All Local, All The Time
All Local, All The Time
Sorted by date Results 51 - 87 of 87
During his four years at Niwot High, James Tran was always eager to accept a new challenge, from joining the knitting club, to heading up the Innovation Center's curriculum development team, to teaching himself website testing. Now that penchant for self-improvement is paying off in a big way. In April, Tran was one of 100 students from across the U.S. to be awarded the Amazon Future Engineer scholarship, worth $10,000 per year over the next four years. "It's a really cool scholarship," Niwot Hi...
For graduating senior Rachael Triplett, much of her career at Niwot High School has been marked by her involvement in clubs and participation in the International Baccalaureate Program (IB). During her time there, she was a four-year participant in the Knitting Club, played in the orchestra and ran both track and cross country. "Join everything you can, it's the best way to meet people," said Triplett. "Or, at least it was for me." It was her willingness to try new activities and classes that...
For Audrey Rhoadarmer, being editor of the Niwot High yearbook was more like holding a part-time job, albeit one with no pay and with a high rate of turnover every spring. But even with stressful deadlines, staff management issues, and workflow hiccups, the aspiring journalist is grateful for on-the-job training she picked up in her four years on staff, and considers it one of the most useful endeavors of her high school career. "It's a really good opportunity to meet people you wouldn't...
As an IB student and multi-sport athlete at Niwot, senior Jack Kenkel didn't choose the path of least resistance in high school, but the Princeton University-bound runner wouldn't have had it any other way. "Neither felt too challenging because I really enjoyed the IB program, and I obviously love track," he said about his four years as a Cougar. "Honestly, balancing the two was the most challenging part. It wasn't impossible to do, it just took a little bit of discipline." It's not clear whethe...
When Julea Trank-Greene came to Niwot as a freshman, she thought her path to high school athletic success would end on a volleyball court. But after just a few weeks of training with Coach Maurice Henriques and the Cougar track team in the spring of 2017, she permanently ditched spikes over the net for spikes on the track, and found a new path that brought her more success than she ever imagined. "When I started, I had no intentions of doing track year-round, it was just for fun," she said....
Pringles® may not represent the Platonic ideal of a potato chip, but its stackable shape makes for a fascinating computational challenge, according to Niwot senior Maedee Trank-Greene. The self-described "total math nerd" investigated the hyperbolic paraboloid structure of the famous "potato snack" for her senior-level IB math class, and called it one of the highlights of her four years at Niwot. "I loved writing my math IA, which is not usually what people say," Trank-Greene said,...
In the world before the coronavirus pandemic, Niwot golfer Julia Solem was on the cusp of what promised to be an exceptional senior season. After earning Northern League Player of the Year honors in 2019, both Solem and Niwot coach Ed Weaver were eager to see how far she could go in 2020. Sadly, the answer turned out to be not nearly as far as they'd hoped. "I thought she had a shot at the state title," Weaver said of his pre-season ambitions for the fourth-year veteran. "She's worked very hard...
Running in the hallways at school is usually grounds for a reprimand, but for speedy Niwot basketball forward Milo Ostwald, it resulted in an invitation to join the track team instead. Two years later, the versatile senior has a state championship behind him and a chance for a collegiate track career ahead of him, all thanks to an impulse that could have landed him in detention. "Right before the season in my sophomore year, I was running around, probably doing something stupid," Ostwald said....
By the time she reached high school, senior keeper Quinn Gossett thought her soccer playing days were well behind her, but an impulsive decision to try out for the Niwot girls team as a ninth-grader resurrected a long buried passion for the game, even if it took a few days to surface. "I stopped playing in fourth grade, and I really don't know why," Gossett said, recalling her return to the sport at the invitation of former Cougar junior varsity coach Jeremy Drake. "On that first day of tryouts...
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...
At age 13, Rumi Natanzi suffered a medical emergency that required years of recovery. She spent a lot of that time listening to original cast recordings of popular musicals, and by the time she was ready to enter ninth grade, she had found a new passion-one that eventually developed into a memorable four-year run on the Niwot High stage. A few weeks ago, Natanzi took her final bow as a Cougar, and said goodbye to the place that has allowed her to tell stories with her expression and voice. "I di...
The 2019-20 Niwot girls basketball season is one that most of its participants would rather forget, but senior Lily Sieben will be taking at least a few happy memories with her. Among them is the resilience of her teammates, who kept fighting for wins even as the losses kept piling up. "Winning our last game made it easier to walk away from the season," Sieben said of the Cougars' 2-21 record, their worst in decades. "We had high expectations this year, and not reaching them, we were disappointe...
A lot of students play basketball in high school, but few inhabit the sport the way Niwot's Cooper Sheldon does. The six-foot, four-inch senior became a serious student of the game after taking it up in middle school, and even now dedicates at least part of every day to training or studying film. It's evident on the court, where the veteran point guard commands the Cougars' offense, and often gets the best out of his teammates. It's also evident off the court, where he serves as the team's emoti...
Jovani Lopez got more than he bargained for when he joined the Niwot wrestling team as a ninth-grader, but the senior heavyweight isn't complaining. As he looks ahead to his second straight appearance in the Class 4A state wrestling championships, the soft-spoken Lopez said the sport has brought him more than just success on the mat. "The biggest reason I did wrestling was to lose weight," he said. "But I eventually found out that I love wrestling. I like winning and beating other people. I...
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...
The Niwot girls swim team lost nearly 20 swimmers to last year's graduation, so heading into the 2019-20 season, head coach Sarah Stamp had some holes to fill in the lineup. Much to her delight, junior Emiley Yie has been willing and able to help fill more than a few of them. So far this season, the talented swimmer has qualified to compete for Niwot in all but one individual event at the upcoming Class 4A state championships, and she is hitting her fastest times as the post-season approaches....
Kyle Reeves has been on the brink of a breakout game for Niwot all season, and when it finally came in the Cougars' 63-40 win over Northridge on January 7, the talented guard didn't hesitate to reveal the family secret behind his success. "I was actually playing for my grandmother," the senior said of his 19-point, five-steal performance, both bests as a Cougar. "She's a big part of my life, and I dedicated the game to her. She's taught me so much, and she's just my everything." Reeves has...
Keith Hemenway got a jump start on his New Year's resolution to finish his senior wrestling season strong with a trip to the podium in front of the home crowd at the eighth annual Gary Daum Classic on Jan. 4. The fourth-year wrestler won four straight matches to take fifth overall in the 160-pound class and improved to 11-6 on the season, a career best. Afterwards, he chalked up his growing success as a senior to the three grueling years as an underclassman when success was hard to come by. "As...
The 2019 Niwot football season will be memorable for a number of reasons and the emergence of Jarrett Noterman as a standout athlete is at or near the top of that list. As a wideout/cornerback/kick returner for the Cougars, the speedy senior had a hand in nearly every one of the team's marquee plays during the season, and was often the only highlight in their double-digit losses against league opponents. Now Noterman is bringing the same spark as a guard in Niwot's varsity basketball lineup,...
Davita Bird has always been interested in how things work, so at the suggestion of her mother, an engineer at Seagate, she started exploring the world of computer programming as a curious seventh grader at Flagstaff Academy. Now in her senior year at Niwot High, that curiosity has blossomed into a passion that has her expanding the frontiers of technology. "Computers were always the maximum 'how is this doing anything?' for me," she said. "Without the programming, it's just a hunk of metal. We...
It may have lacked the life-and-death drama of Captain Ahab's pursuit of Moby Dick across the ocean, but Mia Curry's quest to add a Tsukahara vault to her routine and qualify for the state all-around competition may have been as single-minded. Luckily, the affable 10th-grader also escaped Ahab's watery fate, and instead earned a trip to the top of the Class 4A gymnastics podium. "Last year, I only did three events at state, and I wanted to come out here doing all-around, but I didn't want to do...
Joelle McDonald wasn't expecting a life-changing experience when she joined the Niwot girls cross country team as a freshman, but after helping the Cougars win their second straight team title at the Class 4A state championships on Oct. 26, the senior paid homage to the transformative power of running. "It started as 'running is what I do for fun'," she said, recalling her four seasons with the program. "Then it became 'running is what I do,' and now it's 'running is what I am,' because it's...
Dealing with a quirky teammate is an unwelcome annoyance for most high school athletes, but Niwot sophomore Bella Steiner isn't like most high school athletes. For the talented equestrian, managing her temperamental partner isn't just an enormous challenge, it's also enormously gratifying. "It's so technical, and a lot of people don't know that," Steiner said of her unconventional high school sport. "Everything affects the horse, and creating a bond with your horse is the most important part of...
The Niwot softball team is headed back to the playoffs after a thrilling 2019 season that saw dramatic wins and heartbreaking losses, often in the same week. It also featured plenty of Niwot offense, as the team averaged more than 10 runs per game and recorded the highest batting average (.386) in the Northern League. Driving that offense for the Cougars was lead-off hitter Nikki Sims, who took her production to a new level during the regular season, with career-highs in average (.521), on base...
It's been a whirlwind fall for second-year drum major Cole Toothaker and the Cougar marching band, but a scary moment over the summer almost had the talented musician and natural leader watching it all from the sidelines. "I was on a rafting trip in Idaho, and I did a backflip on the beach-I have a gymnastics background and do flips a lot," he recalled. "But I landed on an incline, and put my hands down to break my fall, and ended up breaking both of my wrists, which was a little inconvenient."...
Scoring goals isn't Andy Worrell's specialty, but the Cougars' defender knows a good opportunity when he sees it. Luckily for the Cougars, the 6'-6" senior was uniquely positioned to take advantage of one against Littleton on Sept. 24. "Carter [Kruse] played me a great ball across and I knew they couldn't rise up as high as me, so I just went up and tried to make a play," Worrell said of the heads-up play that broke a 0-0 tie in the second half. "It came off my shoulder more than my head, but...
Senior Calista Law may not have had the most hits or RBIs in Niwot’s thrilling 19-17 win over the Northridge Grizzlies on Sept. 18, but for head coach Bobby Matthews, the fourth-year varsity infielder was the day’s most impressive performer by far. “The poor kid was so sick,” he said. “She was throwing up between innings, and she was on base all the time, so she would run from home to first base, and then have to go to the trash can. But she was great for us.” The ailing Law reached base three...
Niwot running back Liam Flanagan made a splash in the Cougars’ season opener against George Washington, rushing for a career-best 210 yards and three touchdowns. And that game was no fluke. In 2018, he rushed for more than 100 yards three times, and was indisputably Niwot’s offensive leader. While Flanagan is quick to give credit for his productivity to the offensive line and his coaches, it turns out that he also has some specialized training in his background that has paid off in une...
Knowing children in Uganda were playing soccer barefoot, and in some instances with only one cleat, was not acceptable to Preston Lee, so he launched a project to remedy the situation. Called Kleats for Kids, Lee’s initiative was inspired by Niwot Elementary School teacher Dale Peterson and the Mwebaza Foundation, an organization that has its roots at NES. “My dad travels a lot for work,” Lee said, “and on one of his travels he got some pictures of kids without cleats or with just one cleat,...
Erika Timbang probably has a new favorite Niwot track memory after her team’s win at the Class 4A state meet on May 18, but heading into the three-day event, the team-centered senior was hard-pressed to single one out. “Is it cheating if I say that I loved every moment of it? All the hard workouts and even when I threw up after practice. Even with the ups and downs, it’s been something I’ve been committed to staying passionate about. It’s one of my reasons to get up.” That passion and commitm...
When Richelle Burnett first put her daughter Cielle in ski school at age three, she had an inkling that the athletic youngster would take to the winter sport. That proved prescient when, just five years later, Cielle started out-skiing both her and her husband. Now the rising Niwot freshman is coming off an exciting win in the Buddy Warner league championship (BLW) race, and looking forward to strapping on a pair of boards for the area high school team in Nederland next winter. “I like e...
Niwot senior Nolan Johan was named Most Valuable Athlete for his outstanding individual performance at the 2019 Boulder County Track & Field Championships last weekend, but it was the first-ever BoCo team win for the Cougars that the hurdler was most eager to talk about in the aftermath. “I knew I had a really good day, so in the back of my head I knew maybe it was a possibility, but it wasn’t really my main focus,” he said of the MVA award, the first for a Niwot boy since 2013. “I was just re...
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...
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,...
The Niwot football team didn’t win many games in 2018, but it was, by many measures, the most successful season in years. Thanks to dynamic individual performances and strong team chemistry, the Cougars were competitive in most of their games, and showed clear and consistent improvement on both sides of the ball. To be sure, a number of factors contributed to the memorable season, but for head coach Jeremy Lanter, the play and positive leadership of senior DaeMonte Terry are two of the most i...
The Niwot volleyball team had many weapons at its disposal this season, and one of the most effective was the irrepressible cheer of senior Katie Hirsh. “That girl gets us pumped up and fired up,” head coach Daisha Agho said of the setter turned defensive specialist. “She takes us out of huddles every single time because of her spunk and her attitude. When things are looking down, we look to Katie to get a spark.” Things were certainly looking down for the Cougars at this year’s Class 4A state...
Niwot entered the 2018 boys soccer season with four first-time starters on the back line, but stopping goals turned out to be the least of their worries down the stretch, thanks to senior keeper Mario Munoz. Under Munoz's vocal tutelage, the untested Cougar defense was solid all year, especially against powerhouse offenses such as Air Academy and Legacy. They allowed just 18 goals in 17 games, and kept Niwot competitive even in their six losses, which were all by a single point. Munoz and the de...
