All Local, All The Time
All Local, All The Time
Sorted by date Results 351 - 400 of 459
"Sheriff Joe" has a very different connotation in these parts than in Arizona. Joe Pelle has served as Boulder County Sheriff for over 18 years and is in what appears to be his final term, which expires in 2022. Pelle is a former Niwot resident, and his wife Stephanie Pelle worked in the Niwot Post Office for many years. As a result, many Niwot residents are on a first-name basis with the sheriff, which is comforting considering that the Boulder County Sheriff's Department is the law enforcement...
Water goes down the drain. In Niwot’s early days, homes had a septic system with a leach field to collect wastewater. While these systems worked well, they could lead to contamination of groundwater and drinking water. Boulder County began requiring permits for septic systems and gradually imposed stricter regulations on wastewater systems, such as increased lot size requirements. As Niwot developed from a small unincorporated townsite surrounded by farmland and farm houses, into a community with subdivisions to serve the growing population, t...
Early farmers in the Niwot area relied upon wells and cisterns for a domestic water supply, as did the residents of Old Town Niwot. In 1960, as Colorado's population began to increase, they looked for a better system to supply potable water to the area. Because Niwot was unincorporated, there was no municipal water system, so farmers and residents formed the Left Hand Domestic Water Users Association, an unincorporated association and sought a $1.25 million loan from the FHA to finance the...
Fire protection in Niwot goes back at least 100 years, as evidenced by the Firehouse Museum next to the Left Hand Grange in Niwot. An early cart used to put out fires with a chemical mixture rests outside the museum, a relic from early days of firefighting efforts. Today, fire protection and rescue services are provided by Mountain View Fire and Rescue, a sprawling special district that was originally established in 1961 as the Longmont Rural Fire District to provide professional fire...
Sarah Cioni is synonymous with beautiful flowers, arranged in stunning arrays that create a perfect ambience for weddings and other important life events. After leaving Niwot four years ago for California, where she worked her floral magic with some of Hollywood's well-known stars, Cioni has returned to her roots in Niwot with a new shop, Belle Terre Floral, located in the runway of Cottonwood Square. Cioni left her mark on Niwot with her former business, The Painted Primrose, also in...
It's not easy being a high school coach, and baseball and softball coaches have extra duty to keep their programs running. While many sports run off-season programs, only baseball and softball coaches also must maintain their fields of play, as well as installing and maintaining improvements such as windscreens, bullpens, batting cages and warning tracks. School districts mow the grass, supply some watering and provide baseballs. But baseball coaches often can be found before and after games and...
Softball was not added as a high school sport for girls in the St. Vrain Valley School District until after the 1991-1992 school year. Although the Boulder Valley School District had added a girls softball program at the high school level in the late 1980s, it took an effort by area high school girls and volunteer coaches to convince the St Vrain Valley School District that there was sufficient interest to add softball to the sports available for girls in the district. In the fall of 1991, teams were formed at Niwot, Longmont, Skyline and...
Niwot High School Boosters, Inc., is a non-profit parent organization that supports all activities at Niwot High School, from cross-country to chess club, from marching band to musicals. Although booster clubs were historically organized to support high school athletic teams, Niwot High School Boosters, Inc., has been active in supporting all student extracurricular activities. You will often see parents and students from an unrelated activity selling concessions at a football or basketball...
The Niwot Community Association (NCA) began as a reaction to a regional shopping center proposed by an out-of-town developer in the early 1980s. The concept put forth was that the property kitty-corner from the IBM site on the Diagonal Highway would be developed into a regional shopping center as part of a plan to incorporate the town of Niwot, with a sales tax providing all the revenue the newly incorporated town would ever need. At the time the City of Boulder had not yet annexed the IBM site or the would-be shopping center property and Twin...
Niwot is an affluent community, and it's also a generous community. And if you're looking to make a bigger impact with a few dollars, Left Hand Giving Circle may be right for you. In 2016, Niwot resident Virginia Dutkin was working at the Longmont Community Foundation (LCF) while finishing up her coursework to get her master's degree in Nonprofit Management at CU Denver. She was first introduced to the idea of 'giving circles' from her work at LCF. Giving circles are philanthropic groups where m...
"I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy.....Born on the 4th of July" The line from "Yankee Doodle Dandy" fits the Niwot Community Semi-Marching Free Grange Band, which first performed on July 4, 2005, as part of the bandstand dedication ceremony in Whistle Stop Park. "The Niwot Business Association built a bandstand in the park reminiscent of the bandstand that stood for many years on the corner of 2nd Avenue and Murray Street," Biff Warren, one of the founding band members said. "We had everything ready...
Eli Buzas brought the idea of forming an education foundation to Niwot High School from Florida when he moved to Colorado in 1991. Buzas, who died earlier this year of COVID-19 complications, envisioned a foundation that did more than provide scholarships to students. Other school foundations in the school district raised money for scholarships, but Buzas had in mind a foundation that could fund current projects as well as develop a long-range funding program. Through his leadership while workin...
Niwot High catcher Josh Strid was set to take on varsity catching duties for the Cougars in 2020, but the season was cancelled before it even started. Strid is one of nine seniors on the Cougar baseball squad this year, and Head Coach Adam Strah is looking for him to provide leadership on and off the field. "He's a hard worker, a mature kid, who knows the game well," Strah said. "Josh is what you want out of a senior catcher." Strah said Strid is able to call pitches on the field, rather than re...
The Niwot Business Association, known informally as the NBA, is the organization that gets most things done in Niwot's business district. While the Niwot Community Association (NCA) addresses matters of community-wide interest, the NBA has taken the lead on business-related matters. The two organizations often work together on projects of mutual interest, such as the Veteran's Banner Project last fall. But the NBA, whose 150-plus dues-paying members often live in NIwot as well as work there, is...
Jason Champion has spent many nights at Niwot's Rock & Rails summer concert series, volunteering as a Gargoyle for several years, one of the many youths who sit on top of the bins and supervise the compost and recycle deposits at the popular event. Now a sophomore at Niwot High School, Champion was looking for an Eagle Scout project in the Niwot community, and Whistle Stop Park was a natural fit. Jason and his father, Jay Champion, contacted the Niwot Cultural Arts Association (NCAA), owner of t...
Women's International Niwot Club, or WINC, as it has come to be known, has been active in the Niwot community for 11 years, though it was officially incorporated in 2015 by founder and current president Deborah Read Fowler. Fowler, a local realtor originally from England, first brought a chapter of the Daughters of the British Empire to town, but after several years of seeing most of the money raised by the non-profit group go to out-of-state causes, Fowler decided to form a more locally-focused...
Left Hand Grange No. 9 is the oldest institution in Niwot, and the oldest active Grange in Colorado, organized Dec. 20, 1873 and chartered in 1874, before Colorado was even a state..Since then the Grange has evolved from an agrarian organization serving a largely agriculture-based community, to a town center which continues to support the semi-rural character of the community and the values that have sustained the organization for over a century. The Grange building at the southwest corner of Se...
The Rotary Club of Niwot is currently the only nationally chartered service club meeting in Niwot. While the Niwot area has in the past had Optimists,Lions, Jaycees and Kiwanis clubs, the local rotary club now serves the community in a variety of ways, with a focus on education. “We just celebrated our 12th anniversary,” Doug Montgomery said of the organization which was formed in 2008. “It’s alive, it’s active, it’s growing.” Montgomery served as president of the Niwot club until July of 2020, and will become president of the affiliated ch...
Pat Murphy and Niwot Real Estate couldn't go another year without an Easter celebration. But rather than host an Easter egg hunt, as she has done for decades prior to the pandemic, Murphy sponsored a pancake breakfast at her office building at the intersection of Niwot Road and 79th Street April 3, complete with balloons, eggs and goodie bags for children. The turnout for the free community event was steady all morning, with families enjoying the music of Eddie Spaghetti as well as the trio...
Pat Murphy is known for many things in Niwot, including organizing the annual Easter egg hunt and the Great Pumpkin Party, both of which have been curtailed or modified by the pandemic. But one activity the long-time Niwot resident and realtor has maintained through thick and thin – providing cookies and other goodies in care packages to U.S. troops far from home, through the efforts of the Niwot Patriotic Cookie Moms, or the "cookie momsters" as they have recently come to be known. Murphy s...
The Niwot Cultural Arts Association, often referred to as the NCAA, has nothing to do with March Madness, or intercollegiate sports. In Niwot, the NCAA has everything to do with charitable activities involving arts and culture. The NCAA was formed in January 2009 by Tim Wise, Mike Anfinson and Biff Warren at the urging of the Niwot Business Association. The NBA, through Wise's efforts as head of the Historic Projects Committee, had worked with Bank of the West to establish Whistle Stop Park on...
BASEBALL Ford Ladd (Niwot) finished his collegiate career as a pitcher at New York University and has joined the coaching staff at Georgia Gwinnett College as Coordinator of Research & Development. In his final game at NYU, Ladd played first base and went 1-4 at the plate, scoring a run and driving in two runs in an 11-0 victory over John Jay College March 9, 2020. A day earlier, he went 1-3 as a DH in both games of a doubleheader sweep of Stockton University with a run and an RBI in the second...
The Niwot Future League, or NFL as it is commonly referred to, is another one of Niwot’s accidentally sports-themed acronym groups. With the Niwot Business Association (NBA) and the Niwot Cultural Arts Association (NCAA) widely known in Niwot, the NFL is probably the least-known group in Niwot. That’s because it is actually just a committee of the NBA, formed at the request of the Niwot Local Improvement District (LID) several years ago when the LID agreed to fund the NBA’s request for a part-time contractor to serve as Niwot’s Economi...
The plat of Niwot was filed in the Boulder County records on March 30, 1875 by Porter Hinman and Ambrose Murray, laying out streets, alleys and lots on both sides of the railroad tracks, but Niwot was never officially incorporated as a town under state law. As a result, Niwot does not have a mayor or city council, and is governed by the Boulder County Commissioners. All of the buildings west of the railroad tracks are long gone, moved or demolished when the Diagonal Highway was built beginning...
Thirty years ago Niwot's 2nd Avenue was a mess whenever it rained or snowed. No curb and gutter, no streetlights, and nowhere for moisture to drain. As an unincorporated community, the downtown business district had no tax revenue or funding mechanism for basic infrastructure projects. In the early 1990s a small group of local commercial property owners approached Boulder County officials seeking a solution. Anne Dyni, who with her husband Jack owned the former blacksmith building (now occupied...
It has been six months since the death of Arapaho artist Eddie Running Wolf due to the coronavirus, but his memory and his art live on in Niwot. A Saturday gathering, masked and socially distant, paid tribute to the work of Wolf and continuing efforts to preserve his iconic tree sculptures on Niwot Road with a blessing ceremony led by Thornton resident Walt Pourier of the Oglala Lakota Nation, and attended by the artist's wife Melissa, his sons Calvin and Dustin and his mother. "So I called...
Now that Niwot Children's Park has reopened, albeit on a limited basis - no more than 25 people in the park at one time, no more than 10 people in any one group - Niwot resident Elizabeth Wright has organized a Clean-Up Day at the park, scheduled for the last Monday of every month at 8:00 a.m. The first Clean-Up Day will be held on Monday, July 27, at 8 a.m. The early time slot is set to avoid times of heavy usage by children. In keeping with the gathering restrictions, Wright is asking...
GOLF Kelsey Webster (Fairview) of Gunbarrel was named to the Women's Golf Coaches Association All-American Scholar for the 2019-2020 season. Webster, a sophomore psychology major at the University of Colorado, posted a 77.58 stroke norm for 12 rounds. To be eligible for WGCA Golf All-American Scholar status, a golfer must have a cumulative grade point average of at least 3.50 (on a 4.0 scale) and must have played in 50 percent of the college's regularly scheduled competitive rounds during the...
When COVID-19 cancelled the 100-mile run she had been training for, Kalyca Zarich decided to plan her own run, and benefit health care workers at the same time. Zarich, a furloughed manager and fitness coach at Orange Theory Fitness, and her boyfriend and one-man support crew, Logan Craven, live in south Longmont and often run and bike the trails in and around Niwot. Zarich set out to run 100 miles in one day. She started her run at Niwot High School at 8 a.m. on May 8, setting out on the Niwot...
Patrick Perry, a 2001 graduate of Niwot High School, was an important part of the 2000 NHS 4A state baseball championship team, and one of three players from that team selected in major league baseball's amateur draft. Baseball has pretty much been Perry's life ever since, and has carried him to a position as an area scout for Nevada and northern California for the Texas Rangers, evaluating players for the same draft. "I cover Reno to the Bay Area to Fresno," Perry said. Perry went to Otero JC...
VOLLEYBALL Mackenzie Fidelak (Niwot) was part of Stanford's NCAA national championship team, which defeated Wisconsin Dec. 24 in the NCAA finals. Fidelak, a sophomore opposite hitter, played in six contests during the season, but did not see action in the NCAA tournament. Her most extensive action came against Arizona State in a 3-0 victory Oct. 13, where she played all three sets, recording 11 kills and only three errors. She had an attack percentage of .348 against Arizona State, and also...
After a one-year hiatus, the Niwot High School Homecoming parade returns to downtown Niwot on Thursday, Sept. 12. The parade, featuring floats, marching bands and high school royalty, will begin at 4 p.m. at the intersection of Murray Street and 2nd Avenue and proceed down 2nd Avenue to Cottonwood Square. Those streets will be closed for one hour. The Homecoming football game will be played Friday night, Sept. 13, at Everly-Montgomery Field in Longmont, but the parade is scheduled for the day...
This column is designed to highlight good and bad government in the Niwot-Gunbarrel area. Readers are encouraged to email the Courier with descriptions of local events showing exemplary performance by our government officials in serving the people, as well as those actions that fall well short of that standard. This week’s column features assistance provided to the Niwot Community by the youngest members of the Boulder County Sheriff’s staff. Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle’s staff is often...
BASEBALL David Bote, son of long-time Niwot baseball coach Bob Bote, has solidified his position with the Chicago Cubs this season. As a rookie with the Cubs in 2018, Bote was called up from AAA Iowa and sent back five time during the season. In the midst of the call-ups and demotions, Bote had his share of dramatic moments, culminating in a nationally-televised Sunday night ninth-inning, two-out, two-strike, pinch-hit grand slam home run to dead centerfield, allowing the Cubs to snatch a 4-3...
RUNNING Maddy Jalbert (Niwot) ran the San Francisco 50mi/50K Endurance race May 18. Jalbert, who now resides in Los Angeles, elected to run the longer 50-mile course. She was the first woman in and the fourth person overall out of 47 runners. The race has 9,890 feet of elevation gain and Jalbert finished in 9 hours and 36 minutes, battling rain as well as the elevation. TRIATHLON Colin Laughery (Niwot) finished 11th in the last Boulder Ironman on June 9, posting a time of 8:53:52 as a...
The Boulder County Commissioners (BOCC), whose job includes the governance of Niwot, abdicated that role to a Land Use Department whose “arrogance of power” as Niwot resident and community volunteer Laura Skaggs put it, is out of control. The April 23 hearing on changes to the Niwot Rural Community District (NRCD) regulations once again demonstrated a blatant disregard of previous direction from the BOCC to Land Use and Transportation departments, most especially with regard to opening the alley behind 2nd Avenue to immediate use by commercial...
Chuck Klueber (left), chair of the Sculpture Park Committee for Community Corner, presented a plaque and a check for $250 to artist Glenn Murgacz, winner of the People’s Choice Award for his sculpture, “Ocean’s Embrace.” Several members of the committee, including Anne Postle, Laura Skaggs, Scott Deemer and Catherine McHale, were present at Osmosis Art and Architecture for the First Friday Art Walk presentation by the Niwot Cultural Arts Association. “We got 70 votes by members of the public,...
For players’ weekend, major league baseball allows players to put a nickname on the back of their jerseys. For David Bote, a Chicago Cubs infielder who spent his formative years on the baseball fields of Niwot , the choice was easy - “Boat.” For the few baseball fans who weren’t watching when Bote hit a 2-out, 2-strike, bottom of the ninth, grand slam, walk-off homerun to beat the Washington Nationals, 4-3, on national TV last August 12, the correct pronunciation of his last name is “Bo’-tee” wi...
VOLLEYBALL Sarah Falk (Niwot) played 10 matches for Sacramento State this fall, seeing action in 14 sets. Falk, a redshirt freshman, playing middle blocker. Falk finished with seven kills on the season in 10 attacks, with only two errors. Mackenzie Fidelak (Niwot) was part of Stanford’s NCAA Championship team. The freshman outside hitter saw action in three early season games for the Cardinal, but was able to preserve a redshirt season. Fidelak, who wore jersey number 7, earned substantial s...
Niwot’s Economic Development Director Catherine McHale welcomed a crowd of over 30 people to the dedication of nine pieces of public art installed at Community Corner, at the intersection of Niwot Road and 79th Street. “We wanted it to be accessible to people, something they can experience,” McHale said. “We tried to choose pieces that fit with the community. All pieces are available for sale, but should be here between six and nine months.” The Sculpture Park Committee, consisting of McHale, A...
VOLLEYBALL Sarah Falk (Niwot) has played eight matches for Sacramento State this fall. Falk, a redshirt freshman, is a middle blocker. After seeing action in only three of the first 18 games, she has played in five of the last eight games. Falk has five kills on the season in 10 attacks, with only one error. Mackenzie Fidelak (Niwot) played her first collegiate match for Stanford University in a 3-0 victory over West Virginia Sept. 1. Fidelak, who is listed as an outside hitter/opposite on the r...
Skye Messinger, University of Kansas infielder, has a couple of weeks off before heading back to school August 18th, but he’s not wasting an opportunity to work on his game. Messinger and his older brother, Connor Messinger, go down to the Niwot High School baseball field weekday mornings at 6 a.m. to get some work in before Connor heads off to his day job working for his father, Cary Messinger, at Flying Colors Painting in Niwot. “We work on ground balls and various defenses,” Skye said. “Then...
FOOTBALL Mitch Webster (Silver Creek) will be a junior linebacker for Augustana University this fall. Webster saw action in four games last season. Paul “Tiny” Koehler, former long-time football coach at Niwot High, has officially retired from coaching at Fort Lewis College. Koehler, who coached running backs at Fort Lewis for the past several seasons, returned to assist with spring camp after the 2017 season. He was back in Niwot last week for the NHS Class of 1988 reunion, and noted that he...
BASEBALL David Bote, son of former NHS Baseball Coach Bob Bote, earned his third promotion to the Chicago Cubs’ major league squad June 26 when Kris Bryant went on the disabled list. Bote has been back and forth between Iowa (AAA) and the Cubs this season after making his major league debut with the Cubs during an April trip to Colorado. At Iowa, Bote was hitting .268 with 12 homers and 38 RBI, both high marks on the team. He has played second base, third base, shortstop and outfield in the m...
Colterra restaurant in downtown Niwot has submitted a request for Site Plan Review Waiver to the Boulder County Land Use Department as the first step in its effort to rebuild the fire-damaged restaurant, which closed in October 2017. Bradford Heap, owner of Table 210 LLC, which owns the property at 210 Franklin Street, is working with his insurance company’s architect, James D. Powers of PowerSquare Design & Architecture, LTD, on the project. Boulder County Land Use Department emailed the referral packet to adjacent property owners and other i...
Baseball and softball games at Hangge Fields at Monarch Park were part of the Opening Day festivities for Niwot Youth Sports on Saturday May 5. The program, which has roots back to the Left Hand Men’s Club in 1969, provides baseball and softball programs for children in the Niwot-Gunbarrel area. According to Executive Director Pat Longseth, over 300 boys and girls are signed up for the baseball program, and approximately 120 girls are playing softball. . Longseth is himself a former player in th...
David Bote drove the second pitch he saw to the wall in right-center for the Chicago Cubs Saturday night at Coors Field, marking his major league debut with a double. Bote is the son of long-time Niwot High School baseball coach Bob Bote, and the younger Bote pointed with both arms to his parents and the 32 family members and friends seated on the third-base side of Coors Field. The moment was not lost on the Colorado Rockies’ television crew, who interviewed Bob and Therese Bote during a b...
With a young team, you never know when things might start coming together. After winning two out of three in Arizona to get in the win column, albeit against some weaker competition, the Niwot Cougars returned home and picked up a victory in the first of two games against Centaurus, Niwot’s first Northern League Conference win of the season. Each team scored a run in the first inning of the April 5 game at Niwot, but the Warriors added three runs in the third inning to take a 4-1 lead. Niwot picked up a run in the fifth inning, but it took a f...
TRACK & FIELD Valarie Allman (Silver Creek) is back for her senior year at Stanford after redshirting last season. Allman was far from idle, earning a silver medal at the World University Games in Taiwan, and setting the 12th-best discus mark in U.S. history. She opened the 2018 Track & Field season with a discus throw of 199.0 feet at the Stanford Invitational March 31, easily outdistancing the competition. In fact, all three of Allman’s throws would have won the meet, topping 184’5” each...
After an 0-5 start to the season, the Niwot Cougars were looking to get well in the Arizona sunshine, and it turned out to be just what the doctor ordered. Niwot faced Toledo, OR in the first game, and scored in every inning of a 22-1 mercy-rule victory. Senior Caleb Martinez, the ace of the Cougar pitching staff, allowed only one run in five innings, giving up only four hits and two walks while striking out 13. “It was what we needed,” Coach Adam Strah said. “We are so young.” The game also marked the return to the lineup of three-y...
