The Greeley Publishing Co.

Photo: Alexander Heit's final text message -- which he was sending when he crashed and died

A Colorado ban against texting while driving went into effect in 2009 -- not that Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle thought it would make a huge difference. At the time, he shrugged off the measure as a "feel-good law" that would be tough to enforce. More than three years later, texting and driving ... More >>

Marijuana: Jeremy Usher, Navy vet, could go to jail for treating his PTSD with cannabis

After returning from tours in Afghanistan and Iraq ten years ago, Navy veteran Jeremy Usher experienced symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder according to the Greeley Tribune. He subsequently tried treating his condition with alcohol, resulting in multiple DUIs and a probationary sentence. But ... More >>

Justin Robert West photo of himself in fun center bathroom leads to Peeping Tom bust

If Greeley police are correct, Justin Robert West set up a camera in the family changing room at a local fun center in search of a pervy sexual jolt. But the image he allegedly took of himself setting up the device probably didn't give him much of a thrill -- since it led directly to his arrest.

Rhonda Eisenberg, Greeley teacher, busted after student allegedly fathered her child

"Not so glad to be home," Greeley high school teacher Rhonda Eisenberg wrote on the wall of her Facebook page this past Saturday, after returning from an enjoyable trip to Lake Dillon and Vail. But she may have a different point of view on that sentiment this morning, given that she was booked into ... More >>

Nehemiah Chavez, gang member caught due to Playboy bunny tattoo: 128 years, more to come?

Facial tattoos aren't exactly the kind of ink that's easy to cover with a piece of clothing -- not if you want to see where you're going, anyhow. And this proved to be a problem for Nehemiah Chavez, whose Playboy bunny tat -- designating his alleged membership in a Greeley gang called the Playboyz - ... More >>

Ronnie Darnell allegedly delivered view of his junk along with newspapers

At this writing, a search of the Boulder Daily Camera website for the name Ronnie Darnell doesn't score a hit. But Darnell, who until recently delivered the Daily Camera, is making news elsewhere -- for allegedly exposing himself while dropping off papers. Oh yeah: He's apparently done this kind of ... More >>

Ten weirdest Denver Broncos cheerleaders photos

The Internet is filled with forgotten pages -- cyberspace cul de sacs filled with oddball content. Take Procheerleader.blog. It was folded in to UltimateCheerleaders.com several years ago, but content from 2004 to 2008 continues to linger, including lotsa quirky pics of Denver Broncos cheerleaders. ... More >>

Proposition 103's Rollie Heath thinks education tax vote will be very close

Rollie Heath.​Tomorrow, voters will be asked to weigh in on Proposition 103, which would hike taxes to raise money for schools. Senator Rollie Heath, the measure's most familiar proponent, is unwilling to predict victory. But he believes the vote will be "very, very close" -- and he's optimis ... More >>

Lazarus Pino, ex-marijuana dispensary owner, charged with beating, torturing pot thief

Lazarus Pino was once a medical marijuana rebel fighting against a move to shut down his dispensary. Now, however, he's accused of being a common (or maybe uncommon) goon. Along with members of his family, including his mom, Pino has been charged with beating, torturing and shooting at a man who tr ... More >>

Mike Coffman thinks Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, too!

Mike Coffman.​Read Denver blog posts and you'll grow up to be big and strong. BigMedia.org's Jason Salzman on Mike Coffman joining the crowd referring to Social Security as a Ponzi scheme. Colorado Independent's John Tomasic reports that paywalls at the Greeley Tribune and other Swift Commun ... More >>

David Rangel: Ex-teacher gets sex-offender probation despite defense from groped student

David Rangel.​Former Jefferson High teacher David Rangel was arrested last September after admitting he'd kissed and groped a student -- one of two to eventually come forward. Yesterday, he received a sentence of ten-years-to-life of intensive-supervision sex-offender probation plus a six-mont ... More >>

Connie Willis: Why sci-fi's seven-time Nebula winning author hangs out at a Greeley Starbucks

Connie Willis.​Greeley author Connie Willis was in Washington over the weekend, picking up her seventh Nebula award from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Yes, her seventh. The SFFWA's 1,500 members awarded best novel honors to her epic two-volume work, Blackout/All Clear, a ... More >>

Jason McEwan & Michelle White's party favors: Alleged kidnapping with sword, pit bull threats

Big pics below.​Jason McEwan and Michelle White threw a party and an episode of The Jerry Springer Show broke out. That's according to the Greeley police, who say special guests at the bash included a mistaken sexual advance, brass knuckles, a Samurai sword, a narrow escape and a threatened p ... More >>

ACLU objects to Ken Buck's comments after $295K Operations Numbers Game settlement

Ken Buck.​In 2008, the Weld County Sheriff's Office raided Amalia's Translation and Tax Service in Greeley as part of Operations Numbers Game, an effort to bust identity thieves who were also undocumented immigrants. The ACLU filed suit over the action -- and this week, Weld District Attorney/ ... More >>

Eric Kinder allegedly violates his probation for armed standoff by trying to kill himself

Big pic below.​Can a suicide attempt be a parole violation? Yes, if the person hoping to kill himself has been ordered to stay away from drugs and he tries to overdose. That's the accusation against Eric Kinder, 43, whose alleged death wish follows a conviction over a police standoff prompted ... More >>

Shannon Johnson gets 10 years after infant son drowned in bath as she played Facebook game

Big pic below.​The story of Shannon Johnson, accused of letting her infant son drown while she played a Facebook game, has been reported in such far-flung locations as Australia and China because her act was such a crime of the times. And she'll have lots of opportunities to mull it over: She' ... More >>

Oil companies love horizontal drilling in Weld County: Simpsons' Mr. Burns would approve

​Weld County is undergoing an explosion in the number of oil and gas companies using a technique called "horizontal drilling" to get at deposits deep in the Denver Basin, according to the Greeley Tribune. Which puts us in mind of a certain Simpsons episode.

Brett Reese and Laura Boggs, school board members, just can't control their crazy lately

Brett Reese​Last year, Westword profiled Andrea Merida, a Denver Public Schools board member who caused a stir in 2009 when she had herself secretly sworn in. Last year, a few voters tried to recall her after she wrote a negative op-ed about a senate candidate without revealing that she was wo ... More >>

Hijacker drives Comcast truck through Mormon Bishop's McMansion gate, shoots at police

Greeley Tribune​We begin with the drama in Greeley... An Arizona truck driver lost his mind in Greeley and hijacked a Comcast TV truck, which he then drove through the locked gate of a Mormon Bishop's mansion and told the man he was ready to see Jesus. When the cops showed up, the hijacker op ... More >>

Sam Brownlee, first Weld County deputy killed in line of duty since 1940: Tributes pour in

Large photo below.​The last Weld County deputy to die while doing his job was Earl Bucher way back in 1940 -- until yesterday, that is. Deputy Sam Brownlee was allegedly slain by Reuben Reyes, twenty, following a chase that reached speeds topping 100 miles per hour. Afterward, Reyes himself wa ... More >>

Denver Post, MediaNews Group executives not eager to talk about copyright-violations warning

Dean Singleton.​On Sunday, the Denver Post published "Notice to Readers About Denver Post Copyright Protections" -- although readers weren't really the target audience. The piece is actually a bellicose warning to content thieves who reproduce Post stories or photos without permission. So... w ... More >>

Colorado Public News gets grant to provide health-care coverage for 14 media outlets

Photo: Joe Mahoney​Ann Imse envisioned Colorado Public News as a way to fill the reporting gap left by the disappearance of newspapers like the Rocky Mountain News, where she once worked. The problem was trying to get someone to pay for it -- and a year later, Imse, CPN's editor, succeeded, la ... More >>

Ken Buck's refusal to prosecute alleged rape an effort to make him seem insensitive to women

Ken Buck.​Late last month, Colorado GOP boss Dick Wadhams said Democrats' decision to attack Ken Buck with ads on issues like abortion shows that they're "intellectually bankrupt," since the voting public is clearly more interested in "the economy and taxes and spending." But Buck opponents a ... More >>

David Rangel latest teacher in alleged sexual relationship with student outed by text message

David Rangel.​A new government study has found that texting leads to lots of preventable traffic fatalities due to distracted driving. But at least the technology provides evidence against teachers accused of having sexual relationships with students. Note that yesterday's arrest of David Anth ... More >>

JBS Swift lawsuit: Greeley meatpacking plant accused of descrimination against Somali staff

​"There's No Place Like Home for Somali Refugees in Greeley," a November 2008 feature by ex-Westword staffer Lisa Rab, told the tale of the Somali community in Northern Colorado, and those members who'd lost jobs in what Rab described in a followup post as "a clash over prayer breaks at the JB ... More >>

Mark Udall called Armenian genocide defector by advocacy group in candidate report card

Mark Udall.​In April, Senator Mark Udall marked the anniversary of the 1915 Armenian genocide with a strongly worded statement. But these words didn't satisfy Rocky Mountain Hye Advocates, an organization trying to get all members of the Colorado congressional delegation to support a national ... More >>

"We don't need the Denver Post," says Colorado Pols' Jason Bane

A surprised Jason Bane.​Yesterday, Colorado Pols, Denver's preeminent political website, published a legal-action-threatening piece revealing that it had received a letter from attorney Christopher Beall, representing Denver Post owner MediaNews Group and two other newspaper companies. The all ... More >>

Museum cuddles up to swastika quilt

Full-size photo below.​Today, the swastika is almost exclusively associated with the Nazi regime. But the icon was once seen as a benign decorative device -- which explains how it turned up on a quilt recently donated to the Greeley Museums. Manager Erin Quinn views it as a gorgeous specimen. ... More >>

Census 2010: Sure, the city's wrong on your form -- but trust us

"Don't worry about the facts. I'll make them up later."​As the 2010 Census gears up (and the U.S. Census Bureau looks to hire takers who have what it takes), technical questions are sure to come up -- like, for example, should prisoners on the eastern plains by counted as rural residents or ur ... More >>

Do you need to impersonate Barack Obama to get a gig these days?

Yesterday's climate-legislation rally not so spontaneous

Arguments continue about just how grassroots protests against healthcare reform like a recent shoutfest at an Ed Perlmutter event really are. But such displays of disaffection are positively organic in comparison with the rally about climate legislation that took place yesterday in Greeley. The Gre ... More >>

Mile High Music Fest Live Reviews: Day One

Aaron Thackeray See photos of Day One's fans on the slideshow page. It's here: The second edition of the Mile High Music Fest is underway, and our gaggle of writers and photogs are shvitzing their way around the grounds to bring you ongoing, as-close-to-live-as-my-fingers-allow coverage of Denver ... More >>

Closure of Fort Collins Now marks end of era in great Northern Colorado weekly newspaper war

An image from the last edition of "Fort Collins Now." Today marks the final edition of Fort Collins Now, a weekly newspaper that built up a considerable following dating to 2003, when it was born as the Fort Collins Weekly. Indeed, Northern Colorado as a whole was practically bursting at the seams ... More >>

Latino community set to march in Greeley tomorrow

A Flickr photo. Over the past few years, Greeley has become a hotbed for immigration issues in Colorado. In 2006, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents raided the Swift meatpacking plant there, arresting more than 250 people, many of whom were detained and separated from their children. And l ... More >>

So what did Greeley Mayor Ed Clark's fake Obama dollar look like?

You know the greatest thing about Greeley mayor Ed Clark? He really knows how to relate to the young people of America. Like in June, Clark spotted a fifteen-year-old boy riding his motorbike down a neighborhood street, and somehow the former cop just knew that what the boy really wanted was to be ... More >>

Campus Press Documents, Part 2: The Voakes Report

CU Hires Three Pulitzer Winners

Some of newspapering's best and brightest are trading journalism for academia — including three Pulitzer winners hired at CU.

Newspaper Wars

The northern Colorado newspaper market is a real pie fight.

The Turnover Rate at the Rocky Mountain News

More Messages: Poynter Makes a Point

Paper Chase

Print is far from dead in Fort Collins, where five free weeklies compete for ad revenue and readers' eyeballs.

The Message

Revision Quest

Toxic Shocker!

The government ambushed the Rocky Flats grand jury. Now its foreman is gunning for justice.

Naming Rights

The Message

Rolling on the Rocks

Year in Review: Strange But True

From kitty cut-ups to an airline named Ted, this was one oddball year.

Anchor in Waiting

Sportscaster Les Shapiro is rested and ready. But will TV take him back?

Political Animals