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The brochure showed a lake surrounded by snow-capped peaks, with horses gamboling about in the meadow. It looked like the place Elena and Larry Crossgrove dreamed of: a little ranch of their own. They were sold before they ever stepped foot on the land. Four years later, the Crossgroves’ bank…

In 1972, when Nixon was in the White House and the notion of a black hole first was conceived, two promising young scientists met and became close friends. One was an academic who went into university research. The other worked for a huge drug company. Over the years, both rose…

Seeing redskins: Would Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell have switched parties if he’d realized it had been a while since Abe Lincoln was an active Republican? Maybe Campbell would have thought twice if he’d checked out the Jeffco GOP Men’s Club, the regular breakfast gathering in the largest and most powerful…

When local journalist Stephana Major takes the stand to defend herself against charges that she diverted nearly $10,000 from bank accounts of the Colorado Association of Black Journalists, she might well claim her arrest was a case of mistaken identity. Major, after all, has told police that the blame for…

Stashed in the far reaches of Associates of Otolaryngology, a group of south Denver ear, nose and throat specialists, is a stack of autographed eight-by-ten glossies. At some point during every working day, nurse practitioner William “Buzz” Riefman will flip through them with a certain possessive glee. There’s Bonnie (Raitt)…

A crucial deal to redevelop now-abandoned Stapleton International Airport has crashed and burned. After months of delays, King Soopers has checked out of a much-touted city plan to make the grocery chain the anchor tenant at the old airport. Generating economic activity at the 4,700-acre Stapleton site is critical, because…

Lakota Indian who billed himself as a spiritual leader has been found guilty in Larimer County of raping a Boulder woman who helped him perform Native American ceremonies for a largely white clientele. The Colorado case comes at a time when Lakota tribal elders are expressing increased concern about the…

The Sound and the Furry Robin Chotzinoff is a national treasure–the Studs Terkel of our time. Her ability to burrow into a person’s life and extract its essential juices is uncanny. She helps make Westword by far the most intelligent newspaper in Denver. Please renew my lifetime subscription! Albert A…

Mable Mauser is sitting at her antique desk with the spindly legs when the phone rings. The man on the line is not one of the Denver society people with whom she’s worked for more than forty years. Nor is he a New York fur designer, or a rancher somewhere…

part 2 of 2 Something has gone awry– How many poets have hocked their books for junk money, waiting on the poem? Curse you Burroughs! for being an exception to rules every junkie/artist’d liketa break simultaneously reminding us just how ugly the whole life gig can go down… Don’t haveta…

part 1 of 2 The rain-slick road whispered beneath the car, the windshield wipers keeping the beat as he drove south into Chicago through the gray evening. Bill Harper felt drained. Empty as a chapel. There hadn’t been much rest in the four days since the telephone call. Chris is…

End of the line: Now that Brian Propp’s resigned–by fax from Kiev–as Regional Transportation District chairman, he would have you believe he was driven out of public service by the nasty ol’ press that portrayed him as an AWOL, radical anti-RTDer whose strings were being pulled by the Independence Institute’s…

The recent death of local millionaire Chuck Stevinson had an effect on many people. But perhaps no one outside his family will feel the loss more than a controversial South Carolina physician who also operates a cancer clinic in Denver. Indeed, the death of the Golden automobile and real estate…

We Are Not A-Mused Regarding Arthur Hodges’s “Down by Law,” in the February 22 issue: Thank you for the very informative story on Denver city attorney Dan Muse. Although I have seen his name for years, I had never before read such a complete article about his background and his…

Over the past few years, M&N Electrical Supply Corp. has been a big beneficiary of Denver’s program to promote the use of “minority business enterprises” on public-works projects. Records show the Hispanic-owned company has won contracts worth more than $12 million from the city since 1989, most of them as…

Here comes Mayor Wellington Webb. Look! He’s got four empty suitcases–three soft-sided vinyl, one American Tourister–and a very short pair of skis. No poles or boots. “Look’s like we’re all ready to take a trip,” he says. Then one of his aides rushes up with another, longer pair of skis…

With Denver’s city elections less than three months away, Mayor Wellington Webb may be unhappy to find Dan Muse, the man he named city attorney back in 1991, buffeted by accusations of wrongdoing and ineptitude. But he shouldn’t be surprised. Twelve years ago, during his first, unsuccessful bid for the…

I’m a hugger,” confesses voice-over artist and teacher Dick Terry. He draws nearer, his smile exuding a blinding white glow. “Did you know that your voice changes when you smile?” he asks. With each elongated, oddly cadenced syllable, he broadens his already enormous grin until his face is all but…

Up a creek with a paddling: It seems like just yesterday that loudmouth homophobe Bob Enyart was your average divorced, lonely talk-show host, packing a gun to work at his gig for KHNC, the “patriot” radio station way out there in tiny Johnstown. Now he’s married and a convicted spanker…