Government is a core pillar of local, state, national and global society. We trust it to make and enforce rules and responsibly spend tax dollars. We rely on it to operate core functions for health, safety and finance. We ask it to provide additional services that enhance our quality of life. We elect representatives to […]
Columns
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Revolutionary changes
My granddaughter Sara interviewed me for a college assignment. She wanted to know about the revolutionary changes I’ve experienced in my eight and a half decades on earth, things like computers and Artificial Intelligence (AI). At 18, Sara sees change as pretty sudden. At 85, I see it as more gradual, an “evolution” rather than […]
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Following my heart through uncertainty
VOICES Radio Hour is brought to you by VOICES in partnership with KDNK, The Sopris Sun, and Connection is Medicine Foundation. Each episode we share stories from members of our community. We hope this serves to preserve our oral history of who we are, where we come from and who we aspire to be, through […]
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Crystal Theatre: Mending our social fabric
“Are you crying?” My friend was sniffling and wiping his glasses. The penguin in the biographical film, “The Penguin Lessons,” had just died. As the lights at the Crystal Theatre came up, I saw some of the crustiest old characters in Carbondale also wiping their eyes. This is a good thing, I thought. This is […]
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View from the Therapy Pool: Religion, the curse of mankind
Thunder River Theatre’s current production of “Peter Pan on her 70th Birthday” expressed many poignant and touching ideas on deity, aging and the afterlife that inspired some deep thoughts on my part. A lifelong atheist, I’m giving second thoughts to the Native American concept of a Great Spirit or Creator. It’s not something that’s visible […]
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A mother’s voice behind a little ‘blue heart’
This month of May still arrives tinted with the blue of April, a month dedicated to autism awareness. And in the midst of that transition, I would love to speak from a different place, not only as the mother of a little “blue heart,” but as the woman behind that diagnosis. And I think May, […]
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Everyone is an artist
Editor’s note: Sarah Pletts is a Colorado Mountain College community education instructor. What happens when you join an art class? Can you quantify the experience gained? When you start to read this, pause a few moments and take stock. Look closely around yourself and identify three objects. Take a chair for example — most are […]
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Continuing a tradition
While Klaus Kocher and I were coordinating with mothers as they arrived for the Mother’s Day photo shoot this year, we came across a 1991 bound volume of the Valley Journal. The archive included that year’s Mother’s Day edition, which featured a former editor of The Sopris Sun, Will Grandbois (as a baby, of course), […]
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Motherhood unfolding
Initially, I was cavalier about motherhood, treating reproduction as an experience to be had — an item to be checked off a bucket list. After two years of trying, pregnancy became an obsession, measured in doctor’s visits, sperm counts and the painful flushing of contrast dye through my fallopian tubes. When the pregnancy tests finally […]
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Seeking Haystacks: Dreaming
“I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’” — Martin Luther King Jr. Dreams are […]