Another win for the pronghorns

We're delighted to announce that High Country News has won the prestigious 2012 Knight-Risser Prize for Western Environmental Journalism for "Perilous Passages," a Dec. 26, 2011, package of stories on wildlife migration, by former editorial fellow Emilene Ostlind, assistant editor Cally Carswell and Mary Ellen Hannibal, with photos by Joe Riis. "Passages" also recently won a 2012 Science in Society Award from the National Association of Science Writers. You can see the stories here: http://hcne.ws/UkPrXS.

VISITORS

Local resident and architect Bob McHugh dropped in to our Paonia, Colo., headquarters to present us with a beautiful framed print by Gerald Selby Hollingworth, a longtime reader of High Country News, who died June 23 in Steamboat Springs, Colo., at age 81. McHugh, who also lived in "the boat," (as locals like to call their mountain town), for 40 years, said Gerry was an artist and potter who loved to talk about philosophy and environmental issues. If you visited him in the remodeled barn where he taught classes, Bob said, "You wouldn't leave for two or three hours." Bob's old friend made arrangements to give everyone who came to his memorial service -- some 50 people -- a framed print along with a bottle of wine. We are grateful to Gerry for the print, which now hangs in our office, and we also appreciate that his obituary suggested HCN for memorial contributions, along with Hospice of Steamboat Springs.

Online editor Stephanie Paige Ogburn stopped into longtime reader Keith Baker's independent outdoor gear shop, the Trailhead, while on a reporting trip in Buena Vista, Colo. Keith is a leader in the effort to get nearby Brown's Canyon on the Arkansas River designated as wilderness. He's got support from higher up; the canyon and some surrounding public lands are being proposed as a national monument by Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo. Keith's also a bit of a local celebrity: On the day Stephanie visited, he had just been profiled in the local paper, the Chaffee County Times, for his role as a community leader.

Timothy Osmer came by "just to say hi" while driving a new truck from Missouri back home to Sonoma County, Calif. A loyal subscriber, Timothy says he spends a lot of time on his backwoods property, which he must cross two streams to reach. He's been enjoying his tour of the country, especially South Dakota's Black Hills, where he saw bison, pronghorn and huge tree harvesters. We sent him up the road to Somerset to look at our local coal mines before he started the long drive back home.

CORRECTION

Alert reader Lee Laurence of Carmichael, Calif., noted a math error in our Oct. 29 story "The sleeping giant." "I really tripped at the '66 percent increase' noted at the end of the fourth from last paragraph," he wrote. "I'm rusty, but I'm pretty sure a 200,000 increase represents an increase of about 51 percent, not 66 percent." Just so, Lee, and thanks for pointing out our goof.

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