All Local, All The Time
All Local, All The Time
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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...
A few updates on transportation news in Boulder County: Voters approved the extension of the Boulder County transportation sales tax in the November 2022 election. The tax was previously scheduled to expire in 2024. Therefore, many transportation programs will continue to be funded as they have in the past. There is a long list of proposed projects to receive sales tax funding. The list of projects is available from the Boulder County website. Two projects are notable for Niwot: Niwot Road Shoul...
The annual Boulder County Parks and Open Space public meeting on prairie dog management will be held on Tuesday, Jan. 17, from 5:30 to 8 p.m. at the Ron Stewart Parks & Open Space Building, 5201 St. Vrain Road, Longmont. Staff will be available to discuss the variety of activities conducted in 2022 and how the department manages prairie dogs on open space properties, including agricultural lands. Public comment is invited. No changes are proposed to the Prairie Dog Habitat Element of the Grassland and Shrubland Management Policy. Some probable...
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...
Four Sunset Middle School students and nine Niwot High School students have been selected to perform in the Spring 2023 Colorado All State choirs. Charlotte Stauch, Bryce Grayless, Athil Henderson and Camryn Bell, eighth grade students at Sunset Middle School, will participate in the Colorado Middle School All State Choir, a two-day event held at the Denver Convention Center on Mar. 9 and 10. Stauch and Grayless are in the Triplo Choir, which is made up of soprano and alto voices. Henderson and...
The Niwot Community Association (NCA) held its monthly board meeting Dec. 7 at the Mountain View Fire Rescue Niwot Station conference room, and listened to a presentation about a proposed housing development at the northeast corner of SH 119 (the Diagonal) and SH 52 (Mineral Road). The proposal, which is in a very preliminary stage, would include 100 units of affordable housing and 150 units of workforce housing. Workforce housing is designated for those earning 80% to 120% of the Area Median Income (AMI), while affordable housing is designated...
Monte Comer was a kid with a lot of friends. He was a fixture on his baseball team in the Gunbarrel Lefthand Valley Recreation Association, or GLVRA as it was known (now Niwot Youth Sports). He had buddies on his basketball team, his Boy Scout troop, his class at Niwot Elementary School and everywhere else. “Back then I don’t think they had the Pee Wee Football they have now,” said Monte’s sister, Jamie Comer Smith. “I believe he would have played football.” That was the mid-1970’s,...
Several Niwot High School girls swimmers were at their best on Dec. 8 in a dual meet against Erie High School. Head coach Ella Thramann said that many of her Cougar swimmers broke their personal-best times, all leading to an impressive 199-93 win at the Aquatic Center of St. Vrain Valley schools. Lauren Brooks set her best time in the 100 freestyle (1 minute, 41.15 seconds), senior Rowan Lavigne qualified for state in the 50 free (26.36) and Shefali Joshi’s 2:16.82 in the 200 free was close to the state-qualifying time — Thramann believes she...
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...
Arts Student of the Week Mya Wells has fond memories of the music that surrounded her during her childhood in California. "My mom was born in Mexico. In the morning she'd sing mariachi songs while she made me breakfast, forcing me to dance with her," Wells recalled. Those early experiences inspired her to become a musician. "It just came very naturally to me," she said. Later, when Wells attended Westview Middle School, she took up violin. "Everyone had to choose an instrument. So I said, 'I...
Members of local faith congregations gathered Nov. 30 at Gunbarrel's Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church on Lookout Road for a Community Thanksgiving Eve service. The service, an annual tradition in the Gunbarrel community for many years that was interrupted by Covid, allowed in-person attendance as well as remote attendance on video. The faith leaders of five congregations participated in the service, including Pastor Janet Kettering (Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church, ELCA), Rev. Sasha...
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...
Shefali Joshi has an earnest curiosity about the world which lights up her face when she talks about her studies and her plans for the future. This curiosity led the Niwot High School sophomore to take an introductory course in Python programming, switch her foreign language requirement from Spanish to French, and take classes in industrial design at The Innovation Center of St. Vrain Valley Schools. It was Joshi's enthusiasm for her studies that led Crystal Hinds, Art Educator at Niwot High Sch...
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...
Since the birth of our nation, voting still remains a privilege. The Constitution itself denied voting rights for women and enslaved people. Jim Crow laws suppressed the vote in Black communities, and language barriers were exploited among immigrants. Constitutional amendments were passed to expand the right to vote, and legislation during the civil rights movement removed some barriers to voting. Even today, ballot drop boxes and polling places are located hundreds of miles away from Native American Reservations, and recent legislation in...
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...
The final chapter of Madison Shults' Niwot High School cross country career has been a good read. In the month of September alone, Shults had top-10 finishes in the RE-1J District Meet, the St. Vrain Invitational and the Desert Twilight XC Festival - which all also resulted in team wins. Shults gave special recognition to head coach Kelly Christensen and a slew of others for helping make her senior season memorable. "I definitely have to credit it to our coaches," Shults said. "Our coaches are...
Niwot softball's power-hitting pitcher Anne Booth reached a difficult milestone during the Cougars' loss to Riverdale Ridge on Sept. 29. In only her junior season, Booth recorded her 100th career hit on a double, and although it's more of an individual accolade, she was sure to mention her fellow teammates, a few of whom have also racked up some large numbers. "It's really cool to finally see with the stats how much work I've been putting in, and the team as well," Booth said. "A lot of our othe...
As is typical this season, Niwot cross country’s depth on the girls’ side delivered another meet win. All eight Cougars girls who traveled down to Mesa, Ariz., for the Desert Twilight XC Festival on Sept. 30 finished within the top 20 to secure the team victory. The strong showing marked the third consecutive first-place finish for the Niwot girls — the St. Vrain Cross Country Invitational and the RE-IJ District Meet being the others. In the 5,000-meter Desert Twilight race that included 21 total teams and 174 girls, not only did the Couga...
Boulder Country Day School will host a high school fair for all Boulder County middle school students on Oct. 12, 2022, from 6:30-8:00 p.m. This is the ninth year that Boulder Country Day has held this event. This year the fair will again be attended by over 60 schools, including local and regional public and private schools, as well as boarding schools from across the nation. "This is a golden opportunity for middle school students to consider all of the options available to them at one single...
Niwot High School student Hannah Rudolph has an energetic optimism that drives her to succeed. She is an artist, a singer, and a cheerleader. She plays guitar and she played flute for three years in middle school. She is also the only student in the history of Niwot High School who has performed in all five choirs: Chamber Singers, Evenstar, Tenor/Bass choir, Treble choir and Sedalia. Laura Walters, the Choral Music Director at NHS, selected Rudolph as Art Student of the Week. "Hannah is a...
Homecoming week took a hit on the Niwot cross country team. According to head coach Kelly Christensen, his Cougars were far from 100% when they lined up for the St. Vrain Cross Country Invitational on Sept. 17. But even without four top runners, the Niwot girls team squeaked out a first-place finish at Lyons High School. An encouraging takeaway for Christensen was that a few underclassmen, on both the girls and boys’ sides, were able to keep a shorthanded Cougars team competitive. Sophomore Bella Nelson led the Niwot girls with a third-place f...
It was a successful Homecoming week for Niwot High School. Football won on its home turf, volleyball swept Silver Creek, boys tennis went 1-1, softball got a win and for cross country, both the girls and boys teams cruised to first place in the RE-1J District Meet. The cross country boys were led by four seniors who finished from third place to sixth in the order of Jeremy Gillett, Frederick Ambrose, Stefan Haug and Carlos Kipkorir. And even though the first and second place individual finishers...
When the 2022-2023 school year kicked off at Niwot High School this year, the faculty, staff and students offered a warm welcome to a new registrar, a new counselor, and eleven new teachers. The faculty have accepted positions in math, social studies, French, drama, and science. Four of the new recruits took time away from their busy fall schedules to talk about their experience and their first impressions of the school. Erin Smith, an instructor in math, was born and raised in Louisville, Color...
The St. Vrain for the Brain 5K, scheduled for 9 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 24 at the Niwot High School track, is an annual fundraising event in which all of the profits benefit the National Brain Tumor Society. This nonprofit organization helps to fund brain cancer research, thereby supporting the development of treatments and the search for a cure. The event is organized by Niwot High School graduate MacKenzie Demmel, whose aunt, Meg Boyer, was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2018. "And during...
Freshmen and sophomores led the Niwot Cougars to the first victory of the girls gymnastics season last week. Coach Marisa Purcell said the meet was a "great start" for her young team that beat a smaller, injury-depleted Ft. Morgan team 170.95 to 104.45. Sophomore Maeve Flentie won all-around with a score of 35.00, sophomore Claire Vardas was second at 34.00 and freshman Kylee Schlepp finished third with 32.90 in the Class 4A meet against Ft. Morgan. Another freshman, Lilly O'Neill, took top hono...
By the middle of the 19th century, Sweden was in the throes of a national population crisis-the small country's population had doubled from 1750 to 1850, and was still growing. Tillable land became more scarce, and famine swept the nation. Emigration regulations were eased, and the 1860s saw a massive movement of Swedes fleeing their homeland; between 1861 and 1881, 150,000 traveled to the United States. The majority of these immigrants quickly made their way to the new states and territories...
One of the first gifts Carly Toothaker could remember receiving as a young child was a soccer ball, and after some time to reflect on her recently-completed high school career, that present can be considered an ember to a life encapsulated by sport. Toothaker's father became her first soccer coach, with her mother doing the same in basketball. The immense early guidance helped her become a multi-year varsity starter in both sports at Niwot High. In soccer, which she considers her primary sport,...
On June 15, the Boulder County Planning Commission considered a request to plat 11 additional lots in the Niwot Hills Subdivision, just south of Niwot High School. Micheal Markel, agent of Ridgeline Development Corporation and Niwot Hills LLC, and Cameron Knapp, of Drexell, Barrel, & Co., presented the application on behalf of the property owner. The 11 lots would be located on the south portion of the property and each would be between 1.0 and 1.5 acres in size. An additional lot of 6.5 acres on the east side of the property was also included...
For the first time in its 50-year history, Niwot High School will be able to host a varsity football game at the school this fall. "We should have it ready by the end of August," Athletic Director Joe Brown said. The grass turf on what has until now been used solely as a practice field by the NHS varsity has been removed, and work has begun on installation of new artificial turf. Last summer, lights were installed at the field, and the artificial turf will allow the school to host football and s...
Tom Wilke Up-a-Creek-Robotics "A robot is a machine that can perform tasks," explains Tom Wilke, taking a sip of his drink outside at lunch in Niwot's Cottonwood Square. "A self-driving Tesla, for example, is a robot." Wilke is a retired mechanical engineer and adjunct professor at CU Boulder, who is also a mountain climber and author and chairman of the board of Boulder Meals on Wheels. But what we're talking about this particular day is a huge victory he shared as a mentor to...
When The St. Vrain Rotary Club of Longmont merged with the Rotary Club of Niwot 18 months ago, in addition to members uniting - their fundraising events also combined. One of those events was the annual duck race in Longmont which was the main fundraiser of the former St. Vrain club. Now the duck race is being organized by The Rotary Club of Niwot and will take place on July 9th at 6 p.m. at Longmont's annual Rhythm on the River festival where thousands of little rubber ducks float down the rive...
It's a service we take for granted today - our local fire department. But until the late 1960s, Niwot's fire protection came from Longmont, which at the time had only one truck assigned to cover rural calls. All of that changed in 1968, however, when the Left Hand Men's Club formed Niwot's volunteer fire department. Only Mike Holubec and Pete Plantiga had any previous experience, so they were chosen to conduct a training program. "We had training sessions at the Left Hand Water office," Holubec...
The area around in and around Niwot, known as the Left Hand Valley, has deep agricultural roots dating back to the late 1800s in the early settlement days of Colorado Pioneer families such as the Caywoods, Williamses and the Goulds turned the prairie land into productive soils, producing wheat, sugar beets, and alfalfa. Many farms started alongside the nearby railroads and Niwot became a farming town, even having it;s own dairy and creamery. Many homes were built on farmland in the early 1900s,...
There's good news for the staff, administration, students, and families of Niwot High School. The school once again ranked well in the recently released 2022 U.S. News and World Report annual schools survey. NHS placed at the top of all 12 high schools surveyed in the St. Vrain Valley School District (SVVSD), ranked fourth for high schools in combined Boulder and SVVSD boundaries, 36th in Colorado, and 1,174th nationally. The U.S. News survey is widely respected by educators and families each...
Getting ready for the state track & field championships which begin May 19 is nothing new for the Niwot Cougars, as both the boys and girls squads are defending Class 4A champions. “We probably have 30 to 40 athletes who have qualified for state,” Coach Maurice Henriques said. The Cougars are just coming off a Longs Peak Conference meet held at Longmont High School last weekend. The St. Vrain Invitational on Friday, May 13, will be the last tuneup for Niwot as the Cougars prepare to defend their titles. “We’re not quite sure of some of the rel...
On April 23, Up-a-Creek Robotics won both the World Championship of the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC Team 1619) and the FIRST Tech Challenge Competition (FTC Team 11260), something that has never been achieved before simultaneously by any group. "We are the best in the world," one of the coaches exclaimed at the gathering held in Longmont to honor the teams. The World competition was held in Houston this year. FIRST is an acronym for For the Inspiration and Recognition of Science and...
The desire for a little spending money is universal among today's adolescents, and youngsters growing up in the nineteenth century were no exception. Wildlife was abundant in Boulder County. Rabbits, coyotes, skunks, and muskrats were plentiful along Boulder and St. Vrain creeks. While their parents hunted deer and elk to augment food supplies, young boys set traps for small animals and shot waterfowl to send to market. Alonzo Allen and Walter Emery often hunted together on Lake Park in...
Veteran swimming coach Debbie Stewart is pleased with the early-season performance of her squad, which includes boys from Silver Creek and Niwot High schools, as well as a few other schools which don't have a team. And to top it off, Silver Creek has a brand new pool. "It's been beautiful," Stewart said. "Club teams are trying to get in," but St. Vrain Valley School District Athletic and Activities Director Chase McBride has kept it exclusively for use by district high school teams in the...
It took a little longer than expected, but Niwot will officially welcome boys volleyball as a varsity sport in the 2022-23 school year. The anticipated offering will mark the lone boys volleyball program in the St. Vrain Valley School District (SVVSD). Following a successful eight-week pilot club season in the spring of 2019 and the subsequent sanctioning of boys volleyball into the Colorado High School Activities Association (CHSAA), Niwot was intending to launch a varsity program in 2020....
After a three-year absence, one of the most competitive bicycle races in Colorado is returning to Boulder County next month. Modeled after one of the world's oldest single-day cycling competitions, the Boulder Roubaix will test up to 1,000 riders on a partially-paved 18.7-mile course that winds through the bucolic hills of Niwot, Longmont, and Hygiene. "Typically we go every other year, but we weren't interested in helping to spread the virus in any way shape or form, so it was an obvious...
When Sydney Rothstein was six years old, her father started taking her to the late lamented Haystack Mountain golf course where, through a series of outrageous bets and parental indulgence, he didn't just teach his daughter how to play the game, but made her fall in love with it. More than a decade later, Rothstein has turned that love for golf into a successful high school career at Niwot High that has included two state tournament appearances, and a lot of fun with friends along the way. But...
The 2022 track and field season officially got underway for Niwot on March 12 at the annual RE-1J meet between St. Vrain Valley district schools. This year the action was out at Mead High, and, as has been the case for many years, the Cougars turned in another dominating performance. While that's come to be expected by 12th-year head coach Maurice Henriques, the season opener still held a few pleasant surprises, he said. "I'm just really impressed with the young kids. We have a lot of new faces,...
If being a well-rounded student means engaging with a wide range of opportunities for learning and success at school, then the term applies to Niwot senior Mercer Stauch, whose list of high school accomplishments isn't just long, but also varied. Whether in the classroom, on the track, or, most recently, on the stage for Niwot, Stauch almost never says no to a challenge, or fails to reach a goal. Being well-rounded doesn't mean you can't have passions, and for Stauch, music and performing have...
It's a testament to Karen Behne's 25-year career at the Niwot Sanitation District when past sanitation board president Jim Jones said, "People come in to pay their bills in person so they can talk to Karen. She really is the face of Niwot Sanitation." Jones feels that Behne has an encyclopedic knowledge about the district. "She knows the answer off the top of her head." He added, "The only time people are concerned (with sanitation) is when their toilets don't flush." For Jones, Behne has been...
Disneyland bills itself as "the happiest place on Earth," but on Saturday, Feb. 26, it had competition for that title from Niwot High School, where the St. Vrain Valley unified basketball teams came together to celebrate eight weeks of hard work, camaraderie and mastering new skills. In the 2022 season finale, each of the eight district teams competed in a two-game tournament, and while there probably was a winner, everyone was having too much fun to pay much attention to the final results....
The Colorado League of Charter Schools has named two Flagstaff Academy Charter School teachers as finalists for the 2022 Charter School "Educator of the Year" award. Flagstaff Academy elementary school science resource teacher Stacy Wolff, and sixth-grade language arts teacher Leha Moskoff are two of eight finalists. Wolff is in her 11th year at Flagstaff Academy Charter School as the kindergarten through fifth grade science resource teacher. Wolff teaches an inquiry-based, hands-on science lab...
