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Polly Sullivan kept lighthouses in her window, rows of miniature beacons that illuminated the old military dormitory at Lowry that is now Crooked Tree, a shelter for the formerly homeless. It was nice, tenants say, comforting. No matter what else was going on in their lives, and there was usually…

The warriors are in trouble when the tale begins. Their leader has accidentally broken their vow never to kill anyone and has exiled himself. Their only hope may be young Ryan Jeffers, a kid with a limp, parents who are never around, and low self-esteem. His sole friend is a…

Buy Now, Pay Later You can feel the urgency in the Rock Creek Ranch sales offices of Richmond American Homes. You can see it in the eyes of the young couples who arrive there in weather foul and fair, brochures in hand and toddlers in tow, their nerves jangled from…

Last summer, Thomas Hendrix canvassed the sidewalks of Denver, hustling up signatures for the petition drive that got Amendments 15 and 16 on the ballot in November’s election. The amendments, pushed by Gary Boyce’s Stockman’s Water Company, would have required flow meters on pumps and payments for water that farmers…

A proposal that would radically change the way Colorado grows and curb urban sprawl is on a collision course with the Colorado Legislature. And if lawmakers turn the idea down–again–Colorado voters will likely have the final say. The Colorado Responsible Growth Act would mandate “urban growth boundaries” around most of…

Look out below! On Monday, as officials of Colorado Ski Country USA proclaimed their neutrality on the issue of helmets on the slopes (last week the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission recommended that skiers and snowboarders use that pesky protective headgear), the state racked up its third skiing death of…

Here’s my tortured premise. Just after 11:59 p.m. December 31, 1999, the Y2K disaster occurs, all right, but not exactly as foreseen. Instead of moving into the year 2000, not only do our computers roll back to 1900, but so does our computer-driven society. And so do we. At first…

For Adults Only It upsets me that your recent covers–the December 31 Year in Review and the January 7 issue–have been so vile. You have a right to print whatever you like, but surely parents have a right to go out to dinner with their kids without this stuff at…

A couple of years ago, Art Greer developed an interest in local history and began working to revive the decrepit neighborhood just northeast of LoDo. The area is one of the few that hasn’t been goosed by the proximity of Coors Field, but convincing the government bureaucrats to sign on…

Jerry Ritchie is dying. He has emphysema, and as he moves around his small Arvada apartment, he carefully steps over the plastic tubes that link him to an oxygen tank. For the last several years, Ritchie has been in and out of hospitals and nursing homes, recovering from surgery and…

The Denver Veterans Affairs Medical Center is a place where people expect to get healed, not hurt. But one center employee says he was in serious pain after the hospital’s chief of police confronted him about $80 worth of unpaid parking tickets he’d racked up in the hospital lot. William…

Be afraid. Be very afraid: Bill Owens has yet to take office, and already people are raining on his parade. For starters, there’s Tracy Rogers, former office manager for his brother, lieutenant governor-elect and student-loan scofflaw Joe Rogers, who this week announced that he’d officially severed all political and professional…

The Colorado Xplosion finally rated a front-page story in the Denver Post’s December 23 sports section. The team’s accomplishment? Going out of business. The demise of the American Basketball League didn’t come as a complete surprise, however, since the startup had been on tenuous footing since its first tipoff in…

Dan Savage has been writing “Savage Love,” a nationally syndicated sex-advice column, for seven years–enough time to become an expert on everything from women’s orgasms to safe sex to abusive boyfriends to Hollywood blockbusters to gerbils. Have a question for him? Write: Savage Love, c/o Westword, P.O. Box 5970, Denver,…

For drama, it didn’t come close to a young man tortured and strung up like a scarecrow on a fence beside a lonely strip of Wyoming asphalt. Which meant that for the media, it barely rated a mention. On November 1, 1993, a battered body was found by the side…

Airheads The symbol of a blow-up doll on your December 31 Year in Review issue was particularly appropriate, since Westword is so often full of hot air. Jayne Riley Denver It has been refreshing to move to a new city and discover original literary instincts in Westword. Just wanted to…

Bryan Scheferkort left behind a hundred bad memories on the streets of Denver, but he can’t shake one image that will always remind him of the year he spent without a home. One night last spring, at about 2 a.m., he and three friends were smoking pot under the 20th…

Colorado truly was an altered state in 1998. A Boulder manufacturer of Halloween “Dracula Fangs” sued a competitor for selling allegedly identical devices known as “Fangtastics.” A fourteen-year-old sexual assault suspect was arrested in Boulder after he crashed his bicycle while attempting to grab a passing woman cyclist’s breast. Police…

Since the moment Michael Kennedy made unfortunate contact with a tree on an Aspen ski slope on New Year’s Eve 1997, it’s all been downhill for Colorado. If 1997 had been a peak year for the state–which attracted international attention with its flawless handling of the two Oklahoma City bombing…

Pat and Annabel Bowlen Corporate Welfare King and Queen Years ago, when Canadian millionaire Pat Bowlen started angling for a new stadium, one with deep revenue streams and luxury boxes that he hadn’t already sold off, image consultants warned that he’d have to ditch the fur coat if he wanted…