Westword staffers took home seven first-place newspaper writing awards at the Society of Professional Journalists’ annual state awards banquet last Friday–more than any of the state’s three major dailies. Sports and film columnist Bill Gallo led the way with first-place finishes in sports commentary and arts and entertainment criticism. Staff…
At first, Tony Behrendt’s room in the lower level of his parents’ posh Boulder home seems like a typical college-student hovel–it’s dominated by an unkempt bed, stacks of CDs, and posters and photos plastered on virtually every flat surface. Take a closer look at those pictures, however, and you’ll realize…
Two faux-tiger-skin coats, one beehive hairdo and ten pairs of uncomfortable pumps have already passed beneath the giant cat-face sign and tiki torches of the Kit Kat Club. “We told them to please look nice,” says Darryl Stubbs. “Well, and they do look nice. But I’m all nerves. There should…
Is that a gun in Dr. Norm Resnick’s pocket? Yes, and he’s not glad to see you. The beleaguered radio talk-show host on the USA Patriot Network can’t really say who would shoot him, but he has been packing double heat since the April 19 bombing of the federal building…
Imagine that you have a good idea, perhaps even a great idea, for a product that might help humanity–and, of course, make some money along the way. So you start your company and a few years later raise hundreds of millions of dollars by selling stock to the public. Years…
History in the taking: Remember when the Denver Urban Renewal Authority declared much of lower downtown “blighted” just two short years ago? For that matter, remember when “historic” LoDo actually looked historic, rather than like a brick version of Glendale circa 1977, with a big mess of bars and, well,…
Want the best method for picking the winner of this Saturday’s Kentucky Derby? Just follow these three easy steps: 1. Lock your doors and draw the blinds. 2. Have five or six mint juleps. 3. Call Uncle Willie down at the state hospital and ask him who he likes. As…
Harry MacLean’s vindication arrived on April 4 from San Francisco–a federal district judge overturned the 1990 conviction of George Franklin, who’d been found guilty of a twenty-year-old murder based solely on his daughter’s recovered memory. The judge ruled that Franklin had not received a fair trial. That’s something MacLean, a…
It’s been more than two years since little Alexis Storkson witnessed the murders of her half-sister, her mother and the man she knew as her father. Now seven, she’s been at the center of a cross-country custody battle for almost as long (“Little Girl Lost,” October 12, 1994). Thanks to…
Mayor Wellington Webb’s administration is poised to give the Winter Park Recreational Association unprecedented control over development at the city-owned mountain resort–including handing over clear title to ninety acres of land that now belong to Denver taxpayers. But top administration officials admit they know almost nothing about the one development…
Sludge Match Regarding Richard Fleming’s April 19 article, “Don’t Spread on Me,” on the dispute between the City of Boulder and the Somerset housing development over the spreading of sludge bio-waste on rural land: I hope that the residents of Somerset each have their own septic systems and drainage fields…
Just nine months ago, it seemed, King Harris could do no wrong. After the politically connected businessman had already won almost $20 million worth of work at Denver International Airport, the City of Denver went ahead and awarded him almost $2 million more in additional airport contracts last summer. But…
Mary P.’s kids think it’s a pager. And at the community newspaper in metro Denver where she works as an assistant to the publisher, they kid her about how it complements her clothes. At this point, she thinks of it as her “buddy” and says, “It’s with me night and…
With the city’s attention riveted on this year’s high-profile race for mayor, few are paying any heed to the five candidates vying for the auditor’s job. The campaign, however, isn’t the dull-as-dishwater affair it may appear to be on the surface. In fact, while nobody was looking, it got downright…
Blowing up in their faces: Now we know why Dr. Norm Resnick, the manic voice of the Colorado-based USA Patriot Network, called Mark Koernke “a legend”–the FBI has been investigating whether Koernke, known to talk-radio kooks as the disembodied voice of doom “Mark from Michigan,” was a mentor to Oklahoma…
Last Thursday night, the wet flags on the high rim of the stadium flapped at half mast for the dead in Oklahoma. A chill wind whistled through the lower box seats, and periodic drizzle slanted down onto players, clots of fans and the guys struggling to sell cold beer. You…
Idiot’s Delight Patricia Calhoun’s column in the April 19 issue, “The Parent Trap,” really aroused my ire. I am beginning to think Ms. Calhoun is an arch manipulator of public opinion and wondering if her articles are a form of perverse psychology. It appears that she is out of step…
All Swanee Hunt, Denver philanthropist and U.S. ambassador to Austria, wanted to do was write a newspaper column about her newest musical creation: “The Witness Cantata.” Then she used the word “suffering” in a closing paragraph. Now she’s suffering for it. As Newsweek reported it, Hunt’s March 24 column in…
Melinda Kassen was known as a hard-hitting critic of Rocky Flats when she worked as an attorney for the Boulder branch of the Environmental Defense Fund from 1986 to 1992. Now she’s switched sides, some of her former allies are grumbling. Kassen began work in February as environmental counsel for…
They’ve promised to end crime. They’ve vowed to balance the budget. Make our classrooms safe for learning. Map out a blueprint for the millennium. Blah blah blah. Frankly, it begins to blur. We knew what voters really wanted to learn about Denver’s next mayor. So we asked. Bob Crider Mary…
The problem, as Gregg Greenstein sees it, is fourfold: It’s too noisy and it will lower property values. And along the way, he adds, the environment will suffer. So will education. The quality-of-life scourge that Greenstein, a Westminster lawyer, is talking about is the prospect of commercial passenger flights at…
Three former supervisors at the Salvation Army’s Denver drug and alcohol rehabilitation center say the center’s directors blatantly discriminate against blacks and gays–and that people who have spoken out against the “outrageous racial hostility” have been fired, demoted or expelled from the center. Epithets such as “boy” and “nigger” are…
