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Best Environmentally Correct Drought Relief

Colorado Waste Tire Program

On the one hand, big nasty piles of illegally dumped tires, just waiting to spontaneously combust. On the other, thousands of pre-teen soccer players and their parents, banned from parched playing fields. Can one be used to remedy the other? Yes! And the state wants to help play matchmaker. The Poudre School District required artificial turf-maker Sprinturf to use rubber recycled from discarded tires as in-fill when a field at Rocky Mountain High School was resurfaced last summer; the Colorado Waste Tire Program covered about 10 percent of the cost, or $52,000, as thanks for removing thousands of used tires from the Colorado landscape, and the rest will pay for itself in seven years through reduced maintenance costs. The field never needs watering, and the high school has been flooded with requests to use it by other area teams whose parched fields have been placed off limts for spring practices.

Best Dinosaur Detective

Ken Carpenter
Denver Museum of Nature & Science

Ken Carpenter, curator of paleontology at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, was rooting through a cabinet drawer at Yale University's Peabody Museum when he came across a fossilized tooth. And not just any tooth: The three-and-a-half-inch-long specimen, first found in Golden in 1874, then stashed at the Peabody, turned out to be a 67-million-year-old tooth from a Tyrannosaurex rex -- giving the Yale museum a nice display piece, and giving Colorado bragging rights for having made the earliest T. rex find.

Best Dinosaur Detective

Ken Carpenter
Denver Museum of Nature & Science

Ken Carpenter, curator of paleontology at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, was rooting through a cabinet drawer at Yale University's Peabody Museum when he came across a fossilized tooth. And not just any tooth: The three-and-a-half-inch-long specimen, first found in Golden in 1874, then stashed at the Peabody, turned out to be a 67-million-year-old tooth from a Tyrannosaurex rex -- giving the Yale museum a nice display piece, and giving Colorado bragging rights for having made the earliest T. rex find.

Best Know-It-Alls

SmartyPants

Denver Public Library reference librarians are on call 24/7 to answer your questions over the Internet. You can chat online with a SmartyPants reference librarian or e-mail your question through the DPL's Web site. You'll soon get an answer, along with an e-mail tracing the steps the librarian took to find it. And even if the question can't be readily answered, your helpful researcher will point you in the right direction.

Best Know-It-Alls

SmartyPants

Denver Public Library reference librarians are on call 24/7 to answer your questions over the Internet. You can chat online with a SmartyPants reference librarian or e-mail your question through the DPL's Web site. You'll soon get an answer, along with an e-mail tracing the steps the librarian took to find it. And even if the question can't be readily answered, your helpful researcher will point you in the right direction.

Best Student Untangling of the Web, on the Web

www.poorschool.com

As bad news about the St. Vrain Valley School District budget spilled out last fall, a group of Silver Creek High School students decided to help save their school district -- and also stem the flow of erroneous information. They set up the Web site www.poorschool.com, to "provide a medium through which accurate information is available and which can be used to preserve and broadcast the free speech of the people affected by the St. Vrain Valley School District budget crisis." That free speech includes jokes, rumor-busting and the sale of T-shirts -- complete with a poorschool.com logo and a red arrow -- to help replenish the student-activities fund. Give students Eric McIntyre, Mark Kelsic and Mitch Lubbers an A for effort.

Best Student Untangling of the Web, on the Web

www.poorschool.com

As bad news about the St. Vrain Valley School District budget spilled out last fall, a group of Silver Creek High School students decided to help save their school district -- and also stem the flow of erroneous information. They set up the Web site www.poorschool.com, to "provide a medium through which accurate information is available and which can be used to preserve and broadcast the free speech of the people affected by the St. Vrain Valley School District budget crisis." That free speech includes jokes, rumor-busting and the sale of T-shirts -- complete with a poorschool.com logo and a red arrow -- to help replenish the student-activities fund. Give students Eric McIntyre, Mark Kelsic and Mitch Lubbers an A for effort.

Best Way to Report a Crime

Denver Police Department

Instead of requiring that minor criminal offenses be reported in person, the Denver Police Department now allows you to do it electronically, expanding on an earlier program that let residents report minor traffic accidents over the Web. To report a theft (not by force or burglary), car break-in (not auto theft), lost or stolen property, or vandalism of property or vehicle, simply fill out an online form and submit it to the DPD over the Internet. That gives officers more time to respond to true emergencies -- and it definitely removes a headache for the victim.

Best Way to Report a Crime

Denver Police Department

Instead of requiring that minor criminal offenses be reported in person, the Denver Police Department now allows you to do it electronically, expanding on an earlier program that let residents report minor traffic accidents over the Web. To report a theft (not by force or burglary), car break-in (not auto theft), lost or stolen property, or vandalism of property or vehicle, simply fill out an online form and submit it to the DPD over the Internet. That gives officers more time to respond to true emergencies -- and it definitely removes a headache for the victim.

Best Community Policing

Nash Gurule
Denver Police Department

Come Cinco de Mayo, check out the award-winning, tricked-out lowrider on Federal Boulevard -- the one with the red, white and blue lights on the top. That guy in uniform standing next to it isn't writing out a ticket; the lowered 1998 Ford Crown Victoria with hydraulic shocks and a trunkload of speakers is his squad car. Nash Gurule knows all about cruising, having perfected the art during his younger days on West 38th Avenue, before he joined the Denver Police Department. Now he uses that knowledge, and his custom-painted car, to bond with the cruising community.

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