Herald Highlands Ranch 5.2.13
Highlands Ranch
Douglas County, Colorado • Volume 26, Issue 24
May 2, 2013
A Colorado Community Media Publication
ourhighlandsranchnews.com
Students, seniors share life experiences Wind Crest, elementary team up for learning By Ryan Boldrey
rboldrey@ourcoloradonews.com The partnership between Wind Crest Retirement Community and Eldorado Elementary School in Highlands Ranch has been one that’s spanned the ages. While the partnership itself has only been around for six years, each day, at least one of 22 Wind Crest residents can be seen volunteering their time at the school, helping out teachers, tutoring students or reading to children. The kids, in appreciation, host luncheons for the volunteers twice a year and also raise money through bake sales to help pay for the Wind Crest shuttle to bring over seniors who no longer drive. For the past four school years, students have also participated in a living biography
project in which the entire sixth-grade class visits Wind Crest to interview residents about where they were raised and what their lives have been like. Each of the students is assigned to two seniors as part of the project, and after the day is done, writes up reports about their elders and shares copies of what they wrote. “They were very nice and courteous and smiled a lot,” Steve Walters, 90, said of a recent visit. “They had their questions all written down, and every time I answered one, they quickly wrote down what I said. I told them some of what I remembered from being a young man and suggested they consider going into the health-care field.” Walters, a former hospital administrator from Texas, said he hopes his message sunk in with the kids, as there is a continuously growing need for nurses and doctors. “It’s not a field that is going to fill up like other fields,” he said. “People are living a lot Eldorado continues on Page 13
Wind Crest resident Steve Walters is interviewed by Eldorado Elementary School sixth-graders. In a school project, 90 students visited the retirement community to interview 30 residents about their lives. Courtesy photo
Pot issues sparking division Legalization could come back to ballot By Vic Vela
vvela@ourcoloradonews.com
Highlands Ranch Metro District Forestry Technician Stephen Looney, left, digs a hole at Northridge Community Park with Mackenzie Stuhlsatz, Payton Stewart and her dad Bobby Stewart, and Evan Owens and his grandfather Tom Cumming. The group was among those planting pine trees at the park April 26 in honor of Arbor Day. Photo by Ryan Boldrey
Metro District celebrates Arbor Day Local dojo helps plant four pines By Ryan Boldrey
rboldrey@ourcoloradonews. com Keeping with an area Arbor Day tradition, the Highlands Ranch Metro District forestry staff teamed up with a group of local youngsters to plant four bristlecone pines in Northridge Community Park this past week. While the type of tree, location and youngsters change with the year, one thing remains constant. “Celebrating Arbor Day with education and getting the kids out is definitely what we are going for,” said Metro District forestry technician Caleb Palmer. “It’s good to get the kids out and digging in holes, and learning about some of the trees that are native to Colorado. Planting the right tree in the right place goes a long way in keeping our urban forest in check and looking good.” The bristlecone pines that
Highlands Ranch Metro District Forestry Technician Josh Theobald, right, helps volunteers from ATA Karate Denver Studio in Highlands Ranch plant a bristlecone pine in Northridge Community Park on April 26 to celebrate Arbor Day. Photo by Ryan Boldrey were planted April 26 were funded through a $6,000 grant from the Xcel Energy Foundation/Colorado Tree Coalition. Bristlecone pines can live up to 1,500 years or more and ,according to HRMD Natural Resources Manager Bill Dailey, are the oldest trees in the world. The trees were planted next to a recently relocated trashbin shelter, improving the view for the park’s neighbors who no
longer have to look at the bin. For ATA Karate Denver students, the experience was a learning one that tied right in with the natural approach of their dojo, as each belt ties in with the characteristic of a pine. “Nature has always been at the foundation of martial arts,” said karate instructor Nick VanMatre. “The old masters would spend years observing and learning from the world around
them, taking inspiration from nature. They would base techniques, stances, and forms from the movements of animals, trees and even storms.” That wasn’t all that motivated VanMatre to rally some students together. “Pretty much all of our students live in the Highlands Ranch area and take advantage of these beautiful parks,” he said. “It’s good for these kids to get out and have a chance to give back. … Right now kids are so disconnected from nature.” For black-belt sisters Mackenzie Stuhlsatz, 11, and Cassidy Stuhlsatz, 13, it broadened their appreciation for nature. “I’ve learned endurance, how to give back to the community and how to have fun while doing it,” Cassidy said. For Mackenzie, it sent her on a trip down memory lane of when she was 4 and her family was planting trees and she was too young to help. “I was so little back then and couldn’t do that much, and now I can and it just feels amazing,” she said. “I learned how to really care for a tree.”
A late legislative session effort that could put Amendment 64 back on the ballot led to a finger-pointing exercise in political theater late last week — a wild turn of events in marijuana regulation activity that capped an eventful period of pot-related action at the Capitol. News of an Amendment 64 repeal effort generated buzz, just two days after the first piece of legislation that seeks to set up a regulatory model for the Report new recreational pot industry passed a legislative committee. The effort — if it ever gets off the ground — would ask voters to repeal Amendment 64, if they fail to support the tax rates tied to retail marijuana purchases. However, it remains to be seen whether the repeal effort has any legs, or if it’s dead on arrival in either legislative chamber. Repeal effort rumblings led to a tense April 26 press conference outside the Capitol, where Amendment 64 proponents clashed with an advocacy group that seeks to restrict access to marijuana in the state. Later that day, House lawmakers approved preliminary passage of House Bill 1317, an omnibus bill that puts in place Amendment 64’s regulatory framework. And, earlier in the week, a House committee voted to tack on a controversial driving-stoned standard to House Bill 1317 — one day after a Senate committee killed legislation that sought to do the same thing. An early draft of the repeal effort asks voters to repeal last November’s initiative that legalized recreational marijuana use in the state, if they reject the tax model tied to Amendment 64 implementation. That tax framework is in the form of
Capitol
Pot continues on Page 12
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