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Camp stresses thinking skills
A LONG SHOT
ROUTT COUNTY 1D
Winter prepares for driving contest SPORTS 1C
SUNDAY, JUNE 28, 2009
VOLUME 122, NUMBER 50 • STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, COLORADO • www.steamboatpilot.com
Staff stays put
Locals Pass the Bread Community dinners bring friends, strangers together Margaret Hair
PILOT & TODAY STAFF
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS
After almost 35 years of living in Steamboat, Tracy Barnett can remember when throwing a party meant inviting nearly everyone in town. That might have become a bit trickier as the population has grown, but at an experimental dinner party Friday, about 30
households gathered friends and strangers to try and bring back that community spirit. Barnett and her husband invited a couple of people they knew and reached out to a summer resident and his 13year-old daughter to fill the requirements for Pass the Bread, an informal attempt to bring people together around food. “People here always talk about how it can take two hours to
go to the grocery store,” said event organizer Lynne Garell, who gave each host the choice of cooking a full meal or hosting a potluck. “I think it’s one of the joys of living in a smaller community, and I wouldn’t want to lose it as the population grows.” Dinner hosts were asked to invite eight to 10 people to eat — some who they knew and See Bread, page 7A
TOM ROSS/STAFF
Dale Morris and Paul Potyen share lively conversation Friday night during a Pass the Bread dinner at the home of Morris and Lynne Garell.
Sampling South Routt Restaurants, vendors offer variety of food genres at Oak Creek event
S
outh Routt standbys and new faces graced the booths at Saturday’s Taste of South Routt at Decker Park in Oak Creek. Chelsea’s Restaurant and Rachel’s Smokin’ BBQ Sauce among STORY BY were those offerBLYTHE TERRELL ing meals, and the new Fun Bucket and the incoming Sumatra’s restaurant also sold food to hungry revelers. Twenty vendors spread out under a blue raspberry snocone sky, selling food and wares to hundreds. The event included about 10 percent more vendors than last year, organizers said. Ken Montgomery, president of the South Routt Economic Development Council, said he expected about 500 people to show up. That’s average for Taste of South Routt, which is in its 12th year. “We had a real good turnout throughout the county with donating prizes for the silent auction and door prizes,” Montgomery said. Rachel Green sold ribs, sausages, brisket, pulled pork and other meat from her
SUNDAY FOCUS
See Taste, page 8A
JOEL REICHENBERGER/STAFF
Rachel Green fills a basket with barbecued baked beans Saturday at the Taste of South Routt event in Oak Creek. Green, the woman behind Rachel’s Smokin’ BBQ Sauce, offered up barbecued dishes all afternoon.
Schools across county see less employee turnover Jack Weinstein
PILOT & TODAY STAFF
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS
The words “attract and retain” long have been a mantra at Steamboat Springs School Board meetings, as local officials worked to keep teachers and staff in local schools despite obstacles such as high costs of living and housing. The mantra might be paying off — and not just in Steamboat Springs. Fewer staff members are leaving the Steamboat Springs, Hayden and South Routt school districts after the just-ended 2008-09 school year than left the year before. Although employee turnover figures from the districts could suggest that employees are holding on to their jobs because of the economic recession, state and national education experts cite only anecdotal evidence to support that connection. Whatever the reason, the numbers show that more teachers and staff are staying put this year, representing a rebound to stability after increased turnover in 2007-08. In Steamboat, for instance, 24 staff members left the district or retired after the 2008-09 school year, as opposed to 29 following the 2007-08 school year. Those numbers include a sharp decline in teacher turnover — 12 teachers left Steamboat schools after this academic year, as opposed to the 22 who left after 2007-08. The trend is similar in Hayden and South Routt, where each district lost fewer teachers following the 2008-09 school year than the previous year. In Hayden, 15 staff members, See Teachers, page 7A
Iran conducts extensive crackdown
Government seizes hundreds of dissidents in biggest roundup since 1979 Michael Weissenstein THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Iranian government has seized and detained several hundred activists, journalists and students across the nation in one of the most extensive crackdowns on key dissidents since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Even as unprecedented protests broke out on the streets after the June 12 disputed presidential election, the most stinging backlash from authorities has come away from the crowds through roundups and targeted arrests, PAGE DESIGNED BY STEVEN RECKINGER
according to witnesses and human rights organizations. They say plainclothes security agents also have put dozens of the country’s most experienced proreform leaders behind bars. The Iranian government says only that unspecified figures responsible for fomenting unrest have been taken into custody. The arrests have drained the pool of potential leaders of a protest movement that claims President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stole the election by fraud. They also point to the potential for high-profile tri-
als — and serious sentences — before a special judicial forum created to handle cases from the unrest. With the main reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi under constant police surveillance, protests demanding a new vote have withered. Many of those rounded up during demonstrations have been released within days. But most of those detained in raids against potential opposition remain in custody. That has spread fear among Mousavi supporters and left the opposition
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Some sun. An evening storm. High of 78. Page 2A
COUNTY’S
movement reeling. “We heard some news about people who are arrested at night, and we are worried if it could happen to us,” a Tehran resident active in the protests wrote in an e-mail Friday, asking for anonymity for fear of government retaliation. The targeted arrests appear to have begun the day after the election. Several of Iran’s bestknown reformist politicians were taken into custody, including the brother and several close allies See Iran, page 8A
VIEWPOINTS LAST WEEK: Is the local real estate market showing signs of a rebound? Results/5A THIS WEEK: Are you going out of town for the Fourth of July this year?
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MAX FAULKNER/FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM
Reza Babie leads demonstrators in a chant at Dallas City Hall in Dallas on Tuesday to support reform in Iran. The Iranian government has conducted the most extensive crackdown on key dissidents since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
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