July 2013

Mark Chain, Shelle de Beque and her husband Hank van Berlo, all of whom are 60ish, are planning or engaged with “encore careers.” They are part of a national trend.

This month’s First Friday on Aug. 2 heads to the beach, with live music, limbo, Hula-Hoop contests, a conga line down Main Street and goldfish races in front of the Black Nugget.

Just before Dandelion Day in May, Carbondale resident Alejandra Rico launched a campaign to raise awareness and funds to support an independent documentary film, “Sunnú”, about the struggle of indigenous northern Mexican communities to preserve their native corn seed and their way of life.

According to newly-hired CRES principal Heather Cremeans, one of the most important things she learned while getting her administrator’s license was the importance of a good fit between a principal and a school. The more she learned about Crystal River Elementary School, the more passionate she became that this school was the perfect fit for her.
In her 18 years of education she has always enjoyed working with diverse groups of students, including students from various socioeconomic groups and native Spanish-speakers — the very population she found at CRES. She loves working to create a unified sense of community among students from diverse backgrounds. She speaks Spanish as well.

By S. Michael Jundt
With a diverse resume in the corporate world, Susan Burr, owner of Susan’s Flowers & Gifts, has not always been surrounded with the serenity she finds in her current profession. Originally from St. Louis, Susan graduated from Tulsa University with a degree in graphic design.
“Over the past 30 years my design skills,” says Susan, “were used in both the oil and electric industries. I also drew schematics for the aviation world and created package designs for specialty foods.”

Carbondale trustees are still a few hits away from putting a fine point on the town’s pot regulations, but they are starting to take shape.
At Tuesday night’s work session, trustees indicated they’ll allow retail outlets to cook and sell products such as marijuana-laced brownies, but to do so will probably require a special use permit. The town might establish zone-district “overlays” to determine where retail marijuana stores can and can’t operate. The trustees decided to measure minimum-allowed distances from pot shops to schools as the public would travel them, rather than as the crow flies. The trustees also instructed staff to draft a memo to address the issue of whether to ask voters to put a 5 percent additional sales tax on legally-sold marijuana.