July 14, 2016 VOLUME 121 | ISSUE 24 | 75¢
GREEN SOLUTION Find out what these goats are up to on PAGE 4.
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Rural, urban Colorado divided on big issues Increasing split is reflected in different political outlooks By Nicholas Riccardi Associated Press Peggy Sheahan’s rural Otero County, on the plains of southeastern Colorado, is steadily losing population. Middle-class jobs vanished years ago as pickling and packing plants closed. She’s had to cut back on her business repairing broken windshields to help nurse her husband after a series of farm accidents, culminating in his breaking his neck falling from a bale of hay. She collects newspaper clippings on stabbings and killings in the area — one woman’s body was found in a field near Sheahan’s farm — as heroin use rises. “We are so worse off, it’s unbelievable,” said Sheahan, 65, who plans to vote for Donald Trump. In Denver, 175 miles to the northwest, things are going better for Andrea Pacheco. Thanks to the Supreme Court, the 36-year-old could finally marry her partner, Jen Winters, in June. After months navigating Denver’s superheated housing market, they snapped up a bungalow at the edge of town. Pacheco supports Hillary Clinton to build on President Barack Obama’s legacy. “There’s a lot of positive things that happened — obviously the upswing in the economy,” said Pacheco, a 36-yearold fundraiser for nonprofits. “We were in a pretty rough place when he started out and I don’t know anyone who isn’t better off eight years later.” There are few divides in the United States greater than that between rural and urban places. Town and country represent not just the poles of the nation’s two political parties, but different economic realities that are transforming the 2016 presidential election. Cities are trending Democratic and are on an upward economic shift, with growing populations and rising property values. Rural areas are increasingly Republican, shedding population and suffering economically as commodity and energy prices drop. “The urban-rural split this year is larger than anything we’ve ever seen,” said Scott Reed, a political strategist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce who has advised previous GOP campaigns. While plenty of cities still struggle with endemic poverty and joblessness, a
Volunteer firefighter Wesley Morgan fills Tinder 20 (water truck). Morgan spent the day wetting down fields in the safety and fall out zones to decrease the risk of fire from falling embers from the July 4 fireworks display. Photos by Rick Gustafson
Fireworks show takes team effort Volunteers plan for everything, including possibility of problems By Rick Gustafson Special to Colorado Community Media “Connor’s going to start the whole thing. He’s going to start with the twos and go to the threes. Once he gets to the threes, he’ll hit the fours,” Chris Albers tells his crew. “Once he’s done with the fives, he’s going to tell Greg and Tristen they can start lighting.” The volunteer firefighters circle close to Albers, forming an array of handheld and helmet-mounted flashlights that illuminate the sketch of the mortar tubes set up on the freshly mown grass behind him. If not for the bright yellow jackets and helmets, the pop, pop, pop of fireworks emanating from across the field might give the scene a suggestion of combat. “Lighters, if you light one, walk away, and you don’t hear it; don’t turn around and see where it is. Just leave it,” he says. “Toss your glow stick next to it. That one’s done.” Squelch breaks on the radio and a steady voice from a shoulder mic announces that the traffic on Comanche Street in Kiowa is backed up, but they’re getting cars into the fairgrounds as fast as they can. “Can you hold off for a few minutes?” the voice asks.
Kiowa firefighter Chris Albers gives a final safety briefing ahead of the Independence Day fireworks show. Four area fire districts set up a perimeter around the display area to extinguish embers that landed in the grass. Over Albers’ shoulder, the sun has set, and the fringes of black storm clouds to the northwest blaze in the afterglow. Albers and his crew of volunteer firefighters from the Kiowa Fire Protection District began setting up for the 20-minute fireworks show at the Elbert County Fairgrounds at 1 p.m. The crews spent the majority of the afternoon and evening soaking the surrounding fields with loads of water from a 3,500-gallon tinder truck and setting up the 80 mortar tubes and finale cakes for the show.
“This year we’ve got 12 different sizes of mortars,” Albers said. “We have 410 actual shells we’re shooting off, and then we have another 12 multiple-shot firework finale cakes.” The tubes launching the shells are similar to a military mortar and range from two to five inches in diameter. With all of the electrical connections removed from the fireworks, each shell at the July 4 show will need to be lit manually.
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