All Local, All The Time
All Local, All The Time
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Gunbarrel native Catherine (Smith) Rossett has been appointed as the new executive director of the Colorado Historical Foundation, a non-profit organization that supports history and historic preservation projects in our state. Rossett, daughter of Gunbarrel residents Liz and Fred Smith, is only the second person to act as full-time director of the foundation in its 53-year history. The previous director was Lane Ittelson, who held the position for 19 years. A non-profit organizational leader...
Editor: Courier Treppeda’s ristorante was the heart and soul of 2nd Ave. in Niwot. Jim Miller (resident of Niwot for 46 years) To the Editor: After reading “What tripped up Treppeda’s?” in the January 2, 2019, issue of Left Hand Valley Courier, I say shame on Bernadette and Gilbert Reed, owners of the Slater Building. In our household, Treppeda’s and Colterra have been anchors in our life and in Niwot since we moved to town 12 years ago after living in Boulder for 42 years. We continue to lament the kitchen fire and closure of Colterra...
In a takeoff on No-Shave November, Dawson School recently held Don't Shave December for some follicle fun benefiting area nonprofits. Three famous bearded looks were selected - Frank Zappa, Hulk Hogan, and Ambrose Burnside, namesake of the 'sideburn'. A score of Dawson faculty and staff let beards grow during December, as students voted with spare change for the winning look. In addition, each K-8 student was given a dollar with which to vote, helping underscore the message that "one of the...
Justus “Jay” Nichols is a United States postman whose route is in the Gunbarrel Estates/Boulder Tech Center neighborhood. He’s been delivering folks their mail there since 2005, but residents along Jay’s route know that he brings more than just letters and packages. He brings goodness. Nicknamed “Jumping Jay” by some of the neighborhood kids for the way he jumps in and out of his mail truck, Jay began getting to know his customers on his first day. At his very first mailbox, he noticed a d...
After a rigorous 5-month, nationwide search, Boulder Rural Fire Department announced that Chief Greg Schwab will serve as the district’s fire chief starting this month. Chief Schwab joined Boulder Rural Fire Department from the Georgetown, CA Fire Protection District where he has served as fire chief since 2006. Prior to Georgetown, Schwab served as Chief of Fire and Emergency Services in Ketchum, ID. He has been serving in the fire service since 1989 where he started in Ohio. A press release f...
Nicotine, a legal substance, is as addictive as heroin or cocaine. In the 1990s, 46 states brought lawsuits against the big tobacco companies, hoping to hold them responsible for the healthcare costs—and deaths—associated with their products. It was a long fight, and ultimately successful. The companies were ordered to spend millions on anti-tobacco campaigns, with the purpose of educating people to the real dangers of tobacco use and nicotine, and expressly keeping cigarettes out of the hands of children. But nicotine has found a new del...
Any one of a thousand things could have gone wrong, causing New Horizons’ flyby to Ultima Thule, four billion miles from Earth, to fail. But the team of scientists led by Niwot’s Dr. Alan Stern made the most distant space mission ever a smashing success on the first day of 2019. “It not only worked, it worked flawlessly,” Stern said. “Every single scientific instrument worked, the spacecraft had no issues, the navigation was perfect, the ground operations were perfect. It’s amazing. Can you tel...
What is it about hair? If we listen to the ads, it’s just one more body part we need to feel overly self-conscious about. From the picture-perfect Breck Girls of the 40s and 50s to the Miss “If I have just one life, let me live it as a blonde” Clairol girls, to the poker straight hair of the 60s and the Afro of the 70s, hair is one of the root causes of why women are so dissatisfied with themselves. I know, because I’ve made most of these companies rich. As a child I whined, because I wanted Toni Jr. perm and Spoolies, while as a teenager I ran...
Gunbarrel-based author and teacher Ellen Korman Mains will be appearing at the Boulder Book Store (1107 Pearl St.) on Jan. 10 for a discussion of her moving memoir, Buried Rivers: A Spiritual Journey into the Holocaust. Published in October, Buried Rivers recounts Mains' melancholy childhood in Montreal as the daughter of Polish Holocaust survivors, and her later attempts as an adult to reclaim her Jewish family's interrupted history. It is also the story of her spiritual quest as a practicing...
Zach Ackerman came back for the music. Ackerman, who suffered a debilitating brain injury as a result of complications from surgery in the summer of 2017, played trumpet in the Niwot High School Band. He also played football at NHS, and was active in scouting before his injury. As a sophomore, Ackerman also joined the Niwot Community Semi-Marching Free Grange Band, playing trumpet for several community events. As a result of that experience, he joined the brass section of the Community Band as part of a brass quintet, performing Christmas...
After 22 years of business, Howard Treppeda’s namesake restaurant sits empty. Preparing and serving food is what Treppeda’s career has been all about. It’s what he trained for when he took classes at the Cordon Bleu in Paris and at the Culinary Institute of America. It was what he did when he worked at a café in Amsterdam, eateries in Massachusetts and New York, and as the head chef of a restaurant in Connecticut. Naturally, it was what he did after he transplanted from the East Coast to Colora...
Serving food is what Regina Sidoti has been doing for as long as she can remember. Sidoti, 45, works at two restaurants in Niwot and a third restaurant in Longmont. You also can find her working concessions at Bronco games and other sporting events. Her can-do attitude and easy, outgoing smile are emblematic of her optimistic outlook. Sidoti is a very candid, genuine person who believes we all are more alike than not. She said, “There’s a little piece of you in every person.” That’s why it’s a...
Editor’s Note: We had one straggler from the Dec. 12 issue. Here’s what Laura Staisiunas wrote “Walking to Niwot Realty, of course!” Now for the first Where in the world…? for 2019. Baa, baa white sheep, Are you made of stone? Yes, I am. Yes, I am. But where’s my home? Go down LCCVth Street Look down the lane. Just ignore the ducks, Because they are a pain. You’ll have to really look, Since I’m to the east. But it won’t take long, To find this pretty beast....
August 29, 1928 – December 24, 2018 Richard Alan “Dick” Knaus, 90, passed away December 24, 2018 at Longs Peak Hospital after celebrating a traditional Christmas Eve holiday with his family. Dick was born on August 29, 1928 on the family farm near Niwot, Colorado to Dan and Lillian (Wederquist) Knaus. He devoted his life to working the family farm. He was a descendent of the Clemens Knaus family, who were one of the first settlers in the Left Hand area in 1860. Dick graduated from Longm...
Niwot Rotary treasurer Jo Kirkenaer is no stranger to natural disasters, so when he learned about the wildfire that devastated a northern California community in early November, he wanted to find a way to help. “I lived in southern California, and I’ve been through two big fires in San Diego, so I know what it’s like,” he said, adding that he also had close ties to Lyons during the 2013 Boulder County flood. “I can really empathize with what they’re going through.” In the early morning hours...
Over 160 people attended the Wednesday, Dec. 19 meeting to learn more about how to oppose oil and gas developers who have set their sights on Heatherwood. Attendees overflowed the parking lot and filled up the sanctuary at Niwot United Methodist Church for two hours of speakers, presentations and a Q & A period. The town hall, organized by the Frack-Free Heatherwood leadership team of Victoria Bard, Lon Goldstein, Amanda Janusz, Gabrielle Katz, Adam Pastula, Leesah and Gavin Patt, and Ryan...
Grocery and convenience stores are on their marks for New Year’s Day when an 85-year-old remnant of Colorado’s prohibition laws is put to rest, sanctioning them to carry full-strength beer. As a result, mom and pop liquor stores, whose beer sales are estimated at more than 30 percent of their present sales, will be feeling the punch. While there will still be “lite” versions of beer to appease those watching their waistlines, anything with the moniker of a 3.2 beer now on shelves is headed...
No one has ever seen the Burrell family of Niwot in a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer, but that didn’t stop them from delivering a huge gift to the community. Last week, the Burrell Family Foundation donated $10,000 to the Niwot Cultural Arts Association (NCAA), earmarked for purchase of “Waco Curves II” by Rollin Karg, one of the nine pieces currently installed in Niwot’s new sculpture park at Community Corner. The NCAA, which has also contributed donated art known as “Spirit of the River Doe...
To the Editor: It has become painfully apparent that the Boulder County Land Use Staff is biased. This bias has compromised the safety of our 2nd Avenue sidewalks for 25 years. Unfortunately, the Community Meeting on Monday night was not productive, and it soon became clear that the focus was an exercise designed to steal property rights from the commercial property owners subject to the moratorium. The Land Use Staff orchestrated the night to address only the predetermined topics that Land Use has identified as necessary to limit the rights...
I knew it. We’ve been hoodwinked, flimflammed and just plain ripped off. Really. After years of aerobics, anaerobics, Pilates and fitness centers foisted on us, which created a gazillion dollar industry based on guilt, bogus studies and ibuprofen, we’ve finally been told that exercise alone won’t help you lose weight. Well, duh. Thank you Time Magazine, you’ve confirmed what I’ve always known – “exercise alone” will not cause you to look like Princess Kate, even 10 minutes after she gave birth. What does exercise really do? It makes you reall...
We wanted to let Paul's [Dorn] family and friends know how sorry we were to hear about his passing. He will be missed at the Pebble. Over the years we had many great conversations about gemstones, natural stones and jewelry. We admired how he faced adversity and illness with a positive attitude and resilience over the years. Goodbye Paul, you will be missed. Kate Head, Pebble Art Jewelry, Niwot...
Every year the Niwot Nifties sing carols for the residents of the Peaks Care Center in Longmont. This year was no exception. On Saturday, Dec. 15, fully equipped with Santa hats, bells and song sheets, they arrived in full voice. Club members walked all the corridors singing to the more bedridden residents before arriving at the cafeteria and performing to a very receptive audience. A few new carols were debuted including I Wanna Hippopotamus for Christmas and The 12 Days of Christmas. A good...
For the 17th year, Dawson fifth and sixth-graders volunteered with Share-A-Gift this holiday season. Share-A-Gift has been helping children of low-income families in the Boulder County area with holiday gifts since 1972. Dawson students collected donations at the school for three weeks, and then both grades piled into buses and delivered them to Share-A-Gift. The fifth-sixth students, along with a few eighth-grade peer leaders, then spent the morning helping sort hundreds of toys donated by the...
At 17, Josie Whitley is clearly focused on her goals, figuratively and literally. The Niwot High senior is already an accomplished photographer, and has her sights set on one day working for the most well-known publication in our country’s history. “Working for National Geographic,” said Whitley, “that’s my dream in life. It’s a big dream.” Whitley, who grew up in Niwot and Gunbarrel, is displaying her work on the walls at Winot Coffee Company through the end of December, and it doesn’t take...
Some enterprising St. Vrain Valley business owners and entrepreneurs are trying to make a regular habit of meeting up to support each other while helping St. Vrain Valley women in need. The women, who all live within the St. Vrain Valley School District boundaries, gathered together for a pop-up shopping event at Cave Girl Coffee in the Prospect neighborhood of Longmont on Dec. 13. Selling goods and services ranging from hand-crafted natural hand creams to autism-spectrum tutoring, the...
Boulder County is now accepting applications for two openings on the Niwot Local Improvement District (LID) Advisory Committee, a nine-member independent board that “prioritizes expenditures of the LID sales tax revenue,” and makes recommendations to the county commissioners. The Niwot LID was formed in 1992 and authorized to collect a half-percent sales tax to pay for street, drainage and other improvements in Old Town. In 2007 following a successful Niwot effort to change state law, vot...
December is here, nights are getting longer and the first official day of winter, Dec. 21, is right around the corner. The familiar sights and scents of evergreen plants are in the air, especially at the entryways and insides of our homes. Evergreen wreaths hanging on doors, Christmas trees strapped to the roofs of cars. This time of year is a great opportunity for many of us to connect with nature, whether it is appreciating the scent from a wreath of cut branches, pruning some branches off...
Old age ain’t for sissies and until you’ve experienced it to one degree or another, it’s hard to comprehend the shifts growing old can bring. Our elderly furry family members are far more stoic than we are and, while in our hearts they feel like they’re our children, sadly they speed by us when it comes to the advancement of age-related changes. How old is old? Cats are generally considered senior citizens around age ten. While the typical lifespan of felines is upwards of 12 years, Dr. Nancy B...
First, multi-colored flags began popping up around Niwot, next the appearance of cryptic symbols sprayed on sidewalks. Then came the influx of orange-vested workers and similarly colored hazard cones, huge tarps spread across pedestrian walkways, and the arrival of lots of trucks. It was clear that a big project was underway. At least two dozen large sections of cracked and heaving sidewalk have been removed and replaced, along with curbs refurbished to meet the federal Americans with...
A group of local quilters has just finished stitching a batch of 48 quilts that they made to send a little comfort to the victims devastated by the Paradise, CA, fires. The quilters come from Boulder County, Denver and Fort Collins, meeting once a month in Gunbarrel at eQuilter’s classroom, to create comfort quilts which are sent all over the world to areas that have suffered natural disasters. The owners of eQuilter, their customers and their friends donate their time, effort and materials for...
Contributing to Niwot’s festive holiday decorations around town was on the minds of Niwot Community Association board members at their Dec. 5 meeting. The NCA put up holiday decorations this year at the Niwot Road entrance into town and board members agreed that they would like to add to that display. An informal subcommittee group, headed by Pat Murphy and Julie Breyer, are planning to hit the post-holiday sales to snap up decorations. In addition, board members expressed interest in working i...
Making a living off the land in Boulder County requires rolling with the craziness that Mother Nature doles out and to a great degree, being constrained by what county codes will allow. Boulder County agricultural land use codes haven’t undergone significant updates since 2012, and for some time now Boulder County farmers have been requesting a loosening of regulations that limit their potential to be more profitable. Started in late 2017, the Agricultural Outreach Project was comprised of staff...
Editorial@lhvc.com On Dec. 17, the Boulder County Land Use department held a community workshop at the Left Hand Grange to gather feedback and public comment concerning the Land Use Code in the Niwot Rural Community District (NRCD). About 80 Niwot residents, business owners and other stakeholders turned out for the discussion of potential amendments to the code, which earlier this year impelled a temporary moratorium on new development in certain parts of the district. “The rural community distr...
Employees of Treppeda’s Ristorante in Niwot were messaged at 1:58 a.m. Monday Dec. 17 that the restaurant was shutting down operations immediately. Owned by Howard Treppeda for 22 years, the business located at 300 2nd Avenue has its blinds drawn and a sign on the front door that reads, “Closed for tenant improvement.” The message sent to employee read, “Hello Team, It is with great sadness that Treppeda’s closes their doors today. We are not able to renew our lease due to the unwilling...
The Niwot United Methodist Church Choir’s (NUMCC) performance at New York City’s Carnegie Hall on Nov. 18 was a memorable experience for the small but accomplished group of local singers. NUMCC, under the direction of Liz Olson, had been rehearsing for a few months prior to their performance of Pepper Choplin’s Christmas Presence cantata as part of a 275-member choir. Choplin, who also conducted and directed the choir’s performance, drew rave reviews from the members of NUMCC. “Pepper Choplin ha...
If your new ‘smart’ technology makes you feel anything but, then it might be time to call Neighborhood Tech Services. Launched earlier this fall by longtime Niwot resident Jim Dorvee, NTS provides a wide range of IT and computer support services for the home market, from audio/visual integration, to online and home security, to laptop tune-ups and repair. “There’s smart doorbells, smart locks, smart thermostats, and all of those things often need to work together,” Dorvee said. “It’s no...
Thursday, December 13, 2018 – Friday, December 21, 2018. A pop-up community planning outreach booth is placed at the Niwot Emporium lobby as part of the Boulder County Land Use Code update to the Niwot Rural Community District (NRCD), which includes property along 2nd Avenue from west of Murray Street to Niwot Road. The primary focus of the outreach booth is to gather community feedback and public comment to inform the revisions to the land use regulations for the NRCD, enabling members of the public to provide input at their convenience. T...
This year’s Nutcracker performance by the Centennial State Ballet will be giving a special present to the audience. In addition to the usual professional production quality that the company delivers annually at Niwot High School, there will be an all-new orchestra playing some of Tchaikovsky’s most memorable compositions. The Centennial State Ballet (CSB) chamber orchestra is composed of musicians hand-picked by the CSB’s conductor, Rick Thomas. According to Heidi Lawrence, CSB’s marketi...
Beginning in January 2019, Twin Peaks Charter Academy (TPCA) in Longmont will be the first school in St. Vrain Valley School District (SVVSD) to offer full-day kindergarten free of charge. Prior to this opportunity, TPCA offered either free morning or afternoon kindergarten classes. Families wanting their children in a full-day program were charged nearly $2,700 per school year, because Colorado does not provide funding beyond a half-day of instruction. According to TPCA’s director, Joseph M...
Boulder County will host a community workshop on Monday, December 17, 2018 from 6 – 8:30 p.m. at the Left Hand Grange No.9. Boulder County is seeking public input to shape the Boulder County Land Use Code related to the Niwot Rural Community District (NRCD), which includes property along 2nd Avenue from west of Murray St to Niwot Rd. The primary focus of the meeting is to gather community feedback and public comment to inform the revisions to the land use regulations for the NRCD. Areas of focus will include density, circulation and mix of u...
Just over 20 years from now, already congested traffic conditions are expected to increase by 25 percent along Highway 119 (the Diagonal.) According to RTD’s website statistics, 45,000 cars, buses, trucks, and bikes use sections of Highway 119 on a daily basis. By the year 2040, some 56,000 vehicles will be a realistic number. Acknowledging the current aggravation of traveling along the corridor and wanting to prevent worsening conditions, the Boulder County Transportation Department and the R...
Steve Gaibler, owner of the bustling Niwot breakfast and lunch spot, Garden Gate Cafe, converted his Italian restaurant in Longmont into a second Garden Gate Cafe location. Talk about a quick change over -- Gaibler closed Ragazzi Italian Grill the day before Thanksgiving, Nov. 21, and on Nov. 27, he presented patrons with a duplicate of his tried and true concept. Surreptitiously, while the establishment was still serving pasta and red wine, Gaibler began to make a few aesthetic changes. He put up reclaimed wood on the lower three feet of the...
The winning word was ‘diminutive’, but the accomplishment was just the opposite for Niwot Elementary fifth-grader Andrew Hudgins. The second-time finalist outlasted 12 other talented spellers to claim victory in the school’s annual bee, which was held at the school on Dec. 5. “I read through the list every night and memorized most of the words,” Hudgins said of his victory strategy. “I also practiced with my mom every day. She would read me words and I would spell them.” That daily commitm...
There is a snowman and Christmas tree, Which are in plain sight, for all to see. It couldn’t be quicker, So please take a picture, To give all in town some glee....
Twelve years ago, Niwot resident Jilly Gossett came across a basic sauce recipe. She began to tinker and tweaked the recipe to make it her own. One day, her husband said, “This sauce is outrageous! You have to start giving this as gifts.” She did, and the list got longer and longer each year. One year, as she was giving a jar to the pastor at her church, he grabbed it excitedly and exclaimed,”Oh, good! Jilly’s little jar of crack!” While she thought it was a little ridiculous that her pastor wa...
The tradition of giving books as gifts is practically as old as the printed word itself and, in fact, books were among the first items mass-produced and marketed specifically as Christmas gifts, back in the 1820s. Nearly 200 years later, books remain a popular choice for both givers and receivers, and not just for the holidays. A book can be a token of intimacy, of friendship, or even of just shared interest. A book can sometimes say what we can’t, and giving one at just the right time can m...
Last year at this time, Dale Peterson’s bold vision for building and equipping a new classroom and then shipping it overseas seemed like an impossibly complex undertaking. But thanks to a willingly conscripted army of both local and districtwide students, a brightly painted two-story structure wired for electricity and solar power will be trucked out of Niwot on Dec. 8, bound for its new home at the Mwebaza School in Kyengera,Uganda. “I’m feeling overjoyed that we could have so many kids invol...
Mwebaza Foundation founder and president Dale Peterson was in good spirits after the closing ceremony for ‘Cougars/CDC Creating Classrooms,’ held at Niwot High on Nov. 29. “I’m feeling overjoyed that we could have so many kids involved,” he said about the months-long project to convert two shipping containers into a functioning classroom that will be used at the Mwebaza Infant Primary School in Kyengera, Uganda. “I am also feeling relief that I will get more time with my family, but mainly just...
Thanks to the social networking app Nextdoor, when there’s an escapee cat or a dog running the streets, within a nanosecond the neighborhood is alerted and folks spring into action. The internet has loads of heartwarming tales about forlorn pets who’ve made it back to the arms of their loving families owing to a shout-out on Nextdoor. In the blended country-residential areas of Niwot, Gunbarrel and Longmont, it’s not surprising that animals of the farmyard persuasion also often warrant our c...
