Voice
Lone Tree 4/18/13
Lone Tree
April 18, 2013
A Colorado Community Media Publication
ourlonetreenews.com
Douglas County, Colorado • Volume 12, Issue 14
Council’s influence growing in region
betting on a good time
Officials serve on variety of metro-area committees By Jane Reuter
jreuter@ourcoloradonews.com
About 150 people attended Lone Tree’s second annual Casino Night on April 13 at the Lone Tree Arts Center, featuring traditional casino games, drinks and hors d’oeuvres. The silent auction portion of the evening raised more than $3,500 for the Highlands Ranch/Lone Tree Relay for Life, a program benefiting the American Cancer Society. From left, Jean Gold, Vicki and Tim Swaider, Amy Van Gundy, Mark and Chris Flemming, and Laura and David Chiavacci play blackjack. Photo courtesy of Bruce Ryman
Photographers share magic in show Exhibit runs until June at Lone Tree Arts Center By Jane Reuter
jreuter@ourcoloradonews. com Photographer Kristal Kraft feels a passion for nature that alters her perception of time. “I could sit in one spot all afternoon shooting flowers around me,” said the Lone Tree photographer and real estate agent. “If it’s pretty, you’re not eating. You’re not doing anything, just capturing the light, taking pictures.” Kraft’s photo of a Steamboat Springs-area schoolhouse will be among those featured at this year’s Lone Tree Photo Show, on display at the Lone Tree Arts Center from April 20 to June 9. Kraft found kindred spirits in the Lone Tree Photography Club, co-presenters of the show along with the Lone Tree Arts Commission and Scientific and Cultural Facilities District. Fellow club member and
Colorado Springs resident Doug Bennett’s “Girl Scout Road” won first place in the 2011 Lone Tree Photo Show. He will have a new work on display for the 2013 event. His work is sold in some Colorado Springs art galleries. Courtesy photo photographer Doug Bennett uses similar terms to describe the joy he finds in photography and the outdoors. “The appeal is to just get out there and enjoy nature,” he said. “The photography side of it makes you really slow down and absorb what’s there.” Bennett, a Colorado Springs resident whose work is sold in some of the city’s art galleries,
Lone Tree resident Kristal Kraft’s photo of a Steamboat Springs one-room schoolhouse is among those that will be displayed during the Lone Tree Photo Show. Courtesy photo
also is a landscape photographer. His image of cattle and aspen at the base of 14,000-foot Mount Wilson will share wall space with Kraft’s and 91 other images during the show. Bennett set up his equipment well before sunrise the day he took the featured shot. “What I like about the scene is it really represents the height of Colorado,” he said. “The cows look very small. The aspens look very tall, but once you get to the top of the aspens, you’re only a third of the way up into the image, and here’s the towering Fourteener of Mount Wilson.” The scene Kraft captured also was not happenstance; the weather that lent it its magical quality was. Kraft and two photographer friends went to Steamboat Springs to shoot, waking before sunrise to capture the best light. “This particular morning, it was real cloudy and foggy,” she said. “We grabbed our cameras anyway and went out. Everything was crystallized and encased in ice. We were just going wild. Everywhere we looked was
beautiful.” The old one-room schoolhouse in its alpine setting took Kraft back to her childhood. “All I could think of was snow day, which was the happiest day of a kid’s life,” she said. Bennett, a contract consultant at Air Force Space Command, says the search for the perfect photo is always rewarding. “Sometimes you go out there and you get skunked,” he said. “Nonetheless, being out there where it’s nice and still and quiet, and you’re all alone, that in and of itself is neat.” The Photo Show opens with a cocktail reception from 3-5 p.m. April 20 at the arts center. Guests are invited to meet the photographers, sample hors d’oeuvres and cocktails, enjoy a string quintet performance by the Lone Tree Symphony Orchestra, and purchase original works of juried images and photographers’ bin work images. They also can cast their vote for the People’s Choice Award, awarded at the close of the show.
Lone Tree council members carry clout that extends well beyond the city limits. Four of the five serve on or chair boards of other metro-area organizations, commitments that not only come with responsibility, but require hours of additional volunteer time. Mayor Jim Gunning chairs the Metro Mayors Caucus. Mayor Pro Tem Jackie Millet is treasurer for the Denver Regional Council of Governments (DRCOG), and a governor-appointed board member of the Regional Air Quality Council (RAQC). Councilmember Susan Squyer chairs the Cherry Creek Basin Water Quality Authority. Councilmember Harold Anderson leads the Centennial Airport Noise RoundGunning table. That accounts only for the committees in which council members hold leadership positions. All five, including newest Council Member Kim Monson, are required to serve on three or four committees outside their elected city Millet post. “I don’t think people understand the time commitment it takes to be a council member or mayor,” said Gunning, who also counts the C-470 Corridor Coalition and FasTracks Task Force among his many committees. “What happens in the metro area and our region has a big impact on us,” he said. “If we weren’t participating with the C-470 Coalition, we wouldn’t have any input into how it would work for Lone Tree. If I wasn’t on the FasTracks Task Force, keeping the southeast extension front and center in people’s minds, maybe it would have drifted off.” Gunning estimates his council and committee work adds up to about 40 hours a week. That’s in addition to his full-time job as a United Airlines pilot. Millet, a civil engineer, says her time investment is at least 25 hours a week. She said she feels honored to serve on DRCOG and RAQC. “I enjoy working on city stuff because you get into more of the nuts and bolts,” said Millet, a civil engineer. “But I also enjoy the bigger picture view of the region. You really need to put your parochial hat aside and figure out what makes sense for the region. I think my analytical background has certainly helped me there.” Squyer is the first woman to chair the Cherry Creek Basin Water Quality Authority. It’s a role in which she would never have imagined herself, but as a self-defined “lifelong learner,” she relishes a fresh challenge. Construction in Lone Tree’s RidgeGate development elevates the city’s role in the authority, which protects water quality in the reservoir that extends from Council continues on Page 7
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