NORTON

days I still wrestle with it, wondering if I am doing what the good Lord has placed me on this earth to do. For me, I have come to appreciate that we were put here to serve others with the gifts that we have been given. I love this quote by Nelson DeMille, “The problem with doing nothing is that you never know when you are done.” We were not put here to do nothing, and that very thought should inspire our purpose daily, fueling our passion to live and serve.

Hope drive’s purpose, and purpose fuels passion. When our hearts and minds are filled with hope, it helps us to identify our purpose, and when that happens, the passion inside of us comes to life. Nelson Mandela put it perfectly when he said, “There is no passion to be found playing small, in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.” It has been debated that finding passion can lead to discovering purpose instead of purpose leading to passion, whatever way it works, let hope be the spark of both purpose and passion.

When the spark of hope ignites the purpose and passion within us, we are now in a perfect position to act. Again, never sitting back and doing nothing, it’s about performance and getting things done.

Letter To The Editor

School board’s bad look

As Douglas County homeowners experience an increase in auto insurance, homeowner insurance, and now property tax increase, what impact to their insurance will Douglas County School District have after their settlement (through insurance) of the former superintendent?

Is the political position of the school board worth the possible increase? Where does the money come from to pay for this insurance, Taxpayers!

I recognize that there is a need for an

Note From The Publisher

news you have come to expect has not changed; in fact, we’re working to make it better than ever.

take center stage, as it should.

Linda Shapley

e change to our nearly two dozen publications gives them a cohesive feel, and combined with a change to a more compact size in printing, allows the news content to

And when we are hopeful, purpose driven, and passion fueled, we cannot help ourselves at this point, we must take action. “Having a vision for what you want is not enough. Vision without execution is hallucination.” — Thomas Edison. Well said, Mr. Edison.

The fifth lesson for today is this one, hope drives purpose, purpose fuels passion, passion primes the pump of performance, and performance delivered equals results. At the end of the day, it is about what we accomplished. What was the outcome of our efforts? Who did we serve? Who did we help? The definition of success differs for everyone, yet every definition of success will have some form of measurement of results. Earl Nightingale teaches a lesson in his program The Strangest Secret, he says that we do not achieve success when we become rich, we achieve success first by believing, doing the behaviors, and having the right attitude that leads us to our success.

The best way to get started on your way to getting things done is to create a list of all the things you are hoping for. Make room for hope, give hope a chance, and watch what happens.

How about you? Are there areas of your own life, personally or professionally, that can benefit from an infusion of hope, purpose, passion, performance, and achieving greater results? I would love to hear your story at gotonorton@ gmail.com, and when we can begin increase in funds to retain teachers and provide for a good education of our youth but is it good timing in light of already increases taxpayers are feeling. I would hate to see asking for an increase in MLO funds or capital money to fail again but do these political bias gures feel this is the right time. I realize politicians don’t use common sense and feel they are always right in making decisions for us but is asking for tax increase in November realistic?

Dave Usechek, Parker

Two years ago this week, our publications became owned by a new company, the Colorado News Conservancy. Its mission and purpose are right there in its name: to conserve local news, keep it in local hands and keep it vibrant. We recognized that folks get their news in di erent forms, not just in print, so this is just the rst stage in a project to demonstrate our commitment to innovation and progress.

We want you to feel proud and connected to whichever of our publica- with a little spark of hope, to ignite the fires of purpose and passion, to elevate our performance, results will happen and that really will make it a better than good life.

Michael Norton is an author, a tions you receive. We hope you will appreciate the e ort and attention to detail that went into this redesign. We welcome your feedback and comments on our new look, and any part of our newsgathering. Your opinion matters to us, and we always strive to improve to meet your expectations. ank you for your continued support and loyalty to our publication. We believe there are better days ahead.

— Linda Shapley, publisher, Colorado Community Media

personal and professional coach, consultant, trainer, encourager and motivator of individuals and businesses, working with organizations and associations across multiple industries.

BY ELLIS ARNOLD EARNOLD@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

At e Alley in downtown Littleton, you might nd a musician who’s so into the music, they’ll get up and dance on the bar.

When a local band surprises the crowd with a stellar performance that no one saw coming, “it just knocks people’s socks o ,” said Mary Riecks, e Alley’s bar manager and a Littleton-area native.

e watering hole on Main Street doubles as a music venue that nds and helps grow local talent — and the shows are free. It’s one of the bars in the metro Denver suburbs that o ers a window into up-and-coming homegrown performers amid a music scene that one longtime bar owner says is growing.

“Twenty years ago when I opened up the bar, there were a few bars around that had live music,” said Doug Jacobsen, owner of Jake’s Roadhouse in Arvada.

Since then, he’s noticed that “all of these di erent bars” now o er space for shows, said Jacobsen, who has friends who perform at spots around metro Denver.

“ ere’s a lot of great musicians here,” Jacobsen said.

Here’s a look at places o the beaten path where you can catch some lesser known — and sometimes famous — music artists in person.

‘Something for everyone’ Wild Goose Saloon in Parker o ers a bit of a di erent environment: It’s a bar but also a large event venue. ey’re both longtime musicians themselves — they perform in a band called Lola Black, garnered play on the radio and toured around the country — and have played Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre several times, Dellinger said. ey take their knowledge of the industry to running the Wild Goose, which was built around the concept of serving as a music venue and has a bigger stage, sound and lighting setup than most bars do, Dellinger said.

It aims to be “Colorado’s version of the Knitting Factory” — a unique, independent venue that hosts local and national artists, said Chris Dellinger, who serves as co-owner of Wild Goose Saloon with his wife.

It’s “kind of like every musician’s dream to own their own venue at some place and time, and we just ended up being able to pull it o ,” said Dellinger, who lives in Aurora.

After opening in July 2021, Wild Goose has hosted some large country artists and “some `80s artists that are still big,” Dellinger said. National pop-rock act American Authors is set to play there in late April.

“My motto always is, ‘If you don’t like the music one night, that’s OK — it’ll be completely di erent the next night or the next week,’” Dellinger said. “So we really try to have something for everyone here.”

His venue tries to get exposure for local talent by letting them open for national touring acts. For the audience, the typical admission cost for a national artist’s show at Wild Goose sits around $25 to $30, but local artists’ ticketed shows can cost as low as $10, and most of the local artists’ shows are free.

Dellinger and his wife have

“snuck in” a performance or two at Wild Goose, he said — they were set to play there in late April with the Texas Hippie Coalition, an American heavy metal band. Keeping classics alive

You might also see Jacobsen, a guitarist himself, playing with a band at Jake’s Roadhouse in the north metro area every now and then.

His bar started o ering live music “right away” after opening near the end of 2003. Sitting in east Arvada close to Denver and Westminster, the venue o ers mostly cover bands and blues, and on Wednesday nights, bluegrass is on tap. Sometimes, artists play original songs, but it’s rare, Jacobsen said.

“Our people come in to hang out, and most original bands don’t have four hours’ worth of original music,” Jacobsen said.

But playing covers at Jake’s Roadhouse is one way to get a new artist’s foot in the door in the local music scene.

“We have bands that come to us all the time that can’t get these other bars to give them a chance to play because they haven’t played anywhere before,” Jacobsen said. He added: “We’re not like that. I know a lot of musicians around town, and we will give a band a chance to play just on the word of a friend.”

He feels that live music is im-