
8 minute read
Our Family Helping Your Family
DOMINGUEZ
Department of Energy’s O ce of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains.
Andrew Huie, Amprius’ vice president of infrastructure, said the company still needs zoning approval from the City of Brighton and permits from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. ey plan to submit their applications to the state this fall, with tentative zoning reviews with the Brighton Planning Commission in July and the City Council in August. ey’d hope to be operating by the beginning of 2024.
Moving into an already-existing building is a bonus for the company.
“We’ve already con rmed there is enough electricity for the rst phase of our project and we will be building out the interior space of the structure,” Huie said. “Most of the construction we need to do will be inside the building.”
Understanding the process e facility would be located at 18875 Bromley Lane, just 600 feet south of Brighton’s Mt. Princeton St. and homes in the surrounding Brighton Crossings neighborhood and due north of Brighton’s water treatment plant. Neighbors have made their fears of res and pollution clear at Brighton City Council meetings.
Leonard Dominguez
August 28, 1958 - June 9, 2023
Leonard Dominguez 64, passed away peacefully June 9th. Leonard was born to Manuel Pacheco Dominguez and Mary Reynaga on August 28th 1958. Leonard grew up in Fort Lupton, attended Fort Lupton high school and went on to learn several di erent trades.
In 1999 he married Grace Adams in New Zealand. Leonard enjoyed spending time reading the Bible and volunteering at several ministries with Mark Roggerman. Leonard
KILDAL also enjoyed time he spent in New Zealand with Grace, Esther and her family. Leonard is survived by one daughter Esther (22) and grandson Israel (4) and one on the way, his brother Robert (Sharon) Dominguez and many nephews and nieces. Leonard is preceded in death by his wife Grace, mom and dad Mary and Manuel Dominguez, and brothers Manuel Dominguez, Jimmy Dominguez, John Dominguez and sister Rosalie Roggerman. Services will be determined at a later date.
Phyllis Lee (Thyfault) Kildal
February 1, 1957 - January 29, 2023 e family asks that all owers and notes be sent to Amy Frazier-Gibson at 219 Poplar Street, Lochbuie, CO 80603. ey’ve hosted two neighborhood meetings at the Brighton Armory and have met one-on-one with several neighbors, Huie said, and more meetings are scheduled.
Phyllis Lee ( yfault) Kildal, age 65, passed away on January 29,2023, at her home in Mesa, Arizona, after a 14-year struggle with ovarian cancer.
A mass will be held at St. Augustine Church, 178 South 6th Avenue, Brighton, CO on Friday June 30th at 11:00 a.m., rosary at 10:30 a.m.
A Celebration of Phyllis’s life will be held at the Elks Lodge, 101 North Main Street, Brighton, CO on Friday June 30th at 1:30 p.m.
Huie said company o cials have met with neighbors and other concerned Brighton residents since they announced their plans in March.
“One of the reasons why people are nervous is that they don’t understand the process and our business, so that’s why we are doing community outreach,” Huie said. “We want to educate them on what we are doing and how we are mitigating the concerns they bring to the table.”
Lithium-ion batteries have been the news lately, with res in batterypowered E-bikes and cars, but Kang said most of the danger comes from mishandling and overcharging by users. He notes that his factory would not manufacture charged batteries, but empty batteries waiting for users to charge them.
“In the res, you’ll see that the battery quality is one factor and battery misuse is another,” Kang said. “ ey can be overcharged or damaged, like when a car crashes. But Amprius has passed U.S. military speci cations. We are very safe. And I have not heard of a re inside a battery factory in four years. I have never heard of a battery factory re.”
Even so, the warehouse’s interior space would be divided into smaller, re-resistant rooms for making and storing the empty batteries and the factory will have a state-of-the-art re suppression system.
“So we will have many engineering controls in place to help manage risks,” Huie said. “We will have fourhour-rated rewalls down to onehour-rated walls all separating the di erent hazard classi cations. We have high-tech re suppression and re detection systems as well. We will be coordinating all of this with Brighton’s Fire Department so they understand what have at the facility, the hazards as well as the suppression systems.”
Kang said he expects the company’s initial customers will be the aviation industry, providing rechargeable battery power for military pseudo-satellites and high-altitude unmanned aircraft. He also sees a market for his batteries in Electric Vertical Take-o and Landing aircraft. Someday, as soon as 2025 he said, it will be possible to take an electrically powered air taxi from Denver International Airport to downtown Denver. He wants his company’s batteries to power those vehicles.
Shawn was born in Denver, Colorado to Clearance & Mine Havens . She married Her best Friend ,David Howell III.
She worked in Denver , CO working as Vice President Of Operations at
Helen “Gayle” Ehler was born on September 3, 1934, to Homer & Chessie Callaway as the youngest of three children, after Charles & Carolyn. She grew up in Marlow, OK, graduated from Marlow High School, then attended the Oklahoma College for Women for one year. She transferred to Oklahoma University, where she joined the Delta Gamma Sorority & graduated with a BA in Education in 1957. Her rst teaching position was at Brighton High School in Brighton, CO, where she met John Ehler, a local wheat farmer & cattle rancher. ey married on July 5, 1958. Gayle continued to teach, while John farmed, until the birth of their son Alan, & later daughter Deborah. In that season, she provided bookkeeping for Ehler Farms, served on the Brighton School Board, sang in the choir, taught classes, & served as a deacon at First United Presbyterian Church. e couple also discovered their passion for world traveling & saw many places during their 63
- May 16, 2023 years of marriage. Gayle returned to teaching junior high English in the late 1970’s, then students in the Adams County juvenile delinquency system for a decade. John & Gayle sold the farm in 1999, and moved to Wenatchee, WA, to be closer to their children & grandchildren.
Westerra Credit Union. She Loved spending days with her son & puppy buddy Shawn is survived by her son, David Howell. She is preceded in death by b her sister, Donna Atkinson.
Beginning in 2003, the couple wintered in Palm Desert, CA, but in 2018, the couple moved to Lake Las Vegas, NV. She passed into the arms of her Savior Jesus Christ on Sunday, June 4, 2023, while still in their home with the Love of her Life. Gayle always freely share her Faith, wit & beautiful smile. She is survived by her husband, John Ehler; children: Alan Ehler & Deborah Strahm; beloved children-in-law: Keira Ehler & Todd Strahm; grandchildren: Hannah & Stephen Ehler, Luke & Jake Strahm. A Graveside Service will be held on July 5, 2023, at 10:00 a.m., Elmwood Cemetery in Brighton, CO. RSVP Reception Following - share memories - deborahstrahm@yahoo.com.
BY LUKE ZARZECKI LZARZECKI@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
The brain is overrated, according to Kadam Lucy James at the Kadampa Meditation Center.
“Have you ever felt peaceful in your head?” she asked.
She put her hands over her heart and said that’s where the mind is, adding that while the brain has conceptual reality, the mind exists in the heart, where we feel peace, love, joy and wisdom.
“If we can get into our heart, we automatically start to feel more peaceful,” she said.
James is temporarily living in Arvada and teaches meditation at the Kadampa Meditation Center. She started practicing about 41 years ago after she saw a “very peaceful person” in college.
“He was a student meditating on the end of his bed and I asked him what he was doing, because this was back in 1981, and meditation, no one had heard of back then,” she said.
Ever since, she’s been practicing and has taught all around the world, including England, San Francisco, New York City and now Denver. She hopes to one day achieve enlightenment, or in nite happiness and peace.
It takes a lot of hard work, but she said it’s the only thing where the more she does it, the happier she is.
It’s because, with meditation, the mind becomes naturally peaceful. Each person has a natural source of peace and happiness inside them, she said, and instead of seeking it elsewhere — relationships, ful lling jobs or material things — it’s already inside the body waiting to be found. e evidence lies in the random moments of peace and happiness everyone feels. It could be a torrential downpour and the mind is peaceful, settled and calm. e rst step to unlocking that potential and happiness is to breathe.
“What those moments show is that our mind is ne. And then what unsettles the mind is actually all our uncontrolled thinking,” she said.
Coming from the teachings of the Buddha, she compared the mind to a vast ocean. e waves are turbulent while below them is a vast, in nite, calm place. Waves of anxiety and negative emotions distort the brain but below those waves rests an incredible sanity.
“When our mind is settled, when we can let go of our troubled thoughts, and our turbulent thoughts, uncontrolled thoughts, then we naturally feel good. We naturally feel peaceful and we start to get a sense of our potential and who we really are, which is this person who has limitless potential, limitless happiness,” James said.
Focus on the nostrils
Carol O’Dowd, a Trauma and Transition Psychotherapist and Spiritual Counselor assists her clients by meeting them where they are and o ering them acceptance through breathing.
“If you focus on your breath, you cannot simultaneously focus on all your internal dialogue. It cannot be done. e human brain is not wired that way,” O’Dowd said.
It creates a space between the thoughts. e stress and anxiety stored in the body don’t go away, but the practice of noticing the emotions and putting them on pause to breathe helps calm the body down.
Breathing is a function of the body that automatically happens all the time. Focusing on that breath, O’Dowd compared it to a spectrum. What happens when the body stops breathing — death — is one end and the other is when the body pays attention to the breath — peace.
“It can be as simple as just experiencing that ow of air, and in and out of your nostrils. If you can place your attention there, that’s giving yourself a mini vacation,” she said.
O’Dowd encourages her clients to practice treating uncontrolled thoughts like a salesperson trying to sell them. Instead of buying, make them sit in the corner and return to them in 20 minutes after taking time to check in with the body.
It can also let go of stress. Pain, like what the ngers feel after working at a computer all day, can be a physical manifestation of stress. Holding on to that stress can lead to other health conditions.
“It’s not rocket science,” she said.
Escape to reality
James said achieving enlightenment is extremely di cult, and while the teachings she studied laid out di erent steps and pathways, she simpli ed it down to three. e rst is focusing on the breath to relax. e second is identifying delusions.
A delusion can be jealousy, greed, competitiveness or other unpleasant thoughts. Most of the time, those thoughts aren’t controlled by the mind and enter the brain randomly. It’s the root