It’s the beginning of summer for many high-school kids, but a group of gangly teenage girls files into a Thornton school gymnasium one May evening for a different type of summer school. Each of them carries athletic bags and half-gallon Thermoses full of ice water. Once inside the gym, some…
De train, boss, de train!: It must have come as a relief to departing Denver aviation director Jim DeLong that the latest malfunction of the underground railroad at Denver International Airport occurred off his watch. This past Monday, as thousands of travelers streamed home from the Memorial Day weekend, one…
Sheila Black was fired from her job as a Jefferson County court clerk in November 1996 after her employers accused her of stealing $79 of public money. But the Jeffco District Attorney’s Office didn’t charge her with a crime–felony embezzlement–until a full eight months later. And last month, after the…
A small publisher outside Boulder has placed itself in a heap of trouble by publishing a controversial book no one in the United Kingdom wanted to touch. And even as British journalist Sean McPhilemy’s The Committee has become the talk of the editorial pages in Great Britain, it can’t be…
How about those catcalls raining down from the cheap seats–okay, the $15 seats–every time Pedro Astacio blows another lead or Mike Lansing takes a called third strike with the bases loaded? Strange sounds, no? The public mood, once mild and appreciative, is getting understandably nasty up there. And neither Mike…
Petty Is As Petty Does Trust Westword to mock the Denver Post’s Snapshots of Colorado. Ward Harkavy’s “They Came from Denver!” in the May 21 issue was a sorry excuse for journalism. At least the Post is trying to make this state a better place. What is Westword doing? Larry…
I diddled the Denver Post. If I were Governor Roy Romer, maybe I would explain that nothing more than “deep affection” made me want to go undercover to the Post’s Snapshots of Colorado town meeting last week in Colorado Springs. But there was no affection. Just diddling. Find ’em, fool…
Late last year, Hortense Ross finally moved out of her house. It was a long time coming. For the past several years it had become increasingly apparent that Ross was having trouble taking care of herself. Her family helped out for a while, and the Denver Department of Social Services…
Look out below: Hey, radio listeners, have you noticed how the traffic reports on KOA, KHOW and all the other Jacor-owned stations in the metro area seem to have that…not-so-fresh feeling lately? Perhaps it’s because the airborne spotters who deliver the latest word on rollovers, bottlenecks and runaway septic-tankers have…
Westword staff writer Alan Prendergast won six individual awards in the Society of Professional Journalists’ “Best of Colorado” awards banquet last week. Prendergast received more writing awards than any other journalist in the contest’s top division, which pits Colorado’s wire services and newspapers with circulations of more than 100,000–the Associated…
In those places that tourists come from–Dubuque, Topeka, Lincoln, Rapid City–they’re already gassing up the Winnebagos and planning that Memorial Day weekend trip to the Colorado high country. Some will consult road maps and dining guides, but for a certain breed of summer visitor, there’s no better research source than…
Is Denver ready for an 86-story high-rise? A downtown Denver property owner is working on plans for the highest skyscraper ever built in the city, a behemoth that would tower almost thirty stories over the city’s existing skyline. While memories of half-empty office towers in the 1980s make many skeptical…
In honor of Take-Your-Daughter-to-Work Day, I am taking my daughters to fish. I am not much of a worker and even less of a fisherman, but everyone knows that fishing is more fun than work. Also, it requires two tons of mojo to raise a girl. Girls are scary. A…
Denver likes to bury its mistakes. And it’s made plenty. Ninety years ago, radium was a miracle cure, the turn-of-the-century equivalent of Viagra–and Colorado was playing doctor to the world. Marie Curie herself came out West, prospecting for uranium; Denver was a major ore-processing center. So major, in fact, that…
Coming Into the Country While reading Harrison Fletcher’s wonderful account of Morey Davolt’s life (“Country Cooking,” May 14), I found myself so nostalgic over his memories, I almost felt like I’d lived in his era along with him. Or maybe just wish I had? Great writing! Thanks. Bill Rupy Loveland…
It was an exquisitely uncomfortable moment, and one that would mark a turning point. Dr. Ted Cooper, a Denver obstetrician, was preparing to be installed that day as chief of the medical staff at Denver’s Rose Medical Center. Cooper, who had practiced at Rose nearly twenty years, was well-liked and…
Mike Quintana is still making headlines for spraying three graffiti taggers in the face last fall. Now he’s thinking about running for Denver City Council and has even hired a campaign manager. There’s just one problem: Quintana lives in Arvada. And his campaign manager lives in Pueblo. “I’m doing this…
When tobacco seller Douglas Primavera was charged two months ago with peddling drug paraphernalia out of his small shop in downtown Alamosa, more than a few eyebrows were raised. After all, if anyone should have been familiar with the state law covering the sale of bongs, it would be Primavera–who…
The Denver Broncos managed to score big in the legislature this year, winning the okay to conduct a November begathon for $266 million in taxpayer funding (plus $75 million for the inevitable cost overruns) for Pat Bowlen’s new pigskin theme park. While the Great Patsby passed around the champagne to…
1. INSPIRATION You could say Morey Davolt owes his big idea to a man who used goat glands to make guys horny. The man was Doc John Brinkley, and he thought impotent men could rise to the occasion with transplanted goat testicles. It worked well–for Doc Brinkley, anyway–and the Kansas…
Business as Usual Regarding Stuart Steers’s “Incident on 17th Street,” in the April 30 issue: I am absolutely amazed at the whining of the ex-Hanifen Imhoff corporate executives. These people were all on the topmost bloodthirsty rungs of an American business. They prate about loyalty and ethics. Didn’t their years…
It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood. At Maria’s Bakery, on the corner of 37th Avenue and Shoshone Street, the best seat in the house is actually in the garden out front. From there you can hear the children playing outside the elementary school down the street and watch as…
