In the sun-splashed fanfare of opening day at Coors Field, the impeccably tailored promotions manager from Louisville Slugger committed an unthinkable gaffe. Amid much ceremony and clicking of camera shutters, Chuck Schupp handed a gleaming silver bat symbolizing the 1998 National League batting title to some guy named Larry Walker…
A Matter of Conviction I wanted to thank Westword for Juliet Wittman’s story of Lisl Auman, “Zero to Life,” in the April 15 issue. I believe I now have a clearer idea of the actual events, and it seems obvious that life in prison is in no way warranted for…
Alan Dumas had a big heart. Coincidentally, that’s what killed him Saturday. But not before he gave Denver two decades of wonderful memories, energizing the town with his ebullience, his wit, his imagination, his generous spirit and, above all, his stories. Some of the best never made it to print…
On April 8, 1995, Larry Fiolkoski and his partner were piloting their freight train through a dark night when they came to the crossing at Titan Road in Littleton. The conductor was at the switch when Fiolkoski heard a muted crunching sound beneath the engine’s rolling steel wheels. “What’d we…
Freeze this image in your mind. It’s the afternoon of November 12, 1997. Lisl Auman, 21 years old, is standing in front of a boxy condominium, part of a sprawling complex on Monaco Parkway in southeast Denver. Behind her is the hulking form of Matthaeus Jaehnig, struggling frantically with the…
From the beginning, there was something different about Matthaeus Jaehnig. According to his sister, Jelena, he lay so inert in his mother’s womb while she was carrying him that she once went to the hospital, afraid he had died. And when Jelena helped her father take care of her baby…
The Denver Public School District can no longer afford to provide its current level of health and social services to students and is looking to outside agencies for help. But the possibility that DPS might contract out nursing, psychology and social services has some employees worried about losing their jobs…
In the state Department of Corrections’ Alternative Program, also known as “boot camp” and modeled on military-style training, guards may apply specific tactics to persuade newly arrived prisoners to follow orders. One approved method is called “chesting.” The corrections officer, keeping his hands down by his sides, bumps his chest…
The ultimate power lunch: Steve Farber and Norm Brownstein have come a long way since the two west Denver boys partnered up in a law firm that would, three decades later, be renowned for its influence that not only smothers Denver but stretches right across the country. On Thursday the…
From Whom the Baby Bell Tolls Regarding Stuart Steers’s “Disconnected,” in the April 8 issue: Whenever people such as Sol Trujillo talk about the thorough competitiveness of the telecommunications industry here in the state of Colorado, he had better read some of the comments made in this outstanding Westword article…
Once again, Colorado Swine Day is upon us, with its ceaseless rounds of pomp and ceremony, and– No. Let’s try that again. Colorado Swine Day dawns bright and cloudless, the sort of spring day that sets the sourest of pusses to purrin’. “Why, fry me up a half-pound of bacon,…
The last person to see Richard Rother alive was probably the young lover who stepped off the elevator around half-past midnight, heading for his girlfriend’s place. This was Monday, November 9, 1998, on the top floor of the Bank Lofts, an apartment complex in the old U.S. National Bank building…
The bill-signing at the Library of Congress was meant for the history books. To mark the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, President Bill Clinton flourished a pen used by Dwight Eisenhower to approve the legislation that created the interstate highway system in 1957. The signing marked the birth…
Visions of the Apocalypse: Last September, head Promise Keeper and former University of Colorado football coach Bill McCartney secured a commitment from 9,000 men gathered at the Colorado Springs World Arena–they would each bring ten other families to rallies at state capitols across the country on January 1, 2000. “May…
Just about the time that life is supposed to get easier, Jacqueline Hope’s got harder. After her husband died in December, and his pension and Social Security benefits were cut off, Hope was faced with the prospect of supporting herself and four grandchildren on just over $400 a month. Like…
Ellen Golombek has one of the most thankless jobs at the Colorado Legislature. The 44-year-old flight attendant serves as the main lobbyist for the Colorado AFL-CIO, the federation of state labor unions. With the election of Bill Owens as Colorado’s first Republican governor in 24 years, as well as Republican…
The courtroom was quiet. Vivien Spitz walked toward her station beneath the panel of four American judges and, as protocol required, sat directly across from the defendant’s box. Military policemen stood ready. The tension was palpable. Vivien placed her court reporter’s notebook on the full-length desk, clicked her headset to…
Colorado has always been quick to forgive–and forget. In the midst of the current economic boom, with houses selling within a day for more than their asking price and the daily papers offering cash signing bonuses for new delivery people, it’s hard to remember just what a bust Colorado was…
The first time he disappeared, John Zangrando was ten, maybe eleven years old. “I realize now, looking back, that I had experienced not being totally in my mind,” he says. “I disappeared. I disappeared, and there was just the saxophone. I remember feeling there was nothing else on earth. There…
He Lives! Although I’m pretty much a garden-variety atheist, count me squarely with the “shitcan it” camp on the Jesus of the Week question. At its best, this new feature is just another (yawn) style-without-substance trifle that only other hipper-than-thou types will “get.” At its worst (which it usually is),…
The turks of Wellington Webb’s generation were bound by common threads: Almost all were lawyers, they were close in age, and they worked together in the Sam Cary Bar Association and the Colorado Black Caucus. In the more free-spirited ’90s, things have changed. Here are six men poised to take…
Superfund was created to clean up toxic messes. Robert J. Martin’s job is to clean up Superfund’s messes. For now, though, he’s just a fly on the wall. In a meeting room in the Commerce City town hall, Martin stays to the back, leans, paces, whispers something into his investigator’s…
