From Russia With Love, a Denver-based mail-order-bride company, knows its target market: desperate old men. “Perhaps by now you have heard every excuse in the world why this or that lady will not go out with you. One of the most common responses is: You are just too old for…
Debi Drewes was in the kitchen of her Athmar Park home when she heard the crash. It was shortly after seven in the evening on September 11, 2001 — a day already overburdened with tragedy and grief. Drewes grabbed her portable phone and headed outside. A Taurus sat on her…
Thirty minutes before kickoff on the night of the much-hyped Monday Night Football game between the Denver Broncos and the Oakland Raiders, the concrete pavilion outside Invesco Field at Mile High was invaded by tens of thousands of football fans in uniform. Mixed in with the middle-aged, open-beer-can-carrying, potbellied rival…
Members of an independent panel charged with reviewing sexual misconduct at the United States Air Force Academy offered sharp words for the institution’s leaders, but no real closure for victims who have anxiously awaited their report for the past three months. In a July e-mail exchange among sexual-assault victims that…
Last September, a forty-year-old Hispanic man stood in the courtroom of the Denver Drug Court and looked at the magistrate, then at his wife and six sons. It was his “graduation” from a program that combines rehabilitation with legal consequences for continued drug use. He went to the podium and…
1. Denver’s Channel 8 recently received honors for many of its programs. Which did not earn a first-place award? A. The Magic of Denver Government B. @altitude: Shopping in Denver C. @altitude: Wellington E. Webb Municipal Office Building D. Johns TV 2. Speaking of Webb, the former mayor has a…
Dogpile: Duane “Dog” Chapman, Denver’s very own celebrity bounty hunter, finally hit the bigtime last week when he guested on Hollywood Squares, a gig he snared through recent publicity over his capture of fugitive rapist Andrew Luster. It wasn’t the quarter-of-a-million-bucks reward he was hoping for, but it was some…
In a media world that’s in lust with new technology, radio seems thoroughly old-fashioned, the equivalent of a bicyclist competing in the Daytona 500. At times, though, it’s still better to be Lance Armstrong than Jeff Gordon. Just ask the pupils and staffers at Ouray High School, located in a…
If Patrick Roy isn’t muttering into his onion soup about now up in chilly Quebec, he probably should be. After that ignominious early exit from the playoffs last spring — the Minnesota Wild? the what? — the future suddenly looked bleak for the Colorado Avalanche. Not only was Roy, the…
Colorado’s Bad Trip To be or not to be: Regarding Patricia Calhoun’s “Reality Bites,” in the September 11 issue: Another ironic touch to the promo film Colorado Courage (made by out-of-staters) is that the fake vacationing family is supposedly from North Carolina, whose state motto is Esse Quam Videri –…
The first clue that Matthew Helms is not your average thirteen-year-old boy lies atop his pre-pubescent head. Long, flowing and cut with rough bangs that fall unevenly over dark blue eyes, his blond hair cascades over shoulders that are strong and toned, an anomaly of adolescent physiology. Another clue. Clues…
More than twenty years after scoring his big break, Kelly Reno remains Colorado’s most famous contribution to the firmament of child stars. Reno was thirteen years old in 1979 when his cattle-ranching parents, Bud and Ruth, responded to an open audition call for The Black Stallion. Reno got the job,…
Just as the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District celebrates its fifteenth anniversary, beneficiaries of its special sales tax are changing the way the money is distributed by bringing the Denver Center for the Performing Arts into the coveted top tier. In the process, they’ve left many smaller cultural organizations feeling…
1. Sad to say, but the Elmer Fudds among us almost missed the chance to (wegawwy) bwast which cwitter to smithereens? A. Snapping turtles. B. Wyoming ground squirrels. C. Sage grouse. D. Cottontail wabbits. 2. Ready, aim…take that, peacenik! According to the Colorado Division of Wildlife Web site, this is…
Faculty and students at the United States Air Force Academy have opposing perceptions of the school’s atmosphere for women and efforts to prevent sexual harassment, according to a General Accounting Office study released September 12. While 51 percent of faculty members surveyed for the report stated that the overall conditions…
Mattel, which has kept Barbie dressed for success for over forty years, recently sent its 2004 models sashaying down the runway, complete with a Giorgio Armani-dressed doll and a Fashion Designer Ken. And while the company has shown no inclination to repeat 1998’s CU Buffs Cheerleader Barbie, one as-yet-unidentified Internet…
Newspaper columnists eager to land on the good side of local readers have several surefire ways to get the job done. Rhapsodizing about the beauty of the place where they live (particularly when it isn’t that beautiful) works wonders, and paying tribute to its essential goodness and character (especially if…
Did Harvey ever intend to become a purveyor of elephant humor? He did not. But sometimes life throws you a curveball. So you make the best of your lot and try to get a laugh here or there. “What,” Harvey asks, “do you do with an elephant with four balls?”…
Smells Like Team Spirit The parent trap: Regarding Eric Dexheimer’s “First Down,” in the September 4 issue: When a group of thirteen-year-olds rebel against a coach, it is not the thirteen-year-olds who are rebelling. It’s the parents. It is more sad than anything else that they feel a need to…
Angela never expected that her life would have a happy ending. She grew up in grinding poverty on a cattle ranch in central Mexico, where her father was a ranch hand. There was little, if any, work available for Angela or her siblings. Desperate to make a better life for…
As an aspiring attorney-to-be, William Safford figured he’d found the ideal job at Auraria’s Student Legal Services. The 23-year-old Metropolitan State College of Denver student was working with lawyers and paralegals, helping other students with legal problems and earning cash to defray the cost of an education that he hoped…
1. Yeah, September 11 is an unfortunate date: You have to wait another whole day until Denver’s Oktoberfest begins! Then you can don your dirndls and hosen and get schlap happy. Which entertainer is not scheduled to perform in Larimer Square this year? A. Steve Rock und seine Tanzkapelle. B…
