All Local, All The Time
All Local, All The Time
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At Niwot High School, students in the International Baccalaureate diploma programme are expected to complete, among other things, rigorous classes, an extended essay, and a project oriented around creativity, activity, or service (CAS), and designed to get the student involved in the community and create something that benefits a group. For her CAS project, senior MacKenzie Demmel decided to organize a virtual 5K, with all of the proceeds benefiting the National Brain Tumor Society. The...
This past month, a noteworthy change came to Niwot High School's football field. The St.Vrain Valley School District installed new lights to allow for later practice times and, ultimately, after-dark home football games. Niwot High School is one of three in the district that received new light installations, the other two being Longmont's Skyline and Silver Creek High Schools. According to Athletic Director Joe Brown, the three high schools were the only ones in the district that didn't have...
Things will look different when St. Vrain Valley School District students step into the classroom next week for the first time since March. Everyone will be wearing masks, there will be arrows on the hallway floors, desks too far apart to steal a glance at someone else's answers. And there will be plenty of new rules and protocols to follow. The first day of school is a mix of excitement and anxiety in normal times. That's ramped up during the pandemic, leading experts at the Colorado...
St. Vrain Valley School District students will soon be seeing each other, their teachers and staff again in person. Though being face-to-face will not be quite the same with everyone required to wear masks. On Monday night, the district held a virtual public meeting to announce that it is moving to a hybrid system where students will have in-person classes two days a week and two days will remain as synchronous, remote learning. Having only half the students at school on any given day will allow...
A growing number of local families are deeply frustrated with full-time remote learning in the St. Vrain Valley School District (SVVSD), and now they've banded together in an effort to get students back into the classroom. Earlier this month, five parents from Erie launched the St. Vrain Educational Advocates in hopes of bringing attention to their struggles and working with school and public health officials to combat the "unseen negative consequences" of keeping students isolated at home. "We...
The Niwot varsity cross country teams looked formidable as they battled some friendly but fierce rivals at the Fairview Invitational on Sept. 12. Led by junior Zane Bergen in the boys race and freshman standout Mia Prok in the girls race, the Cougars claimed both team titles for the second consecutive weekend, and appear to be in great shape as they head into the most crucial weeks of the shortened 2020 season, according to head coach Kelly Christensen. "The kids are responding to the stress...
Once a week I help my brother by supervising his eight and 10-year old boys during remote school. Once a week I am reminded how incredibly hard it is. I get almost no work done, but it is satisfying to help, and it can be quite amusing, like when the third grade teacher admonished a student for messing with his virtual Zoom background. "Cool background, but not right now. I love raccoons as much as the next person." I can't imagine what it's like to engage 25 squirming online boxes. My...
The Rotary Club was founded over a century ago in Chicago, and since then, the organization has advanced to nearly every corner of the globe, including several local clubs in the Left Hand Valley and St. Vrain Valley areas. Rotary International is best known as a service organization, and their work on polio eradication is well documented, a hallmark of local Rotary clubs around the world, including those in the Left Hand Valley. A recent merger between two local clubs, the St. Vrain and the...
As much of St. Vrain Valley School District starts an unprecedented academic year by tuning into video calls, Twin Peaks Charter Academy is one of two schools in the district opting to take a different route. The tuition-free charter school is starting with multiple forms of in-person learning, seeking to mitigate the risk of COVID-19 while also trying to keep students on track. A post on the Twin Peaks website on Aug. 19 explains how the school will modulate between in-person and online learning. Elementary students started the year with...
Fifth-year Niwot head coach Kelly Christensen is grateful that the 2020 high school cross country season is proceeding, even if in a modified form, but he was also quick to acknowledge that, like everything else that it hasn't cancelled or postponed this year, the COVID-19 pandemic has made the sport more difficult for everyone involved. "It's everything, whether it's the schedule, trying to plan Covid practices, debating whether or not we're going to cut rosters, or finding races. I would say...
Tens of thousands of students returned to school in St. Vrain Valley School District (SVVSD) last week for what will undoubtedly be an unprecedented academic year. First graders through high school seniors started school on Aug. 18, with kindergarteners following suit on Aug. 20. Instead of first day high-fives and fist bumps, students greeted their classmates and teachers through a computer screen. SVVSD has a handful of learning modes for this year. The majority of students are following the...
Students at Niwot High School returned to school on Tuesday, Aug. 18, albeit through virtual means. And while the academic situation remains uncertain, with potential to add in-person classes at some point, many activities are operating with even less clarity. Both the St. Vrain Valley School District and the Boulder Valley School District are starting the academic year with 100 percent virtual instruction. Some sports such as tennis and golf are allowed, but with extra precautions. Many...
As both Boulder Valley School District and St. Vrain Valley School District announced after a summer of sparse communication that they would begin the school year online, teachers and families alike are scrambling to adjust for what's to come. The update comes as COVID-19 cases continue to fluctuate in the county; as of the Aug. 4 announcement, cases had been steadily rising for almost a month. But as of this article's publication, there has been a decline for multiple consecutive days....
Editor's note: On Aug. 4, as this issue was about to go to press, St. Vrain Valley Schools announced that the 2020-21 school year will begin with "a 100 percent online-learning model for all students" at least through the end of September. When the bell rings and students settle into their desks in a couple of weeks, teachers will find themselves face-to-face with a lot of unknowns. The invisible threat of the coronavirus puts them in a tenuous position of trying to keep themselves, their...
The littlest children in the Left Hand Valley will get to have a relatively normal school experience this fall. Childcare was deemed as an essential service in March and some preschool facilities, especially those providing care to children of essential workers, never closed in the coronavirus pandemic. Others have started reopening under smaller classroom restrictions during the "safer-at-home" period. For schools that provide both K-12 education and also preschool, it has taken some time to...
St. Vrain Valley School District (SVVSD) is leaning heavily on science and medical experts as it finalizes back-to-school plans during the coronavirus pandemic. Health guidance and community input led the district to scale back in-person learning that was presented as a draft in June. The district’s initial plan had elementary school students, sixth graders and ninth graders going back full time, but guidance from Boulder County Public Health and other sources influenced the district’s decision to have all grades start the year with a hyb...
The annual Sunrise Stampede 10K run-walk has served as the unofficial kick-off to the new school year in St. Vrain Valley for more than three decades, and brings together hundreds of runners, volunteers, and vendors for some exercise, camaraderie, and family-friendly competition in the waning days of summer. It also has raised more than $250,000 for special needs students in the district, so when the COVID-19 pandemic threatened to cancel the 2020 edition, organizers quickly shifted to a format...
There wasn't anything normal about the way high school ended for the Niwot Class of 2020, but the belated graduation ceremony held on Saturday, July 25 was a lovely approximation of it. Perfect weather and a celebratory mood were the order of the day as more than 250 graduates finally crossed the stage to mark the official end of their high school journeys. Still, the ongoing health crisis loomed large over the proceedings, mostly in mundane practicalities such as social distancing and mask requ...
Since 2005, the nonprofit Crayons to Calculators (C2C) program has had a simple mission: to provide local students with the supplies they need to start the school year successfully. Created by a partnership between the Education Foundation for St. Vrain Valley and Boulder Valley's Impact on Education, each summer C2C musters a small army of community volunteers to fill more than 11,000 backpacks with donated pencils, notebooks, and other school essentials, which are then distributed to families...
From its shady locale in Cottonwood Square, the Niwot Tavern has been a popular local gathering spot for more than a decade-and-a-half, so when the 2020 coronavirus pandemic threw the lives of local residents into chaos, co-owners and longtime bartenders Tara Kpogoh-Narh and Stacy Szydlek quickly shifted their mission from helping local residents unwind to helping them get through a global health emergency. "It was the kids, when the schools shut down," Kpogoh-Narh said, explaining why she and...
In the fall of 2019, St. Vrain Valley School District formally announced its participation in awarding the Seal of Biliteracy. This award recognizes students who achieve multi-lingual proficiency by the time they graduate high school. Niwot High School, which boasts the International Baccalaureate Program, has encouraged language acquisition for years now; and with the IB program, this also extends to an encouragement of having a strong world view. Thanks to this mission and the district's...
Equipped with a five-phase plan of return, , SVFC club soccer is returning to the pitch. SVFC is currently in phase three of its plan and expects to move forward as state and local regulations surrounding coronavirus loosen. According to St. Vrain FC (SVFC) executive director Daniel Jones, it's been a long time coming for players to finally see some action. Since the pandemic's arrival and up until early June, SVFC was stuck in phase one, which included team technical, development, tactical and...
Track standout Taylor James didn't get a chance to win any big races for Niwot in 2020, but she still claimed a big prize at season's end. On June 25, the rising senior was named the Colorado Girls Track Athlete of the Year by Gatorade, one of the most exclusive awards in high school athletics. "She's definitely special," Cougar cross country coach Kelly Christensen said of the talented runner, who was also named ColoradoClass 4A Girls Athlete of the Year in 2019. "Gatorade is a tough award, so...
With just 60 days to go before the Nikolas Blume era of Niwot football kicks off, the first-year head coach expected to be well on his way to implementing the rebuilding project he was hired to undertake back in February. Unfortunately, the coronavirus pandemic made a hash of those plans, and so it wasn't until last week that Coach Blume was able to watch his players in action for the first time. So far, he's been pleased with what he's seen, but there's no denying that the long layoff has...
Electric bikes, or e-bikes as they are commonly known, have begun to make significant in-roads in the cycling industry. Eric Bergeson, owner of Niwot Wheel Works, said that in his three years running the local bike shop, he has seen e-bikes grow in popularity. E-bikes, which come equipped with a battery-powered electric motor, come in a variety of makes and models, ranging from road and mountain bikes to hybrid bikes. Per the Boulder-based national cycling advocacy group, PeopleForBikes, there...
Around lunchtime on February 20, a scary situation unfolded outside of the entrance to Niwot High School when a belligerent 51-year old man tried to enter the building and confront a staff member. But thanks to sharp-eyed campus supervisors La'Mar West and Andrew Hart, the would-be intruder was quickly subdued, and no students or faculty were harmed. Recently, the pair was honored by the Boulder County Sheriff's Office for their "exceptional performance, achievement, and exemplary initiative"...
Staging a multi-part choral performance featuring seven dozen voices is challenging even under normal circumstances, but add in online learning, social distancing, and a novice video editor, and things become even more complicated. That was the task facing Niwot High choir director Laura Roberts as she worked to give her students a final chance "on the stage" in a virtual choir performance of Omnia Sol. But as she soon learned, just because something is "virtual," doesn't mean it won't take a...
Despite the Colorado High School Athletic Association’s move to allow school districts to make their own decision regarding extracurriculars as of June 1, the St. Vrain Valley School District will hold off until July to comply with Boulder County health guidelines. SVVSD director of athletics Chase McBride will still remain flexible considering the volatility of the situation. “Things change every day and it’s almost impossible to make a plan because as soon as we start working on it, the very...
Each spring, the Niwot High School Education Foundation awards the Pursuit for Education scholarship to honor "motivated students who recognize the power and impact of post-secondary education," and it's hard to imagine a senior who fits that description better than 2020 recipient Daniel Torres. "I look forward to being the first one in my family to go to college," he wrote in an email interview about the scholarship and his future plans. "No one in my family has reached this point, and I'm...
When historians write the history of the coronavirus pandemic, they might want to add this description of online learning from Niwot Elementary School teacher Dale Peterson, who does Google Hangouts with his first graders. "It's like if you go to a pet shop and let all the pets out of the cages and you spend the rest of the time trying to put them back in the cages," Peterson said. "I have 23 little boxes. One might have his feet in the air or his bottom in front of the camera, another is...
We asked the departing seniors of the girls track team to reflect on their time at Niwot and share their post-graduation plans. Samrawit Dishon, Distance What are your plans after graduation? I plan to attend the University of New Mexico and major in Psychology. Before it was canceled, what were you looking forward to most about the 2020 season I was looking forward to doing a lot of big things with my teammates. What is your favorite memory or what do you consider a career highlight from your t...
Sue Prahl doesn't see anything special about her 25-year tenure with the Niwot High athletics department, so when she learned that she had won the Colorado Athletic Directors Association's 2020 Award for Distinguished Service, her reaction was bewilderment. "I'm not a person who needs to be patted on the back, and I never have been," Prahl said of the honor, which was announced publicly on April 30, along with the Athletic Director of the Year awards. "You just go at it and do it. And so I was o...
The socially distant version of the annual Tribute to Teachers awards may have lacked the glamour of a gala, but that didn't make it any less special to Megan Schlagel, recipient of Niwot High's 2020 Teacher of the Year award and a finalist for St. Vrain Valley Teacher of the Year. "I was really honored by the recognition," Schlagel said of hearing the news of her award. "I'm not usually a crier, but I was crying. I've been teaching 11 years, and it's definitely the highlight, I would say, just...
To be sure, the local seniors in the class of 2020 are missing some notable high school rites of passage, but assuming Colorado's social distancing measures continue to ease through summer, a commencement ceremony won't be one of them. In an April 20th letter to district families announcing the cancellation of in-person classes, St. Vrain Valley Schools Superintendent Don Haddad wrote: "For our graduating seniors and their families, we know how especially disheartening these past few weeks have...
Playing collegiately is a goal for many high school athletes across the country. It takes talent, hours of work, and equally important, the ability to get recognized and connected with a college coach. Niwot High School counselor and Head Track and Field Coach Kelly Christensen has not let the coronavirus prevent him from helping student athletes connect with colleges. "We're doing more than we normally would as far as really reaching out to coaches of these programs that kids want to go to and...
Grable Howie isn't used to writing songs on command, but when the talented junior was tapped to represent Niwot High in the CU College of Music's Centennial Song competition, he found that inspiration was easy to come by in his home state. "I was tasked with writing a song about the spirit of Colorado," Howie said of the contest, held to commemorate the College of Music's 100th anniversary. "It was a little difficult to do this, because I was only able to have five tracks, and I had a slightly...
Lori and Russ Lindemann moved to the Gunbarrel Estates neighborhood in 1994 with their two children and niece in tow. For the past two and a half decades, they have called Boulder County home and have done a huge part in making it a terrific place to live for its variety of residents. The Lindemanns are no strangers to hard work and have spent much of their free time volunteering throughout the community. Lori has volunteered with the St. Vrain Valley School District, the VA in Denver, the DA's...
With virtually all area economic activity at a halt due to coronavirus restrictions, Jim and Mary Good of Good Find Antique Store in Niwot (666 2nd Ave.) said they are now having second thoughts about selling a cursed monkey's paw to a group of local high school students, who told the pair they needed the mummified relic for "research purposes." "They said they wanted to examine the ugly thing as part of some video project or something or other," Mary Good said about the shriveled, disembodied...
Fourth-year varsity lacrosse defender Abby Eidsness didn't realize it at the time, but mom knew best when it came to the Niwot senior's eventual sport of choice. "I started playing lacrosse in a co-ed rec group because my mom forced me to," Eidsness said of her introduction to the growing sport in sixth grade. "I was really mad at her, and didn't want to do it. I had to play with my younger brother, too-he was on the same team. So, it was kind of a rocky start." But the more Eidsness played the...
A bonus week of Spring Break sounds like a dream come true for students, but, at Niwot High School, reaction to the St. Vrain Valley School District's decision to cancel classes in the wake of COVID-19 has been decidedly mixed. With milestone events and the spring athletic season now in jeopardy, the drastic disruption of the spring semester has caused almost as much anxiety as the virus that prompted it. "I think there are a lot of people filled with fear, because nobody really knows what's...
The Longmont Community Foundation has launched the Neighbor to Neighbor Covid-19 Relief Fund. This Fund is designed to provide financial resources to charitable organizations in Longmont and the St. Vrain Valley area that are involved in supporting populations that have been affected by the outbreak. The Longmont Community Foundation encourages institutions, companies and other funders to contribute to the Fund. One hundred percent of funds received will be distributed quickly and a final...
The coronavirus (COVID-19) has taken over the news, especially recently in Boulder County after a substitute teacher at Centaurus High School reported a suspected exposure. Upon learning that other passengers of his cruise ship tested positive, the teacher has chosen to undergo a self-quarantine and monitor for symptoms. Similarly, two University of Colorado Boulder employees have undergone testing for the virus. One of those tests has already come back negative, but the other test is still...
In an era of instantaneous digital communication and screens everywhere, the art of traditional storytelling is still alive and thriving in the Left Hand Valley. In March, eight new volunteers will join the Longmont chapter of Spellbinder Storytellers to bring this art to local children. Spellbinders was founded in Denver in the late 1980s by Germaine Dietsch and is now a thriving nonprofit, connecting elders directly with children through storytelling. "Children need older adults in their...
Arlene "Tiny" Ahlgrim (née Obrecht) can recall with perfect clarity the day in the late 1950s when the dashing 18-year old Otto Ahlgrim showed up at her family's north Longmont farm to ask her out to the movies. She was helping her father tend to the cows, and, dressed in overalls and boots, definitely not in a state to go out on the town. But Ahlgrim was, and his stylish outfit struck an incongruous note in the Obrecht's muddy barn. "He had on a white shirt, white pants, and white shoes,"...
On Feb. 26, Scotland made global history by passing the Period Products (Free Provision) Scotland Bill, officially making tampons and sanitary pads freely available to women in public places. There was no parliamentary opposition to this historic act, making it a "milestone moment for normalising menstruation in Scotland and sending out that real signal to people in this country about how seriously parliament takes gender equality," according to its creator, Monica Lennon. In the United States,...
A crocus is trying to bloom in a friend's yard, despite frigid days and snow squalls. She's enchanted by the little plant's effort and, like any gardener at this time of year, is watching its progress with excitement. She's not alone in her countdown to spring; many gardeners are pouncing on the slightest signs of green. We haven't broken out pompoms and megaphones to strut and cheer on the flowers we see quite yet – that would just rile up the neighborhood dogs and cause our community to c...
In 1859, gold drew 100,000 people into the Pike's Peak Region in pursuit of their fortune. Thirty-nine-year-old Alonzo N. Allen was among them, and he was quick to realize that prospecting was a hard way to make a living. The version of the story relayed by Dorothy Large ("Old Burlington") says Allen was actively seeking a place to homestead. The oral history from "They Came to Stay" places Allen on a hunting mission. Scouring the area for his dinner, Allen climbed to the top of a hill north of...
There's a bushel of phrases about pie: "It's as easy as pie," "Bye, bye Miss American Pie," and "You're such a sweetie pie." Pie is quintessential fare around the world, whether it's filled with custard, fruit or something savory. For John Lehndorff, the highly respected food critic and, more to the point, renowned pie expert, this particular pastry has been at center stage throughout his 40-year career. The Niwot Historical Society asked Lehndorff to share his knowledge of all things pie at...
As a college graduate, Congressman Joe Neguse founded an organization called New Era Colorado, which strove to amplify voter engagement. In 2013, this group was able to convince the state legislator to pass a law to allow 16 and 17-year-olds to pre-register to vote. Arguably thanks to this law, 60% of young Colorado voters participated in elections compared to only 30% nationwide. Moreover, thanks to recent changes to legislation, not only are 16 and 17-year-olds able to register, but if a stude...
Daniel Torres didn't know much about wrestling when he reluctantly joined Niwot's team as a freshman, which makes his success in the years since all the more impressive. Thanks to quick wits and a penchant for hard work, the soft-spoken Torres has become one of the region's top wrestlers in the years since, and now he's on the cusp of a repeat bid to the Class 4A state championships at the Pepsi Center. As his high school career comes to a close, the senior is grateful to that once-shy ninth...
