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Inspiration can be found growing in a Carbondale town ditch, next to the Crystal River or where dried leaves curl into the snow. “Almost all of my inspiration comes from nature. I like to find something that’s interesting in nature, a thing that has a shape or texture and that’s the theme for a series,” said jewelry designer Colby June Fulton.

It’s not really an “away” game for either when the Roaring Fork Rams play the Colorado Rocky Mountain School Oysters, as they did in a quick pair of matches on Oct. 12 and Oct. 15.
Less than two miles separate the teams’ soccer fields and the close-knit community’s two high school teams are close in more than geography. Rams’ head coach Nick Forbes is a CRMS alum, and his father Arthur “A.O.” Forbes is a long-time teacher and soccer coach at the private school. Several CRMS students play for Roaring Fork volleyball and basketball teams, including at least one member of their current soccer lineup. A.O. also teaches a pair of night classes for the RE-1 school district, in coordination with the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies, and has had some of Roaring Fork sports-team members in his class.
“You kinda have to make up a competitive spirit that’s not really there,” Nick observed following the second of the public school’s pair of victories over CRMS this year.

A local group of Roaring Fork Valley residents is gearing up to lobby for a nonpartisan solution to what they say is one of the most challenging issue of all time — climate change.
The group is the newest chapter of Citizens Climate Lobby, a fast-growing national nonprofit that recruits and trains citizens to lobby their own members of Congress for climate legislation, according to a press release.
The Roaring Fork group will hold an introductory training led by CCL Executive Director Mark Reynolds at the Third Street Center at 9:30 a.m. on Oct. 19. Anyone interested in attending should RSVP to Dave Reed at 970-366-8766.

Construction at the intersection of Highway 133 and Main Street is scheduled to begin on Oct. 21 and continue for six weeks so that Excel Energy, Century Link, Cedar Networks and Comcast can put their overhead utilities underground before the Colorado Department of Transportation’s highway project starts next year.

At least eight people were injured when a down-valley bound bus rolled over on Highway 82, coming to rest sideways on a concrete barrier pointing up-valley. According to Valley View Hospital, all patients were in stable condition as of midnight Sunday.

Carbondale & Rural Fire Protection District residents are being asked to permanently increase their property taxes by approximately 50 percent on mail-in ballots that the Garfield County clerk and recorder will send out later this month.
If the ballot issue is approved, the total mill levy will stand at 12.038, according to a resolution approved by the five-member district board in September. The new levy will combine a 2.233 temporary hike voters approved in 2011, with a new levy of 3.902.

After two and a half years, the Third Street Center and the operators of the PAC3 performance space are casting about for new ways of doing business. On page 9 of this issue of The Sopris Sun, readers will see a request for proposals from potential future tenants of the PAC3 space at the Third Street Center in Carbondale. The Center is looking for a new plan to use the room and fill it with people more often. In the words of current tenant Josh Behrman of Mountain Groove Productions, “unfortunately, it’s underutilized.”

“It was sort of like a pep rally,” said Re-1’s Chief Academic Officer Rob Stein, describing the school district’s visioning meeting in Carbondale on Oct. 3. “I’ve never before seen crowds of people cheering for academic choices,” Stein told The Sopris Sun. The meeting drew about 150 community members, approximately 80 percent of whom were parents of current students.

The ribbon for the Prettiest cake went to Jessica Gonzales for her lovely vanilla cake. Tastiest was the yummy salted caramel layer-cake with butterscotch dipped potato chips baked by Nikki Smeins. The chocolate potato cake made by Heather Wilson and the Carbondale Community School won for Best Representation of Carbondale because it was made with local potatoes harvested by the students.

The market for recreational marijuana cultivation, manufacturing and retail sales in Colorado officially opens for business this coming January, but the licensing process actually began this week at the state level. Carbondale is among a handful of communities around the state that has adopted local marijuana licensing rules so that existing medical marijuana businesses can expand into the recreational side of the market, and new businesses can open.
The Sopris Sun put together a list of questions about what the legalization of recreational marijuana means for Carbondale and sent them over to Town Hall for answers. Those answers are informative and revealing about the near-term future for this new industry.