November 2013

America’s history — tons of it — rests in the Distinguished Boards and Beams lumberyard. The timber here comes from old factories and barns all across the United States, a few dating back to before there was a United States.
“Right now we have wood from a 1775 Kentucky chestnut cabin and a barn built in 1890 in Michigan,” DB&B owner Robbie Williams told The Sopris Sun. “We took those buildings down ourselves and numbered all the boards, so they can be put back up again.” The barn was huge: 40-by-70 feet with a roof peak 48 feet high. The trees harvested to build it were at least 100 years old, so they began their lives around the time when Peter the Great was crowned Czar of Russia.

Lucky for John Lawyer: The U.S. Navy sent him to Brazil for his World War II service in Naval intelligence.
John and Arlette Ondine Carrijo Cord’homme later met at a Carnival party in Santos, Brazil in 1943. The most popular new song was “My Love is a Bald Head.” Due to a teenage bout with scarlet fever, John had lost his hair and was the only young bald head there for people to dance around while they sang. More dances, dinners and flowers followed. John and Arlette married on Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 25, 1943 right after Arlette took her final exam in dental surgery that morning. They rode bikes on their weekend honeymoon at Guaruja Beach.

The 3,000 acres of public land known as Red Hill contains 14.5-miles of established trail for Carbondale area residents to explore, and to play, get fit and reflect in. Like it or not, there’s a reason Carbondale continues to get named in magazines as one of the nation’s coolest towns. The chamber of commerce’s “Basecamp for Adventure” moniker reflects what makes this little slice of heaven special, and Red Hill is a signature piece of the recreational draw.

An anonymous donor has pledged up to $45,000 in matching funds to the Carbondale Clay Center so the non-profit can pay off a $90,000 loan and concentrate on looking ahead.
“We’re excited (about the campaign) … so our future can start,” said Carbondale Clay Center Executive Director Jill Oberman. “It’s hard to go to donors … apply for grants … raise money for building improvements when we’re saddled with debt.”

Chances are, Carbondale residents will be asked next April to vote on whether to tax themselves to pay for energy-efficiency projects and programs, such as those conducted the past few years by CLEER and CORE.
“This funding would give the town the ability to invest in renewable energy projects,” said trustee Allyn Harvey after Tuesday night’s board meeting. “It would be an opportunity for residents to decide if they want to make those energy efficiency programs permanent.”

Pedestrians headed north on Third Street near the library heard an unexpected “clomp, clomp, clomp” behind them last Friday afternoon. A split second later the sound identified itself in the form of a bounding deer who was last seen between the library’s back porch and the Bridges Center heading west as fast as she could.
“Our dog barked and scared it,” an out-of-breath little boy dragging his coat backpack told this reporter. “He ran into the fence three times then jumped over.”

Chase Engel has won more than 40 medals in national beer competitions, including one at the 2012 Great American Beer Festival. With wife Aly Sanguily, he plans to open a tasting room for their Roaring Fork Beer Company brewery in February.

There are 168 hours in a week. KDNK broadcasts something for every one of those hours, but there are five hours in particular that are very unusual in the broadcast landscape.
KDNK partners with the Andy Zanca Youth Empowerment Program (AZYEP), a separate non-profit, to provide training and opportunity to local youth in community broadcasting. Our collaboration is now 14 years in the making.

The harvest may be over, but if you visited the Colorado Rocky Mountain School (CRMS) garden on one of these crisp November days, you’d find Linda Halloran as busy as ever, putting that rich ground to bed for the winter one last time. After 15 years at the helm of a school gardening program that has become a national model, she plans to hang up her keys to the CRMS greenhouse — and the skid-steer — for good on Dec. 31.