News

United States Senator Benjamin “Ben” Nighthorse Campbell is working the crowd at the Colorado State Fair when a man approaches with his hand outstretched. “Ben, I wanted to thank you–you really saved our butts this time,” he says, pumping the senator’s hand. The man is Ray Kogovsek, former U.S. representative…

Bob and Meredith Norton opened Parker Funeral Home three years ago, hoping to capitalize on one inevitable aspect of Douglas County’s rapid population growth. But they’ve found that their business is deader than they think it should be, and they’re crying foul. Bob Norton claims there’s no mystery. He points…

Flying blind: Former Denver mayor and current Transportation secretary Federico Pena, whose image took a dive along with ValuJet, may regain some much-needed polish when he accepts a Hispanic Heritage Award at the Kennedy Center later this month. Pena’s award will be presented by–no, not Pee-wee Herman–Esai Morales, who plays…

The families of three Maryland murder victims lost the first round in a wrongful-death suit against Boulder’s Paladin Press, but their attorneys vow to keep their teeth in Paladin’s nether regions for years to come. “We will continue to litigate this case until we reach the last court and the…

Let’s face it. When Denver’s suppertime TV news junkies think of Channel 4’s Aimee Sporer, the station’s hard-hitting “Mall Watch” segment probably doesn’t leap to mind. Instead, viewers are reminded of the regional Emmy award-winner’s less journalistic attributes: her flaxen hair, her milky skin and, of course, those luminescent baby…

A dispute over the future of a valuable piece of city-owned real estate across the street from Larimer Square has forced Denver officials to back down from plans to sell the property to developers. If downtown residents have their way, Denver will have a new park and history center instead…

The Rockies May Crumble… After reading Patricia Calhoun’s “Stealing Home,” in the September 5 issue, I have to ask: What’s next? Will the Colorado Rockies try to seize a certain mountain range because its name is too close to that of the team? I’m a lot more worried about what…

A gentleman entered a busy florist shop that displayed a large sign that read, “Say it with flowers.” “Wrap up one rose,” he told the florist. “Only one?” asked the florist. “Just one,” the customer replied. “I’m a man of few words.” The laughs are few and far between these…

When the Colorado Convention Center was dedicated on a spring day in 1990, the promises flew as fast and furious as a March snowstorm. Politicians who had spent years campaigning for the new center didn’t disguise their delight with the opening of the tenth largest convention center in the United…

The day was chilly, Teri Ralya recalls, when she returned to her Arvada apartment in March 1994 to air out the pesticides that had been sprayed there that morning. As she opened up all the windows in her third-story unit and switched on the stove’s exhaust fan, she hoped that…

The thigh’s the limit: Toe-sucking Dick Morris, the just-deposed Bill Clinton campaign strategist whose extracurricular efforts with a prostitute are splashed across the Star this week, once displayed his fancy footwork here in Denver. Back in 1983, when six candidates were challenging longtime mayor Bill McNichols (including then-state bureaucrat Wellington…

If you walk along the quaint quarter-mile stretch of Main Street in downtown Lyons, you can find a florist, a handful of antique dealers, Germanic knickknacks, a hearty omelet at the Gateway Cafe and the prototype for a radical new internal-combustion engine. Vern Newbold invented it; engineers from around the…

One Saturday last month, Sharon Storlie answered a knock at her apartment door. It was a young salesman, about thirteen years old, hawking the Boulder Daily Camera. No, thanks, Storlie told him. But that wasn’t enough. “Are you sure you don’t want to buy the paper?” he whined. Yes. “But…

One hundred bottles of wine on the wall, one hundred bottles of wine, you take them down, pass them around, and…you’ve got one hell of a headache if you’re Denver bankruptcy trustee David S. Cohen. The 100 bottles in question once resided in the wine cellar of the Stanley Hotel…

The Colorado Rockies protect their turf–both on and off the field. When fans trying to avoid opening-day traffic bicycled to Coors Field, the team called the cops, and the bikes–which had been chained to the stadium built with taxpayer money–were impounded. When vendors outside Coors Field began cutting into the…

The Blackboard Bungle Kudos to Eric Dexheimer for his story on the plight of John Hart, recently canned part-time faculty teacher at Aurora Community College (“Teacher’s Fret,” August 29). The article revealed not just a personal story but the workings of a whole system run with an iron hand by…

Southwest Plaza has, like, fifteen entrances, and that’s not counting the downstairs at Sears where you go in next to the Die-Hard batteries and radial tires. As if. As if you would ever go to the mall to buy a tire. The fourteen-year-old girls who live in my neighborhood will…

John Hart is a fine writing teacher; his student evaluations are nearly unanimous on that. Last year his students nominated him as Teacher of the Year at the Community College of Aurora, where he also served as co-chair of the faculty senate. He has a graduate degree in fine arts,…

Down at the Regional Transportation District’s lofty LoDo headquarters, good help has never been hard to find. The pay at the troubled transit agency is competitive, the benefits are excellent–and in some cases, there’s even a bonus for quitting. Paying employees to leave isn’t yet common practice at RTD, but…

Social climbers: On Friday, gossipmonger Bill Husted told the Rocky Mountain News he was entertaining an offer from the Denver Post. Apparently the News wasn’t interested in countering: When Husted showed up for work Monday, he got the boot instead of a boutonniere and was escorted from the building with…