Issue 97 by The Independent Student Press

The Independent i

Issue #97

Fort Lewis College News Magazine

Durango a hotbed for young November 8th, 2018

musicians

Dear Readers,

Editor’s Note 1

When I was I was in middle school, I played on a youth football team. I had never played organized football, but I was always one of the first kids picked during recess so I didn’t think I would be too bad. However, the coach had a rule that all first year players had to play on the offensive line. Being the tall, skinny, awkward kid that I was (am?), I was instantly turned off - I wanted to quit immediately. Immediately after that first practice, I came home and told my parents I was going to quit. They laughed. Told me it would be a good lesson in overcoming adversity and blah blah blah. I couldn’t even begin to fathom the fact that I had to spend the next three months blocking these ginormous defensive linemen. I was a receiver! I had no business being on the line. My parents encouraged me to talk with the coaches. So after two weeks of getting routinely pounded into the ground, I approached the head coach after practice. I told him I hated the line and that I was meant to be a wide receiver. We made a deal that day. If I worked hard on improving my skills as an offensive lineman and showed steady improvement, he would use me as a receiver for the last game of the season. His last line stuck me with to this day. “Fall in love with the process, and the process will love you back.” I’ve thought about that phrase a lot as I’ve grown up, especially here at the Fort. Let me be the first to tell you, putting together a news magazine is hard work. There’s storyboarding, sourcing, editing, designing, and editing again. It’s a lot, especially while trying to balance other classes and everything else going on in my life. Have I always loved the process? No. Are there days where I want to lay in bed and watch Netflix? Of course. But those are the days I think about the process even more. Nothing great happens overnight. It takes time, effort and hard work. Consistency is the blueprint to success. I know we’re all reaching the point in the semester when motivations start to dwindle. Thanksgiving break is right around the corner, which precedes the home stretch to the dreaded finals week. I challenge you to push through the laziness and trust the process. The hard work will reward you in the end. Unfortunately I never got to play wide receiver. A lot of the lineman quit midway through the season, so I was forced to stay on the line for the remainder of the season. Our team made the championship, and I clearly remember making a block that allowed our running back to get a critical first down that helped us secure the win. My coach even gave me the game ball. I had reluctantly endured the process, and the process rewarded me back. This print issue’s process was both difficult and rewarding and the growth of our development at our staff shines through.Check out more of our work on our website, theindyonline.com. As always, thanks for reading our work. Finish strong!

Alex Semadeni Editor in Chief awsemadeni@fortlewis.edu

COVER PHOTO: Seth Yokel, mandolin and vocalist for High Country Hustle and FLC Geology Alum, plays during the band’s most recent set at the Animas City Theatre. Photo by Colton Branstetter

Th wo Ph

The Independent i

In This Issue

Durango a Hotbed for Young Musicians Benjamin Mandile

3-6

Working with NASA and Constructing Membranes, Another Day at FLC Kimberly Cassels

7-8

FLC and City of Durango Partner to Conserve Water Max Rodgers 9-10

Indy Inside: Sexual Harassment in the Workplace Faith Owen

Entertainment Netflix Review Teal Lehto 12

Q&A with Cole Paton Ryan Simonovich

The Fort Lewis College Cycling team won a 24th national championship in Photo courtesy of Zach Graveson

Durango a hotbed for young musicians By Benjamin Mandile

he local live music scene is currently thriving with a variety of local bands starting up and playing shows. During their time at Fort Lewis College, different groups of musicians have come together and formed bands with like-minded students. Finding commonality through music, these bands were able to grow both as musicians and humans. Through music, these groups connected with each other as friends and with their fans. The Independent sat down with three bands to discuss their experiences.

High Country Hustle High Country Hustle, a local bluegrass band, did not get its start at FLC but formed after the members of the band had been out of school for almost a decade. Seth Yokel, Andy Gallen, Jeff Moorehead and Charlie Henry started playing music together in the last two years, but some of them knew each other from the FLC dorms years before. Moorehead is the only member of the band who did not attend FLC with the others. The group had its first show in August 2017 at Purgatory Resort, where they played for a group of tourists, Yokel said. “It probably paid us better than a lot of gigs still pay us even now,” Yokel said. “But it went really well.” During a show at the Animas City Theatre, Dennon Jones, the band’s fiddle player, joined the group as a fill-in for Jeff Mooreland, the band’s dobro player, Jones said.

Andy Gallen, guitarist of High Country Hustle, along with Yokel, contributes to much of the band’s songwriting. Photo by Colton Branstetter

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“We wanted him at that point,” Yokel said. “We wanted him for sure.”

High Country Hustle’s own music is mostly written by Yokel and Gallen, the band’s guitarist, he said.

The band spends a lot of time advertising to get people to attend their shows. Getting the word out consists of advertising on social media, postering around town and word of mouth, Jones said.

“Inspiration comes from everything,” Yokel said. “Life, girls, anything.”

Having a large following, especially on social media, is an important part of getting booked at venues, Yokel said. “It’s crazy how much a like on Facebook means to a band at this point,” Yokel said. “People see that.” Currently High Country Hustle opens for other bands, but the goal is to headline its own show one day, Yokel said. Yokel describes the local music community as supportive and said many of the local bands have crossovers. Musicians from other bands will stand in for different groups, he said. Yokel has sat in for Fellowship of the Strings, another local band, and Patrick Storen from Liver Down the River has sat in with High Country Hustle, Yokel said. “It’s a good catharsis whenever you get to play tunes with your buddies,” Jones said. “You can just let loose a little bit. Even if it’s an instrumental song and there is not a specific theme, if it’s a high energy, darker tune and you’ve got a bad day, you can just rip into your instrument and let it out.” When the band first started, it mostly played covers, but once it began playing originals the members felt they could go somewhere, he said.

Yokel has been gaining experience with songwriting for three or four years, he said. He has a book of 13 songs, but the band only plays a couple of them depending on which songs fit, he said. They are currently working on their first album. The content is ready to be recorded, and the band is in discussions with a local recording studio, Yokel said. The record does not have a set release date, but it may be released within a year, he said. “At first it was just that we wanted to play music around Durango,” Yokel said. “We just wanted to play music.”

“It’s a good catharsis whenever you get to play tunes with your buddies.” Dennon Jones High Country Hustle Seth Yokel and Dennon Jones, who met through their passion for music on campus at FLC, have continued to play together as young professionals in the community. Photo byColton Branstetter

“Once we started really writing music, that’s when it started to pick up and feel like maybe this could turn into something a little bit more,” Yokel said.

Liver Down the River In 2012, Patrick Storen was attending a bluegrass festival known as YarmonyGrass and found himself drinking whiskey down on the river with his friends when someone came up to them and asked them what the name of their band was. Jokingly, Storen responded by saying Liver Down the River. The band decided to go with it, he said. The band currently consists of Storen on the mandolin, Emily Aguirre-Winter on the fiddle, Derrik Abt on the bass, Michael Todd on the keyboard, Dylan Ruckle on the guitar and Tyler Simmons on the guitar. Liver Down the River first got its start in the Bader/Snyder complex at FLC in 2012, Storen said. Storen and Aguirre-Winter first started playing music together during their freshman year in another band called Frisky Business, Storen said. Frisky Business broke up but Storen and Aguirre-Winter had a similar vision of what they wanted along with a similar taste in music and decided to keep playing music together, he said. When Aguirre-Winter and Storen were sophomores at FLC, they met Matt Granzow, the first guitar player of Liver Down the River, Storen said. Through mutual friends, the group met Derrik Apt, the group’s current bass player, when he was living in West Hall. They invited Cooper Travis, who had also played in Frisky Business with Storen and Aguirre-Winter, to play drums with Liver Down the River, Storen said. The band held its first practices in the Bader/Snyder dorms, Abt said. Dobro player, Jeff Moorehead was recruited by High Country Hustle due to his skill level at an instrument that few musicians can play. Photo by Colton Branstetter

After Liver Down the River had two or three hours of music to perform, it put on its own show at the Tea House, a business above College Drive Cafe which is no longer around, on Feb. 22, 2012, Storen said. The room, which featured an upstairs level, was packed, he said. “We just tore down the house man,” Abt said. “It was crazy.” The year Liver Down the River got its start, there were very few local live music venues around town, he said. “During that one year, like that particular year, 2012, it was all having to bring your own sound in, your own sound gear,” Storen said. “You had to find a space which is usually a party or some random stuff like the Tea House,” Storen said. When Liver Down the River plays at the Animas City Theatre it is able to sell out the venue, he said. “The dorms, you’re meeting so many people and so it’s really easy to get the word out,” Storen said, “and so that’s how we were able to get into the Animas City Theatre. We would be able to sell out a show every time we played, not even cause our music was that good, but just because we had homies who wanted to dance and party.” Storen credits the initial success the band had to the amount of connections they made while attending the Fort, he said. “It all kind of started because we had that initial group of a couple hundred friends or whatever that would come to the shows,” Storen said.

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Noodle Noodle, a local experimental-psychedelic-folk band, started in 2017 when a group of musicians moved into the Bader/Snyder complex. The band mostly plays original music and some Grateful Dead covers. Charlie Brockway and Sal Sharp originally met at Conserve School, an environmental educational school in Wisconsin, about four years ago. Sharp and Brockway belonged to a group of musicians at the environmental school who would get together and play music. Brockway knew Alex Eckler, Noodle’s electric guitar player, from their hometown of Boulder, he said. Sharp and Brockway met Matt Kolbe, Noodle’s keyboardist, when they became roommates in the Bader/Snyder complex in Fall 2017.

The band is losing Solomon when he moves to Seattle at the end of October 2018, so the band is bringing on Alec Mayes, Brockway said. “We chose him because he is a killer drummer and a great guy,” Brockway said in a follow up message. “He also fits our style well. We are excited to see how the band changes and progresses in the future.” It’s hard to say how long the band will stay together, but the group is all committed to the music they’ve made, Brockway said. “I would say that the music has taken us to some deep and vulnerable places,” Brockway said. “Being all a part of that together, being in those places together definitely brings camaraderie.” i

Before the band was officially formed, Sharp and Brockway would play together, while Kolbe would play his own set at the open mic at the Irish Embassy Pub, Brockway said. The four members would play and write music most days except weekends in the Bader/Snyder dorm room. They would start around 8 p.m. and play until 11 p.m. or midnight. The group had written a lot of original songs during their jam sessions and were in need of a drummer to play for them, he said.

Dennon Jones, fiddler for High Country Hustle and recent FLC Music Education Alum, balances his time as a musician between the band and his role as the orchestra teacher at Escalante Middle School. Photo by Colton Branstetter

They found an ad in the FLC Student Union for a drummer looking for a band and brought Carter Solomon on board, he said. Members of Noodle began going to Liver Down the River shows at the ACT, the two groups met and started playing together. Noodle opened for Liver Down the River in a joint show at the pavillion of the Bader/Snyder complex in 2017, Sharp said. “First weekend, we went to a Liver Down the River show, and so it was cool to kind of see that we were playing with them later on that year,” Brockway said. “That was a special thing.” Noodle would play at after parties at local houses, including The Everynight House for different shows that played in town, Brockway said. The band spent time camping during their first year at FLC, which had a big influence on the musical direction, Brockway said. The experiences of camping and going to wilderness areas are an important part of the group’s songwriting process, Kolbesaid. Sharp wrote “San Juan River Basin” after the band took a trip to Bluff, Utah, to hike down Butler Wash and look at petroglyphs, Brockway said.

Stemming Out: Research Beyond the Classroom Kimberly Cassels

eoscience students are working with NASA to create a satellite that will measure the water in snowpack on Red Mountain Pass.

A group of biology students is working on the early stages of the established lung-on-a-chip project, where a small part of the human lung is grown in a lab. The project could eventually result in more efficient medical research.

NASA

This winter, a handful of FLC students will be working with NASA to collect snow density data from snow pits that will eventually be measured from outer space.

Students will dig snow pits at Senator Beck Basin, a site on Red Mountain Pass, to measure the amount of water in snow. This is called the snow water equivalent, also known as SWE, Andy Gleason, lecturer of geosciences, said. “Snow water equivalent is the water yield that you get from melting any volume of snow,” Gleason said. “It’s how much water is in the snowpack basically.” Meanwhile, NASA pilots will be flying P-3 Orion and G-3 airplanes overhead and using radar, lidar, thermal infrared, hyperspectral imaging and spectroscopy to take SWE measurements, he said.

Senior seminar students at Fort Lewis College have the opportunity to work on professional projects for the geoscience and biology departments.

Data collected in the field and from the aircraft will be compared to assess measurement accuracy. Snow density is difficult to measure, so multiple forms of calculation will help with precision, Gleason said. NASA’s goal is to create a satellite that will accurately measure Earth’s water supply in snow-covered regions. Snowpack is a natural reservoir which provides 75 percent of the Western United States’ water and over 16 percent of the world’s drinking water, Gleason said. The satellite would assist water managers to make plans based on the amount of water available for agriculture, reservoirs and dams using hydroelectric power, he said. Red Mountain Pass was chosen for the project because the Center for Snow and Avalanche Studies, located in Silverton, CO, has a well-instrumented research station at the Senator Beck Basin Study Area, Gleason said. The San Juan Mountains provide the topographical data necessary for the research NASA needs for developing the satellite later on, he said. “There’s been a bunch of work done on arctic terrain where there’s two or three feet of snow and it’s perfectly flat, but there hasn’t been a lot of work done in mountainous terrain or forest terrain,” Gleason said. The study began three years ago and will finish in 2020. The research is grant-funded by SnowEx, a campaign through NASA that is using different techniques from aircraft to measure the content of water in snow, Gleason said. Students will be measuring the snowpack with traditional methods in the snow pits they manually dig, Gleason said.

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Once they’ve climbed into their snow pits, students must use a variety of tools to calculate the SWE, including a triangular density cutter, a snow crystal card to look at grain size, a microscope, thermometers, rulers, a scale to weigh snow and microprobes for pressure, Gleason said. This project is unique in the way that every researcher is required to make the data available to the public. The government’s transparency on this study allows anyone to be informed about its progress, Gleason said. Gleason is one of 122 scientists from multiple countries that responded to a call from NASA looking for hydrologists who wanted to be involved in the study, Gleason said. Two to three students will join the research team in Senator Beck Basin and are expected to have an avalanche course under their belt for safety, Gleason said.

Lung-on-a-Chip Biology students at FLC are in the beginning stages of growing human lung tissue around a silicon membrane. The project is called lung-on-a-chip, David Blake, associate professor of biology, said. The goal is to grow an alveolus, an air sac in the lung, to use for biomedical research. It is not the entire organ and will not be implanted in a person, Blake said. An engineered alveolus can raise the effectiveness of research for chemical toxicity and drug testing, he said. “It is a noninvasive device to test the efficacy of different therapies, and in this case, the therapies would be based within the lung,” Blake said. The chip is about the size of a quarter and composed of a gel-like material. Inside the chip, delicate channels will act as feeding tubes to keep the cells alive and allow them to communicate with each other to grow on each side of the silicon membrane, he said. “It’s essentially a cell sandwich,” Blake said. Blake began the project after meeting Jeff Jessing, assistant professor of physics and engineering, who has worked with silicon membranes in organs that have been implanted in people. They will be working on the project together once the membrane has a proven design, Blake said. Blake started the project last year with a former senior seminar student, Sophie Mancha. Jacob Evanyo, Randall Hughes and Chance Salaway are the three students working on the project, Blake said.

When the membrane was constructed at FLC, the channels did not align correctly. Blake’s students will focus on the device structure until it can be reproduced repeatedly, he said. “Hypothetically, after we create the device, we would feed one side of it with epithelial cells to mimic the lung, and then the other side of the device we would feed with endothelial cells to mimic a blood vessel,” he said. Epithelial cells are the cells that make up organs, such as the skin or liver, while endothelial cells make up a thin layer inside of blood vessels, Blake said. The goal is for Jessing to implement a flexible, lifelike material the cells can grow on that will make a respiring movement when air moves through the chip, Blake said. The original lung-on-a-chip was constructed in 2013 at the University of Pennsylvania and has also been executed at Harvard University. Blake would like to recreate the device with the thinnest silicon membrane in the field, which would more accurately mimic the way an air sack in the lung moves when one breathes, he said. This kind of experiment predominantly uses mice as a test subject. However mice are expensive to maintain while also having fundamental physiological differences to humans, Blake said. The National Institute of Health is asking researchers to use animals less for studies, Blake said. A lung-on-a-chip would provide a cheaper, faster and more effective alternative than using mice, he said. Blake plans to use the lung-on-a-chip to provide data on certain therapeutic options for specific lung infections or how to combat toxins inhaled from the air, he said. This form of microfabrication can potentially grow any type of organ for the same purposes, Blake said. It is unknown when the lung-on-a-chip will be successfully completed, he said. i

The National Institute of Health is asking researchers to use animals less for studies, and a fabricated lung would providea cheaper faster, and more effective alternative 8

From 2013-17, average water usage for Durango was

1.254 billion gallons each year.

Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s an average of

3.43 million gallons

of water each day.

FLC and City of Durango Partner to Conserve Water Max Rodgers

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rought conditions caused by lack of precipitation have prompted the City of Durango to partner with its four largest water users and other organizations to restrict water usage by limiting water use for irrigation. La Plata County is in an exceptional drought, the most severe categorization, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. After a low summer, southern Colorado is expecting increased precipitation this winter. Fort Lewis College, Durango School District 9-R, Durango Parks & Recreation Department and Hillcrest Golf Course agreed to cut water usage by 10 percent over the summer months from May to September, and again in October, by 20 percent, said Jarrod Biggs, the Assistant Utilities Director for the City of Durango. Other private groups that use large amounts of water, such as Ska Brewing and various hotels in the area, were asked by the city to limit water usage as well, he said. From 2013-17, the average water usage for Durango was 1.254 billion gallons each year, which is an average of 3.43 million gallons of water, Briggs said.

FLC follows all mandatory water restrictions, as well as voluntary restrictions, said Marty Pool, the Environmental Center coordinator. To combat excessive water use, all residential buildings and most other facilities are outfitted with low flow fixtures, such as sinks, showers and toilets, he said. For students living off campus, the Environmental Center has free efficiency kits that include LED light bulbs, low flow faucet and shower fixtures, and a special bag that makes an old toilet into a low flow toilet, he said. To save water, students can wash only full loads of laundry and dishes, limit showers to five minutes, and not continuously run faucets when doing dishes or brushing their teeth, Pool said. Precipitation this winter is expected to be 33 percent above last year’s, according to the Climate Prediction Center, a branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. i

How to Save Water Wash only full loads of laundry +dishes limit showers to five minutes don’t continuously run faucets

+ pick up a free efficeicy kit from the FLC Environmental center

Recent storms have brought much needed precipitation to La Plata County. Photo by Max Rodgers

The primary source of Durango’s water is the Florida River. The Animas River is the secondary source and Lake Nighthorse is an emergency reserve, he said. The City of Durango has partnered with the Colorado Water Conservation Board for implementing multi-year drought strategies such as increasing storage capabilities, new water management plans, and how to handle more variable weather, he said. “We don’t have a treatment facility on the south side of town, and no piping to move the water from the bottom of the damn,” Biggs said. “That is one of those things we want to look at for the coming years.”

Indy Inside:

Sexual harassment

There has been an increased focus on sexual harassment in the workplace due to the national buzz following the #MeToo movement and the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court hearings. The Independent recently spoke with a female Fort Lewis College student who experienced sexual harassment from her manager while working at a local Durango restaurant.

in the Workplace T

he student, who wished to remain anonymous, experienced sexual harassment at her workplace for about a year, starting in 2017, she said.

There were no issues when she first started working there, but problems began to occur when the new general manager was hired about three months into her working there, she said. “I never felt completely comfortable or accepted by him,” she said. The way he would handle things was unprofessional, she said. “He would say some really sexist comments and if I tried to bring it up to him, he was unresponsive,” she said. “The way he even looked at female customers was predatory.” For example, the manager would make inappropriate sexual gestures towards female customers at the restaurant. One specific comment that he made towards a female customer who was wearing her hair in a ponytail made the student uneasy, she said. “He said her ponytail would be ‘good to grab,’” she said. “I was working in the food industry - every girl there would wear ponytails. He was talking to me when he said that.”

Faith Owen

No one should have to work in an environment like that, she said. “I told him that this made me very uncomfortable,” she said. “He responded that I take things too personally, like every woman does.” The general manager at this establishment also had anger issues, she said. The student knew he had anger issues, so she was afraid to fully confront him, she said. “He would have to go into the walk-in freezer and scream in order to not yell at customers,” she said.

The Independent also spoke with two female co-workers who worked under the manager and experienced similar treatment. Both of these other female workers quit their jobs because of the experience. When the student worker did confront her manager, he immediately decreased her hours each week, she said. After this, the manager did not acknowledge her again until he fired her, she said. The manager was transferred from the Durango store due to the opening of another store location, she said. The student has a new job and is much happier now. i

Professional Guidance at FLC Molly Wieser, the Title IX coordinator at Fort Lewis College, will talk with any students who have been affected by sexual misconduct, she said. Some people hate the sexual misconduct they were involved with, but they don’t necessarily want the person confronted, Wieser said. “I reach out to students and just ask them, ‘How are you, what do you need right now, and what would you like to see come of this?” Wieser said. On campus, Lotus is a student-run organization on campus that is a safe space for students to discuss any sexual victimization that they went through, Wieser said. They currently meet once a month.” “Lotus is still up and running, helping support victims in any way possible,” Alix Atsye, Lotus’ co-coordinator said. “If need be, we are always free to meet up with victims that are unable to meet at our monthly meeting or need extra support,” she said.

Sexual Harassment and Sexual Assualt Resources fortlewis.edu/CARE Molly Wieser, Title IX Coordinator Student Affairs, Fort Lewis College 230 Miller Hall office 970-247-7241

N R

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A+

Netflix Review

American Horror Story: Cult (Season 7)

Teal Lehto

The Ranch Because of this show, my roommates now have multiple Snapchat memories of me in my onesie, screaming while tears are rolling down my face and cuddling my roommates dog, all while begging for the horror to stop while simultaneously wanting more because I NEED ANSWERS. Needless to say, this show is the definition of spoopy, and yes you read that right. Spoopy is defined in Urban Dictionary as “So spooky, it makes ya go poopy.” The only reason I have given this show a less than perfect rating is I STILL DON’T HAVE MY ANSWERS. This show is still better than any horror film I’ve seen in theaters since Paranormal Activity, which was like the OG spoopy movie for me. I have not included any plot details in this review because I’m still confused, so if you have any answers, for the love of god and all that is holy, please hit me up. I need closure in my life.

The Haunting of Hill House

B+

For more Netflix reviews, check out:

theindyonline.com

This season of “American Horror Story” (AHS) is more disturbing than any other so far. Unlike all of the other AHS seasons, season seven does not revolve around any kind of supernatural or paranormal phenomena. It simply focuses on the development of a cult as a result of those empowered by the election of President Donald Trump. The directors do a fantastic job showing how easy it is to radicalize totally normal people. That, in itself, is scarier than any ghosts. And ghosts are scary.

This sitcom is supposed to be based in a small farming community on the Western Slope of Colorado. Its main characters are played by Danny Masterson and Ashton Kutcher. You will probably know Masterson as Hyde from “That ‘70s Show” and some of you may know Kutcher as Mila Kunis’ really hot husband. Despite having both of these talented actors in the cast, the show is complete garbage. They make a number of stereotypes about Coloradoans that are just plain wrong, and they commonly make geographical references that are just inaccurate. For example, Telluride is not a farming community, and it’s definitely more than three hours away from Denver. They portray all Coloradoans as backwoods hillbillies with little interest in things other than crop rotation and dairy prices, which is totally false. I’m a Colorado-native and I care about how high the river is flowing in the summer, how much snow is falling in the winter and where I can get the best deal on a locally brewed beer all year long.

This show has the potential to be hilarious and engaging, but it’s just a flop. It follows comedian Adam Conover as he “ruins” various facets of your day to day life by crushing your expectations with facts and reality. It covers subjects like cars, security, forensic science, restaurants and so much more. If the show was framed as more of a docu-series, it would be infinitely more interesting. Instead it follows Adam around while he drones on in his annoying voice using cliche gags to convey the information. The show was weirdly reminiscent of the infamous SpikedTv show “Manswers,” with its crude humor and crappy special effects. While writing this I discovered Adam Ruins Everything is produced by SpikedTv’s weird little cousin network, TruTv. Suddenly everything made sense.

Adam Ruins Everything

D-

Staff

@FLCINDEPENDENT

The Independent FLC

IndependentFLC Reporting

Kimberly Cassels Meritt Drake Mandy Lorenson Benjamin Mandile Faith Owen Max Rodgers

Alex Semadeni

Ryan Simonovich

Becca Day

Colton Branstetter

Editor-in-Chief

Print Editor

Online Editor

Multimedia Editor

Indy TV

Walker Bartol Mike Ranson Elena Welding

Design

Peter Behm Brooke Munden

Joely Allen

Teal Lehto

Sierra Doan

Shelby Martin

Business Director

Social Media Director

IndyTV Editor

Design Editor

Anyone who is interested in providing feedback to The Independent can reach out through email (awsemadeni@fortlewis.edu) Facebook (The Indepdent FLC) or Twitter (@flcindepdendent). If you are interested in providing feedback about specific departments, please visit theindyonline.com where you can find contact information for our departmental editors.

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Q & A with Mountain Bike National Champion Cole Paton Ryan Simonovich

Cole Paton, junior at FLC, won two individual national championchips which contributed to FLC Cycling winning their 24th team title. Photo courtesy of Zach Graveson

he Fort Lewis College Cycling Team raced to its 24th national title in team history at the USA Cycling Collegiate Mountain Bike National Championships in Missoula, Montana Oct. 19-21.

What was the biggest challenge over the course of the weekend?

I think team relay was definitely the event with the most pressure. I was the last rider from our team so it’s way more pressure, at least for me. Not only am I just going out and racing but I’m racing for the three people that were in front of me and for the entire team. So I was so nervous watching Nash Dory, and Savilia and Ellen Campbell go. I think we were 40 or 50 seconds back. We had a little bit of a different rider order than the other teams so that’s why we were behind, but I’m sure if you looked at all of our lap times they would all be the top ones. We had a really strong team. On the climb, about three-fourths of the way up I made the pass into first.

It’s kind of been a tradition to do goofy haircuts before

In addition to the team title, nationals. Last year Stephan Davoust kind of stepped it up with Skyhawk mountain bikers his bowl cut and dad mustache. Initially, we were just going to What’s the story shave our heads, but when they got to shaving my head they behind the were victorious in four were like, ‘you got to be an airbender.’ So somehow we’ve all airbender individual events and the convinced each other that we look good with airbender arrows haircuts that team relay race. Cole Paton on our heads and now I’m wearing a hat to school everyday. It some team won the men’s cross country was just kind of a way that we all got together before we left. I members had? think that’s what’s really cool about our team this year is that and short-track cross country we’re all so close and that kind of symbolizes it. races. Savilia Blunk won the women’s short-track cross What makes The team aspect for sure. At any other race that I do, you’re country, and McCauley collegiate only worried about your result. That can be cool, but it’s such Smith won the women’s mountain biking a family when you’re racing collegiate and everybody is out unique there cheering you on no matter what. Everyone’s results count downhill race. compared to towards each other, and so that’s when we really start to care other races about each other. When we all get back from the races at dinner The Independent sat down that you do? we’re all making sure everyone has everything they need. It’s just really cool. with Cole Paton to learn more about what it’s like I think it’s the Durango cycling community. What’s really being a national champion. special about our team is we have so many people to choose Editor’s Note: The following interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

from. You look at the 20 people we selected for nationals, and there’s 20 people that had to stay home that could have done amazing over there. Our team is just so deep, and I think that’s why we do well. The community attracts all the cyclists that come here - we have so many people from different states on our team. I think that’s what’s really special about it. The coaching staff really kind of fosters a family to it with our club teams and our varsity teams, it doesn’t matter, we’re all part of the team. There’s no difference, so that’s what’s cool.

What do you think makes FLC one of the top mountain biking schools in the country? 14

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Alex Semadeni Editor-in-Chief awsemadeni@fortlewis.edu