OBITUARIES

BY BELEN WARD BWARD@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Weld Commissioners lauded former Air Force veterans Stephanie Davis and James Wicks for passing down the greater good to help veterans at the Weld County Veteran Services.

“We owe so much to those who’ve sacrificed for our freedoms,” said Weld County Commissioner Chair Scott James in a statement. “Helping veterans and their families get their benefits is an important element of military service, and we’re proud to be able to assist in that process. We encourage veterans to reach out to Veterans Services and see how they can help.”

David and Wicks said they look forward daily to helping veterans navigate the system to apply for military service benefits. With their experience as former military vets, they can relate to veterans’ needs and help them feel comfortable to ask for help and talk about their frustrations.

“We can relate to what they’re facing and empathize,” Davis said, who came to Weld County in March after seven years serving as a Veterans Service Officer in Wyoming.

The Department of Veteran Affairs provides the benefits. The Weld County Veteran Services assist veterans and families with many services, such as applying for education and former service and disability benefits. Also, Veterans Services helps veterans and families with VA health benefits services, burial, and items like headstones and markers.

The Weld Veterans Services department monitors the claims process for each veteran and keep in contact with the veteran about their claims’ progress.

According to the National Center of Veterans Analysis and Statistics, for the fiscal year 2021, Weld County veterans received over $171 million in funding from VA, a 14 million dollar increase from 2020.

Weld County Veteran Services processed 6,700 veteran case requests in 2022. The office is busy with in-office visits, responding to emails, and mailing benefits packages. Since Jan 1, 2022, the staff has received 4 489 phone calls, according to officials.

“The walls come down when people learn we’re veterans because we can relate to what they’re going through and how important it is to look into getting someone their benefits. “They don’t have to be nervous to tell us things. We’ve all been in that same boat when it comes to getting benefits,” Davis said.

BEST

programs that Kruger describes as a “really amazing confluence of incentives” via tax rebates. A new Colorado law will award an income tax credit equal to 10% of the purchase price for storage systems purchased in 2023 and 2024. The systems are also exempt from sales tax. The federal Inflation Reduction Act provides an even bigger tax incentive of 30%.

Xcel customers will be eligible for additional incentives next year: $500 per kilowatt of storage up to 50% of the cost of the battery and $800 per kilowatt for Income-qualified (up to 75% of the cost of the battery)

Supplies of batteries remain tight, but manufacturing capacity has been ramping up and prices should fall. Globally, capacity grew by a third last year to reach 600 gigawatthour in manufacturing capacity. Wood Mackenzie, a consultant, reports 3,000 gigawatt-hours being planned or under construction.

In “The Big Fix,” Aspen-reared Hal Harvey and co-author Justin Gillis describe how scaling up of industrial process has caused prices of everything from Model T’s to computer chips to tumble. They call it “the learning curve.” The most recent examples were wind and then solar.

Cheaper lithium-ion batteries alone will not alone allow Holy Cross and other utilities to realize their goals of 100% emissions-free electricity by 2030. We also need longer-term storage. Options include molten salt, hydrogen and pumped storage-hydro, the latter a technology use in Colorado since the 1950s that remains the state’s largest “battery.” Nuclear and geothermal are other options. All will take time to deploy. Likely a decade.

For now, it’s time to charge the batteries.

Allen Best publishes Big Pivots, an e-journal from which this was extracted. See BigPivots.com.

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SWARR Laurel Leah (Olsen) Swarr

May 8, 1944 - October 31, 2022

Laurel was born in Oakland, California May 8, 1944 to Virginia Payton and Bjarne Mathias Olsen. She was married to Herbert Ryde Swarr August 23, 1963. Together they moved to Brighton, Colorado to start their family. Laurel’s life centered around her family and serving the community. At School District 27J she was the School Board President for nearly a decade in the 80’s and 90’s and also worked with special needs students at Brighton High School. She loved working with each one and felt that they taught her so much. During her years as an active member of the 1st Presbyterian Church of Brighton she started the Courtesy service, providing meals for the ill in the community. She also served her church as an Elder and Deacon and by organizing Mother-Daughter Banquets and Women’s Association activities. Laurel was known for her generosity and warm heart. She loved others deeply but ercely loved her family. Her sons Eric, Luke

and Morgan were her pride and joy and she considered them her own “gifts from God”. She spent many years attending school activities, sporting events, volunteering as room mom and leading the Booster Club. She was her boys’ and grandkids biggest fan. Laurel is survived by her husband Herbert, sons Eric (Vicki), Luke (Sandy) and Morgan (Tina), her beloved grandchildren Jerrett (Valerie), Mason, Kaden, Tyler (Sarah and great-granddaughter Abigail), Andrew (Allison), Matthew, Austin, Allison and Alayna and her special nephew Bryce Olsen. Her friends eresa and Jim Hood, Sidney Linzmaier, Diann LaVere were very dear to her heart. She was preceded in death by her parents, much loved Aunt Lorraine Poulson, Aunt Norma and Uncle Leif Olsen and brother Bruce Olsen. As testimony to Laurel’s heart, she has requested in lieu of owers to “please do something for someone in need, check on your neighbor, visit someone who is lonely, give to a food bank, or donate a coat for child in need.” 1 Corinthians 13:1-13.

Celebrating Native American Indian Heritage Month in November is a pathway to honoring Indigenous people year-round

BY ELICIA HESSELGRAVE

SPECIAL TO COLORADO COMMUNITY MEDIA

The Denver area today is a hub for Native Americans.

It was approximately between 1945 and 1965 when Native Americans found Denver to be a desirable place to fi nd work, said Cheryl Crazy Bull, president of the Denver-based American Indian College Fund. This time period is known as the Relocation and Termination period, when Native Americans were removed from reservations and relocated to urban areas, Crazy Bull said.

Awareness of the plight of Native American communities rose in the 1960s and `70s, and this included concern for the lack of representation and visibility of tribal members in every corner of American life, Crazy Bull said.

“We saw a desire in Native American communities to create pathways for more people in public to see us,” Crazy Bull said. “Native American Heritage Month and Indigenous Peoples’ Day emerged out of a desire for that kind of visibility.”

In 1990, President George H. W. Bush established Native American Indian Heritage Month, which is celebrated every November.

“Native American Indian Heritage Month is a focused educational time,” Crazy Bull said.

‘Our own way of knowing the world’

Crazy Bull grew up in South Dakota and takes pride in being a citizen of the Sicangu Lakota nation, part of the Seven Council Fires. Each of the Council Fires is made up of individual tribal bands, based on kinship, dialect and geographic proximity.

“Indigenous people have our own way of knowing the world and our own knowledge system focusing on kinship and relationships,” Crazy Bull said. “We believe in generosity and industriousness, and being responsible in our actions and the gifts that people bring to us in their talent.”

How to celebrate Native American Heritage Month

The American Indian College Fund offers a number of ways to celebrate Native American Heritage Month. It begins with Indige-Bration, an exclusive virtual concert. The celebration continues with a month-long Facebook challenge that includes a Walk and Learn event, an instructional

Two years ago, Carolyn Nicolaysen rallied friends and family members to collect and donate homemade Christmas ornaments to families impacted by wildfi res in Oregon, where her daughter lives.

Since then, Nicolaysen founded the Facebook group Operation Christmas Ornaments From Near and Far, and this year is collecting ornaments from folks across the country to donate to victims of the Marshall Fire.

The group accepts handmade ornaments from across the country and beyond — they received one donation from Japan this year

SEE ORNAMENTS, P10

Operation Christmas Ornaments Near and Far met their goal of ornaments to give out to Marshall Fire victims.

COURTESY OPERATION CHRISTMAS ORNAMENTS NEAR AND FAR

Ornaments accompanied with a handwritten note from the group member who made them.

HERE

social dance video, book clubs, watch parties and panels. Crazy Bull will cap the celebration month with a live discussion.

Recognizing Native Americans during Thanksgiving

“A lot of people have come to learn that the history behind Thanksgiving dinner (and) the stories we learned in school, are not exactly correct,” said NancyJo Houk, chief marketing and development officer for the American Indian College Fund. “I think it’s wonderful that people are starting to hear and understand that the truth behind the story of Thanksgiving isn’t what we all thought that it was.”

Houk said there are ways to celebrate the holiday while also honoring Native Americans. She suggests reciting a land recognition or incorporating a traditional native dish to the meal. The college fund also provides resources of accurate history to share and discuss during the meal.

Beyond Native American Heritage Month

The idea is that Indigenous people will be honored beyond the month of November. That starts with research and self-education, Crazy Bull said. Her suggestions include taking advantage of opportunities to meet people of different cultures at social gatherings, work or club meetings. She said to also pay close attention to how Native American people are represented in schools, and take note of historical references in coursework to ensure there is representation of Indigenous peoples, Crazy Bull said.

Additionally, the Front Range boasts many nonprofits that serve Indigenous communities across the U.S. that people can learn more about. For example, the American Indian Science and Engineering Society on the University of Colorado-Denver campus and the American Indian Academy of Denver. And, there’s the Native American Rights Fund based in Boulder and Longmont’s First Nations Development Institute.

There’s also the American Indian Academy of Denver, a free charter school focused on student-driven STEAM curriculum that was established to support Native American and Latinx students.

It provides a “learning in an environment where children get a lot of opportunity to honor their Indigenious community,” Crazy Bull said.

Also in Denver, the city and county’s Commission of Indian Affairs “strives to support visibility of Native people in Denver, and also legislation,” Crazy Bull said, adding that “Colorado itself has passed some laws that were really important, like banning mascots, (and) legislation supporting tuition support of members of tribes.”

For the arts, Crazy Bull points to the North American Indian Cultures exhibition hall at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science and the Denver Art Museum’s Indigenous Arts of North America gallery. Both offer opportunities to experience Native American culture any time of the year.

Another resource is the NativeLands app, which helps people discover what lands were the traditional homes of specific Indengous peoples.

Other suggestions to celebrate and honor Native Americans include learning how to cook traditional native foods and supporting Native American-owned businesses, such as Denver’s own Tocabe, an American Indian eatery. There are also volunteer opportunities with organizations such as the Denver Indian Resource Center, the Denver Indian Center or Spirit of the Sun.

“In the U.S., there’s this practice of trying to celebrate diversity in framed ways, so Native American Heritage Month is an example of that social practice of drawing attention to groups of people by setting aside time for them to be recognized,” Crazy Bull said. “But we are here everyday. And we view Native American Heritage Month as just an opportunity to showcase the different accomplishments and different challenges Native Americans face.”

Cheryl Crazy Bull is a citizen of the Sicangu Lakota nation and serves as the president and CEO of the American Indian College Fund. COURTESY PHOTO

Handmade ornaments made by a member of Operation Christmas Ornaments Near and Far.

COURTESY OPERATION CHRISTMAS ORNAMENTS NEAR AND FAR

ORNAMENTS

— and organizes them into dozeneach sets before working with local organizations to distribute the ornaments to affected families.

Carol Burton, a Colorado resident, is heading up the local charge to get ornaments to Marshall Fire victims this year, and said that she and Nicolaysen found that the sentimental value of Christmas ornaments makes losing them in a natural disaster especially painful.

“From with talking to people, one of the things people really missed after a disaster were their Christmas ornaments and all of the memories tied up in those,” Burton said.

The group – which now contains over 700 members — had a goal to collect 6,000 ornaments for 500 families impacted by the Marshall Fires. On Oct. 27, Nicolaysen posted to say that reached their goal for the year, but are still accepting donations of ornaments for Marshall Fire victims and victims of other tragedies, including the tornadoes that damaged parts of Kentucky last year.

Folks interested in donating or receiving Christmas ornaments can join the group by searching ‘Operation Christmas Ornaments from Near and Far’ on Facebook.

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