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Around Telluride

[click "Play" to listen to Dr. Mark Varien speak about Crow Canyon]

Painted bowl 1 The Telluride Historical Museum, 201 West Gregory Avenue, has arranged an early holiday treat for the community. "Telluride Unearthed" is a series of lectures about way back when, when cultures lived sustainably without benefit of Al Gore, solar panels, or The New Community Coalition because, well,  that was the way it was. There were no movies thousands of  millennia ago either, so no popcorn with butter. But there was corn and lots of it, which is part of what archaeologist Mark Varien will talk about, when the vice president of programs at the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, opens "Telluride Unearthed" with insights about "Life is Movement: Pueblo Indians of the Mesa Verde Region."


In his two-hour talk, Tuesday, December 1, 6 – 8 p.m., Mark Varien plans to trace the Pueblo culture over a period of four millennia, beginning with the introduction of corn about 2,000 BC. He ends at the end of the 13th century with the mass exodus of the Mesa Verde Pueblo people.
30 November, 2009 /

by Eileen Burns


IMGP0760 (editor's note: I took one run from the top of Lift 6 down See Forever to the Beach. I happened to be riding the lifts and skiing with recent Telluride immigrant, Gaile Oslapas, who is a supervisor in the Children's Ski School. We stopped a few times on the way down to take in points of interest. Welcome to Telluride, Gaile)

Before cutting into this year's juicy Thanksgiving turkey, local Telluride skiers and guests took to the slopes for some early season carving as Telluride Ski Resort celebrated opening day.

27 November, 2009 /

by Kris Holstrom

IMG_1769 Imagine yourself surrounded by green – not necessarily "green" as in sustainable – but the color green. My recent three weeks in New Zealand saturated my ocular senses and coated my brain cells green. As a long time high desert dweller the lush land Down Under was almost unimaginably green. Our region gets 10-14 inches of rain annually; New Zealand, averages over 300. Some places, like Milford Sound in the Fiordlands, gets about seven meters. (Do the math. That's over 21 feet). The only places that weren’t green  were blue (water) and gold (sandy beaches).

But what about the other type of ‘green’? The one I spend my days in Telluride at The New Community Coalition thinking about non-stop? What about eco-green?
25 November, 2009 /

Noel_nite Telluride's Ah Haa School for the Arts is decking its halls for the holiday season with themed classes for the young and young at heart.

 On Noel Night, December 2, 5 – 7 p.m., the official launch of the holiday season in Telluride, Secret Santa elves hold a workshop for kids, where they get to make stockings, create their own signature wrapping paper and more crafty Xmas goodies. Get into the holiday spirit by letting your children create holiday art from the heart while you are out shopping.

25 November, 2009 /

[click "Play" to hear Jon Hubbard on his up-coming courses]  Telluride's Ah Haa School for the Arts offers its own, original spin on Rosie the Riveter, the American icon representing women who worked in factories during WWII. This weekend, Saturday, November 14, and Sunday,...

18 November, 2009 /
[click "Play" to hear Ben Williams speak about the Green Gondola project]

Mtn V G 3 Governor Ritter has a very public campaign targeting significant, statewide greenhouse gas reductions by 2020.Telluride Renewed is our two mayors' local response: a challenge to the communities of Telluride and the Mountain Village to produce 100% of our electricity from new renewable sources by 2020. One major step – or should we say ride – in the right direction is entrepreneur Ben Williams' Green Gondola Project, which falls under Telluride's The New Community Coalition's broad umbrella of sustainable initiatives.


The people mover linking the sister towns of Telluride and the Mountain Village is a free service to both communities, but as the world turns, "free" comes at a high price: two million kilowatt hours of electricity each year. Because most of that electricity is generated from burning coal, the gondola generates a large amount of greenhouse gas, contributing to global warming. But Williams came up with a smart answer: power the gondola with on-site solar panels. When completed, the project could reduce emissions into the atmosphere by a mind-boggling 400+ metric tons of carbon dioxide each year or enough gas to fill up 383 Washington monuments.

Now do we have your attention?
18 November, 2009 /
2006-01-238a The economy may be in the deep freeze, but it's a hot time for the hospital on the hill, aka, the Telluride Historical Museum. Echoing the spike in circulation reported by the Wilkinson Public Library, the Telluride Historical Museum this week announced dramatic growth in a year otherwise characterized by downturns.
 
Visitor numbers to what is now Telluride's only museum – the building dates back to 1896, when it served as Telluride's hospital – have increased 12% over last year. Even more significant are increases around outreach initiatives: the Museum's programming impacted 85% more people this year over last, due largely to the first annual Heritage Festival in June, which drew 1500 spectators to the Butch Cassidy reenactment. School programming is also up by over 56%, due to a concerted effort by the Museum to engage local students.  Last month, for example, Museum staff and historian Rudy Davison accompanied Telluride Middle School 7th and 8th graders to the Tomboy ruins to discuss mining heritage and regional geology.
17 November, 2009 /

This is a story with a happy ending about how more is more.

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Writer Sandra Dorr


Telluride's award-winning Wilkinson Public Library had humble beginnings.  In 1965 a bookmobile came into town once a week. Library founders Larry and Betty Wilkinson met with the town's fire department to request space in the old Quonset hut. Once the hut was ready to hold a small collection of books, the library opened two or three days a week, three or four hours a day. The primary line item in the budget was coal-fired heat paid for by donations. At that time, the library's entire collection consisted of hand-me-downs from local citizens or from other libraries discarded titles. Fast forward to the present, the award-winning Wilkinson Public Library boasts 20,000 square foot of well-used, well-loved space. In 2008, for example, its bricks and mortar housed 638 programs, a number bound to be topped by this year's rich, eclectic offerings thanks to the efforts of Program Coordinator Scott Doser. A look at this week's schedule –  FREE and open to the general public – tells the tale.

16 November, 2009 /

Late last Monday afternoon I was rambling on the San Miguel valley floor, just outside Telluride. The photo on the left is looking to the north, at about 4:30 in the afternoon. Looks like Fall. The picture on the right was taken this...

15 November, 2009 /


Last Thursday, November 5, Telluride's Ah Haa School for the Arts displayed about 50 works of art created by middle and high school students from Telluride, Ridgway, Norwood, Naturita, and the Dolores area, participants in the school's 8th annual Youth Art Award. Judges selected from Ah Haa Art Advisory Committee selected the winners based on originality and strength of the work submitted. Best in show, an honor that also paid $300, went to Jonas Fahnestock for his oil painting entitled "Self Portrait."

11 November, 2009 /