Martha Thayer’s brown curls bounce as she nods admiringly at the Primrose, an elegant-looking coffin sitting against the south wall of her classroom. “This is the same kind of casket that Karen Carpenter was buried in,” she says. “That’s sort of its claim to fame. But when I tell my…
While Congress fights over what promises to be the nation’s energy policy for the future, a University of Denver law student is fighting to make the federal government keep its energy promises of the past. Last fall, Kathleen Booth signed up for DU’s Environmental Law Clinic Partnership, a semester-long course…
Terry Graham is fighting a losing battle. Last July, the anti-immigration activist was in the audience for an immigration reform panel at North High School’s auditorium where, she claimed, another audience member assaulted her (“Trial by Wire,” March 3). The program was hosted by First Data Corp., a Greenwood Village-based…
Fame is so fleeting. Ozzie, a nine-week-old American pit bull terrier puppy, became an instant star back in May, when he puked on Channel 12’s Colorado Inside Out Live. The dog, who’d sat patiently in a vet’s lap while Peter Boyles led the one-hour discussion of Denver’s ban on pit…
It would appear that Queer Eye for the Straight Guy has led America astray. While the Fab Five would have you believe that the modern homosexual landscape is dotted with theater-going sophisticates, martini-sipping literati and devastatingly dressed couples with annual memberships at the Met — in short, people of culture…
If you need to ask who Lance Armstrong is, try the next three-year-old who pedals by on a tricycle. If you want to know who Jan Ullrich, Ivan Basso and Roberto Heras are, ask the people chowing down on VeloNews veggie cakes and LeMond lemonade at the HandleBar & Grill…
Killer Instincts The blame game: The contrast between the message delivered by Patricia Calhoun’s “Crash Course” column last week and that of Luke Turf’s “Headed for Trouble” left me with a somewhat disturbed feeling. Calhoun’s column was remarkably sensitive given the horrible nature of the crime for which Mr. Romero…
The boys played together in a punk-rock band, Troublebound. They went to high school together at Highlands Ranch. They worked together at Einstein’s bagel shop. And when Nate Ybanez decided to murder his mother, he went to his frontman, Erik Jensen, for help. On June 5, 1998, Erik got stoned,…
The files of the Pendulum Foundation overflow with cases of people convicted of committing crimes when they were juveniles and who are now in prison for life. Many of those crimes were less gruesome, and much less cut-and-dried, than the murder of Julie Ybanez. Back in 1991, a sixteen-year-old black…
Two nearly identical Victorian-style office buildings sit in old downtown Parker, like gingerbread houses crafted from the same mold. They share a parking lot. One’s address is on Pike’s Peak Drive, the other on Pike’s Peak Court. One is dusty pink, the other is baby blue. But according to the…
While Ingrid Vachier, a 35-year-old Coloradan who’s originally from the Dominican Republic, was getting the works for ABC’s Extreme Makeover, she had no idea her husband was cutting a rug with another woman. Ingrid was in California for two months, where plastic surgery was done on her face, breasts and…
In fifth grade I submitted a poem to my school’s literary journal that, to borrow a phrase from Muhammad Ali, shook up the world. People were stunned. No one could believe that an eleven-year-old had penned such a moving poem, one that resonated with such earth-shattering profundity. My English teacher…
The late Dalton Trumbo may be the most famous person to hail from Colorado’s Western Slope. But in Grand Junction, where the award-winning novelist and screenwriter was raised, Trumbo has been persona non grata for seven decades because of Eclipse, an often stinging satire of the town and its inhabitants…
As rain spits from a low gray sky one evening, Mike Bostwick, perhaps the best fly-caster in all of Colorado, stands by himself in Aurora’s Utah Park. An observer can tell it’s Mike Bostwick (he looks a little like Stalin, but much friendlier) because of his rugged-sportsman-looking shirt, on which…
Heavy Petting It’s the pits: Kenny Be always displays a fine sense of humor, but with his “Denver Dogs: On Death Row” that ran below the June 23 Worst-Case Scenario, he displayed real fine art skills as well. This man is a true talent! (And really funny.) Liza Robbins Aurora…
“You’re not going to drive us into the desert and kill us, are you?” the man asks, sliding open the door of the brown minivan piloted by the Jester. This is a fairly common concern — not always expressed with the exact wording, but with the same sentiment behind it,…
When postal carrier Tim Ramsey bought his home on Ford Street in north Golden nine years ago, he knew he was acquiring a special slice of local history. The house had once belonged to prominent developer Joseph Mayford Peery, and in 1971 Peery had given four acres directly south of…
When Neal Greenberg met Leonard Cohen over dinner in 1996, the Boulder banker gushed that it was a rare honor to dine with the iconoclastic writer and musician — a celebrity since the late ’60s for his cerebral, soul-baring songwriting. They ate and talked, and within several months Greenberg was…
City attorney Cole Finegan — among those rumored as a possible replacement for departing mayoral chief of staff Michael Bennet, who’s heading to the Denver Public Schools superintendent slot — was unavailable for comment on his candidacy, the dailies reported Monday. And how. Finegan’s at the bottom of the Grand…
In college I had a pothead friend prone to making grandiose statements. Nothing was ever merely okay with this guy; every experience was either the best or the worst of his life. That grilled-cheese sandwich we’d just eaten in the cafeteria? The worst in the history of the New England…
“I’ve never been one to want credit,” says Mark Cornetta, who’s scheduled to become Channel 9’s president and general manager July 15. “I’ve liked being a part of a successful team. And feeling good about the accomplishments the team has made is what matters, not someone assigning credit or blame…
He takes it. The gritty stoic wearing the dirty uniform and the tar-crusted batting helmet takes Kevin Brown’s 92-mile-an-hour fastball on the left forearm and, without so much as glancing back at the mound, takes his base. A week later, a wayward Pedro Astacio heater hits him flush in the…
