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Sunday, October 11, 2009
Volume 123, Number 13 • Steamboat Springs, Colorado • www.steamboatpilot.com
Killer’s mother speaks publicly Klebold talks about Columbine, suicide Kristen Wyatt
A literary journey Authors talk about process, passion at annual sojourn Blythe Terrell
PILOT & TODAY STAFF
Steamboat Springs
Diane Edelstein offered a succinct summary of Saturday’s Literary Sojourn: “It’s a kingsize book group,” she said. Edelstein, who splits her life between Granby and Florida, was attending her fifth Literary matt stensland/staff Sojourn. She said she loves lisJohn Darnton, a 40-year journalist with The New York Times and author of tening to authors talk about “Black and White and Dead All Over,” speaks Saturday during the Literary Sojourn. their inspiration, their pas-
sions and the writing process. The grand ballroom at the Steamboat Sheraton Resort was full of people just like her. Nearly every seat at every table was full. The audience members, mostly women, leaned raptly over pairs of reading glasses, occasionally taking notes on pads or sneaking sips of water. Before them stood the authors, on a stage, behind a lectern and between paintings
of trees and snow. The sold-out 17th annual Literary Sojourn featured five authors. Each had 40 minutes to talk and answer questions. This year’s authors were Richard Bausch, John Darnton, Amitav Ghosh, Linda Hogan and Jayne Anne Phillips. Erin McKean, a dictionary editor and author, served as master of ceremonies. Darnton, a New York Times See Literature, page 10A
the Associated Press
DENVER
In the first detailed public remarks by any parent of the two Columbine killers, Dylan Klebold’s mother says she had no idea her son was suicidal until she read his journals after the 1999 high school massacre. Susan Klebold’s essay in next month’s issue of O, The Oprah Magazine, says she still is struggling to make sense of what happened when her son and Eric Harris killed 12 students and a teacher in the shooting rampage at Columbine High School in suburban Denver. Twentyone people were injured before Klebold and Harris killed themselves. “For the rest of my life, I will be haunted by the horror and anguish Dylan caused,” she wrote. “I cannot look at a child in a grocery store or on the street without thinking about how my son’s schoolmates spent the last moments of their lives. Dylan changed everything I believed about myself, about God, about family and about love.” The killers’ parents repeatedly have declined to talk about the massacre. They gave depositions in a lawsuit filed by families of the victims, but a judge in 2007 sealed them for 20 years after the lawsuit was settled out of court. In her essay, Susan Klebold wrote that she didn’t know her son was so disturbed. “Dylan’s participation in the massacre was impossible for me to accept until I began to connect it to his own death,” she wrote in excerpts released by the magazine ahead of Tuesday’s publication. “Once I saw his journals, it was clear to me that Dylan entered the school with the intention of dying there. And so in order to understand what he might have been thinking, I started to learn all I could about suicide.”
john f. russell/staff
City council candidate Jim Engelken, left, a former member of the Steamboat Springs City Council, is concerned about where the current council and the city are headed. Kyle Pietras, right, bills himself as a political outsider in the City Council race. He said he’s still learning about all the issues he would deal with as a council member.
Race focuses on growth
Jim Engelken supports more open space, less growth for Steamboat Mike Lawrence
Kyle Pietras thinks time working for city prepared him to lead it
Not many things faze Brandon Gee SteamboatPilot.com/election2009 PILOT & TODAY STAFF him. But he can’t hide simSTEAMBOAT SPRINGS mering anger when discussing some actions of the Spend some time with Kyle current Steamboat Springs City Pietras, and one thought comes Council. to mind: This guy is so Steamboat. “I’m very concerned about the “When I graduated from college, I direction this council is taking us. This just kind of packed up my Jeep and is a very aggressively pro-growth moved here,” Pietras said during a See Engelken, page 9A Thursday interview at his Brooklyn
PILOT & TODAY STAFF
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS
Jim Engelken generally speaks in a levelheaded, calm tone, with a stable demeanor befitting a man who has worked for the same company for more than 30 years and lived in a tiny condominium for more than a decade while saving to buy his first house.
home. “I have yet to be able to afford to leave.” Here’s a guy who has about a dozen bicycles in his man cave of a garage. Frames — or “potential bikes” as the native New Englander calls them — hang on the wall. Every bike has a purpose, and Pietras claims that they all are used. Political signs are affixed See Pietras, page 8A
Advocates pushes for abuse awareness Group sponsors lunch, discussion about helping those affected by domestic violence Jack Weinstein
PILOT & TODAY STAFF
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS
Dawn Cunningham knew there was a problem when her daughter started calling her, crying on the other end of the telephone. The Steamboat Springs resident said it was years before she and her husband, John, knew matt stensland/staff The silhouettes on the Routt County Courthouse lawn serve as a reminder that their daughter was in an emotionally and physically abusive domestic violence can affect anyone. October is domestic violence awareness month. Page designed by nicole miller
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marriage. Cunningham said domestic violence used to be treated with shame and was merely “swept under the rug.” That’s not the case anymore, she said. Across the country, October is being recognized as domestic violence awareness month, to promote the services and education available to victims and their friends and family, to honor the survivors and to remember those who lost their lives.
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it was full, and Advocates was placing families in motels and condos. Nationally, one in four women will experience domestic violence in an intimate relationship in her lifetime. “This month is a way of getting the word out,” she said. “There are resources in the community.” Although Cunningham’s daughter always has lived in the Midwest, Cunningham and her
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Domestic violence is a problem not only in Steamboat, but also across Routt County, said Diane Moore, executive director of Advocates Building Peaceful Communities, which provides counseling, shelter and other resources for local victims of domestic abuse. Last year, Advocates served 320 victims, and Moore estimated that the number of nights spent in its nine-bed shelter tripled. At one point, she said,
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See Violence, page 10A