A state effort to ease Colorado’s dire shortage of health care workers will offer tuition-free training for several thousand students, providing a much-needed boost to hospitals and clinics. The Care Forward Colorado Program will invest $26 million of federal COVID stimulus funding into the program for two years, guaranteeing free schooling for students interested in […]
Trinidad
Posted inBusiness, Energy, Environment, News
Looking for a fast EV charge in small town Colorado? Do you want fries with that?
The Hatch chile burger comes fast at George’s Drive-Inn in Walsenburg. The flavors are 4½-star worthy, but no one’s lingering for a cheese course and a digestif. So when Curtis Claar came to install an electric vehicle charger to bridge a range-anxiety gap between Pueblo and the New Mexico border, he brought the good stuff. […]
Posted inBusiness, Energy, Environment, News, Newsletters, Outsider
A rare new coal mine in southern Colorado adds to Trinidad’s economic revival
The first new coal mine in Colorado in almost a decade fired up operations this month, marking a rare upturn in the steadily declining coal industry. There were about 1,700 coal mines in Colorado a century ago. Today there are seven, and all but one is preparing for a world without coal-powered electrical plants. Southern […]
Posted inEconomy, Environment, News
Four Colorado cities win $2 million in EPA grants to redevelop old sites, from a movie theater to a beet factory
The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday handed $2 million in Brownfields assessment and cleanup grants to four far-flung Colorado communities, helping to pay for development of everything from an old sugar beet factory in Loveland to an aging movie theater in Trinidad. Brownfields has been doling out billions of dollars for such evaluations and cleanups […]
Posted inMarijuana
New Mexico marijuana legalization poses a serious threat to Colorado’s lucrative border-town pot shops
TRINIDAD —When Colorado legalized the retail sale of marijuana in 2012, savvy entrepreneurs saw an opportunity beyond setting up shop in population centers like Denver and Boulder. They realized if they opened cannabis businesses in small towns along the state’s borders, they could attract customers from Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Texas, Utah and Wyoming, where […]
Posted inBook Excerpts, SunLit
Exclusive excerpt from “Going to Trinidad”: A patient arrives at a gender-confirmation crossroads
Martin J. Smith, a veteran journalist and former senior editor of the Los Angeles Times Magazine, is the author of five crime novels and four previous nonfiction books. He has won more than 50 newspaper and magazine writing awards, and his novels have been nominated for three of the publishing industry’s most prestigious honors, including […]
Posted inSunLit
SunLit Interview: For Martin J. Smith, “Going to Trinidad” launched a challenging odyssey
Martin J. Smith, a veteran journalist and former senior editor of the Los Angeles Times Magazine, is the author of five crime novels and four previous nonfiction books. He has won more than 50 newspaper and magazine writing awards, and his novels have been nominated for three of the publishing industry’s most prestigious honors, including […]
Posted inColoradans, News
Trinidad’s Temple Aaron seemed destined to die. But the 131-year-old Jewish synagogue’s fate was never sealed.
The Jewish people believe it is decided who will be inscribed in the “book of life” on Rosh Hashanah, the holiday that begins Friday night. The metaphorical document — called sefer hachaim in Hebrew — holds the names of who will survive. “Who shall live and who shall die?” a Jewish poem this time of […]
Posted inColoradans, COVID, Environment, News, Outdoors, Politics and Government
Colorado now owns Fishers Peak, but funds to build the newest state park are in coronavirus limbo
The deal went down on a picnic table in Broomfield on April 1. “The quietest acquisition of a $25 million property no one ever heard of,” GOCO boss Chris Castilian said. With a notary public standing 6 feet away, a flurry of signatures transferred southern Colorado’s 30 square-mile Fishers Peak to the state of Colorado. […]
Posted inColoradans, News
Colorado has a big shortage of volunteers to speak up for foster kids in court
One person in a foster kid’s life isn’t paid to show up. Attorneys are paid. Teachers are paid. Even foster parents are paid. The person volunteering their time to make sure a child’s voice is heard is a Court Appointed Special Advocate, or CASA, and only about one-third of children who were abused or neglected […]