April 2017

Let’s get this out of the way to begin with: they didn’t beat the record.
And while it would have been a satisfying ending for the six world-class rafters to make it through the Grand Canyon in less than 34 hours, it’s not essential to the story of “The Time Travelers.” Sponsored by Chaco and REI, the Gnarly Bay film is as much about the training process and the people waiting at the finish line as the 277 miles between Lees Ferry and Grand Wash Cliffs.

With the Roaring Fork High School track and field season rounding the backstretch and steaming toward the finish line, there are several athletes to keep an eye on – including juniors Jasper Germain and Justin Thompson. Germain was the 3A high-jump champ in 2016 and is undefeated in 2017, while Thompson finished sixth in the long jump in 2016 and has taken first place at several meets this year.

Look for some changes at Roaring Fork High School after athletic director Marty Nieslanik hired Carbondale Middle School teacher/coach Matthew Phelan as its new football head coach last week.
For one thing, Phelan told The Sopris Sun he is going to recruit soccer players to also play on the football team.

Jackie Chenoweth is what one might call an industrial-hemp enthusiast; someone who, with a silent partner, has been working for about four years through their organization, the Colorado Hemp Education Association (www.coloradohemped.org), to bring about what she sees as a necessary change in laws governing hemp at the state and federal level. The Carbondale-area resident firmly believes the plant, a non-psychoactive member of the cannabis family of plants — meaning one cannot get “high” on hemp — can change the world for the better if only people can learn that hemp is not the same thing as “pot” and that hemp has more than 25,000 known uses that have nothing to do with altering one’s consciousness.

April 24, 1997
In the continuing saga of proposals to return passenger rail service to the valley, Carbondale declined to contribute to a $60,000 price tag to help pay for a train demonstration project in the summer. Town trustees felt the price was too high, and the prospect of learning anything useful too low, to justify spending taxpayers’ money on the train proposal, which downvalley residents felt was really an upvalley thing anyway.

Marijuana has been legal for adult recreational use (meaning the over-21 crowd) since 2012, and for medical uses (including minors aged 18 or older with parental permission) since 2000, but it remains listed as a “controlled substance” as dangerous as heroin by the federal government.
But it took another nine years before cannabis, its formal designation, became widely available to the public, after the Obama administration announced it would not pursue enforcement of federal anti-marijuana laws in states where the drug had been legalized.

Brett Stringer has taken a hands off approach as the community discussed Superintendent Rob Stein’s decision to offer him a job as principal of Roaring Fork High School, but now that the School Board has approved the move, he’s eager to introduce himself to the community.
“I really want to meet people,” he told The Sopris Sun. “I’m extremely appreciative of what I’ve learned from afar. They want what’s best for their kids, and you can’t argue with that.”
Stringer, 39, spent most of his childhood in Eagle County, went to high school in Colorado Springs, and studied film at The University of Denver, where he met his future wife, Mandy. He didn’t take a direct path to administration.