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For Telluride AIDS Benefit supporters, this is the Big Weekend, the culmination of the efforts of a small army of activists determined to raise the bar on prevention through awareness and to help those affected and infected by the seemingly irrepressible pandemic.

Twenty-five years ago, since  a faceless, nameless virus was announced in this country,
AIDS victims and their families have flocked like moths to flames of hope – a miracle cure whispered here, a sudden recovery talked about there. The pot of gold everyone is seeking at the end of the rainbow is a vaccine – but so far, nada: AIDS has resisted medications through mutation.

Although the number of AIDS-related deaths has tumbled since the advent of a more potent class of HIV drugs in the mid-90s, the rate of new infections in the U.S. has remained unchanged: about 53,000 – 55,000 cases a year.

28 February, 2009 /

The Children's Hospital Immunodeficiency Program inside the Denver Children's Hospital began attending to the medical needs of HIV-infected children in 1991, only three short years before TAB got off the ground. Now in its 18th year, CHIP has grown into multi-disciplinary program serving infected parents,...

27 February, 2009 /

Auction, Friday, noon – 9 p.m., Telluride's Sheridan Opera House

(Check out the slide show below: Jen Koskinen's photo from 2008 auction and a sample of the art to be auctioned.)

The virus was announced in Washington, D.C. in April 1984. As quickly as the pandemic spread, AIDS threaded itself into the fabric of our lives. It also became an insistent muse for artists of every stripe.

Art about AIDS or art in support of AIDS causes is as varied as its many creators, but it always springs from a very personal place. Whatever form it takes,  it is always a victory for the transformative powers of the imagination: It can turn devastation into beauty or shine a light on dark things repressed in society or in our psyches, things everyone wants to run away from.

26 February, 2009 /

The Telluride AIDS Benefit is Robert Presley’s legacy. It now reaches out in many ways to many different places/institutions: locally, through its education initiative; regionally to the Denver Children’s Hospital Immunodeficiency Program (CHIP) and Brother Jeff’s Health Initiative; internationally, through The Telluride Project in Manzini, Swaziland, Sub-Saharan Africa and Ethiopia; and to neighbors on the Western Slope through TAB’s primary beneficiary, the Western Colorado AIDS Project or WestCAP.

In 1994, WestCAP  was still a very small nonprofit operating out of Grand Junction under the direction of a small board of directors and administered part-time by a nurse, Shelley Nielsen. Nielsen did great work with the Mesa County Health Department and as part-time executive director/case manager for WestCAP. Clients being served lived primarily in Mesa County, until Presley worked his magic.

26 February, 2009 /

[click the "Play" button to hear Susan's conversation with Lauren Fong]

Itsola on Telluride AIDS Benefit runway

Designer Lauren Fong is cut from a different sort of cloth.

Her career in fashion began improbably at USC Business School. A move to Tokyo for a career in banking sharpened her aesthetics perhaps more than her numbers skills.

Back home in the U.S., Lauren obeyed her muse. Good-bye suits, hello Itsola.

24 February, 2009 /

Steve's 2009 Publicity Shots 022 What has TV celebrity Steve Spitz cooked up for the Telluride AIDS Benefit? 

TV lifestyle celebrity Steve Spitz describes his upcoming new program, "Live with Steve Spitz" this way: "People don't need to find another lifestyle show. They need to find style in their own lives. My program helps them to do just that: find it, nurture it, get their freak on and party with it like Paris Hilton before celebrity rehab."

For a sneak peek at the party Steve has planned for the Telluride AIDS Benefit on Tuesday, February 24, 6 p.m. at a private home in town, check out the mouthwatering menu, then call 970-728-0869.



23 February, 2009 /

Telluride's New Sheridan Hotel, Restaurant and Bar partners with Med Center's FEAST

She was the heart of the social scene back in the days Telluride's streets were paved with gold. About 117 years later, however, she was clearly overdue for some major "work."

Telluride's new plastic surgeon, Dr. Jeff Ptak – also the dermatologist at the Telluride Medical Center – had nothing to do with the New Sheridan Hotel, Bar & Restaurant's $7 million facelift. Credit for the handiwork goes to world famous interior designer Nina Campbell, who returned the grande dame of Main Street to her original Victorian splendor.

22 February, 2009 /

Among the elements that make Telluride "Telluride" are community involvement and the spirit of volunteerism. Nowhere are these more apparent than among our young citizens. Emma Gross and Brittany Altman were Rizzo and Sandy in the recent SAF Young People's Theatre revival of "Grease."...

22 February, 2009 /

[click the "Play" button to hear Clint's conversation with Jolana Vanek]The Wilkinson Public Library in Telluride is hosting an interactive event by Jolana Vanek on Monday, Feb 23, at 6:00 pm in the Library's program room. This is part...

21 February, 2009 /

[click "Play" button to hear Susan's interview with EFF's Melanie Robbins]

Telluride AIDS Benefit supports Ethiopian Family Fund

Edelawit Bright Eyes Masresha in uniform at school The young girls the Ethiopian Family Fund has rescued from a lifetime of sickness, poverty and monotonous labor indirectly have Mother Teresa to thank, and two girls in particular, the Telluride AIDS Benefit.

Melanie Robbins and Marla Hodes, EFF’s co-directors, took a trip to Africa several years ago to visit Marla’s brother Rick, a full-time doctor at Mother Teresa’s Mission in Addis Adaba, the capital of Ethiopia.

The original plan was to help Dr. Hodes, but it turned out his piggy bank was full and the Mission was in great shape. The boys there, many dropped on the doorsteps by desperate parents, were doing fine thank you. But where were the girls?

19 February, 2009 /