January 2017

Carbondale’s town government is quietly wrestling with questions about how to come up with what may be tens of millions of dollars worth of replacement and repairs to the town’s aging infrastructure, meaning buried utility pipes and streets in this context.

When folks think of Aspen Glen, south of Carbondale, they usually think of big houses, a beautiful golf course, two miles of the Roaring Fork River running through it, and guarded gates that keep gawkers from meandering through on Sunday afternoon drives. Folks usually don’t think of Aspen Glen as being home to a professional potter who creates hundreds of pots, vases and other ceramic works-of-art in a studio attached to his home.

Both Carbondale ice rinks (at 4th and Main Streets downtown, and the Gus Darien Riding Arena on Catherine Store road east of town) were up and operating last week, reported Town Manager Jay Harrington in his Dec. 30 memo to the Board of Trustees, town employees and other recipients.

It is not uncommon to worry about youth habits today. If kids are glued to screens and cell phones, are they losing the simple ability to tell a compelling story from start to finish? As importantly, can they write it down? Ask Liz Hazle’s fifth grade language arts class.

After plenty of practice in December tournaments, Roaring Fork High School basketball is back from holiday break with the first league games of the season on the road this week.
The boys got off to a rocky start last month with a 50-49 loss to Steamboat Springs in the Brenda Patch Tournament. The Rams haven’t lost a game since then, and even notched a narrow victory over Northglenn, a school with more than five times RFHS’s enrollment.
“Our tournament games allowed us to play against teams we didn’t know and made us make game adjustments, which the team did well,” observed head coach Larry Williams.

Departing Sopris Sun editor Lynn Burton has seen a lot of change in the journalism landscape in almost four decades working for an array of local dailies and weeklies.
“A lot of reporters and photographers have come and gone. I was really fortunate a lot of times, with the economic ups and downs and papers opening and closing and coming under new ownership, to somehow or other hang on,” he said. “I’m a pretty good photographer for a writer, and I’m a pretty good writer for a photographer. I think what really kept me in the newspaper game in the Roaring Fork Valley is that I’m able to do both.”

It’s New Year’s Day at The Sopris Sun office and I can’t think of a more auspicious time and place to reintroduce myself to the readers.
I don’t generally put a lot of stock in the calendar change. This year, though, Jan. 1 marks my first day as editor of Carbondale’s hometown newspaper, so I’m finding a lot more meaning in the date than usual. It’s a time for both reflection and new possibilities.

Pitkin County officials have embarked on a $300,000 trails planning project ($100,000 from Great Outdoors Colorado or GoCo, and $200,000 from Pitkin County) seeking help from citizens in connecting the towns of Carbondale and Crested Butte by trail, according to officials of the county’s Open Space & Trails department.