" Handing the balloons out to the townspeople ..."
PUBLISHER
Mackenzie Tamayo
EDITORIAL
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Ben Trollinger
REPORTERS Noel Black, Andrew Rogers and Cannon Taylor
CONTRIBUTORS
SALES
AD DIRECTOR JT Slivka
ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES
Monty Hatch, Erin Cordero
AD COORDINATOR
Lanny Adams
Adam Leech, Lauren Ciborowski, Camille Liptak, Bob Falcone and Willow Welter ART
SENIOR
Adam Biddle OPERATIONS
DIGITAL
Sean Cassady
DISTRIBUTION
Kay Williams
Matt Mayberry of the newly re-opened Pioneers Museum. | Credit: Ben Trollinger
DISCLOSURES AND DISCOURSE
By BEN TROLLINGER ben.trollinger@ppmc.live
Yes, the cover story is about the new Ford Amphitheater. Yes, JW Roth, the man behind it, is the co-owner of the Colorado Springs Independent. And yes, our other co-owner, Kevin O’Neil, is an investor in the project. But no, they didn’t put us up to this.
I confess that covering a story like this feels a bit awkward from a public relations perspective. It would look odd if we just ignored it (hey, what about those noise complaints?). But if we opt to write about it, we run the risk of confirming fears that the publication is a mouthpiece of our owners. For me to assure you, the reader, that the latter is decidedly not the case — that the owners have been assiduously hands off — could even create more doubt, not less. “Of course he would say that,” a skeptical reader might think.
The best path, in my view, is to be transparent and let the chips fall where
CORRECTIONS .
they may. The owners of this company are involved in a host of major projects, from music venues to high rises. News coverage in the Independent is inevitable. From the start, our guiding principles have been simple: Cover stories that matter to the city; play fair and abide by common ethical and journalistic standards; don’t play favorites, and disclose any potential conflicts of interest that may arise. We just want to do our job and write about things that drive the community conversation.
To be sure, the amphitheater has gotten a generous amount of press, whether it’s in the Gazette or Wall Street Journal. We’d be remiss if we didn’t add our coverage to the mix. It’s a big story, not just because the city now has a major new music venue; the amphitheater is also emblematic of a trend in postpandemic America. We desperately want to do what we once could not — gather together, footloose and fancy free, around a common enthusiasm. An “experience” has become the hottest consumer good. We want Instagram-able vacations. We want to lose ourselves in live performances. And we want a t-shirt to notarize it all. Building a publicly traded business empire around that desire is inherently newsworthy.
Cannon Taylor’s story on the amphitheater (Page 6) is more interested in the sheer ambition of the gamble — 20 amphitheaters constructed in 20 towns in about 6 years — but it also doesn’t shy away from the controversy. We’ll plan on keeping things that way.
LETTERS .
ANNEXATION VEXATION
No more annexations. No more dirt added to Colorado Springs. The sand box is full. The city cannot handle the existing footprint. What makes the development community think Colorado Springs can handle more? What does the Amara project plus any other future annexations bring to the table for the existing citizens of Colorado Springs other than more traffic, more congestion and fewer services? Nothing comes to mind.
How can the City Council make an intelligent decision on the Amara project when fewer than a dozen questions were asked of the Amara presenters during the July 23 council meeting? From your article it shows that several councilors were already in the tank for Amara. Right now, it will take 37-plus years to do one cycle of maintenance on existing roads. This means that in the Amara project a 40-year-old purchaser of a mid-$300K-$500K house will be planning their next move to a retirement house or assisted living before the road in front of their house will ever be maintained.
Cities that have more than a 200-square-mile footprint all have one thing in common: a robust public transportation system. Colorado Springs does not. The world does not need another automobile-centric master planned community.
The simplest solution would be for the developers that own land around the Amara project file letters of incorporation to form new cities around Colorado Springs, thereby taking the pressure off of Colorado Springs to provide services for their projects.
Gary Casimir Colorado Springs
AFFORDABLE AMARA?
• We incorrectly stated the vote tally for the Colorado Springs City Council’s first reading of the proposed Amara annexation. The council approved the first reading of the annexation in a 5-4 vote. We also erroneously reported that Colorado Springs Utilities would not pay to extend services within the new area if approved. They would pay for that extension.
• In the story about the Central Bluffs substation published in the August 8 issue, Rachel Shoaff’s last name was spelled incorrectly.
According to The Gazette’s coverage, the La Plata developers propose to devote 665 of 9,500 residential structures to “affordable” housing. If you make the average salary in El Paso County, “affordable” would mean you could pay up to $1,575 per month on rent or a mortgage payment. This would allow you to put down about $15,000 on a $200,000
house, so 665 lucky families might be able to buy or rent a house there, if La Plata lives up to its promise.
No enlisted person below the rank of E9 could even make a month’s payment without completely depleting his or her monthly salary and still having to borrow. Don’t know what those lucky people would do for food or utilities.
Yet the project’s supporters cite as one reason for their support “to support ... the military service members and their families.” Guess they’re hoping for a population explosion among the field grade officer ranks.
It appears that the true intention of La Plata is rather “to provide ... high quality needed housing in upscale communities to support the region’s continued growth.”
The Gazette coverage offers no estimates of the effect of providing utilities, police, fire, etc., to an additional 3,200 acres containing 9,500 homes and “millions of square feet of retail space, schools, parks and public facilities.” But guess who’ll be footing the bills?
To pretend that the Amara development will contribute in any way to the crying need for affordable housing in this city is cynically absurd. Those council members supporting this annexation should be required to explain their support more honestly.
Malcolm McCollum
North Royer
Colorado Springs •
EXCEPTIONAL WORK
I am very impressed by this article, “What If We’re All Wrong?” It is an exceptionally researched, thoughtful approach to the sensitive and politically charged subject of transgender identity in sports. I believe all readers may benefit from this article, as it offers an effective combination of personal narrative, scientific inquiry and historical context. I read this article twice and will save the issue as a reference for my work with community youth. I am very glad to know that The Independent is committed to such excellence in journalism.
Rosanne Mason
Colorado Springs
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR must be signed with full name and include daytime phone number, full address, or email address. Letters should be no longer than 300 words. We reserve the right to edit all submissions. | EMAIL ADDRESS: letters@ppmc.live
ANNEXATION VOTED DOWN IN SECOND COUNCIL READING
Councilman Donelson flips vote to seal Amara’s fate
By ANDREW ROGERS andrew.rogers@ppmc.live
The Colorado Springs City Council voted down the controversial Amara annexation in an August 13 hearing that stretched to nearly four hours. The annexation was approved on the first reading by a 5-4 margin.
The failed proposal would have annexed five square miles of land at the northeast corner of Squirrel Creek and Link roads. The City of Fountain and unincorporated El Paso County border the land. La Plata Communities, the company behind the Amara development, sought to build a master plan community of 9,500 residential units and 2 million square feet of commercial space.
Council members Yolanda Avila, David Leinweber, Brian Risley and Michelle Talarico voted in favor of the annexation on both readings. Council members Lynette Crow-Iverson, Mike O’Malley, Nancy Henjum and Randy Helms voted in opposition. During the first reading, Helms voted against the annexation but voted in favor of the following 22 votes approving the annexation of land plat by plat to grow a contiguous connection to existing city boundaries. Council member Dave Donelson changed from a yes during the first reading to a no-vote during the second reading.
“I do not believe the citizens of Colorado Springs support it. It is wrong to let our city become something that the majority of our citizens dislike. Too big, too crowded, too dense, too tall and too noisy,” Donelson said.
The second hearing featured lengthy public feedback from various interest groups, including farmers and ranchers from the Lower Arkansas River basin who feared the impact the annexation could have downstream consequences regarding water availability. Others opposed a proposed Colorado Springs Utilities rider fee which would have been added to all utility bills. Those who spoke in favor of the annexation pointed to the need for additional housing.
AMPHITHEATER EMPIRE
With 20 more facilities planned over the next six years, Venu doubles down on the future of live music in the postpandemic era
by CANNON TAYLOR • cannon.taylor@ppmc.live
Before Ford Amphitheater had even opened its doors, JW Roth, CEO of Venu (and co-owner of Pikes Peak Media Co., the parent company of The Colorado Springs Independent), had begun planning four additional Sunset Amphitheaters in Oklahoma City and Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, and McKinney and El Paso, Texas. But this is just the beginning of Venu’s plan for expansion. Roth said there are another five amphitheaters in the pipeline, making for a total of 10 Sunset Amphitheaters opening in the next 36 months.
“I’ll open another 10 the 36 months following that,” Roth said.
Planning and constructing four other venues before the first one has gotten off the ground is a potentially risky move, but Roth is confident that betting big on live music will pay off in the end — even in the post-COVID-19 era.
LIVE MUSIC TRENDS
In Goldman Sachs’ “Music in the
Air” report for the year of 2023, it was estimated that the live music industry brought in revenues of $33.1 billion — a 20% increase from the estimated $26.5 billion revenues in 2022. Goldman Sachs credited the re-emergence of major artists who had not toured since before the COVID-19 pandemic, such as Taylor Swift and Beyoncé, with driving attendance and pricing power.
Goldman Sachs predicted that live music revenues will continue to grow following its strong resurgence postpandemic, with predicted revenues of more than $50 billion by 2030.
“Live music is the No. 1 leisure activity in the world today. Bigger than anything else,” Roth said.
Still, it’s not just about the music: Goldman Sachs mentioned a “growing structural demand for experiences,” particularly among Gen Z and millennials. In Live Nation’s 2018 study “The Power of Live,” which looked at music
trends among 22,500 13- to 49-year-olds from North and South America, Europe, Asia and Australia, 73% of participants identified with the sentence, “Now, more than ever, I want to experience real rather than digital life.” It’s not hard to imagine that the desire for authentic, rather than online, experiences has increased since the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s a desire Roth feels too.
“I’ve got in my point in my life where I can go and do about anything I want to do. And as a result of that, I’m an ambience guy,” Roth said.
Roth’s sense of ambience owes as much to professional sports moguls as it does to live music impresarios. He looks to figures like the late George Steinbrenner, the former owner of the New York Yankees, and Jerry Jones, co-owner of the Dallas Cowboys, for direction in creating venues that provide an elevated live experience. The high-end version of this approach is the Sphere, a freakishly futuristic
Ford Amphitheater on soft opening night, August 6. | JB Creative, courtesy Venu
behemoth of a ball that opened last year in Las Vegas. Inside, more than 18,000 fans can bask in the glow of the wraparound LED screens and experience 4-D effects. The venue cost $2.3 billion to construct.
While Ford Amphitheater is much less costly than the Sphere at around $90 million, it will be a costly ordeal to construct another nine across the country in the next 36 months. However, Roth insists that the demand is there to warrant such a gamble.
Goldman Sachs identified an increasing supply of artists touring, which they credited to the globalization of music via streaming. The streaming effect has also taken album sales out of the economic equation. Live performance is increasingly necessary for music artists, many of whom earn as much as 95% of their income from touring.
In “The Power of Live,” Live Nation found that more than two-thirds of 13- to 49-year-old participants had been to a live music event in the past year, and 62% had attended both a concert and a music festival. Goldman Sachs agrees that the demand for live music is strong.
“Despite pressures on consumer wallets from inflation, rate increases, resumed student loan repayments, corporate layoffs and more in the last 12-24 months, which is when fans would have started saving for/planning to buy tickets for 2024, demand for tickets continues to be robust,” Goldman Sachs reported, adding that social media and streaming are increasing awareness of and social value attributed to live events.
BUSINESS MODEL
According to Roth, he’s just the “middle guy” putting supply and demand together. His business model starts with finding the right cities for his venues. That means “A-minus” markets from a population standpoint; not the New York Cities and Chicagos, but cities with populations of under 1 million. Sunset Amphitheaters have been announced in cities from the relatively puny Broken Arrow, Oklahoma (113,540, 2020 U.S. census), to the larger El Paso, Texas, and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (678,815 and 681,054, 2020 U.S. census).
Part of the reason to target these markets is the lack of major competition from other venues and the likelihood of support from local governments. These are often cities
whose economic development committees wish to generate income, create jobs and turn their cities into arts and culture hot spots.
“Over the first 10 years, you’re talking billions of dollars in economic impact that my project brings to that city,” Roth added. “We’re a tide that raises all the boats around us … from the gas station to the other restaurants to the hotels.”
During the soft opening of Ford Amphitheater, Mayor Yemi Mobolade said that the amphitheater has a projected economic impact of $100 million annually.
“We need to invest these dollars into our community’s public safety, public infrastructure and our public parks. I also believe that this venue will be a catalyst for further development, attracting new businesses and enhancing our city’s reputation as a vibrant and dynamic destination,” Mobolade said.
The positive financial impact has meant that cities like Colorado Springs and McKinney are more than willing to contribute to the amphitheater projects in the forms of real estate and tax incentives. These contributions finance about 30% of the costs of opening an amphitheater, Roth said.
In McKinney, the city plans to contribute to the Sunset Amphitheater project by conveying 46 acres of land to Venu, reimbursing a portion of sales and property tax (75% of the city’s allotted 1% sales and property tax for the first 11 years, then 40% for years 12-16), applying lesser sales tax on construction materials purchased for
the venue and paying for much of offsite roadwork and anything over $1 million in impact fees. The deals made with other municipalities will likely have similarly favorable terms.
Another 30% of funding comes from investors, who purchase amenities, suites, firepits and owner’s clubs. This is why it’s been crucial for Roth to wear two hats while planning his amphitheaters, catering to both investors and consumers.
“Your demographic for the people that are buying firepits — they’re not 25-yearold newlyweds. They are people that are well-established,” Roth said. He said that they are usually music lovers in an older demographic group who can afford to spend $500,000-$800,000 on their very own firepit.
At the same time, Roth must chase the demographic that follows the genres of music played in the amphitheater because “those are the butts that go in seats” and fund the remaining 40% of the amphitheaters’ cost. So, while the big investors certainly may not be 25-yearold newlyweds, it’s still important for Roth to cater to that demographic. This intergenerational approach explains the blend of genres that will be played in Ford Amphitheater and the other Sunset Amphitheaters being constructed. During the Ford Amphitheater soft opening, Roth spoke of the unifying nature of music; no matter your age or identity, chances are that you connect to music in some way. That emotional dimension
makes a live music venue an advertising and retail bonanza.
In “The Power of Live,” 67% of participants agreed that the more emotionally engaged they are, the more open they are to new ideas. With this, according to Live Nation, comes a feeling of connection with brands, increased likelihood of purchases and even increased connection to purchases made. Live Nation found that attentive concert attendees said that they 53% more likely to use an advertised brand in the future.
Venu has targeted advertisers by putting naming rights up for auction. Ford’s purchase of the naming rights for Venu’s Colorado Springs amphitheater helped fund the project, and this practice will continue for all other Sunset Amphitheaters.
The trends support live music, and the business model ensures funding, but there are still plenty of risks that come with building multiple amphitheaters across the United States when it’s never been done.
RISKS
Noise, traffic and parking — these are three consistent concerns from residents every time a new music venue is built near their homes.
In Colorado Springs, these concerns led to a lawsuit against Venu by local homeowners in September 2023. In McKinney, residents voiced concerns in a City Council meeting such as traffic congestion blocking the way for fire
CONTINUED ON PAGE 20 ...
Inaugural audience at Ford Amphitheater. | Credit: Cannon Taylor
JUST IN TIME
Matt Mayberry on the importance of place and its history
Interview by NOEL BLACK • noel.black@ppmc.live
Matt Mayberry, cultural services manager for the City of Colorado Springs, is fond of saying that the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum itself is the most important artifact in the collection of the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum.
Paid for by local carpenter-turned-gold-baron Winfield Scott Stratton at the turn of the 20th century as a part of his wide-ranging civic philanthropy projects that included the City Auditorium, the downtown post office and the Mining Exchange building, the museum was originally the Colorado Springs Court House. It was nearly lost to the wrecking ball during a wave of urban renewal efforts in the late 1960s and early 1970s that claimed the second Antlers Hotel, the Burns Theater building, and whole swaths of downtown Colorado Springs’ original brick buildings and storefronts to make way for modern office buildings and parking lots. But a small group of nascent historic-preservation activists managed to save the courthouse, and in 1973 it became the home of the city’s growing collection of historical artifacts. Today, the Pioneers Museum is the crown jewel in what’s left of Colorado Springs’ historical downtown.
Mayberry himself is a local treasure. After he first came to Colorado from Iowa in 1988, he got his M.A. in history with a focus on mining from UCCS. He then spent several years working at the Colorado Museum of Mining and Industry before he became the program coordinator at the Pioneers Museum in the mid-1990s. Since he was promoted to director in 2002, he’s overseen dozens of exhibits, the restoration of Rock Ledge Ranch near Garden of the Gods, and a growing number of significant archaeology and paleontology projects, including the discovery of the fossils of a mammal believed to be the ancestor of all living mammals, including humans, discovered recently at Corral Bluffs.
But preservation of the museum itself remains one of Mayberry’s most important duties. After a months-long battle with COVID-19 in 2022 that nearly took his life, he returned to the museum to oversee a $5 million renovation that included a complete update in the building’s HVAC system and the opening of a new gallery, several new exhibitions and a new publicly visible collections workspace.
We spoke with Mayberry at the museum shortly after the reopening on July 13, 2024.
This interview was edited for length and clarity.
COLORADO SPRINGS INDEPENDENT: Why are historical artifacts important? And what are the challenges of preserving them, including putting in pretty unsexy things like a new HVAC system with air conditioning?
MATT MAYBERRY: Well, it’s a good question. And it’s appropriate for what we’re doing right now. We are object focused, very much artifact focused. I think museums, in some cases, especially recently, have gone through a phase where objects are less important in exhibits. And there’s a lot of interactives, and there’s game playing, and all of that is good, and maybe less in terms of seeing actual stuff. We like actual stuff. The new exhibit that we just opened called “Accessorize It” is just artifact rich and very little interpretation. It’s not didactic. It’s really about seeing things that are from our collection and hoping that will spark something in the public. At our highest level, I think our job is to get people who are looking at an exhibit to talk to each other about what they’re seeing. And we’re really about trying to engage people with each other. And artifacts are a tool for that engagement. Museums today don’t exhibit but a very, very small portion of their collection at any given time. They just can’t. We have so many things in our collection that we just don’t have enough
Matt Mayberry responds to media questions during a tour of the newly re-opened Pioneers Museum. | Credit: Ben Trollinger
space to exhibit. And so a fraction of a percent or 2 percent of any museum’s collection is on display at any one time. Because of this work, we focused really on getting more of our collection out and made a commitment that we do that. And so through this process, in addition to all the other exhibits that we already had out, we have added over 800 new objects that are on display, physically on display in the space. And that equates to 1 percent of our collection. So we’ve added an additional percent. I walked up to that gallery [the day of the reopening], and it was just full of people. And, you know, they’re doing what I hope they’ll do: They’re talking, they’re trying on the costumes that we have for people to put on, and they’re comparing what’s in the case to what Grandma had on. We can get into a lot of detail about decorative culture and how things have changed and why we don’t wear hats anymore. Those are all storytelling things we can do. But we think it’s interesting to see how people lived. And I think that’s really what we’re trying to show: How do people live and what does it mean for museums to try to preserve that?
INDEPENDENT: Why do you think that the story of a place and all the artifacts and things that inform that place are important for people know and understand?
MAYBERRY: Well, that’s kinda my job, isn’t it?
INDEPENDENT: Yeah, and you better justify it! [laughter]
MAYBERRY: I’m biased, certainly, but I don’t think it means anything to live someplace that you don’t know the background of. I’m sure there are a lot of people who do, and live just fine, and so be it. But first of all, I’ll say this: This is such a fascinating place. I mean, I am so lucky to have ended up someplace with such a unique, rich history. It makes life more fun if you know the history of the place you live. Beyond that, I think it brings people together. We’re so excited to be back open because that’s what we want people to do is to come in here and connect over history. It’s about a love of place. And I think love of place really matters, and it makes life more rich.
INDEPENDENT: If you’re OK talking about it, can you tell us a little bit about your experience with COVID?
MAYBERRY: I don’t really like to be a poster boy for COVID. But in 2021, they were slowly rolling out the vaccines, and I wasn’t eligible yet to get vaccinated because I didn’t hit the age or whatever. And so, literally, I was a week away from being eligible and doggone if I didn’t come down with it. I don’t know how I got it. We were very careful, and I tried to be very careful. I have asthma, so that probably played into my course of the
disease. I did OK for about five days and, and then I think it was Day 6 or 7 my pulse oxygen really dropped quickly. And so I went to the hospital on March 30, and I did not come out of the hospital until July 31 — four months. And two of those months I was in ICU, intubated. I don’t remember any of it. I had some wild dreams though. And then two months of recovery. And because I’d been still for so long, I had to learn to walk again. And so, it was a lot of physical therapy. You can hear it in my voice. Anybody who has known me for a while can still hear this in my voice. I have probably some symptoms of long COVID. It changed me. I’m a different person than I was before. I can’t do as many things, as many things as easily as I could have done. I really struggle with hiking because of some balance issues. I have this weird thing with my hands — I don’t have the grip strength I used to. So that’s what I went through in a nutshell.
INDEPENDENT: What are some of the artifacts that the museum collected around COVID?
MAYBERRY: I think one of the most interesting and kind of a sad one is we had one of our junior docents who was graduating from high school when she was here, gave us her prom dress, which she couldn’t wear. One of the things that came up is, during the Spanish flu, the city went through a very similar experience of closing theaters, closing churches. It’s eerily similar, and I wish we had better collections to tell that story. One of the things that the mayor at the time enacted was a law, which required people who were sick to put placards on their doors that said “Illness within” or something like that. I wish we had one of those.
INDEPENDENT: Did you give anything to the museum personally?
MAYBERRY: My wife and I talked about this. I don’t think I ever did because I don’t know what it would be. I got great care, and I can’t say enough about doctors and nurses who lived through all that, but one of the things about medicine today is it’s so disposable. I mean, I don’t know how many gloves got thrown away by the nurses and doctors that treated me. And it’s very ephemeral. So, I don’t know what I would give necessarily.
INDEPENDENT: What’s the most surprising thing you’ve learned about Colorado Springs that’s changed the way you see this place?
MAYBERRY: Right now [there are several open spaces that] are not open to the public because we don’t have a master plan, we don’t have facilities, we don’t have any trails — we don’t have anything yet. But the [paleontological] resources that we are finding there are, I mean, people say world-class,
and they say it too easily, but this is literally world-class. It is the only place on earth where, so far, we have found, preserved, the first million years after the asteroid strike that killed off the dinosaurs, and how mammals recovered during that period. And it just happens to be because of erosion and how things eroded out there, that we have a perfect timeline of this period. The Denver Museum of Nature and Science is our partner in it, and I’ve got here an artistic rendering of a newly found, newly identified mammal that was discovered at Corral Bluffs, and it was named for two people that I happen to know who are very important to the work that happened out there. It’s a little ferret-like looking critter, brown and white. I want to make a plushy toy of it. It’s called Militocodon Lydae — in
honor of longtime Parks Department and DMNS volunteer Sharon Milito and Lyda Hill — is the scientific name. And it is the precursor of all hooved animals. We’re not hooved animals, but we come from this world. And so, with the upcoming 150th anniversary of Colorado’s statehood, which happens in 2026, and the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence also in 2026, I was joking that we ought to really focus on celebrating this area because Thomas Jefferson and all those other people started right here. It makes me appreciate this place and what treasures are preserved here in the rocks, and who knows what else we’re going to find out there? And it’s a deep responsibility that we all feel, and we’re excited about sharing it with the public.
Museum workers prepare for the re-opening. | Credit: Ben Trollinger
Photograph by Harlan and Stevens. | Courtesy of Pikes Peak Library District, 257-6443
SPOKES OF THE COMMONWHEEL
50 years of friendship, hippie high jinks and weird art in Manitou
Springs
By CANNON TAYLOR • cannon.taylor@ppmc.live
In the early ’70s, two construction buddies had a wild idea: Make Manitou Springs levitate. They gathered some spare cash and bought thousands of balloons. Handing out the balloons to the townspeople, the friends instructed them to tie them to anything they could — parking meters, trash cans, you name it.
“Nowadays, of course, we wouldn’t want to send 1,000 balloons to fizzle out somewhere else,” Hyde said. “But we were younger and less conscious in those days.”
This was just one of many ideas cooked up by John Hyde and Michael Mroz after they moved to Manitou Springs from Wyoming in 1973. Upon hearing murmurs of desire for some sort of artists collective in town, Hyde and Mroz offered their recently opened restaurant, Morning Town, as a meeting place. Roughly 20 artists showed up, and Commonwheel Artists Co-op was born.
Hyde and Mroz are often credited as the founders of Commonwheel, but Hyde insists that
they just supplied coffee and cinnamon rolls. In fact, Hyde wouldn’t even say he was a member. Working 18-hour restaurant shifts seven days a week, there was little time for the arts. Hyde and Mroz simply got the wheel turning.
Now in its 50th year, Commonwheel is seen as a trendsetter for the arts scene in Manitou Springs. The name “Commonwheel” originates from the idea that each artist is a spoke in the wheel of local arts, keeping it rolling through their cooperation with one another. The co-op has allowed members a space to make art together, gather constructive feedback from other creatives and learn how to make a living as an artist.
‘LITTLE
BY LITTLE’
After numerous meetings in restaurants, basements and churches, Commonwheel decided to create a home base from which members could create and sell art.
Julia Wright in front of the Commonwheel Artists Co-op. | Credit: Ben Trollinger
Commonwheel first moved into The Maybe Shop, a store which had been owned by fellow member Sophie Cowman. In 1977, they signed a lease and moved to their current location on Cañon Avenue.
“It was kind of like friends getting together and making a gallery little by little,” said potter Roger Tolzman, a founding member of Commonwheel.
It truly was a group effort. Members like Tolzman contributed their construction expertise, while others created the aesthetics of the gallery or helped find sources of cheap lumber.
The gallery has been through thick and thin over the years — from the time a beer truck lost control on an icy road and crashed through the front of the store in 1987 to the flooding of the store’s basement in 2013 — but it still stands proudly today.
WEIRDING MANITOU
Commonwheel has always been a place to get weird. Julia Wright, Commonwheel’s longest-serving active member, creates masks, earrings, jewelry and other wearable art out of feathers. She told stories of performing artists trying on her masks and pretending to be everything from beautiful dancers to chickens.
“That’s transformation. That’s the whole point of putting something on your face … to transform into another part of you, to do something that you wouldn’t do without being hidden behind a mask, to dance like no one’s watching and let your inner child out to play,” Wright said.
The weirdness didn’t stop there. Carrying on the spirit of tying balloons to parking meters, Commonwheel members participated in increasingly bizarre activities: commandeering people’s front lawns for mini golf while dressed as “Alice in Wonderland” characters, stuffing multiple people into a horse costume for an impromptu parade and playing cards with one another while dressed up as playing cards.
Manitou Springs hasn’t always been so quirky. Deborah Steddom, glass artist and John Hyde’s wife, described the town as “conservative” with “no real art scene” in her childhood. She moved from Manitou Springs after her high school graduation in 1970 and returned in 1980. It was a totally different town — Commonwheel had brought it back to life.
“You could go through Manitou at any given time, and the likelihood that
somebody was doing something off the cuff and totally bizarre was real,” Steddom said. Of course, not all were happy about the influx of artists and hippies. Ceramicist Jim Lummel said that during the first Commonwheel Christmas Show in 1974, held in the City Hall auditorium, he discovered that the city had told one of the women who helping with the show to press a panic button hidden on one of the tables if she smelled marijuana or a riot began.
“Here we are with all of our stuff that we made, that was all of our income, and they were afraid we were going to riot and destroy everything inside the auditorium,” Lummel laughed.
Illustrator and ceramicist Marc Jenesel claims that Frisbee-throwing and roller skating were outlawed in one of many attempts to force the hippies out of town.
Wright, Commonwheel’s festival coordinator since 1976, said that many local businesses were initially opposed to their festivals, seeing the artists trying to sell their works to tourists as competition. But soon enough, the general populace came to respect the hippies’ honest attempts to make a living.
“They saw that we were businesspeople,” Wright said. “Doing three fairs and paying for everything? That’s not a hippie in their mind.”
Helping Commonwheel’s reputation were the efforts they organized for the good of the town, from cleaning up trash in the parks after their festivals to painting public trash cans. Even the naysayers loved listening to live music during the festivals, and their children adored the jugglers and other entertainers.
Lummel said that it took a long time for the hippies and the straights to come to terms with each other, but eventually, they did. He choked up while relaying a story about a local “old codger” named Ernie, whom he characterized as unfriendly and quiet. Lummel, who had become lifethreateningly ill in 1999, came across Ernie one day, who spoke to him for the first time in 25 years to ask how he was doing. It was this small act of kindness that led Lummel to realize that not all the straights were so bad.
THE NEXT GENERATION
While Commonwheel may have been controversial in the ’70s, it’s seen as a Manitou Springs institution 50 years later. The Manitou Springs of the ’70s was
In 1987, a beer truck slipped on the icy road and crashed through the front of the Commonwheel. |
Courtesy: Commonwheel Artists Co-op
“floundering economically,” according to Natalie Johnson, city councilwoman and executive director of the Manitou Art Center. The town was a summer tourist destination, making for a turbulent economy. Manitou Springs was so devoid of visitors during the winter that one could cross-country ski down Main Street without worrying about cars, Lummel said.
Commonwheel’s Labor Day art festival is often credited with pushing the tourist season into the fall and creating a more stable economy year-round. Audrey Gray, executive director of Creative Alliance Manitou Springs, described the Labor Day art festival as profitable for creatives while bringing in a large chunk of sales tax for the city, elevating everyone’s quality of life.
Now in its 50th year, Commonwheel’s 2024 Labor Day art festival will be held the weekend of Aug. 31 through Sept. 1, 10 a.m. through 5 p.m. at Memorial Park.
In the earliest iterations of the Labor Day festival, there weren’t even tents. “People cobbled together their displays and hoped it didn’t rain,” Wright laughed.
Nowadays, the Labor Day festival is much more official, complete with tents and a jury to ensure the quality and originality of the art being sold.
From festival organizing to advertising to bookkeeping, Commonwheel’s story has been one of a group of young creatives, many in their 20s, growing up together and learning how to navigate the world as selfemployed artists.
“Commonwheel was an effort to make the less recognized recognizable,” Hyde said. “Give them a venue. Give them a way to survive. Give them a way to believe in themselves.”
The impact on members has been immeasurable. Tolzman said that most of the founding members went on to develop their own studios.
of his 51-year
“Many artists never retire. I am one of those because I love to paint,” he said. “I love beauty and finding creativity. Commonwheel started me on this journey, and I will be grateful forever.”
And Commonwheel is more than a club of old friends. Every time one of the 38 members moves away or leaves the co-op, new talent is found. The candidates must be well-established artists, but that doesn’t exclude new blood from consideration; after all, it is only replacing the old spokes with new ones that will allow the wheel of the arts scene to keep on turning for another 50 years.
“We have a few younger members, and that makes us happy,” Wright said. “I’m excited to see younger people doing their art at the art festival. I love it when I see a group of young people at the fair around someone’s booth. That person is touching a market that no one else is.”
For Rod Hubble, a painter now living in New Mexico, Commonwheel was just the beginning
career.
Julia Wright circa 1975. |
Courtesy: Commonwheel Artists Co-op
LEARNING THE WAY OF THE CON
Colorado Springs Comic Con is the little convention that could
By CANNON TAYLOR cannon.taylor@ppmc.live
Susan Soares got her start at “Star Trek” cons. Her husband had previously “brainwashed” her into becoming obsessed with the sci-fi series. They even got married on Sept. 8, 1996, the 30th anniversary of the show. It was meeting George Takei and James Doohan at a tiny con she attended with her husband as an anniversary present that gave her a taste for conventions. Now, Soares works as the media coordinator for Altered Reality Entertainment, the East Coast convention organizer behind Rhode Island Comic Con; Contropolis Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and New Jersey; and last but not least, Colorado Springs Comic Con.
But why would an East Coast company branch out to Colorado Springs, of all places? The answer is simple — Connie Perry, who co-owns the company with her husband, Steven, grew up in Colorado Springs and wanted to bring the party to her family that still lives here. And it certainly is a party. According to Soares, Colorado Springs Comic Con is attended by 30,000 fans annually, and the celebrity guests love it here so much that many of them make repeat appearances. “The fans are so energetic and dedicated. The cosplay is insane,” she said. This year’s con, taking place the weekend of Aug. 23-25 at Broadmoor World Arena, has a guest list that boasts a little bit of everything, including actors, artists, wrestlers, retro guests and more. Guests can say hello to the surprisingly polite actors behind the evil Darth Maul and murderous Michael Myers before heading off to meet the voices behind Princess Belle and the cast of “Avatar: The Last Airbender.”
In her time attending and organizing cons over her 12 years with Altered Reality Entertainment, Soares has identified four types of con attendees: the autograph collector, the cosplayer, the audience member and the shopper.
Soares is the first breed of fan, collecting autographs from the crew of the USS Enterprise from across the country. The appeal comes not only from collecting; autographs can be investments as well.
James Spence Authentication will be at Colorado Springs Comic Con to issue fans certificates of authenticity if they want to sell their autographed photos and merchandise on eBay in the future. The second type, the cosplayer, does not get as much exposure and opportunities at a smaller show like Colorado Springs as they might at a bigger show like Fan Expo Denver. However, they get more attention from fans at the smaller shows by virtue
of being a big, flashy fish in a small pond. The audience members can spend all day in the panel room, hearing about celebrities’ lives and behind-the-scenes hijinks. They live for the moment they get to ask their idol what their favorite character moment or pizza topping is. The final type of fan is the shopper, looking for anything from collectible “Transformers” action figures to cuddly
• Nolan North (“Uncharted,” “Young Justice,” “Assassin’s Creed”)
• Paige O’Hara (“Beauty and the Beast”)
• Ray Park (“Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace”)
• Roger L. Jackson (“Scream,” “The Power Puff Girls”)
• Vicki Lawrence (“The Carol Burnett Show,” “Mama’s Family”)
•Zach Tyler Eisen, Jack De Sena, Michaela Jill Murphy, Dante Basco, Greg Baldwin, Jennie Kwan, Cricket Leigh, Olivia Hack, James Sie (“Avatar: The Last Airbender”) Artists
• Ben Bishop (“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin”)
• Bob Camp (“The Ren & Stimpy Show”)
• Derek Riggs (Iron Maiden)
• Greg Horn (Marvel and DC Comics)
• Jae Lee (“The Inhumans,” “The Dark Tower”)
• Raymond Gay (“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” “Spawn”)
• Sam de la Rosa (“Venom: Lethal Protector”)
Wrestlers
• Kurt Angle
• Ric Flair
• Rikishi
• Shelton Benjamin
The show floor of Broadmoor World Arena during 2023 Colorado Springs Comic Con. | Courtesy: Altered Reality Entertainment
anime plushies. More than 100 vendors will be coming to Colorado Springs, from fan artists selling one-of-a-kind artworks to comic book collectors who conduct trade deals with the solemnity of world leaders.
Even if you fall into none of these camps, it could be fun to come just to wander the venue and people-watch. Soares has seen two comic con marriage proposals in her time, one of them involving a flash mob.
Comic con can be a romantic place; after all, what better origin story is there for a relationship than bonding over similar interests?
“If you cosplay, you automatically have something in common with everybody else that cosplays,” Soares said. “Don’t be shy.”
Vance Lindsley, a local con enthusiast who works at Escape Velocity Comics & Graphic Novels, attends each con annually and is well-acquainted with the pros of each con.
The most obvious benefit of going to Fan Expo Denver over Colorado Springs Comic Con is the fact that Fan Expo Denver usually boasts bigger names, from Brie Larson and Antony Starr to Rosario Dawson and Rainn Wilson. The downside of this, Lindsley said, is that Fan Expo Denver doesn’t usually have returning guests like Colorado Springs Comic Con does. This allows the guest roster to stay fresh each year, but it can also be fun to see some guests multiple years in a row.
"COLORADO SPRINGS COMIC CON IS ATTENDED BY 30,000 FANS ANNUALLY"
Soares also advised attendees to be prepared. “Set up a plan of attack,” she said. “You will not see everything, you will not meet every guest, and if you try to, you may give yourself a negative experience. So set your expectations to take it slow. Learn the way of the con.”
COMIC PROS AND CONS
Although Soares testified that fans go to cons year-round, some may want to visit one con and call it a day. The question for Colorado Springs residents then becomes whether to go to Fan Expo Denver or Colorado Springs Comic Con — or both.
Guests at Fan Expo Denver are also somewhat distanced from the mob of fans present at their panels.
Colorado Springs Comic Con being at a smaller venue creates a more “intimate” environment that allows more chances to interact with guests, Lindsley said. Fan Expo Denver tends to take place around holidays, Lindsley said. It’s become tradition to hold Fan Expo Denver over Father’s Day weekend, which can be inconvenient unless you have a dad who tends to read DC Comics instead of the paper with his morning coffee. This year, Fan Expo Denver was
held over Fourth of July weekend. The distance can make Colorado Springs Comic Con a “no-brainer” for city residents, but Lindsley said it’s a tradeoff. Lindsley reported having an easier time finding restaurants within walking distance of Fan Expo Denver than at Colorado Springs Comic Con, where the easiest and closest option was to eat at Broadmoor World Arena. Lindsley wouldn’t say one con is a better value than the other, even though Colorado Springs Comic Con is more expensive than Fan Expo Denver. This year, one-day tickets to Colorado Springs Comic Con cost $54-$64 depending on
the day, with a three-day pass costing $124. Fan Expo Denver one-day tickets cost $29-$55 this year, with a four-day pass costing $109.
Ultimately, the decision to attend Colorado Springs Comic Con or wait it out for Fan Expo Denver will come down to personal preferences, budget and fanbase. Soares said that Altered Reality Entertainment doesn’t feel the heat of competition, though.
“Our goal is not to compete with any show,” Soares said. “We compete with ourselves, how we make each year better and better. That’s where our competition is.”
Cosplayers at 2023 Colorado Springs Comic Con. | Courtesy: Altered Reality Entertainment
Comics for sale at 2023 Colorado Springs Comic Con. | Courtesy: Altered Reality Entertainment CONTINUED FROM PAGE 13 ...
THE FORECASTING PHOTOGRAPHER
Former meteorologist and public defender discovers life behind the lens
By CANNON TAYLOR • cannon.taylor@ppmc.live
By the entrance of Colorful Colorado Images on Manitou Avenue is a sign that reads: “Notecards: $15.00 / Magnets: $3.00 / Indy (the dog): $2 million.” Surrounded by walls lined with landscapes sits a sole desk, a fluffy stuffed husky perched upon it. Behind the desk sits his owner, Stan Rose. From his stuffed dog to his humble demeanor, one would never guess that Rose’s modes of relaxation include chasing tornadoes and driving all the way to Wyoming just to take pictures of wildflowers.
Rose has been interested in nature his entire life. Growing up on Long Island, he painted the landscapes he saw in calendars. He considered being a fine art major before deciding that law school was more promising.
Rose thought he’d like being a defense attorney because he enjoys arguing, but it was more stressful than he’d bargained for. After five years of public defending in Suffolk County, he decided that he didn’t want to “die by age 40 of a heart attack” and
went back to school to study meteorology.
A self-labeled mountain fanatic all his life, Rose began climbing the Adirondack Mountains as soon as he was old enough to drive. Being an introvert (a common trait among nature photographers, according to Rose), he fell in love with the “renewal” provided by isolation in the mountains and climbed many of them solo by choice.
Rose began carrying a point-and-shoot film camera with him up the Cascades during graduate school. It was then he discovered his talent for photography. Rose worked as a meteorologist for the National Weather Service for 20 years, first in Eureka, California (which he described as “forecasting when the fog would lift each day”), then in Pueblo, Colorado. All the while, Rose pursued nature photography as a side gig. Having grown tired of the erratic, sleep-cycle-destroying schedule of a meteorologist, Rose decided to open a photo gallery in Sedona, Arizona, in 2019. Rose opened Colorful Colorado Images in May
Stan Rose and Indy the husky in Rose’s gallery, Colorful Colorado Images. | Credit: Cannon Taylor
ARTS&CULTURE
chasing a tornado, he saw it coming down near his car and sped a couple of miles up the road to get a landscape shot. By the time he had set up his camera, the tornado had already dissipated.
The temperamental nature of tornadoes
“Diamonds and Gold” by Stan Rose. | Credit: Stan Rose
VIRGINIA IS FOR OENOPHILES
IT
By LAUREN CIBOROWSKI
Thomas Jefferson was never able to successfully make wine from the vineyard he planted at Monticello. But I’ve met the man who did. His name is Gabriele Rausse, and he’s quite the character.
I hadn’t traveled to Charlottesville, Virginia, in search of good wine, necessarily. I knew I was in for an adventure, and I knew I was in for five days of hard labor. What I could not have foreseen was actually falling in love with some of the wines I had there. A dear friend of mine works at the Gabriele Rausse winery, and she talked Gabriele’s winemaker son, Tim, and his equally talented winemaker wife, Katell Griaud, into accepting the amateur volunteer help of an oenophile during harvest last year. You see, the more I got into wine, the more I wanted to learn what went into actually making it. And learn I did. I came away exhilarated, exhausted, sticky — both sodden and utterly besotted.
The day I arrived was the day the cabernet franc came in. Seven tons of cabernet franc, to be exact. Now, this is a small family winery in the woods of Virginia, so picture an old growth forest on a warm, humid day. No fancy processing facilities, just a good old concrete splash pad with hoses and equipment everywhere, right out in the woods. Our first task: sort the berries. All 7 tons of them. Before dark. This was achieved with the aid of a sorting table, a roughly 10-foot-long, slanted, stainless steel ramp that vibrates the grapes down its length. Between the nimble fingers of the workers and the shaking of the machine itself, debris, bugs, rocks, sticks and remaining grape stems are removed as quickly as possible before the fruit marches its way down into a vat. From there, it is pumped into tanks for fermentation. Let me tell you, at first, this is a fun and novel job, but after a few hours, it feels as if your very eyeballs are shaking at the same
frequency as the table. My fingers were turning brown, my new rubber work boots looked much more reputable, and I was loving every second of it. The day ended with a picnic out of the back of my friend’s truck, watching the sun slowly sink behind the Virginian mountains, and a toast with some of the winery’s delicious sparkling blanc de noir.
In the days that followed, I was lucky enough to get to try nearly every aspect of a working winery at harvest time. I spent a few hours out in the muggy sun harvesting incredibly dense clusters of roussanne, using sharp clippers to snip the stems, allowing them to fall with a satisfying thump into a bright yellow container called a lug. I helped transfer entire tanks of wine into other tanks so that we could wash out the surprisingly Barbie-pink sediment (lees) and transfer the wine back again. Twice a day, I climbed a ladder to get to the top of the 10-foot-tall tanks and do punch-downs, using a wooden implement with a long handle to gently tuck the grapes that had risen to the top of the tank back down into the juice again. I even did a brief stint of labeling finished bottles. Lunches were a communal and jovial affair, held in the tasting room, a beautiful and incongruously modern and glassy structure one comes upon quite suddenly in the woods.
But let’s return now to Gabriele Rausse, known locally as “the father of Virginia wine,” for I had the good fortune to tour Monticello with him on one of my last days there. Originally from Italy, Rausse worked as the director of Gardens and Grounds at Monticello for 28 years. Walking the gardens, we learned all about the many agricultural experiments Jefferson had conducted in his time there. But even more fascinatingly, we learned what Rausse had done — successfully planted 21 different varietals in the long-unused original vineyard. He then went on to make a limited edition of wine from those very grapes, something Jefferson would have been doubtlessly pleased to see finally come to fruition some 200-plus years later. I departed feeling just a little bit in love with Virginia. They say, of course, that Virginia is for lovers. I’d confidently say that it’s shockingly good for wine lovers as well.
You need art. Art needs you.
Lauren Ciborowski writes about the arts and music in every issue. W.I.P. stands for Works in Progress.
Members
trucks coming from a nearby fire station, declining property values for nearby homes and noise upsetting residents with Alzheimer’s disease and post-traumatic stress disorder.
“Do we really want to be like Dallas?” asked resident Anna Franklin, who insisted that McKinney is valued for its quaint and quiet atmosphere.
Despite these concerns, Venu is committed to being a good neighbor. “It would be foolishness of us to put a facility of this nature, that is really a community asset, in gross opposition to local residents,” said Venu President and Chief Operating Officer Bob Mudd.
Despite that promise, the city of Colorado Springs reported 144 noise complaints about Ford Amphitheater over its opening weekend. However, Ford Amphitheater has a noise-hardship permit permitting it to exceed city noise limits during concerts.
Oklahoma City residents have been more successful in their opposition to the project.
On April 9, city council voted 7-2 against the rezoning of land for Venu to construct a Sunset Amphitheater. The city council meeting room was stuffed with about 50 audience members wearing coordinated “No Noise Pollution!” shirts and buttons with “Sunset Amp” crossed out.
“There’s 1,073 pages of protest letters. It included shared articles, both peerreviewed and editorials, letters sharing very personal details about your family, your friends, your pets, our vets, PTSD, autism and other health conditions and how they feel like those could be impacted. There have been 90 pages in support. There are Facebook pages for both the support and the opposition, and this definitely holds the position for the most activating item for my constituency in the three years that I’ve been here,” City Councilwoman Barbara Peck said. “It's been said to me that the opposition here is a loud minority of folks, that most people want the venue. But the numbers just don’t work out for that from my perspective.”
The denial of Venu’s application has set back their plans to begin construction on an Oklahoma City amphitheater this year. In a company statement, Venu said that Oklahoma City remains a “crucial part of [their] strategic vision for the region” and that they are “moving quickly to explore
alternative sites within the Oklahoma City region.”
Beyond political processes delaying projects, there are other risks Venu faces in the expansion of their empire. The live music industry took a major hit in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with Goldman Sachs’ data showing a drop from nearly $30 billion in the global live music market in 2019 to under $5 billion in 2020. Although we all hope there will not be another lockdown during our lifetimes, the COVID-19 pandemic has shown the importance of businesses being prepared for such events to occur.
“The government shutting down your business is almost unheard of, and it happened. So, I assume it can happen again,” Roth said. Still, he takes some comfort in the fact that indoor venues would be shut down more quickly than his outdoor amphitheaters in the case of another pandemic because of the closer contact experienced in indoor venues.
“Artists like to play outdoors,” Roth said. “The postpandemic consumer would rather be outdoors … watching a show under the stars has some ambience that you don’t get from a hockey arena.”
But with an outdoor amphitheater, weather is an important consideration. Roth acknowledged the risk of inclement weather and explained that the outdoor bowl of Ford Amphitheater will be closed during the late fall through early spring months. Venu plans to continue generating revenue in their “off season” by holding private events in the outdoor bowl, artist greenrooms and indoor events center (targeted to open in early 2025). Events could include weddings, corporate evens, networking, luncheons, graduations and more.
In warmer markets like McKinney and Broken Arrow, Venu is incorporating a roof structure with large fan units.
The risks of his live music empire are numerous — pushback from cities and their residents, the financial blow that would be endured in another lockdown and the risks of inclement weather — but Roth is confident to continue going full steam ahead, even if the train veers off the tracks.
“People ask me all the time, what’s my exit strategy, and I don’t have one. And I’m going to continue to build these,” Roth said. “I enjoy building this first and foremost. The money’s secondary.”
WHAT’S GOING ON?
By ADAM LEECH
Before I get routing too deep into the “couch cushions,” I feel like I should address the elephant in the room (his name was Stampy; you loved him). A few of you may have noticed my incessant need to mention Conan O’Brien every week, like I have some sort of a lifelong dream to befriend the man who I make no reservations calling the single most funniest-est “human” to ever walk the face of the earth. You may even remember me trying to will into existence a performance at Red Rocks Amphitheater featuring him along with the reunited White Stripes, Weird Al Yankovic and a few other
ADDRESSING THE CONAN IN THE COLUMN
aforementioned A-, B- and C-listers.
I am sure by now you’ve heard that Coco and Jackie did rock out together at the Newport Folk Festival (home of the “Bobby D. Zimmerman goes electric” fiasco of ’65 at which the apocryphal legend of Pete Seeger ax-chopping Bob Dylan’s guitar cables was born). Well, I was only off by about 2,000 miles and a Meg White! I had intended to also included Tenacious D (or should I say Tenuous D?!) performing alongside Run the Jewels, which appeared to me in a literal dream in which Kyle G (who got done dirty, BTW) dropped the insane line, “I get all my best raps from my least restful naps.” True story. That dream was lit.
You’ve probably also heard that the “D” is done after K.G. dropped a very funny/ not funny “joke” down under, and Jibbles got scared and dropped a very not funny/ not funny by breaking up the band. Alas, our collective heart is broken. I can only hope the Red Rocks spectacular can bring them all back together. O’B, Co-nan-obie, you’re our only hope!
Back home on the Western Front, all is not quiet, and although my print schedule will
mean most of you won’t have the opportunity to catch Xanthe Alexis and Sarah Clanton at Lulu’s Downtown on Aug. 22 or at Denver’s Roxy on Broadway Aug. 23, I feel it imperative to report on this 719 ex-pat who is doing amazing things in down in Nashvegas, Tennessee. Not exactly know for humility and the “down to Earth” side of country music, Xanthe and Sarah have been throwing a series of intimate house shows at Cellotree Arts.
“Sarah and I met in Montreal in 2017, and with our shared vision for community have been putting on house concerts ever since, “Xanthe says. “It’s kind of rare in Nashville, and it’s been amazing for building community among musicians in such a hard environment.”
This year saw Xanthe and Sarah doing some pretty extensive touring, including an “élucidation de la musique” at the European Independent Film Festival in “gay Paree,” (Paris, France, that is). Xanthe is currently crafting her wares in the Cellotree studio and has wrangled up some pretty impressive guests to help bring her rootsy, folksy, Americana-y visions to life. Jimbo Hart, formerly of Jason Isbell’s band the 400 Unit, will be
slinging his bass guitar, and Reba McEntire’s longtime guit-picker, Jeff King, is laying down some sweet bouzouki melodies. The bouzouki, obviously, is a Greek lutelike instrument popular in Irish, Celtic and North American folk music, as well as the Frank Zappa jams “Canard Du Jour” and “Excentrifugal Forz.” Xanthe’s last album was heralded by the website Americana Highways as “One of the most musically and spiritually enthralling efforts of the year.” No doubt her next offering will be equally enthralling. Lastly, I’ll use this last little bit of room to check in on our favorite “agent provocateur,” Jello Biafra (there’s always room for Jello!). Alternative TentacleFEST, Aug 30 at Denver’s Levitt Pavilion, is a free punk rock showcase hosted by Biafra featuring Tsunami Bomb with Kultur Shock, Wheelchair Sports Camp and the pride of the Front Range, Dead Pioneers. Did I mention, FREE?!
That’s all for now. Smell you later. Adam Leech is the proprietor of Leechpit Records & Vintage at 3020 W. Colorado Ave.
THURSDAY, AUG. 22
SpringsSCENE
Jazz Thursdays | Free, live jazz music at the Mining Exchange Hotel. 8 S. Nevada Ave. 5 p.m.
Violet Breeze | Piano/vocal duo performing at Rico’s Café and Wine Bar. 322 1/2 N. Tejon St. 5 p.m.
Creekwalk Summer Concerts: Soul School | Variety band performing at Creekwalk. 100 E. Cheyenne Road. 6 p.m.
Hoodoo Honey | Blues band performing at Front Range Barbeque. 2330 W. Colorado Ave. 6:30 p.m.
Xanthe Alexis & Sarah Clanton | Indie musicians performing at Lulu’s Downtown. 32 S. Tejon St. 7 p.m.
FRIDAY, AUG. 23
Jazz in the Garden: Hennessey 6 | Jazz trumpeter performing at Grace and St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church. 531 N. Tejon St. 7 p.m.
Katie Hale and the P-47s | Swing ensemble performing at Rico’s Café and Wine Bar. 322 1/2 N. Tejon St. 6 p.m.
Dad Bod, Orua | Indie bands performing at Lulu’s Downtown. 32 S. Tejon St. 7 p.m.
Lauren Daigle | Christian singer-songwriter performing at Ford Amphitheater. 95 Spectrum Loop. 7 p.m.
Sad! An Emo Rap Thing: Lil Peep Edition | Lil Peep-themed dance party at the Black Sheep. 2106 E. Platte Ave. 8 p.m.
SATURDAY, AUG. 24
Dr. No | Punk band performing at Lulu’s Downtown. 32 S. Tejon St. 7 p.m.
Paradise Theatre: Styx Tribute | Tribute band performing at Boot Barn Hall. 13071 Bass Pro Drive. 7 p.m.
Candlelight: A Tribute to Taylor Swift | String quartet tribute show at First United Methodist Church. 420 N. Nevada Ave. 8 p.m.
Echo Vocation | Multi-instrumentalist performing at Ohana Kava Bar. 112 E. Boulder St. 8 p.m.
The Emo Night Tour | Emo dance party at the Black Sheep. 2106 E. Platte Ave. 8 p.m.
Primus with Fantastic Negrito | Rock bands performing at Ford Amphitheater. 95 Spectrum Loop. 8 p.m.
SUNDAY, AUG. 25
Another Michael, Frail Talk, Bryse Taylor | Indie and folk bands performing at Lulu’s Downtown. 32 S. Tejon St. 6 p.m.
Blue Frog Sunday Summer Series | Weekly performances by Blue Frog at Front Range Barbeque. 2330 W. Colorado Ave. 6 p.m.
MONDAY, AUG. 26
Roma Ransom | Folk musician performing at Gazebo Lake Park, Green Mountain Falls. 100 Lake St. 6 p.m.
TUESDAY, AUG. 27
John Fogerty with George Thorogood & The Destroyers | Singer-songwriters performing at Ford Amphitheater. 95 Spectrum Loop. 6:30 p.m.
Gregory Alan Isakov | Folk musician performing at Pikes Peak Center. 190 S. Cascade Ave. 7:30 p.m.
WEDNESDAY, AUG. 28
Hillside Gardens Summer Concert Series | Live music at Hillside Gardens. 1006 S. Institute St. 5 p.m.
Peak Big Band | Big band performing at Bear Creek Regional Park. 245 Bear Creek Road. 6 p.m.
Harry Mo & The CRU | Reggae band performing at Front Range Barbeque. 2330 W. Colorado Ave. 6:30 p.m.
Michael Marcagi | Indie singer-songwriter performing at the Black Sheep. 2106 E. Platte Ave. 8 p.m.
THURSDAY, AUG. 29
Jazz Thursdays | Free, live jazz music at the Mining Exchange Hotel. 8 S. Nevada Ave. 5 p.m.
Sun Jr. | Folk band performing at Lulu’s Downtown. 32 S. Tejon St. 7 p.m.
Tsunami Bomb, Nobodys, The Sleights, The Frickashinas | Rock bands performing at Vultures. 2100 E. Platte Ave. 7:30 p.m.
Xanthe Alexis plays Lulu’s Downtown on Aug. 22 | Credit: Luigi Scorcia, courtesy Nick Loss-Eaton Media
Ohgeesy with 310babii, Yung Chowder | Rappers performing at the Black Sheep. 2106 E. Platte Ave. 8 p.m.
FRIDAY, AUG. 30
Bluebook, We Are Not a Glum Lot | Indie bands performing at Lulu’s Downtown. 32 S. Tejon St. 7 p.m.
Dierks Bently with Chase Rice | Country singer-songwriters performing at Ford Amphitheater. 95 Spectrum Loop. 7 p.m.
Emily Wolfe | Rock musician performing at Oskar Blues Grill & Brew. 118 N. Tejon St. 7 p.m.
Still They Ride: Tribute to Journey | Tribute band performing at Boot Barn Hall. 13071 Bass Pro Drive. 7 p.m.
Grey Daze, Julien-K | Rock bands performing at the Black Sheep. 2106 E. Platte Ave. 8 p.m.
The Medicine Music Project | Meditative band performing at Ohana Kava Bar. 112 E. Boulder St. 8 p.m.
SATURDAY, AUG. 31
Music on the Mesa with Soapdish | Dance band at Gold Hill Mesa Community Center. 142 S. Raven Mine Drive. 4 p.m.
Michael Martin Murphey | Country musician performing at Tri-Lakes Center for the Arts. 304 Highway 105. 7 p.m.
Chris White | Electronic multi-instrumentalist performing at Ohana Kava Bar. 112 E. Boulder St. 8 p.m.
SUNDAY, SEPT. 1
Folds of Honor Benefit Concert featuring Mark Wills | Country musician performing at Boot Barn Hall. 13071 Bass Pro Drive. 6:30 p.m.
MONDAY, SEPT. 2
Hot Boots Band | Variety band performing at Gazebo Lake Park, Green Mountain Falls. 100 Lake St. 6 p.m.
WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 4
Hillside Gardens Summer Concert Series | Live music at Hillside Gardens. 1006 S. Institute St. 5 p.m.
Los Shadows, Trepanned, Glass Parade | Indie bands performing at Lulu’s Downtown. 32 S. Tejon St. 7 p.m.
Darsombra, Turismo Blu, OsZo | Rock bands performing at What’s Left Records. 2217 E. Platte Ave. 7:30 p.m.
Five Finger Death Punch with Marilyn Mansion | Ball Arena, Denver, Aug. 22
Sullivan King with Grabbitz | Fox Theatre, Boulder, Aug. 22-23
Dave Matthews Band | Fiddlers Green Amphitheatre, Englewood, Aug. 23-24
Gipsy Kings | Levitt Pavilion Denver, Denver, Aug. 23
Grupo Firme | Ball Arena, Denver, Aug. 23
Marco Antonio Solís | Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Morrison, Aug. 23
Michael Ray | Grizzly Rose, Denver, Aug. 23
Switchfoot with Blue October, Matt Nathanson | Amphitheater at Las Colonias Park, Grand Junction, Aug. 23
The 502s | Boulder Theater, Boulder, Aug. 24
Alvvays | Mission Ballroom, Denver, Aug. 24
Glen Hansard | Paramount Theatre, Denver, Aug. 24
Luis R Conriquez | National Western Complex, Denver, Aug. 24
Rebelution with Kolohe Kai | Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Morrison, Aug. 24
RoadSHOWS
Scotty McCreery | Colorado State Fair, Pueblo, Aug. 24
The Mavericks with Nicole Atkins | Paramount Theatre, Denver, Aug. 25
Parker McCollum | Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Morrison, Aug. 25
Bikini Kill | Mission Ballroom, Denver, Aug. 27
Future with Metro Boomin | Ball Arena, Denver, Aug. 27
The High Kings | Aggie Theatre, Fort Collins, Aug. 27
Joshua Bassett | The Fillmore Auditorium, Denver, Aug. 27
Khruangbin with Peter Cat Recording Co. | Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Morrison, Aug. 27-28
Phillip Phillips | The Amphitheater at Philip S. Miller Park, Castle Rock, Aug. 27
Don Omar | Bellco Theatre, Denver, Aug. 28
Train with REO Speedwagon | Fiddlers Green Amphitheatre, Englewood, Aug. 28
Carin Leon | Fiddlers Green Amphitheatre, Englewood, Aug. 29
The Doobie Brothers with Steve Winwood | Ball Arena, Denver, Aug. 29
Kurt Vile | Levitt Pavilion Denver, Denver, Aug. 29
Lamb of God with Mastodon, Malevolence | Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Morrison, Aug. 29
Phish | Dick’s Sporting Goods Park, Commerce City, Aug. 29 –Sept.1
Rick Springfield | Mission Ballroom, Denver, Aug. 29
Gloria Trevi | Bellco Theatre, Denver, Aug. 30
The Hip Abduction with Satsang | Mishawaka Amphitheatre, Bellvue, Aug. 30
Hozier with Allison Russell | Fiddlers Green Amphitheatre, Englewood, Aug. 30
JAS Labor Day Weekend Experience | Snowmass Town Park, Aspen, Aug. 30 –Sept.1
Rezz | Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Morrison, Aug. 30
Trace Adkins | Colorado State Fair, Pueblo, Aug. 30
Yung Gravy | The Fillmore Auditorium, Denver, Aug. 30
Lane 8 | Dillon Amphitheater, Dillon, Aug. 31 –Sept.1
Ludacris | Colorado State Fair, Pueblo, Aug. 31
Powerwolf | Ogden Theater, Denver, Aug. 31
Glass Animals with Eyedress | Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Morrison,Sept.3-4
Passenger | Ogden Theater, Denver,Sept.4
Switchfoot plays Amphitheater at Las Colonias Park on Aug. 23. | Credit: Erick Frost, courtesy Shore Fire Media
Alvvays plays Mission Ballroom on Aug. 24 | Credit: Eleanor Petry, courtesy Polyvinyl Records
CALENDER&EVENTS .
ART EXHIBITIONS
“How Do You See God?”
Thursday, Aug. 22, Academy Art & Frame Co., 7560 N. Academy Blvd., 10 a.m.: “How Do You See God?” is an exhibition that asks our artists to share their thoughts and beliefs through unique works of art. And we create a unique tabletop book of all the images! This is the 14th year of the exhibition and will be our 13th edition of the book. Through Aug. 31. academyframesco.com.
“Celebrating Colorado Wildflowers”
Thursday, Aug. 22, Laura Reilly Fine Art Gallery and Studio, 2522A W. Colorado Ave., noon: “Celebrating Colorado Wildflowers” will let you share the long, hot, dusty hikes Laura took with her paints and sketchbook to find the high country reds, gold, yellows and blues tucked into secret places. The boldly colorful, impressionist paintings are full of the heavily textured movement and lush color that are Laura’s signature. Through Aug. 31. laurareilly.com.
“Gentlemen, Start Your Engines!”
Thursday, Aug. 22, Manitou Springs Heritage Center and Museum, 517 Manitou Ave., noon: an exciting tribute to the 2024 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb Hall of Fame inductees, Clint Vahsholtz, Ari Vatanen, Ted Foltz and Beck Bechtelheimer. See the Hill Climb’s Hall of Fame members and many other exciting race photos taken by Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Jackson. Watch our collection of PPIHC videos including the award winning “The Ari Vatanen Climb Dance.” Through Sept. 15. manitouspringsheritagecenter.org.
“Van Briggle Pottery” and “Garden of the Gods Pottery”
Thursday, Aug. 22, Manitou Springs Heritage Center and Museum, 517 Manitou Ave., 12 p.m.: See dozens of beautifully designed pottery creations crafted by Van Biggle Pottery, America’s longest-running pottery works, and The Garden of the Gods Pottery, founded by early Colorado Springs craftsman Eric Hellman. Through Dec. 31. manitouspringsheritagecenter.org.
“Anonymous”
Thursday, Aug. 22, Auric Gallery, 125 E. Boulder St., noon: An exhibit featuring over 100 artists and 200 works, all 10”x10”, all priced the same. “Anonymous” will be presented with no title tags! This will be a cash and carry exhibit. Through Aug. 30. auricgallery. com.
“Atmosphere”: Sarah Wright
Thursday, Aug. 22, Surface Gallery, 2752 W. Colorado Ave., noon: Sarah Wright is an abstract artist focusing on crisp lines and bold colors to express her works. This body of work explores the expression of all things pertaining to atmosphere and light. Through Aug. 30. surfacegallerycos.com.
“Atomic Age”
Thursday, Aug. 22, Cottonwood Center for the Arts, 427 E. Colorado Ave., 10 a.m.: The Atomic Age refers to an era of world history that started with the explosive end of WWII and spanned the race to explore space. As we approach 90 seconds to midnight on the Doomsday Clock, as well as unprecedented tech advances enhancing daily life, this call for entries asked artists to use the aesthetic of the Atomic Age as a point of inspiration/departure to express an
idea or composition pertinent to their experience. Through Aug. 31. cottonwoodcenterforthearts.com.
“Creature Emporium”: Alix Garcia Thursday, Aug. 22, Surface Gallery, 2752 W. Colorado Ave., noon: In “Creature Emporium,” Garcia designs and fabricates a menagerie of beasts inspired by cryptids, mythologies and nature. She combines whimsical imagery with commonplace and everyday experiences in order to make interactive/semifunctional, wacky sculptures. Through Aug. 30. surfacegallerycos. com.
Four Solo Exhibits
Thursday, Aug. 22, Auric Gallery, 125 E. Boulder St., noon: Auric Gallery is proud to present the work of Heather Oelklaus in “Cattywampus,” Nancy Roach in “The Unthought: Evocations of a Colorado Landscape,” Annaliese Allen in “Dwelling Place” and Tara Kelley-Cruz in “Mixed Nuts.” Through Aug. 30. auricgallery.com.
“In Depth”: Nichole Montanez Thursday, Aug. 22, Surface Gallery, 2752 W. Colorado Ave., noon: “In Depth” is a return to figures but does not completely abandon the flower. Rather, the two join forces to tackle
some of the harder conversations, lending each other color and strength. Through Aug. 30. surfacegallerycos. com.
“Work in Progress: Re-Envisioning the Collection”
Thursday, Aug. 22, Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College, 30 W. Dale St., 10 a.m.: “Work in Progress” is an experimental series of collection-based installations designed to explore new ways of presenting and understanding the collection. Participate in the process by contributing your response to each installment through interactive activities. New works of art will be presented throughout the series in response to questions and ideas related to the upcoming reinstallation of the collection galleries. Through Sept. 21. fac.coloradocollege.edu.
Call for Art: Miniature & Massive Art Show 2024
Thursday, Aug. 29 through Saturday, Aug. 31, Academy Art & Frame Co., 7560 N. Academy Blvd., 10 a.m.: Bring us your itty bitty creations! Miniature paintings and sculptures are fine art on a small scale, with minute attention to detail, which can withstand close inspection or enlargement. The Minia-
Hot Rod Rock & Rumble, Aug. 22-25 | Credit: Rachel Tucker, courtesy Pikes Peak International Raceway
ture & Small Works Show is a judged exhibit. All entries accepted and we accept all media types for this exhibit, including photography. Cash awards given in all categories; categories determined by entries. academyframesco. com.
PERFORMING ARTS
“Impossible Things”
Friday, Aug. 23 and Saturday, Aug. 31, Cosmo’s Magic Theater, 1045 Garden of the Gods Road Unit 1, 7:30 p.m.: Enjoy a fun and elegant evening of comedy and magic in a beautiful Victorian parlor setting. cosmosmagictheater.com.
Magic and Mind Reading
Saturday, Aug. 24 and Friday, Aug. 30, Cosmo’s Magic Theater, 1045 Garden of the Gods Road Unit 1, 7:30 p.m.: Continuing in our tradition of storytelling, light and fun presentation and comedy, this show includes brand new, original material created specifically for this performance. Weekly performances throughout 2024. cosmosmagictheater.com.
The Brewery Comedy Tour
Saturday, Aug. 31, Bell Brothers Brewing, 114 N. Tejon St., No. 100, 7 p.m.: Currently in its 11th year, this nationwide comedy tour has already hit 4,200 venues across the country. The drinks are pretty good too! allevents.in/ coloradosprings/the-brewery-comedytour-at-bell-brothers.
FOOD & DRINK
Twist of New Orleans
Sunday, Aug. 25, Summa, 817 W. Colorado Ave., 4 p.m.: Come join us at Summa for a night filled with the vibrant culture and flavors of New Orleans. Get ready to experience the lively music, delicious food, and festive atmosphere that this iconic city is known for. dizzycharlies.com.
CFAM Downtown Farmers Market
Wednesday, Aug. 28 and Wednesday, Sept. 4, Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum, 215 S. Tejon St., 3 p.m.: The
Wednesday Farmers Market is a vibrant, weekly event that brings together local farmers, artisans and community members in a lively and welcoming atmosphere. Held every Wednesday, the market offers a diverse selection of fresh locally grown produce, handmade crafts, baked goods and specialty foods. Visitors can enjoy live music, family-friendly activities and the opportunity to connect with local producers. farmandartmarket.com.
COMMUNITY EVENTS
Summer Market
Thursday, Aug. 22, Commonwheel Artists Co-op, 102 Cañon Ave., Manitou Springs, 10 a.m.: Commonwheel Artists Co-op will be featuring over 20 Colorado Artists in our Summer Market. The Creek Side Gallery will be filled with unique handcrafted gifts throughout the month of August. commonwheel. com.
Urban Market
Thursday, Aug. 22 and Thursday, Aug. 29, Buffalo Lodge Bicycle Resort, 2 El Paso Blvd., 5:30 p.m.: Our enchanting seasonal urban market will be set up in the serene backyard area, offering a delightful array of handcrafted goods from local artisans and makers. Once you've found your favorite finds, step inside the lodge to savor Colorado's finest brews, wines or spirits while enjoying live music from 6 to 8 p.m. Every Thursday through September. bicycleresort.com/events-activities.
Trinity Community Park Celebration
Saturday, Aug. 24, Trinity Community Park, 17750 Knollwood Drive, 10 a.m.: Come celebrate all the new additions to the area’s largest fully accessible park and playground. Food trucks, fire truck, door prizes, crafts, games and play! Free to all. tamara@trinitymonument. com.
Makers Market
Sunday, Aug. 25, Cerberus Brewing Co., 702 W. Colorado Ave., noon: An intimate market of some of the best
human-made, handcrafted creations, Makers Market is your one stop shop for gifts if you shop Christmas in summer. Or maybe you have been good this year and want to gift yourself. Specially curated by Jantzen Peake at Cerberus Brewing Co. jantzen_peake@yahoo. com.
Commonwheel Artists 50th Annual Labor Day Art Festival
Saturday, Aug. 31 through Monday, Sept. 2, Manitou Springs Memorial Park, 502 Manitou Ave., 10 a.m.: For 50 years, a diverse group of potters, jewelers, painters, sculptors, photographers, glass artists and more have been displaying their artwork selected by the Commonwheel jury. These artists apply from the Pikes Peak region and neighboring states to share their creations with art-appreciating visitors at this juried art festival. Art patrons come to enjoy this celebration of original fine art and contemporary crafts, talented local musicians and specialty food items. commonwheel.com.
OUTDOOR REC
Hot Rod Rock & Rumble 2024
Thursday, Aug. 22 through Sunday, Aug. 25, Pikes Peak International Raceway, 16650 Midway Ranch Road, noon: Join us for a thrilling weekend with the pre-1976 hot rod classic car showcase, drag racing, oval cruising, burnout circus, pinup contest, junior rockabilly contest, vintage camping, flamethrowers, pinstriper panel jam, swap meet, live music across five stages, burlesque and so much more! ppir.com. Tails, Tunes & Tastes
Thursday, Aug. 29, Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, 4250 Cheyenne Mountain Zoo Road, 6 p.m.: Join us for a magical evening on the mountain. Local musicians will set the mood throughout the zoo! Tickets to Tails, Tunes & Tastes include unlimited small plates from our chef-crafted menu and two drink tickets. No one under age 21 will be permitted, including children or infants. cmzoo.org.
“Avalanche Lily” from the “Anonymous” exhibit, Aug. 22-30 |Courtesy: Auric Gallery
A FAREWELL TO FERN’S
Celebrating a vegan sanctuary and its mission
By CAMILLE LIPTAK
Vegan standby and local favorite Fern’s Diner & Drinkery closed its doors earlier this month.
Owned and operated by Cody Rilo and Tyler Schiedel, the dedicated vegan activists behind Burrowing Owl, the diner has been a beloved spot for plantbased enthusiasts since 2021. However, the owners shared on social media that after three fulfilling years, the vegan diner and drinkery will bid farewell. Situated at the base of Pikes Peak and Pike National Forest in Cascade, Fern’s Diner & Drinkery has built a loyal following with its unique menu of vegan diner food and drinks. Classics like vegan cheese curds, buttermilk pancakes and barbecue burgers, as well as all-day breakfast and creative sandwiches like the TuNAH Melt, have kept devoted patrons coming back for more.
The diner’s culinary offerings have been a significant draw, but it’s the story behind Fern’s that truly sets it apart.
and animal activism is evident in every aspect of Fern's Diner & Drinkery. The dog-friendly establishment was created to honor Fern’s legacy, and dedicated to helping support local dog rescues, including Springs-based nonprofit One Dog at a Time.
For Rilo and Schiedel, their passion for animals is not just a business model; it’s a heartfelt mission. They aimed to draw in patrons with their charming ambiance and warm their souls with hospitality, embodying Fern’s spirit — soft on the outside and bold on the inside.
"BEING VEGAN IS A PRINCIPLED LIFESTYLE, A RELIGION, AND WE ARE PROUD OF THAT RELIGION."
This one-of-a-kind vegan diner was inspired by and named after Rilo’s beloved French bulldog, Fern. Rescued from an Iowa puppy mill by the National Mill Dog Rescue, Fern was a symbol of resilience and love. She spent the first four years of her life bred for profit before finding her forever home with Rilo and Schiedel in Colorado. Despite numerous health challenges, Fern’s spirit and tenacity left a lasting impact on her family. When she died of breast cancer metastasis in 2019, her memory lived on through the diner that bears her name.
“Being vegan is a principled lifestyle, a religion, and we are proud of that religion,” the owners write on their website. Their commitment to veganism
The picturesque biergarten and spacious, dog-friendly patio at Fern’s offered a haven for vegan foodies, hikers, tourists and dog lovers alike. Diners were treated to breathtaking mountain views and the calming sounds of a nearby creek and chirping of birds, all while enjoying a refreshing cocktail and a hearty vegan meal. This idyllic setting inspired the owners, embodying a perfect blend of nature and nourishment.
However, the same picturesque location that inspired their vision also posed challenges, making it difficult to sustain the business in the long run.
On July 25, Rilo announced that Fern’s Diner & Drinkery would close due to insufficient business. “We have tried everything we could to get enough business to make it a success. With 5 stars across the board, we can only blame location,” she shared in a social media post.
Reflecting on their journey, Rilo and Schiedel expressed gratitude to their staff, chef and regular patrons for their unwavering support. The property and the diner are now for sale, marking the end of an era but not the end of their mission.
AMERICAN
AMERICAN
Mackenzie’s Chop House
Mackenzie’s Chop House
128 S. Tejon St. Historic Alamo Building / Downtown / 719-635-3536
128 S. Tejon St. Historic Alamo Building / Downtown / 719-635-3536
Voted Best Power Lunch, Steakhouse and Martini! Downtown’s choice for quality meats and mixed drinks. Mackenzieschophouse.com. Open Mon-Fri. 11:30a.m.-3p.m. for lunch, and 5pm every day for Dinner.
Offering half off all bottles of wine under $100! Voted Best Power Lunch, Steakhouse and Martini! Downtown’s choice for quality meats and mixed drinks. Mackenzieschophouse.com. Open Mon-Fri. 11:30a.m.-3p.m. for lunch, and 5p.m. - close every day for dinner!
https://www.MackenziesChopHouse.com
https://www.mackenzieschophouse.com
Tony’s Downtown Bar
Tony’s Downtown Bar
326 N Tejon St. / (719) 228-6566
326 N Tejon St. / (719) 228-6566
Winners of 80+ Independent “Best of Awards” in 25 years. A great Midwestern Tavern with warm beer, lousy food & poor service!!! Pabst, Fried Cheese Curds, Leinenkugle’s, Walleye Fish-fry, cocktails, burgers and more. 11am-2am daily. HH 3-6.
GO PACK GO!
Winners of 80+ Independent “Best of Awards” in 25 years. A great Midwestern Tavern with warm beer, lousy food & poor service!!! Pabst, Fried Cheese Curds, Leinenkugle’s, Walleye Fish-fry, cocktails, burgers and more. 11am-2am daily. HH 3-6. GO PACK GO! https://tonysdowntownbar.com
https://TonysDowntownBar.com
GERMAN
Edelweiss
Edelweiss
GERMAN
34 E. Ramona Ave. / (South Nevada & Tejon) / 719-633-2220
34 E. Ramona Ave. / (South Nevada & Tejon) / 719-633-2220
For 55 years Edelweiss has brought Bavaria to Colorado Springs! Using fresh ingredients, the menu invites you to visit Germany. Voted Gold Best German, Silver Dessert Menu and Bronze Best Patio by Indy readers! Reservations and the menu can be found online at https://Edelweissrest.com.
For 55 years Edelweiss has brought Bavaria to Colorado Springs! Using fresh ingredients, the menu invites you to visit Germany. Voted Gold Best German, Silver Dessert Menu and Bronze Best Patio by Indy readers! Reservations and the menu can be found online at https://EdelweissRest.com.
JAMAICAN
Rasta Pasta
JAMAICAN
405 N Tejon St. / (719) 481-6888
Rasta Pasta
405 N Tejon St. / (719) 481-6888
Open daily for lunch and dinner. Happy Hour daily 3-5 PM. Italian-Jamaican Fusion Cuisine, unlike anything else! Caribbean inspired pasta dishes, fresh and fun Salads, full bar with local drafts and rum specials, ridiculously good desserts. Lively atmosphere and friendly service. http://realrastapasta.com
Open daily for lunch and dinner. Happy Hour daily 3-5 PM. Italian-Jamaican Fusion Cuisine, unlike anything else! Caribbean inspired pasta dishes, fresh and fun Salads, full bar with local drafts and rum specials, ridiculously good desserts. Lively atmosphere and friendly service.
MEXICAN
http://RealRastaPasta.com
José Muldoons
MEXICAN
222 N. Tejon St. / 719-636-2311 / 5710 S. Carefree CR @ Powers / 719-574-5673
José Muldoons
222 N. Tejon St. / 719-636-2311
Celebrating 50 years! Authentic Tex-Mex & Mexican fare in a Contemporary Sante Fe-styled establishment. Across from Acacia Park Downtown. Award winning Queso, Chili Rellenos, and Mean Green Chili. https://JoseMuldoons.com
Since 1974. Features authentic Tex-Mex and Mexican fare in a Contemporary Sante Fe-styled establishment. Across from Acacia Park, and west of Powers and Carefree. Josemuldoons.com. Support local restaurants! We are open for delivery, carry out and dine-in at both locations! Please check our Facebook page for hours, as they are subject to change. https://josemuldoons.com
THE
STATE .
PROPOSED BYLAW COMPLICATES GOP CHAIRMAN’S REMOVAL
By JESSE PAUL • The Colorado Sun
If opponents of embattled Colorado GOP Chairman Dave Williams fail to remove him from the party’s top post later this month, they may be unable to dislodge him for the rest of his term, which ends in March.
A major bylaw amendment being proposed by Williams’ allies would make it harder starting next year to call a special meeting to remove the Colorado GOP chairman or other party officers.
Currently, it only takes a written request of 25% of the members of the central committee to force such a meeting and a vote. The amendment would require that request be made through a form developed and authorized by the party’s secretary, and that each member of the central committee who signs it disclose “sufficient identifying information so that the secretary can verify the requesters are voting members and that they do, in fact, desire that the requested meeting be held.”
Additionally, the amendment would create a seven-day challenge period after a request for a special meeting to remove a party officer is made. During that time, the
Colorado GOP executive committee could postpone the gathering while the challenge is pending.
The bylaw amendment is scheduled to be considered at the central committee’s Aug. 31 meeting, which is about a week after Williams’ opponents on the committee are planning to take a vote on whether to oust the chairman. Getting the votes to remove Williams may not be easy.
The Colorado GOP’s bylaws say a party officer can only be removed “by a vote of three-fifths of the entire membership of the (central committee) eligible to vote at a meeting called for that purpose.” There are two interpretations of the rule: It could mean 60% of those present at the meeting, or 60% of the entire central committee — which is made up of about 400 people.
Passing a bylaw amendment is arguably easier. It requires the support of two-thirds “of those members present and voting” at a central committee meeting. There’s a scenario in which members of the central committee who dislike Williams show up to the Aug. 24 meeting organized by opponents of Williams to try to remove him and are unsuccessful, then skip the Aug. 31
meeting where the bylaw amendment is then adopted.
The bylaw change is particularly important because Wiliams’ opponents believe the party won’t take up a motion to remove him as chairman unless they run the meeting themselves. The bylaw change would be particularly impactful if Williams runs for reelection as chairman and wins.
The Colorado GOP executive committee has already ruled that the Aug. 24 meeting to remove Williams was improperly organized and that they won’t recognize the results of any action taken during the gathering. And it’s unclear if the party will take up the question of removing Williams at the Aug. 31 meeting if they don’t recognize the results of the Aug. 24 vote.
“It is exactly designed to prevent him from being removed,” Todd Watkins, vice chair of the El Paso County GOP and the leader of the effort to remove Williams, said of the bylaw amendment. “Textbook despot.”
Watkins called Williams “Xi Jing Dave,” a nod to Xi Jinping, the authoritarian leader of China.
Williams told The Colorado Sun “we are still deciding”
Dave Williams with Donald Trump. | Courtesy: Williams Campaign
if the amendment will be considered at the central committee’s Aug. 31 meeting. He argued that even though the change was borne out of the effort to remove him, it will have no effect on removing party officers, calling any claim to the contrary a “deceptive narrative.”
He also emphasized that the change wouldn’t take effect until next year to comply with a state law preventing political parties from altering their bylaws in election years.
“Our critics are free to continue doing what they wish for the rest of the year, regardless of any bylaw changes that may occur at the end of this month,” Williams said.
The proposed amendment isn’t the first time Williams and his allies have tried to change the party’s bylaws to their benefit. Last year, they unsuccessfully tried to pass an amendment that would have made it easier for the GOP to block unaffiliated voters from participating in their primaries, a major objective of Williams and other ultra conservative Republicans in Colorado.
And the Colorado GOP isn’t exactly broadcasting that the amendment will be considered Aug. 31.
In a notice about the gathering, the party said the principal purposes of the meeting will be to consider a bylaw change on fractional voting that wouldn’t be implemented until after the 2024 election. Also on the agenda are an update on the party’s open primary lawsuit and consideration of party officer removal requests “that were properly submitted and verified.”
The only way people would know about the bylaw amendment around removing party officers is if they read the entire report of the party’s bylaws committee.
REMOVAL
Williams’ opponents — led by Watkins and Jefferson County GOP Chairwoman Nancy Pallozzi — are taking steps to quash claims from current Colorado GOP leadership that the Aug. 24 meeting will be “invalid and illegal” because the legitimacy of the list of people who asked for it is unverifiable.
Chris Murray, the former Colorado GOP
lawyer now representing Watkins and Pallozzi, said in court last week, as the matter went before a judge, that he had collected nearly 50 declarations from people confirming they had requested the meeting to oust Williams.
“We are in the process of gathering declarations from everybody who signed that petition,” Murray said.
But, he added, even if he can’t get declarations from everyone who signed the petition, if at least 25% of the central committee shows up to the Aug. 24 meeting, that will prove there is enough support for a gathering to vote on whether to oust Williams.
Murray said Williams has been trying to prevent a quorum as a way to protect his position. “Tell people it’s a bogus meeting. Tell them not to show up. And if they don’t have a quorum, they can’t do anything,” he said in court, as he successfully asked for an order halting the special meeting to be lifted.
It takes a third of the committee to constitute a quorum to even hold a valid meeting — more than is required to request the gathering in the first place.
REPLACEMENT
If Williams is removed, any candidates vying to replace him would only have to win a majority of those present at a central committee meeting called to fill the vacancy to take over the party’s top leadership post.
Watkins has added filling any officer vacancies to the agenda of the Aug. 24 meeting.
The Republicans who are seeking to replace Williams so far include Eli Bremer, who ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate in 2020 and formerly served as chair of the El Paso County GOP; state Rep. Richard Holtorf, who ran unsuccessfully for Congress this year; former Routt County Treasurer Brita Horn, who ran unsuccessfully to be state treasurer in 2018; and Douglas County GOP Chair Steve Peck.
The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, nonprofit news outlet that covers our state. Learn more and sign up for free newsletters at coloradosun.com. n
TINY, ENDANGERED TOADS SUCCESSFULLY BREED
By JENNIFER BROWN • The Colorado Sun
Colorado wildlife officials are celebrating some long-awaited good news — the mountain toads are making tadpoles!
For seven years, biologists have been toting tadpoles to high-elevation bogs and ponds in a massive effort to save the inchlong boreal toad. And for the first time at a mountain wetland above Pitkin, they’ve discovered that those transplanted toads are making their own babies in the wild.
“It’s a really big deal,” native aquatic species biologist Daniel Cammack said in a Colorado Parks and Wildlife news release.
Boreal toads, which live in wetlands around 11,500 feet and spend their winters buried under multiple feet of snow, have been dying off at a rapid pace across the Rocky Mountain states. A fungus that infects the toad’s skin with a cluster of spores, then bursts and spreads through the water to other toads, is to blame.
Colorado biologists have been trying to stop the fungus by dipping the tiny toads in a wash nicknamed “purple rain” and have been taking new tadpoles from a hatching center in Alamosa and dropping them in wild ponds.
This summer, when Cammack went to check on his transplanted toads above Pitkin, northeast of Gunnison, he found they
were reproducing, a discovery that Colorado Parks and Wildlife called “potentially game-changing.”
Cammack’s team has been bringing tadpoles to the wetland since 2018, which is about the length of time it takes for a female toad to reach reproductive age.
The state wildlife agency has stocked about 20,000 tadpoles at the Pitkin bog, most of which began as eggs that were collected from the backcountry and raised to tadpoles at the Native Aquatic Species Restoration Facility in Alamosa. In 2022, biologists threw in 570 tadpoles from the Denver Zoo Conservation Alliance.
Before the relocation efforts, there were no boreal toads at the Pitkin bog.
“Everyone who has been involved in this project has poured their heart and soul into it,” Cammack said, calling it a “really special day.”
Now, biologists will watch to see if the tadpoles turn into toadlets and then into adult toads. It will become only the second place in Colorado where transplanted toads have had tadpoles that grew into toads. The first is near Cameron Pass, outside of Fort Collins.
Boreal toads are the only high-elevation toad in the Rocky Mountains and are an endangered species in Colorado. They live
Boreal toad at the Native Aquatic Species Restoration Facility in Alamosa, Colorado. |Credit: Judy Walgren
VOTING HAS STATRED!
BACK TO BASICS:
1. Online voting must be complete before midnight August 31.
2. For verification purposes, all ballots must be submitted with a verifiable email address.
COS 2024 Best of VOTE:
3. Please confirm the correct spelling of your submissions.
4. In cases where businesses share a name, please include their zip code.
5. Take time to review this year’s categories. Some are new. Some are gone. Quick heads-up — there must be at least three businesses operating in a given category in order for that category to appear on our ballot.
6. Cheaters never prosper.
From August 1 to August31, vote for your favorites to determine who is the Best Of Colorado Springs! Submit your digital ballots at vote.csindy.com. Vote in at least 20 categories for your votes to count. Winners will be announced in the Best Of magazine inserted in the October 31 Independent. When categories specify a region (North, South, East, West, Downtown), please reference the Independent’s distribution map.
at elevations from 7,500 to 12,000 feet, just below treeline, and hibernate beneath the snow for six to eight months of the year. Researchers say that when the toads are stressed, they release a secretion that smells similar to peanut butter.
The toads were once abundant, even sitting under Buena Vista lamp posts at night in the 1960s to feast on insects that swarmed to the light, according to historical articles reviewed by CPW. Then the fungus came, killing off thousands of the tiny creatures in the 1980s and 1990s.
The fungus — Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis— is blamed for the death of amphibians all over the world, including in Australia, Asia and South America.
Aquatic biologists say the toads lived in Colorado before humans and are an important part of the high-elevation ecosystem, where they eat bugs and serve as food for snakes, birds and weasels.
In Colorado, some transplanted tadpoles have received antifungal bacterial baths before they are packed into plastic bags and released into mountain bogs and ponds. The wash is called “purple rain”
THE STATE .
because of its lavender tint.
In one project, University of Colorado researchers injected boreal toads with either a spot of pink or green dye, visible through amphibian skin when they held a toad up to the sunlight. Green-spotted toads got the antifungal bath, while pink-spotted ones did not. Then they tried to capture the toads the following summer, searching for them in a pond above Buena Vista, to see whether they were infected with the deadly fungus.
A “Boreal Toad Recovery Team,” which includes biologists from Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, has been working to save the toads for 20 years.
“The boreal toad is a truly unique and resilient amphibian,” said Cammack, calling the discovery of the new tadpoles a monumental day in his career. “We are up at 11,500 feet, at timberline practically. They gut out big winters covered by multiple feet of snow and experience only three to four months of warm growing season.”
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The ticket price for this event will include access to a silent auction, food, and drinks. We hope you’ll join us as we continue fostering partnerships and innovation with government, academia, and private industry!
HIKES WITH NO DOGS, HORSES OR BIKES ALLOWED
If you want to hike, run, cycle or go horseback riding in Colorado, you’ll find no shortage of trails or parks in which to indulge your favorite style of recreation. And in most cases, you can include your pup too. My dog Coal accompanies me on many of my hikes, and we happily share multiuse trails with other users too.
But sometimes, I want an outing where the only other thing I’ll encounter — other than wildlife — is another hiker. No bikes. No horses. No motorized vehicles. Not even dogs (sorry, Coal). I just want to go hiking, pure and simple.
If you’re of the same mindset and want a hiking-only experience, try these places, all of which prohibit bikes, dogs, horses and motorized uses:
PAINT MINES INTERPRETIVE PARK
I was hesitant to include this El Paso County park, located near Calhan in the eastern side of the county, since it’s already so well-known and insanely popular, but there’s no good reason not to include it in this list. Its colorful sandstone hoodoos in the southwest corner of the park are a treasure to see and its most popular and obvious attraction, but don’t miss out on the trails in the eastern and northern parts of the park. Not only will you not see dogs, horses or bikes, but you probably won’t see any other hikers, since most people visit the hoodoos and then leave. Your best bet is to visit on a weekday, and
if you go, please obey the rules posted there and stay off the hoodoos. You can get more information on the parks website: communityservices.elpasoco.com
ROXBOROUGH STATE PARK
Located north and west of Castle Rock and south of Chatfield Reservoir, this park features towering rows of red rock fins, wildflowers, an old homestead and great views. My two favorite trails there are the South Rim Trail and the Carpenter Peak Trail, which is also the highest point in the park. Some of the trails also connect to nearby national forest lands, allowing you to create loops that start in, leave and return to the park. Entry fees or a state park pass are required. For more information, visit the park website: cpw.state.co.us
AIKEN CANYON PRESERVE
Located off Highway 115, about 11 miles south of South Academy Boulevard, this is a great place for a fairly easy and enjoyable hike. There are two
trails in the preserve: the main loop trail, which is about 3.5 miles, and an out-and-back spur trail at about the halfway point on the loop, which leads to the remnants of old cabins and adds about 2 miles total to your hike. The preserve is popular with birders and has a wide array of wildflowers in the spring and summer. If you’re lucky enough to catch it before it turns a dull rust color, the dense scrub oak is beautiful when it changes color in the fall. Best of all, it’s free to visit. You can get more information on their website: www.nature.org
COLORADO NATIONAL MONUMENT
Located in Grand Junction, this obviously doesn’t qualify as being in the Pikes Peak region, but I’m adding it to this list because it is simply too good for you to miss. Many people pass right by here on I-70 while going to Arches or Canyonlands National Park about an hour away in Moab, Utah, and don’t realize what they’re passing up. This national monument features a wide
variety of trails of varying lengths and difficulties. It is a truly amazing place to visit, with its many awe-inspiring views. Dogs are only allowed in the campground and on paved surfaces, and bikes are only allowed on the main park road, so you won’t encounter either on any of the trails or in the backcountry. Next time you’re on Colorado’s Western Slope, make a point to visit here. Entry fees or a National Park pass are required. You can get more information on their website: www.nps.gov
Be good. Do good things. Leave no trace ...
Bob “Hiking Bob” Falcone is a retired career firefighter, USAF veteran, an accomplished photographer and 30year resident of Colorado Springs. He has served on boards and committees for city, county and state parks in the Pikes Peak region, and spends much of his time hiking 800 or more miles each year, looking for new places and trails to visit, often with his canine sidekick, Coal.
By BOB “HIKING BOB” FALCONE
Roxborough State Park |Credit: Bob Falcone
2024 Lineup Experience the Suite life
OneRepublic | August 9, 10, 11
The Beach Boys | August 16
Walker Hayes | August 17
Iration and Pepper | August 18
Lauren Daigle | August 23
Primus | August 24
John Fogerty | August 27
Dierks Bentley | August 30
Robert Plant & Alison Krauss | August 31
Jim Gaffigan | September 13
Pentatonix | September 15
Cage The Elephant | September 19
Barenaked Ladies | September 21
Steve Miller Band | September 27
ZZ Top & Lynyrd Skynyrd | September 28 for KING + COUNTRY | September 29
Foreigner | October 2
Ivan Cornejo | October 4
Godsmack | October 17
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OPINION
FILTERING THE RAGE
By ADAM BIDDLE • adam.biddle@ppmc.live
“Are you seriously going to take up an entire space with that moped?” the woman shrieked at me as she was trying to park her Ford F-150 Raptor.
“I’m not taking up an entire parking spot, you could fit five or six more bikes here. You’re trying to take up an entire spot,” I said.
The woman didn’t realize how she benefited from this situation; a little earlier there were seven vintage Vespas and Lambrettas using this single Ivywild neighborhood parking spot. I was just the last one to leave. Neither did she appear to realize that smaller objects take up less space because that’s how physics and reality work. She was just mad about the difficulty of parking her giant “work” truck, and my comparatively tiny scooter was an obvious target.
I was reminded of this incident because this is the month when Colorado Bill SB24-079 goes into effect. The bill allows for motorcyclists to overtake or pass another motor vehicle between two lanes of vehicles if the traffic is stopped and the rider goes no faster than 15 miles per hour. This is called lane filtering.
Just as Ms. Let-Me-Speak-to-the-Manager didn’t see the benefits of me and my vintage scooter-enthusiast friends taking up less space than her monster truck, I fear that when motorcycles start lane filtering, rather than everyone marveling that your time stuck in standstill traffic is reduced, it will create angry drivers who feel like someone cut the line. The number of road rage indents we already witness leads me to believe an irritated driver opening a door or swerving out of their lane is quite likely, and quite dangerous for all involved.
The bill was signed into law on April 4. I mistakenly assumed in the four months before it kicked in that CDOT would launch an advertising campaign explaining the rules and benefits to everyone who uses public
roads. The only thing I found was a page on codot.gov stating the law and a graphic that shows the legal path for a motorcycle, and even that didn’t show up on the first page of search results. I have yet to find a driver who is a nonrider who knows the law is changing or what lane filtering is.
So what does the law say? SB24-079 allows motorcyclists to pass or overtake other vehicles when:
• The other vehicles are stopped, such as waiting at a traffic light.
• The lanes used to ride between cars are wide enough for safe passing.
• The motorcycle, when passing, does not exceed 15 miles per hour.
• When stopped vehicles begin to move, the motorcyclist shall cease passing. As a rider you cannot overtake or pass:
• On the right shoulder.
• To the right of a vehicle in the farthest righthand lane.
• In a lane of traffic moving in the opposite direction.
Lane filtering reduces traffic because more vehicles can safely travel through green lights, reducing the number of traffic signal cycles a driver has to sit through. Lane splitting is when motorcycles ride between moving lanes of traffic. This will still be illegal in Colorado. My hope is that both drivers and riders operate their chosen modes of transport safely, and as a two-wheeler sneaks past a few drivers at a light, everyone nods and smiles knowing everyone is getting to their destinations a few minutes early. It is noteworthy that the American Motorcycle Association endorses both lane filtering and lane splitting based on the long-term success in California and the University of California study by Berkeley researchers showing that it enhances motorcycle safety.
There are always going to be unsafe riders and drivers. If someone rockets between you and a car on I-25 when you’re going 80-plus miles per hour, sure, call out your favorite expletive — it’s justified. But the next time you’re stuck at a standstill on the highway between Castle Rock and Larkspur because you forgot the Renaissance Festival started this weekend and a few motorbikes putt past you on the left ... think of each rider as a little Colorado bonus that cuts down [in my best Siri voice] “your estimated time in traffic.”
Adam Biddle is the editorial designer for The Colorado Springs Independent.
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MOUNTAIN BIKERS PUSH TO RIDE THROUGH WILDERNESS
“Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed …” — Wallace Stegner
The goal of the Wilderness Act, now celebrating its 60th birthday, was to set aside a small proportion of public land in America from human intrusion. Some places, the founders said, deserved to be free from motorized, mechanized and other intrusions to protect wildlife and wild lands.
But now, a handful of mountain bikers have partnered with a senator from Utah to gut the Wilderness Act.
This June, the Sustainable Trails Coalition, a mountain biking organization, cheered as Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee introduced a bill (S. 4561) to amend the Wilderness Act and allow mountain bikes, strollers and game carts on every piece of land protected by the National Wilderness Preservation System. Stopping these intrusions would take each local wilderness manager undertaking a cumbersome process to say no.
The U.S. Congress passed the Wilderness Act, and President Lyndon B. Johnson signed it into law on Sept. 3, 1964, to “preserve the wilderness character” of 54 wilderness areas totaling 9.1 million acres. Today, this effort has become a true conservation success story.
The National Wilderness Preservation System now protects over 800 wilderness areas totaling over 111 million acres in 44 states and Puerto Rico, making it America’s most critical law for preserv-
ing wild places and the genetic diversity of thousands of plant and animal species. Yet designated wilderness is only 2.7% of the Lower 48, and still just about 5% if Alaska is included.
The protections of the Wilderness Act include a ban on logging, mining, roads, buildings, structures and installations, mechanized and motorized equipment and more. Its authors sought to secure for the American people “an enduring resource of wilderness” to protect places not manipulated by modern society, where the ecological and evolutionary forces of nature could continue to play out mostly unimpeded.
Grandfathered in, however, were some grazing allotments, while mining claims were also allowed to be patented until 1983. Many private mining claims still exist inside designated wildernesses.
Lee’s bill is premised on the false claim that the Wilderness Act never banned bikes and that, supposedly, the U.S. Forest Service changed its regulations in 1984 to ban bikes. But bicycles, an obvious kind of mechanized equipment, have always been prohibited in wilderness by the plain language of the law. (“There shall be ... no other form of mechanical transport
...”) The Forest Service merely clarified its regulations on this point in 1984 as mountain bikes gained popularity. Unfortunately, bikers in the Sustainable Trails Coalition are not the only recreational interest group that wants to weaken the Wilderness Act to. Some rock climbers, for example, are pushing Congress to allow climbers to damage wilderness rock faces by pounding in permanent bolts and pitons rather than using only removable climbing aids. In addition, trail runners want exemptions from the ban in wilderness on commercial trail racing. Drone pilots and paragliders want their aircraft exempted from Wilderness Act protections, and recreational pilots want to “bag” challenging landing sites in wilderness.
The list of those seeking to water down the Wilderness Act is growing.
Most of these recreational groups say they support wilderness, understanding how important it is when most landscapes and wildlife habitats have been radically altered by people. At the same time, they want to slice out their own piece of the wilderness pie.
Must we get everything we want in the outdoors? Rather than weakening the pro-
tections that the Wilderness Act provides, we could try to reinvigorate a spirit of humility toward wilderness. We could practice restraint, understanding that designated wildernesses have deep values beyond our human uses of them.
Meanwhile, in response to growing demand for mountain biking trails, the Bureau of Land Management invites over a million mountain bikers each year to ride its thousands of miles of trails. And the U.S. Forest Service already has a staggering 130,000 miles of motorized and nonmotorized trails available to mountain bikers.
Do mountain bikers and others pushing for access really need to domesticate wilderness too?
Let’s cherish our wilderness heritage, whole and intact. We owe it to the farseeing founders of the Wilderness Act, and we owe it to future generations.
Kevin Proescholdt is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange. org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. He is conservation director for Wilderness Watch, a national wilderness conservation organization headquartered in Missoula, Montana.
By KEVIN PROESCHOLDT
Bob Marshall Wilderness in Montana |Credit: Wilderness Watch
Featuring
DR. TATIANA BAILEY & MR. BRYCE COOKE
The Colorado Springs Business Journal is back and excited to host Dr. Tatiana Bailey of Data-Driven Economic Strategies (DDES) and Bryce Cooke, Chief Economist at the Colorado Office of State Planning and Budgeting.
Their presentations will provide a comprehensive overview of the U.S. economy. Mr. Cooke will provide an in-depth analysis of the Colorado economy, including a legislative update, while Dr. Bailey will discuss the economic landscape of Colorado Springs.
Following the presentations, attendees are invited to network and share ideas during happy hour. Tickets are limited.
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VOTING HAS STATRED!
BACK TO BASICS:
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2. For verification purposes, all ballots must be submitted with a verifiable email address.
COS 2024 Best of VOTE:
3. Please confirm the correct spelling of your submissions.
4. In cases where businesses share a name, please include their zip code.
5. Take time to review this year’s categories. Some are new. Some are gone. Quick heads-up — there must be at least three businesses operating in a given category in order for that category to appear on our ballot.
6. Cheaters never prosper.
From August 1 to August31, vote for your favorites to determine who is the Best Of Colorado Springs! Submit your digital ballots at vote.csindy.com. Vote in at least 20 categories for your votes to count. Winners will be announced in the Best Of magazine inserted in the October 31 Independent. When categories specify a
News of the WEIRD
BY THE EDITORS AT ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION
BUT WHY?
St. Petersburg, Florida, resident Jaclyn Goszczynski, 40, was arrested on July 26 and charged with felony child abuse, The Smoking Gun reported. Goszczynski, police said, had been hanging picture frames with her three children when she asked her 12-year-old daughter whether she’d ever been “screwed in the a**,” then proceeded to drive a screw into her daughter’s “left side buttocks” with an electric screwdriver. No word on the daughter’s condition, but Goszczynski sits in the county jail on $25,000 bond and has been ordered to have no contact with the victim.
SAW THAT COMING
Homeowners associations seem to aspire to be the group versions of “Karens.” To wit: The Wildernest Home Owners Association in Summit County, Colorado, called the sheriff’s office in late July to tattle on a kids’ lemonade stand that they said was blocking the road. When officers arrived, KKTV reported, they found the kids were not blocking the road, “but did ask them to move back from the road a few feet for their safety,” police said. “The original reporting parties came out and began yelling at the children, claiming they were on private property ... (but officers) determined the property was shared HOA property and because the children’s parents are part of the HOA, they had a right to be there,” the report went on. Kids-1, HOA-0.
ANIMAL ANTICS
When Alicia Mastroianni left for work in Brighton, Massachusetts, on July 15, she found her car covered in scratches and a note, she told WBZ-TV. The note was from a neighbor, who wrote, “I just watched and recorded a massive turkey attack your car for over 15 minutes. Sorry you were the target of this turkey rage.” “All sides of my car were messed up,” Mastroianni said. The Massachusetts Environmental Police said turkey attacks aren’t rare anymore in the area. One reason for the assaults is that the birds see their own reflection in the car’s surface and attack. They recommend covering your car or yelling to scare turkeys away.
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
On July 22, when officers noticed a white van on the I-5 near Weed, California, that kept swerving out of its lane, they engaged their lights and sirens — and it still took almost 3 miles for the van to pull over, KOBI-TV reported. Inside the van, they found 1,021 rooted marijuana plants, which, according to driver Yung Fai Sze, 53, were on their way to Oregon. However, Sze did not have the proper documentation from the California Department of Cannabis Control, so he was arrested and charged with illegal transportation and possession of marijuana.
AWESOME!
In Leicestershire, England, a quaint problem is getting a practical solution, the BBC reported on July 25. The North West Leicestershire District Council received a grant of about $9,300 from Keep Britain Tidy’s Chewing Gum Task Force to clean up the discarded wads of gum littering the sidewalks. “Many of the streets, pavements and shopping areas in our towns are affected by discarded chewing gum,” said Michael Wyatt of the council, which will also install signs asking people to dispose of their gum properly. The grant is provided by gum manufacturers.
THE CONTINUING CRISIS
River Church Kansas City in Lenexa, Kansas, celebrated Father’s Day with a raffle, KSHB-TV reported on July 29. Just what did the lucky winner receive? An AR-15 rifle, of course. The contest was so popular that for the Fourth of July, River Church gave away three more firearms. Why? Well, “A gun is a blessing because here in America, we have what’s called the Second Amendment, and we’re free Americans,” explained pastor Christopher Zehner. “Christ gives us freedom, and so, as Christ has given us freedom on the inside, Americans are free as well, so it correlates,” he went on. “Our attendance doubled after this whole thing happened,” he said. “We will probably do it again. I would say maybe Christmastime, to be a blessing again.” The four winners declined to comment.
IT’S ALWAYS SOMETHING
In 2016, the Scottish government declared it would increase the number of medical school placements because of a shortage of doctors, the BBC reported. Eight years later, professor Gordon Findlater, HM inspector of anatomy
for Scotland, has declared an unexpected and potentially dire result of the change: a shortage of cadavers for medical students to train on. “This is already having an impact on the surgical colleges (which) are now having to cancel training classes,” Findlater said.
Astro-logic
AARIES
BY CAMILLE LIPTAK, COSMIC CANNIBAL
ugust’s end and September’s start will have you pondering everything from your career to your relationships. Twists, turns and a few “WTF?!” moments are to be expected. Read on to find out whether those WTF moments are good or great.. Want more astro-logic from Cosmic Cannibal? Social Media @cosmiccannibalcamille, Substack cosmiccannibal.substack.com and the web cosmiccannibal.com
CANCER
Aug. 22 is your cue to get your life together: efficiency, health, wellness — they all call your name. Partnerships get a sweet upgrade on Aug. 29, making your career moves smoother than butter. But hold onto your helmet! Sept. 4 brings a surge of homefront energy. If you’re motivated, it’s time to renovate, remodel or relocate …
TAURUS
Try to stay open to new experiences and unconventional ideas because a delightful surprise in love or finances could arrive around Aug. 27. Something unexpected could spark joy. By Sept. 1, your aims, goals and life outlook pull focus. Reevaluate your long-term plans, take time to reflect, and then make necessary adjustments to your future path …
GEMINI
Gripes may arise around Aug. 23. Personal desires and family duties might clash like reality-TV rivals. Stay cool and save those snappy comebacks for a more deserving audience — like your journal. Sept. 3 throws some fog on your career path, so avoid any hasty decisions. Clarity will arrive soon, but for now, proceed with caution …
Communications light up beginning Aug. 22. It’s a fantastic time to connect with siblings or friends, and to explore your neck of the woods. Your energy is heading for a peak moment on Sept. 4. Channel the influx of gusto into personal projects and self-improvement. Take action on your goals and assert your needs confidently …
LEO
Look at your finances and what you want to do with your skills. By Aug. 27, a surprising career opportunity could come your way. Be open to unconventional paths and heave a sigh of relief: On Aug. 28, your communications improve significantly. Time to clear up any personal misunderstandings and express yourself with newfound clarity …
VIRGO
Vibing much? Beginning Aug. 22, the spotlight and season are yours — soak it up! Aug. 23 might stir up some tension between your public image and what you really want, but don’t stress too much. By Sept. 1, you’re reassessing your creative projects and love life. Make the necessary tweaks and then go full steam ahead …
LIBRA
Life might make you feel a bit introspective starting Aug. 22. Take time to reflect on what’s working and what’s not. Glow-up season begins Aug. 29. That’s when a wave of charm, beauty and ease hits, and you’re practically incandescent. By Sept. 4, your career ambitions get a boost. Ready to hustle? You’d better be
SCORPIO
Structure is all the rage Aug. 22, and you’re hyperfocused on getting your life in order. Fast. By Sept. 1, you may feel a need to reassess your closest relationships and long-term goals. Sept. 4 also nudges you to explore new horizons — just be sure you’re not running away from something you need to face
SAGITTARIUS
Sorry, but Aug. 22 is all about getting serious and systematic — yes, even you have to adult sometimes. It sucks, I know. But Aug. 28 grants you the green light to speak your truth without foot-in-mouth syndrome. Though Sept. 3 could leave you feeling a bit foggy about your next steps, the clouds drift soon enough …
CAPRICORN
Come Aug. 22, life is all about expansion. Whether it’s through travel, education or new experiences, this is your time to grow. On Aug. 29, relationships are highlighted — as are the power dynamics under the surface. You might feel a pull to revisit old patterns or unfinished business. Balancing work and relationships is key right now …
AQUARIUS
Aug. 22 onward shines a light on shared resources and deep connections. It’s time to get practical about your finances and emotional investments. Aug. 29 could bring a powerful shift in how you connect with others. On Sept. 4, the urge to take care of your relationships gets stronger. Don’t ignore the nudge to nurture …
PISCES
Partnerships get the spotlight beginning Aug. 22. Business or personal, it’s time to get real. But watch out for impending family/life conflict on Aug. 23 — cool heads prevail. As September rolls in, the same family drama might cloud your judgment. So keep your focus on reality, even if it’s not what you want to see …
THE OWNER'S CLUB INVESTMENT HIGHLIGHTS
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