COLORADO A deliciously funny film called The Lost People of Mountain Village wowed audiences at Telluride’s Mountainfilm festival and other venues around western Colorado. In deadpan style, the 15-minute pseudo-documentary explores what happened to the overlords who once lived above high-altitude Telluride. The joke for locals: The “town” of Mountain Village always feels abandoned by […]
Betsy Marston
Posted inNovember 28, 2005: Gold from the Gas Fields
Heard around the West
NEVADA You’ve gotta love Oscar Goodman, the mayor of Las Vegas: He doesn’t hesitate to trumpet what he thinks, no matter how over the top. Appearing on a TV program in Carson City recently, the mayor sounded off on lawbreakers who spraypaint graffiti over freeways. “These punks come along and deface it,” he said, according […]
Posted inNovember 14, 2005: Back On Track
Heard around the West
UTAH Eighty may be the new 60, but ski resorts aren’t thrilled by the increasing number of ancient customers who refuse to hang up their skis. So Park City, like many other ski resorts, has abandoned its ski-free policy for those over 70. Septuagenarians must now pay $249 for season passes, reports the Park Record. […]
Posted inOctober 31, 2005: The Public Lands' Big Cash Crop
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THE WEST If you like nothing better than a good pun, check out the “Endangered Feces” T-shirt that’s advertised on several Web sites for environmentally oriented companies. Twenty scats from wild animals are pictured on the front of the shirt, including the substantial contribution of a grizzly bear, the dainty deposits of a New Mexican […]
Posted inOctober 17, 2005: The Ghosts of Yosemite
Heard around the West
IDAHO A border collie adept at “child-herding, intense stares and home protection” has applied for a job with the city of Boise: He wants to chase Canada geese off the playing fields. In a letter purported to be from the herd dog, named Atticus in honor of the lawyer in To Kill a Mockingbird, he […]
Posted inOctober 3, 2005: Out of the Four Corners
Heard Around the West
WASHINGTON A duck named Gooey has brought Diane Erdmann, a manager for Northwest Territorial Mint, a whole lot of attention, along with a possible charge of illegally harboring wildlife. The mallard had been attacked by a crow, and Erdmann took over its care from a friend, nursing the bird back to health and consulting a […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 2005: Squeezing Water from a Stone
Heard around the West
MONTANA Fourteen intrepid ranch women of Big Timber, Mont., ranging in age from 45 to 77, posed semi-dressed for a 2006 calendar called “I See By Your Outfit.” The women don’t take it all off, though sometimes their chaps lack jeans underneath; they mostly tease by standing in front of strategically placed hay bales or […]
Posted inSeptember 5, 2005: Rangeland Revival
Heard around the West
UTAH A work of art newly emerged from the depths of the Great Salt Lake is making waves in the art world. Robert Smithson completed Spiral Jetty in 1970, but three years later it vanished under the rising lake. Smithson himself disappeared as well, dying in a plane crash. Now, the artist is being celebrated […]
Posted inAugust 22, 2005: A Military Town Fights for its Life
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OREGON Joseph, Ore., population 1,100, doesn’t often get rowdy, so local police quickly followed up on a complaint June 9, regarding some noisy teens. A youth group had apparently massed on the sidewalk in front of their church, where they practiced singing. Here’s the sweet denouement, as reported by the town policeman in the Wallowa […]
Posted inAugust 8, 2005: The Gangs of Zion
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WESTERN COLORADO The Gladstone Kibosh, a lively newspaper published 114 years ago in the then-booming mining town of Silverton, Colo., was surely edited by a Western wag. Here’s an excerpt from 1891, reprinted in the modern weekly, the Silverton Standard, which itself celebrated its 130th year of publication this summer: “Advertise in the Kibosh. It […]
Posted inJuly 25, 2005: The Many Faces of Richard Pombo
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IDAHO “It’s the ultimate in recycling,” says Victor Bruha. He and a friend, Daniel Hidalgo, have begun turning large mounds of bison poop into high-quality art paper. The idea isn’t really new: An Australian company sells kangaroo-dung paper, and in Thailand, elephants supply the needed material in super-sized quantities. But it took months for Hidalgo […]
Posted inJune 27, 2005: Reflections on a Divided Land
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UTAH How did that quote by Benjamin Franklin begin: “For want of a nail, the shoe was lost ….” Didn’t it end with the loss of a kingdom? Well, a similar phenomenon may be occurring in the mining industry, which is going great guns, except for one problem: There aren’t enough 12-foot-tall tires around for […]
Posted inJune 13, 2005: Owning a Piece of Paradise
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IDAHO Travis Steele, a 31-year-old college student, was a pizza-delivery man in Lewiston, Idaho, until someone’s complaint to his boss cost him his job. Steele’s offense? His bumper sticker read, “Darwin loves you,” a play on the slogan, “Jesus loves you.” In a letter to the Lewiston Tribune, Steele said he was given a “choice” […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Heard around the West
UTAH Some snowmobilers have been known to skim their machines over water, striving for distance. Not surprisingly, sinking happens, not to mention at least one drowning. But how about vrooming a snowmobile over dirt? How far could you get? A 35-year-old man found one answer recently, when he gunned his snowmobile down an unpaved parking […]
Posted inMay 16, 2005: Unsalvageable
Heard around the West
COLORADO Headline writers are having a field day in western Colorado with the upbeat story of a “plucky chicken” saved from drowning in a tub, thanks to a man employing “mouth to beak” resuscitation, reports The Associated Press. Chicken-owner Uegene Safken says he first yelled at the lifeless-looking bird: “You’re too young to die!” and […]
Posted inMay 2, 2005: The Great Energy Divide
Down — but far from out — in Drummond
In the early 1950s, the town of Drummond, Mont., boasted busy bus and railroad stations, 11 bars, three grocery stores and 14 gas stations. Now, you can count what’s left on one hand. The ranching families that persist are resilient and dogged, and this book of large-format black-and-white photographs with accompanying interviews grows on you: […]
Posted inMay 2, 2005: The Great Energy Divide
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WYOMING Cheyenne Frontier Days can get rowdy, but rowdy doesn’t begin to describe what rodeo contestant Neal Daniel did in a bar last July: He got into a fight he still can’t remember and stabbed a rival seven times. But after a judge recently ordered Daniel to pay the victim $32,000 in restitution, Daniel, a […]
Posted inApril 18, 2005: What Happened to Winter?
Heard around the West
CALIFORNIA California’s Highway Patrol sees a lot of silly stuff, like the guy crouched down in an open trunk, gamely trying to hang on to lawn chairs, or the driver in the carpool lane pretending that a life-size doll of “SpongeBob SquarePants” was a passenger. Officer Rob Rusconi says he watched a driver struggle to […]
Posted inApril 4, 2005: Calling It Quits
Dear friends
TRAGEDY IN PAONIA HCN’s home town, Paonia, Colo., population 1,500, is grieving for three children killed in an explosion at a mountain lodge outside of town. At least 16 others were injured in the March 19 blast, which was probably caused by a propane leak. Delta County Sheriff Fred McKee identified the children as 2-year-old […]
Posted inApril 4, 2005: Calling It Quits
Heard around the West
THE GREAT PLAINS The Week magazine celebrated Elsie Eiler, 71, of Monowi, Neb., as the most powerful person in her town. She’s also the only person in her town. When her husband died last year, the population halved. But Eiler said she’s not leaving: “I like it here.” Too bad many others don’t appreciate freedom […]