News-Press DCCR 11.21.13
Castle Rock
Douglas County, Colorado • Volume 11, Issue 35
November 21, 2013
Free
A Colorado Community Media Publication
ourcastlerocknews.com
Scientists behind fireworks show Aerospace engineers among Starlighting event designers By Virginia Grantier
vgrantier@ourcoloradonews.com Coming to town, soon, this team: They’re about 39 strong. Some are aerospace engineers and consultants — one is working on NASA’s Jupiter Probe project — and there are physicists, computer scientists and electrical engineers. One works for the U.S. Department of Defense. They operate out of a remote, unnamed, undisclosed, secure location in a farmland area of Colorado. There isn’t a listed phone number or a website. And what they’re working on, still de-
signing, is about to explode — in Castle Rock, on Nov. 23. Like usual. This is the team — mostly volunteers who earn nothing, just clamor to do it because it’s so much fun — that has been designing for a couple years the annual fireworks show synchronized to music off the top of Castle Rock after the star is lit for holidays. “It’s a passion. It really truly is … a dream job,” said Marc Williams, 53, of Parker, co-founder of Night Musick Inc., named after composer Mozart’s “Eine kleine Nachtmusik.” “We like to blow things up,” he said. “We’re super geeks, engineers … We’re a bunch of 12-year-old boys (and girls) masquerading as 50-year-old super geeks.”
They only do about 20 of these projects a year — because of the countless hours to design them and other issues. He said that people couldn’t imagine the levels and layers and regulations in these days and times when explosives are involved — “transportation regulations, storage, state and federal, backgrounds checks,” and dealing with such as agencies as the U.S. Department of Justice and Homeland Security. That’s the reason for the security and secretiveness of the operation. Although, this team, graduates of some of the top universities in the country — Purdue, Colorado School of Mines and so on — seemed to have passed all tests. Williams said they’re allowed to work with any and all explosives out there.
Safety first
On Castle Rock, they use what are called proximate fireworks, which look like regular fireworks but are so safe and precise they can be set off next to curtains or off a rooftop, he said. Basically, everything they use, they’ve designed, including all the hardware — designs by electrical engineer and computer scientist Don Kark of Highlands Ranch. Williams said they wrote the code that controls the fireworks display, even designed the tubes that hold aerial shells. If something were to malfunction, a tube’s strength is such it could withstand any unintended explosions within it. The scientists’ equipment standards “greatly exceed Fireworks continues on Page 11
Campaign complaints go forward Parents say school election results don’t change facts By Jane Reuter
jreuter@ourcoloradonews.com
small dispatchers’ room, not even typewriters, because there was no time for that. Just hand-write what had occurred and get it on the conveyor belt. She remembers that the police department, even in 1963, was extremely busy, especially on Fridays and Saturdays — shootings, stabbings and robberies and such. But the Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 23 and 24, that she worked, went beyond bedlam, she said. President John F. Kennedy was shot on Nov. 22, and his accused killer, Oswald, was shot on Nov. 24. Cason, born and raised in Dallas, was interested in becoming a writer, but no one ever talked to her or friends about
Douglas County residents who filed complaints related to Douglas County School District campaign activities said they’re going forward with their charges, regardless of the election results. School officials, who previously have called the allegations frivolous and unfounded, said it’s time to move on. Former school board candidate Julie Keim, who lost her Nov. 5 bid for a seat on the board, accused the district of violating the state’s Fair Campaign Practices Act. She filed her allegation Oct. 17 with the Colorado Secretary of State, claiming DCSD used district resources to support its preferred slate of candidates. A hearing on the matter is set for 9 a.m. Dec. 2 at the Colorado Office of Administrative Courts in Denver. DCSD has retained the Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck legal firm to represent it in the case. Keim also has hired an attorney. “It pains me to keep paying an attorney, but I’m going to move forward,” she said. “Someone has to follow through and hold the district accountable.” Three parents are pressing for answers to questions surrounding the Douglas County Educational Foundation. Parents Meg Masten and Susan Arnold have filed complaints with the Internal Revenue Service alleging improper behavior by the district’s nonprofit fundraising arm. “These complaints are politically motivated,” school board president John Carson said. “They stem from the election and efforts to attack the school district. “The election is over. It is time for all parties to work together for the benefit of students, teachers and parents.”
Oswald continues on Page 11
Campaign continues on Page 11
Fran Cason, 76, of Castle Rock, remembers well the day Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald. She was the person in the Dallas Police Department’s dispatch office who called for an ambulance. Photo by Virginia Grantier
Oswald’s death was part of ‘bedlam’ Castle Rock woman was dispatcher 50 years ago By Virginia Grantier
vgrantier@ourcoloradonews.com Fran Cason, 76, of Castle Rock, ordered the ambulance for Lee Harvey Oswald after he was shot by Jack Ruby. Cason remembers 50 years ago sitting at her desk in the dispatch office of the Dallas Police Department when the jail clerk, Officer Slack, called from the basement to urgently request an ambulance because “Oswald had been shot.” Cason doesn’t remember being fazed by it — “We were so well-trained” — and
she hit the toggle switch that immediately connected her to the ambulance company and ordered a “white ambulance.” That was the policy then, white for white people, black ambulance for blacks, she said, shaking her head at the memory. She also quickly let officers know of the request over the public address system, because it was an emergency, and she also did what she did for every call: Hand-wrote the type of call it was on a 3-by-5 card, stamped it in a machine that put the time on it, 11:21 a.m., and put it on the conveyor belt that took it from the dispatcher’s room past the glass partition and into where two officers would then dispatch, if needed, the next available car. There were no computers then in the