All Local, All The Time
All Local, All The Time
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The annual meeting of the Niwot Community Association (NCA) was held at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, April 23 at the Niwot Community Hall. Guest speakers were Jim Webster, Boulder County Wildfire Partners, Paul Ostroy, Fire Management Officer for Mountain View Fire Protection District (MVFPD) and Dr. Don Haddad, Superintendent of the St. Vrain Valley School District (SVVSD). Annual elections were held for the NCA board. David Limbach was re-elected to the office of President, Emily Limbach was re-elected...
On Saturday April 20, several teachers from St. Vrain Valley schools were recognized for their tremendous impact at their respective schools. Megan Schlagel, math teacher and department chair at Niwot High School, was awarded Niwot High's Teacher of the Year for 2023-2024. Nominations are submitted by parents, students, community members, peers, and administrators. The awards are given through the St. Vrain Valley School District Education Foundation. Two finalists and one Teacher of the Year...
St. Vrain Valley schools, especially in the Niwot High School feeder system, were very well represented on Saturday, April 20, during the annual St. Vrain Valley Education Foundation awards and recognition event. It was a special night to honor public school teachers and recognize their dedication to their students and careers. For Acadia Gurney, being one of the math teachers at Sunset Middle School barely scratches the surface of her dedication at Sunset. She was the volleyball coach this...
The annual meeting of the Niwot Community Association (NCA) will be held at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, April 23 at the Left Hand Grange No. 9. The guest speaker will be Don Haddad, St. Vrain Valley School District Superintendent, and will include a question and answer session. There will also be a speaker on the topic of urban interface wildfire mitigation. The annual meeting is also the occasion for NCA board elections. The board is seeking nominations for Secretary and Area 6 Representative. Area 6 includes Gunbarrel Estates and the Homestead...
No matter how dominant Niwot High School boys volleyball has been overall this season, falling to Poudre School District on Thursday, April 11, qualified as an absolute gut-punch. The visiting Cougars had their opportunities to put Poudre away for good in the fourth set but ultimately lost in a five-set thriller. Turning the page quickly while learning from what went wrong now becomes the challenge for Niwot, which dropped to 11-3 on the season. While head coach John Miller will offer his own...
The Niwot Business Association (NBA) took the show on the road to Niwot High School on March 12 for its monthly meeting. The meeting was hosted by the Niwot High School Education Foundation, and after a short business meeting, NBA members heard from the Superintendent of Schools for the St. Vrain Valley School District, Don Haddad, and Niwot High School Principal, Eric Rauschkolb. Haddad, former principal at Niwot High School, spoke of the success of the school district, "We have the highest...
Niwot High School is dedicated to fostering an environment that emphasizes individual growth and engagement, continuously offering diverse opportunities for students to excel in a setting that prioritizes their voices and enjoyment. One way this goal is implemented is through the Unified Programs at NHS. With the help of Amanda Foust, Chair of the Drama Department, Niwot High School created a unified theater class. Niwot High School is one of the first schools in the St. Vrain Valley School...
Thirteen choir students from Niwot High School had the unique experience of attending a special All-State Choir event held annually in Denver. On Feb. 8-10, the best junior and senior students from across the state had the opportunity to work with clinicians and spend most of their time, morning to evening, in rehearsals, with the final performance on the last day, Feb. 10, at 4:00 p.m. at the Buell Theatre. This year, the 2024 All-State Choir saw 1,717 students from across Colorado audition,...
Four Sunset Middle School students, Keeva Walton, Heidi Kintzel, Sylvia Madry, and Avery Nixon, and Sunset Choir Director Anna Hansil participated in the prestigious Colorado Middle All State Choir 2024 on Feb. 8 and 9. Acceptance into the Colorado Middle All State Choir is an incredible accomplishment for these young musicians. Students from Sunset Middle School auditioned back in October, along with over 1,500 other students statewide. Colorado Middle All State Choir gives seventh and...
When it comes to the multitude of success stories coming out of Niwot High School these days, the statistics speak for themselves. Academically, NHS remains the only school in the St. Vrain Valley School District with an International Baccalaureate (IB) program, in which there is a 40% participation rate. An impressive 72% of students are taking at least one IB or Advanced Placement (AP) class. And, NHS students currently boast one of the highest SAT scores in the district at 1103 and one of the highest PSAT composite scores in the State of Col...
Niwot High School is known for its diversity. With students from over 50 different middle schools, it is a melting pot filled with unique students from all walks of life. One of the places you can find that diversity is in Niwot's Unified Programs. Niwot's Unified Program is composed of two parts: Unified Sports (district-wide) and Unified Theater (Niwot and Frederick High School). Both of these programs give students with disabilities opportunities that many other schools do not offer. Unified...
On Tuesday, Jan. 30, the auditorium of Frederick High School resonated with the combined talents of 194 students from across the St. Vrain Valley School District for the High School Honor Choir Concert. Fifty-three of those students were from Niwot High School. The other schools that participated were Erie High School, Frederick High School, Longmont High School, Lyons Middle Senior High School, Mead High School, Silver Creek High School and Skyline High School. The annual Honor Choir Concert...
Approximately 50 community members convened at The Wheel House on Jan. 22, to consider the future of baseball and softball in Niwot. The meeting was arranged by the Niwot High School baseball and softball programs in conjunction with Niwot Youth Sports (NYS). The group discussed a spectrum of ideas starting with needs at Niwot High School baseball and softball facilities for everyday items, such as tarps and lawn chemicals to enhance their ability to conduct ground maintenance. The group also ta...
When Victor Valdez-Aguero was a young boy, his father was a big car enthusiast. "He owned a few dozen cars imported from Japan," Valdez-Aguero said. "A few Ford Mustangs--Shelby GT 500s. He owned muscle cars like Corvettes. C3s from 1981, a 1979 Pontiac Firebird, and a couple of Mitsubishi Lancer Evos." Initially, Valdez-Aguero thought that learning about cars was too complex and he didn't pay much attention to them, but in his early teens he started asking to help his father work on them. At...
Carson Lyle, Editor-in-Chief of "The Green and Black," and a NHS senior with hopes of attending Northeastern University to study journalism contributed to this article. "The Green and Black" is Niwot High School's entirely student-run newspaper which reports on issues and events in the St. Vrain Valley School District that students might find interesting. Its reporters also tap into opinion writing and share their voices on policies regarding their education, or whatever they feel passionate...
The vast majority of banners inside Niwot High School's main gym celebrate team championships. A select few, however, are hung in honor of individual achievements. Coming off a stellar sophomore season on the NHS cross country team, Addison Ritzenhein will soon have her name immortalized twice. After receiving the Gatorade Colorado Girls Cross Country Player of the Year award on Monday, the state championship-winning runner earned the prestigious Gatorade National Girls Cross Country Player of...
A record number of choir students earned the distinction of becoming members of the St. Vrain Valley School District Honor Choir for January 2024. Fifty-three singers were selected after an arduous try-out process. The Honor Choir consists of both a Mixed Choir and a Treble Choir. Laura Walters, Director of Choirs at Niwot, said, "We practiced in class all semester up until the audition and students had to audition on their own in November." The audition process included learning a portion of...
The annual Longmont Lights Parade was held on Saturday, Dec. 9, on Main Street in Longmont. Niwot High School and Silver Creek High School have both been participating in this parade for many years but in 2014, the two schools started to team up as a super-band for this particular parade. The increase in cross-school band cohesion among St. Vrain Valley schools has been remarkable. "Since we are a combined band and don't wear our typical marching uniforms," said Wade Hendricks, Director of...
All around the country, we honor and thank United States Veterans for their military service on November 11. This originated after World War I to commemorate the armistice reached during the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. Every year in honor of Veterans Day, the Niwot High School "Pride of Niwot" Marching Band marches in full uniform down Main Street in downtown Longmont playing, and singing the lyrics, to "The Army Song" (also known as "The Caissons Go Rolling...
With its season on the line, the Niwot High School girls volleyball team won twice in a rival's gym to earn a spot in the upcoming Class 4A state tournament. The Cougars first cruised past Denver North High School (25-17, 25-13, 25-17) before beating host Longmont High School in four sets (25-21, 21-25, 25-20, 25-18) at the 4A Region 11 championships on Saturday, Nov. 4. Obviously, the stakes were higher than a typical match, but because Longmont was seeded three spots higher than 14th-ranked...
For the first time since 2018, the "Pride of Niwot" Cougar Marching Band attended the Greeley Invitational Marching Festival on Saturday Oct. 21. High schools from Greeley, Loveland, Longmont, and the towns in between were invited to come perform their halftime shows. Marching bands who attend the Greeley Invitational receive a score between one and one hundred. Scores are based on musical ability, marching performance, and a general effect category. However, bands do not compete against each...
Seven schools from the St. Vrain Valley School District participated in the annual SVVSD High School Fall Choral Festival, Thursday Oct. 19, in the Longmont High School auditorium. Two choirs from each of Erie High School, Longmont High School, Lyons High School, Mead High School, Niwot High School, and Silver Creek High School participated, with each choir singing one selection. Skyline High School also participated and was represented by one choir. Sedalia and Chamber Singers represented...
Niwot resident Art Stapp supported many causes during his lifetime, and at the top of his list was the St. Vrain Valley School District, and specifically, Niwot High School. Stapp died suddenly July 19, 2023 at the age of 74 of a heart ailment. Stapp was best known for Stapp Interstate Toyota, a business he and his father started in 1974 as Longmont Toyota. Stapp never sought recognition for his many charitable efforts in Niwot and beyond, but it is hard to find someone who has not been touched...
Three enterprising and compassionate high school students from the St. Vrain Valley School District are this week's Left Hand Laurel recipients for their creative – and highly successful efforts – to raise money for Ukrainian relief. They are Murray Avila, Tomas Dabove and Zach Rojo. In February 2022, Dabove, a sophomore in high school at the time, started obsessing about the terrible news of Russia bombing Ukraine with thousands of innocent people – adults and children – being killed. So he cam...
When you invite nine bands from across the St. Vrain Valley School District and beyond to perform what are traditionally their football game halftime shows, the turnout of parents, students, fans and athletes can fill the stands at Everly-Montgomery Field at Longmont High School. Wednesday, Oct. 4, bands from Erie, Frederick, Longmont, Lyons, Mead, Niwot, Silver Creek, Skyline and even Roosevelt high schools put on quite a show for their fans. Though the event is not a contest, many of the...
“Music,” Abby White says, “is important to so many aspects of life. It uses so many different parts of your brain in different ways than you would get from academics. And that has really helped me in my academic success. And I think it’s just good for your soul. “Music makes us happier. And it’s something that you can really work hard on. It’s difficult, but it gives you such a sense of accomplishment when you’re able to perform something at a high-level or like get through a hard passage....
High school marching bands from all the St. Vrain Valley District high schools will come together Wednesday, Oct. 4, not to compete against each other, but to showcase their 2023 field shows in support of everyone's dedication to the art form. This annual event is considered to be the highlight of the marching band season by students, staff, family, and friends. Unlike many other opportunities where high school marching bands perform, this performance is entirely dedicated to audience members...
This year, Niwot Elementary School has hired six new teachers due primarily to the recent retirements of previous teachers, all of whom worked at the elementary school for at least well over a decade. In addition to Hanna Sandhoff, Lyndsey Moauro, and Nina Starks, who were profiled (https://www.lhvc.com/story/2023/09/13/education/new-teachers-at-niwot-elementary-2023/8339.html) in an the September 13 issue of the Left Hand Valley Courier, there are three more new teachers at Niwot Elementary thi...
Karen Ragland, Niwot's St. Vrain Valley School District (SVVSD) school board representative, joined the Niwot Community Association's (NCA) September board meeting to hold a conversation with members and the public about the banners on the football field fence, an upcoming bond measure, and property valuation and taxes. NCA board members have previously spoken with Niwot High School (NHS) principal Eric Rauschkolb about the advertising banners on the football field fence facing Niwot Road, which...
There are six new teachers and a new family liaison starting at Niwot High School this year, teaching a wide variety of different studies. According to Principal Eric Rauschkolb, these hirings are due to a large increase in Niwot High School's enrollment, This year, the school had 100 more students enrolled compared to last year, and the St. Vrain Valley School District has given NHS more staffing distribution. Three of the new teachers are familiar to the high school students because they have...
GIRLS XC Look out Colorado, Niwot’s Addison Ritzenhein is a runaway freight train with no slowing down in sight. The sophomore picked up speed on the final downhill stretch and steamed through the finish line Saturday at the St. Vrain Cross Country Invitational, leaving all competitors far behind while crushing the girls’ course record along the way. In her second race of the season, Ritzenhein picked up her second victory, this time by a whopping 30 seconds over teammate and second-place finisher Olivia Alessandrini, who added the silver med...
Tuesday, July 25, saw The Peter Fund host a concert in Whistle Stop Park in conjunction with the recognition of the first five Kindness Counts Award winners in the non-profit's effort to recognize and reward acts of kindness. The evening opened with two bands, The PSB and Pearl Vision, each made up of local high school students who knew the late Peter Bonn-Elchoness, who died of a rare heart condition during his senior year at Niwot High School last fall. The music concluded with a performance...
Donald Allen Farr Dec. 7, 1943 - June 12, 2023 Donald Allen Farr was born in Detroit, Michigan. He passed away at the age of 79 in Commerce City, Colorado, due to Parkinson's. He met his wife Julie Farr in California and the couple married in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1970. They lived most of their married life in Niwot, Colorado. They had four children and many pets. They were married 36 years before Julie's passing of breast cancer in 2006. When Don was a kid he loved playing with trains and that...
What does it take to be a "Teacher of the Year?" According to the St. Vrain Valley School District Education Foundation, this honor requires someone who is innovative, goal-oriented, a motivator, an expert in their subject, and connects subject material to the real world. Recognition for this title must be made through nominations from students, staff, parents, community members, and other affiliates of the school. Only teachers who are licensed educators in the State of Colorado and employed...
You might recognize him as a volunteer at various Niwot Community Association events, such as Niwot Clean Up Day. Perhaps you have seen him on the NCA Road Crew or as a member of the tech team at Rocky Mountain Christian Church. Most likely, you have seen him driving the golf cart offering transportation service at Rock & Rails. Misha Barrett started providing his transportation services for patrons who parked down the street from Rock & Rails in the summer of 2022. His usage of the golf cart...
Each year the St. Vrain Valley School District requests submissions from families for their annual Teacher of the Year award. Together with each school's input from their respective administrations, every elementary, middle and high school then reviews family submissions and nominates a teacher to send to the district-wide competition. This year it came as no surprise to many of the students she has taught over the years that Niwot Elementary's 2022-2023 recipient is third-grade teacher, Lise...
Reaching the state regionals tournament would have been nice, but head coach John Miller couldn't have asked for much more out of Niwot High School's inaugural varsity boys volleyball season. Miller entered the campaign hoping to simply be competitive in Year 1, and his Cougars fulfilled that goal with an 11-12 overall record. Niwot's team, which includes student-athletes from across the St. Vrain Valley School District, also went 6-6 in the strong Northern 1 League following a four-set loss at...
Recent University of Northern Colorado football signee Kaiden Box is doing something a little different during his final high school semester. The Skyline High School quarterback was looking for a sport to play this spring and with neither baseball nor track enticing him, he was convinced by fellow Skyline senior Erik West to join the inaugural Niwot High School varsity boys volleyball team. It didn't take Box long to learn the sport and he soon developed an immense respect for his new...
The Chilly Chili golf tournament lived up to its reputation March 18 with a twenty-degree temperature at the 8 a.m. scheduled start, but the golfers took to the course a little later in the morning and broke the ice on the 2023 season. Niwot coach Ed Weaver took four golfers to the event at Eagle Trace Golf Club in Broomfield where parents provided a chili dinner for the players at the end of the day. “It was a really fun experience for the girls,” Weaver said. “Two of them had never played in a tournament before.” The start of spring break i...
There is a new sport in town as the new all-St. Vrain Valley School District boys volleyball team takes shape under experienced and seasoned coach John Miller. The "Niwot" team is comprised of athletes from multiple St. Vrain Valley School District high schools including Silver Creek High School, Longmont High School, and Erie High School. The team has students from as far away as Mead High School. The students travel daily to practice, which begins a little later than school gets out to allow...
Some of the best middle school choir students in the area came to Niwot High School last week for a district-wide honor choir concert. Despite the start of a mid-winter snowstorm, more than 100 students filled the stage, performing eight songs for an auditorium filled with parents and friends. Students represented 13 schools, with choir teachers from each school taking the stage as the concert began to thank students, their parents and Niwot High School as a host. The evening consisted of three...
First-year coach Ella Thramann was pleased with the performance of her swimmers and diver Jan. 21 at the District Swimming and Diving Meet at Mountain View High School, but disappointed with a second-place finish. The Cougars took second to cross-town rival Silver Creek, which took top honors among the six schools competing, outsourcing the Cougars 645 to 580. Thramann said the Cougars didn't realize how deep the Silver Creek team was. "I think they have 47 girls to our 35," she said. Thramann...
Three meets in a busy week kicked off earlier this month at the Mountain Vista Invitational Jan. 7 where the Niwot High School swim and dive team placed 11th in a field of 23 teams. Highlights included Rowan Lavigne's ninth-place finish in the 100 freestyle, seventh in the 100 breaststroke, and 10th in the 200 freestyle relay with teammates Stephanie Mow, Catherine Knight and junior Reese Lavigne. First-year coach Ella Thramann was pleased with the team's performance, especially since only half...
Greta Stauch has a passion for choral music. The Niwot High School sophomore describes the music as "a group of people attempting to blend their voices into one sound with as much beauty as possible." Succeeding in choir, she said, "requires a deep understanding of vocal technique as well as music as a whole. Sight reading and music theory skills play a large part in contributing to a strong choral group." Laura Walters, the Choral Music Director at Niwot High School, selected Stauch as the...
Niwot High School students Jack Klein and Logan Waldron spend 12 to 15 hours a week year-round, training and practicing water polo for the Rocky Mountain Neptunes, a water polo club based in Boulder. Both have similar stories. They started out swimming, but preferred team sports and through watching the Olympics, found the sport. Water polo is often heralded as the toughest sport in which to compete. Players must tread water for the entire game while sprinting back and forth, playing both offens...
Construction has begun on the Monarch Improvement Project, which will bring a permanent building to Hangge Fields at Monarch Park for the first time in the 35 years the ballfields have been in use. The project was launched by Niwot Youth Sports (NYS) to build a permanent structure to house the concession stand, provide a storage facility, and replace the port-a-potties with real bathrooms. NYS officials believe these improvements will be a great addition to the community, as the non-profit provi...
A request from the Boulder County Sheriff to store long rifles inside Niwot High School and Lyons Middle-Senior High School was approved by the St. Vrain Valley School District School Board at its Oct. 26 meeting. The request was first presented in 2018 out of belief that longer response times to Niwot High School and Lyons High School by law enforcement in the event of an active shooter incident would be mitigated if school resource officers had access to rifles securely stored in the school building. The request was not approved at that...
On the same day the Courier’s coverage of the Boulder County Sheriff’s Department request to store long rifles at Niwot and Lyons High Schools came off the press, the St. Vrain Valley School Board held a study session that included further discussion of the issue. On Oct. 19, the board’s study session included a renewed request by the Boulder County Sheriff to store long guns at the two schools due to the time it would take to respond to an incident at the district’s two most rural high schools. The matter was first presented several years a...
This month's Left Hand Laurel is Derek Curd, a mentor for students at Up-A-Creek Robotics. Curd, a hardware engineer, relocated from the Bay area 18 years ago with his family. Curd is adored by his students on the St. Vrain Valley School District robotics team which, this past April, became the first Colorado team to win the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competition World Championship. Violet Oliver, a Niwot High School junior and member of the...
If there is an “active harmer” at Niwot High School, Boulder County Sheriff’s Department wants to have long guns (rifles) stored on the school grounds for a quicker response. “Most of the time when you talk about an active harmer incident of magnitude it’s over quickly,” said Boulder County Sgt. Bill Crist, himself a Niwot High graduate, during a study session with SVVSD board members on Aug. 17. “Situations like Columbine, Sandy Hook, the Texas incident, these things are over within a matter of minutes.” The guns would be locked up in a...
