Dear Friends

PARTY TIME The staff of High Country News cordially invites all readers and friends to HCN’s holiday open house at our Paonia, Colo., office (119 Grand Ave.) on Monday, Dec. 15. Knock back a few eggnogs with the entire HCN crew between 5 and 7:30 p.m. Please bring a treat to share. We’ll provide drinks. […]

HCN shows its roots There was a veritable High Country News love-fest in Gunnison, Colo., in early November. Western State journalism professor George Sibley called together several hundred academics, activists, writers, students — and even a rancher or two — to ponder the history of this newspaper, and the state of the West, at the […]

Radio Special Radio High Country News will return to the airwaves in mid-November for a special one-hour show called “Atomic Tales: Living in the Nuclear West.” The program will explore our region’s cradle-to-grave relationship with all things nuclear — a relationship that reaches from the dawn of the nuclear age to the burial of radioactive […]

CHARGE ON The High Country News board and staff couldn’t have wished for a better weekend — or a better location — for the fall ’03 board meeting. Fifteen board members, eight staffers, and HCN founder Tom Bell all gathered at the Murie Ranch, just inside Grand Teton National Park, near Moose, Wyo., to talk […]

CONGRATULATIONS Michelle Nijhuis penned her final words as HCN’s senior editor in December 2001, but she has not been sitting still since then. Michelle returned as our contributing editor last year; she’s also written for Audubon, The Christian Science Monitor and Salon, and has forthcoming articles in Smithsonian and Orion. Michelle’s feature story about urban […]

THE WRITE STUFF The season’s beginning to change here in Paonia, and with crisper days we’ve also got fresh editorial blood for the fall. Hailing from tropical Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, new HCN intern Pua Mench moved to Hawaii’s “polar” opposite to attend Carleton College in Northfield, Minn., where the temperatures dipped to minus-40 degrees. Eventually, she […]

IN FROM THE HEAT When Nancy LaPlaca first became a subscriber to High Country News, she sat in her apartment in Tempe, Ariz., and wondered where Paonia was. Now, 16 years later, she knows exactly where it is: Nancy moved here in July to become HCN’s marketing associate. No stranger to environmental causes, Nancy has […]

Farewell, Radio HCN We’re writing today with both sadness and gratitude. We’re sad because, after years of hard work, we have decided to end our weekly radio program, Radio High Country News. But we’re grateful to you, our dedicated readers, because you believed enough to contribute to the Spreading the News Campaign, which allowed us […]

Louisiana’s Big Oil slayer There may be any number of environmental activists who run thriving Cadillac dealerships, but we only know of one: Harold Schoeffler of Lafayette, La. The grizzled 63-year-old recently camped overnight on Lamborn Mesa outside Paonia with the Boy Scout troop he founded 20-some years ago. They were taking an eight-day tour […]

We’re back! Following a two-week hiatus, the High Country News staff is back on the job, looking a little sunnier, and feeling refreshed. Temperatures on Colorado’s Western Slope have been rocketing over the 100-degree mark every afternoon, so it’s good to be back under the swamp cooler. Visitors Truckloads of HCN subscribers have ducked in […]

We need a vacation! Don’t be surprised that High Country News isn’t in your mailbox two weeks from now. Each summer, we skip an issue, to give staffers a chance to crawl out of their cubicles and frolic in the hills. Your next issue should arrive August 4. The board comes to Paonia The High […]

HCN in the spotlight Thanks go out to all the readers who have written e-mails, postcards and letters in recent weeks to comment on the paper’s new look. So far, the reviews have been mostly positive: “GREAT,” “easier to read,” “handsome and easy to handle,” “a job well done,” “I LOVE LOVE LOVE the new […]

A new supporter Once a year, High Country News dedicates almost an entire issue to essays. We hope this issue gets stuffed into the backseat of a few cars for the summer road trip, tucked into backpacks, or packed in dry bags for a little reading on the river. We’ll be back with more news […]

A new look, same old spunk Here it is, at long last — the new High Country News. As promised, the paper has a lively new look, but what’s inside remains largely the same: sagacious reporting, balanced perspective, a skeptical edge. Here’s hoping you like what you find. To research the cover story, our editor […]

Two weeks to launch time It’s true: This is the last issue of HCN in its current format. Your next issue will look a little different. We won’t give away the details of the new design, but thanks go out to all those who wrote in with ideas and critiques of the covers we printed […]

Scratch the metamorphosis bit The notes from readers continue to roll in regarding our plans to redesign High Country News. We’ll spare you the details, but it’s great to get some thoughts from the outside world, since we’ve been staring at our work for so long that we’re all a bit cross-eyed. We received this […]

Your chance to weigh in Spring is springing in Western Colorado, and work continues on the redesign of High Country News. We’re getting a stream of good advice from readers. “HCN has made its mark by doing the kind of in-depth reporting that dailies now do less and less, and at the same time has […]

This isn’t the first time … Just when you think you’re doing something really revolutionary, you learn it’s all been done before. In preparation for redesigning High Country News, we dug back into the archives to see what the paper has looked like over the 33 years of its existence. It turns out this won’t […]

Fear and loathing in HCNland Change is always a little scary, and changing times at High Country News are no different, we’ve discovered. We mentioned in Dear Friends last month that we’re planning to give the newspaper its first major face-lift in probably two decades. The goal is to make the paper look more smart […]

A wintry gathering As a gentle snow fell from a gray winter sky, 130 High Country News readers and friends jammed into the Cache La Poudre Grange in Bellvue, Colo., just outside Fort Collins. They brought splendid food and drink (thanks, New Belgium Brewery!), and a bevy of story ideas for the HCN staff. Issues […]