More awards for HCN

We're honored to announce that HCN is the winner of the prestigious 2013 Utne Media Award for Environmental Coverage. "HCN stood out for its consistent reports on important stories we're not reading anywhere else," wrote the Utne judges. "From the effects of Twilight-inspired tourism on the Quileute Nation to half-built subdivisions at the foot of the Grand Tetons, HCN shines a spotlight on our culture's relationship to the wild. And while it might be easy to vilify, say, a developer in the Tetons or the Twilight tourists, HCN's reporters seek nuance instead."

And we took three awards in the 2013 Top of the Rockies Contest, hosted by the Society for Professional Journalists, for publications from Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. In Classification C, circulation between 10,001-29,999, we won first place in Political Reporting for "Red State Rising: How the Mormon GOP runs Utah with a Collectivist Touch," first place in Agriculture Reporting for "Water Warrior: A Colorado Newspaperman Fights for His Valley's Water," and third place in Business Reporting for "The Hardest Climb: Can the Outdoor Gear Industry Wield its Power for Conservation?"

Visitors
Longtime subscriber Courtney Raukar stopped by our Paonia, Colo., headquarters in late April. She's worked the last two months at the Avalanche Cheese Company near town, helping birth baby goats, and is now headed to Alaska's Katmai National Park to work as a wildlife biologist. She regaled us with stories of practicing Cessna water crashes (in a flight simulator) in case her pilot suddenly perishes while she's out doing bear research.

Don Stikkers came from nearby Grand Junction to personally pay for his first ever-HCN subscription. As a retired Forest Service district ranger in Southern California, Don says he's fought a lot of fires in his time and remembers the days when the agency encouraged people driving by to stop and help battle the blaze. While a ranger, he enjoyed talking to homeowners about creating defensible space around their homes by thinning trees -- something he called "converting the tree-huggers, one lot at a time."

Correction
A collection of quotes from other publications that accompanied HCN's May 13 essay on hunting wolves contained a mistake originally made in a March 6 Los Angeles Times story. The Times quoted Suzanne Stone of Defenders of Wildlife but attributed the words to a different Idaho wolf advocate, Lynne Stone.

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