character.

Eli Nycamp is president of the Stagecoach Property Owners Association, which represents 2,400 lot-owners and about 1,200 residents living on close to 600 developed lots. Some are second-home owners.

“There are a lot of mixed feelings,” he said. “Some love it, some don’t and some are in-between.” 

Nycamp said it is disappointing the mountain wouldn’t be public, but notes the private land has long been zoned as a ski area, with plans for a golf course.

Benefits of the new resort could include much-needed upgrades to roads and other infrastructure, including increasing the capacity of the Morrison Creek Water and Sanitation District, Nycamp said. Those upgrades would need to happen on the front end, he said.

The “failed development” of the 1970s that Nycamp described left many owners with stranded lots, with no roads to reach their property and no access to water, sewer and electric service.

In 1978, the abandoned ski area was purchased out of bankruptcy court by the Wittemyers, a multigenerational Steamboat family well-established in the real estate brokerage business. 

They are taking something that is established and completely changing it. They are going to change the very fabric of what Stagecoach is.

— Jennifer Fernley, Stagecoach resident

There were a number of attempts by the Wittemyers over the past 50 years to revive the ski mountain — and keep it public — but nothing came to fruition.  

In the fall of 2022, the Wittemyers approached the Discovery Land Co. about a possible partnership, Divita told the crowd of nearly 300 people packed into the firehouse July 8, with some attendees listening through the windows from outside.

“We want to be members of the community just like you,” Divita said.  “We want to be a contributing member. We want to make the place better.”

The company wants to preserve for its members the same things the current residents love about their neighborhood, he said. 

“We love the fact there are authentic rodeos here,” Divita said. “We love that authenticity.”

Divita listed the economic benefits and amenities the developers hope to bring to the community: a large increase in property tax revenue, better schools, improved roads and infrastructure, good jobs and the construction of housing that is affordable to the estimated 300 full-time and 600 part-time employees needed to run the luxury resort (once fully developed), as well as to local teachers and firefighters.

“We want to do even more,” Divita said.

He described a 12-acre parcel dedicated as a “community gathering place,” with a sledding hill, trailhead, grocery store, gas station and 140 workforce housing units. Currently, the nearest store is 7 miles away in Oak Creek.

But 16-year-old Hazel Fernley said she was suspicious of all the promises. “They think we need help having a better life here and we don’t.”

Neighbors being asked to trade the laid-back, rural character of their community for tax revenue and improved infrastructure, Woodmansee said, “feels like a Faustian bargain.”

Private skiing with slopeside neighbors

Divita estimated the new resort would take a minimum of 15 years to complete, and could take 30 years to “get to the final finish line. … We are not looking at coming in and selling a few homes and leaving. We are here forever.” 

He said Discovery plans to submit its application to the county in August. 

In contrast to when the Yellowstone Club was built in 1997 by lumber baron Tim Blixseth, Stagecoach has existing subdivisions and condominium complexes at the edge of the ski area, as well as in between the proposed lakeside golf resort and ski mountain. 

“They are taking something that is established and completely changing it,” Jennifer Fernley said. “They are going to change the very fabric of what Stagecoach is.”

Hundreds of residents will find themselves sandwiched in by a ski area they will never be allowed to ski and a golf course on which they will never be able to golf.

Josh Cook has lived in the Stagecoach Townhouses for the past decade, previously serving as HOA president. The 15 mismatched buildings in his complex — each with six units — are tucked into a dense grove of Aspen trees on the mountainside overlooking the lake.

Cook, a photographer, lives in a building with a firefighter, a nurse, a sheriff’s deputy and a retired couple. 

The ski resort property surrounds the cluster of condos on three sides.

“We are a little black circle in the middle of their grand plan,” Cook said. Part of the parking lot near Cook’s building is actually on ski resort property.

The townhouses, along with the nearby Eagle’s Nest condos (known locally as the “chicken coops”) were built 50 years ago in anticipation of the ski resort that never was.

One building sits right along a ski run that empties onto the mountain’s base area.

Cook questions the integration of the townhouses and their residents given their proximity. He also hopes the Stagecoach community will not be sacrificed for money for the rest of the county.

“I don’t think millionaires want to ski by our 1970s townhouses and see us on the porch,” he mused. 

Neighbors at the meeting expressed concern about getting priced out of the community, worried their property taxes would rise so high they’d have to move. But Cook thinks the development’s impact on the market is unpredictable. “Not everyone wants to live in the shadow of billionaires,” he said.

Divita said “good planning” will provide appropriate landscape buffers and setbacks between existing homes and resort properties. 

Other concerns expressed at the meeting included public access to the ski area, fire risk, water, wildlife, the viability of finding and housing 600 employees, traffic, and noise and light pollution. 

Cook debates whether a private ski area is perhaps the “lesser of two evils” when compared to the crowds a public ski area could bring. He also worries the people pleading to Divita for access to the ski area are barking up the wrong tree. What Discovery sells is exclusivity, Cook said.

“An unavoidable impact upon the culture of a community”

Routt County Commissioner Tim Corrigan, who has represented the southern part of the county for 12 years, said it is too soon to assess whether Stagecoach Mountain Ranch would bring overall benefit to the community. 

“I would need to see the application before I could render a judgment,” Corrigan said in an interview this month. “It’s going to be a really subjective thing for most people in the community to determine whether the direct public benefits in total result in an overall net benefit to the community. For any similar community that sees this kind of real estate development, there is an unavoidable impact upon the culture of the community. And land use regulations are not very well equipped to address the cultural impact.” 

Jennifer Fernley said she accepts the ski mountain is private property and the owners have their rights to develop, but she hoped a future use would be more in tune with the values of the existing community.

“It’s going to ruin the character of Stagecoach,” she said.

Adam Fernley always hoped for a “mom-and-pop operation.”

Frances Fernley, 12, said she was most concerned about wildlife. “They don’t have as much room as they used to,” she said. “And we have to speak for them since they can’t speak for themselves.” 

The Fernleys described elk, deer, moose, bears, mountain lions, eagles and other wildlife roaming on and around the densely forested mountain.

“There are very real concerns around wildlife,” Corrigan said, including the Columbian sharp-tailed grouse, a state species of special concern because of its shrinking sagebrush habitat. “It’s unclear to me how the developers will mitigate those impacts.”

On water supply, Corrigan said he defers to the water providers and their claim there is sufficient supply. 

After increasing capacity, the local water district has said it may be able to supply water for domestic use, and the Upper Yampa Conservancy District has said it is possible the reservoir could be used for irrigation and snowmaking.

All those details will have to be worked out during the application process, said Andy Rossi, general manager of the Upper Yampa Water Conservancy District. 

They think we need help having a better life here and we don’t.

— Hazel Fernley, age 16

Rancher Peter Flint questions the water-supply wisdom of building such a massive luxury operation. The Yampa River is over-appropriated and states are battling over the Colorado River, he said. 

The Yampa is a tributary of the Green River and a significant part of the Colorado River system. It is one of the few free-flowing rivers in the West. 

“Now they will be telling me — with 150-year-old water rights — that I can sit and watch my hay field burn up while they water a golf course,” said Flint, who was a Routt County planning commissioner when the Stagecoach Community Plan was developed in 2017.

Flint worries that by using treated wastewater to irrigate the golf course rather than returning it to its source will tighten the supply in the Yampa.

On the stretch of the Yampa River spanning from its headwaters in the Flat Tops Wilderness to the Stagecoach Reservoir, Flint said a “call” was placed on the river several weeks ago, meaning there is not enough administered water to satisfy all decreed water users’ rights. He said it goes on call every year, it is just a matter of when.

The main stretch of the Yampa River below the reservoir went on call for the first time in history in 2018, and again in 2020.

In terms of water quality, Corrigan said, “I do think there are big questions. And I do believe Routt County has some oversight and authority to ensure water quality is maintained.”

Environmental impacts from Discovery Land Co. resorts

A number of Discovery-operated resorts across the world are in the crosshairs of concerned environmentalists.

In 2016, a pipe froze and broke, instantly dumping about 30 million gallons of treated sewage from a Yellowstone Club holding pond into the Gallatin River southwest of Big Sky, Montana. 

In 2023, the Yellowstone Club was sued by the Cottonwood Environmental Law Center, alleging the company has been “knowingly discharging its treated sewage directly into the South Fork West Fork of the Gallatin River without a permit.”

A trial is scheduled for 2026. 

On Sept. 4, 2023, Yvon Chouinard, a conservationist and founder of the outdoor gear company Patagonia, issued a statement in support of the Cottonwood lawsuit, warning that “mindless consumption is killing our planet.” 

“Patagonia believes that clean water is more important than vacation homes and golfing,” Chouinard wrote.

Asked in an email interview about the 2023 lawsuit, Divita referred to the broken pipe in 2016 and said it had been resolved. “The river system is healthy.”

Cottonwood is also pursuing litigation against the Yellowstone Club over alleged pollution from the use of treated wastewater in snowmaking, concerned in particular about untreated pharmaceuticals and PFAs in the water. 

Thomas Goreau, president of the Global Coral Reef Alliance, published a before and after study in 2020 evaluating coral reef ecosystems and fisheries in the Bahamas next to Discovery Land’s Bakers Bay Club. His work concluded that nitrate flowing through groundwater near the club “destroyed the ecological function of pristine Bahamian coral reefs, mangroves, and sea grasses that were crucial and essential nursery habitat for lobsters, conch, and fishes, devastating the fisheries resources of a community that had lived from them since the 1700s.”

Goreau said he found it “unconscionable” that anyone would be allowed to build a new golf course next to an already impaired body of water like Stagecoach Reservoir in Colorado. 

“I can’t believe they are proposing this in a water catchment area,” he said. “That to me is astonishing. … It’s antithetical to the purpose of a reservoir. I can’t believe they are even considering it.”

Divita insists that environmental stewardship is one of Discovery’s core values. “We are continually evaluating the best practices to reduce environmental impacts to ensure these incredible locations are protected for generations to come,” he wrote in an email.

Discovery must show the development won’t negatively impact the Stagecoach Reservoir, the Upper Yampa Water Conservancy District’s Rossi said. The application review process will be a long one, he said, with plenty of opportunity for public engagement. 

Though no application has been submitted, and no decisions have been made, there is a feeling of inevitably hanging over Stagecoach, some residents say. But Corrigan, the county commissioner, said approval of Stagecoach Mountain Ranch is not a sure thing at this point. (Steamboat Springs councilman Michael Buccino earlier this month announced he was resigning from his community relations job at Discovery Land Company after fellow council members expressed concerns about his role with the company could be seen as a conflict of interest.)

“Any approval will be based upon the assessment of whatever the application contains or does not contain,” he said. “We’re going to consider the application on the merits and how it adheres to the master plan and uniform development code.”

“And,” he said, “I totally understand why people are fearful of this development.”

History Colorado will begin its second wave of research into Native American boarding schools next month — this time with help from Indigenous people whose family members survived the horrifying experience.

The three-year project, funded with $1 million from the state legislature, will focus on consultation with Native American communities to foster healing and reconciliation.

“During the first round, they only had a year to do the research and write the report, which was a very narrow timeline,” said state Rep. Barbara McLachlan, co-sponsor of the laws that allocated funding to the research.

“A lot of the research, because of that short timeline, came from papers and reports by a white person involved in all of this,” she said. “With this new law, they’re hoping to talk with tribal members and second generation Native Americans to see how this has affected the next generation that is coming up.”

History Colorado plans to meet with leaders of Native American tribes and Indigenous community members, Alaska Natives and others living on reservations outside of Colorado to help create a plan to care for the people affected by federal boarding schools that existed statewide.

Gina Lopez, a member of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe who lives in Towaoc, said she’s skeptical of the accuracy of the report, which relies on archived government reports that are inconsistent and incomplete and written by school superintendents, who wove their own narratives about the success of the schools and the students’ everyday experiences, according to the paper’s authors.

“If those things aren’t reliable, how will we ever know the truth and achieve any justice in terms of these boarding schools?” Lopez asked. 

During the next iteration of research, History Colorado has said it plans to meet privately with representatives from 33 tribal nations twice per year, Alaska Native organizations and students who attended federal boarding schools in Colorado to help provide insights into future recommendations for reconciliation, according to the historical agency’s public recommendations made to the state legislature.

History Colorado raised awareness about the report through social media posts when the paper was published in October 2023, included links to stories about the report in its newsletter for subscribers, created other informational links online and has a webpage on its site dedicated to informing people about boarding schools, Luke Perkins, manager of communications and public relations at History Colorado, wrote in an email to The Colorado Sun. 

History Colorado also held a listening session Aug. 16, 2023, with leaders of Native American and Alaska Native community organizations, Perkins told The Sun. 

History Colorado plans to travel to reservations outside of Colorado to examine their archives, personal stories and other repositories to help create a fuller story of the impact of the boarding schools.

At the discussions, which may take place at some of the boarding school sites, community members are expected to address and plan for memorialization at former boarding school sites where children are still buried, finding ways to support impacted communities and education opportunities for Native American Coloradans and others statewide.

A tribal communications specialist at History Colorado, who was hired to help complete study requirements during the first round of research, will continue helping with the investigative efforts by managing communications with tribal representatives and descendant communities.

The report identified nine boarding schools in Colorado that were financially supported by the federal government, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, from 1880 to 1920.

Native Americans and other community members have requested additional research into federal, state and local school policies after 1920, when many off-reservation and on-reservation schools were closing as Indigenous kids were integrated into local public schools.

History Colorado must develop recommendations to the Colorado Department of Education, the Colorado Department of Higher Education and the state legislature that aim to address the effects of the boarding school system on Indigenous communities in partnership with the Colorado Commission on Indian Affairs and a steering committee that will include organizations led by and served by Native Americans.

History Colorado must provide preliminary recommendations for care and memorialization at the boarding school sites to the Commission on Indian Affairs no later than Nov. 8, 2025, and should provide final recommendations by May 10, 2027.

Abusing Native children in the name of assimilation

For more than 150 years, hundreds of thousands of Native American children were taken away from their communities to attend boarding schools.

More than 500 government-funded Native American boarding schools existed in the United States during the 19th and 20th centuries, often led by churches.

By 1926, nearly 83% of all Native American children of school age were in boarding schools.

The purpose of the schools was to culturally assimilate Native Americans by forcibly removing children from their homes to far away residential facilities where their identities, beliefs and languages were stripped.

Some students lost their surnames when facility leaders gave them names of famous people, such as presidents, or even school staff members, according to the report.

Families lost their parenting authority and the ability to pass on Native American culture and traditions and the legacy of the schools has caused long-standing intergenerational trauma, cycles of violence and abuse, disappearance of Native American people, mental health issues and substance use disorders in Native communities, lawmakers wrote in the law.

Native children in Colorado’s boarding schools were forced to learn carpentry or blacksmithing to prepare them for jobs as laborers in white families’ homes, according to the report.

Neglect, unsanitary conditions and poor nutrition caused illnesses that frequently swept across the schools and some children were physically and sexually abused, according to the report.

Students were, most often, enrolled in boarding schools after they were kidnapped or recruited, or after their parents were coerced or threatened by Native American agents or school superintendents, according to the History Colorado report.

Once students were physically separated from their parents, they often did not return home for two to five years, the report says.

James Jefferson, a member of the Southern Ute tribe, attended Ute Mountain Boarding School in Towaoc in the late 1930s and the Southern Ute Vocational School near Ignacio in the 1940s.

His parents met in a Towaoc boarding school and recalled the horrors of the experience and tried their best to keep Jefferson and his siblings out of boarding schools. 

But boarding school superintendents threatened Jefferson’s parents and said they would be thrown in jail if their kids did not attend.

“If you spoke your language, you were slapped with a ruler,” said Jefferson, 90, who lives in Durango. 

“They washed my mouth out because I spoke Ute, they made us march everywhere, kids were thrown in basements, the teachers were mean. It was horrible,” he said.

He did not attend the boarding school for long. His family fled to Denver through a relocation program led by the federal government, soon after he attended boarding school, where he says he got a much better education. 

The relocation program encouraged Native American people to move to urban areas where they would merge with white American culture, according to a report by People of the Sacred Land’s Truth, Restoration, and Education Commission of Colorado.

Several of Morning Star Jones’ family members attended boarding schools and she said the original research was well done and presents opportunities for reconciliation. 

“This is a report to most, but to me, there’s so much emotion tied to it,” said Jones, a Northern and Southern Cheyenne woman living in Denver. “My great-grandmother, grandparents and cousin went to boarding schools,” she said.

The first step toward reconciliation should include returning the remains of children buried at former boarding school sites to their families, if that is preferred by relatives, she said.

“I fully understand this may not be fully in line with the views of certain tribes. However, as a mother, I would want my child with family members,” Jones said during an emotional interview.

Therapeutic services should be made available to Native Americans who are still affected by the boarding schools to help them heal from generational trauma, Jones said.

All schools in Colorado should teach the history of boarding schools to students, she said. Educating people about how the federal government killed Native people and erased their culture may make Coloradans more understanding of and sensitive to Indigenous people’s needs, Jones said. 

Funds should be donated to Native American tribes and the organizations that support them, Jones added. And Colorado should pass a bill that makes it a hate crime to cut the hair of an Indigenous person, she said.

Hair cutting was a standard practice at boarding schools. Newly arrived students were forced to have their hair chopped by teachers, who in some cases, held down children during the process, because long hair was viewed as a “hygiene issue,” according to the report. 

“Across North America, I see boys with long hair are being targeted and their hair is being cut off,” Jones said. “The only time that we are to cut our hair is when we are in mourning.”

Poor record keeping by boarding school administrators left yawning gaps in the historical record, challenging efforts to determine how many children ran away under duress, or fell ill and died far from their homes and families. And that makes Lopez wonder if anyone can really know what happened at the schools, she said.

“Justice has always been out of reach for Native people and other communities of color and I think this enforces that reality,” she said.

Lopez attended Sherman Indian High School, a boarding school in Riverside, California, where students learn about the history of the school when they’re enrolled, an effort that provides healing, she said.

“It didn’t feel like there was a lot of outreach to make this report too widely known. I had to go look for it,” Lopez said. “They need to do a marketing campaign to make sure folks have the opportunity to learn about this next report and any other developments.”

History Colorado is accepting comments, questions and suggestions from Native American tribal representatives, community members and organizations and descendants of people who attended boarding schools at h-co.org/HB22-1327.

The 2024 Olympic Games kick off in Paris in just a few short days, and, as usual, Colorado will be well represented.

How well, you ask?

Colorado will have more athletes in these Games than 168 entire nations sent to the last Summer Olympics. We’ll have more athletes than states with twice — even three times! — as many people. We’ll have more athletes competing just in track and field than Nebraska and Kansas combined are sending. (Ha Ha!)

Relative to our population size, we’re one of the greatest Olympian factories in the country.

Below are eight stats and charts that prove this. Feel free to steal them to wow your friends.

These charts are based on the list of 592 Olympians that the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee released last week. We relied on the hometowns that athletes provided for that list — so don’t throw rotten tomatoes at us if your favorite Colorado athlete isn’t included here. And there likely are some who won’t be.

Mountain bike racer Savilia Blunk, for instance, lives in Durango. But the USOPC lists her hometown as Inverness, California, where she grew up. Tennis player Rajeev Ram, meanwhile, was born in Denver, but the USOPC gives his hometown as Carmel, Indiana, where he lives now.

And then there is Colorado-raised, Boston-based basketball player Derrick White, who isn’t on the list at all because he was only added to the Team USA roster as an injury replacement after its release.

What we’re saying is that what is already a great state for producing Olympians could be even greater if we ran the data just a little differently. And that’s some trivia definitely worth dropping at your next happy hour.

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JEFFERSON — In a craggy meadow of granite and sagebrush, Willem Schreüder climbs into the camper trailer that he’s transformed into a space-age command center. Towers of computer equipment blink and whir. He taps on a laptop, scrolling through 239 fixed and mobile radio relay sites across the Rocky Mountains, showing off customized software that can remotely control and repair remote radio signal transmitters. 

“A lot of what we do is backup for public safety and even though we are volunteers, we take our work very seriously,” said Schreüder,  a long-bearded professor of computer science at the University of Colorado who has been involved with amateur radio for more than 40 years. “Really we are amateurs in name only.”

There is nothing amateur about the gathering in the remote corner of South Park. Part of the an American Radio Relay League’s annual Field Day — a nationwide rally of licensed ham radio hobbyists that started in 1933 — the circled collection of high-tech camper trailers and vans is bustling with technical wizards training for that day when they are called into service. 

It could be a tornado, flood, hailstorm or wildfire. Maybe an earthquake or solar storm has knocked out satellite communication. Maybe rural emergency service folks need help with a big event, like a mountain bike or running race. Whatever the reason, there are 19,629 licensed amateur radio operators in Colorado — almost 750,000 in the U.S. — who are trained and ready to keep critical communications flowing.

“For most amateur radio groups, it’s about serving our communities,” said Desiree Baccus — call sign N3DEZ — with the Rocky Mountain HAM Radio club, a nonprofit that maintains a network of radio-transmitting equipment across Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming. “There is only so much local sheriffs can do in small towns and you will see amateur radio operators stepping in to fill the gaps as volunteers to help as a second service to our emergency management professionals.”

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Rocky Mountain HAM can provide sheriff’s deputies and emergency personnel with more than a couple hundred handheld devices and mobile repeaters that relay communications using radio waves, not satellites. The group, with its network of microwave repeaters and relay stations set up across the Rocky Mountains, has helped the U.S. Forest Service, Federal Emergency Management Administration and the Colorado Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.

About 100 licensed amateur radio operators in Colorado are part of Colorado Auxiliary Communications, a disaster response public safety communications network of volunteers trained to support the state’s Office of Emergency Management. Clubs like Rocky Mountain HAM also are credentialed by FEMA. The auxiliary team — they are called AUXCOMM — receives specialized training and was assembled about five years ago. The volunteers help the state’s emergency responders set up radio networks, remote satellite internet connections and off-grid power supplies during crises.

The radio operators have helped set up communications to assist with state response to floods in Hinsdale County and wildfires across the state. Most recently the AUXCOMM team helped establish remote monitoring systems so state regulators could better track and mitigate the spread of avian influenza in rural parts of the state. 

Kevin Klein, the director of the Colorado Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, remembers when the September 2013 flood in Colorado’s Front Range wiped out fiber network communications and “the only thing we were getting was coming from ham radio operators.”

The support during the floods helped set the stage for a more organized group of volunteers who became the Colorado AUXCOMM organization.  

“These folks have the knowledge and expertise to really assist us in a lot of ways,” Klein said. “For me, their enthusiasm for service is the really cool part.”

What happens at the 24-hour Field Day

In the breezy field about 20 miles from Fairplay, the Rocky Mountain HAM Radio members bustled through the 24-hour Field Day. A solar-powered trailer bunkhouse housed six people sleeping in shifts so they could keep the airwaves cackling day and night. Retrofitted toy hauler trailers were wedged with wires and electronics powered by solar panels and backed up by diesel generators. A communal kitchen kept food flowing for the radio users, many of whom arrive early and stay late around the national Field Day, making it more of a field week. 

The Field Day participants collected points for contacts, part of a gaming component of amateur radio that keeps the dial-twisting, head-phoned users sharp and ready. At the top of every hour, amateur radio operators around the country tune into a single, certain band and listen for any emergency SOS call. They call that wilderness protocol. Rocky Mountain HAM also offers online classes and seminars helping folks learn how to be more efficient at transmitting voice and data over radio waves.

A fleet of retired news satellite vans — the ham people call them Quick Response Vehicles — anchored telescoping dishes that once connected roaming television reporters to their studios. In one of those vans, Doug Sharp — who has the highest level of licensing: Amateur Extra — huddled over a control panel, tapping out Morse code and interpreting incoming messages. Morse code transmissions — using Continuous Wave radio frequency — were the first types of wireless communication that established radio communication in the 19th century as an option beyond wired telegraphy.

65 words per minute

— How fast Doug Sharp can send messages in Morse code

The Morse code transmissions are still important ways to speedily communicate essential information in an emergency, and Sharp, the head of technology for Rocky Mountain HAM, is a leading practitioner of the antiquated art, able to send and interpret 65 words a minute. 

Sharp — K2AD— logged more than 1,000 contacts with Morse code during Field Day, up from 700 last year. 

Radio operators have helped with evacuations around recent fires in California and Hawaii and helped support police radio transmissions in 2019 when a shooter opened fire at the annual garlic festival in Gilroy, California, with thousands of attendees. 

There is no wrong way to do ham radio.

— Tristan Honscheid, amateur radio operator and software engineer

“It’s so cool when you think about how all amateur radio operators are volunteers, ready to step in and help at a moment’s notice,” said Tom Kephart — KC0GDM — from Firestone, who has been licensed since 1988. “These are people who really love this hobby and want to serve. And they are always trying to find ways to improve and serve better.”

Tristan Honscheid — NM0TH — a software engineer from Lafayette, once transmitted and received messages while skydiving several years ago as a student at MIT. He could reach people 80 miles away while he dangled beneath a canopy at 10,000 feet, he said. 

“There is no wrong way to do HAM radio,” he said. 

Many of the members work with local high school students to foster an appreciation for new and old communications technology. Like Chris Keller — K0SWE — a Google software engineer who mentors Broomfield High School students in building robotics. His daughter, 11-year-old Kaylee, built her own radio at the Field Day gathering. 

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She’s hoping to get her amateur radio license soon and has begun studying for the licensing exam. The radio picks up random signals as she spins the dial she soldered into place. 

“Probably listen to KOSI 101 in my room,” she said, when asked about her plans for the gizmo. 

The nonprofit Rocky Mountain HAM Radio club has invested around $250,000 in its communal equipment. The group’s volunteers have logged thousands of hours of service. 

“One of the things about amateur radio is that you can’t make any money from it,” said Mark Skelton — N7CTM — a director of the club who recently hiked several miles to replace batteries in a microwave relay station on Badger Mountain near Colorado Springs.

“You are not a volunteer. You are an unpaid professional,” said Jim Dixon — KA6ETA — who has helped his fellow radio operators use 3D printers to create the parts and hardware they need.