Former HCN staff reporter Florence Williams’ cover story in this issue looks at an unusual topic – gated communities. What, you may be wondering, do these have to do with the West? Quite a lot, in our estimation. The sequestered communities and neighborhoods that are springing up around the West represent a broader trend: the […]
Greg Hanscom
Greg Hanscom is the publisher and executive director for High Country News. Email him at greg.hanscom@hcn.org or submit a letter to the editor.
Posted inOctober 28, 2002: Shadow Creatures
Asking hard questions
The cool, crystal-blue autumn days have brought a flurry of visitors to High Country News headquarters. Most recently, a posse from Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash., stopped by, midway through a new environmental studies field program. The “Whitman College Semester in the West” is the brainchild of professor Phil Brick, who won a Mellon […]
Posted inOctober 14, 2002: Democrats kick back: The politics of growth
Lassoing the West’s polital winds
The HCN staff and board are just back from our fall board meeting in Seattle. In the spirit of eating dessert first, we’ll start with the high point of the meeting, a talk from Tim Egan, national correspondent for The New York Times and author of books such as Lasso the Wind: Away to the […]
Posted inSeptember 30, 2002: Delta Blues
Balancing act, part 2
Balancing act, part 2 The cover story of this issue is the second in our series, “California’s Water Balancing Act.” In it, veteran journalist Susan Zakin writes about the state’s water hub: the California Delta. The delta, just inland from San Francisco Bay, collects a mammoth one-half of the state’s rainfall and snowmelt each year. […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 2002: The Royal Squeeze
Balancing act
Balancing Act The cover story in this issue is the first of a two-part series about a topic that High Country News has been covering for a long time: California water. More specifically, it’s a look at the Golden State, post-Bruce Babbitt – the Clinton-era Interior secretary who negotiated massive water agreements in California and […]
Posted inSeptember 2, 2002: Backlash
Breaking all the rules
Breaking all the rules Here at High Country News, we have a loose rule that we avoid stories that happen too close to home. We figure we can be more objective about things that don’t fall – literally – into our backyard. And besides, the West is a big region. With this issue, we’re breaking […]
Posted inAugust 19, 2002: The Great Western Apocalypse
Dear Friends
A high country jinx We probably should have seen it coming. After a positively wilting June and July and reports from around the West of drought, heat and wildfire, we decided to run a special issue about the Great Drought of 2002. The moment we started work on the stories in this paper, however, we […]
Posted inAugust 5, 2002: Land or money?
Dear Friends
A historic, if confusing, moment The residents of Western Colorado’s Delta County, home of High Country News, had been on the edge of their seats for weeks. All eyes were on our three county commissioners, who, on Monday, July 22, would vote whether or not to allow Gunnison Energy Co. to explore for coalbed methane […]
Posted inFebruary 18, 2002: Here lies the Rio Grande
Here lies the Rio Grande
A telling end to the tangled story of a once-great river
Posted inFebruary 18, 2002: Here lies the Rio Grande
A river on the line
A trip through the U.S.-Mexico borderlands reveals a tough road ahead for the Rio Grande
Posted inNovember 19, 2001: Bringing back the bosque
Bringing back the bosque
Pueblo tribes take the lead in restoring the Rio Grande’s riverside forest
Posted inOctober 22, 2001: Healing the Gila
High Country News: Friend or foe?
Over the past months, High Country News has received a number of letters and e-mails from readers upset about the tone of an article or an opinion expressed in one of the Writers on the Range columns. You’ll find one such letter below from a Bozeman, Mont., reader blasting Writers on the Range for running […]
Posted inOctober 22, 2001: Healing the Gila
The Rio Grande’s unsung diplomat
River activist ‘Uncle Steve’ Harris makes waves rather than headlines
Posted inJune 4, 2001: Tribal links
Dear Friends
Back from Berkeley They stayed for graduation and one last sushi dinner, but then Ed and Betsy Marston, publisher and editor of this paper, high-tailed it east from Berkeley, Calif., to Paonia, Colo., and the rural life. But while their four-month teaching stint at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, […]
Posted inMay 7, 2001: Back into the woods
Dear Friends
A community of readers We like to say that High Country News is driven as much by its readers as it is by the ever-changing news. Our letters to the editor are often more entertaining and informative than anything else in the paper. And many a time we have answered the office phone and listened […]
Posted inApril 23, 2001: The Big Blowup
After the fires, Part I
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Reforming an agency such as the Forest Service is like pushing an old truck up a hill. It’s grunt work, and unless you have a lot of friends, you won’t get anywhere. But every once in a long while, there’s a shift. A moment […]
Posted inApril 23, 2001: The Big Blowup
Dear friends
Relentless Over the years, High Country News has been blessed with many friends and supporters. Surely one of the most faithful is Connie Harvey. On more than one occasion, the longtime resident of Aspen, Colo., has made timely contributions that have kept the paper going or seeded a new endeavor, such as our Writers on […]
Posted inApril 9, 2001: The water empress of Vegas
Dear Friends
Putting California back on the map Reader Frank Aloisio called recently from California to ask where his state had gone. Our official HCN map of The West, drawn by our intrepid cartographer Diane Sylvain, doesn’t include the Golden State. We’ve been too shy, in the past, to cover California, for fear of being swept into […]
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Dear Friends
Remember the Alamo Tim Sullivan, who survived an HCN internship last fall, has known for a long time that his home state, Utah, is a little different than the rest. He called the office recently with the latest evidence. “I’m very worried about the Mexican Army coming across our borders,” Bob Scott, a World War […]
Posted inJanuary 15, 2001: Plains sense
Dear Friends
Calling all party animals The year’s first meeting of the board of the nonprofit High Country Foundation, which governs High Country News, will be held in Phoenix, Ariz., Feb. 2-4. As is the custom with board meetings, we’ll be hosting a potluck dinner for readers from the Phoenix area. These events, held around the West […]