The highlight of Monday’s luncheon for Imagine 2020, the city’s first cultural plan in 25 years, was local slam poet and DU student Jose Guerrero, who’d written a poem about Denver for the event that included a memorable reference to the “Big Blue Bear’s butt” and even more telling lines…
It had been more than a decade since Westword had competed in the Colorado Press Association awards — since the last time we were able to challenge the state’s major dailies, in fact. That was back when the Rocky Mountain News was still going strong; after the News complained to…
In the early 2000s, Denver was all about the creative class. Author/big thinker Richard Florida had labeled the metro area one of the top creative spots in the country, an honor that John Hickenlooper used to promote the city that had just elected him mayor. Fifteen years before, he’d been…
The Emily Griffith Opportunity School could soon be history — literally, since the circa 1926 school building at 1250 Welton Street has been recommended for landmark status. But the name of this pioneering educator will live on. This morning, Denver Public Schools will announce the name of its ambitious project…
Michael Herrera grew up in Greeley and Brighton, where the fields were full of chiles, and green chile was often on the table at home. But he didn’t know that his future would be very, very green. Instead, he began his career with KFSC, the station started in the early…
Our boilers are antiquated,” says Jeff Barratt, head of the Emily Griffith Technical College. “I swear, some of them are out of the Titanic.” Close. Emily Griffith, who’d worked as a substitute teacher in Denver Public Schools until she got the okay from the district to start a less traditional…
Monday was Tourism Day at the State Capitol, and when boosters said the numbers looked good, that the industry was healthy, they weren’t blowing smoke. But then, they didn’t mention marijuana at all. Think of it as the big pink elephant in the room — if you really want to…
For over a decade, I’ve enjoyed sharing my neighborhood on the edge of LoHi with the students of the Contemporary Learning Academy, a DPS high school for kids whose needs and/or schedules just don’t fit with the system’s more traditional high schools. When DPS first bought the building overlooking I-25,…
As the sun rose this morning — reflecting off the blue-and-orange-hued Elitch Gardens Ferris wheel and the still-glowing Sports Authority Field at Mile High Stadium — the real show was just over downtown……
Editor’s note: Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day — a federal holiday. The Westword office is closed, but we’ll be posting occasional updates on westword.com today. The country’s largest parade in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. — the Marade — will kick off this morning by the MLK…
Despite obvious interest across the country, Colorado’s big tourism boosters are still shying away from any reference to recreational marijuana: On Colorado.com, the Colorado Tourism Office’s otherwise expansive site, and Coloradoski.com, Colorado Ski Country USA’s site, searching for “marijuana” nets you exactly…nothing. But some tourism businesses see the possibilities: “We’re…
Update below: The DenverDepartment of Excise and Licenses just updated its list of stores now fully licensed to sell recreational marijuana on January 1 — although there’s no guarantee that all eighteen will be open tomorrow. Although the lion’s share of the retail applicants are in Denver, 25 more municipalities…
Before the ball drops tonight, the cops could get a drop on you: Once again, the Colorado Department of Transportation and the Colorado State Patrol have teamed up with 76 law-enforcement agencies throughout Colorado to increase DUI enforcement through Thursday, January 2. During last year’s New Year’s Eve enforcement period,…
Do touch that dial! Because when you switch on your radio after the new year’s festivities, you’ll find some changes at Denver’s local talk stations. Peter Boyles, who moved to KNUS 710 AM after Clear Channel fired him last summer, is beating the competition at his new gig, which will…
Get out the cameras: The Denver Department of Excise and Licenses will begin handing out its first retail marijuana businesses licenses at 8 a.m. today. These are for businesses that have already received their state licenses — Colorado began sending out 348 of those on Monday to applicants in more…
After the passage of Amendment 64, the City of Denver moved slower than a procrastinating pothead in coming up with a system for handling the recreational marijuana retail stores that could be opening on January 1, 2014 — but it’s really picked up the pace lately. On December 9, it…
The calls and e-mails keep coming, sometimes several an hour. And they all want to know the same thing: On January 1, where will they be able to buy pot? Good question. The state just released its first list of 136 completed applications for recreational marijuana stores on Monday, but…
PAINT THE TOWN READ! Latest Word is taking a long winter’s nap — until early Thursday, December 26. Until then, enjoy our continuing look back at the last year. Happy holidays!…
I have had the pleasure of writing about Ken Gordon when he was a public defender; when he was a member of the Colorado House of Representatives and the Colorado Senate; when he was a candidate for Colorado Secretary of State and then as founder of cleanslatenow.org, an organization devoted…
Five-time congressman, two-time gubernatorial candidate and one-time presidential aspirant Tom Tancredo has never smoked pot. But he doesn’t need to have used marijuana to recognize that the federal campaign against it has failed — and to support Amendment 64. A former schoolteacher and regional Department of Education head under President…
The fifteenth annual Sand Creek Massacre Healing Run was full of moving sights and sounds — from its start at the actual massacre site, which is marked by a sign advising visitors of the “sacred ground” where over 150 Cheyenne and Arapahoe were killed on November 29, 1864, to the…
Shortly after sunrise on Thanksgiving morning, we spot the eagles a few miles from the site of the Sand Creek Massacre, standing sentinel over the rolling prairie where more than 150 Cheyenne and Arapaho — most of them women, children or elderly men — were slaughtered by volunteer troops led…
