All Local, All The Time
All Local, All The Time
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There are six new teachers and a new family liaison starting at Niwot High School this year, teaching a wide variety of different studies. According to Principal Eric Rauschkolb, these hirings are due to a large increase in Niwot High School's enrollment, This year, the school had 100 more students enrolled compared to last year, and the St. Vrain Valley School District has given NHS more staffing distribution. Three of the new teachers are familiar to the high school students because they have...
GIRLS XC Look out Colorado, Niwot’s Addison Ritzenhein is a runaway freight train with no slowing down in sight. The sophomore picked up speed on the final downhill stretch and steamed through the finish line Saturday at the St. Vrain Cross Country Invitational, leaving all competitors far behind while crushing the girls’ course record along the way. In her second race of the season, Ritzenhein picked up her second victory, this time by a whopping 30 seconds over teammate and second-place finisher Olivia Alessandrini, who added the silver med...
Tuesday, July 25, saw The Peter Fund host a concert in Whistle Stop Park in conjunction with the recognition of the first five Kindness Counts Award winners in the non-profit's effort to recognize and reward acts of kindness. The evening opened with two bands, The PSB and Pearl Vision, each made up of local high school students who knew the late Peter Bonn-Elchoness, who died of a rare heart condition during his senior year at Niwot High School last fall. The music concluded with a performance...
Donald Allen Farr Dec. 7, 1943 - June 12, 2023 Donald Allen Farr was born in Detroit, Michigan. He passed away at the age of 79 in Commerce City, Colorado, due to Parkinson's. He met his wife Julie Farr in California and the couple married in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1970. They lived most of their married life in Niwot, Colorado. They had four children and many pets. They were married 36 years before Julie's passing of breast cancer in 2006. When Don was a kid he loved playing with trains and that...
What does it take to be a "Teacher of the Year?" According to the St. Vrain Valley School District Education Foundation, this honor requires someone who is innovative, goal-oriented, a motivator, an expert in their subject, and connects subject material to the real world. Recognition for this title must be made through nominations from students, staff, parents, community members, and other affiliates of the school. Only teachers who are licensed educators in the State of Colorado and employed...
You might recognize him as a volunteer at various Niwot Community Association events, such as Niwot Clean Up Day. Perhaps you have seen him on the NCA Road Crew or as a member of the tech team at Rocky Mountain Christian Church. Most likely, you have seen him driving the golf cart offering transportation service at Rock & Rails. Misha Barrett started providing his transportation services for patrons who parked down the street from Rock & Rails in the summer of 2022. His usage of the golf cart...
Each year the St. Vrain Valley School District requests submissions from families for their annual Teacher of the Year award. Together with each school's input from their respective administrations, every elementary, middle and high school then reviews family submissions and nominates a teacher to send to the district-wide competition. This year it came as no surprise to many of the students she has taught over the years that Niwot Elementary's 2022-2023 recipient is third-grade teacher, Lise...
Reaching the state regionals tournament would have been nice, but head coach John Miller couldn't have asked for much more out of Niwot High School's inaugural varsity boys volleyball season. Miller entered the campaign hoping to simply be competitive in Year 1, and his Cougars fulfilled that goal with an 11-12 overall record. Niwot's team, which includes student-athletes from across the St. Vrain Valley School District, also went 6-6 in the strong Northern 1 League following a four-set loss at...
Recent University of Northern Colorado football signee Kaiden Box is doing something a little different during his final high school semester. The Skyline High School quarterback was looking for a sport to play this spring and with neither baseball nor track enticing him, he was convinced by fellow Skyline senior Erik West to join the inaugural Niwot High School varsity boys volleyball team. It didn't take Box long to learn the sport and he soon developed an immense respect for his new...
The Chilly Chili golf tournament lived up to its reputation March 18 with a twenty-degree temperature at the 8 a.m. scheduled start, but the golfers took to the course a little later in the morning and broke the ice on the 2023 season. Niwot coach Ed Weaver took four golfers to the event at Eagle Trace Golf Club in Broomfield where parents provided a chili dinner for the players at the end of the day. “It was a really fun experience for the girls,” Weaver said. “Two of them had never played in a tournament before.” The start of spring break i...
There is a new sport in town as the new all-St. Vrain Valley School District boys volleyball team takes shape under experienced and seasoned coach John Miller. The "Niwot" team is comprised of athletes from multiple St. Vrain Valley School District high schools including Silver Creek High School, Longmont High School, and Erie High School. The team has students from as far away as Mead High School. The students travel daily to practice, which begins a little later than school gets out to allow...
Some of the best middle school choir students in the area came to Niwot High School last week for a district-wide honor choir concert. Despite the start of a mid-winter snowstorm, more than 100 students filled the stage, performing eight songs for an auditorium filled with parents and friends. Students represented 13 schools, with choir teachers from each school taking the stage as the concert began to thank students, their parents and Niwot High School as a host. The evening consisted of three...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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....
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...
Just days after her grand finale at the Class 4A state swim and dive championships, Niwot standout Mary Codevilla found herself in the spotlight once again. On Feb. 16, the seven-time individual champion was a featured speaker at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the newly completed Aquatics Center of St. Vrain Valley Schools, a facility she called "absolutely amazing." "I know all of the swimmers in the district are extremely thankful to be able to swim in this pool, especially with the limited...
When Ashlee Wood heard about the new unified basketball team coming to Niwot High, she was excited about the chance to test her burgeoning skills on the court. "My brothers actually started playing basketball, and then after a little bit I started wanting to try too," the sophomore said. "I've played for fun with my brothers, but I've never really played before on a team." The sophomore finally got her chance last month when the Cougars' unified team made its debut, featuring eight athletes...
On Dec. 17, the Niwot Rotary Club celebrated 13 years of service, both in the local community and across international borders. As part of the Rotary tradition, a new president's name is added to their podium and all past presidents reunite in celebration. Sadly, the founding president, Eli Buzas, passed away from COVID-19 in January 2021. Current president Karrin Reichen said Buzas was a wonderful friend who inspired her to join the Rotary Club. Reichen is proud to be leading her club since...
Behind any community event in Niwot, there is an unsung army of volunteers, handling details and logistics that most attendees overlook. Among them is the Niwot road crew, a group that has been dedicated to keeping the town's parades and festivals pedestrian-friendly since 2014. "We started with seven, and it blossomed from there," Dick Piland said of the group he founded as Niwot Community Association president nearly a decade ago. "It was amazing. We had people calling up insisting they get...
The Niwot girls swim team has faced its share of challenges over the past few seasons, from lack of a home facility, to a coaching turnover, and, of course, the myriad complications due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But with a new St. Vrain Valley district pool set to open next month, plus a more conventional schedule in 2021-22, senior Rowan Osgood is excited for her best swim season yet. "I absolutely think there's more stability this year," the third-year veteran said of her Niwot swimming...
To the editor: Thank you for the article about the city of Boulder LDAC. I agree that the residents of unincorporated Boulder County should financially support the public libraries they use. For the thirty years we have lived in Niwot we have enjoyed and been helped by the Longmont Public Library. I heard that Longmont has also talked about forming a library district. It is logical that Niwot would be included in Longmont’s district since we are served by the St Vrain Valley School District. I would like to be taxed to support the Longmont l...
Education is in Sarah Hurianek's blood–a number of family members were and are educators, and she has worked in early childhood education for over 20 years. In addition to her on-the job experience, she has been an active member of the Mead community and even graduated from Skyline High School in the St. Vrain Valley School District herself. Her husband Noah Hurianek, also a teacher, grew up in Niwot where both of his parents, Dennis and Nancy Hurianek, were long-time teachers. "Serving as a b...
Sometimes you just have the music in you, and other times you just wanna get the music in you. Either way, the annual RISE Benefit Concert in Niwot will help satiate music lovers of all ages. The very danceable event returns Saturday, Sept. 11, for the fourth year following an obligatory COVID skip in 2020. This year the event will be held at Whistle Stop Park in Niwot at the corner of 1st Avenue and Murray Street, after the 2019 event was held at the Boulder County Fairgrounds. RISE stands for...
It's been a week since students, teachers, and staff started the new school year. After the pandemic created an unconventional, some would say difficult, year of learning, returning to full-time, in-person classes throughout the district is something that many parents are grateful for. At the same time, the community is not having the same kind of back-to-school experience as in years past. Students are required to re-acclimate to a more conventional social and learning environment after the...
The school community was hopeful that when they returned to school this fall masks would not be required in SVVSD schools. As it turns out, that won't be the case. Following guidance from Boulder County Public Health through Public Health Order 2021-07, the St. Vrain Valley School District (SVVSD) is requiring masking for all students, faculty and staff in grades PK-12 while indoors. The school district did not provide a direct response to the Courier's questions about the decision. Instead,...
After narrowly missing the qualifying mark for the 2016 Team USA women's discus team, Silver Creek graduate Valerie Allman made the mark and more in Tokyo. Allman became just the third American since 1932 to win gold in the women's discus with a 69.98 meter (229.6 feet) hurl on Aug. 2. She backed up a 66.42 meter (217.9 feet) throw in the qualification round on July 30 which had then set a record for the farthest throw ever by an American woman in the Olympics, yet still short of her 70.15...
