Kelly Zielbauer says she wasn’t concerned about the health dangers she faced while working in the Colorado Department of Agriculture’s Standards lab, despite the fact that she handled lethal chemicals daily. But when clumps of her hair fell out and she started getting headaches, she asked to be reassigned to…
The 140 firefighters of the Castlewood Fire Department protect some of metro Denver’s ritziest homes, including those of several Denver Broncos celebrities. Now the firefighters are getting in a few hits of their own, using a controversial pay-incentive program as a rallying cry to try to oust the existing fire-district…
This week’s announcement that the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and the U.S. Department of Defense have settled their legal fight over the cleanup of the former Lowry Bombing Range allowed both sides to save face. But sources say the split-the-difference compromise was the result of lucky timing–a…
Submitted for your approval: A train stuck in an underground tunnel. An air of creeping claustrophobia. Panicked passengers find it difficult to breathe. A woman screams. A man offers his left arm for a fresh pair of Depends. And the hypnotic, pre-recorded voice of Reynelda Muse repeats an eerie message:…
On the eve of this year’s Kentucky Derby, everybody in horse racing–from the poorest groom out in the stable to the sleekest zillionaire up in the turf club–is worried sick about the future. Racing fans are getting longer in the tooth as track attendance and revenues continue to decline. Competition…
The Boulder County courtroom was standing room only last Wednesday, as Professor Alex Hunter presented his Civics 101 lecture on the origins of modern jurisprudence. While reporters from around the world yawned, Boulder’s district attorney took the grand jury concept slowly–very slowly–from the Magna Carta through the American Revolution to…
This was his first big tag. So he lied and told his parents he was sleeping at a buddy’s, when instead he drove to a field off Speer Boulevard. There he and three friends unloaded a few dozen spray cans and some forty-ounce bottles of beer. Then they went to…
Conduct Unbecoming Regarding Alan Prendergast’s “Zero for Conduct,” in the April 23 issue: It was good to see Mr. C’de Baca get some ink. I’m a former Denver Public Schools teacher (I left voluntarily, by the way), and I have seen what he’s talking about firsthand. He does, however, ascribe…
Joseph C’de Baca can see where this is going. He was supposed to be the third speaker on the agenda for the Denver Public Schools monthly public forum, but school board president Sue Edwards keeps calling other names instead. Magnet schools, anti-smoking campaigns, fair pay for janitors–the speakers come and…
The TV news show 48 Hours portrayed former Denver cop Michael Newell as a hero two weeks ago for his efforts to protect women from the obsessed and often dangerous men who stalk them. Specifically, the CBS crew concentrated on the story of Newell’s “rescue” of an Aurora woman named…
Is it just me, or is it snot in here? Now it can be said that if brains were dynamite, the Rocky Mountain News really would have enough to blow its nose. A News employee was fired recently for blowing his nose while on duty–and doing it all over the…
A controversial plan to hire a private company to nag Colorado motorists without car insurance took an unexpected turn earlier this year: It landed in court when the Utah firm that lobbied for the measure at the legislature didn’t get the job. And the lawsuit by Insure-Rite, Inc., over a…
Listen, Bubba. Come dawn this Sunday morning, U.S. time, the world’s most exotic race cars will be screaming around the circuit at Imola, in the tiny European principality of San Marino, at 185 miles an hour. Blood-red Ferraris and sleek silver McLaren-Mercedeses, pinnacles of the automotive engineering art, will excite…
“Miss? Hey, Miss! She wants to–” “Miss who?” Miss Holder asks, fixing the two girls with her gunfighter look. “Miss, uh, you know…” “Nope. I don’t. You tell me.” “Miss…Holder! Miss Holder, she wants to talk to you, Miss.” “Aha! And you’re her interpreter?” “That’s right, and she–” “And how…
Down Pat Is it any coincidence that Colorado’s two biggest mouths–Schroeder and Calhoun–share the first name of “Patricia”? I don’t think so. Nor is it a coincidence that Calhoun would write a column championing her heroine (“Standing Pat,” April 16), when Schroeder has done nothing more heroic than write a…
In November 1996, Amendment 15 got more votes than any other measure or candidate on the Colorado ballot. Voters approved by a two-to-one margin the package of campaign-finance reforms, which for the first time placed limits on the amount individuals and political action committees can give to candidates for state…
On April 7, 1987, a hooded man was led into a chamber in the United States Capitol. Great care had been taken to conceal his identity; in addition to the hood, screens shielded him from the eight assembled U.S. representatives, their staffers and the media. The man was flanked by…
Earlier this month, Colorado corrections officials pulled all the state’s prisoners out of a juvenile jail where thirteen-year-old Matthew Thomas Maloney hung himself this past February. But was it concern for the boys that prompted the swift action against the High Plains Youth Center in the farming town of Brush,…
What up, fool? East High School’s Spotlight student newspaper got itself into one big stink recently with its annual April Fool’s edition. Could it have had something to do with the article reporting that “rug-munching” had hit an all-time high at rival Regis Jesuit High School? Or this handy public-service…
Last year, under pressure from the federal government, the Colorado General Assembly finally passed a measure that had been kicked around for seven years: a law authorizing the state to suspend or revoke the professional licenses of accountants, dentists, acupuncturists, nurses, real estate agents and other white-collar types who owed…
A fundraising event for a kidney transplant ended up feeling like a kidney punch to its organizers. On March 23, Regas Christou, owner of The Church nightclub, at 1160 Lincoln Street, held a benefit for one of his former employees who needs money for a new kidney. The event and…
The 27 million Americans who play golf–and 100 million who don’t–understand that Jack Nicklaus is the best ever to put on yellow plaid trousers. In his day, he was the longest, straightest driver and the finest clutch putter of all time. Among the four-score trophies in his breakfront are a…
