Will Grandbois

Yllanes, 43, is married with two children and has lived in town for close to two years and in the Roaring Fork Valley for a total of about eight years. He is fluent in both Spanish and English and offered himself as a liaison between the town government and Carbondale’s Hispanic population, among other attributes, he told the town’s trustees at the meeting. He was picked from a field of six candidates whom the sitting board members universally praised as highly qualified men and women who each would have made a good choice to replace former Trustee Katrina Byars.

Luis Yllanes, 43, a Florida-born man with a background in the arts, was appointed to join the Carbondale Board of Trustees at a meeting of that board on Tuesday night.
Yllanes, who is married with two children, has lived in town for close to two years but has lived in the Roaring Fork Valley for a total of about eight years. He is fluent in both Spanish and English and offered himself as a liaison between the town government and Carbondale’s Hispanic population, among other attributes.

Sometime between closing July 28 and opening July 29, someone broke into Basalt Bike and Ski (formerly Ajax Bike and Ski) in Carbondale and got away with seven bikes with an estimated total value of $62,000, according to a Carbondale Police press release.

The passing of teacher Bonnie Fischer has left a hole Crystal River Elementary — and, indeed, in Carbondale — 47 years deep. “It won’t be the same. It can’t be,” said CRES Principal Matt Koenigsknecht. “I know that her impact will be felt for a long time. Her legacy is one of love and dedication to kids.” Fischer, neé Mortensen, 75, succumbed to a years-long battle with cancer on Aug. 1. She grew up in Utah but graduated from Glenwood Springs High School after her father was transferred to the Mid-Continent mine in Redstone. She married her high school sweetheart, the late Jack Fischer, who was a soldier, and they had three children.

Here are the folks who came out on top in the various Mountain Fair competitions, according to Carbondale Arts and Independence Run and Hike. See their respective websites for full results.

First Ascent, an annual outdoor youth leadership program held each summer at Colorado Mountain College Leadville, is teaching teenagers lessons learned by climbing mountains and running rivers.
The program is the brainchild of Mariana Velasquez-Schmahl, the college’s former youth outreach coordinator. She has served as First Ascent’s program manager since it began in 1995. Velasquez-Schmahl is stepping down this year, passing responsibilities to Carolyn Larsen, who, like all First Ascent leaders, first joined the program as a student. Larsen climbed the ranks of student counselor, lead counselor and lead facilitator to her new role as program director.

Aug. 4, 1977: Carbondale became the first town on the Western Slope to plan for an emergency water supply from Ruedi Reservoir when the town council unanimously authorized $1500 for 100 acre feet of water. The purchase, which was facilitated by the Colorado River Water Conservation District, was negotiated to alleviate any possible shortages in town, and would be drawn from wells rather than directly from the Roaring Fork River.