Reader: You may not be from Colorado, but Colorado loves you anyway

While Colorado fans have been waving the flag -- which only ranked twelfth in a national list of the best state flags, we've been buried in producing the Best of Denver, our annual celebration of everything we love about living in this state. Our thirtieth anniversary issue will hit the...

By Patricia Calhoun

March 25, 2014

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While Colorado fans have been waving the flag -- which only ranked twelfth in a national list of the best state flags, we've been buried in producing the Best of Denver, our annual celebration of everything we love about living in this state. Our thirtieth anniversary issue will hit the streets (and the web) late tomorrow.

One of the things we love about living in Colorado? Smart readers, who take the time to really consider issues and then send clever comments like this one from Matt:

Colorado is an arbitrary state...one of the few states with no natural (river, mountain chain, etc.) boundary to separate "us" from "them." Western Slope has always been closer in spirit to Canyonland, the South like New Mexico, the Eastern Plains like Kansas, and the North like Wyoming. The mountain towns are their own and that leaves the Front Range, which is so diverse politically that if Stephen King were writing The Stand now he'd only have to go as far as Colorado Springs to find a home for Flagg. (The Chosen Ones would still live in Boulder.) As a native, you know Colorado has never had an identity, beyond skiing and the Broncos, much less a group of people to rally behind it... The Colorado flag on everything is East Coast/West Coast marketing and the people who came up with it are outsiders and the people who wear it are outsiders and I'm totally okay with it. That's right, you're not from Colorado, but Colorado loves you anyway.

And we love Colorado. See how much by picking up a copy of the Best of Denver 2014 tomorrow.

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Patricia Calhoun is editor-in-chief of Westword, the alt-weekly she co-founded in September 1977. She’s been inducted into the Colorado Press Association Hall of Fame, the Association of Alternative Newsmedia Hall of Fame and the Colorado Restaurant Association Hall of Fame. She’s also received dozens of local, state and national awards for writing, including first place for feature writing and first place for column writing with the Society of Professional Journalists. Patricia is a weekly commentator on Colorado Inside Out, PBS 12's public affairs roundtable, which has won two Emmys.

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