All Local, All The Time
All Local, All The Time
Sorted by date Results 351 - 400 of 483
A bear visited Niwot last Tuesday, May 14. First reported midday Monday in south Longmont, Colorado Wildlife officers weaved through the area with each report of a sighting, but were unable to locate him. Another call, at 1:30 a.m. Tuesday, placed the migrating bear near Hover Road and Highway 119, but an officer didn’t set eyes on him until he’d spent some quality time hanging out in Niwot’s Overbrook neighborhood and his stopover was publicized on the Nextdoor app in the late afternoon. The b...
A teacher’s job description doesn’t fit a set list of responsibilities, chronologically checked off and completed at the end of each day. In fact, the job description is ever-changing and unique to the day. Good teachers take on a variety of roles including mentor, advocate, or even friend during difficult transitions and personal hardships. Good teachers stay late, reinventing lesson plans and tirelessly answering parent emails. Good teachers return each day, patience renewed and ready to tac...
It was a night of full of laughter, full bellies, and good cheer. The Rotary Club club of Niwot, along with over 200 guests, celebrated the ninth annual Wine, Cheese, and Chocolate Extravaganza at the Longmont Museum on Saturday, May 18. Ron Grunzweig, this year’s President of Niwot Rotary, has been coming to the group’s marquee event for nine years, and said, “It’s the most successful event that has been done. I want to thank Lucky’s Market for supporting us for the past several years for...
Niwot track and field team is sending a robust contingent of athletes to this year’s Class 4A state championships, which open at Jeffco Stadium in Lakewood on Thursday, May 16. On the boys side, Niwot will have competitors in all but a handful of events, including junior Cruz Culpepper, the top seed in the 800m run. The Cougars also have the top seeded boys 4x800 relay, and Nolan Johan nabbed a pair of top-five seeds in hurdles. In field events, junior Milo Ostwald made the cut in both long a...
It might be part of the human condition--we can be surrounded by magnificence and bounty in nature, but can’t always recognize or appreciate its value. Sometimes it takes a visitor or outsider to help us appreciate and protect that which we take for granted, because it has always been part of our surroundings. And on behalf of frogs and toads in the Andes, four St. Vrain Valley students have taken on that role of educating outsider, creating an environmental comic book to help remote Peruvian v...
The Niwot girls track team continued its march towards the 2019 Class 4A title with a dominating performance at this year’s Northern Conference Championships, held May 3-4 at Everly Montgomery Field. The Cougars finished in first or second in all but a handful of events to end the day with 247 points, nearly triple that of second-place finisher Thompson Valley (95.5). Sophomore Taylor James was once again Niwot’s top point scorer, with wins in the 400 (56.40 seconds) and 800-meter (2:13.78) rac...
Beginning in the fall of 2020, Colorado high school students will have more options for athletics, after the Colorado High School Activities Association sanctioned three new sports for the first time since 1998. At their annual meeting on April 24, CHSAA’s Legislative Council voted to approve boys volleyball, girls wrestling, and unified bowling, the first new sports since boys and girls lacrosse and girls field hockey were added 20 years ago. Niwot athletic director Chase McBride, who is a...
The Niwot Community Association did one of the things it does best at its April 17 annual meeting for members – connect NCA members with the broader Niwot area community. The group invited the principals of Niwot Elementary School, Sunset Middle School and Niwot High School to speak to meeting attendees about the academic and social achievements, strengths, school focus and infrastructure changes at each of the schools. The presentations grew from concerns from some NCA board members about e...
Renowned Colorado nature photographer John Fielder will be sharing work from his latest book, Colorado: Black on White, at the first annual Nature St. Vrain on Friday, April 12 in Longmont. Fielder, whose popular calendars and books showcase Colorado’s landscapes, will be giving a multimedia presentation featuring over 200 of his Colorado photographs, as well as sharing stories of life on the trail, photo tips and more. Nature St. Vrain, an environmental open house, was created to celebrate t...
Nevin Gilbert may still be a few weeks away from his high school graduation but the future engineer already has the resume of a seasoned professional. Between a demanding robotics internship and a collaboration with a CU professor, the Niwot High student’s precocious talent for math and computer science has created opportunities not afforded to most college students, let alone those still in secondary school. Later this month, Gilbert will get a chance to add another achievement to the g...
Boys volleyball is one of the fastest growing high school sports in America, and this spring it could be among the first new team sports to be sanctioned by the Colorado High School Activities Association (CHSAA) since 1999. On April 24, members of CHSAA’s Legislative Council will vote on whether to add boys volleyball, girls wrestling, and unified bowling to the list of “official” Colorado high school sports, which has been static since field hockey was sanctioned 20 years ago. So far, boys vol...
Nothing energizes a project team like a last-minute and potentially catastrophic failure. So when a routine maneuver to reset their robot's climber somehow went wrong during the final round of the FIRST Robotics Colorado Regional, both students and mentors from Longmont's Up-A-Creek Robotics crew flew into action. "It was super-stressful," Niwot senior and team software lead Nevin Gilbert said of the rush to repair a snapped release lever before the decisive match. "We really thought we had it i...
The Longmont Community Foundation (LCF) will be celebrating 25 years of supporting charitable giving at its annual dinner on April 4. Since 1994, the foundation has overseen the distribution of $11 million to non-profits. This year alone the organization will allocate more than $1 million to the arts, education, animals, human services, health and environmental causes. There are only 1,900 community foundations world-wide, each honing in on a particular geographic area. LCF was originally under...
College is expensive. The average total cost of public colleges in the United States is $25,290 for in-state tuition; $40,940 for out-of-state tuition, and about $50,900 for private colleges. More than 19.9 million students are projected to attend American colleges and universities in the fall of 2019. That money has to come from somewhere. Fortunately, there are local scholarships designated for helping out students who need a boost to their college coffers. The Longmont Community Foundation...
Organizers of the 2019 Boulder Roubaix are shifting into high gear as the biennial tribute to the famed French bike race gets set to return to the area on Saturday, April 6. Modeled after the world's oldest single-day cycling competition, the local event may not have the legendary cobblestone-paved stretches of its grueling Parisian namesake, but that doesn't mean riders won't be tested by the partially-paved 18.7-mile course that winds through the hills of northern Boulder County. "It's a...
To call a snow day or to not call a snow day? That is the question that plagues St. Vrain Valley School District Superintendent Don Haddad anytime it snows in the district, and the answer to that question does not come easy for him. “If we cancel school, there will be many parents and students saying “Why are you canceling school? It’s easy to get there,’ and if you don’t cancel school you get many people saying ‘Why don’t you cancel school?’” Superintendent Haddad never makes the decision light...
March can be a tense time of the year for ambitious high school students waiting on college acceptance letters, but so far that hasn’t been the case for Niwot’s Aidan Peairs. The Rotary Student of the Month has already been accepted to two of the top schools for his intended major, so he isn’t exactly hurting for attractive options. “I applied early to Harvard and got deferred, and I’m waiting for Columbia, Cornell, Brown, Tufts, NYU, Johns Hopkins and Vanderbilt,” he said. “My number one is...
It’s been the better part of a decade since teenage rocker Jackson Cloud made his St. Vrain Valley Schools debut, and now the Niwot senior will get a chance to end his school performance career the same way he started it—co-headlining with local recording artist Mojomama. “Mojomama came to my school for their music academy when I was in, I think, second grade at Niwot Elementary, and I got a chance to play with them,” Cloud said in an interview about Spectacle 2019, an upcoming concert to bene...
Niwot sophomore Misha Barrett loves two things: playing basketball and “making the fans happy.” As shooting guard for the Silver Creek unified basketball team, Barrett gets a chance to do both. “I love going out there and showing people what I’ve got,” Barrett said, his enthusiasm for the sport evident. Barrett is one of a handful of Niwot special needs students who play for the Raptors unified team, which competes weekly throughout the district. In their final game of the season on Feb. 27,...
Niwot senior Natasha Ragland recently completed a course in Emergency Medical Services (EMS) training at nearby Front Range Community College, and while it didn’t change her future plans to become a doctor, she said it was life-changing experience nevertheless. “I took a lot away from the class. It was a lot of work and sometimes the work was very challenging, especially knowing what the emergency medical services deal with. And, it kind of gave me a new perspective on life.” Ragland first...
On Feb. 11, Niwot High principal Eric Rauschkolb announced that the school has selected Loveland High’s Kevin Clark to replace outgoing assistant principal and athletic director Chase McBride, who is leaving for a position with the St. Vrain Valley School District at the end of the school year. “After an extensive search, we are pleased to inform you that a recommendation will be made to the Board of Education that Mr. Kevin Clark be hired as the new Assistant Principal and Athletic Dir...
Two years ago, Virginia Dutkin had a simple idea based on a capstone project she was working on for her master’s degree in nonprofit management. The idea was based on something called a giving circle--a fast-growing form of philanthropy where individuals come together and pool their dollars, decide together where to give the money along with other resources such as volunteer time, and learn together about their community and philanthropy. As her children grew older, and needed less time and e...
More than 800,000 federal employees are either laid off or have been working without pay for weeks. The direct consequences to those workers and their families, and the subsequent trickle-down impact to the businesses they buy goods and services from, such as their banks, credit unions, and landlords, are being felt across the nation. In the Niwot, Gunbarrel and South Longmont area, several nonprofit organizations and businesses have stepped forward to announce they would like to be a safety...
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...
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...
When she was first featured in this space back in July of 2017, it was hard to imagine how Niwot student Savannah Parrot could possibly fit more on to her already overflowing plate. She was just coming off a successful week at the prestigious Hugh O’Brian Youth Leadership Seminar and was looking ahead to her junior year at Niwot, where she would be starting the IB diploma program and assuming leadership roles for several clubs and teams, such as student council, cheer, Interact Club, and the N...
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...
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...
Fresh off the heels of his school’s second team state championship of the 2018 fall sports season, Niwot assistant principal and athletic director Chase McBride announced that he will be taking his talents to the next level. Effective after the 2018-19 school year, McBride will replace the retiring Rob Berry as Executive Director of Athletics, Fine Arts, PE and Health for the St. Vrain Valley Schools. “It’s such a successful district and there are such good ADs within the district, that I could...
Nationwide, results of the highly anticipated 2018 midterm elections had a little something for everyone, but that was not the case in Boulder County. Locally, democratic candidates received large majorities, as did ballot measures supporting election reforms and oil and gas industry regulations. Here is a look at some (unofficial) results of particular local interest. On average, registered voters in Boulder County cast their ballots at a higher rate than their counterparts elsewhere in...
St. Vrain Valley Schools provide an exceptional variety of instructional programming including the International Baccalaureate® (IB). Niwot High School (NHS) has been IB authorized to offer the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IB DP) since 2001, allowing us to support our talented and diverse student body in their commitment to, and pursuit of, academic excellence. IB DP, established in 1968, is a two-year program designed for high school juniors and seniors seeking academic...
Communities within St. Vrain are thriving and leading the way as Colorado continues to build and attract the top workforce and companies who want to call our thriving state home. St. Vrain Valley Schools is the educational home to more than 32,000 of Colorado’s students, with every school and feeder system committed to providing exemplary programming. While all schools share a high standard of excellence, as a district of choice, St. Vrain Valley Schools readily embraces a systemic approach t...
Boulder County residents are fortunate to have so many excellent options to choose from when it comes to education. The St. Vrain Valley School District, the Boulder Valley School District and an ever-increasing choice of private schools in Boulder County consistently rate above all state statistics in achievement. While we weren’t able to feature every educational option in Boulder County, the public and private schools profiled in this special section present a variety of primary and secondary educational choices to explore. Whether y...
Now in its 14th year, Flagstaff Academy, home of the Dragons, provides excellence every day for the 900+ community of preschool through 8th grade students. Since the school’s founding in 2005, Flagstaff Academy has built an exceptional educational environment which values developing the whole child through an award-winning Pre-K to 8th Grade Core Knowledge academic program. The curriculum is rich with experiential arts, hands-on science exploration, character education, and innovative t...
September 2018 was a big month for Flagstaff Academy Preschool. The program reached its 10th anniversary, and it also achieved a level five quality rating from Colorado Shines. Colorado Shines, a Colorado Department of Human Services and Department of Education free resource, enables families to find licensed programs in their communities that are committed to offering quality services. Using a comprehensive approach to evaluate early learning programs, the organization looks at health and...
For the much of the past two decades, students in Finland have been ranked at or near the top of an international study that compares the academic achievement of 15-year olds in reading, math and scientific literacy in 73 countries worldwide. So when Niwot High principal Eric Rauschkolb was offered the chance to travel to Helsinki over the summer for an in-depth review of the Scandinavian country’s educational system, he jumped at the chance. “The educational company Education First, they off...
Almost from the first day of school, most kids start looking forward to summer vacation. The average school year is about 180 days, which is a long time to wait if you’re a kid. Fortunately, aside from winter and spring breaks, the academic year is peppered with a day off here and there, so a kid can get a break from the daily grind. Then add in a few late start days, or early release days, just to keep things interesting. For working parents, these seemingly random days off can present a challenge—what will I do with my kiddo while I’m at work...
It was Sept. 12, 2013, when rain from a stalled storm began to swell and overrun the banks of nearly every waterway in Boulder County, assaulting massive amounts of personal property, streets, bridges, rocks and vegetation, disrupting lives for what would be years to come. Left Hand Water District’s emergency response “I have to say one of my least favorite things is revisiting the flood,” Left Hand Water District (LHWD) Manager Christopher Smith said. “I like the fact that it’s behind us...
In a ceremony at the Longmont City Council chambers, the Longmont City Council designated Sept 11 as Mwebaza Day. The proclamation acknowledged the work of the Mwebaza Foundation, an organization founded by Niwot Elementary School teacher Dale Peterson to build and improve schools in Uganda. The proclamation reads: Whereas, the citizens of Longmont recognize that cross-cultural awareness and service learning enrich and strengthen a community; and whereas, the Mwebaza Foundation has been...
In a surprise announcement on Sept 10, St. Vrain Valley School District (SVVSD) Superintendent Dr. Don Haddad informed those attending the school year’s first community meeting at Niwot High School (NHS) that the district has decided not to store an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle in the school as proposed by the Boulder County Sheriff’s Department. The sheriff’s proposal earlier this year was described as a way to allow school resource officers quicker access to a long range rifle to compensate for longer emergency response times to Niwot and L...
It’s the end of a special evening and you’ve been satiated by delicious food and drinks, and all night you knew you were amongst a group of caring people. To top it off you’re leaving with a favorite new piece of art, tickets to a Pink concert, a gift card for a massage or maybe a seven-day wine tour in the Burgundy region of France. That’s the afterglow of Homeless Outreach Providing Encouragement’s (HOPE) biggest annual bash. The benefit event raises nearly a quarter of the non-profi...
Back to school season is a sensible time to be evaluating who influences and makes decisions for our area’s educational institutions. November 6 is election day for the Colorado State Board of Education member from the Second Congressional District (CD2). A Niwot resident since 1989, Johnny Barrett (R) is challenging incumbent Angelika Schroeder (D) for the position. Schroeder is the chairwoman for the predominantly democratic board and has held the CD2 position for nine years. She was a...
Sunset Middle School (SMS) is welcoming 10 new staff members to its team this school year, starting with the top two administrative positions in the school - principal and assistant principal. Additional new staff members coming onboard include language arts, science, art and special education teachers, a new band director, a new school psychologist, attendance clerk, and school registrar. Anthony Barela is SMS’s new Principal. He grew up in Durango, CO, earned his master’s degree in edu...
On July 27-28, students from Niwot High kicked off the fabrication phase of ‘Cougars Creating Classrooms,’ a building project spearheaded by the Mwebaza Foundation to transform used shipping containers into instructional space for the Mwebaza Infant Primary School in Kyengera, Uganda. Over the two days, representatives from the football, girls tennis, golf, cross country, and track teams, as well as the IB program, Robotics Club, and Boy Scout Troop 161, unpacked materials for the project and...
Officials from the Mountain View Fire Protection District are asking for public input on a proposed mill levy increase that they say will help offset the costs of serving a rapidly growing population in east Boulder and south Weld counties over the next ten years. At a July 17 public information meeting at the Niwot Fire Station, Assistant Chief Keith Long and Finance Director Tonya Olson made a case for the potential tax hike, which will fund what they described as urgently needed equipment...
A dedication to problem-solving on Niwot’s behalf is among the reasons Niwot Community Association board members chose former chair Dick Piland to serve as the 2018 Grand Marshal of the town’s July 4 parade. “I am honored to serve as Grand Marshal,” Piland said. “But frankly, I was very surprised to be nominated. I think there are several others more deserving than I am.” Piland’s willingness to pitch in is a strength others appreciate. “Dick jumps into projects without reserve,” said...
A community meeting called by St. Vrain Valley School District (SVVSD) to discuss the Boulder County Sheriff’s office proposal to store an AR-15 rifle inside Niwot High School (NHS) was quick to turn emotionally charged. An audience of about 150 people at Sunset Middle School on Thursday, June 6, unreservedly asked questions and offered opinions throughout the nearly three-hour meeting. SVVSD Superintendent Dr. Don Haddad led the discussion and was joined by five school board members, i...
Niwot High campus supervisor La’Mar West suspected something might be up when Principal Eric Rauschkolb invited him to an after school meeting with St. Vrain Superintendent Don Haddad last month, but he was absolutely “shell-shocked” when he found out that Haddad was there to present him with a Superintendent's Excellence in Education Award. “I had no idea it was coming,” he said. “I’m not one of those people who is big on awards or titles or anything, so the fact that I got it was pretty cr...
A little more than three years after they were ordered to suspend their educational programs due to violations of the Land Use Code, owners of Longmont’s Sunflower Farms received conditional approval from Boulder County Commissioners to operate as a Demonstration Farm, a move that will allow them to relaunch their SproutHouse preschool and day camps later this summer. At a public hearing on May 24, Commissioners Cindy Domenico, Elise Jones, and Deb Gardner voted unanimously to approve S...
