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Denver police officer Tyrone Campbell is a familiar face in north Denver’s Cole neighborhood. He’s one of the few Denver cops who carries a personal pager for calls from residents and has a souped-up, bass-thumping CD player wired into his cruiser. As he makes his rounds through the neighborhood, kids…

Motorola ad campaign for its new high-tech Sport Radio walkie-talkie that pokes fun at the supposedly high cost of wilderness rescues has inflamed Colorado’s search-and-rescue squads. “You can’t find a decent rescue for under $100,000 these days,” reads a version of the ad in the December issue of Popular Science…

Six months ago the Colorado state legislature passed a bill allowing people to make voluntary contributions to the D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) anti-drug program on their income-tax returns. It may be one more victory for one of the country’s most visible weapons in the nebulous war on drugs, but…

First things first: The winning slogan that pushed through the city’s 1989 bond sale? “Vote for Elitch’s–It’s Denver.” Not anymore. First, new owner Premier Parks, out of Oklahoma City, dumped the century-old amusement park’s local advertising agency. And then First Night Colorado, the alcohol-free, family-fun New Year’s bash that’s become…

Charlie Papazian likes to say that he is just a regular pie guy, but his vision for the future is well worth heeding. Twenty years ago he had an intuition about beer. At the time, he recalls, Bud and Coors were the reigning brews. So Papazian, who thought beer should…

There’s No Place Like Homeless I wish to write in response to Patricia Calhoun’s December 5 column, “Homeless for the Holidays.” What an artful job of pitting the homeless against such unpopular icons as lawyers and developers. Too bad the question of whether citizens should be able to enjoy the…

Ask Sam Haigler how things are going and he’ll give you that perplexed look, the one that seems to ask: What planet are you from, pal? Twenty years of battling chronic mental illness, just how well could things be? “That’s kind of a hard question for me to answer,” he…

The wild West is making a last stand in bucolic Elbert County, where the new county motto may be “Make My Day.” Ranked as the second-fastest growing county in the country–it trails only neighboring Douglas County–Elbert County has been embroiled in constant battles over growth during the past few years…

During the frigid days of winter, 23-year-old Matthew John Cole can’t help thinking about summer nights spent with his friends and family at the venerable Nor-West Drive-In in Broomfield. Unfortunately for Cole, many of his neighbors in that part of the Front Range are thinking of something newer and slicker,…

One of the most notable restrictions on the Oklahoma City bombing case, which has also been applied to the current civil case against O.J. Simpson, is the ban on live coverage inside the courtroom. But the indomitable spirit of capitalism, combined with the insatiable appetite of the press, has proved…

One might suppose that Jacob Stone is the king of klutz, the big kahuna of bad luck. That would explain how, back in March 1991, he happened to drop his keys in a Denver Safeway parking lot and, while retrieving them, was struck by a car backing out of a…

Enquiring minds want to know: What was Senator-elect Wayne Allard doing in the National Enquirer, sandwiched between Oprah’s latest woes and sure-fire diet tips? Well, he wasn’t joining in the Demi Moore lesbian love triangle touted on the cover of the November 26 issue, that’s for sure. No, the Colorado…

Fortysomething Regarding Patricia Calhoun’s “Reject Your Elders,” in the November 28 issue: The only thing more horrifying than the scenario Calhoun laid out was my realization that, having just turned forty, I’m old enough to officially be considered an endangered species! Other than that, it was a great piece–and I…

As homeless go, the folks living along the banks of the South Platte River just west of downtown were never going to be poster children inspiring donations of holiday turkeys. They were hardly the stuff of weepy newspaper columns or wrenching TV news footage, far from the sad families trotted…

The sun was beginning its descent behind the mountains when Vinh Ngoc Le stepped out into the backyard of his Aurora home. He inhaled the crisp, clean air, then let it go like a prayer. Le sat down in a patch of grass, took out a pad of paper and…

Robert Brown still remembers hearing the name Christian Lawless Harper on the radio in the summer of 1995. The Colorado Bureau of Investigation agent hadn’t forgotten the day he arrested Harper more than twenty years ago for interstate transportation of stolen vehicles. When Brown heard Harper’s name on the tail…

Playboy of the Western world: Federico Pena was called many things during his eight-year tenure as mayor of Denver–but “playboy” was not one of them. That, however, was the label laid on Pena–or at least Esai Morales, who played him–in ABC’s Sunday night sobfest, Dying to Be Perfect, the story…

A federal jury took just one hour earlier this month to decide that former Denver deputy sheriff Trina Burks-Richardson should receive nothing in her wrongful-discharge suit against the city. In addition, Burks-Richardson was ordered to pay the city’s attorney’s fees. The city, however, is going to have to wait in…

Marilyn G. wants a mate who is armed with more than a smile. And she knows that there are others in the patriot movement who feel the same way. So she has become Marilyn the Patriot Matchmaker. Now her unique Colorado-based business–a worldwide newsletter full of romance ads and patriot…